“But you’ll be here to help her, right?” Albert said.
Jamey paused. “I can’t promise that.”
“If you walk out, have you got any idea how much that’s going to hurt her?”
“No more than it would hurt me. I can’t promise to stay for a great many reasons, Albert, but one of them is not that I hold her casually. Even Romeo and Juliet had other responsibilities, other loyalties.”
“Finally ended up killing ’em both, too.”
“Yes.”
“The age thing—”
“Immaterial. Men marry women nine years younger than they are every day, so why not women? My mother was twenty-seven years younger than my father. They were very happy together. Adults are adults.”
“Vic’s very sensitive to what folks think. She will swear she’s not, but deep down she is. It’s what she came from. What that old woman who raised her put on her. How do you think that old lady felt about her and me being friends when we were growing up?”
“Doesn’t seem to have stopped Vic.”
“No, but the way her grandmother treated me made her pretty unhappy. She doesn’t like to fight. She likes things smooth. Likes the people she loves to get along.”
“And I’m disturbing the status quo?”
“Big time. I’ll tell you this once. You make her happy, I’ll love you like a brother. You make her miserable, I’ll beat you to a pulp and set the dogs on the leavings.”
“Fair enough.” Jamey opened the door. “At this point all I can tell you is this. I love her and I don’t want to lose her.”
“That’ll have to do. Haven’t you got some horses to ride?”
When she returned, Vic brought sandwiches and thermoses of hot soup down to the stable so that all three could share lunch. They carefully avoided talking about anything but barn matters.
Shortly thereafter, clients began to dribble in, despite the cold weather. No one wanted to ride, even in the covered arena. They simply wandered in, delivered apples or carrots to their mounts, chatted a while and wandered out again. No one wanted to take a class or ride until the weather improved. Jamey found that amusing, since by his standards, this was fine riding weather.
WHEN MIKE HADN’T ARRIVED by four in the afternoon, Vic began to fidget. On one of his trips to exchange horses, Jamey whispered in her ear as he passed, “Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.”
“What?” She looked up from the horse she was grooming.
“Wordsworth. Not my favorite poet, actually. But it’s the way you’re acting.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Think nothing of it.” He walked off to the mounting block and Vic picked up her currycomb again.
Jamey was absolutely right. Since Liz had married Mike some months earlier, Vic had grown fond of him and the enthusiastic way he embraced the strange new world his wife inhabited. He had also absorbed Liz’s protective instincts toward Vic.
Liz knew how far she could push before Vic put her ears back and bucked. Without Liz around to show Mike the boundaries, he might step over the line and try to play the patriarch.
Vic tried to convince herself he’d be delighted that Jamey was here to exercise the horses in Angie’s absence. That he’d accept their living arrangements as purely business.
Fat chance.
Mike would know the minute she spoke Jamey’s name or looked at him what was going on between them. She couldn’t keep it off her face. She had a hard enough time keeping her hands off him.
She refused to deny that he was sleeping in her bed. If Mike asked, she’d tell him. But she wouldn’t volunteer the information.
Mike and Liz, having just discovered their love, ought to be delighted that she’d found hers, but she didn’t think they would be.
Everybody had an agenda for her life. Even Jamey. And frankly, she’d had about enough of it. Except that she didn’t have an agenda of her own that ran past the term of Jamey’s employment. She didn’t know what she wanted except to have him forever. If that wasn’t possible at ValleyCrest, could she move to Scotland with him?
Talk about impossible! Even if she could dope herself up enough to endure the plane ride—and that would take some serious drugs—she was too set in her ways.
He’d never mentioned marriage. He’d said that Gwyn, the woman he’d married, had been a conventional number of years younger than he, and no doubt fertile. They’d put off having children by choice, not necessity.
He made no secret of his deep feelings about family. He was proud and honored to be his stepfather’s heir. Naturally he’d want a son or daughter of his own to carry on the tradition. A son or daughter she could never give him.
