If Wishes Were Horses. Carolyn McSparren

aisle.

      Four dogs raced down the aisle toward them. An obese black Labrador retriever, a basset and a pair of small brown-and-white blurs that outran the others and launched themselves straight at Pat’s face.

      “Pat,” he shouted, and moved forward to defend her.

      “Aren’t they adorable?” Pat cooed to the small dogs wriggling in her arms. “They’re Jack Russell terriers. I’ve seen pictures of them in horse magazines.”

      They were licking Pat’s face. Mike caught his breath at the thought of all those germs.

      Meanwhile, the Labrador and the basset waddled over to Mike. He sidestepped them, his eyes still on his child. “Put them down, baby. They might bite.”

      “Oh, Daddy, get a grip,” Pat said. The terriers stayed where they were.

      Mike felt something soft brush against his ankle and looked down to see a fat black-and-white tabby doing figure eights around his legs. God, the place was a zoo. He thought he’d only have horses to contend with. The only animal he did not see was a human being.

      He surveyed his surroundings once more, and was surprised at how clean the place seemed. The blacktopped aisle was immaculate, and the barn smelled not of manure, as he’d expected, but of fresh hay. Despite that, he was sure the place was a disease factory. Pat’s doctors said her immune system was normal, but could anybody’s system stand the constant assault from the germs that likely populated the stables? He’d never even let her have a gerbil for fear of allergies.

      The barn was built in a rough cross. They’d entered the short arm, and beyond was another set of open doors that he reckoned gave onto the riding arena he’d glimpsed from the road. Suddenly Pat crowed with delight and rushed past him with both terriers still hugged tight against her chest.

      Outside in the arena, a woman in jeans, a T-shirt and some sort of tight brown leather leggings cantered into his field of vision on a horse big enough to pull a beer wagon. The pair sailed over a jump yanked off the Great Wall of China. Horse and rider landed with a thud and cantered off.

      Mike closed his eyes. No way! He didn’t want his precious, fragile child anywhere around this place. Every time he thought of Pitti-Pat on a horse all he could see was Rhett Butler cradling Bonnie Blue’s broken body. Not his kid, by God!

      He’d simply have to find a way to head her off, and that—as he knew from experience—was a hell of a lot harder than stopping a runaway train. How had he let her con him into this?

      “Daddy! Aren’t they wonderful?” Pat called from the fence. The rider and the horse cantered past to jump a tall stack of painted poles.

      “May I help you?” a voice said at his shoulder. He turned to find a tall, slim woman with cropped dark hair that bore a single streak of silver along the right temple. She also wore jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, and carried a pitchfork as though it were a rifle. She was in her mid-forties at least, but she had a beautiful smile and the taut body and unlined skin of a woman twenty years younger.

      “I’m Michael Whitten,” he said. “From Edenvale School. I have an appointment.”

      She set the pitchfork against the nearest wall, wiped her hands down the front of her jeans and extended her hand. “Oh, the chairman of the board of trustees. I’m so sorry. I should have realized who you were when I saw the blue suit and tie. But you’re early.”

      Mike smiled grimly. He was always early for business meetings with possible adversaries. Threw them off balance, and sometimes he caught them in things they’d rather he had not seen. He said, “Sorry. Got away sooner than I thought I could. Didn’t have time to change.” He shook her hand. Her fingers felt callused. Her handshake was firm.

      “I’m afraid you’re bound to take home some dust on that suit,” the woman said. “I’m Victoria Jamerson. I’m half owner and I manage this place. That’s our trainer and co-owner, my niece Liz Matthews, out there working Trust Fund.” She slipped past him and shouted to the woman on the horse, “Liz, Mr. Whit-ten’s here.”

      “Bother,” the rider said softly, but loud enough so that Mike heard her clearly.

      She turned to stare at him from under a tight cap that might once have been black velvet, but had taken on a greenish cast. She brought the horse down to a walk and relaxed into the saddle. Mike could see the glint of sweat on the animal’s flanks—hardly surprising on a July afternoon. The woman’s blue T-shirt was soaked, as well, and her muscular arms glistened.

      Mike caught himself staring at the curve of the shirt over her breasts and turned back to Victoria Jamerson. “And this is my daughter, Pat. Come here, Pitty—uh, Pat, and meet Mrs. Jamerson.”

      “In a minute, Daddy,” Pat said, unable to tear her eyes off the horse and rider. She set down the terriers, climbed onto the bottom rail of the three-board fence and hung over the top.

      “Bad case of equine adoration,” Victoria Jamerson said easily. “There’s something about horses that just seems to call out to little girls.” She shrugged and smiled. “Happened to me, happened to Liz, and I already see the symptoms in your Pat. I’m afraid it’s an incurable disease.”

      Mike felt his stomach roil. Mrs. Jamerson had no idea how her words affected him.

      “I’m afraid you’ve only uncovered the tip of the iceberg,” Mrs. Jamerson continued pleasantly. “Before you know it, you’ll be the proud owner of a large pony. You’ll spend your weekends cheering Pat in weather that you wouldn’t put your dog out in. Comes with the territory.”

      At the words Proud owner and large pony, Pat’s head whipped around. Her eyes glowed with an inner fire that Mike had seen only when she was burning with fever—the day that he made her that fateful promise.

      “My daddy’s already promised to buy me a pony for my twelfth birthday,” Pat said. “I’ll be twelve in a month.”

      “Then we’d better get cracking,” Mrs. Jamerson said and moved to lean beside Pat on the fence. “Large ponies that are suitable for beginning riders aren’t very thick on the ground.”

      “We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Mike said quickly. “Pat’s never even been on a horse. She may hate it.”

      Both Pat and Mrs. Jamerson turned to stare at him with a “get-real” look that froze his heart.

      In the center of the ring, the woman swung her long leg over the horse’s back and dropped lightly to the ground. She patted the big horse’s neck, slid the reins over his head and began to walk beside him toward them.

      Mike saw the resemblance between the two women immediately. Both were tall, slim and had high cheekbones and broad foreheads that would probably keep them beautiful into their eighties. Mrs. Jamerson’s eyes were gray, however, while Liz Matthews gazed at him from eyes the color of a jade Buddha.

      Liz Matthews. Different last name. He knew Mrs. Jamerson was a widow. So Liz Matthews could be married. He checked the rider’s left hand. No ring. Oddly, he felt pleased.

      He liked the look of her, although she didn’t seem overjoyed to see him. Probably didn’t appreciate having her riding session interrupted. She walked with a long-legged, rangy stride emphasized by the tight dark leather encasing her legs. Her jeans sat low on her hips; but her T-shirt was wet enough to cling to her narrow waist and muscular rib cage. She reached up to pull her shabby riding hat off to reveal an unkempt mass of dark blond curls.

      As she came closer, he saw that she was probably in her mid-thirties. There were tiny lines at the corners of her eyes, and a spray of freckles across a nose that had probably been broken at least once. Without that slightly crooked nose, Mike realized, she was simply a good-looking woman. With it, she was sexy as hell.

      Since, as chairman of the board of trustees at Edenvale, he would make the recommendation either to employ her and her riding stable, or to look for someone else to start an after-school riding program at Edenvale, he’d expected her