The Fake Husband Read online

  “Orange spice, lemon, or English breakfast?” She turned off the heat under the whistling kettle. “Honey or sugar?”

  “Lemon and honey,” her daughter decided. “And gingersnaps. Yum. What movie should we watch?” She set out the tin containing their remaining Christmas cookies.

  “You decide. I need to look at my schedule for next week and check the machine before I sit down. After spending the morning outside, I figure I’ll be asleep in seconds.”

  “’Kay.” Erin took a plate of ginger cookies and her mug into the living room. Jacquie sipped at her orange spice tea and finished off a couple of cream-cheese cookies before turning to the answering machine. Sure enough, the light was blinking. She gathered her pen and appointment book, then pressed the button.

  “Hi, Jacquie, honey.” Her mother’s sweet Southern accent always made her smile. “We enjoyed having y’all over yesterday to watch the games and share our New Year’s Day. Looks like the snow won’t last too long—the weather channel says the temperatures will be in the fifties the first of next week. You be careful driving around, though. We’ll look to see you at church on Sunday. Let me know if you want to come here for lunch.”

  Message two was from her friend Phoebe Moss, who lived down the road. “Happy New Year, Jacquie. How about this snow? You should see my horses kicking up their heels out there. Speaking of which, we’re due for a trim. Give me a call and we’ll set up an appointment.”

  Jacquie was still writing a note to call Phoebe when message three started. “Ladysmith Farrier Service? This is Rhys Lewellyn. I’m leasing Fairfield Farm…”

  She heard nothing else. A black cloud swirled in front of her eyes and the room tilted under her feet. For the second time in her life, Jacquie thought she might actually faint.

  Holding her mug in two shaking hands, she went to the kitchen table and sat down with her back to the answering machine. What she couldn’t see wasn’t there, right? Rhys Lewellyn didn’t exist. Keeping her mind deliberately blank, she reached the bottom of her mug and the little pile of sugar that hadn’t dissolved.

  Erin padded into the kitchen in her socks. “Hey, you’re eating all the cookies. No fair.” She rummaged through the tin and pulled out another gingersnap. “Last one. I’m watching the last half of the asteroid movie. Are you coming?”

  “In a little while.”

  “’Kay.” Unaware of looming disaster, her daughter returned to the simplicity of a world threatened merely by destruction from outer space.

  Reality presented a much more immediate and complicated menace. Feeling colder than when she’d been playing outside, Jacquie returned to the answering machine and pressed the button to repeat the last message.

  “Ladysmith Farrier Service? This is Rhys Lewellyn.” His voice hadn’t changed in fourteen years, the words still crisp and clean, the tone light and yet somehow rich. A voice that horses listened to, obeyed. A voice that a woman might savor like the ripple of silk against her skin.

  “I’m leasing Fairfield Farm—we arrived yesterday in the middle of the storm. I’ve got three horses which lost shoes in the snow. If you have time, I need a farrier as soon as possible.” He left his number and hung up. Decisive and direct, just as he had been all those years ago.

  “Mom, you’re missing the movie.” Erin leaned around the door frame between kitchen and living room. “They’re already at the space station.” With her black hair cut short and her slight frame, Erin looked like Peter Pan, mischievous, adventurous, untamed. Straight brows slanting over icy blue eyes increased the effect. On horseback, in a helmet that disguised her feminine chin and mouth, she might have been a boy. She rode like one. Or, to be more precise, like a young version of the man she resembled so closely…her father, Rhys Lewellyn.

  “Mom?” Erin came to the table, put a hand on Jacquie’s shoulder. “You all right?” Then she glanced down at the appointment pad and gasped. “Rhys Lewellyn? The Olympic rider? He called you?”

  Jacquie hadn’t realized she’d written down his name. “I—”

  “You’re going to work for Rhys Lewellyn? Awesome.” Erin bounced across the kitchen and back. “Is he gonna be here for a while? Or is he just passing through? He used to winter in Florida. This is kinda out of the way for driving to Florida, though. Isn’t it? Oh, please, say he’s staying here at least till spring.”

  “He—he said he’s leasing Fairfield Farm.”

