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Authors: Carolyn McSparren

Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance) (22 page)

BOOK: Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance)
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“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
“T
ALK 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?”
“Yes, Marshall,” Vic said patiently. “One of the three Arab stallions that were imported to Great Britain in the eighteenth century from which all Thoroughbreds trace their lineage. I’m not a total Philistine.”
“Ah, but Jock wanted to breed a single great foundation stallion. Like your Morgans. They were founded from one stallion that Justin Morgan bred.”
“What would be the point?”
“Who knows? National pride? Money? Fine horses he could mold to suit his own ideas? In any case, he spent his lifetime trying to come up with his foundation stallion, then died just as he felt he’d achieved his dream—tragic.”
“Achieved it?”
“Yes. Told me the last time I saw him that he finally had his stallion. Who could tell that kind of thing in a yearling colt? Madness, I assure you.”
“So where’s the colt now?”
“Who knows? He was one of the horses Robert sold out from under Jamey while he was in hospital. They were able to locate most of the animals and get them back by returning the money, but that stud colt simply vanished off the face of the earth. Dead, probably, although Jamey McLachlan is as mad as his father and refuses to believe it. Spent entirely too much money in the search, if you ask me. Nearly went broke over it, so I hear.”
“He says the cows and sheep are still doing well.”
“What cows? What sheep?” Marshall barked a laugh. “McLachlans never raised an animal that didn’t neigh, Vic. Wouldn’t know a sheep if it bit him, would Jamey McLachlan. And cows? Don’t make me laugh.”
Another lie.
“At any rate,” Marshall continued, “last I heard he thought he’d found the colt somewhere in Germany, but by the time he got there, some fool American had bought the thing and taken it home. His uncle Hamish got drunk last week at a hunt meet and swore Jamey’d steal the creature if he had to.”
Vic took a deep breath. “Did this mythical beast have a name, Marshall, before he disappeared?”
“’Course he did. Don’t remember what it was—some Gypsy word, probably.”
“Try to remember. It’s important.”
“No idea, old girl. Sorry. Jamey working out for you, is he? No problems, I hope. Feel responsible, sending him to you that way.”
“He’s working out fine, Marshall. He’s everything you said he was,” Vic said, and added under her breath, “and more.”
They moved on to other topics. As she was getting ready to hang up, Vic asked, “Marshall, the colt’s name. Might it by any chance have been Roman?”
“Got it in one!” Marshall said. “Amazing woman. Always said so.”
Vic placed the receiver back into its cradle very softly, as though it were a baby rattlesnake she didn’t want to disturb.
 
