The Cinderella List (10 page)

“Y
our scheme was brilliant,” Randall said, approaching Marlo as she cleared away the last debris in the luncheon.

“Sir?” Had she heard correctly?

“Once my clients knew their children were being both entertained and schooled about Hammond Stables, they completely relaxed. They came here planning to invest in one or two horses and are now planning to buy at least four.”

“I’m glad.” She scuffed her toe in the hard-packed earth. “I admit that I was nervous. I’m relieved the kids didn’t think it was an absolute bore.”

“You think
you’re
glad? In my mind, your idea was a calamity in the making, but my son had faith in you, and it paid off.” He stuck out his hand to shake Marlo’s. “Thank you.” Without another word, he walked off.

“By the look on your face, I’m afraid to think what my father might have said to you.” Jake sauntered over, hands in his pocket, sun glinting off his dark hair, that ever-ready smile on his face.

“He thanked and insulted me in the same breath. He called me brilliant and a calamity. I don’t know if I should be celebrating or moping.”

“Not the latter.” Jake looked both sympathetic and amused. “It’s best to take Dad with a grain of salt. He’s not a very happy man sometimes. He drives himself. I learned a long time ago to relax and go with the flow. I’m a lover not a fighter.”

To her surprise, he put his arm around her and nudged her toward the barn. “Come on. I have something to show you.”

She didn’t try to shrug his arm away. It felt warm, protective and even safe, she realized as she luxuriated in the embrace. For a moment at least, Marlo relished the heavy drape of his arm across her shoulders. Then she began to stew over the attraction she felt toward this man.

He was affectionate toward everyone, Marlo thought. Why, she’d seen him even put his arm around his father when the man was acting like a prickly pear.
He simply doesn’t realize how charming and loveable he is because it’s his natural state,
she reminded herself. If Lucy were here he’d do the same thing to her. She couldn’t blow this brief touch out of proportion. She had to be careful. Her heart wanted to go places that her mind would not allow.

By the time they’d reached the barn, Marlo had talked herself out of believing that Jake’s casual embrace meant anything at all. “What’s in here?”

“Something I want you to see. We have a mare in labor, and her foal should be born soon. Come.” He entwined his fingers in hers and led her to an oversize stall at the back of the barn, where a corpulent black mare with a white blaze and four white feet stood. Her legs were slightly splayed and her breathing audible.

Two men were in the stall with her, one on each side. “Any minute now,” one of them murmured. “Apparently, she’s not going to lie down. Here it comes….”

Marlo gasped as a spindly legged baby, still wrapped in amniotic membranes, slid from the mother and landed on the straw-
matted floor in a squishy thump. Dust motes sprayed into the air and danced in the sunlight filtering through the barn window.

“Is it dead?” she gasped.

“No. Everything is fine.” Jake moved toward the foal’s head and pulled at bits of the amniotic sac, clearing it away from the baby’s nose. The mother butted the baby gently with her head before giving a great, heaving sigh. Knees buckling, she lay down by the infant and began to pull at the membranes with her teeth.

“We’ll wait until mama cleans him up,” Jake said. “Pretty soon the colt will try to stand. It’s quite a sight, a baby that’s all legs, on its feet for the first time.”

For Marlo, time stopped. She didn’t realize she clung to Jake or that he’d tucked her beneath his arm as they stood and leaned his cheek against her hair, or that the men who’d been in the stall with them had slipped away. Her gaze was riveted on the wet, black foal and the ministering mother who seemed to know exactly what to do with this new addition to her life.

“She’s going to be a good mother,” Jake said softly, almost as if he’d read Marlo’s mind. “This is her first colt, and she got right down to business.”

“Her first and she knows how, just like that?”

“Nature is a remarkable thing. It is, in fact, what made me believe in the Creator, the Divine Designer. Every birth unfolds like a miracle. You’ll never convince me that anything is a complete accident.”

And as if to put an exclamation point on what Jake was saying, the colt began to struggle to his feet. His knobby little legs looked like a batch of tangled pickup sticks, but after a few wobbly tries, he got them organized and straightened out. He finally stood, swaying as if there were a gusty wind.

“He’s adorable!” Marlo couldn’t take her eyes off the soft-eyed baby. “A miracle!”

As if miracles were coming in bunches these day, mama horse, with a great heave, came to her feet, as well. Then, as if it had been orchestrated in heaven itself—which it had, Marlo was to think later—the colt, its nose bumping along its mother’s side, found what it was looking for and began to nurse.

“Hey, what’s this?” Jake ran a finger along Marlo’s cheek and came away with tears.

She snuffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I’ve never shared anything like that with anyone. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Thank you.”

He smiled at her with that soft, disarming smile that so unnerved her. “Thank you, for reminding me what a miracle birth is. We have so many foals here that sometimes I take it for granted. It’s good to see it through your eyes and to remember what an amazing event it really is.”

She unconsciously reached out and wound her fingers in the fabric of his sleeve, holding on to him as though she might topple without his presence. She leaned into him then, her gaze still on the nursing foal.

“Marlo, I…” Something in his tone made her look up at him just as he tilted his head down and his soft warm lips grazed her own.

She didn’t pull away. She didn’t want to. The moment she’d thought was already perfect was made doubly so. She could barely breathe. Her chest was too filled with joy to take more than a short, shallow breath before she exhaled again.

“I’m sorry, Marlo, I didn’t mean… I want to tell you…”

She lifted a finger to his lips, not wanting him to mar the moment with words. “We were swept away by a miracle. It’s all right.” She tipped her head to look at him and he kissed her again. As her eyes fluttered shut, her ever-vigilant mind added,
Just this once.

Her eyes flew open and, realizing how deeply she was falling
under his spell, Marlo pulled away. To accept a kiss was one thing, to divide affections between a couple like Jake and Sabrina was quite another.

She was exceptionally emotional at the moment, she told herself. That was all understandable, having been witness to the miraculous. “What will you name him?”

“Oh, something long and convoluted that refers to his bloodlines, I suppose.” Jake kept his arm draped across her shoulders. “We usually refer to the foal’s parents’ names within its new name. I often tack on a more manageable nickname, as well.”

“Like what? Do you have something picked out for this little guy?” Marlo continued to marvel at the enthusiastically nursing colt and its forbearing mother.

“I do. Want to hear it?”

She turned her face up toward his. “Please.”

“Marlo’s Miracle. Miracle for short. What do you think of that?”

If her heart stopped beating from sheer delight, would it start again? Marlo put her hand to her chest to check. “It’s too much.”

“Nothing is too much for you.” His words were tender. “Marlo’s Miracle it is.” He looked her over much like he’d studied the colt. “You look like you were actively involved in this birth. I see you have hay in your hair.”

Marlo swatted at her head. “Is it gone?”

“Most of it.” Gently, he pulled a long bit of straw from somewhere behind her ear.

He began to lower his lips toward hers again when she pulled away. “I don’t know how to thank you for this….”

“No thanks needed. This is what I wanted to do. Marlo, I…”

He was interrupted by the sound of a sports car roaring into the yard.

She took the moment to say, “We’d better go outside.”

When they emerged from the barn, Sabrina, Alfred and
Cammi were there talking to Randall. Sabrina, her eyes glittering like hard glass, stared at them and focused a daggered stare at Marlo as she and Jake approached.

Then Sabrina turned away, put on a dazzling smile that didn’t hint at the silent fury she’d directed at Marlo and sashayed toward Jake.

Knees trembling, Marlo glanced wildly around for Lucy. The Divas van was parked in the driveway of the house and Lucy was just getting in.

“I’d better go now,” Marlo murmured to Jake. “I’d call this very bad timing.”

Randall chose that moment to stride across the driveway to Jake. “Alfred has a question for you,” he said brusquely.

“Later,” Jake whispered in her ear, before walking off. When he was out of earshot, Randall turned to Marlo. “My son is charming, but don’t let him fool you. His path has been set for a long time. Our family has…plans…for him.”

Cheeks flaming, Marlo headed for the van that Lucy already had idling. She jumped in and closed the door as Lucy, seeing Marlo’s expression, hit the gas.

“What was that about?” Lucy asked, her eyes large in her head. “Randall Hammond looked very upset.”

“He just warned me away from his son. He says the family has ‘plans’ for him. They obviously don’t include me. Little does he know that I’m not after his son.”

“Jake’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Besides, you are the last person who would disrupt Randall’s ‘plan’ for Jake and Sabrina to get together. We both know that.”

Tears pressed at the back of Marlo’s eyes. “Let’s go home, Lucy.”

Just what she didn’t need, Marlo thought as she looked at the day’s schedule. Angela had made an appointment to come in to
talk about her wedding. After the dustup with Sabrina and Randall at Hammond Stables, Marlo felt sure that the single life was meant for her. There was no way she was going to put herself in a position where she could be the “other woman,” no matter how innocently it had come about. What was more, Marlo didn’t want to hear Angela’s gushing, when all she felt about herself was disgust and dismay. Worse yet, she’d only been apart from Jake for twenty-four hours and she already missed him.

But she and Jake could still be friends, Marlo thought, despite Sabrina’s disapproval. She was hardly competition for Sabrina in the beauty department, Marlo thought. There was nothing glamorous about her—she was the cute, dark-haired girl-next-door type. It was almost unearthly how lovely Sabrina was, though her personality left something to be desired. According to the photos she’d seen at Jake’s house, his mother and grandmother were also beautiful women. The Hammond men obviously liked trophy wives. The only kind of trophy Marlo knew she could win was a 4-H blue ribbon, or maybe a third-place softball prize.

The bell rang, indicating that Angela had arrived. Before Marlo could go out to greet her, she’d forged her way into the back room, waving a large, white three-ring binder with a photo of her and her fiancé on the cover.

“I’ve got it all planned and it’s going to be wonderful,” she announced. “All the Divas have to do is implement it. How are you at making popovers in the shape of hearts? Let’s sit down and get started.”

Silently, Marlo made a vow to never—ever—work for Angela again on anything bigger than the Bridesmaids’ Luncheon. If this didn’t go down in history as the most complicated, frustrating,
perfect
wedding in history, she’d eat her socks.

“And I want handmade mints in the shapes of hearts, leaves
and gerbera daisies.” Angela tapped the front of her notebook with a Waterman pen that had to have cost well over a hundred bucks. “The hearts will be pink, of course, and take up the center of the plates. Won’t that be lovely?”

“A vision,” Marlo said wearily.

Lucy, who had been scribbling notes as fast as she could, looked up. “Some of these details—attractive as they are, could add up costwise.”

“Expense is no issue,” Angle said grandly. “We both want everything to be perfect.” She eyed her two friends. “You will have to figure out how to make the catering work while you are both bridesmaids, you know.”

“About that,” Marlo began, hoping that she could somehow worm her way out of double duty.

“I insist. Hire whoever you must. I can’t get married without the two of you in my party, that’s all there is to it.” Angela tucked the expensive pen into her even more expensive purse. “You two are brilliant. I know you’ll figure it out.”

And that was that.

After two hours of detailed instructions about everything from the flavor of the wedding cake to the size mushrooms she preferred, Angela skewered Marlo with a sharp look. “You
will
be bringing a date to the wedding, correct?”

Marlo’s heart sank. “I’m not sure I can juggle being a bridesmaid, running the kitchen and entertaining a date, Angela. Something would have to be left out, and it would likely be the poor fellow I dragged with me. Maybe I should…”

“I’ve got the tables planned already. You
must
bring a date, or you will throw everything off.” Angela smiled at her and Marlo imagined she could see Bridezilla’s fangs. “Put it on your list.”

And in a pouf of perfume, she was gone.

Marlo turned to her friend. “Lucy, I just can’t… A
date?
Not on top of everything else!”

Lucy held up a hand. “We’ll find you someone who doesn’t mind entertaining himself to come with you, as a place filler. What’s Bryan doing that weekend?”

“Kelly will be home and you know she won’t let him out of her sight.”

“Then he’s out. I’ve already asked my brother to escort me, or I’d let you have him.” Lucy frowned. “Isn’t there someone with whom you feel totally comfortable?”

Sure,
Marlo thought—but she’d been clearly warned to stay away from him.

Despite her misgivings and reservations, Marlo couldn’t steer free of Jake for long.