  “How cool is that? I could ride across the Allens’ land and the Brentwoods’ and be there for lessons.” She threw herself on her knees at Jacquie’s side. “Mom, you gotta ask him if he’ll give me lessons. I couldn’t stand it if he was this close and I didn’t get to ride with him. He probably charges, like, a hundred dollars, but I’ll earn the money, I promise. Please, please, promise you’ll ask.”

  Jacquie pulled herself together. “We don’t know if he’s teaching, Erin. Let’s get the facts first.” Like the fact that you’re his daughter. And he doesn’t know you exist.

  “When are you going out there? Can I come? Fairfield has that great stone barn, doesn’t it? And I bet he’s brought Imperator with him. That’s his Olympic ride, you know. They took the gold in eventing at the last games. Oh, man. I gotta go with you.”

  “I have to call back to set an appointment, Erin.” And she would make sure to choose a time when her daughter was otherwise occupied. “You’re missing the movie.”

  “Who cares, when I can ride with Rhys Lewellyn? So incredibly awesome. I’m gonna go find that magazine with the big article on the Olympics. They spent pages and pages on him and Imperator.”

  Erin dashed to her room. Jacquie folded her arms on the table and buried her head in them. She’d never read an article on the man, not so much as a paragraph over all these years. She hadn’t needed pictures to see the resemblance to his daughter, of course. That was as much a reminder of her time with Rhys as Jacquie had been able to bear.

  If she failed to return his call, he would find another farrier. She could lie to Erin and tell her that Rhys wasn’t teaching, only training his own horses. Which might be true.

  But if Rhys was going to teach, Erin would hear about it from her friends. And he would most likely be riding at the shows and events scheduled in the area, including the prestigious Top Flight HorseTrials coming up in April. Erin planned to compete there. From what she knew of him, Jacquie would be surprised if Rhys did not.

  No matter who rode where, chances were good that she and Erin would encounter Rhys Lewellyn somewhere during the next few months. The horse world around the town of New Skye just wasn’t that big. Thinking of running into him, confronting him with a daughter he didn’t know he had in front of her friends, clients, and plain old nosy strangers, churned Jacquie’s stomach worse than any amusement park ride Erin had ever forced her to take.

  She made it to the bathroom before she lost her tea and cookies. Washing her face, Jacquie decided she would have to take control of the situation if she expected to salvage her relationship with Erin. Her only concern was that her daughter suffer as little as possible. She didn’t care what happened to Rhys or herself or anyone else involved, as long as Erin came out okay.

  “Mom, they’re about to set off the nuclear warhead,” Erin called from the living room. Jacquie sighed as she went in to watch the last ten minutes of the film. She didn’t need to witness an explosion.

  As far as she was concerned, Rhys Lewellyn had already blown her world apart.

  SHE CALLED THE NUMBER Rhys had left in his message while Erin was out at the barn the next morning.

  “Fairfield Farms.” That Irish brogue was immediately familiar. Terry O’Neal had worked with Rhys’s father on their farm in Wales and had moved with the family to New York when Rhys was eight years old. He’d been an integral part of the riding program during the time Jacquie trained there, fourteen years ago.

  “This is Ladysmith Farrier Service, returning Mr. Lewellyn’s call.” She wasn’t about to give them her name in advance
. And she was pretty sure Terry wouldn’t recognize her voice. After all this time—and, no doubt, a long string of women—Rhys wouldn’t, either.

  “Good to hear from you, ma’am.” Terry was brisk, businesslike. No ghosts from the past for him. “We lost another shoe in the muck this morning. When can you be here?”

  She had carefully checked Erin’s schedule. “We’ll have someone out there tomorrow morning at nine, if that works for you.” Erin was spending the night at a sleepover party and wouldn’t be home until afternoon.

  “Not today?”

  “I’m afraid that’s the earliest free slot we have.” Untrue, but she was lying for Erin’s sake.

  “I guess it’ll do. We’re not working in this slush, anyway. We’ll look for you at nine on Saturday.” He sounded rushed, now, and in the background she heard voices shouting, apparently at each other. One, she easily recognized as Rhys. She almost grinned—he could be hard on any of the help who didn’t give one-hundred percent to the horses. And he was always hardest on himself.

