No. No way. He was supposed to tutor her?
She looked as surprised, and as disgusted, as he felt. “You’re the third-period math tutor?”
“Yeah. What’s the problem?”
“I don’t want to work with you.”
He flipped his pencil in the air and caught it. “So fail. It’s no skin off my nose.”
“My mom won’t let me ride in the Top Flight trials if I fail math this semester.”
“Well, then…” Andrew kicked the chair beside him out from the table.
“Shh,” the librarian said.
Erin slid into the seat and put her books on the table. “How’s Imperator?” she whispered. “Is he jumping?”
“I’ve been riding him over the stadium fences for…what?…two weeks now. That’s when you were there, right?” He shrugged. “Imp’s doing okay. But nobody has tried him on cross-country.”
“You could.”
“My dad says no.” Though Andrew had tried just about every way he could think of to change his mind.
“How’s Imp going to be ready for the schooling day, much less the horse trials at the first of April?”
“No clue.”
The librarian came to stand over them. “Mr. Lewellyn. Ms. Archer. Either you will focus on the purpose for which you are here, or you will return to your scheduled classes. No more of this horse talk. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.
“Somebody’s got to get Imperator over the big fences,” Erin wrote on a piece of notebook paper.
“The only question,” Andrew wrote back, “is who?”
WHEN THE PHONE RANG on Monday, Groundhog Day, Jacquie was almost relieved to hear Rhys’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Jacquie? How have you been?”
“The same as usual. Why?” Talking with him had to be an improvement over struggling to keep him out of her thoughts, to forget the hour they had spent together downtown, the laughter they’d shared. And that kiss…
“I forgot to ask last week…if you’d come up with anything more serious than bruises after that fall.”
“Nope. I bounce pretty well.”
He chuckled, a low ripple of sound that did lovely, forbidden things deep inside of her. “That’s true. I’ve watched you fall a dozen times or more, and you always get right back up.”
“A useful trick when you’re trying to hold on to the hoof of a two-thousand-pound Clydesdale with an attitude.”
“So I understand.”
“Did you really call to talk about my little gymnastics stunt?”
“Er, no.”
“Well?”
“Terry and I were talking about Imperator. Andrew’s been riding him over the stadium jumps, and he’s improving, but we need to get him back to the cross-country training. We wondered…would you would agree to ride the horse? Train him for us?”
“Rhys—”
“Imperator is at the peak of his powers as an eventing horse—he’s smart, and he knows all the tricks. I need someone who’s experienced enough to anticipate the tricks and head him off. Andrew simply doesn’t qualify.”
The explanation made sense, but he’d glossed over one very important point. “Why don’t you ride him?”
He hesitated for a moment. “I…the doctors don’t recommend jumping just yet.” Another pause. “But Imperator has already fallen behind. If we don’t start getting him in shape now, especially if he’s lost his confidence at the jumps, the whole season will be a washout.”
“I’m not an Olympic-level rider, Rhys. I can’t take him over those cross-country fences.”
“You’re riding at the upper levels on your mare. If we can get Imp schooled that far, I’m sure he’ll do the rest.”
She clutched at her resentment as an excuse. “Why should I do you any favors?”
“What about the horse? He’s a winner because he loves competing. Right now, I think it’s just the idea of jumping that bothers him, since the fall. Once he gets over the mental block, he’ll be his old self. And you’ll have rehabilitated an Olympic champion.”
Temptation, as far as Jacquie was concerned, came in the shape of a horse. Almost every time she’d been in serious trouble in her life, there was an equine involved. The one time it wasn’t horses, it was Rhys, himself.
“You’re not fair, hitting me where I’m weak.”
“You’ll do it?”
“I’ll think about it. I don’t want you to believe I don’t see through this plan of yours, though. You think that once I’m coming out to school your horse, it’ll be easy to get me working on this schooling day of yours. And, of course, Erin will just somehow keep ending up with lessons, and competing at the show.”
“Would that be so terrible?”
