Mr. Miracle

“Uh-huh, thought so. There’s always a catch, isn’t there?”

“Indeed there is. This is mine.” He pulled his right hand from the pocket of his jeans, held it in front of him and peeled the glove off with his left.

Vic looked at the crooked fingers, the scarred and mangled skin, and felt her stomach lurch. She fought to keep from shuddering.

“Sorry, should have warned you. It’s not pretty,” he said with an edge of bitterness. “I can exercise any horse you choose, ride them over fences, work them on the lunge line and on the flat. What I can’t do is the fine rein work—the tricky little dressage stuff that makes a decent horse into a brilliant one. I haven’t the motor skills any longer, do you see?” He slid the glove back over his hand.

Vic nodded at the hand. “How did it happen?”

“Got it caught in a hay baler. By the time they got the thing stopped and unwound me from it, it had pretty much mangled my hand and arm. The doctors spent a good long time putting everything back in place, but there’s only so much they can do. I’ve done physical therapy now for two years. This is as good as it’s going to get.”

“So you wear your gloves.

“Okay. I pick the horse. You have about thirty minutes to ride before we have to turn on the lights in the arena. If you can ride to suit me, and if you’re willing to sleep in the groom’s room behind the hayloft and work like a navvy on anything and everything I put you to, then...”

“Then, lass?”

She held out her right hand. “Then we shake on it.”

This time he was the one caught off guard. He pulled his wounded hand in its black glove out of his jeans pocket and extended it.

Looking resolutely into his eyes, Vic took his mangled hand and shook it. “After that,” she said, “it’s boss-lass to you, laddie.”

As they passed the office door, the telephone rang. “Oh, bother,” Vic said. “Look, go pick a horse—any horse you like. You’ll find a clean saddle pad in the tack room and there’s a saddle you can use on the wash rack. I’ll find you a bridle when I get there.”

“That’s all right. I brought my own saddle on the back of the motorcycle.”

She nodded as she answered the telephone.

“Vic, it’s Kevin.”

“Kevin, how is Angie?”

“Arm in a sling, mad as a wet hen that she’s let you down, depressed as hell and half-drunk on dope.” He sounded almost bitter. “I should have called yesterday, but I had three babies to deliver.”

It didn’t sound like Kevin at all. He was known to all and sundry as Saint Kevin, Angie’s obstetrician/gynecologist husband who provided Angie with unlimited funds, supported her at every turn and never lost his cool no matter how exasperating she became.

“I’m so sorry it happened, Kevin.”

“She says it was her fault. Not thinking.” He snorted. “Thinking too damned much is more like it.”

“Oh?”

Vic heard his sigh down the phone lines. “Sorry, Vic, got to go. Angie’ll be out sometime tomorrow to pick up her car.” He hung up.

Vic sat with her hand on the receiver. Now what was that about? Trouble in paradise?

Maybe that was why Angie had fallen off a horse that normally would not have been able to buck off a four-year-old child.

Well, Vic thought, pulling herself up, it was none of her business. She had enough on her plate without playing marriage counselor to Kevin and Angie. She went to find Jamey McLachlan.

Angie Womack’s big jumper, Trust Fund, stood on the wash rack with his saddle in place, but Jamey was nowhere to be found. Vic listened for the sound of his footsteps and heard...nothing. Even Mr. Miracle had gone silent. Good Lord! Surely the man had sense enough not to mess with a strange stallion, especially one the size of an eighteen-wheeler.

She ran outside toward the stallion paddock. If that damned man had gotten himself trampled to death, she’d kill him.

In the gathering twilight she saw them, so black that only Jamey’s olive skin glowed in the twilight. She stood still and watched. The stallion—all nineteen hands and two thousand pounds of him—leaned against Jamey, his huge head drooped and braced against Jamey’s knee, his eyes half-closed in ecstasy as Jamey scratched behind his ears as though the horse were some kind of big puppy.

Under his breath Jamey whistled softly, some strange Celtic melody that seemed to flow from his bones and into the stallion’s. Vic felt the sound melt into her as well and shivered with it.

He raised his head, saw her, stopped his whistling and smiled into her eyes. “Shall I bring this big lad in for you, lass? Ah...boss-lass?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Vic said. “His lead line is on the gate hook. I’ll give you a hand.”

