The Fake Husband

“Are you sure?” Terry asked once more.

“What do you think?” Rhys brushed the snow from Imp’s back before slinging the saddle pad across.

“That you’re a damn lunatic, just as I have said since you were five years old.”

“Well, at least I’m consistent. Ready?” He closed the reins inside his left fist.

Terry bent his back and held out his clasped hands for Rhys to put his knee into. “If you say so.”

Then, with three bounces on his right foot and a toss up from Terry, Rhys found himself, for the first time in two months, astride the great Imperator.

“All right?” Terry said, as Imp sidled and shied.

What other choice did he have? He could either admit he was all but puking with fear…or else sit here and ride the damn horse.

Rhys drew a deep, shaking breath. “All right.”

The Irishman retained Daisy’s lead rope as he ploughed through the deepening snow—at least eight inches by now—to Lucretia, a gray Thoroughbred named for the wicked glint in her eye. Andrew, again wearing his mask of indifference, had already mounted Abner.

As he had for the past week, Rhys ignored his son’s attitude and his own inability to make a connection with the boy. “Let’s get this parade underway.”

Heading Imperator toward the lane, he kept a firm hand on the reins, restraining the stallion’s desire for speed. The asphalt road surface was solid under the snow, but treacherous nonetheless, thanks to that layer of ice.

“How far do we have to go?” he called back to Terry.

“Five miles, or there abouts.”

“Terrific.”

Five frozen miles to a cold house and barn he’d leased without seeing them, on a horse he had failed the last time they rode together. Imperator didn’t trust him any more than he trusted himself. Not exactly the perfect start to a new life.

“Happy New Year.” Rhys blew out a frustrated breath. “Happy New Year, indeed.”

COVERED WITH SNOW and laughing with no breath left to do so, Jacquie Archer staggered into the warmth of her kitchen and leaned back against the door to prevent her daughter from coming inside.

“Let me in!” Erin pretended to pound on the window. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”

Jacquie grinned at the recollection of childhood stories. “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.”

“Then I’ll huff—” Erin pushed at the door “—and I’ll puff—” she pushed again “—and I’ll blow your house in.” She gave one more push, just as Jacquie stepped away from the door and allowed it to swing open. With a cry of surprise, Erin stumbled across the threshold and into her mother’s arms.

They collapsed against each other, still laughing. Hurry, their Australian shepherd, came in behind Erin and danced around their feet in exuberant canine fashion, panting and jumping up at them in an effort to join the game.

“Now I remember why we named her Hurricane,” Jacquie said, rubbing the perky ears. “We’d all better get dried off before we end up standing in a puddle of melted snow.”

Minutes later, their ski jackets and bibs hung from the shower curtain rod in the back bathroom. The snow caked on their boots melted into the tub. Erin toweled Hurry’s long, black-and-white coat to a reasonably dry state and gave her a snack of dog food mixed with warm water while Jacquie heated water for tea.

“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.