Mr. Miracle. Carolyn McSparren
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.”