“No, and I say good riddance. She was a wild one, always looking for a good time. She took off when Heather was six and they never heard from her again.”
It sounded to him like Heather’s mother and his father were a lot alike—narcissistic and completely irresponsible. “I think I’ll walk down to the stable and see what’s going on. Would you mind watching Mandy until Heather and I get back?”
“Not at all.” Clara grinned as she wiped the baby’s face. “Take all the time you need. The only thing I have to do this morning is come up with another list of chores to keep Daily busy after he finishes mucking out the stalls.”
Chuckling, Jake wondered how much longer the woman was going to make the boy suffer for his lapse of judgment. “I have another project that I’d like his help with. Do you think you could pencil that in on the schedule for tomorrow?”
Clara nodded. “Will you need him all day?”
“Probably several days. Will that be a problem?”
“Not at all.” She smiled. “What have you got up your sleeve this time?”
“When we moved Heather and the baby, I noticed the carriage house could use a fresh coat of paint and some new carpet.”
As Jake left the house and walked the distance to the stables, his thoughts returned to Heather and he couldn’t help but wonder how she’d slept the night before. If he was taking bets, he’d wager that she hadn’t gotten any more sleep than he had.
Entering the stable, he followed the sound of a loud commotion. What had been so important that Tony felt the need to call Heather?
“Hold him while I get him tranquilized.”
Jake automatically turned at the sound of Heather’s voice inside one of the stalls and it felt as if his heart came up into his throat. As he watched, she, Tony and another groom jumped back just in time to keep from being kicked by a very large, extremely agitated horse.
“Heather, get out of there.” He tossed the coffee cup onto a pile of straw and reached to open the stall’s half door.
“Don’t you dare open that door,” she warned. “Just stay back. We’ve got this under control.”
It didn’t appear that they had everything in hand. It looked as if someone was about to get seriously hurt. The thought that it might be Heather had his heart hammering so hard that he thought he’d surely end up with a few cracked ribs.
When Tony and the other man finally caught hold of the thoroughbred’s halter, Heather moved swiftly to jab a long needle into the animal’s shoulder. The horse lurched to one side, then kicked the back of the stall with a blow that Jake knew for certain would have killed someone had it connected with one of the humans inside the enclosure. But just when he thought all hell was going to break loose, Heather and the grooms managed to open the half-door and escape.
Fear ignited an anger in him that quickly flared out of control and he was itching for a confrontation. “What the hell do you think you were doing in there?” he demanded when she stood safely in front of him.
“The job you pay me to do.”
He stubbornly shook his head. “I pay a veterinarian to attend injured horses. And if the size of his bills are any indication, I pay him quite well.”
As he and Heather glared at each other, Jake noticed Tony and the other man hurrying toward the far end of the barn. They apparently decided that retreat was the better part of valor.
“For your information, the vet is on the way.” Her aqua eyes sparkled with anger and he didn’t think he’d ever seen her look prettier.
“Then why were you in the stall? Why didn’t you wait for Dr. Pennington to get here?”
“Because Magic needed a sedative immediately,” she shot back. “We couldn’t run the risk of him making the injury worse.”
“I don’t care,” he said angrily. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“I’ve been around horses all my life and I know what I’m doing,” she insisted. “Besides, that horse is a full brother to Dancer and almost as valuable as he is. His stud fees alone are going to make you a fortune once he’s retired from racing.”
Reaching out, Jake took her by the shoulders. “Don’t you understand? It’s not about the money, Heather. Your safety is far more important to me than any money I could make off of a damned horse.”
She stared at him for several long seconds before her stormy expression began to ease a bit. “Honestly, I really wasn’t in as much danger as it might have seemed, Jake.”
He crushed her to him. “Even the slightest chance of you being hurt in any way is one chance too many, honey.”
As his heart slowly returned to a more normal beat, he couldn’t get over the fear that had coursed through him when he saw the horse come so close to kicking her. It had rivaled the feeling he’d experienced a few days ago when he’d awakened to find his napping daughter missing from where she’d fallen asleep on his chest.
Before he could analyze what that might mean, he lowered his head to cover Heather’s mouth with his. He told himself that he needed to reassure himself that she was indeed all right. Yet the truth of the matter was he’d become quite good at looking for reasons to kiss her.
Soft and pliant, her lips immediately fused with his as she wrapped her arms around his neck. But when she used the tip of her tongue to invite him to deepen the kiss, her eager response to the caress sent blood surging through his veins and his body hardened so fast it made him dizzy.
As he slipped inside and teased, he slid his hands from her back to her delightful little blue jeans-clad bottom and tried to pull her even closer. But an insistent nudge against his legs had him breaking the kiss to look down at the big dog trying to work his way between them.
“Thank God Nemo came along when he did.” Heather’s cheeks colored a pretty pink as she glanced down the wide aisle to see if anyone had been watching.
“I thought you were supposed to be man’s best friend,” Jake groused when he bent to pick up his discarded coffee cup. He scratched behind the big dog’s ears. “How would you like it if I interrupted you and one of your female friends?”
“Since he’s been neutered, I doubt he’d care,” she said dryly.
“Nemo, buddy, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Jake said sympathetically.
She looked confused. “Why are you sorry he’s been neutered?”
“It’s a guy thing.” Jake shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“The vet just arrived,” Tony called from the opposite end of the stable, drawing their attention back to the matter at hand.
“Heather and I are going back up to the house,” Jake said before she could answer or find an excuse to stick around. “You assist him with whatever he needs.”
“No problem, boss.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she stated. “My job is to stay right here and see to Stormy Magic’s welfare.”
“Dr. Pennington has arrived and Tony will see that he takes good care of whatever treatment the animal needs.” Turning her, Jake put his arm around her shoulders and started walking them from the stable. “Besides, if you’ll remember, we have a dinner meeting with a couple of the other owners and then the Southern Oaks Ball to attend this evening.”
“You could go without me.”
“Nope. You agreed to be my date for these things. It’s too late to back out now.”
She shook her head. “It was more like you pulled rank and told me I was going.”
He chuckled. “Whatever. You’ll need to