As it would not stop Jamey. The only difference between the cousins was that Jamey would agonize.
VIC PARKED HER TRUCK beside Angie’s shiny new Suburban and went into the Five Oaks Grill to find Angie waiting for her in a dark corner, hunched over a glass of white wine. When she looked up, Vic swore she could see the remaining tracks of tears under Angie’s makeup.
“Hey, Ange,” she said, and slid into the seat opposite her. “Sorry I’m late.”
“You’re not. I’m early.”
Vic pointed at the scarf wrapped around Angie’s wrist and up to her neck. “Shoulder hurt?”
“Not that much. It’s not the first collarbone I’ve broken. Stupid, really stupid, to fall off that way. I’m so sorry.”
“It happens. Don’t apologize. We’re managing.”
Angie perked up. “I’m still not convinced about Jamey, but I can’t deny that he showed up at a perfect time. Just when you needed him.”
“The Lord looks after fools.”
“Does Albert know yet?”
“Not unless you told him. You didn’t, did you? You swore...”
“Back off, Vic! I haven’t told a soul, but how long do you think it’s going to be before somebody from here takes their horses down to Florida, runs into Liz or Mike Whitten and tells them about this marvelous new foreign rider you’re living with?”
“Bite your tongue! I am not living with him.”
“He’s sleeping in your house, eating at your table, showering in your shower. And hey, great buns.”
“So call me a landlady running a boardinghouse. How many times have you walked into my house and found half a dozen total strangers lounging around during a horse show?”
Angie laughed. “None of them looked like that in a pair of jeans.”
“Some of them did.”
“Name one.”
“I’m a tough old hen. He’s more likely to make a pass at one of the college girls than he is at me.” That kiss last night didn’t count. And Angie did not need to know about it in any case.
“Right. Man licks his chops every time he looks at you. You’re still a great-looking woman, Vic. And he probably thinks you’re richer than you are. You own all that acreage, run that big stable.”
“Muck out all those stalls, tote all that feed and hay. He’s bound to realize I’m poor as a church mouse.”
“To a saddle burn, you’re rich.”
“I think he comes from money in Scotland.”
“Coming from doesn’t mean currently possesses. I think he’s adorable, but all that means is that he can take advantage easier. Just watch yourself is all I’m saying.”
Now Vic felt her temper rise. “Don’t you lecture me, Angie Womack. I sat you up on your first pony when you were five years old. I am no fragile little old lady who plans to invest in a gigolo.”
Angie raised her hands. “Okay, okay.”
“Is that what this luncheon is all about? Warning me about McLachlan?”
Angie’s face fell and she looked away. “Not exactly. Vic, I need your advice.” With that, her face crumpled, her mouth pulled back into a mask of tragedy, and her chest began to heave with silent sobs. “Oh, God, Vic, what am I going to do?” She dropped her head onto the table and her shoulders shook.
Horrified, Vic began to stroke Angie’s shoulders. She leaned down and whispered, “Angie, honey, Angie. It’s all right, honey.”
Angie shook her head.
“What is it, honey?”
After a moment, Angie raised her head, dug into the pocket of her blazer for a tissue, wiped her eyes and honked into it. She sniffed a couple of times and took a deep breath. “It’s about Kevin.”
“What about Kevin?”
The mask came back instantly. “It’s ironic really. Kevin doesn’t want a family.”
“Kevin? He’s never met a baby he didn’t adore on sight.”
“He doesn’t want one now. He says he does, but he doesn’t. Not really.” Angie took a deep shuddering breath. “You know how hard we’ve tried to get pregnant.”
Vic nodded.
“You have no idea how concentration on sex purely for procreation can screw up your sex life. And maybe your marriage.”
“Not yours. You and Kevin really love each other.”
“Yeah, but you’ve bred enough horses to know that the mystique leaves in a hurry. Try feeling sexy when you’ve been riding all day and come home hot and sweaty, and your husband comes home from spending his time elbow deep in some other woman’s vagina and the thermometer says you have to have sex right that minute. And afterward you have to lie there with your knees in the air for an hour.”
She groaned and went on, “Kev has to give sperm samples to nurses he works with every day. And the worst of it is, every time I get my period I have major crying jags. And nobody can tell us why we can’t conceive. Kev’s family keeps looking at me as though I’m to blame, and my family blames him, and everybody we know gives us that pitying look, and all my friends’ children are heading into high school, and...” She gulped and twisted her napkin.