Her age and her inability to bear children weren’t her only problems, however. She loved Jamey, but could she forsake all others for him? The other people she loved? The business she ran, the horses she looked after, the kids and the classes and the shows? The only home she’d ever known? The place where her roots ran bedrock deep and had for generations?
Here at ValleyCrest she had an identity. Would she be anything more than Jamie’s live-in mistress in the wilds of Scotland?
She’d be giving up so much, and Jamey would be giving up nothing. She’d sacrificed for other people her entire life. Maybe it was about time somebody did some sacrificing for her for a change.
The horse grunted and reached around to bonk her shoulder with his jaw. She realized she’d been taking out her doubts on the currycomb. The horse gleamed, but he obviously wasn’t thrilled about the pressure. “Sorry, fella,” she said. “I’ll go easy.”
As she picked up a dandy brush, the telephone rang. She answered it and heard, “Vic? Hi, it’s Mike. I stopped into the office when I got to town and walked into a hornets’ nest. Sorry I haven’t called.”
“That’s okay,” Vic said, trying to keep the relief out of her voice. “If you have to work late, we can pass on dinner tonight.”
“I hate to dump you, but I really have no choice. I might be here until midnight what with the time difference in Asia. Did those contractors show up today?”
“Nope. I didn’t expect them yesterday, but the roads were fine by noon today and I still haven’t heard a peep from them.”
“Mm. Thanks, Vic. I’ll take care of it. Assuming I get this little difficulty defused tonight, how about I come out around eleven tomorrow and take you to lunch? Albert, too, if he’d like.”
“Sounds good.” She took a deep breath. “How are Liz and Pat?”
He chuckled. “I didn’t have a clue what I was getting into the day I showed up on your doorstep to see about riding lessons for my daughter. I seem to spend my life talking on my cell phone from ringside, and if my clients could see how dusty I am most of the time, they’d probably fire me.”
“But Liz says they’re both winning, and Pat is downright cleaning up.”
“Pat is eating it up. She and Liz have definitely bonded—closer than stepmother and daughter normally are, I think. As a matter of fact, they share some sort of secret female language that makes me very uncomfortable sometimes.”
Vic laughed. “The next time you descend into ‘sportsspeak’ with your male buddies, remember this conversation.”
“Point taken. Seriously, this has been wonderful for all of us. We started out the trip as three people. We’re going to return as a family.”
“Mike, I’m so glad. That’s what I prayed would happen. Is Pat keeping up with her schoolwork?”
“She adores the woman who’s tutoring the kids on the Florida show circuit. Pat’s going to be way ahead of her class when she comes home...”
Vic heard the hesitation in his voice. Tiny alarm bells went off. There was something he wasn’t saying. She didn’t know how to pry it out of him, either. If she was keeping secrets from Liz, Liz was equally capable of keeping secrets from her. They were both old hands at not worrying each other. She asked cheerfully, “Nobody’s fallen off and been hurt, have they? And the horses ar
e all right?”
“Fine. More than fine.”
So that wasn’t it.
Mike continued, “Pat told me to tell Melba Hannaford how much she misses her. She wants me to convince her and Walter to fly down for a week or so. There’s plenty of room in the condo in Wellington.”
“Melba told me she’s enjoying the vacation. It’s the first she’s had since she became Pat’s nanny. And now that Pat is too old for a nanny, I think she’s putting out feelers for another job.”
“She’d better not!” Mike said. “We are definitely going to need her once we get into that house of yours. Liz certainly doesn’t have time to cook—”
“And she never learned how to clean properly.” Vic laughed.
“Besides...”
Again Vic caught that hesitation in his voice. He wasn’t a man you could push for information if he didn’t want to give any.
He changed the subject abruptly. “I’m almost afraid to ask. How is my first excursion into the world of horse buying working out?”
“Uh, Mr. Miracle? He’s great.”
