The Fake Husband

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.