But he couldn’t stay here with her forever as a groom and an exercise boy, abandon Hamish and Vlado and all the others who depended on him.
Too many salaries, school fees, car and house payments depended on the income from the yard. He owned it, managed it, trained for it and ought to be home running it, not larking about here with the woman he loved. He’d only come to steal Jock’s stallion.
Well, he couldn’t. Not from her.
But if he couldn’t buy Roman outright from Whitten, he’d have to leave, anyway. Which meant that either he betrayed his love or he betrayed Jock.
“MIKE’S PICKING ME UP at eleven for lunch. Albert begged off. Do you want to come? Give you a chance to meet him,” Vic said. Now if that wasn’t an opening, nothing was.
Jamey shook his head and caught her around the waist as she bent over to pour him another cup of coffee. “Have your lunch without me. He is coming back to the barn with you, isn’t he?”
She nodded and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Jamey, is everything all right?” She wanted to bite her tongue the moment the words left her mouth.
He gave her a startled look. “Perfect!” He pushed his chair back from the table, caught her arm and drew her across his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face into her shoulder, then smiled up at her. “I never intended to love you, lass. Run away to Scotland with me. It’ll be good. You’ll see.”
The words that should have lifted her heart, instead, cut through her like a claymore. It was true. He was leaving. He simply didn’t know how to tell her. “You can’t stay?”
“I wish with all my heart I could, but I can’t.”
“And I can’t go.”
“You could as a married woman.”
“What?” She stood and backed away from him.
He held out his hands to her. “I’m dead serious, woman. Marry me.”
“Jamey, I can’t.”
He went to her, but she held her hands in front of her and shook her head. “What would all your friends think?”
“That I’d blessedly married a beautiful woman. What should they think?”
“And your family?”
“They’ll love you.”
“Oh, Jamey, I can’t leave here any more than you can leave there.” She turned back to him and put a hand on his arm. “Why can’t we keep things as they are? If you have to go back to Scotland, then go, but come back when you can and stay as long as you can. We’d still see each other.”
“That’s damned well not good enough! I want you in my bed, in my life, in my house every day and every night for the rest of our lives. I want to stand up before the world and say that you’re my wife and my love. That we belong to each other.”
“This is so much better than we had, isn’t it? Oh, Jamey, I do love you, with all my heart and all my soul...”
She felt it coming. The blurred vision, the pounding heart, the cold sweat running down her back, the adrenaline heat that flooded her, the choking nausea and the pressure across her chest that was like a heart attack. Not now! she begged. Please, dear God, not now! How could Jamey, the man she loved better than life itself, provoke a panic attack? He’d been the one who’d stopped her attacks.
“Vic,” he said with sudden awareness. “Vic?”
She tore herself from his grasp and ran to her bedroom, then through it and into the bathroom. She threw the lock behind her. Her face in the mirror was flushed, her pupils dilated. Her mouth felt as though it was filled with wood shavings right off the stall floor.
Jamey pounded on the door. “Vic. Let me in.”
“Please, Jamey,” she choked. “Please go down to the barn. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“No! I won’t leave you like this.”
“Go!” She couldn’t keep the anguish from her voice. “For God’s sake, go!”
“Hell!” She heard his boots stomp the floor and the slam of the front door. She wrapped her arms around her body, sat down on the closed toilet and rocked back and forth. She’d been so casual talking to Albert about accepting the pain Jamey would bring. She hadn’t had a clue what it would really be like. She put her head between her knees and tried to focus. The panic began to recede. She found herself humming Jamey’s little melody. She leaned back and took deep breaths. There. Better.
Five minutes later she let the dogs out and walked down the driveway to the barn. If she could handle that, she could handle anything.
She saw him standing in the doorway waiting for her, but the moment he spotted her he turned around and disappeared. She found him cleaning a stall at the far end of the barn. He didn’t look up. He was obviously furious at her. She didn’t blame him. His marriage proposal had provoked a full-blown panic attack. Hard on the old male ego.
