Unforgettable: A Loveswept Classic Romance (18 page)

She turned to her grandmother. “And you know?”

Lettice was frowning, too, clearly as bewildered as he with Anne’s questions. “Of course. I’ve known for years, from Maida.”

“
I
didn’t know for years.” Anne looked back at him, her eyes narrowed with anger. “I didn’t know until the other day.”

“It’s not something I advertise,” he said, hearing the defensiveness in his voice and not able to stop it. What the hell was wrong with her? She had been so damned understanding when he told her.

“All these years I thought you were perfect.”

“And now you’re angry that I’m not?” He should have known she’d find some excuse. Pain ripped through him.

“No, I’m angry that everyone knew before me.” She leaned forward and stabbed the air with her finger. “Dammit, James. All these years you have seemed so … perfect. Always doing and saying the right thing. Not an imperfection anywhere. And then you—you never called after that dance.…”

“What dance?” Lettice asked.

They ignored her, intent on each other. “I thought I didn’t measure up,” she said.

“Annie,” he said, realizing how he had accidentally hurt her all those years before. “It was the dyslexia. I had just been rejected because of it, and I couldn’t face another rejection—especially from you.”

“Believe me, I would have been thrilled to know you weren’t perfect. All this time I vowed to stay
away from you because … and I fell for you anyway.”

“You didn’t want to because you thought I was perfect?” he asked in astonishment.

“Yes. No.” She waved her hands in the air. “It was a lot of things.”

“Does this mean the game’s over?” Philip asked.

“Yes,” Lettice said, collecting the cards.

“It means I—” Anne took her son’s hand. “I love you, Philip. And I love James, even though I’m a little angry at the moment.”

“And I’m confused,” James said, “but I love your mother.”

“I know all about that,” Philip said, smiling. “Grandmother Lettice told me the night we went to dinner. That’s why we went. To help matchmakin’ you ’cause you needed help to love each other and be happy.” He shrugged, half embarrassed. “I like James … Well, it’s okay with me.”

Lettice shrugged in her turn, as James and Anne rounded on her. “If I waited for you two, all hell would freeze over.”

“Is there anything I’m the first to know?” Anne asked the room in general.

“I doubt it,” James replied, relaxing. Philip clearly approved of him, and he was extremely pleased with the thought. He stretched his arms and said as casually as possible, “I suppose we ought to check on security.”

Color tinged Anne’s cheeks, making her look unexpectedly shy and vulnerable. He loved knowing he could do that to his tigress.

She shrugged. “I guess it’s about time.”

“About.”

Philip didn’t ask to go along, instead becoming
busy with cleaning up an already cleaned-up kitchen. James hid a smile at his “helpfulness.”

A few minutes later he was shutting the kitchen door behind him and Anne. He snapped on the flashlight, its powerful beam illuminating their path.

“Okay, now, why are you angry?” he asked as they walked along. “Besides everyone knowing before you. I’m sorry. Your opinion was the one I cared about the most, that’s why it took so long to tell you.”

“I don’t know. It’s just that my family knew something that I wish I had known from the beginning.”

“It would have made a difference?”

She nodded. “Instead I had to fight the image of the man to find the man.”

“Then I’m glad you didn’t know. I think I would have wondered if you cared only because I did have dyslexia.” He chuckled. “That would have been ironic as hell. I just wanted it not to matter.”

“It doesn’t matter. Only you matter.”

He stopped and kissed her. Her mouth was sweet honey and summer heat. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, he lifted his head. “Let’s get this damn inspection over with.”

“James …”

Anne’s head was spinning, and she felt unsteady on her feet. How he managed to do that, she didn’t know. Just as long as he managed it only with her.

She felt silly now for being angry earlier back at the house. But it had suddenly hit her that if she had known, they might not have wasted so many years. James was right, though. It would have been awful to wonder if a learning disability had
made her fall in love with him. Instead, it hadn’t mattered. Just as it should be.

The reason for the tour surfaced through her thoughts, and she asked, “How long will the security firm be here, James?”

“As long as it takes to catch the person doing this.” He squeezed her hand.