“Oh, Angie, I’m so sorry. I know you want a baby, but I had no idea how miserable you were. Have you considered adoption?”
Angie’s eyes began to leak. This time she allowed the tears to flow unchecked. “That’s the thing. I don’t know why Kevin’s against adoption, but he always sounded kind of lukewarm about it. Then last year he finally agreed to our filling out the papers for an Asian adoption agency. I sent them in and nothing happened, so I forced myself not to think about it. And then a week ago we got a letter saying we’d been approved to adopt a Chinese baby girl.”
“Oh, Angie! How marvelous!”
“It’s not! I called Kev practically hysterical with joy, and he tried to sound happy, but I could tell he wasn’t. So I went out to exercise some horses and try to think my way through it, and that’s when...”
“When you lost your concentration, fell off and broke your collarbone. I see. I should have known there was something. Ange, I’m sure you’re reading Kevin wrong.”
“No, I’m not. And to be honest, I need to know what he’s thinking. Did I force him to sign the application? Is he worried that I won’t be a good mother?”
“Angie Womack! That is the stupidest remark you have ever made.”
Angie shook her head. “Maybe he thinks I’ll dump the kid on a baby-sitter and go off and play horse the way I always have, and the kid’ll grow up deprived and turn out to be a juvenile delinquent or worse.”
Vic noticed the waitress had been hovering in the background waiting to take their order, but was obviously hesitant to intrude. Vic called her over, put her hand on Angie’s arm, and the two women ordered Cobb salads. After the waitress left, Angie turned to Vic again.
“I need a favor. I want you to talk to Kevin. Find out what’s wrong.”
Vic shook her head. “No way. I’ve known Kevin a long time, but not well. There’s no way he’d open up to me about something this personal.”
“Vic, you’ve got to. Kevin trusts you. You’re sensible. Please, please, please. I promise if you do this I’ll never ask you for another thing.”
Vic began to laugh. “You sound like an eight-year-old. I’ll say only this. Let me think about it. If the opportunity presents itself, I’ll see what I can do.”
Angie’s face lit up. “Thank you. And if he really thinks I wouldn’t be a good mother, I can start convincing him otherwise. We probably won’t be notified about a baby for months. By that time, he’ll be convinced. Oh, Vic, thank you.”
Vic nodded. What had she gotten herself into? She certainly believed that Angie would be a good mother, just as Kevin would be a wonderful father—but not to a child he did not want. Kids always knew when they weren’t wanted. Liz knew when her father, Vic’s brother, didn’t want her. Vic had known when her grandmother didn’t want her. Kids knew.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A
T FIVE O’CLOCK THAT evening the weather changed. Jamey raised his head from the last horse’s bucket and sniffed sunshine. He looked out the barn door and saw the waves of winter clouds rolling back from the west as neatly as a window shade to reveal one of the finest sunsets he’d ever seen.
In the ring Vic was finishing up a lesson with several of her after-school pupils from the local school. He thought she was a fine instructor and coach, always finding at least one good comment before she said anything critical. He leaned against the rail fence, propped one booted foot on the bottom rail and drank in the scene, the weather, feeling the sheer pleasure of muscles aching from a job well done.
He found he enjoyed watching her. She moved like a dancer and kept her hands flowing gracefully as she illustrated every point she made: He smiled to himself as he looked at her face.
She was watching Susie, one of her more advanced students, canter toward a three-foot fence and jump cleanly over it. Just for an instant he saw a flash of longing in Vic’s eyes so intense it was like physical hunger. Angie and the others might think she’d come to terms with her inability to ride a horse, but he knew differently.
Well, that was one little problem he could take care of while he was here. Maybe if he could leave her sitting comfortably once more in a saddle, it would go a long way toward making up for the deception he planned.
By the time the last student left ValleyCrest, Jamey was ready to put his plan into action. It was daring, a real gamble. If he failed, he’d be out on his ear.
He’d saved an elderly bay mare, even-tempered and broad-backed, as his last ride of the day. Vic told him he really didn’t have to ride her—the mare was, after all, already good at her job—but he insisted. Instead of his own saddle, he found the longest-bottomed saddle he could—one built to accommodate the rear ends of fat old fox hunters who drank too much beer. He rode the mare long enough to guarantee that she was downright somnolent
Then he leaned over and whispered into her ear, “You behave yourself, old girl, and you’ve got carrots from Jamey McLachlan for a month.” He took a deep breath and walked the mare over to the tall solid jump he had used when mounting Roman, then called to Vic, who was hosing down the wash rack. “Can you come out here a minute? I’ve got a tack problem I need help with.” He held up his bad hand in its black glove as though to emphasize his need for assistance.