She felt incredibly guilty, and then she began to feel angry, too. Why couldn’t people stop pulling at her? Why did everybody want things their way? Why couldn’t she and Jamey simply enjoy loving each other?
She walked into the office and opened the desk drawer. Marshall Dunn’s telephone number was in both her address books—the one at the house and the one here. Frank had accumulated telephone numbers from all over the world. She had seen no reason to start from scratch after he died. She dug out the ratty old leather binder and looked under the Ds.
She found the number and reached for the telephone just as a knock sounded on the door. She started guiltily. she really didn’t want Jamey to find out what she was doing. “Yes?”
The door opened and a very large man filled the doorway.
“Mike, you’re early!” Vic said. She went to him, hugged him and brought him into the office. “Good Lord, look at you!”
Mike Whitten laughed. Vic didn’t think she’d ever heard the sound before. He wasn’t a laugher, or he hadn’t been before he’d married Liz.
“Your hair’s longer,” Vic said.
“Liz says the Nero look is out. Besides, I couldn’t find a decent barber in Wellington.”
“And you’re so tan.”
“All that Florida sunshine at ringside. And we’ve been sailing a couple of times.” He ducked his head sheepishly.
Vic laughed. “When are you buying the sailboat?”
“We-ell,” he hedged, “not for a few years. But I’ve convinced Liz to try bareboating in the Caribbean sometime. Between horse shows, that is.”
“Marvelous.”
“I drove up to the big house before I came down here,” Mike said, dropping into the director’s chair across from Vic.
She had forgotten how tall he was. His long legs stretched nearly to her desk. He looked unbelievably relaxed—an entirely different man from the uptight corporate bigwig who had stalked into their lives last year.
“It will be ready by the end of the month,” he said with satisfaction. “On budget. I have made whatever decisions needed to be made, and I think I’ve put the fear of God and civil litigation into a few contractors’ hearts. They shouldn’t be bugging you any longer. I warned you it would be a hassle, remember.”
“I know you did. I didn’t bargain on all the conflicting male egos.”
He sobered and said quietly, “Why didn’t you tell us about Angie’s broken collarbone?”
“Uh...” She gulped. “Who told you?”
“I called her this morning to see if she wanted to join us for lunch. She does.”
“Wonderful. Albert doesn’t, by the way.”
“I’m not surprised. He hates that sort of thing.” Mike crossed his arms over his chest. “So who’s been exercising horses for you?”
She took a deep breath and said brightly, “We had a marvelous piece of luck. Marshall Dunn from England sent us a really good exercise rider. He’s also been mucking out and grooming right alongside Albert. Benito hasn’t come back yet.”
Mike sat up straight. “You’ve been doing all this without Benito?”
“I assure you, Mike, we’re not overworked. The weather’s been so lousy that nobody mu
ch wants to ride, so Jamey is exercising, and we’re doing the minimum amount of work otherwise.”
“Jamey?”
“Jamey McLachlan.”
“He here now?”
“Yes.”
“So let’s go meet him.” Mike stood up. He towered over Vic, who still sat in her desk chair. He held out his hand to pull her up. “Come on. Then we’re meeting Angie at Hagerty’s.”
Jamey was in the ring on Trust Fund. The weather had warmed up just enough so that the horses were feeling feisty. Jamey had his hands full. Mike and Vic stood by the arena and watched him silently. He ignored them.
After watching Jamey sail over a series of jumps, Mike turned to Vic and nodded. “Not bad. Get him over here so I can meet him.”
Vic smiled. “We’re running late as it is, Mike. He’ll still be here after lunch. Trusty’s just getting warmed up.”
“Sure.” He looked around. “I don’t hear the stallion. What’d you do? Cut his vocal cords?”
“He’s out there in the paddock. He’s really quieted down.”