“No need. I’ve got it.”

“You’d better hook the chain over his nose. He’s a handful.”

“He’s just a big old boy. Gentle as a buffalo.” Jamey picked up the end of the shank and walked beside the stallion’s shoulder with the shank hanging loosely from his hand. The stallion behaved almost like a hound at heel.

Vic opened the gate and stood aside. She watched man and horse wander by. The stallion held his nose against the man’s shoulder.

“Come on, old son,” Jamey murmured. “Time to settle in for the night.” Vic followed at a safe distance until the stallion moved meekly into his stall and turned around to bump Jamey gently with his muzzle.

“Now be quiet,” Jamey said. “You’ll get your dinner soon enough. And the girls when you’re ready for them.”

“That’s amazing.”

“It’s a gift. I’ve always had it. Animals like me. Don’t know why. Now, shall we try that big gelding over a few fences?”

Vic nodded.

After watching him work the big jumper for forty-five minutes under lights in the newly covered arena, Vic knew she’d found her exercise rider.

Later they walked the aisle silently side by side feeding, haying and filling water buckets. Vic felt as though she’d known this man all her life.

He was handsome as Lucifer himself. She could practically smell the pheromones he exuded. He undoubtedly had scores of beautiful younger women falling all over him. To him she was no doubt only an employer, but she was aware of him, his maleness, in a way she had never been with any man. Certainly not with her deceased husband. Given Frank’s nature, his size and his irascibility, that wasn’t surprising.

There was an aura of raw sexuality about Jamey McLachlan. He was like the stallion, except that his calls were silent. Whatever he had, she had tuned into it, even though she should be too old and wise a mare to go into heat the minute an attractive stallion nickered at her.

If she wasn’t very very careful, she would wind up making a fool of herself.

HE SLID THE EMPTY HAY cart into the storage area and turned to her. “So, where’s this groom’s room? I could use a shower. Must smell like a goat.”

Actually, Vic thought, he smelled of male sweat and dust, not at all a bad scent. “Up the ladder, I’m afraid. Behind the hayloft. We haven’t used it since our last working student a couple of years ago. It’ll be pretty filthy.”

“Let’s see. Show me?”

Vic reached for the ladder to the loft and pulled herself up, all too aware of the seat of her dusty jeans rising to his eye level and above. She climbed as quickly as she could, stepping off onto the hay platform fenced off from the main floor with a barrier to keep children and pets from falling—her new nephew-in-law’s idea. She flicked the light switch on the wall, revealing neat bales of hay stacked to the ceiling.

She felt him behind her before she turned to look at him.

He hooked his thumbs into his waistband. His injured hand hung at an awkward angle.

Vic looked away quickly. “Let’s see how bad that room is.” She walked around the nearest bale to a door partly concealed in the wall. It was unlocked and opened with a squeal like an annoyed hog. Vic reached inside and turned on the light. “Oh, dear!”

He followed her inside and made a “humph” sound that seemed half annoyance and half laugh.

Vic turned to face him. “I’m so sorry. There’s no way you can stay here.”

“Don’t know why not—the mice seemed to have enjoyed it immensely.” He grinned at her.

The floor was littered with mouse droppings. Vic had expected dust and festoons of cobwebs. But somehow despite all the careful caulking, the steel wool behind the electrical outlets, the tightly cased storm window, the mice had managed to slip in. No doubt they had scattered when they heard the squeal of the door.

The floor was tiled in a nondescript gray-brown, and the sofa had been decently covered with brown tweed before it became a maternity ward for generations of field mice looking to escape from the winter’s chill. There was a student desk and chair, a green-shaded lamp, the usual end and side tables, a single bed stripped to the mattress and covered in a thick plastic protector. The mice had made short work of the plastic.

Vic raised her hands and dropped them in defeat. “This will have to be completely fumigated, repainted and the furniture replaced before you can stay here. I’m not sure a grenade and a flame thrower would help much.” She turned to him. “I should have known—it’s just that there’s so much to do that the things that aren’t critical slip into the background.”

“It’s a barn, and where there are barns, there are mice. And probably rats and snakes, as well. Comes with the territory.” He seemed remarkably cheerful.