“Yes.” She didn’t dare elaborate. If she tried to explain her reasons, she might get all mixed up and realize that her reasons were the problem in the first place. “I’ll let you know about Friday.”
“Good. Give me a call when you decide.”
Jacquie was prepared for the call to end at that point, but Rhys continued talking. “Erin is quite good, you know. She and Andrew could be burning up the eventing world in a few years.”
“I told you so. I’ve got a savings account set up for the right horse, though it’s not growing as fast as she is. Mirage is a great guy, but she needs a big Thoroughbred to be truly competitive.”
“There’s a promising three-year-old mare back in New York, one of Imperator’s foals by Artiste, who won the Rolex a few years back. She’d be perfect.”
“Yet another string, you mean, drawing Erin to you?”
“I think I’ll say goodbye while we’re not fighting.”
“We are fighting, we’ll always be fighting. We’re on opposite sides, Rhys. Accept it.”
“Never,” he said firmly and, without another word, cut the connection.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE FIRE BELL RANG in the middle of English class on the first Thursday in February. With a collective groan, Andrew’s fellow students got up from their desks and filed out the door, down the hallways and out into a windy, sunny day. Since he didn’t know where they were supposed to go, Andrew followed the crowd. Once they got to their assigned spot on the school lawn, he saw that the person standing at the end of the line next to him was Erin Archer, red hair and all.
Her gaze caught his before either of them could look away. After that, talking was kind of mandatory.
“Cold?” he said, as she hunched in her coat.
“Well, duh. It’s like forty-five degrees out here.”
“That’s not cold. Cold in Upstate New York is fifteen degrees with four feet of snow piled up and more coming down.”
“If you liked it so much, you should have stayed there.”
“Don’t think coming down here was my idea. I would’ve stayed, if he wasn’t bringing Imp down with him.”
Erin nodded. “I can see that.”
“Only now your mom is riding him. I’ll probably never get a chance I don’t steal.”
“My mom?”
Too late, Andrew heard a warning bell in his brain. No use stopping now. “Yeah, my dad arranged for her to come over tomorrow and start schooling Imperator over the cross-country jumps.”
“That’s right. I just forgot.” Erin paused. “You can’t ride the advanced jumps anyway.”
“Neither can your mom. I heard my dad tell Terry that she’d be training on preliminary level jumps. I could do that with Imp.”
“So could I.” She said it almost to herself.
The bell rang, signaling them to return to class, and the lines started moving back toward the school. The cool thing would have been to walk in without saying anything else to Erin. But she looked like she might fall apart, or cry or something.
“Maybe I’ll see you around this weekend,” he said at the doorway. “If your mom and my dad start getting along, she’ll probably agree to bring you out for m
ore lessons, right?”
“Maybe.” She sent him a little smile, and a nod. “Maybe.”
They went their separate ways, but her pale face stayed on his mind the rest of the day. Even if she did think too much of herself on horseback, he didn’t like seeing Erin so down.
Evidently his parents weren’t the only ones who could really screw up their kid.
ERIN CHARGED out of the school building Thursday afternoon, threw her book bag into the back seat and then slammed herself into the truck. “You weren’t going to tell me at all, were you?”
Though she was going to be late for her next shoeing job, Jacquie shifted the engine into Park. She didn’t intend to argue with her daughter and try to back out into after-school traffic at the same time. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re riding Imperator tomorrow. Training him, with Mr. Lewellyn, on a regular basis. And you won’t let me take lessons at all. How is that fair?”
“I didn’t know you and Andrew had classes together.”
“We don’t. I talked to him in a fire drill. What difference does that make? You didn’t tell me and you knew it would matter.”
Jacquie’s stomach clenched tight inside her. “I’m sorry—I only called him late last night to say that I would. I didn’t think about it this morning before you went to school.” The quick call she’d intended had turned into an extended conversation with Rhys about the world of horses, especially eventing. After such a long time on the fringes, she’d enjoyed seeing the business and the people involved from his perspective at the top of the sport. Rhys understood her drive to compete in a way she’d never shared with another soul, except her daughter.