Mike glanced at the paddock where the big black horse loomed in a corner. In the ring, Jamey pulled Trusty down to a walk and wandered over to them, while Vic did everything in her power to send him a silent message to stay away. As he came over, Mike said, “Liz has convinced me. We need to go ahead and get him gelded. He’ll never be any good as a stallion.”
“You’re mad!” Jamey yelled. He swung off. “You can’t geld an animal like that, man! It’s criminal!”
Mike turned to look at him, first in surprise, then witt a frosty expression that probably cowed any number of boardroom opponents. Vic caught her breath. What a start to their meeting.
“You, I take it, are McLachlan,” Mike said.
“And you, I take it, are Whitten.”
The two men glared at each other.
“The suggestion that I geld that animal was my wife’s, Mr. McLachlan. Are you saying my wife’s mad?”
“No, just bloody wrong.” Jamey turned toward the paddock. “Take a look at him. You may not have had any idea what you were doing when you bought him, but you had the devil’s own luck.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“When you and Miss Victoria come back from lunch, I’ll work him for you. Show you how he moves.”
“My wife says he’s too big to fit between the jumps on a course.”
“But, Mike, he’s a wonderful mover. And smart as a whip,” Vic said as she took him by the arm and led him away from Jamey. If he planned to hit Mike up for a loan, he hadn’t made too classy a first move. “He’s a superb dressage horse, or he will be with some training.”
“Nobody wants a stallion with no breeding,” Mike continued. “He’ll be worth more as a performance horse if we geld him. Improve his disposition.”
“Nothing wrong with his disposition now, man!” Jamey called after them, then said under his voice as he turned away, “Bloody fool.”
Vic felt Mike’s arm tense. He’d heard.
This was not working out well at all.
“Mike,” Albert said as he came down the aisle toward them with his hand outstretched. “How’s marriage treating you?”
“Better than I deserve,” Mike said as he shook Albert’s hand. He jerked his head over his shoulder. “Where the hell did you find that arrogant SOB?”
Albert glanced quickly at Vic. “He’s a good worker and a fine horseman.”
“Well, his personality could use some improvement.”
Thirty minutes later over her salad, Vic said, “Jamey’s right about Mr. Miracle. Geld him and you’ll take the brilliance right out of him.”
“Geld him?” Angie said. “No way! I’m going to breed Boop to him when she comes in season next month. Just tell me your stud fee, Mike.”
“Look, Ange,” Mike said, “I don’t know enough to say whether you’re right or wrong, but Liz has just about convinced me that the best course of action would be to geld him and sell him, then later on, after...” He hesitated. “Later on, we’ll find the right jumper for Liz to show. She says a stallion that size with no breeding and no background is not going to be worth a dime.”
“He may not have background or breeding, Mike,” Vic said, “but he’s Olympic caliber as far as dressage goes. He’s the finest horse I’ve ever—” she stopped dead “—seen.” She’d nearly said “ridden.”
“But Liz says—” Mike said.
“Take some time with him, campaign him and you can make a bundle on him. I promise,” Vic said. “Besides, Liz hasn’t seen him since he’s settled down. And she’s never ridden him. Wait until she gets home next month and let her try him.”
“That’s the thing, Vic.” He glanced at Angie, then looked down at his plate. “We’re cutting the season short. We’ll be bringing the horses home next week, instead of next month.”
“Mike, what’s wrong?” Vic’s heart was in her throat.
“Not because of my broken collarbone, surely,” Angie said. “No, Mike. Jamey’s doing a great job.”
“No. Oh, hell, I might as well tell you.” He grinned sheepishly. “We’re pregnant.”
“No!” Both women shouted simultaneously and so loud that everyone in the restaurant turned around to stare.
“Oh, Mike, how wonderful!” Vic said. She jumped up and hugged him.
“Mike, I’m so happy for you,” Angie said. Her eyes were misty. Then she grabbed Vic’s hand. “With luck we’ll have babies together.”
“Angie?” Mike asked.