“We need to talk seriously about his future over lunch.”
“Fine.” She heard background noises.
Mike groaned and said to someone in the room with him, “Yeah, yeah, okay. I’m coming. Keep your shirt on.” Then to Vic, “Sorry. Got to go. All hell’s breaking loose here.” He hung up without a goodbye.
Vic let out a breath. Saved. At least for tonight.
VIC AND JAMEY LOLLED at opposite ends of the big clawfoot tub in her bathroom. From time to time they sipped their white wine. The room was redolent of incense from the Christmas candles Jamey had discovered in a box in the corner of his bedroom.
“Mm. This is decadent,” Vic said dreamily. “All we’re missing is about two pounds of chocolate-covered strawberries.”
“That’s beyond decadent. That’s sinful,” Jamey said without opening his eyes.
“Absolutely.” She walked her toes up his chest.
He caught her ankle in his left hand and nibbled her toes. “Better than chocolate.”
“You’re crazy. Oooh,” she said as her eyes popped open. “Are you supposed to be having this effect on me?”
“If I’m doing it right.” He ran his hand up her leg until it disappeared under the bubbles.
She closed her eyes and arched her back against his touch.
“Shall I stop?” he asked with a grin.
“If you do I’ll drown you.”
He reared up in the water and lowered himself on top of her. Her arms slid around his flanks to pull him toward her.
She lifted her legs out of the water and propped them on either side of the tub as he slid into her. He moved slowly, gently, his mouth on hers, his tongue meeting hers.
She no longer needed the long foreplay. It was as though her body was rebuilding sensual muscles after a long period of disuse.
They were already learning each other’s bodies so that their hands and tongues seem to find the right places to touch, to caress, to taste without conscious thought.
Afterward he rested his cheek on her shoulder.
“The water’s cooling,” she said.
“We’ve been generating enough heat to boil it.” He got to his knees. “Come on, love, time for bed.”
“I can’t move. I think I’ve melted.”
They dried each other off and slipped naked into Vic’s big bed. With Jamey snuggled against her back, Vic asked, “Who taught you?”
“Huh?” he said sleepily.
She was suddenly wide awake. She turned over and raised herself on her elbow. “You didn’t learn all that by instinct.”
With his eyes still closed, he said, “Would you believe me if I told you I read books?”
She chortled. “Not for a minute.”
“Let’s say I had some good tutors. Or tutoresses.” He opened his eyes and smiled up at her, awake now, at least for the moment. “How did you leam?”
“I didn’t. That ought to be obvious. I was taught that I was supposed to act like a lady all the time, even in bed. And if I’d known how to act like a whore, I think Frank would have felt extremely threatened.” She lay back and stared at the ceiling as though rerunning an old movie in her head.
“When Frank and I were first married, I tried romantic candlelit dinners and things. He never responded. He seldom touched me unless it was a prelude to ‘getting it on.’ His term. I was never sure whether that was the way it was for everybody or just for me. After a while I was glad when he left me alone because making love was simply another chore in an already busy life.”
“Damn fool,” Jamey murmured.
She rolled over again to snuggle against his chest. Which one of them was a fool? Her or Frank? Both, probably.
The shared bubble bath had been her suggestion. She had offered it timidly, in such a way that if he laughed or looked as her as though she’d taken leave of her senses, she could say the idea was a joke.
Instead, he’d been delighted, and had added the candles and wine. Amazing feeling. Liberation of a part of her she’d never acknowledged. Like breaking the lamp and letting out the genie. How on earth was she ever to get it back in again?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
VIC OPENED HER EYES to see that the clock on the bedside table read three-seventeen. She rolled over and groped for Jamey; he wasn’t in bed. No wonder her back was cold.
She raised her head to see whether the bathroom light was on. Nope. Surely he wouldn’t get dressed to check the horses at three in the morning. She padded to the bedroom door in the dark. The door was ajar, the kitchen light was on. She stopped with one hand on the doorknob.