Vic was embarrassed. What had she been thinking when she’d offered him the room without checking it first? “Let’s get out of here. I’ll call one of the local motels and book you a room for the next couple of nights until I can make this place livable.” She glanced over her shoulder as she reached for the light switch. “If that’s possible.”

“Don’t worry about a motel. I’ll bed down in the hayloft.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” He probably didn’t want to admit he hadn’t enough money for a motel. She’d have to think of something else.

She turned off the hayloft light and waited while he slung his body over the edge of the loft and started down the ladder. He used his damaged hand casually, but carefully, not relying on it to hold his weight.

She followed. Two rungs from the bottom she felt his hands encircle her waist, felt herself lifted from the ladder and set on the floor. She caught her breath at the suddenness of it.

He was looking at her, one eyebrow cocked. “I’ve slept rough a good many nights.” He looked down at his body. “It’s the shower I’ll miss. Bit too cold in February to rinse off with the wash-rack hose.”

Vic gulped at the thought of Jamey McLachlan standing naked on the wash rack.

“Oh, no. You’d catch pneumonia.” Then, before she thought the words, she spoke them, and wished a moment later she could take them back. “Look, I’ve got a perfectly good spare bedroom under the eaves, and it has its own bath—plenty of hot water. And if you don’t mind sandwiches, I could fix us both something to eat. It’s quite a way to the nearest fast-food place.”

Albert would kill her if he ever found out she’d let a totally strange man into her house. He’d be right. This guy could be Jack the Ripper. The letter from Marshall Dunn could be a fake. She opened her mouth to rescind the invitation, but he didn’t give her a chance.

“Capital idea.”

Her heart lurched. He had a crooked smile that seemed to work harder on one side of his mouth than the other. His eyes crinkled at the corners. She doubted Jack the Ripper was quite that attractive when he smiled at his victims. But then again, maybe he had been. Every bit that attractive.

Actually Jamey might be the one in danger from her if she didn’t put a cork on her underused libido.

“If you’ve got some eggs and a bit of cheese, I make a hell of an omelette.” He started for the door.

“You cook?”

“A man without a woman eats in restaurants, sponges off his friends or learns to cook.” He waited for her at the door. “And there’s an added benefit. I’ve found that a man who can cook goes a fair way to winning most women.”

“Indeed.” Well, that obviously put her in her place. No man intent on seduction would reveal his secrets. She obviously fit into an older generation marked Not Suitable for Bedding. That should have been a comforting thought. Actually she felt darned annoyed.

“Follow me,” she said in a very peremptory tone, then added perversely, “Mr. McLachlan,” as she walked to her truck.

“I’ve a better idea.” He reached for the motorcycle handlebars. “Ever ride on one of these things?”

Vic froze in her tracks and felt a cold sweat break out. She began to shake her head fiercely and found herself taking two steps back, her hands raised in front of her chest as though to ward off a blow. “N-no, thank you.” She fought to keep her voice level and hoped he had not heard her stammer.

He’d heard, all right. She could tell that from the way he cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “I’m a careful driver. I won’t turn us over.”

Her head seemed to be swinging out of her control. She felt her pulse race and that awful strangling sensation at the base of her throat. Not now, Lord, she thought. It’s just a stupid motorcycle, not a hydrogen bomb!

He reached her in two strides, grasped her upper arm with his good hand and shoved her head forward with the other. “Breathe,” he instructed. “Is there a paper bag handy?”

Beneath the pressure of his palm she shook her head. “I’m okay,” she choked. “Let me up, dammit!”

He released her head, but not her arm.

She met his eyes and hers were blazing. “How dare you!”

“Hell, woman, I know a panic attack when I see one.”

“I don’t have panic attacks.”

“Well, you just did.” He released her arm, but stood too close to her. His eyes were precisely level with hers. He grinned and stepped back. “I know because I had them for six months after this.” He raised his gloved hand. “Couldn’t even stand near the damn tractor. Not very practical on a farm.” He turned away from her, shoved his hands in his pockets and ambled back in the direction of the motorcycle. He was whistling softly under his breath.

She sucked in a single breath and willed her pulse to slow. “What did you do about it?”