“No such luck,” Angie answered. “I’m not pregnant. But we’re getting a baby girl from Shanghai. She could be here any minute. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Wonderful.”
“Don’t you dare tell Liz. I want to tell her myself when she gets home.”
“One problem,” Mike said, turning to Vic. “Liz’s no teenager. The doctors don’t want her to jump any more fences until after the baby is born. We assumed Angie would be available, but now...”
“I will be, only not as much, and not until this broken bone mends.” Angie turned to Vic. “Jamey will just have to stay.”
“That’s one solution,” Mike said. Vic could tell he wasn’t thrilled.
She shook her head. “I don’t think he can. He has to get home to Scotland.”
“Oh, Vic,” Angie said. “That’s terrible. I know how much you’ll miss him.”
Mike looked from Angie to Vic. His eyebrows shot up. Vic avoided his eyes. Mike was no dummy. Angie didn’t know Vic and Jamey were sleeping together, but she’d obviously picked up the vibes between them. What Angie could see, Mike could see in triplicate.
And definitely would not approve of.
She steered the conversation onto neutral ground—all about how Pat was taking the news that she was no longer going to be an only child, and how to manage babies around the barn. She kept up the chatter in Mike’s car on the way back to the barn.
“Where’s Jamey?” she asked Albert the moment she climbed out of Mike’s car.
“Working Mr. Miracle.”
Vic took Mike by the arm and led him to the arena.
“Damn, he is big!” Mike said as he watched the horse trot around the arena.
“He’s a beauty, Mike,” Vic said. “You did good, whatever Liz says to you.”
Before Jamey could come over, she led Mike away from the arena. “When are you going back to Florida?” she asked.
“Tomorrow morning. I hate being away from Liz, especially now. We’ll move into my apartment when we get back to town until the house is finished. Don’t worry. We’ll work out the riding problem.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Man can ride a horse, I’ll say that for him.” His cell phone rang, and he dug it out of the pocket of his windbreaker, listened for a moment, then said, “Be right there.” He clicked off the phone and leaned over to kiss Vic. “Got to go. More problems.”
“So soon?”
“I have to make money. I’ve got more mouths
to feed. When Liz tells you she’s pregnant, please be surprised, or she’ll kill me.”
“I promise.” She kissed him and waved him off down the driveway.
She walked into the office and closed the door. Liz pregnant? Wonderful, of course, but a further complication in an already complicated life. If she couldn’t ride, that settled it. Vic could. She shivered. At least she could while she had Jamey to whistle and sing to her, to watch her, to give her his courage and his love. But without him?
She might be right back where she started, unable to put her foot into a stirrup.
She’d simply have to.
The door opened and Jamey stuck his head in. “Where’s Whitten?”
“Gone.”
“I wanted to speak to the man. Is there a telephone number where I can reach him?”
“His office, but I don’t think he’s got much time this afternoon. What is it, Jamey? Anything I can do to help?”
“Not this time, lass.” He shut the door quickly.
So he was planning to ask Mike for a loan. Even Mike would probably not be able to come up with fifty thousand pounds cash. Vic swore she’d get to the bottom of this if possible. Tonight, she and Jamey would talk it out. He might be angry with her, but she wouldn’t let him go bankrupt if there was any way she could prevent it. She picked up the telephone and dialed Marshall Dunn’s number.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“TALK TO ME, Marshall,” Vic said when she finally reached him. “Tell me everything you haven’t told me about the McLachlans and about the scandal.”
“Which one? The one where Jock ran off with the Gypsy and her kid, or the one where Robert McLachlan seduced Jamey’s wife, tried to kill him, robbed him blind and drove off a cliff in France?”
“I don’t know. First, tell me about Jock.”
“Finest man who ever drew breath, despite his foibles and his mad hobbyhorse.”
“Hobbyhorse?”
Marshall laughed. “He had some insane idea that the Scots could come up with a sport horse to equal the Germans or the French. He was looking to create another Godolphin Arabian. Know who he was?”
Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 21