Something to Talk About. Joanne Rock

      Dear Reader,

      I grew up just south of Saratoga Springs, New York, site of one of the prettiest racetracks in the country. As a teen, I often worked as a model during “Breakfast at the Track,” tooling around from table to table to tell breakfast patrons in the grandstand’s clubhouse about designer outfits. During that time, I had the pleasure to meet many people from around the country who came to summer in Saratoga for the August racing season. I met jockeys and trainers, horse owners, socialites and die-hard racing fans, all of whom fascinated this farmer’s daughter who grew up on the banks of the Hudson.

      So I couldn’t wait to re-create that world for readers in Something to Talk About. Set on a Kentucky horse farm and rooted in the small racing community that transports itself to Saratoga every year, this book has been a pure pleasure to write, evoking lots of fun memories for me. I hope you enjoy the thrill, the beauty and the power of the Thoroughbreds, and, most of all, I hope you enjoy the passion of the people behind them.

      Happy reading!

      Joanne Rock

      Something to Talk About

      Joanne Rock

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      JOANNE ROCK

      is a three-time RITA^® Award nominee who didn’t think to indulge her love of writing when she went to college, instead opting for a communications degree and a business minor involving far too much accounting. Only after venturing into the real world did she realize it would have been wiser to study what she liked best so she could enjoy her life’s work. Heading back to university for a graduate degree in English literature, Joanne penned her first novel while she was also writing her thesis. It took the rejection of six completed novels before she sold her first book, but she never regretted the career choice based on a labor of love. Today Joanne lives in the Adirondack region of upstate New York with her husband and three sons, and she is thrilled to pen contemporary and historical romances for Harlequin Books.

      Visit her Web sites, www.joannerock.com or www.myspace.com/joanne_rock to enter monthly contests and learn more about her work.

      To my mom and dad

       Thank you for allowing me to have so many cool life experiences at a young age, without which I wouldn’t have half as much material for my stories! In particular, for the sake of this story, thank you for the rides to Saratoga, long before I had my license, so I could be a part of the glittering horse-racing world if only for a few hours at a time.

      Many thanks to my friend from the Bluegrass State,

       Jan Scarbrough, who provided me extra insights on Thoroughbred racing and horses in general. Any errors in regard to my horse-trainer hero are strictly my own.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter One

      “But you’d really like this guy. Honest.”

      Amanda Emory had grown accustomed to fending off suggestions on her love life from girlfriends and her well-meaning mother. But listening to dating advice from her nine-year-old son seriously pushed the limit.

      “Kiefer, I’m sure he’s a very nice man.” Distracted by the sight of the movers carrying her sons’ bunk beds up the stairs of the small condo unit they’d purchased, Amanda called instructions for placing the furniture she’d picked out with her husband mere days before he died. And damn it, didn’t those memories still catch her when she least expected them?

      “He’s not just nice, Mom.” Kiefer stole a granola bar out of his younger brother’s hand as he settled himself at the island separating the light-filled kitchen and a living room overrun with boxes. “He trains the horses and he can ride like the guys in cowboy movies. He knows everything about horses. Seriously, Mom. Everything.”

      Amanda retrieved a new granola bar for Max, her six-year-old, who had already found friends in the condo next door and was happily showing the other kids his latest creation with a building set among the piles of boxes. Amanda gave Max two extra treats for his friends and then tried to focus on Kiefer’s latest matchmaking effort.

      Although Dan had been dead two years, Kiefer’s quest to see his mother remarried hadn’t started until about three months ago, after he’d seen some movie about kid spies who—in the subplot—tricked their widowed parents into meeting and falling in love. In short order, Amanda had been steered toward Kiefer’s soccer coach, the librarian at his school, a neighbor in their building back in Los Angeles, and now this…a horse trainer?

      “He works with horses?” She settled into the seat next to him at the counter and swallowed back a pinch of motherly guilt that they hadn’t spent much time together in the mayhem of moving halfway across the country to Woodford County, Kentucky. She’d had so much more on her mind than she could ever burden her boys with, but not for the world would she want them to feel they were anything but her top priority.

      For now, she waved the deliverymen upstairs to settle the dresser wherever they wanted.

      “He’s the best. I watched him working with one of the colts while you were setting up your new office Friday.” Kiefer scrubbed a finger over a gold fleck in the granite countertop, his dark-brown hair falling sideways over one eye like his father’s. This summer, her oldest son seemed to be all arms and legs, his body growing faster than his meals could fill it out. “I’m going back tomorrow after school.”

      “Are there other kids who watch the horses then?” She hoped Kiefer would make friends in their new hometown. Having lived in suburban L.A. all her life, she was a little intimidated about uprooting her family to move to a community that was both rural and—to a large extent—wealthy. She’d chosen a neighborhood in Twisted River, removed from the immediate domain of Quest Stables, which was both her new employer and a megamillion-dollar business.

      Kiefer shrugged.

      “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter.” He peered up at her with the earnest eyes of a child who hadn’t quite mastered the preteen ability to mask his feelings. “I don’t like the other kids here anyway and I’m helping you…you know. Meet people.”

      Amanda’s heart squeezed tight that her firstborn had been put in a position where he felt that he needed to take care of her. He sounded years older than he was, even if the scrapes on his elbows and the jelly stain on his shirt gave him away as the kid he deserved to be.

      “I appreciate you, baby.” She hugged him tight, grateful that he still let her. “And I think it’s great that you want to look out for me, but I promise you when the time is right, I’ll think about socializing.”

      That much was true. And she didn’t have the heart to share