She sighed at the thought of continuing disruption. “The breeding season is almost over, only another couple of weeks are left. The two incidents with Battle Cry were directed at his breeding. Once the season stops, I have a feeling the nastiness will stop.”

James shook his head. “I think things will escalate
because
the season’t almost over. He’ll have to achieve whatever goal he has in mind or wait another year.”

Anne moaned, horrified at the idea. “Please, no.”

“Agreed. What do you say about utilizing the breeding shed?” he asked as the small building became visible about a hundred yards away. “For human purposes. Very human.”

“James!” she exclaimed, laughing at the notion. “You’re crazy.”

“I’m trying to be sexy.”

“No comment.”

“Well, where do you suggest?”

“This is so … clinical,” she said, sighing. “Where’s the moonlight and roses? Where are the stars and shadows? Where’s the romance—”

“Shh!” He snapped off the flashlight.

“Where’s the ‘shh’?” she asked, astonished that he’d hushed her like that.

“Shh!” He nudged her arm and pointed toward
the breeding shed. His voice was a bare whisper. “There’s someone over there.”

“One of the security people?” she whispered back, peering at the shadows. She saw a vague shape flit around the building.

“I don’t think so. Whoever it is, he’s carrying a can. I’ll go and check. Stay here, and use this on anyone except me.”

“James!” she cautioned as he shoved the flashlight into her hands and slipped away from her in the darkness.

Damn that man, she thought, spinning around trying to find him. How could he yell at her for taking risks when he plunged right into trouble? And if she went after him, he’d yell at her for not listening to him … and if she didn’t, she was terrified he might get hurt and she wouldn’t know it. Hadn’t he ever heard of the buddy system, for goodness’ sake?

She had just started moving toward the shed when a loud “poof” filled the air. An odd orange light was barely visible from the other side of the building. She started running as an acrid odor reached her. She saw flames licking at painted wood.

Someone had set the breeding shed on fire.

“James!” she screamed, looking everywhere in an attempt to spot him. “James!”

An “oowff” erupted to her right, and she veered toward it … just in time to see two struggling bodies fall to the ground.

“Ouch! Dammit!”

James cursed a blue streak, as if he were going for his doctorate in vulgarism. The other man was silent, concentrating on stopping his opponent.
Relief and panic washed through her. She ran over and flicked on the flashlight.

“I can’t see,” James shouted.

She swung the light away and turned it off, but not before she got a shocking glimpse of the other man. “It’s Mac!”

“No … oowff … kidding.”

Suddenly men were swarming around them, pulling James and Mac apart. Curtis motioned others toward the shed and shouted for them to start putting out the fire.

Anne threw herself into James’s arms. He held her tightly.

“Dammit, Anne. You didn’t stay put.”

“Right. Just be grateful I didn’t hit you over the head with the flashlight.” She straightened away from him and faced Mac. “Why? What did I do to you, Mac?”

The older man looked broken and defeated. “I meant no harm to you personally, miss. But they were taking my boy away from me. I raised him, taught him his schools, was the first one on his back. He was mine! Mine! Not theirs to sell like a piece of meat. No one loves him like I love him, but I couldn’t buy him. I always thought we’d be together, that when he was done racing we’d be put out to pasture together. But they sold him to … this.”

“Were you …” She swallowed back a wave of horror. “Were you trying to kill him?”

“No!” Mac looked appalled. “I’d never hurt my boy. I thought maybe if he was useless at the breeding … but you found that out. After that you were extra careful with him. I thought then if I messed up his breeding line, Mr. James would
move him to another farm and I might have more of a chance. You stopped that.”

Suddenly everything clicked into place. Mac’s continual protestations of innocence to keep anyone from suspecting him. She remembered the odd words of bitterness when he arrived, and how he had insisted that Battle Cry hated to be touched by strangers, then later told Lettice the horse was always the friendliest in the stable. They had been clues, but he had presented all of them with such ingratiation and charm, they all had been taken in by it.

“And tonight?” James asked, his voice harsh. “What did setting fire to the shed accomplish?”

