“Open your eyes, lass.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
She did.
“Now, reach down and pick up the reins off her neck.”
“I can’t.”
“Well, somebody’d better steer this creature, and I’ve got my hands full at the moment.”
She felt the leather between her fingers. Her hands remembered as though only an hour had passed since she’d last held reins. The mare walked forward. Vic heard herself make that keening sound again.
“Shh, Jamey’s got you. Take her to the rail. We’ll just walk a bit and enjoy this lovely night.”
She had no idea how long they walked. Her hips began to pick up the rhythm of the horse’s footfalls, her spine remembered, her shoulders began to relax, her thighs to tighten, her heels to drop in the stirrups. All the while Jamey crooned and whistled to her. It was as though he’d sent them to another dimension where there was only night and horse and Jamey.
“Move her up a bit, lass. Do you remember how to post when the horse trots?”
She caught her breath and every instinct fought to get her away. She began to struggle, but he was incredibly strong.
“You can do it, lass. Squeeze your knees just a little.”
She managed only a few steps before she lost her nerve, but Jamey sighed with satisfaction.
“There’s my girl. Now, I’m going to slide off...”
“No!”
“Listen. I’ll slide off her back and take the reins to hold her steady while you dismount. I won’t let go of her.”
Before she could protest further, she felt the sanctuary of his arms withdraw and heard his feet thud into the arena behind her. The mare heard it, too, and grunted, but Jamey had her reins before she could move. “I’ll walk you to the mounting block so you can get down like a lady.”
She fought to stay aboard while her breath soughed in her chest and her eyes filled with tears of terror.
“All right, down you get.” He held out his bad hand to her in its black glove.
She took a deep breath. “Turn her loose,” she whispered. “And walk beside us.”
He closed his eyes. “There’s my gallant lass. On you go.” He turned, stuck his hands in his pockets and meandered alongside the mare. “Oh, and you might consider breathing out at some point.”
She walked for five minutes, feeling the energy from the mare flood into her with such joy she thought she’d faint with it. Then she stopped in the center of the ring, kicked her feet out of the stirrups and dropped to the ground.
He lifted her and swung her around. “You did it!”
She shouted so loud with glee the horse snorted and danced half a dozen paces away.
He slid her down his body slowly and brought his lips to hers. He held her and kissed her gently, tenderly, his tongue probing her mouth, hers tasting his. His hands slid up her back, beneath her sweater. She felt the difference between the smooth skin of his good hand and the slightly rough leather of his glove. Somehow that very difference was exciting, as though she were being caressed by an alien being that knew where her every nerve ended and wakened each one with a touch.
When her feet made contact with the ground, she felt him against her, aroused. His kiss deepened and his hands slid down to cup her bottom against him. Her hips began to move sensuously, remembering the rhythm of love as well as she remembered the rhythm of riding. She felt his energy flow into her, dancing through her body and burning with heat.
“Ah, lass,” he whispered when at last he broke the kiss. “My gallant lass.”
At that moment he seemed to awake from a trance. His eyes widened and he stared into her face as though she was a total stranger. He released her and stepped away. For the first time since she’d met him, he seemed to be at a loss, his arrogance gone in an instant’s confusion. “I can’t...” he said, and began to shake his head. He grabbed the mare’s reins, turned away and walked quickly out of the arena, leaving Vic gasping, her loins aching with need.
Well, that certainly put her in her place. She straightened her sweater and gave it a vicious yank down over her hips.
She cleared her throat and sauntered after him. “So, Scotsman, how about that steak?”
“WE SCOTS HAVE the best beef in the world,” Jamey said as he pushed away the remains of the biggest porterhouse steak Vic had ever seen one man consume.
“The Japanese and the Americans would both dispute that.”
“We Scots are also never wrong.”
She chuckled and reached for her wallet. His hand came up and covered hers.
“Not this time. You’ve done enough. This is by way of a celebration, after all. I ought to be buying you the finest champagne—”
“Scottish, no doubt.”
“There you have me. But the finest whiskeys. Even you’ll admit that.”
“Granted. Are you sure?”
“I’m not destitute, whatever you may think. And I’m looking forward to my princely wages from you at the end of the week, remember. So this dinner is on me.” He pulled a worn leather wallet from the hip pocket of his jeans, opened it and removed some bills. As he picked it up, Vic leaned over and looked at a photograph on one side of the center panel. “What a beautiful woman.”
He glanced up and smiled. “My mother. And the redhaired giant beside her is Jock McLachlan, my stepfather.”
“Everyone always says married people grow to look like each other after a while. Not in this case.”
“Hardly.” He snapped the wallet shut.
“And they’re both gone?”
“Yes. Jock died four years ago. Heart attack. Very sudden. My mother theoretically lived another six months. In actuality, her soul died the instant he did.”
“How sad. They must have loved each other very much. And yet they look as different as chalk and cheese.”
“Jock used to say they were as well matched as a Clydesdale stallion and a fell pony. It was a stormy marriage. My mother was not given to reining in her emotions. Still, she settled down to learn to be the laird’s lady. She succeeded remarkably well considering that she was a seventeen-year-old semiliterate gypsy with a six-month-old baby boy when he stole her.”
Vic blinked. “Stole her? How did he steal her?”
Jamey signaled the waitress for another cup of coffee, and while she filled their cups, he shoved the money over to her and smiled. “Don’t need change.”
She smiled back and left.
“Jamey, you cannot say something like that and just drop it!”