“Sure.” Vic turned off the hose and walked out to the arena with her hands in the pockets of her jeans.
“Can you climb onto the top of this jump? She’s got something messed up with her brow band. I can feel it, but I can’t see what it is.”
Unsuspecting, Vic started to reach up for the band, but Jamey moved the mare just out of her reach.
“Botheration,” Vic whispered, and climbed up.
Jamey brought the mare close beside her and moved his rear end to the far back of the saddle. As Vic leaned over, he reached his good arm around her waist and lifted her bodily into the saddle in front of him so that she was slung sidesaddle across his thighs with her body twisted to face him.
He was afraid she’d scream and the mare would dump them both into the dirt.
Instead, she froze.
She caught her breath and threw her arms so tightly around his neck he was sure she’d strangle him.
“Jamey’s got you, lass,” he whispered in her ear.
He could feel her every muscle straining away from him, away from the horse, as though she could levitate straight out of the saddle if she tried hard enough.
“Hold on to me, lass,” he whispered, and began to whistle softly beside her ear, a barely audible trickle of sound.
She began to struggle, her whimpers as pitiful as a kitten crying for its mother.
He gripped her doggedly while the mare took one step, then two.
Vic began to keen in his ear.
“It’s all right, lass. Jamey’s here. Jamey’s got you.”
One more step, he thought, just one more step. The mare obliged. Then Jamey slipped his right foot out of the stirrup and in one smooth move slid off the horse with Vic still clutched in his arms.
They landed on their feet in the soft arena with their bodies molded together from nose to knee.
Up till now he’d been able to concentrate on his job. Now his body awakened to the fact that he held a warm woman close. God, she felt good!
“You bastard!” Vic howled. She kicked at him, tore herself from his arms and brought her fists up to flail against his chest. “You stupid, rotten, vicious SOB! You’re fired! No, dammit, you’re dead!”
He caught her wrists. She continued to struggle and scream at him.
He brought his face close to hers. “Listen to me, woman! Listen to me! You did it! Dammit, don’t you understand? You did it!”
For an instant she continued to fight with tossing head and eyes squeezed shut. Then she froze again.
Her eyes and mouth both snapped open. She stared straight into Jamey’s eyes and gulped.
“Uh-oh,” he said, and let her go.
She clapped both hands over her mouth and bolted from the ring. He followed her.
He saw her round the corner into the washroom the students used, saw her drop to her knees and heard her retch.
He found a clean dish towel, wet it under cold water, folded it and walked over to the washroom door.
She was on her knees in front of the open toilet. Her retches had slowed to dry heaves. He carefully laid the cold wet towel across the back of her neck and dropped to his haunches beside her. After a moment he put an arm around her shoulder.
“Don’t you touch me,” she said without raising her head.
He smiled at the single curl of dark wet hair at the nape of her neck. A lovely neck, long and smooth and asking to be kissed.
If he wanted to lose his lips, that is.
Still, she hadn’t sounded entirely murderous.
“Have you quite finished being sick?” he asked.
“None of your business, dammit.”
“If you have,” he continued as though she had not spoken, “we’ve left that mare wandering around in the arena alone. By now she’s probably stepped on her reins and rolled on her saddle. I suggest we go bring her in.”
“You did it. You get her.”
“I’ll wait, thank you.”
He sprawled on the couch and propped his feet on the scarred coffee table. In a moment he heard the toilet flush and water run in the sink, then the sounds of Vic’s rinsing her mouth.
She stood in the washroom door with the towel still draped around her neck. Her skin was so translucent he could see the blood flow at her temples.
“Why? Can you just tell me that before I cut your heart out and make you eat it?”
For a moment he entertained telling her the truth, the whole truth.
No, but he could tell her his heart’s truth. “You wanted it.”
“I did no such thing!”
“You’re lying to us both. I’ve been watching you, love. I’ve seen your eyes follow the riders. I’ve seen the envy and the hunger.”
“All right. I wanted it, but I knew damn well I could never have it. I’d come to terms with it. What gave you the right to decide to fix me?”
He shrugged. “You never came to terms with it.”