“Climbed onto it at two in the morning when nobody was around to watch me and sat there shaking like a leaf until sunrise.” He shrugged. “Threw up twice. Spent all morning cutting the yearling pasture. Must have lost twenty pounds from the sweat.” He looked at her and leaned one hand on the seat of the motorcycle. “Worked for me.” He raised a hand in invitation. “It’ll work for you, too. Come on. You can’t spend your life being afraid.”

She felt the surge of fear again.

“Look at me,” he said softly. “My eyes to your eyes. Your hand in my hand.”

She took a step toward him. His eyes burned into her. He took her hand gently. She seemed to have lost the strength to draw it away. He nodded. “Up you go.”

She backed off a step.

His grip on her hand tightened. “It’s only a machine.”

“My point exactly. It doesn’t care whether it kills us or not.”

“Ah, but I do. Now get on.”

“You first.” Her brain screamed at her in disgust. Surely she couldn’t actually plan to do as he said, could she?

He swung his leg over the seat without letting go of her hand. “Now you. You promised.”

She was astride the pillion and he was pulling her hands around his waist before she said indignantly, “I did no such thing.”

“Your eyes did. Now put your feet behind mine and hang on tight.”

She closed her eyes, gripped his waist and leaned her head so that her cheek lay against his shoulder blade. She smelled the leather of his jacket and felt the crazy quilt of cracks against her face.

The engine sounded like a 747 coming in for a landing.

They were off up the gravel drive.

She barely had time to register the feel of taut ridges of muscle that ran along his rib cage before he stopped the bike.

She only realized she’d had her eyes closed when she opened them. They were right in front of her cottage.

“This is your house, I presume?”

She gurgled something affirmative. Her stomach churned. Please, God, don’t let me throw up on him.

“Told you I wouldn’t kill us,” he said.

Her fingers seemed locked together in some sort of muscle spasm. He whispered over his shoulder. “You can let go now if you like.”

“Oh, God,” she breathed, and released him.

“It’s pleasant to have you plastered against my back, but it might make walking difficult.” He swung his leg forward over the handlebars, twisted and slipped his hands under her elbows. “Dismount the way you’d get off a horse.”

Obediently she swung off. He held her for a moment at arm’s length. “There, that’s one down. I’ve an idea we’ve a few more to go.”

“A few what?”

“Barriers.”

CHAPTER THREE

A TUBBY BASSET HOUND and a Labrador retriever with a gray muzzle met Vic at her front door with evident delight. Jamey hunkered down instantly and fondled them both. “Aren’t you the lovely boys, then?” he said. The dogs nearly wagged their bodies in two.

Vic stepped around dogs and man and walked into the living room. She was still shaking from the ride on Jamey’s motorcycle. She’d been scared, but elated, too.

“My niece, Liz, took the two Jack Russell terriers with her to Florida,” she said, “and a friend is keeping her parrot. He’s not fond of me.”

“Can’t imagine any creature not being fond of you.”

“Unfortunately my cat views the parrot as an entrée.”

“Cat? Where?”

“You probably won’t see him. He used to be a barn cat until he got an ear torn off in a fight. Now he’s a house cat, but he’s peculiar. Hides from strangers.”

“Does he really?”

Vic turned and saw Jamey—still squatting on the floor—with a large one-eared gray tabby climbing up his shirtfront to butt him in the chin.

“Oh.”

“Have names, do they?”

“The basset is Max, the Labrador is Sam and the cat is Stripes. We don’t go in for fancy names much around here.”

“We don’t at home, either.” He stood with the cat in his arms. Vic heard the purr from across the room. Surely a man so good with animals couldn’t be Jack the Ripper, could he?

“Going to call Marshall Dunn now? Check on me?”

His ability to read her mind was disconcerting. “It’s almost four in the morning in England, isn’t it? Marshall would kill me if I woke him now.”

“He probably would. But he’ll be up by six to watch the lads ride his Thoroughbreds across the Downs. You can call him before you go to bed.” He grinned over the cat’s head. “And push a chair under your door if you’re nervous.”

Vic felt her face flush. She’d been thinking of doing precisely that. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Come on upstairs. I’ll show you your room.”

“Let me bring in my kit from the bike first.”

“Sure. I’m amazed you can carry a saddle on a motorcycle.”

“Easy. Set the roll bar up in back and strap the saddle to it. I can carry as much in the side holders as you can in the trunk of your average car.”