Jamey sat naked at the kitchen table with his head in one hand and the telephone in the other. Who on earth could he be calling at this hour? And in whispers? She had no intention of eavesdropping on his conversation, but as she turned to go back to bed, she heard him snap, “No!” in a decidedly exasperated tone.
His next words kept her hand on that doorknob.
“You’ve handled disasters without me before. I know what I said, but I can’t possibly leave before this weekend. Vic’s riding Roman in a local dressage show on Saturday. I have to be there for that at least, see how he does,” Jamey said in a whisper just above a hiss. “Whitten’s in town now, this minute. We need more than fifty-five thousand bloody pounds.”
She froze, her body suddenly flooded with adrenaline. She would listen no more. Wide awake, she crept back to bed and pulled the covers up to her neck.
What was he talking about? Riding a Roman what? Leave this weekend? What did he need money for? Why did Mike’s arrival have anything to do with him? He was obviously in trouble—money trouble. He must be calling his uncle in Scotland. With the time difference, three in the morning was not an odd time to call.
Apparently something had happened at home for which they needed him immediately. She felt her stomach knot. But this weekend? And he sounded as though he’d always planned to leave then—not six weeks later as he’d promised when she’d hired him.
But so much had changed since then. Then he was merely an extra hand—someone to exercise horses until Liz got back to take over. Now he was...
What was he, exactly? Her lover? The man who had cajoled her back onto a horse, who was rebuilding her nerve and her skill with consummate care? Who had awakened her senses and her capacity for love as no other man had?
He was the man who had asked her to come to Scotland with him. For a moment she considered getting up again and simply stepping through the kitchen door and asking him to explain, but she hesitated.
Surely he’d tell her in the morning. Was he planning to ask Mike for a loan? He certainly knew that she didn’t have any money to give him—not that sort of money, at least. He sounded as if he’d planned to meet Mike, but he’d had no way of knowing Mike’s connection with ValleyCrest before he arrived.
As much as she hated to admit it, Albert was right. She really didn�
��t know much about Jamey. He’d said from the beginning he would cause her pain, but she’d assumed he meant when he left. Surely he’d had no ulterior motive for choosing ValleyCrest. There wasn’t anything here that anyone would want.
Whatever his problems, if he would share them, she would help him solve them. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe softly. She didn’t want him to know she’d been eavesdropping.
She heard his soft footfalls in the room, felt him slide into bed behind her. When his icy feet touched her she shifted, turned over and opened her eyes. “Jamey?”
“Just went to the bathroom. Go back to sleep, love,” he whispered, and kissed her. He turned over so that his back was to her and pulled her arm across his waist.
She lay there wide awake. He’d lied so naturally. Her sense of unease grew. How many other things had he lied about?
Nonsense. In the morning he’d tell her what was going on. She’d give him every opening possible.
But just to be on the safe side, she’d call Marshall Dunn to see if he knew what was happening back in Scotland.
JAMEY TOOK A DEEP BREATH. He could feel his heart pounding beneath his ribs. His feet were freezing, but he hadn’t dared risk putting on clothes before he called Hamish. Fifty-five thousand pounds! That wasn’t nearly enough to offer Whitten for Roman. He’d have to hope Whitten would accept that as a down payment with terms for the rest.
He probably shouldn’t even make the offer. They’d have one hell of a note to pay as it was, with McLachlan Yard just getting back on its feet. And now Hamish and Vlado were dealing with anxious owners who wanted their horses trained by Jamey personally. He’d known that might happen—he simply hadn’t expected it so soon. Scotland’s unusually warm spring had made everyone eager to begin conditioning their horses early. Francis Harrington had already removed two of his Thoroughbred steeplechasers. Other owners were making noises about following suit.
Jamey had to get home fast.
Home? He pulled Vic against his back. Home was where this damn bloody woman was, even if that wound up being on the far side of the moon.
Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 20