Who was still complaining. “So if you can train with Mr. Lewellyn, why can’t I?”
“I’m not training with him, exactly. He asked me to get Imperator over some cross-country fences. After that fall in November, the horse has lost his confidence and Rhys isn’t well enough to ride him.”
“I could. Andrew could.”
“Not at the level I can. Imperator is a four-star horse—he can’t go back to jumping novice fences. You know that. And neither of you is really ready to jump higher.”
Erin sighed, and some of her fury evaporated. “I don’t understand the whole issue between you and Mr. Lewellyn. All I know is the greatest chance of my life is right under my nose and I’m going to miss it because you don’t like him.”
Jacquie hid her amusement at this adolescent drama. “Maybe not the greatest chance of your lifetime. You can always train with Rhys when you’re living on your own.”
“I’ll be too old to get anything out of it.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to sulk.”
“I guess so.” Erin’s smile peeked out. She was always quick to forgive. “Permanently.”
With a sigh of relief at having handled at least one disaster, Jacquie reversed the truck and drove out of the school parking lot. Perhaps she wasn’t giving her daughter enough credit. Instead of expecting Erin to behave like a child when confronted with an unpleasant situation, she resolved to look for the beginnings of maturity.
Which did not mean Erin could accept the truth about her father without pain, even anguish. Knowing you’d been deceived was one of the worst feelings in the world—Jacquie recalled too well how Rhys’s lack of honesty about his marriage had hurt her. How much more would Erin feel betrayed by what her mother had never told her? How much worse would the split between them be?
And, given Erin’s impulsive nature, what would she do when she discovered she’d been lied to all these years?
JACQUIE MET RHYS, Terry and Imperator at the start of the cross-country course at Rourke Park on Friday morning. The day was cold and sunny. Imperator, with his wide dark eyes and pricked ears, looked to be as fresh as the wind.
“Ready?” Rhys wore jeans, and a jacket she remembered from her time with him in New York—soft, dark leather with a wool fleece lining. She’d worn that jacket herself once, during a September weekend when they’d left the Lewellyn stables separately to meet in a picturesque Vermont inn. The scent of the jacket—of him—was a memory she hadn’t visited in fourteen years but, obviously, hadn’t forgotten.
She wasn’t happy to be saddled with it now. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
He lifted an eyebrow at her rudeness, but then shrugged. “I’ll hold the horse while Terry gives you a leg up.”
That, at least, was a relief. The last thing she wanted was Rhys touching her. “Right.”
Bending her leg back for Terry to grab, she bounced a couple of times and then threw herself up onto the horse’s back. Imperator shied a little, but not so much she couldn’t get herself seated in the saddle.
She settled her feet in the stirrups and drew the reins together. “Okay, what’s the plan?”
Rhys had moved to stand beside her boot, a hand on Imperator’s neck. “Warm him up, first. Then we’re going to walk the course, try out each jump. Take the easiest line, the lowest part of the fence, at a slow canter. Don’t push, but do try to get him across the first time. If he cuts out or stops, we’ll work on that fence till we get it.” He grinned up at her, his shoulder just brushing the front of her knee. “Any pixie dust you can throw on him in the process will be appreciated.”
That smile was another prize she would prefer to forfeit. “Sorry, I’m fresh out.” She turned the horse away from him. “He’ll have to do this with just what he’s got.” Trotting along the lane, she breathed deeply and tried to focus her thoughts on the job ahead. This morning was solely for Imperator. The entanglements of mere humans should not interfere.
As he watched Jacquie warm up the horse, Rhys felt his grin freeze and then crumble like dry snow. Her resistance thwarted any overture he tried to make.
Too bad, he thought, as he and Terry walked to the first fence. This time, you can’t run away. And I won’t take no for an answer.