  Fortunately, for her peace of mind, Erin didn’t think to ask about the appointment until lunch. “When are we going to Fairfield Farms?”

  Jacquie kept her gaze on her soup. “I’m going tomorrow morning, while you are probably still asleep.”

  Erin slapped her hands on the table. “Mom, why didn’t you wait until I could go? Or go today? We don’t have anything to do today and it’s too messy to ride.”

  “They were busy today.” Another lie. “Tomorrow was the earliest we could schedule.”

  The girl pouted over her grilled-cheese sandwich. “You’ll ask him about lessons, though, right? The snow’ll be gone soon and we can get to work.”

  Jacquie managed to change the subject without making a definite commitment. And she managed to keep Erin diverted for the rest of the afternoon, until they arrived at the party. “Have fun,” she said, giving her daughter a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

  Erin grabbed her sleeve as she turned. “Don’t forget to ask him about lessons.”

  Erin’s friend Cathy, the hostess for the night, was standing with them on the front porch of her house. “Ask who about what lessons?”

  Jacquie groaned silently.

  “Rhys Lewellyn,” Erin said. “You know, the Olympic rider?”

  Cathy frequently rode with Erin. “You mean the guy who won the gold?”

  “Yeah, and he’s moved here, can you believe it? My mom’s going to ask him about lessons. Maybe you can come, too.”

  “That would be so cool. I’ve got these pictures of him…” The girls closed the door, chattering away about Rhys and his exploits. His riding exploits.

  Instead of going home to an empty house where she would have too much time to think, Jacquie went to a loud, explosive movie at the New Skye Cinema and then shopped for a month’s worth of groceries. She’d learned quickly and well how to divert her thoughts from Rhys. She wouldn’t think about him again until she had to.

  Deep in the night, though, she found herself awake and wondering if he would recognize her at all. How dreadful would it be if she met him and he didn’t know her? Her name, though, would remind him…wouldn’t it? Surely Rhys hadn’t been with so many women that he didn’t even remember her name.

  Tears threatened at the thought, but she drove them back. She’d stopped caring about Rhys Lewellyn a long, long time ago—the day, in fact, that he went back to his pregnant wife.

  Now, protecting Erin was her only concern. She had to figure out when to tell Rhys about their daughter, and how she would expect him to deal with the situation. Nothing else mattered in the least.

  In the morning, she dressed in her usual jeans, T-shirt, and sweatshirt, then braided her strawberry-blond hair, so different from her daughter’s. Adding makeup was a reasonable defense, she thought. To stay in control, she needed every weapon she could muster.

  Hurry jumped into the truck as she opened the door. Jacquie shook her head at the dog. “You’re coming, are you? Want to watch the fireworks?”

  Would there be fireworks? Or just a terrible discomfort as she did her job on his farm for the first and only time? He wouldn’t ask her back, once he knew who she was.

  Across country, as Erin had pointed out, Fairfield Farm was a short ride away from her own place, Archer’s Acres. By road, the trip took twenty minutes. Jacquie pulled through Rhys’s stone-arch entryway exactly at nine and parked near the massive barn. A black-haired man walked out of the door as she shut off the engine. She swallowed hard, tense beyond breathing. As he came closer, though, she realized this wasn’t a man, but a boy. A boy with black hair, black, slanting eyebrows, and ice-blue eyes, the same ones she’d looked into every day of the last thirteen years. The eyes in her daughter’s face.

  Rhys’s son had inherited his father’s strong shoulders and long, powerful legs, beautifully built for wearing riding breeches. “Can I help you?” he said, politely enough, in his father’s voice.

  “I’m the farrier.” She cleared her throat. “Jacquie Archer.”

  He tilted his head. “Andrew Lewellyn. You want to park at the door to the barn? We can tie them in the aisle.”

  “Great.” A few minutes’ delay would give her a chance to collect herself, settle her nerves.

  By the time she’d backed the truck up to the double door of the barn, there were three men and a horse standing in the aisle. Terry O’Neal she identified by his silhouette—stocky, bushy-haired, bowlegged. Andrew was about the same height, and shorter by a head than the third man…the man he favored…his father.

