their fault that they’d played into Pat’s obsession or his worries as a parent. Still, he fervently wished they’d chosen some other day school to solicit for their stables.
As he drove away he watched Liz, standing beside one of the paddocks with all her weight on one hip. Damn! He certainly planned to come here for as many of Pat’s lessons as he could. He’d arrange his schedule to get into the office late so that he could drive Pat every morning. That meant he’d be spending too much time hanging around Liz Matthews. Why couldn’t she be as old and as wrinkled as her riding boot? And did her legs have to be that long? And that face. He tore his eyes away from his rearview mirror and concentrated on his driving.
He could find Liz Matthews sexier than Scheherezade for all the good it would do either of them. They were on completely different wavelengths. He glanced over at his daughter, who was completely preoccupied—no doubt planning her campaign for the gray pony.
At least Mrs. Jamerson seemed to understand children. He had a suspicion that Miss Matthews adhered to the drill-sergeant school of instruction. Pat didn’t like to be corrected.
He smiled grimly. Liz might turn out to be the best ally he could have. A couple of days of her bullying in the July heat might well convince Pat to take up knitting.
“I’LL STARVE FIRST,” Liz sputtered as she watched Mike and Pat drive away.
“The animals can’t starve,” her aunt said. “If a summer riding program for Edenvale is what it takes to pay the feed bill, we have to do it.”
Liz threw up her hands. “That is a dreadful child, and her father isn’t much better.” She snorted. “He may be a big muckety-muck in business, but he’s not doing that kid any favors by letting her get away with that kind of behavior in public.”
“Well, we’d better keep her safe,” Mrs. Jamerson said. “It’s clear that Daddy will crucify anybody who hurts his little darling. We only carry half a million dollars in liability insurance.”
“And you expect me to spend five mornings a week in ninety-five-degree heat with six or eight like her?” Liz said. “I cannot do it. I’ll sell my body first.”
Mrs. Jamerson looked her up and down. “It’s a nice body, but it is thirty-seven years old and extremely dirty. I doubt anybody would pay five dollars for it.”
“Oh, thank you so much for that vote of confidence.”
“You could always marry a rich husband.” She cocked her head in the direction of Mike’s retreating Volvo.
“Pul-lease. I’ll take the five dollars first,” Liz said with a grin.
“That’s your choice. But you’d better make believers out of Edenvale School and their little darlings, my dear niece, or we’ll both be clerking at some discount mall before Christmas.”
“If Trusty and I win the grand prix on Labor Day, we can add five thousand bucks prize money to the till. And maybe entice some of our old clients back. Besides, we haven’t lost all our adult clients.”
“Yet.”
“Think positive. A couple of shows where Valley-Crest brings in championships and we’ll be beating off new customers with a stick.”
“We need a full barn and a full slate of lessons now, darling Liz. You’ve looked at the figures.”
“I know, I know. But isn’t there a better way than teaching half a dozen Pat Whittens to ride?”
“Come on, Liz, you’re good with children.”
Liz gaped at her. “What lifetime are we talking about here?”
“We could sell Mr. Whitten that gray pony for his Pat,” Mrs. Jamerson said.
“No way! Edenvale has never been that sort of sleazy trader. We even kept Uncle Frank honest.” She caught the look in her aunt’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Aunt Vic. I know he was your husband, but he cut deals fine sometimes—or he would have if you and I hadn’t been there to remind him where business stopped and horse-trading started.”
Vic laughed. “He could have gotten away with a whole heap more, and the clients would still have loved him. I sometimes wonder how any of us put up with him when he was in one of his moods.”
“He trained great horses and riders.” Liz shook her head. “They adored him.”
Vic sighed. “I wish I had Frank’s charm. We could use a few hundred-thousand-dollar sales right about now.”
“Charm? Charm? He made Marine boot camp look like a first-class cruise to the Bahamas.”
“We won. We made money. We had a full barn. We had happy customers and top-notch horses. That’s results.”
“Results. Right.” Liz turned away, her chest heaving. She’d finally learned to pity Uncle Frank about the time she turned twenty. Before that. he’d terrified her. He couldn’t show affection, he couldn’t praise the people he cared about, not even Vic. Certainly not his gawky niece.
Yet for all his grumpy bullying, Uncle Frank had taken her in after her mother’s sudden fatal heart attack and her father’s grief made living at home impossible for her. Frank had tried to love her, an eleven-year-old de facto orphan, in the only way he knew. He drove her to ride better, higher, stronger. And when she cried he seemed baffled. Memories of those sessions still made her hyperventilate. What would confrontation with Mike Whitten do to her breathing? She didn’t doubt for a minute that he could bully with the best if he thought it would work for him.
The worst part was that despite his size and that lantern jaw, something about Whitten turned her on. He radiated confidence. He was in great shape. Probably played handball three times a week and had a personal trainer so he could impress the ladies on the tennis court at the racquet club. He wore no wedding ring, and Angie Womack had told her there was no Mrs. Whitten.
She wondered why such an obvious catch was running around without a wife in tow. Little Miss Pat probably fed arsenic to possible queen consorts the minute Daddy showed any interest in them. The girl didn’t seem eager to share.
The kid certainly had her father wrapped around her little finger. Pat held the key to the Edenvale contract, and if Vic said they had to get it to stay solvent, then Liz would do everything in her power to make that happen, even if she had to turn that kid into a centaur.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like kids. She rode against kids every day in the hunter ring. But ValleyCrest had always catered to adult riders.
As Uncle Frank’s exercise girl from the time she was old enough to sit a horse, Liz had been too busy after school to make friends her own age. She’d moved into the adult world when she was barely into her teens. She’d had crushes on the few teenaged boys who rode, but she’d been tall and so bony, and they’d always gravitated towards the cute little debutantes.
So here she was at thirty-seven with nobody in her life except her aunt and the animals, and that was the way it was likely to remain. At least it was peaceful. The dogs and cats never yelled at her.
She watched her aunt bending over the feed sacks, Vic’s youthful body lithe and strong. Liz often caught the longing in her aunt’s eyes when her niece swung into the saddle. Please God, Liz prayed. Let me never lose my nerve the way she did, never cringe at the thought of cantering down on a big fence. She knew it could happen to anyone, even someone as talented and fearless as Aunt Vic had been.
Vic was a great manager, a great teacher, but Liz knew how deeply it must hurt never to sit in a saddle.
All those years that Uncle Frank had tried to bully and cajole her out of her fear, Vic never fought back. Liz finally told him if he said one more word on that subject, she’d leave. Since by that time Frank Jamerson weighed over three hundred pounds, and had no one but Liz to ride his horses, he’d tried hard to watch his mouth from that moment on.
He