Andrew dropped facedown on his bed, still in his clothes.
He had a sister. Or half, at least. Damn if he’d ever wanted one, or knew what to do about it. Erin didn’t seem to know the facts, and nobody was telling. He’d better keep his mouth shut, for the time being.
Stirring up trouble with Erin would be the quickest way to get himself banned from riding Imp. And no girl—even a sister—was worth that.
WITH MIRAGE SAFELY INSIDE the horse trailer, Erin went back into the barn. Imperator stood with his head over the door to his stall, watching her with his big, kind eyes.
“You’re not going to bite me, whatever Andrew says. I know you better than that.” She rubbed her knuckles over his cheek, under his forelock, then stroked her fingers beneath his chin. “You’re a gentleman all the way through.
“But what’s the trouble with the jumps, Imp? How come you’re not going over? Too high? Too fast…or too slow? You know you’re a winner. What can we do to help?”
Imperator shook his head and pulled out of her reach, going to stand with his head in the corner and his tail toward Erin.
“Okay. We’ll drop the subject for now. I’ll be back, though.” The stallion looked at her over his shoulder. Erin smiled. “Yeah. That’s a promise.”
JACQUIE COULD ONLY HOPE her blush had faded by the time she opened the truck door and turned on the light. Even after the heat in her cheeks cooled, she didn’t think she would recover from those kisses in the dark hallway any time soon.
“Hey, Mom, look!” Sitting in the other seat, Erin held one long-stemmed rose in each hand. “The pink one was on my side and the yellow one on yours. Aren’t they beautiful?”
Speechless, Jacquie climbed into her seat and took the yellow rose from her daughter. A card dangled from the yellow ribbon tied around the stem. “Have you looked at your card?”
Erin nodded. “It’s from Mr. Lewellyn. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day to a brave and gentle lady.’ Is that not just the most romantic thing you ever heard?”
Jacquie smiled wryly. “He does have the touch, doesn’t he?” She was afraid to open her card in front of Erin, in case he’d said something she couldn’t reveal to her daughter.
“Come on, Mom, what does yours say?”
Biting her lower lip, she opened the small envelope and read the deceptively simple message. “I seem to remember you liked yellow best. I hope that’s still the case. As ever, Rhys.”
She was relieved to be able to let Erin see the card and yet…had she hoped for something more? Was the card—the kisses—just an opportunity to revisit an old lust, or evidence of a deeper emotion? She’d trusted Rhys Lewellyn fourteen years ago, and had been damaged almost beyond repair. How could she possibly trust him now, with so much more than just her own heart at risk?
And after the disastrous consequences of her first mistake, how could she possibly trust herself?
ON SUNDAY, SANDY and Jimmy brought their baby to lunch. “He’s grown already,” Jacquie declared as she met them at her parents’ front door. “We just saw him a week ago.”
“Seems like he nurses twelve times a day.” Sandy sighed. “I’ve never been this tired in my whole life.”
“I remember that stage.” Jacquie slipped her nephew out of his mother’s arms. “Let me hold him while he’s thinking about something besides food. You go relax in the den with Daddy and Jimmy.” She sat down in the rocker in the living room, where the sweet rhythm of baby-rocking brought a smile to her face. “I love holding babies,” she told Erin as she knelt beside the chair.
“He’s sweet,” she said, stroking a finger down his cheek. “Teddy’s a cute name.”
Jacquie smiled. “I wonder if he’ll look like his dad—kinda big and burly, with all that brown hair.”
“Sounds like a teddy bear. I guess I look mostly like my dad, don’t I?” Erin glanced around the room at the pictures of their family on the walls. “Nobody here has black hair or blue eyes.”
Baby Teddy stirred and fussed a little in Jacquie’s suddenly stiff hold. “That’s pretty much right. You’ve got my chin. And I don’t think you’ll be tall, like he was.”
“You know, I never did get to see a picture of Mark,” Alicia said from the couch across the room. “I didn’t want to bother you at first, and then I guess I just kind of forgot.”
“I…don’t have pictures.” Jacquie felt her heart pound against her breastbone. “There just wasn’t time before he…died.”
“Not even photos from before you met?” Her sister could be unpleasantly persistent.
“Sorry.”
Alicia shook her head. “It’s like he didn’t even exist, you know?”
Erin jerked around to stare at her aunt, then scrambled to her feet and left the room.
Teddy, chose that moment to start working toward a full-fledged tantrum on Jacquie’s shoulder.
Becky Lennon came to take charge of her grandson. “What a terrible thing to say in front of Erin. Alicia Charlotte, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt her. I would think Erin feels the same way sometimes.”
Sandy came in from the hallway. “Did I hear Teddy? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Becky assured her daughter-in-law.
But Jacquie wasn’t so confident about Erin. She found her daughter in the upstairs bedroom she and Alicia had shared. “Hey, kid. What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.” Jacquie went to the dressing table and fiddled with the brush and comb set there. “Are you thinking about what Alicia said?”
“Maybe.” After a minute, Erin flipped around to lie on her stomach facing the mirror. “Why don’t we have pictures?”
“I told you. We just didn’t have much time.”
“But you don’t even have pictures from your wedding. Or honeymoon.”
“I—” There was no explanation that would make sense, except the truth. And the truth was the one thing she couldn’t say. “I’m sorry. It just didn’t seem important at the time.” Jacquie sat on the bed and put an arm across Erin’s back. “But I have lots of pictures of you. Doesn’t that count?”
Erin rolled over to look into her face. “I guess,” she said. But her eyes were wary and worried, and Jacquie knew with certainty that her reprieve was coming to an end.
ON THE MONDAY BEFORE the Fairfield Schooling Day, Jacquie took Imperator for his last heavy workout before the event. She pulled up beside Rhys after her first run through the course.
“Completely inconsistent,” she told him. “He’ll balk at fences he cleared last week and decide to fly across ones I haven’t gotten him over before. He almost lost me at the water—took two strides in and decided he didn’t want his feet wet, so he wheeled around and headed back out and up the hill.”
“Did you get him through after that?”
“At a walk.” She rubbed a gloved hand over Imp’s shoulder. “He doesn’t seem to know what he wants anymore. Are you sure he didn’t fall on his head?”
“No, that was definitely me. Have another go.”
Twenty minutes later, she came back equally frustrated. “We trotted through the water this time. And he did dump me at the ditch and lattice fence. I had to find a stump to mount from just to get back in the saddle.”
Rhys put a hand on her thigh. “Are you hurt?”
The horse sidled away from him. Jacquie shook her head. “No. I bounce, remember?” With a quick twist, she brought her leg over the saddle and slid to the ground. Then she led Imp back to him and held out the reins. “Why don’t you try a round with him? It very well could be that he and I simply don’t have the rapport to get through this. We’ve made a lot of progress. But I think he needs his real partner to bring him all the way back.”
Rhys stared at her hand holding the glossy black leather strips of the reins, and felt as if he’d been hosed off from the shoulders down with ice water.
He managed to shake his head. “I…don’t think so.”
“I doubt he’ll improve further until you work with him again.”
“Dammit, don’t push me.” He turned and walked away from her, his legs moving like tree trunks underneath him.
Jacquie followed, leading the horse. “You’d better give me a good reason not to push. I understand you were injured, and maybe it still hurts. But the horse matters most right now. I’m not asking for world-record timing, and you don’t have to take the advanced fences. Imp needs you to bring him home.”
“I can’t.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I can’t…take him over the jumps.”
She grabbed his arm and stopped both him and the horse. “You’re saying you’re afraid?”
“No, I’m not saying it.” He knew he was behaving like a pouting child. But that didn’t change the way his gut twisted at the idea of heading for even the simplest crossbar fence.
One side of Jacquie’s mouth twitched into a half smile. “I understand. But that’s the situation? Both you and Imp lost your confidence in that fall?”
“That’s about the size of things.”
“You ride dressage, so it’s not the horse. Or the height.”
“Right.”
“Stadium fences and cross-country?”
“I haven’t faced either one.”
“Yet you’ve coached all of us.”
“With, you’ll have noticed, both feet firmly on the ground.”
“Okay, then. Get on.”
He turned to look her in the eye. “No.”
“Rhys, you’re letting your brain rule your gut.”
“It’s my gut threatening to revolt at the thought.”
“You’re not a coward.”
“I wasn’t, fourteen years ago. Things change, Jacquie.”
“Not this. Please, just get in the saddle. I can’t throw you on top of the horse. I can’t make you do anything.”
“Actually, I believe you could have anything from me that you wanted.” After a long moment, he took the reins from her hand and rounded to Imp’s left side. “Hold still, old man. I’m not as young as I used to be.” Imp was kind enough to stand in one place and Rhys pulled himself into the saddle. They walked a few circles, settling in with each other again. Then Rhys looked at Jacquie. “So?”
She nodded down the leaf-covered lane ahead of them. “This way.” They walked to the starting gate of the Rourke Park cross-country course. Open ground stretched in front of them for about two hundred yards, ending at a simple two-log fence. Simple, except for the fact that the logs were twelve feet long and four feet high. Rhys swallowed against nausea.
“Trot over there,” Jacquie instructed. “Nothing fancy. For a big guy like this, it’s just a hop. So let him hop. He’s been over twice today so far—he shouldn’t have any worries.”
Imperator trotted smoothly enough away from the starting gate. The ground was covered with brown winter grass, but was solid underneath—good footing. They approached the fence with Imp’s ears pricked forward and Rhys’s hands sweating inside his gloves. He didn’t think for the horse at all, let Imp choose his own spot for taking off. At the last second, Rhys closed his eyes.
The horse reached the log, straightened his forelegs, and stopped dead. Rhys hit the bridge of his nose against a strongly arched neck, and fell back into the saddle.
They turned and trotted nicely back to Jacquie.
She was waiting with her arms crossed. “Again.”
Rhys rolled his eyes, turned the horse and tried again. He kept his eyes open this time, and he didn’t get his nose bumped.
“You’ll have to canter,” Jacquie said when he went back. “Imp can’t have too much time to think about this. Take the crop and urge him through the jump.”
The blood rushed from Rhys’s head, and he thought about leaving the saddle helmet first. “Jacquie, this doesn’t work.”
“It does and it will. Be your own student, Rhys. Kick your own butt over the fence.”
“Interesting image.” He took the crop she held out. “I’m hating you right now.”
“Let me count the number of times I hated you that summer.”
“I’d rather count the number of times you loved me.” With the thought, he circled Imperator in a trot, picked up the canter and headed once again for the fence.
The feel came back as Rhys settled into Imp’s rhythm. He could see the spot from which they should take off, knew to look beyond the fence to where they would head next.
But what he saw was the fence itself, the huge wooden logs so similar to the one he’d fallen on last fall. He could almost hear the crack of his back as he landed. His hands and his knees loosened.
Rhys hit the grass in front of the fence face first.
Imperator made the jump clean and clear, and kept on going.
CHAPTER NINE
“OMIGOD…omigod…omigod…omigod…” Racing to the fence where Rhys had fallen, Jacquie whispered a prayer in time with the pounding of her boots on the hard ground. “Don’t be hurt. Please don’t let him be hurt.”
He lay on his side, as still as the logs beside him. Jacquie dropped to her knees. “Rhys?” She put a hand gently on his shoulder. A shudder went through his body. “Rhys?”
After silent and agonizing seconds, he dragged in a long, harsh breath. “Damn, that hurt.” He rolled to his back, groaning. “Oh, hell. Bloody, bloody hell.”
“Are you okay? Does everything work?”
“As much as it ever did. But…damn.” He drew his knees up and crossed his arms over his chest to curl forward, then dropped flat again with a moan. “Where’s the horse?”
“He ran on. If you’re sure you’re okay, I’ll go get him.” She started to rise, but Rhys grabbed her wrist.
“Let’s try this, first.” Swearing, he levered himself up on one elbow, flattened his lips against his teeth and gave two sharp, loud whistles.
Jacquie winced. “Ouch.”
“Sorry. But Imp usually comes when I—see, there he is.”
The stallion came cantering back through the trees, to all appearances carefree. Jacquie got to her feet, climbed over the log fence and waited for him to come near. “Good boy, Imp. Whoa. Whoa.” She grabbed at the reins with a sigh of relief. “Let’s get you in the trailer, big guy.”
“Don’t mind me,” Rhys said from the other side of the jump. “I’m going to lie here and collect my thoughts.”
Once Jacquie and the horse were out of sight, he started the struggle that would get him to his feet. He was soaked in sweat by the time he straightened up. You’re certainly nobody’s hero, he told himself, if you can’t take a beginner fence without breaking down. Maybe Andrew’s right.
He limped back to where they’d parked, and propped himself against the side of the truck bed.
Jacquie came out of the horse trailer looking anxious. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“A little stiff. I’ve had worse falls.” He hunched a shoulder and winced. “Obviously.”
“I’m sorry I forced you into jumping. I—”
“Don’t apologize. It’s nobody’s fault but my own.”
“You shouldn’t blame yourself, either.” Her green gaze was fierce on his behalf.
But sympathy was not called for. “I didn’t see anyone else on the horse.”
“We’re all nervous after a hard fall.”
Rhys smiled, with bitterness. “This wasn’t nerves. This was…failure.”
“Failure is not trying at all.”
“For some people, maybe.”
“You’re different?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” He glanced at her and quickly looked away. “When you perform at the top levels, ‘just trying’ doesn’t meet anyone’s expectations.”
“Especially yours.”
“Especially mine.” His head ached and each separate bone in his spine throbbed independently. “But thanks for the effort.”
But, God help him, he needed more. He turned his head to look into her eyes, searching for a spark to kindle the passion between them. Since his very first glimpse of Jacquie Archer, he’d never seen her without wanting her.
And there it was, the answer to his desire, in the intensity of her honest eyes. A wise man would have hesitated, even turned away. Rhys curled an arm around Jacquie’s waist, pulled her against him and took her mouth with his.
Jacquie was stunned by the desperation in Rhys’s kiss, in his arms holding her tightly to him. He seemed to be seeking, pleading for…what? She offered everything she could, answering the press and slide of his mouth with her own.
They broke apart for breath, and a moment later Imperator slammed the side of the trailer with his rear hooves.
“He doesn’t like trailers,” Rhys said in a rough voice, and Jacquie chuckled. “I should get him home.” But for another minute they stood as they were, with her head tucked under his chin, his heart beating hard against her ear, and the wonderful warmth of his body surrounding her.
Then he stepped back, though his hands lingered on her shoulders until the last instant. “And I’m sure you have your own work to take care of.”
Jacquie brushed her hair out of her face, trying to descend back to solid ground. “Um…yes. I do have a farm visit to make before I pick Erin up at school.”
Rhys backed up until he stood beside the driver’s door. “Will she be there for her lesson tomorrow? There are still a few jumps to paint.”
She was too bemused to do more than agree. “We’ll be there.”
His smile was everything she remembered from that summer so long ago. “Excellent. I’ll see you then.”
The Fake Husband Page 14