She watched him open the various holders, extract a pair of duffel bags and bring them in.

“Now I’m ready for that shower,” he said. “Then I’ll make you an omelette fit for a queen.”

“I’m a perfectly adequate cook, thank you.”

“You may be the world’s greatest chef, but I owe you for the job and the bed. Sit. I’ll find my way. You put your feet up.”

Instead of following his advice, she went to the refrigerator, checked to see that she had plenty of eggs and “a bit of cheese,” as well as English muffins. She poured herself a glass of white zinfandel, set another glass on the counter for Jamey and headed for her bedroom.

She’d moved her enormous old bedroom furniture down from the big house. Other than unpacking enough of her clothes to work in, she’d done precious little else. There was not a picture on the wall nor a knickknack on a table. Cardboard boxes sat stacked in every corner. The bed was made up with sheets, pillowcases and quilts, but she hadn’t bothered to put on the dust ruffle. There didn’t seem to be time these days for more than eating, sleeping and working horses.

She sat down on the bed, pulled off her paddock boots and her heavy socks, wiggled her toes, sipped her wine and lay back on the bed for just a moment.

“YOUR DINNER’S READY, lass,” a soft voice said.

Her eyes popped open and she sat up so quickly her head spun.

Jamey McLachlan stood in the doorway—no, lounged in the doorway. His skin glistened and his wet hair shone like an otter’s pelt. He wore fresh jeans and a bright red crewneck sweater with the sleeves pushed up his muscular forearms and only the one glove on his bad hand. He was barefoot.

Suddenly she felt very grubby. “Uh, give me a minute. I must have fallen asleep.”

“I hated to wake you. You looked so peaceful.”

She swung off the bed, pointedly shut the bedroom door in his face and walked into her bathroom. Yuck. She had probably slept with her mouth open and snored like a walrus. She repaired as much damage as she could and joined Jamey in the kitchen.

“You’re as good as your word,” she said half an hour later over the remains of omelette and green salad. “That was delicious. I didn’t realize I had any lettuce that wasn’t growing penicillin.”

He picked up the plates and took them to the sink.

“Nope,” she said. “I’ll clean up. You must be worn-out from riding a motorcycle all day.”

“I’d say it’s a toss-up which one of us is more tired. And remember, boss-lass, you said you intend to work me hard.”

“So I will, but you’re not on kitchen patrol. Go to bed. That’s an order.”

He saluted smartly. “Aye, aye, Captain.” At the kitchen door he paused. “Thanks for taking me in. I promise you Marshall will vouch for me.”

“No doubt.”

She waited until she heard his door close, stuffed the dishes and utensils in the dishwasher, turned it on and went to her bedroom. Marshall would be up by now. She laid her hand on the telephone.

Then she withdrew it. So long as Jamey McLachlan slept under her roof, she’d rather think he was everything he seemed. If Marshall had reservations, what would she do? She couldn’t kick him out in the middle of the night.

Still, better to have him upstairs where she’d hear him if he went out than have him at the stable. He didn’t look like a drug user, but there were plenty of drugs in the locked medicine cabinet that the average druggie would thoroughly enjoy. And there was plenty of tack worth stealing. No. She’d check him out in the morning. “Stripes?” she whispered. “Ready for bed?”

The cat did not respond. So he was hiding, after all. Just a fluke that he’d come to curl around Jamey. Somehow that made Vic feel a little better.

She propped her slipper chair under the door handle before she got ready for bed. Just in case. As she lay awake, she could hear Jamey moving about over her head.

She was used to unexpected company. Riders from other parts of the country who came to town for horse shows often wound up sleeping in her bedrooms, on her Hide-ABed, even in sleeping bags on the floor. Some of them she knew well, and some she knew hardly at all. They, like Jamey, were friends of friends. Sometimes the only recommendation they brought was verbal.

Male or female, it never seemed to matter when there were four or five or more.

This was different. She was much too aware of Jamey McLachlan—a lone male sleeping upstairs. Nude.

Now where had that come from?

Okay, so he looked like the sort of man who slept naked. She’d never find out. Unfortunately she could imagine. She rolled over and dragged the pillow over her head. Just when she’d thought her hormones were under control, they started going berserk. Jamey McLachlan wasn’t the only one going middle-aged crazy.