  “Stay,” she told Hurry. No sense having the shepherd underfoot. Deploring her own weakness, she glanced in the rearview mirror before getting out. What good would makeup do, anyway?

  Then, with her heart in her throat, she opened the truck door and jumped down. She’d forgotten her hat, and wisps of hair had escaped to blow around her face in the cold wind. She tucked them behind her ears as Rhys stepped from the shadows of the barn into the weak January sunlight.

  He took one look at her and stopped dead. His hand, already extended to shake hers, dropped to his side. For a moment—an eternity of frozen silence—no one moved.

  “Jacquie?” The word was strangely rough. “Jacquie Lennon? What the hell are you doing here?”

  After a paralyzed moment, he covered the ground between them with quick strides, then grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, not gently.

  “More important…why, in the name of all that’s holy, did you disappear without a trace?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  JACQUIE’S EYES WIDENED, and Rhys heard his own words with horror. In front of his son and his best friend, he stood on the brink of revealing a secret he’d kept from everyone in his life, except this one woman.

  But how the hell was he supposed to remain calm when the missing piece in his existence had just reappeared after a fourteen-year absence?

  He took a deep breath, fighting for control. Under his hands, Jacquie moved her shoulders, and he realized how tight his grip was.

  “Sorry.” He released her and took a step back. “I’m…surprised…to see you. I had no idea you lived in this area.”

  “Yes, I—I came back home. When I left New York.” She avoided his eyes, looking past his shoulder to where Andrew and Terry stood with Imperator. “Is this your champion?” She walked to the horse, stood close enough to let Imp get her scent. “He surely is gorgeous. Which shoe does he need?”

  Business, Rhys reminded himself. She’s here on business. She’s the damn farrier.

  “Right fore,” Terry supplied. “Good to see you, Jacquie. You were quite the rider when you were with us. Thought you’d go all the way.”

  She smiled at him and shook her head. “I decided to pursue a more dependable income. But farrier work doesn’t always give you access to the great horses like this one.” When she extended her hand, Imperator allowed her to stroke his face—not a privilege he offered to
many people. “You’re a big beauty, aren’t you?” Jacquie crooned. “I’ll bet it’s like riding the wind, being on your back.”

  Rhys watched her commune with the horse, earning Imp’s trust in the way she’d always had with animals. They trusted her and, in turn, performed for her, meeting her demands with as much talent as they could command. He’d been harder on her than any of his other students, simply because she was so damn good.

  Or maybe because he’d fallen in love with her the first time he saw her smile.

  “Okay,” she said, turning from the horse to the bed of her truck. “Do you want me to trim him, or just replace the shoe?”

  “Does he need a trim?” Rhys asked, knowing the answer perfectly well.

  Jacquie eyed Imp’s hooves from a distance. Then she approached the horse, talking to him softly, running her hands over his shoulders to his chest and down his forelegs, picking up each in turn. Imp was usually a handful for any kind of examination, but he stood quiet for Jacquie, of course. He gave her a little more trouble about the rear legs, but she talked him through it and managed to look at each hoof closely.

  When she came back to the truck, she glanced at Rhys and cocked her head. “As you no doubt know, he’s been trimmed within the last three weeks and doesn’t need it now. Do you have the shoe he pulled off?”

  He grinned at her, relieved that she’d passed his test. “No, it’s somewhere on the lane between here and the highway.”

  Tying on her farrier’s leather chaps, she didn’t grin back. “What were you doing riding on the road?”

  “Long story.”

  “Here to the highway is a long ride.”

  “That, too.” He held her gaze for a moment, felt the shock as awareness kicked in, bringing with it memories he’d worked for years to bury.

  Judging by the way her face froze, so had Jacquie. She jerked her head back and forth, a very definite rejection, and turned her back to him. “I’ve got the shoe he needs.”

  Fast and efficient, she shaped the shoe on her anvil and fit it perfectly to Imperator’s hoof, then nailed it with a minimum of fuss and filed the ends off the nails. “I checked the other shoes,” she said, straightening up from her farrier’s crouch as easily as a child. “They look sound. You shoe him on the usual five-to-six-week schedule?