Read Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance) Online

Authors: Carolyn McSparren

Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance) (20 page)

BOOK: Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance)

4.19Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

He slipped his feet into his boots and his arms into his jacket and went to find Albert.

He was already pushing the feed cart down the aisle to the far end. He neither turned nor spoke when he heard Jamey’s footsteps.

“Morning,” Jamey said pleasantly.

Silence.

“Silver Cloud colicked last night. Vic and I walked her until—” Jamey glanced at the watch on his wrist “—a couple of hours ago.”

“She okay?”

“Fine. But she probably shouldn’t get any grain this morning—just a flake of hay.”

“Wasn’t talking about the horse.”

“Ah. Yes.”

Jamey saw the blur of movement as a fist the size of an anvil came at him. He jerked his head sideways.

Albert missed his jaw, but caught the top of his ear. A glancing blow, but it still flung Jamey back two steps.

His ear felt as though someone had set a match to it.

Albert grunted, lowered his head and charged.

“Wait a minute!” Jamey said. The last thing he wanted to do was fight Albert.

“I warned you, boy!” Albert said. But he stopped. Breath soughed in his chest. He flexed the fingers of his right hand. “Damn, that hurts.”

Jamey held up his hands. “We’re both too old for this. There’s no way I can take you. You’ve got size and reach on me. All I’ve got on you is speed, which I am not above using to outrun you.”

“Maybe you better do just that. Get on that motorcycle and ride on out of here while you got legs to ride with.”

“Ah, that I cannot do.”

Albert growled.

“Have you two lost your minds?” Vic ran down the aisle toward them.

Albert swung his heavy head in her direction. “You look like hell.”

“So would you if you’d been up all night walking a colicky horse.”

“That’s not all you been up to.” He gave Jamey a malevolent glance.

He heard Vic’s quick intake of breath. For a moment nobody spoke, then she slipped her arm through Jamey’s.

“Not by a long shot. I—we—have been doing the wild thing every chance we’ve had for the past two days. And I, for one, have no intention of stopping now.”

“Victoria Jamerson, are you crazy?”

“Actually I think I’ve rediscovered a part of my mind that’s been buried deeper than the dinosaurs.”

“You had to rediscover it with this...this...foreigner?”

Vic laughed. Even Jamey grinned. One day, if he got the chance, he’d ask Albert what word he had originally intended to use.

Vic ran to Albert and threw her arms around him. “I am happy, Albert. Happy and fulfilled and sated, and unchaste and uncelibate and downright randy. Be happy for me.”

He hugged her. “I don’t trust him. I have never trusted him. I knew this would happen the minute he walked in here. Vic, think of who you are, woman.”

She turned to Jamey. “I’ll show you who I am now,

Albert. I hadn’t planned to. Not until I was sure. But I think you need to see.”

Jamey nodded. Only the horses at the far end had been fed. He went to the other end, pulled the chestnut gelding out of his stall and led him to the wash rack. “You sure about this?” he asked.

She nodded. “Whatever happens.”

“It’s cold. He hasn’t been exercised for two days.”

“Do it.”

Jamey shrugged, then saddled and bridled the gelding. He began to hum softly under his breath. The gelding relaxed under his touch.

“What’s this all about?” Albert asked.

“You’ll see,” Vic said grimly. She followed Jamey and the gelding out to the mounting block, gave Albert a glance over her shoulder, then climbed up and reached for the gelding’s reins.

“Victoria! What are you doing, woman?” Albert yelped.

Without a word she wheeled the horse into the ring. Albert stood rooted to the ground, his mouth open.

With much less warm-up than she normally would have used, she moved the gelding into a trot.

“My sweet Lord,” Albert whispered. “It’s a miracle.”

“No,” Vic said. “It’s Jamey.” She clicked the gelding into a canter, made a single circuit of the ring and turned down the center line to bounce over the eighteen-inch jump. Then she pulled down to a walk, stopped, kicked out of her stirrups and slid off the horse. “Thanks to Jamey, this is who I am now, Albert. I am Victoria Jamerson. I ride horses.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

V
IC LEFT JAMEY to finish the chores, dragged Albert into the office and shoved him into a chair. “Don’t have a heart attack because you saw me ride a horse,” she said. She dropped a kiss on the top of his head and collapsed into her desk chair.