SHE HAD NO CHOICE. She had to confront Jamey and ask for his explanation. There was no sense in agonizing over theories when his explanation might be simple and straightforward. Miscommunication was the stuff of farce. None of this felt the least bit funny.
She planned a nice quiet dinner together in front of the fire with the dogs and cat, and then when they were sipping their brandy afterward, she’d tell him about overhearing his call to Hamish, and what Marshall Dunn had said to her. If they were going to have any possibility of maintaining a relationship, even a long-distance relationship, Jamey had to be honest with her.
Easy enough to say, but during dinner Jamey was distracted, barely noticing the pot roast she’d stuck in the oven after lunch, or the hot brownies with whipped cream. It all tasted like cardboard to Vic. Once or twice she felt a twinge of panic, but she forced herself to breathe deeply and fight back.
As they sat over coffee, the doorbell rang.
“Who on earth?” Vic said. The dogs began to bark, racing to the door, tails wagging.
“Great guard dogs you guys are,” Mike Whitten said as he walked in, then bent to scratch their ears. “Sorry to come without calling first. I finally got the mess settled with Singapore and wondered if you’d be interested in a late supper.”
“Come in,” Vic said. “We’ve already eaten, but there’s plenty. Let me fix you something.”
Jamey walked out of the kitchen with his napkin in his hand. Vic glanced at Mike and saw his eyebrows climb to his hairline.
“I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Not at all, man,” Jamey said with a smile. “Glad you showed up. Gives me a chance to apologize for being a horse’s ass this afternoon.”
Mike didn’t smile. “I passed on your assessment of the stallion to my wife this evening. She’s willing to be convinced.”
“She will be,” Vic said. “Please, sit. At least let me feed you.” When he hesitated, she continued, “Pot roast and fresh brownies?”
He grinned. “Who could resist your brownies?” He pulled up a chair. Vic glanced at Jamey. How could she manage to leave the two men alone long enough for Jamey to say what he wanted to Mike?
“What made you decide to buy that particular stallion in the first place?” Jamey asked.
“I was in Europe on a business deal, saw an ad for the auction and decided to buy my wife a wedding present.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “If I’ve learned anything in my business, it’s to trust experts. In this case I ignored my own advice and went with gut reaction.”
“Your gut apparently has a horseman’s instinct,” Jamey said. He picked up an extra fork and began to draw patterns in the checkered tablecloth. His voice was casual when he asked, “Do you know the date he was foaled? Or where?”
“The farmer who sold him said he was foaled in January four years ago. Why?”
Jamey’s hand stopped. Vic saw the muscles contract in his jaw. “Just seeing if he’s likely to grow any taller than the near nineteen hands he stands at the moment is all.”
“God, I hope not! Liz says he’s already too big.”
“But not for dressage. Have you considered selling him?”
“Every horse is always for sale for the right price. At least that’s what my wife says. I’m still new at this.”
“And the price would be?”
“More than I paid for him.” Mike looked at Jamey carefully. “Do you know someone who might be interested?”
“I might. But I doubt I can come up with enough cash. A down payment with terms might be arranged.”
“Not worth it. I’d rather keep him for a while. If he’s as good as you and Vic say he is, he can only be worth more with better training.”
“You’re willing to invest in him, then? Send him off for training? Campaign him for a year or so? That’s what it’ll take, you know.”
“Depends.” Mike took a final bite of pot roast. “How come you never taught Liz to cook like this?” he asked Vic.
“I did the cooking while she did the riding. She didn’t need to learn.”
“Once we’re all back in the same enclave, I intend to con you into feeding us as often as I can. And maybe giving Pat some lessons.”
“If Vic’s available,” Jamey said softly.
Mike glanced at him, but said nothing.
“Coffee with your brownie?” Vic asked. “And a little ice cream on top?”
“Yes to the coffee, no to the ice cream. Liz may plan on waddling like a duck in a few months, but I doubt she wants
me
to.” He turned to Jamey. “So tell me, how come you wound up here?”
Vic sat down. Now, if ever, was the time for truth. She listened to Jamey’s story about his midlife crisis with a sinking heart. She excused herself, shut her bedroom door behind her and leaned against it. Obviously Jamey had made up his mind that Mr. Miracle really was his stepfather’s missing stallion.
The fifty thousand pounds was not a loan, but an offer to purchase. And not good enough. Hamish had told Marshall Dunn that Jamey would steal the horse if necessary. Did he still intend to do that? How could he manage it? A giant black stallion wasn’t exactly the kind of thing one could smuggle into Scotland in the lining of a suitcase.
She took a dozen deep breaths, pasted a smile on her face and rejoined the men. Mike was getting to his feet. “Thanks for rescuing me from another lonely restaurant meal,” he said to her. “I’ve got an early flight tomorrow, so I’d better get back to the apartment.” He turned to Jamey. “Nice to have met you,” he said automatically.
Vic followed him to the front door and hugged him fiercely. “Thank you for marrying Liz,” she whispered.
“The shoe’s on the other foot. I’m the one who should be grateful.” He kissed her cheek, gave one quick look over her shoulder at Jamey and left. A moment later his car roared off down the driveway.
“That’s torn it,” Jamey said.
“You can’t be sure. You could just be having dinner with me before going off to your room in the barn or someplace.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back against his body. “No, love. The man’s no fool. I can’t keep my feelings for you out of my eyes or my voice.” He turned her to face him and wrapped his arms around her. “He handled it well, though, I thought. Didn’t act the protective male relative and get out the shotgun.”
“But he’ll call Liz the minute he gets back to his apartment,” Vic said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not that I’m ashamed of you or my feelings, it’s just that it’s nobody’s business. I don’t need advice from my niece or Albert or anybody else.” She clung to him. “Why can’t the world leave us alone?” This time she didn’t see it coming, but all at once she found herself sobbing in Jamey’s arms.
“Love,” he said, “what’s the matter?”
She ought to tell him. She
had
to tell him, but she couldn’t find the words. One more night together without his lies poisoning the air between them. That was all she wanted. Tomorrow she’d tell him what she knew.
 
BUT SHE DIDN’T. Not over breakfast or while working horses or mucking out stalls. There just didn’t seem to be a right time.
By afternoon the barn was alive with people once more. The weather had softened and warmed. Vic found herself coaching half a dozen of her intermediate students while Jamey and Albert handled the chores. The longer she waited, the worse she felt.
Jamey, alert as ever to her moods, asked her several times if she was coming down with something; he even offered to forego the training session scheduled for the evening on Mr. Miracle. Or Roman, she supposed she should call him.
The days had begun to grow longer, so it was almost seven before the last patron waved goodbye. Albert had gone home an hour earlier, and finally she and Jamey were alone. He led the stallion out of his stall, cross-tied him on the wash rack and began to groom him.
Vic stood in front of him and took a deep breath. Her nerves were giving her fits, but normal fits. No heart palpitations. No cold sweat. Oddly enough, no anger, either. She’d begun by assuring herself he had a reason for everything he’d done. She’d progressed to anger, and now she was left with only a hollow despair and a desire to get their discussion over with.
“He’s a truly fine stallion,” she said quietly. “Jock would be proud.”
“What?” Jamey’s head whipped around.
“I said Jock would be proud of Roman.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But he did. His face had gone still.
“I’m curious. After you steal him, how do you plan to get him back to Scotland?”
“Why would I do that?” He tried grinning, but it was a poor attempt.
“Don’t, Jamey. Just don’t. I probably don’t know it all, but I know most of it. Was I simply the means to an end?”
He dropped the brush and reached out for her. “No. Never.”
She backed away. “Please don’t touch me, Jamey. When you touch me I can’t think straight.”
“Then don’t think straight.” He sounded grim.
“I overheard part of your conversation the other night. I didn’t plan to, and the moment I realized you were on the telephone, I stopped listening, but I heard enough. So yesterday I called Marshall. He filled in enough of the details that I could guess the rest. How many people did you have to call before you found Marshall to give you an introduction to ValleyCrest?”
“Three, as a matter of fact.”
BOOK: Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance)
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