Dear Reader,

When my editor suggested I give Alexa a prosthetic leg, I wondered how I could turn her into an action/adventure heroine worthy of a Bombshell book. How could a woman with that handicap possibly work undercover and kick butt? I scoured the Internet for information and still wondered how I could make this assignment work. Then I was fortunate to meet a woman who showed me that the only thing that could get in Alexa’s way was her own thoughts. Throwing Alexa out of her Ralph Lauren world and into Levi’s and leading her through an adventure that gave her a much-needed attitude adjustment turned out to be a lot of fun! I hope you enjoy reading Alexa’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Sincerely,

Sylvie Kurtz

Ms. Longshot
Sylvie Kurtz

Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Sylvie Kurtz for her contribution to the The It Girls series.

ISBN: 9781408946206

Ms. Longshot

© Harlequin Books S.A. 2005

First Published in Great Britain in 2005

Harlequin (UK) Limited

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, including without limitation xerography, photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

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All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.á.r.l.

® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

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Books by Sylvie Kurtz

Silhouette Bombshell

Personal Enemy #29

†Ms. Longshot #70

†The It Girls

Silhouette Special Edition

A Little Christmas Magic #1438

Harlequin Intrigue

One Texas Night #527

Blackmailed Bride #575

Alyssa Again #600

*Remembering Red Thunder #653

*Red Thunder Reckoning #657

Under Lock and Key #712

**Heart of a Hunter #767

**Mask of a Hunter #773

A Rose at Midnight #822

**Eye of a Hunter #866

*Flesh and Blood

**The Seekers

SYLVIE KURTZ

Flying an eight-hour solo cross-country in a Piper Arrow with only the airplane’s crackling radio and a large bag of M&M’s for company, Sylvie Kurtz realized a pilot’s life wasn’t for her. The stories zooming in and out of her mind proved more entertaining than the flight itself. Not a quitter, she finished her pilot’s course and earned her commercial license and instrument rating.

Since then, she has traded in her wings for a keyboard, where she lets her imagination soar to create fictional adventures that explore the power of love and the thrill of suspense. When not writing, she enjoys the outdoors with her husband and two children, quilt-making, photography and reading whatever catches her interest.

You can write to Sylvie at P.O. Box 702, Milford, NH 03055. And visit her Web site at www.sylviekurtz.com.

For Cassie—a Bombshell in training

A special thank-you:

To Amy Schiff for sharing her story with me.

Definitely a Bombshell heroine!

Samantha at Hair Force for helping

me with my dyeing dilemma

Ann Voss Peterson for sharing

horse trailer stories

Contents

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

COMING NEXT MONTH

Prologue

New York City. December. Ten years ago.

The second-floor bathroom of the Constance Gramercy School for Girls was crowded as usual. I elbowed my way to the mirror and puckered up to see if the zit I’d felt growing on my chin in social science had popped up. Wouldn’t you know it, the timing sucked. I had a horse show in the morning.

Nathalie Huston, my best friend since we’d bitten each other the first day of kindergarten, came pounding through the door, big boobs leading the way and her long, black ponytail flying behind her. She’d had that magnificent chest since she was eleven. At fifteen, I was still waiting for mine to show up. My mother said British roses took longer to bloom, which only made me wish I’d inherited more of my father’s American genes.

Back of the hand pressed to her forehead, Nat paused and sighed dramatically. Of course the contrast of Wedgwood-blue eyes and raven hair had made her dramatic from birth. I couldn’t help smiling.

“What’s wrong this time, Nat?” I turned back to the mirror and swiped boring clear lipgloss—the only kind the builds-the-character rules allowed—across my lips.

“Oh, Alexa, I can’t take it anymore.” Nat plopped her book bag against the white sink and checked to see if what little makeup was allowed needed retouching. “I simply can’t sit through Mr. Ziegler’s algebra class today.” She sniffed in perfect imitation of Mr. Ziegler’s postnasal drip problem and pushed nonexistent glasses up her nose—just as Mr. Ziegler would do. “Forty minutes of that is enough to drive anyone nuts. Like what am I ever going to use algebra for anyway?”

I didn’t mind math. I was kind of good at it, actually. Daddy kept telling me I had a head for business and, as uncool as that was, I liked hearing him say it.

“Let’s cut last period,” Nat whispered. She stretched open the top of her Gucci bag and showed off the fresh pack of smokes.

“It’s raining,” I said with a sigh. No need to look outside for a weather update. Not with the frizz I had going. Even in a French braid, even inside, even with half a bottle of Aveda frizz tamer, the humidity made my mahogany curls look like one of the rusted Brillo pads in the science lab.

“I’ve got an umbrella.” Nat grinned and tugged on the minicompact, red-plaid Burberry umbrella tucked in her bag.

I made a quick calculation. With two weeks left to the semester before the Christmas break, I could afford another warning on my record before someone notified my parents they had a delinquent daughter. Besides, Daddy had promised to pick me up right after school today so we could get to the Ridgefield Winter Dressage Show early. If I was already standing outside, he wouldn’t have to wait for me.

I slung my Coach bag over my shoulder. “I’m in. Let’s go.”

Traffic honked up and down Ninety-third Street. Breathing in that exhaust had to fry our lungs more than any cigarette could. Nat popped open the umbrella and passed it to me. I angled it to shield us from most of the rain. Cold wind pried apart the blue cashmere Marc Jacobs coat I’d pulled from my bag, but I didn’t care. I hated stuffy English almost as much as Nat hated algebra. Shivering outside was a small price to pay to miss the dreaded class.

I untucked my boring white Calvin Klein button-down shirt, rolled the waist of my gray uniform skirt and leaned back against the cold stone wall. What was the point of having great legs if you couldn’t show them off? And what idiot had come up with gray as the uniform color in the first place? No one I knew looked good in gray.

Nat passed a coffin stick. “I can’t wait for break.”

I lit it with the gold lighter I’d pilfered from my mother’s purse and puffed out a geyser of smoke. “Me either.”

“Sucks that I’ll be stuck going skiing with my dad in Aspen again, though.” Nat made a face. “He’s bringing his new girlfriend.” A gold-digging bimbo only seven years older than Nat.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and she’ll run into a tree,” I sympathized.

“She’s more into the après than the ski, if you know what I mean.” Nat took a long drag on her cigarette. “What are you going to wear to the Black-and-White Ball?”

“Ralph sent over a black number that’s so hot,” I said, practically purring. My long legs had caught Ralph Lauren’s attention when I was thirteen, and he’d tried to get me to pose for one of his ads ever since. Naturally my mother had nixed the idea. Modeling is apparently beneath the station of Lady Cheltingham’s daughter. I secretly believed that my stiff-upper-lip mother just didn’t want me to have any kind of fun. Still, for every major event, a dress appeared at our Park Avenue penthouse, and even my mother wasn’t too proud to accept the gift of couture.

“It’s cut down to here.” I twisted my body around without moving my feet and dragged a hand down to the small of my back.

At that moment, someone leaned on a horn and didn’t let go. Tires screeched and a yellow taxi hopped the curb, trying to avoid a collision with a town car zigzagging like crazy through traffic.

He’s not going to stop, I realized as the taxi charged toward us.

The world slowed around me as I untwisted my feet. My heart pounded a ragged beat against my eardrums. A gust of wind wrenched the umbrella from my hand. Nat’s screams echoed as if she were in a tunnel. Too late, I lifted a leg to bolt out of the way. The thud of metal against stone and bone registered as something foreign and far away—like it was all happening to someone else—pinning me to the wall like a butterfly.

The taxi recoiled. I fell and I could tell you every second of the trip to the pavement. Inanely what floated through my mind was Newton’s First Law I’d learned in Mrs. Collin’s science class: “For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.” And the weirdest thing of all was the way my head bounced sideways against the wet concrete like a tennis ball, splashing dirty puddle water into my eyes. When my vision cleared, what filled my sight was the perfectly whole cigarette, end glowing red, between my fingers.

Well, crap, I thought as pain screamed through my body and pierced my brain. Daddy was right. Cigarettes were going to kill me.

Chapter 1

New York City Late April. Present.

I was probably the only undercover agent in history who’d get fired for removing her prosthesis in an airport and pissing off a French gendarme. But the hyper frog barking at me in French at the security checkpoint at Charles de Gaulle had far exceeded my limit of patience when he refused to understand that my leg was setting off the alarm, not a hidden weapon.

Ever since the accident, I’d been sensitive about my leg. So when my cell phone rang shortly after my flight touched down in New York and I was summoned to tea at the Gotham Rose Club, I was sure the ax was about to fall and I was going to get booted out of their secret agency.

The car service dropped me off in front of the gray cut-stone townhouse that housed the Gotham Rose Club on Sixty-eighth Street between Park and Madison on the Upper East Side. I stood outside the black wrought-iron security grate over the carved wood front door with its rose design and pretended to admire the architecture. Mostly I was composing myself.

Renee Dalton-Sinclair ran the Gotham Rose Club, an elite, members-only club intended to attract young, wealthy New York women like me to fund-raise and volunteer their time for charity. I was doing both for the Horses of Hope Foundation long before Renee asked me to join. But Renee also had another use for the club—taking down high-society criminals. And that’s why I was here today, and why I couldn’t decide if the nerves jumping around like fleas on a barn dog were from anger or anxiety.

I tugged at the hem of the silver-leaf sleeveless V-neck top and smoothed the ivory Vera Wang cotton-tulle skirt with my sweaty palms, then pressed the doorbell. Olivia Hayworth’s voice sang across the intercom. “Welcome, Alexa. Come on in.”

A security buzzer released the latch and I walked into a white Italian marble foyer that reminded me of a gilded cage. The place smelled of old money and older traditions. And despite my background, I never felt like I quite fit in.

Olivia, Renee’s assistant, greeted me with an extended hand and a bright smile that eased some of my anxiety. Okay, so maybe I’d just get a warning.

“Hello, Alexa, how was your trip to Paris?”

“Nonstop crazy.”

Olivia chuckled. “With Nathalie Huston, what else did you expect?”

I winced. Maybe this was about the incident with the gendarme.

My silver Delman ballet flats echoed against the marble as Olivia led me back to the Irish tearoom, one of the many that served as meeting rooms. Renee sat alone at the table. That couldn’t be good. My stomach took a sharp dive south.

Renee’s hair was pulled into a French twist. The hint of gray snaking through her auburn locks here and there merely added to the air of dignity that surrounded her. The winter white of her Chanel suit complemented her creamy complexion. As always, her smile was warm and welcoming and her striking royal blue eyes assessing.

The reason I’d joined Renee’s secret agency was to prove to myself that I could do anything I wanted—even catch bad guys. Not to mention the promise of excitement—which, I should mention, had failed to materialize. Unless you counted poring through piles of business reports as exciting—which I did not. For some reason, Renee insisted on treating me as if I were Swarovski crystal.

Frankly, I don’t know why Renee asked me to join the Gotham Rose Club when she barely made use of my skills. My guess was that it was some sort of employer requirement—round out the roll call with a token cripple and get patted on the head for following all the equal-employment opportunity rules. She knew how I felt, and that didn’t make me one of her favorite agents.

I often thought that the illusive Governess was the one who’d insisted Renee hire me, and Renee had done so only reluctantly. Of course, who the Governess was and what she had at stake in this cloak-and-dagger agency was as mysterious as why Renee had agreed to play front woman for the agency. I had to admit curiosity was one of the things that kept me coming back.

Renee pushed away a file and rose. A small smile lifted the corners of her lips. “Come in, Alexa. Sit. Tea?”

A file was a good sign, right? Unless it contained a list of my transgressions.

I greeted Renee with a stiff air kiss. A vintage linen tablecloth covered the round Charles X table set with Hewitt Gold bone china and Pelham Gold flatware. Scones from my favorite bakery on Madison crammed a three-tiered silver Tiffany tray. Steam curled from the blue-and-white Lynn Feld porcelain teapot. White tea roses in a Lalique vase spiced the air. Renee had impeccable taste and it served as a perfect veil for the true work she did here. Still, I couldn’t help wanting to throw a Tupperware tub on the table at one of the functions just to hear the proper ladies gasp.

“I’d love a cup of tea.” I took the chair across from Renee’s. Fragrant bergamot scented the air as Renee poured hot Earl Grey tea with slow precision into pale-blue, gold-trimmed cups.

“Where is everyone else?” I asked. Tea with Renee usually meant dealing with Tatiana Guttmann, Becca Whitmore and one or two more of the agents. I didn’t have anything against them personally, but they got all the good assignments.

“It’s just the two of us today.” Renee slanted me another one of her cryptic smiles as she served me a cup.

“Oh.” I forced my fingers to relax against the china. Was she going to fire me before I ever got any of that promised excitement? I tried to delay the inevitable. “How is Emma doing?”

Emma Bromwell, another agent who’d gone through the same training class I had, suffered a severe arm fracture and a concussion during an explosion at a post-Oscar fund-raising party for the Miller Children’s Home in California a couple months ago.

Renee glanced away. A certain sadness seemed to weigh on her soul. I figured the sadness existed because her husband, Preston, whom she dearly loved, was serving prison time for fraud. Five years ago the case made headlines in all the papers. But asking about Emma seemed to carve deeper grooves into that sadness, aging her. Was she taking Emma’s accident personally? Was this sense of personal responsibility why Renee never gave me a real assignment?

“Emma’s doing as well as can be expected,” Renee said. “She’ll have to have physical therapy for a bit longer, but she’ll regain full use of her arm.”

“That’s good.” When I noticed my hand unconsciously rubbing at the edge of my socket, I snapped it back to the warmth of the teacup. “She was worried she wouldn’t be able to play the piano anymore. And that brought her such joy.” I knew how I’d felt when I’d thought I’d never ride again.

“How are the preparations for the Horses of Hope Foundation wine-and-cheese party going?” Renee asked.

“Fine.” I placed my cup back on its saucer. “Tickets are selling well and sponsors are lining up to host a table, including the esteemed mayor of our city, Mr. Siegel.”

“Can your assistant handle the rest of the preparations?”

Ah, so that was it. An assignment, not an indictment on my lack of propriety at Charles de Gaulle. My shoulders sagged with relief. “Yes, of course she can.”

“Good.” Renee added a slice of lemon to her tea. “The Governess has asked me to send you on an assignment. I’ll take over your hostessing duties at the show.”

Send? As in field? I sat up a little straighter, and anticipation shot through my veins. Thank you, Governess! At least someone had faith in me.

None of the agents had ever met the mysterious Governess, not even Renee. The only thing we could agree on was that, whoever she was, she was well connected. And when the equally mysterious Duke entered the conversation, you’d think we were a book club discussing an old Victoria Holt novel.

The Duke was said to be some sort of Godfather-like figure who ran in elite circles and had fingers in all sorts of dirty dealings. If you believed the rumors, he had a hand in everything from corruption to gambling. I had a suspicion he was one of the reasons the Gotham Rose Club was started. But if Renee knew who he was, she wasn’t spilling the secret.

It was all supposed to be hush-hush, but I’d heard that Renee had struck a deal with the Governess to create and run the Gotham Rose Agency in exchange for her husband, Preston’s, early release from prison. Someone had to go to jail for the Sinclair family’s illegal business dealings and poor Preston was the scapegoat.

“Have you been keeping up with the news of the show circuit?” Renee asked, reaching for a scone.

“No, not really.” What was the point of salting a wound? I got my fix of horses through my foundation and my weekly trips to my estate in Darien, Connecticut, where I kept two horses. “Why?”

“A string of accidents have happened this winter on the Palm Beach show-jumping circuit. Canterbury Crown died of a heart attack while going over a jump and his rider was hurt from the fall. Drug testing showed cocaine in the horse’s blood.”

“Cocaine?” Who would do such a thing? Of course, some people would do anything to win—even hurt a defenseless animal. “What happened?”

“The police investigated but came to no conclusion.”

I leaned forward, my heart fluttering against my ribs. “You want me to look into it,” I said hopefully.

“A few weeks later, a barn fire killed four horses, including the current National Horse Show champion, Total Eclipse.”

Just thinking about the terror those poor animals had to endure raised my blood pressure and sparked my anger. But I bit my tongue. This was definitely my kind of assignment, but Renee was obviously not asking for my opinion.

“The latest victim is Monica Lightbourne, daughter of the media heiress,” Renee continued. “Someone injected her horse, Blue Ribbon Belle, with a drug that caused a neurological reaction so violent the horse had to be put down.”

“That’s awful. How do you want me to help?”

“The Metropolitan Spring Classic Charity Horse Show begins in a week.”

“You want me to investigate at the show since I’ll be there for my foundation’s charity event.” Yes! This I could do. No stretch at all.

“Not exactly.” Renee sipped her tea, humor glinting in her eyes. “As you know, the mayor’s daughter participates in show jumping. Elliot Siegel is afraid his daughter, who’s a front runner to win the Grand Prix, will be the Horse Ripper’s next victim and that he’ll strike some time before or during the show.”

“You want me to protect Leah Siegel.” A small thrill spurred my pulse into a gallop. Finally a chance to do more than shuffle paper. Protecting the mayor’s daughter was an elite assignment.

“We want you to go undercover at the stable where she trains.” Renee tilted her head. “As a groom.”

“Excuse me?” I had to have heard wrong. Renee wanted me to go undercover as a groom? Just what had she put in her tea?

“You heard me.”

Needing to gather my wits, I picked up my teacup, but it never made it to my lips. I plunked the cup back on its saucer. “You want me to shovel manure? How’s that going to help protect Leah?”

Renee studied me, then lifted both eyebrows and a shoulder in a gesture of dismissal. “I told the Governess this wasn’t a good idea. With your leg, you can’t possibly be expected to perform such hard physical labor.”

“Wait a minute. This has nothing to do with my leg.” I slid to the edge of the chair caught between wanting to tell Renee what she could do with her condescending attitude and fighting for my first real assignment. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed her approval until now. “You don’t want me here. You never have.”

“That’s not true. The trouble with you, Alexa, is that you have no concept of the limits of your skills and that makes you dangerous. You think you can do everything. Everyone needs help. And I don’t want to see you, or any of my girls, hurt.”

Hurt? She was thinking of Emma. But the situations were different. Renee hadn’t even given me the chance to chip a nail. The last assignment had relied more on my understanding of avionics and electronics systems produced by my father’s defense-contracting business than on physical prowess.

I rode again after the doctors told me I never would. I survived the brutal training I’d gone through with Emma, Chloe and Becca. I ran the business side of my foundation without anyone there knowing about my handicap. My chin crept up and my back got stiff with steel. “I can do anything as well as anyone else.”

The tilt of Renee’s smile widened. “You’re proving my point.”

I strangled the linen napkin in one fist. Control, Alexa. Get yourself under control. If I didn’t watch out, I’d blow this. I had to make Renee realize there was more to me than my missing lower leg, and the only way I could think to do that was to put her on the spot. “Why did you ask me to join the agency if you have no faith in my ability?”

“You have many outstanding abilities,” Renee said so silkily that I could feel my ruffled feathers smoothing. Her gaze didn’t waver—almost as if she’d expected this flak from me and had her side of the argument ready to deflect anything I could throw at her.

“We brought you in,” she said, “because you know your way around a business statement in several languages. You have access to the defense industry through your father. You have connections with several highly placed branches of society both in New York and in London. And you, more than any of the other girls, can physically alter your looks to fit any situation.”

“But…” I said and waited for Renee to fill the space. There was always a damned but.

“Your blinders get in the way. I can’t give you a field assignment if I feel I’ll be putting you in physical danger.”

“We’re back to the leg thing again.” Didn’t everything in my life come back to that blasted leg? If it didn’t matter to me, why should it matter to anyone else?

“No, you’re back to the leg thing again. You made it through training. You’ve proved you can cope with your handicap.” There was actual warmth in Renee’s voice as if she really did admire what I’d overcome. She reached for my hand and squeezed it gently. “It’s your impetuous tendency that worries me. You grow impatient, you bend the rules and look for the shortcut. There’s no place for that in the field. Not when there’s so much at stake. Think of it as dressage. Everything has to be precise or you put the whole operation at risk.”

“Wait,” I said, pulling back, confused by Renee’s simultaneous praise and excoriation. “You said you were sending me to work as a groom.”

“Then you took offense and didn’t let me get to the second part of your mission.”

Second part of the mission? Man, I was burning bridges before I even got a foot on them. This was the one thing I kept forgetting about Renee: how good she was at manipulating people to do exactly what she wanted. Now I couldn’t refuse the assignment without coming across as a self-pitying spoiled brat.

“I’m sorry.” I shrugged. “It’s just a groom isn’t exactly what I’d had in mind when I’d thought of an undercover assignment.”

“In this case, it’s the best means for you to gather information on the owners and workers at the Ashcroft Equestrian Center. Grooms are easily overlooked, yet people tend to speak freely around them because the stables are a relaxing environment.”

Okay, so this was a test. If I could prove to Renee I could do this, then next time she’d give me something as glamorous as she’d given Porsche Rothschild. I still couldn’t believe an airhead like Porsche had gotten to protect the actor Jeremy Reins as her first assignment. She’d even gone to the Oscars!

“You’ve heard of Firewall?”

I nodded, grateful Renee hadn’t completely written me off yet. Firewall was a seventeen-hand high fire-red chestnut that loved to jump and made it look easy. Whispers of Olympic gold floated around him. All he needed was a few more years of seasoning and he could be a real contender. “Firewall is a jumper owned by Hardel Industries.”

“With his major competitors out of the picture, Firewall comes out as a favorite to take over the summer season.”

“Killing to win seems redundant when you have such great horseflesh to do all the work for you.”

Renee lifted a shoulder. “Hardel Industries has put a lot of their advertising dollars into promoting Firewall. The more often he makes headlines, the more often the company does. You can’t buy that kind of publicity. They can’t afford to lose him. Do you know Ross Hardel?”

“I know who he is.” I’d met him over ten years ago when his trainer had insisted he improve his seat by taking some dressage lessons. He’d been an arrogant twit then and, if Rubi Cho’s gossip column was to be believed, he hadn’t changed. Treachery required hard work and Ross Hardel had never liked to work up a sweat. Of course, maybe bumping off the competition was the easiest way for him to win.

“Would he recognize you?” Renee asked.

“I doubt it. We don’t run in the same circle.” Nor was I the type of woman likely to be photographed clinging to his elbow. He preferred blond Barbie-dolls with IQs smaller than their bustlines. Of course, I’m sure he wasn’t seeking intelligent conversation from them.

“Perfect,” Renee chirped. “Since both Waldo, Leah Siegel’s horse, and Firewall are the top two candidates to become the Horse Ripper’s next victim, your job is to make sure nothing happens to them and to report any information you glean about who might have a stake at seeing the competition eliminated.”

A secretary who shoveled shit—definitely not what I had in mind when I asked for excitement. Still I put on my best obedient agent face. “That’s going to be tough if I’m stuck cleaning stalls while Ross and Leah are hobnobbing poolside.”

“Which is why you’re to accept any invitation from Ross Hardel.”

Oh, God, no. I didn’t think I could stand being around that that arrogant prick for five minutes. Being pawed by a pervert was not my idea of fun. Or having him feel my prosthesis and shrink back in disgust. “This guy has a reputation for being a cad.”

“And a reputation for a fondness for stable girls. That gives you an in at keeping tabs on him and who might want to do his horse harm.”

My fork snapped through the scone and plinked on the gold-trimmed plate. “I certainly hope you’re not expecting me to sleep with him!” I didn’t need this assignment that badly. “Your whole undercover ploy is going to fall apart if anyone finds out about my leg. There aren’t too many one-legged riders around. And he’ll have heard of my accident since he was training with my coach at the time.” Not to mention that one look at my residual limb usually sent my dates scrambling for excuses to run out the door. Funny how they never called back. Which is why I usually got the leg business out of the way first thing—before I could get attached.

The Mona Lisa half-twist to Renee’s mouth had me wondering what she found so amusing. “I don’t expect you to prostitute yourself. You can be charming when you put your mind to it, Alexa.”

Renee had this groom scenario all figured out. I could accept the assignment and prove myself to her. Or I could pass and very well get skipped over every time. “I’ll pack some charm. But wouldn’t I be able to get more out of Ross and Leah if I played someone within their circle? I could play the role of an owner. Bring one of my horses along.”

“As a groom, you’ll have a better chance of extracting information from the help. I’m told they will know all the dirty little secrets the owners try to hide and the goings on behind the scene. The help wouldn’t talk to you if you played the role of an owner. From what I understand the horse world is small and almost incestuous.”

She got that right. When I’d showed, I’d bumped into the same group of people every weekend. And if someone were to write a book about the lowdown, dirty things that really went on behind the glitz and glamour of the show ring, no one would believe it. Reality was much stranger than fiction.

Renee fingered the edge of the file sitting on the linen tablecloth, and like a good performer, waited until I was practically salivating before opening the red cover. “Ally Cross is to report to Bart Hind at the Ashcroft Equestrian Center just outside of Ashcroft, Connecticut. He’s the center’s manager and knows nothing about the operation. He’s expecting Ally at seven tomorrow morning. Your résumé and job were provided by the center’s owner.”

“Who is that?”

“Patrick Dunhill.”

“The former Olympian?” His black horse Messenger had soared through many of my dreams as I was growing up. He spared no expense on his horses, and his facilities were said to be the Rolls Royce of stables. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Renee nodded. “He’s made sure you’ll be assigned to both Ross Hardel and Leah Siegel’s horses. That will allow you to get close to both of them. Alan will provide you with all the necessary paperwork to backstop your Ally Cross identity. No one is to know your true background. Since you used to show, will that be a problem?”

I hadn’t stepped foot into a show ring in ten years. Memories were short. “Dressage people and jumping people run in different circles.”

“This will require hard physical work, Alexa. Are you up to the job?”

I’d never let my “defective” leg stop me from achieving my goals before. I certainly wouldn’t now. If Renee wanted a groom, I could become a groom. “How hard can it be to muck out a stall?”

Chapter 2

My next stop was the elevator hidden behind the rack of shoes and the rows of designer clothes in the closet in Renee’s office. I entered my code on the temperature control panel, followed the prompt for a palm print and an iris scan and waited patiently while the computer decided I was indeed who I claimed to be. The panel slid open and I stepped into the car. The glass elevator reminded me of a bullet and was just a little bit disconcerting in the way it blurred the concrete walls as it rushed to the basement level.

Kristi Burke, the undercover stylist, was waiting for me when I got off the elevator. She twisted her hands like a mad scientist facing a brand-new experiment. The lab coat didn’t help the effect.

“I had such fun shopping for this assignment,” Kristi said, leading me toward the dressing room. Two rolling racks of clothes waited beside a three-way mirror. She sat me in the hairdresser’s chair and stood behind me.

“Fun? For this assignment?”

Kristi’s nose wrinkled cutely as she smiled. “It’s not every day I get to dress down someone as gorgeous as you are. I thrive on a challenge.” She ran her fingers through strands of my long hair. “First, we need to tone down that beautiful mahogany into something more mousy.”

“Mousy?” I didn’t like the sound of that.

“I’m going to dye it a flat brown, then overdry it and butcher the ends so they split. Stable girls don’t have the money for designer haircuts.”

“Sounds absolutely splendid.” Oh, yeah, this was definitely a glamorous assignment. “I suppose you want me to bring back my acne and crooked front teeth.”

“Could you?” Kristi joked, then knuckled my chin. “Chin up, girl. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’ll be able to bring you back to your old self in a couple of hours when your assignment is through.”

Chewing on orange-flavored nicotine gum, Kristi chatted about her horrible Internet dating experiences as she dyed and shampooed and snipped and dried my hair into a dull brown frizz that nearly brought tears to my eyes. She took a raggedy scrunchie from one of the drawers by the mirrored table and twisted my hair into a messy bun. “This is the going stableyard style, I’m told. Or try a single braid down your back.”

I took in a long drag of air, hating my drab reflection in the mirror. “I think I can manage.”

“Good. Now makeup.” She showed me how to apply a concoction that dulled my skin and, voila, I was my mother’s worst fear come to life. Common. I wanted to treat that poor pasty girl in the mirror to a day at Bliss Spa. She deserved it.

Kristi swiveled the chair around until it was facing the racks of clothes. “Wardrobe’s up next. I had a hard time finding jeans that were long enough for you in the leg, but managed to unearth three pairs of Levi’s at the Goodwill store.”

Goodwill? That was a long way from Barney’s on Madison. Oh, this was getting worse by the second. Wearing other people’s clothes. I shuddered and scratched at imagined cooties jumping over my skin. Kristi went through the piles of underwear—cotton instead of my usual LaPerla silk—and T-shirts with advertising splashed across the front. She was especially proud of the faded red Barn Goddess one. By the time she closed the zipper on the scuffed L.L. Bean duffel bag, I was near tears. I wasn’t vain. Not really. But this was, well, so beneath my station. “If you need anything more, let me know and I’ll see what I can dig up.”

I hoped to identify the Horse Ripper within a week. I could survive a week in itchy clothes, forking manure. I could. Really. “I think I’m set. Thanks.”

Kristi beamed. “My pleasure.”

Alan Burke, Kristi’s brother, poked his head, dark-brown hair perfectly coiffed, through the dressing room door. “All done?”

“If she was, she’d be with you already, now wouldn’t she?” Kristi snapped. Since Kristi had started her smoke-cessation program, she tended to take out her frustrations on her brother. Poor thing.

Ignoring Alan, Kristi reached for a box on top of the dressing table. “I had some darker contacts made with your prescription. Your eyes are such a distinct warm sienna that I figured they might attract attention.”

I stashed Kristi’s Goodwill-filled duffel bag by the elevator door and made my way to Alan’s tech room. The room was filled to the brim with computers, closed-circuit television screens and a wall full of electronic gadgets that would listen, see and record any kind of information you could imagine. I looked at them with envy, knowing a groom wasn’t likely to need any of those beauties.

“How’s Kyle?” I asked Alan as I took a seat beside him in one of his high-tech chairs. Kyle was a Versace model who lived in Venice. Alan had met him at a recent ball and fallen head over heels in love.

His chocolate-brown eyes drooped at the corners like a disappointed puppy’s. “He hasn’t called in a while.”

“He will. How could he resist a sweetie like you?”

Alan shrugged and got down to the business of going over the technical details of my mission as Ally Cross. “Here’s your driver’s license, credit card, ATM card, check book, car registration, insurance card. I’ve also taken the liberty of getting you some of those annoying frequent-shoppers cards. Blockbuster, Stop & Shop, Starbucks. I also found one for an on-line tack shop.”

