of riders. Both Liz and I started in small riding programs at barns like this. Look where we wound up.”
Hell of a selling point. Liz and Mrs. Jamerson were dirty and sweaty, fighting money troubles, and undoubtedly worked seven days a week. Just what every parent wanted for his child, a lifetime of drudgery in thrall to a bunch of animals who bit and kicked.
Then he looked into their eyes and saw a pair of supremely content human beings. He shot his starched cuffs and felt the constriction of his power tie. Maybe what he felt was envy.
“Do you give better care, better prices than the other stables?”
“The best care and competitive prices,” Liz said. “Plus, we’ve got over a hundred acres here. Most training stables have a few paddocks and no place for the kids to trail ride.”
Mike leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “All right. As we discussed earlier, Edenvale is willing to give you a trial run. An eight-week camp for half a dozen or so kids from Edenvate—Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. They bring their own lunches. You provide drinks. Starting Monday week. I want a prospectus on my desk by Friday morning of this week detailing precisely what you plan to accomplish during that time.”
“That’s crazy!” Liz yelped. “That’s two days from now.”
“Come now, Miss Matthews, you keep saying you want to make horsepersons of these kids. You must have some idea of how to accomplish that.”
“How much?” Mrs. Jamerson asked softly.
Mike turned to her and smiled. He knew he looked like a crocodile that had just spotted a particularly succulent possum. He’d spent a great deal of time perfecting that smile. Let the negotiations begin.
The door to the lounge flew open. “Daddy, Daddy! I’ve found him! Come and see him. He’s beautiful!” Pat flew across the room, grabbed her father’s arm and began to pull him to his feet. All four dogs tumbled into the room after her.
“Who’s beautiful? What are we talking about here?” Mike asked.
“My pony! My very own pony! I’ve even got a name for him. Come and see him, Daddy. Right now!” She flew out the door again.
Mike gaped after her.
“Terminal,” Mrs. Jamerson said softly. “I did warn you.” Smiling, she said, “We’ll give you our price on Friday.”
Mike turned to Liz. “What pony?” He realized he’d been smartly outmaneuvered, but at the moment he was too worried about Pat’s reaction to care.
“God only knows,” Liz said. “Hadn’t you better go see?”
CHAPTER TWO
“OH, DEAR,” Mrs. Jamerson whispered.
“Uh-oh,” Liz said. “She would pick that pony.”
Mike glanced at the women and then at his daughter, who danced first on one foot then on the other in the stable aisle, pointing at one of the stalls halfway down.
“Come see, Daddy,” Pat said. “Come see my very own pony.”
Mike walked slowly to her, Liz and Jamerson following. In the stall stood a sleek gray pony. Even to Mike’s untutored eye it was beautiful. Its coat glowed, its mane looked as though it had been beaten out of a single strip of silver.
“I’m going to name him Traveller, just like Robert E. Lee’s horse, and he’s meant for me. I know he is. I just know it.”
“Not a good idea,” Liz said quietly. “He’s going to be a great pony eventually, but at the moment he’s green as grass. Knows zilch.”
Pat stopped dancing and her face took on that closed, mulish expression that Mike had learned to dread. In the hospital it meant that the doctors and nurses had a fight on their hands to get her to take her medication. He’d never blamed her. No kid likes throwing up a dozen times a day or going bald. There had been times when he’d chickened out, left the medical staff to handle her because he couldn’t bear to watch her suffer another minute. They hadn’t wanted him there most of the time anyway. Neither had Pat. Sometimes he thought she felt guilty about her illness, as though it were something she had inflicted upon him.
Her nausea passed, and her hair grew back, but unfortunately by that time she’d perfected her technique to get precisely what she wanted from him.
The look Pat gave to Liz Matthews would have curdled milk. “He is too my pony,” Pat said. “I love him. We’ll learn together.” Then she took the next step in her prescribed ritual. Her eyes filled with tears, her lip began to quiver, her shoulders tightened. She grew visibly smaller right in front of Mike’s eyes, as though she had taken one of Alice in Wonderland’s shrinking potions. Mike closed his eyes and saw her on that bed again. He couldn’t fight her and she knew it. “Daddy, you promised. If you love me, you’ll buy him.”
Liz snorted. Mike saw Pat glance at her coldly from beneath wet lashes.
“Listen, kiddo,” Liz said matter-of-factly. “After he’s had some training and you’ve learned to ride, maybe you’ll be ready for a pony like this. But an inexperienced rider on an inexperienced horse is a recipe for disaster.”
“No, it’s not, it’s not.” Pat stamped her foot. “Daddy, buy him for me. Please,” she wheedled. “If we give these people enough money they have to sell him to us.”
Mike heard Liz Matthews’s quick intake of breath at the same instant he felt all his plans to get Pat away from this place disintegrate under the force of her hazel eyes—her mother’s hazel eyes—bright and earnest and intelligent and about as movable as Mount Kilimanjaro.
He actually looked forward to handling infuriated business rivals. He knew half the investment community called him a ruthless bastard. So how come he couldn’t handle one eleven-year-old girl?
“I think Traveller is a lovely name for him,” Mrs. Jamerson said. “Much better than Iggy Pop, which is the name he has now.” At the sound of his name, the pony raised his head and looked inquiringly at Mrs. Jamerson. She reached over and stroked his nose. “But you said your father promised you a pony for your twelfth birthday, and that’s not for a while, right?”
Suspiciously, Pat nodded.
“So, there’s plenty of time to find out whether you even like to ride, and meanwhile you can come over and pet him anytime you like. Who knows, you may fall madly in love with another pony.”
“I won’t.”
“Possibly not And he is a truly lovely pony. He’s a registered Connemara—that’s a rugged little breed from Ireland. You have good taste. Still, Liz is right. He doesn’t know much about his job yet. So we’ll take it slow and see what develops, all right?”
Pat took a deep breath, glanced from Mrs. Jamerson to Liz and back again. “Okay,” she said. and Mike heard her whisper, “But he’s mine.”
Mike’s relief that a full-blown tantrum had been avoided was tempered by the realization that now there was no way he could keep Pat out of the riding program. His only hope was that Liz and Mrs. Jamerson would be able to show Pat how little she knew. Surely she’d realize that she had a long way to go before buying even an experienced pony became an option. By then maybe she’d have discovered video games or tennis or shopping malls.
“Fine,” Mike said, wanting to get Pat out of there before this fragile truce disintegrated. He turned to Liz. “You’ll have that complete syllabus to me by Friday morning? I want it on my desk early.”
“We’ll do our best,” Mrs. Jamerson said when Liz didn’t answer immediately.
Mike turned on his heel and walked back to his car. Pat followed silently. He knew damned well she’d start her campaign for that blasted pony the minute they were on their way. This was one time he’d have