“Listen, you arrogant jerk, do you think I didn’t try for years to get back on a horse?” She pulled the towel from her neck and threw it at the sink. It fell on the floor, but she ignored it. “I tried psychiatrists and psychologists, antianxiety pills and antidepressant pills, not to mention yoga and tai chi and vitamins and hypnosis, for God’s sake!” She jammed her hands into her pockets and turned away, saw the towel, bent to pick it up and dropped it in the sink.
“I managed to get behind the wheel of a car again, and I can do anything around horses that they need, except set my foot into the stirrup.” She threw up her hands and laughed. “I used to come down here at two in the morning, throw a saddle on one of the saddle racks and try to climb up and sit there. I couldn’t do it. I’d wind up sweating and shaking.”
He hadn’t moved. She turned to look at him. “And now all of a sudden you’re here for what—two days?—and I’m going to be riding a Grand Prix course?”
“Yes, if that’s what you want to do.”
“Oh, right.”
He came to his feet and stood before her with his legs apart and his hands on his hips. “Now you listen to me, lass.” He pointed toward the arena beyond the door. “You just rode a horse. You did it! And you’re going to keep doing it until you don’t need my arms around you or my whistle in your ear. Maybe hypnosis couldn’t do it, but Jamey McLachlan can!”
She bit back a nasty reply and simply glared at him. After a moment she said, “How?”
He grinned and raised a wicked eyebrow at her. “Because I’m a Gypsy, love. Because I have a way with animals and you, lass, are nothing more nor less than an animal, just a bit more easily spooked than most.”
“Go to hell!” She pushed past him and ran out the front door of the stable. He could hear her pelting up the driveway toward the house. Well, he’d tried. He walked out to the arena where the mare stood in a semitrance, picked up her reins and began to walk her back to the barn.
When he reached the door, he stopped. Silhouetted in the far door stood Vic. For a moment they stared at each other without speaking. Jamey was almost afraid to breathe. She took one step forward and raised her hands, palms out.
“Do you really think it’s possible?”
He let out his breath in a great whoosh. “Yes.”
She nodded. “What have I got to lose?” She walked over to him and stroked the mare’s nose. “So what’s the program?” Her hand was shaking, and he could see the frantic rise and fall of her chest. He could guess how much this was costing her.
“Come on back out to the ring.”
She backed away. “Not tonight.”
“Right this minute.”
“Can’t you be satisfied?” She turned away from him and hugged her chest as though she was freezing.
“I’ll have you safe in my arms. No responsibility for yourself. No decisions to make.”
Her head whipped around. “How did you know...?”
“Because that’s how I felt. Everything that happened. This—” he looked at his hand with curiosity as though still surprised to find it was not the hand he’d grown up with “—the things that happened at the yard. All of it. My fault. And I was afraid that whatever decision I made would lead to more catastrophes. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it?”
“I killed a man. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
“Killed a man? I heard you crashed, that it wasn’t your fault. It was his. Everyone said so, including the lawyers.”
“That doesn’t matter. I was the professional, don’t you see? I should have seen it coming, been able to avoid it somehow.”
“Bull.”
“Intellectually I can see that. But in my gut I’m terrified it’ll happen again.”
“Not with me hanging on to you, lass. Now, you take yourself a good deep breath and walk beside me out to the arena. We won’t do much, but by heaven, woman, you will get back on that mare with me tonight.”
In the end she allowed herself to be persuaded, and Jamey did not let the mare take more than a few steps before he stopped her and slid Vic from his arms and down the side of the horse, then jumped down to land beside her. She was quivering.
“You going to throw up again?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, while you’re thinking about it, you can take the tack off this mare and put her away. I’m a hardworking man and I deserve a break.”
She managed a tiny smile.
He sank onto the bale of hay in the aisle, propped his arms on his knees, dropped his chin into his hands and watched her.
It was as if her long-held fear had somehow diluted her sense of femaleness by building up a sort of exoskeleton. She needed a man to hold her and kiss her and make love to her until her shell melted to reveal the warm woman inside.
He longed to be that man.
But that would be an even greater betrayal than the one he was already perpetrating.
“Do YOU STILL WANT ME in your house?” he asked after a supper of soup from a can and sandwiches made with the rest of the ham. “I can make a pallet in the barn. There’s no more ‘eau de mouse.’ ”
“You can stay here, although you might consider whether or not you’d be safer down at the barn. You may want to lock
your
door tonight. I may just creep up the stairs and slit your throat.”
He leaned his chair back on two legs and grinned. “You can creep up my stairs anytime you like, lass.”
She blushed furiously and covered it by going to the counter to pour herself another cup of decaf. He smiled. She knew what he meant all right.