He leaned back. “All right. Jock retired as a full colonel from the Queen’s Own when he was over forty and his father died. As the eldest son he inherited McLachlan Yard. My uncle Hamish had been running it single-handed for the last several years and continued to do so, but Jock came home specifically to breed sport horses. He was a prize catch among the country set, but none of the local ladies managed to catch him. He’d been gone from home for years, so he didn’t know that each year a small band of Gypsy horse dealers had been camping out in the copse down by the river from April through November. The men worked for the McLachlans during the summer. Some still do, for that matter. The Rom have a long tradition of horse training and trading.
“He knew the men and liked them, but the women stayed very much to themselves. Then one day he was in the village—it was pelting rain—and he passed a Gypsy girl drenched to the skin and holding an equally drenched baby.”
“You?”
“Yes. At first she refused to get into his car. He kept on, however, and eventually she accepted. She’d been in town at the local lending library trying to take out a book, but they wouldn’t let her. Afraid she wouldn’t return it, I suppose,” he said with a hint of bitterness. “Things have changed a good deal in forty years, but at that point there were signs in pubs all over England that said No Dogs or Gypsies Allowed.”
“How could they justify that?”
He glanced at her quizzically. “Ask Albert about racial discrimination.”
“Of course. Stupid of me. But a book? They wouldn’t let her borrow a book?”
Jamey shook his head. “When Jock found out, he wanted to go back to town and raise hell, but my mother was terrified just to be seen riding in a car with the laird. He had to let her out away from the camp. The next day he went looking for her on his big Irish hunter with a satchel full of books in his saddlebags. After that they met several times. He found out she had been married at sixteen to the leader of that particular group—my father—a man who had already killed two wives with childbearing and abuse. My father was no good, but my grandmother didn’t have enough power to stop him when he offered a good bride price, and my mother’s brothers couldn’t dissuade her. She knew the family needed the money. She grew to hate him almost as much as she feared him.”
“They fell in love? Your mother and Jock McLachlan?”
“He said he fell in love with her two minutes after she got into his car. I think it took her a little longer. Nothing happened between them, not even a kiss.
“Until one day Jock rode his hunter down to the encampment with the latest load of books. My father was in a drunken rage. He’d found the books and was calling my mother a whore. The men were all up at McLachlan’s, so only the women were there to protect her. I was strapped to her back, and she had turned to face him to protect me. He was flailing at her with a buggy whip and swearing to kill her and me both.”
“My God!”
“Jock rode in like an avenging angel, grabbed her arm, dragged her up behind him on the saddle with me still strapped to her back and tore off for home. He swears my father shot at him. Needless to say, I don’t remember.”
“What happened?” Vic reached for her coffee and realized it had gone stone cold. She made a face at it and set it down.
“He told Uncle Hamish to bar the doors because the men would probably try to get her back. They waited all night with the dogs and shotguns across their laps, but nothing happened, and in the morning the whole caravan was gone. My uncle Vlado—my mother’s younger brother and a hell of a horseman—showed up midmorning to say that my mother was now a widow. That’s when Jock told everyone—my mother included—that he intended to marry her that very day by special license and adopt me the first moment he could.”
“Boy, talk about putting your money where your mouth is!”
“Both families were horrified. Gypsies did not marry
gaja
, and Scottish lairds did not marry Gypsies with babies, and that’s ignoring the age issue. But they did it, and I don’t think they ever seriously regretted it, although Jock became a pariah to some of his social set and my mother had to learn to be a
gaja
lady. She worked hard at it.”
“She certainly looks elegant in that picture.”
“She was wearing a designer suit. She learned, all right.”
“So Jock brought you up as his own?”
“He did. And when my half-brother Robert was born two years later, Jock promised me that I’d remain his firstborn son all my days. Is it any wonder I worshiped the man?”
“Is that what sent you on your travels? Grief?”
“Something like that. That’s enough storytelling for one night. We Gypsies are masters. We’ll spin a tale that’ll take you from September straight through until May, given half a chance.” He pushed his chair away from the table. “Come on, lass. Morning starts early.”
As they passed among the tables of the restaurant toward the front door, a voice from the shadows called, “Victoria!”
She groaned, pasted a smile on her face and turned to meet the tall graying man who came toward her with hand outstretched. “Hey, Vach. Jamey, this is Vach Connaway. Vach, Jamey McLachlan. He’s doing some training and exercising for me while Liz and Mike are in Florida.”
Vic could see it was dislike at first sight.
Vach ignored Jamey, but smiled down at Vic and said, “I’m having my big party Saturday night You ought to be getting your invitation in the mail tomorrow if my secretary managed to get them finished today. You’ll come of course.”
Vic pasted a social smile on her face. “Saturday? I’m not certain...”
“Don’t you be silly, girl! Nobody misses Vach Connaway’s big party. You dress yourself up real pretty and come on over. We’ll have us a ball.”
“Sure, Vach.” Vic sighed. “Nice to see you.” She moved away quickly before he could stop her again. Behind her she heard Jamey’s booted feet hitting the wooden planks of the floor with more noise than they had coming in earlier.
“You two were acting like a pair of dogs sniffing each other,” Vic said with disgust as she backed her truck out of the parking lot.
“Only because there was a lovely bitch in the middle,” Jamey replied.
“I believe that’s the weirdest compliment I’ve ever received—at least this week. Vach is an old friend. I hate big parties, particularly his. Everybody from the hunt clubs, the horse-show people—anybody and everybody who owns horses within three counties will be there dressed to the nines, drinking and eating much too much, dancing until dawn and occasionally slinking off with somebody else’s husband or wife. Unfortunately those people include a lot of possible clients. I have to go.”