After about twenty minutes, the rhythmic thud of hooves on the ground heralded the approach of Imperator and his rider toward the first fence—two straight logs, one on top of the other, with a slight drop behind and trees on either side, so a horse had no hope of running around the jump. Either go over, or don’t go at all.
“She’s still got a good eye,” Terry commented. “Straight line, just the right distance.”
Rhys nodded. “He could take this one in his sleep.”
But Imperator sat back on his haunches, dug in his front hooves and screeched to halt within an inch of the jump.
Jacquie dropped back into the saddle, shaking her head. Turning the horse around, she headed back the way they’d just come, then tried again at a slightly faster pace. She flicked her crop as they reached the jump, but Imperator halted again. Jacquie sat back and looked at Rhys. “Well?”
With three more tries they got Imp to the point of trotting up to the jump, slowing to look over, and then hopping across the logs.
“We’ll take it,” Rhys said. “Let’s go on.” A course that should have taken twenty slow minutes to ride cost them three hours. Some fences they simply could not get the horse over, but he managed to cross a majority of the simplest obstacles.
“Not too bad,” Terry commented as he took off the saddle. “Considering how bad that fall was, he’s makin’ a big effort.”
“He is, indeed.” Jacquie stood by Imperator’s head, rubbing his neck. “I could feel the struggle in him when we couldn’t get over a fence. He was as disappointed as the rest of us.”
Rhys exchanged Imp’s bridle for a halter. “Twice a week like this, plus daily work in the ring, and in a month I think we’ll have him back to his old self.”
Jacquie’s startled eyes met his. “Twice a week?”
“You know once won’t be enough. He needs the reinforcement.”
Jacquie sighed. “I suppose that’s true. Monday and Friday mornings?”
“Sounds good.” He made the remark as casually as he could, and hid his smile. At least two days a wee
k, now, to get past her barriers. As they stood by the trailer while Terry loaded the horse, Rhys decided to push his luck. “Andrew’s going to be painting poles this weekend, getting ready for our schooling day. Do you think Erin would like to join him?”
She jammed her fists on her hips. “Will you stop? This isn’t going to happen and I don’t know why you keep pushing for it.”
“I’m ready,” Terry called, climbing behind the steering wheel of their truck.
“Go ahead.” Rhys waved him on. “I’ll be back about two.” When he looked at Jacquie, he met her suspicious stare. “No, I wasn’t making assumptions about you, or planning to hijack you. I’m meeting someone for lunch.”
“Oh.” Was it his imagination she didn’t like that idea?
With perfect timing, a gold Mercedes sedan slid to a stop behind Jacquie’s black truck. The blond woman who exited the driver’s seat was a walking advertisement for old money, from her 24-Karat jewlery, all the way down to the fur collar on her cashmere jacket.
“Rhys Lewellyn, I can’t believe I have to track you down out here in the middle of nowhere.” She put her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek against his. “You are the hardest man in the country to get a date with.”
“Galen. Good to see you.” He returned her hug, aware of Jacquie standing next to him with her eyebrows drawn together.
Stepping back, Galen turned to Jacquie and extended a hand. “Hello, there. Jacquie Archer, right? Rhys told me you’d be out riding that big stallion of his this morning. I’m Galen Oakley and I desperately need a farrier I can depend on.”
“This is the friend I mentioned,” Rhys added, “who suggested I give North Carolina a try.”
Jacquie went from stiff to stunned to stammering in the space of a minute. “It’s g-good to meet you. Rhys mentioned that I was a farrier?”
“He listened to me rant about my latest shoeing fiasco the other night on the phone. It’s bad enough that this idiot farrier misses three out of every four appointments we set, but when he starts messing up my horses’ feet, I draw the line. Anyway, Rhys said he knew a farrier in town who would suit me perfectly—which is hard to believe since I’ve been coming down here for a good ten years now, since Daddy died and left the horses to me, and I only convinced Rhys to move here, what…a month ago? But he suggested I come along this morning and we could all go to lunch and talk about what you can do for me.”
The Fake Husband Page 11