“Those damn security people!” Mac spat out. “All over the place, watching me, watching everyone. And always watching my boy. I knew I had to take him away. Nothing else would work. So I set the shed … I’m sorry, miss, but I had to, to get everyone away so I could get my boy.”

“Take him,” James said to two of the security people.

The guards turned away with the old man. All the horse people were silent, knowing how easy it was to go over that edge.

Anne looked at Curtis. “Who’s with Battle Cry?”

He grinned. “Safe enough with your security firm back at the barn.”

“Glad you approve,” James said to the man.

Curtis tilted his head. “Maybe. Put two and two together when Mac disappeared out of the barn tonight. Fire department’s been called, Anne. They should be here shortly.”

With that, he nodded and walked away.

“I suppose he’ll never really like me,” James said.

“I hope not.” Anne wrapped her arms around his waist. “At least not more than as a friend. Curtis is gay. He’s also better-looking than I am.”

“Naaa,” James said.

Anne laughed.

“I’m sorry about Mac, Anne.” He shook his head. “When I think of how I insisted he take care of Battle Cry …”

“You didn’t know. I don’t think anybody picked up on the clues.”

James nodded. “I refuse to feel guilty about buying Battle Cry. But looking back, it’s almost easy to see that Mac was the one. Clearly, it was an inside person, yet one who didn’t quite know what he was doing. And his very vocal blaming of himself for neglecting ‘his boy’ was too strong. He had nothing else to do but look after Battle Cry, so how could anyone get near enough to do some mischief?” James glanced toward the breeding shed, the flames already being extinguised. “Well, so much for a great idea.”

She sighed. “Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder?”

“My heart couldn’t get any fonder,” he said in a low voice. He kissed her neck at the sensitive point just under her ear. “But abstinence stinks.”

Anne burst into laughter.

By morning James had had enough. The night, to his complete disgust, had been spent with the police and the fire department. Neither Anne nor he had had a choice on turning Mac over to the police, but they both knew the man’s punishment was not being with his beloved horse. They had allowed him to say good-bye to Battle Cry, but the
animal had served his own brand of justice on the old man, turning away from him to his manger of straw as if he didn’t exist. Mac’s tears had been painful to see.

James put the thought out of his head. It was over, and Anne was safe. Battle Cry too. Time to go back to his condo … and his lonely bed. The couch in Anne’s office was bad enough, but at least they were under the same roof. He’d have to do something.

The moment he joined her and Philip at breakfast, he knew exactly what to do.

“Marry me, Anne.”

Cornflakes shot out of her mouth. He grinned as she swiped at them. “What?”

“Marry me. I want to be here with you. I love you. Marry me.”

“I …”

Philip was grinning. “Say yes, Mom.”

Anne grinned back, then turned to James. He could already see the answer in her eyes.

“Yes.”

He smiled, reaching across the table to take her hand. “I love you.”

“I love you.” Her fingers were warm and tight around his.

“Well, it’s about time!” Lettice pronounced, and walked over to the telephone.

“Grandmother, you don’t have to call the papers now,” Anne said.

“I’m not. My work here is done, and I’m calling for a moving van to take me back home.”

“But you have only your clothes and the four things I allowed you,” Anne said.

Lettice walked back over and patted her cheek.
“When was the last time you were in the guest room?”

“The guest room?”

“It’s hardly four things now.”

“More like forty,” Philip said, giggling. “Grandmother Lettice has been bringing stuff in here when you weren’t lookin’.”

Lettice smiled triumphantly. “You were very impressive, child, but you’ve got a long way to go to beat a professional.”

Anne flopped back in the chair. “That tablecloth, the brushes. That new table in the den.”

“Exactly.”

“Is there
anything
I know before you do?”

“That I’m marrying you,” James suggested, laughing.

“Oh, I knew that too,” Lettice said. “Ever since she threw up on you.”

James turned to Anne. “You don’t suppose …”

She grinned. “Naaa. I managed that one all by myself.”

“The girl of my dreams.”

They laughed together.

Anne watched the horses walk onto the track in single file. The third one shuffled along, its nose nearly touching the ground.

“Rainbow’s Battle looks rarin’ to go,” she pronounced with great satisfaction.