“You on drugs?” Albert asked.

“No, but I’m high as a kite all the same.”

“Liz couldn’t get you on a horse. I couldn’t. Frank couldn’t. Psychiatrists and psychologists and hypnotists couldn’t. You telling me all you were missing was sex?”

“I honestly don’t know how Jamey did it. The point is, he did. And for your information, the sex is relatively new, although the physical attraction isn’t.”

“I knew it.”

Vic sobered instantly. “Don’t you think I understand that this is not a lasting relationship? That he’s going to walk out the door and out of my life?”

“He ask you to marry him?”

“Of course not.”

“And if he does?”

“I’ll say no.”

Albert raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not in a position to give him children. He may not realize he wants them now, but sooner or later he will. Every man does. You do, Mike does, even Kevin does.”

“He may want ValleyCrest and American citizenship a hell of a lot more than he wants children.”

Vic laughed. “Now that hadn’t occurred to me. The citizenship thing, I mean. No, I think he’s happy being a Scot. As for ValleyCrest, he’s seen enough to know I’m no rich widow, and I don’t even own ValleyCrest by myself. You and Liz together outvote me.”

“He knows that?”

“I’m sure he does.” She laid her hand on Albert’s knee. “Why can’t you be happy for me?”

“’Cause he’s gonna cause you pain in the long run.” She nodded slowly. “Probably more pain than I’ve ever endured, even after the accident. When he walks out of here, my heart will go with him. I made a choice, dear friend. Did I want to live the rest of my life in a cocoon, not feeling anything at all, or did I want to feel as much joy and happiness as I could even if it meant I’d feel pain afterward? I chose joy. You may not agree, but you have to acknowledge the choice is valid.”

“Is it?”

“Albert, I see the way you and Linette look at each other. I see Kevin and Angie and Mike and Liz. I used to think, oh, well, maybe in my next lifetime I’ll find somebody like that. It’s just not in the cards this time around.”

“And now it is?”

“Yes. Now it is.” She stood and pulled him to his feet. “Promise me you won’t tell Liz about the riding.”

“Or about him?”

“Yes.”

He hugged her fiercely. “I promise. I still think you’re crazy, and I still think he’s a con artist, but I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“And pick up the pieces of my heart afterward without saying I told you so?”

“Yeah. If I have to. Come on, we got work to do before Mike arrives.”

ALL MORNING Albert watched Jamey covertly, but said nothing to him. About eleven, Vic said she was going to the grocery store while the roads were clear.

“Liz didn’t say what time Mike’s plane arrives,” she said to Albert. “I’m sure he’ll rent a car and go first to his apartment. If any of those no-account contractors show up in the meantime, don’t warn them he’s in town. Serve them right.”

Jamey expected Albert to descend on him the moment Vic disappeared down the driveway. Instead Albert waited until Jamey had brought in the stallion from the exercise paddock, then loomed up in front of him.

“We got to talk,” he said.

Jamey nodded and followed him to the office, where Albert worked his bulk into Vic’s chair.

“How’s your ear?” Albert asked.

“Sore, but I’ve had worse.”

“Been in a lot of fights?”

“A few.” Jamey grinned. “Not often so far out of my weight class.”

“Sorry about that.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You’re right.”

“I assume,” Jamey continued, “you want to ask me about my intentions.”

“First, I got to thank you for getting her back on a horse. I don’t know how you did it, but I hope it’ll stick.” Albert shook his head and sighed. “Nobody but me knows how hard it’s been on her all these years. I don’t even think Liz has any idea. But sometimes when she was watching Liz jump a course, I’d catch that look in her eyes. It was like a part of her was missing, like she’d lost her memory and was trying to get it back.”

“She’s a long way from over it,” Jamey said. “Today was pure bravado. She made me promise not to tell anyone for fear that she’d blow it when the time came. I think if you hadn’t tried to deck me, she’d never have shown you, either. One slip, one bad experience, one fall and she could lose it again.”

“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 are all right?”

“Fine. More than fine.”

So that wasn’t it.

BOOK: Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance)

4.19Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads