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She hobbled to the mounting block with Mike’s help. Pity she had to be in pain before she’d let him near her.
Mike lowered her so that she sat on the block, and he knelt in front of her. “Stretch your heel down.”
“No way!”
He grabbed the heel of her boot and pulled down hard. She yelped again, but she kept it down when he took his hands away. He reached around her thigh and began to knead. He could feel the knotted muscle. After a moment it began to loosen. He heard her sigh.
He, on the other hand, felt other portions of his body tighten and hoped nobody would notice. He was entirely too susceptible to this woman. His attraction to her had been powerful and immediate. That had only happened to him once before—the first time he laid eyes on Sandi. Sandi, at least, had liked him—loved him, in fact. Liz Matthews made no bones about her dislike.
“You’re good at this,” Liz said and leaned back with a sigh.
“Tennis and handball are notorious for tying up your muscles. You either learn to unkink them fast or walk with a cane.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m sorry I snarled at you. I hate having anybody see me fall. Makes me feel like a fool.”
“No problem.”
She began to giggle. “You’re as dirty as I am.”
He shrugged and stood in front of her. “Dry cleaners clean.”
“Yeah.” She pulled herself up. At that moment, Pat came around the corner followed by Vic and Angie. “You fall?” Vic asked with studied casualness.
“Trusty quit dirty on me. I’m okay.” She cocked her thumb at Pat. “I think your daddy’s ready to go. And Pat, better wear jeans tomorrow.” She limped toward the lounge.
Mike watched her. She hurt considerably more than she was willing to let on. Maybe she’d cracked a rib. He ought to drag her to a doctor just to be sure. She’d never go. Hardheaded, opinionated damned female. He caught his breath. Great, he thought, now I’ve got two of them to worry about. Where in hell had that thought come from.
“WHO WAS THAT masked man?” Angie asked as she flopped down in one of the shabby leather club chairs in the clients’ lounge. The sound of Mike’s Volvo on the gravel driveway was just fading.
Liz lay stretched on the equally shabby leather couch.
Angie continued, “There’s something realty—grrrr—sexy about him.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Liz lied. “You’re a married woman. You shouldn’t be growling at other men.”
“Shoot, I growl at everybody.”
“Unfortunately, so does he.” Liz sat up slowly. She was really beginning to stiffen up. “He’s Mike Whitten, the chairman of the board of trustees at Edenvale School. The guy we have to convince to give us their after-school riding program this fall.”
“That’s Mike Whitten?” Angie began to laugh. “God help you. Kevin knows him from the racquet club. Says he’s rumored to drink a quart of antifreeze every morning just to keep his blood circulating.”
“I can believe it.” Liz began to knead her shoulders. “He’s Mr. Iceberg to everyone except that kid of his.”
“Well, I think he’s gorgeous in a craggy sort of way. Anyway, enough about the intimidating Mr. Whitten. Am I back in your good graces?”
“Partially.”
Vic came in, dug a diet soda out of the refrigerator and took the club chair across from Angie. She looked her niece over carefully. “You really okay?”
“Sure. And feeling foolish.”
Angie sighed, leaned forward and dropped her brown hands between her knees. “Liz isn’t the only one feeling foolish.”
“Why did you leave us?” Vic asked.
Angie hunched her shoulders and took a deep breath. “After Frank died, I stopped winning. I knew it wasn’t your fault, but I thought if I went over to Mark I could start winning again. And I did, too, for a little while.”
“What went wrong?”
“God, everything. He started badgering me to sell both my horses and let him find me some better ones—meaning more expensive. He was furious when I refused, and even more furious when I decided to breed Boop against his wishes.”
“Why did you?” Liz asked.
Angie blushed. “It’s being around Kevin and all those babies. I wanted a baby—something to love, even if it was a foal. And I’ll move Charlie here too if you’ve got room for another jumper.”
“Absolutely,” Vic said.
“Okay,” Angie said. “I’ll leave you a letter of authorization to pick up Charlie tomorrow and bring him here.”
“And the problem of not winning that Mark was supposed to solve for you...?”
Angie shrugged. “I can’t ride Boop until her baby is six months old and weaned. Then it’ll take another three months to get her in condition to jump again. That puts us into next spring, so I won’t be riding any hunters unless I can pick up a few rides for some of your clients, or maybe even for Liz, if she’s got too many horses to ride.”
“We’ll be glad to have you,” Vic said.
“So you don’t care about winning any longer?” Liz asked. “Don’t believe that for a second.”
Angie sat up straight and held her hands out. “Hey, you two are far and away the best trainers I know. I intend to win with you. ValleyCrest is developing clout again with the pair of you. The people that matter are noticing you.” She raised her eyebrows. “You’re even starting to scare a few people like Mark. Goody, goody.”
LATER, after Liz and Vic shared a salad and a chicken sandwich, Liz bedded all her animals for the night, including Jacko the parrot, and climbed into her old clawfooted tub to soak her bruises in a herbal bath. As she sank into the blissfully hot water, she wondered what Mike Whitten was having for dinner with his Pitti-Pat. Healthy junk. She smiled. He had no idea she and Pat were conspiring against him.
She felt a tingle in the pit of her stomach as she remembered the feel of his muscular arm around her, his long fingers on her thigh. Much to her disgust she agreed with Angie. He did exude a kind of wild sexiness.
Liz hadn’t been interested in any man in a very long time. Not only were the pickings slim, but she told herself she didn’t have time for another relationship that would wind up going nowhere. Men did not like to share her attention with the horses. They resented the fact that the horses came first. Always had, always would. And so would the dogs, the cats and the parrots. Animals didn’t break your heart. Men invariably did.
But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to feel Mike’s arm around her again. Would it be worth falling off a very tall horse to get him to touch her?
“Nah,” she said aloud and closed her eyes. “Although I could always fall off a shorter horse.”
CHAPTER FIVE
DURING DINNER, Pat gave Mike a replay of every moment of her first day at camp.
Mike thought she seemed happier than he had ever seen her. Her face was flushed...
He reached across the table and laid the back of his hand against her forehead.
“Oh, Daddy,” Pat snapped. “I don’t have any fever.”
“You’ve got a lot of color in your cheeks.”
“The sun does that.” Pat snorted. “Get a grip. I feel great!” She told him for the third time how she’d trotted that pony all by herself. A couple of times she nearly slipped and told him the truth—about how she stayed behind so that Liz could help her work through her fear. She managed to catch herself in time.
She was used to giving her father a heavily edited version of her activities. She knew he’d have a cat fit if he ever caught on to some of the things she did when he wasn’t around, and Mrs. H. had promised not to snitch on her. It wasn’t lying exactly. She didn’t want Mike to worry—well, not any more than he did, at any rate.
Maybe when he saw how much fun she was having he’d loosen up a little. She checked to see how he was taking all this. He had a goofy grin on his face. She got up to kiss his cheek.
And she kept up the chatter. Mike found he was listening with a tinge of jealousy. Pat was the only person left in his life who loved him. God knew he loved her. And now she seemed to be developing a crush on Liz Matthews. All his colleagues had warned him that sooner or later Pat would grow up and begin to move away from him.
Strange. He’d never rebelled against his parents. He’d felt no more for them than they had for him. They saw him as a certificate of deposit—tend it properly and the dividends would be worth the expense.
Well, he’d paid off handsomely by presenting them with a large trust fund that would make their years of retirement from the faculty at Berkeley more than comfortable. And then he’d walked out of their lives.
That was almost twenty years ago. He doubted they noticed that he no longer called or came to see them. His father would still be writing stuffy papers about the state of the economy for academic journals, and his mother would be so engrossed in her mathematical formulae that she’d forget dinner.
When they’d sent him to prep school at age twelve, he’d never had a moment’s homesickness. Probably because he’d never felt at home with them. Even as a small boy, he’d often wondered whether he should introduce himself to his parents at breakfast. They never seemed to know quite who he was or what he was doing in their cloistered lives.
Wiping her hands on a linen towel, Mrs. Hannaford came in from the kitchen. “Enough. Time for bed, young lady.”
“No. It’s too early.” Pat’s statement was flat. “Did I tell you...”
“Tomorrow comes early.”
“I’m too keyed up to sleep. I’ll just lie there and toss and turn until daylight.”
“So look at the ceiling and think about tomorrow,” Mike said. “Mrs. H. is right. Take your bath and go to bed. Now.”
“Daddy, I’ve had one bath this evening. I do not intend to take another, thank you very much.”
“Point taken. So brush your teeth and things.”
Pat stalked off toward her bedroom with her head high. She could usually get around her father except when it came to her health. Bedtimes were not negotiable. At the door she paused and turned to say dramatically, “I can hardly wait to get to college and away from here. I plan to drink, smoke pot and date the entire football team.”
“You do and I’ll lock you up in a dungeon until you’re ninety,” Mike answered.
“I’m already locked in a dungeon.” She slammed the door behind her.
“Just like you.” Mrs. Hannaford’s voice was gruff with affection.
“I drink very little, I don’t smoke pot or anything else, and I have never ever dated anybody’s football team.”
“You might consider dating the girls’ volleyball team.”
Mike laughed. “They’re about six years older than Pat. Besides, at my age all that sex would kill me.”
Mrs. Hannaford gave him a cool appraisal. “I doubt that. You going out tonight?”
“No, I’m going to bed. Rachelle is at some real-estate dinner thing.”
“Oh, really.”
At the housekeeper’s tone, Mike raised his head from the back of his chair. “I don’t know why you dislike Rachelle. She’s beautiful, has a great career of her own so she’s not after me for my money—her alimony has left her a wealthy woman—and she and Pat are even civil to each other most of the time. In one year Pat will be thirteen. She needs a mother to—oh, teach her how to shave her legs.”
“I have already taught her that.”
“You have?” Surprised, Mike pulled himself out of the chair and walked over to Mrs. Hannaford.
“Mrs. Hannaford, I don’t know what we’d do without you. Promise me that even if I do marry again, you’ll always be with us.”
She turned away and casually flicked her linen towel at an imaginary dust mote on the polished glass dining-room table. “A new wife will want to do things her way.”
“Not negotiable. You’re family.”
“And who says I’d want to stay under those circumstances? I could always get another job.” She began to polish harder, making tight little whorls on the glass.
Mike felt a jolt. Melba Hannaford had only been with them for a little over two years, but from the beginning he’d never thought of her as an employee. She’d seen too much of their lives, been too much a part of the bad times. He cleared his throat and moved to the window. His hands worked at his sides. When he spoke, his voice sounded colder than it had before. “No doubt you could. You are extremely competent.”
“That nonsense won’t work with me,” she said. “I know you too well. But sooner or later Pat is not going to need either of us, you know.”
“That won’t happen for years.” He felt much more relief than he would admit. “And I don’t plan to marry anyone until I am absolutely positive that it will be the right thing for all of us.”
“I would never presume to tell you who to many,” she said. “But you should not remain celibate for the rest of your life.”
“Who says I’m celibate? And how would you know?” He smiled as he turned and saw the color rise in her cheeks.
“I did not say chaste, Mr. Whitten. Look up celibate in the dictionary. It merely means unmarried, whatever you young people think. All I’m saying is that once Pat goes off to college and starts making a life for herself, you are going to find yourself very much alone.”
He walked over to the cabinet in the corner and pulled a bottle of light beer out of the small refrigerator. He leaned against the closed door, popped the top and took a deep swig. “The wrong woman would be a hell of a lot worse for Pat than celibacy.”
“So find the right one. For both of you.” Mrs. Hannaford sat on the black leather chair and propped her feet in their shining white tennis shoes on the glass-topped coffee table. “Oh, that feels good.”
Mike sat across from her and propped his Top-Siders on the other side. “You don’t think Rachelle is the right one?”
“You’re the one who’s got to live with her if you marry her.”
“True enough.” He took another long swig of his beer, then dropped his head back and closed his eyes. Pat’s exuberance wore him out.
“Hmmph.” Mrs. Hannaford pulled herself to her feet and stalked off to the kitchen.
“One more thing,” Mrs. Hannaford spoke from the kitchen doorway. “What on earth did you do to that blue suit you were wearing?”
Mike laughed. “You do not want to know.”
“Indeed.” Mrs. Hannaford slammed the door behind her.
All his women seemed to be slamming doors on him tonight.
Mike was alone with his thoughts. He tried to conjure up Rachelle’s elegant face. Instead, he found himself staring at a vision of Liz Matthews, dirty face, freckles, wild hair and all. He blinked and sat up.