“Impressive.” He handed me my new life story stuffed in a faded navy-blue ripcord wallet with Velcro tabs. Swell.

“Everything’s backstopped and will stand up to a fairly rigorous investigation.” He added a set of keys on a battered brass stirrup keychain to my booty. “Now, I’ve arranged to have an old Ford Focus modified with a steering wheel accelerator so you can drive it.”

Because my right foot was missing, making it difficult to feel the pedal, I had to have a special modification to drive. God, I hated driving, but a groom wasn’t likely to arrive at a minimum-wage job in a chauffeur-driven limousine. “You think of everything.”

“That’s what they pay me for, darling. I also have this.” He reached into a drawer and took out a cell phone and a silver locket. He dangled the locket from his index finger. “It doesn’t look like much so the risk of having it stolen is practically nil. If you press the front like so.” He demonstrated by pressing his thumb against the diamond chip in the middle of the rose scroll and set off an alarm on his computer. “We’ll get an SOS signal and be able to come to your rescue. Of course, that’ll work better once you’re back in the city, but we’ll be able to keep track of your movements in Connecticut. It’ll just take us longer to get to you.”

Somehow that didn’t sound as reassuring as it should.

He secured the locket around my neck, then flipped open the phone. “This is really a small computer in disguise. With this, you’ll be able to transmit pictures back to me, record conversations should you need to and, using the sliding keypad, record whatever information Renee needs. Plug it in the recharging base every night. At 2:00 a.m., it will automatically transfer whatever you’ve entered in the computer to our mainframe here. If you need to send something before, just dial Hal’s number and he’ll take it from there.”

Hal being the mainframe. Did I mention Alan loved movies?

“I have a cell phone that can do most of that.”

“This one encrypts communications. And this one is registered to Ally Cross.”

“Good point.”

Alan smiled at me as he handed me the gadget. I stuffed it in the knock-off Dooney & Bourke purse Kristi had given me as part of my disguise. “You can call me anytime by pressing the number one on the speed dial function.” He scooped up a plastic bag at his feet. “Here are a couple of videos from last year’s Grand Prix jumping events. That should bring you up-to-date as to who’s who in the jumping world. I’ve also included a book on horse care and grooming. You’re a quick study so getting the procedures down pat shouldn’t take you long.”

I clutched the bag to my chest. Although I’d never personally attempted the feat, cleaning stalls wasn’t rocket science. “Great. Thanks.”

My last stop was to see Jimmy “The Heartbreaker” Valentine, the agency’s personal trainer. I loved him. Of course, so did every other agent, even though “Backbreaker” would be a more apt title for him. He’d worked for the CIA and didn’t take any of the crap we dished out. And I can honestly say that none of us have made Jimmy’s job easy.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Jimmy said as I walked into his gym. He stood in his black shorts and sweat-stained gray T-shirt in front of the mirror doing bicep curls with thirty-pound dumbbells. “How’s my girl?”

I fluffed my frizz. “As you can see from Kristi’s work of art, I’m going undercover.”

He broke out into a face-eating grin. “Congratulations, I know you’ve been waiting to lead a case for a long time.”

“Well, it’s not exactly what I had in mind.” I flopped onto a padded bench beside the neat rows of dumbbells on a rack.

“You can do it. I have faith in you.”

And his boat-wide smile made shoveling manure suddenly sound like a true opportunity rather than a punishment.

Jimmy was the only one who understood how hard I’d had to work to hide my condition and make my handicap look effortless. He understood because his older brother, Mario, had an arm ripped off above the elbow in a motorcycle accident when he was eighteen. Jimmy had grown up watching Mario endure the long process of fitting an artificial limb and the painful and frustrating hours of practice that went into rehabilitation.

“Hey, guess what?” he said.

“What?”

“Kara’s pregnant.”

For whatever reason, Jimmy tried to reassure me every time I came to the gym that if an ugly, one-armed, junkyard dog like his brother could find a beautiful woman to marry him, then my finding a partner was definitely in the cards. I’m not sure he understood how superficial men in my social circle could be. “When’s the baby due?”

“Right before Christmas.”

“Give him my congratulations.”

Jimmy put both hands up and backed away. “Heck, no, he’s already feeling too proud of himself.”

I laughed and picked nervously at a nail that Kristi had so thoughtfully stripped of polish and clipped nearly to the quick. “So, what do you think?”

He frowned and that meant I wouldn’t like the answer. “I think you should wear your workout leg.”

“Oh, no, please, Jimmy. It’s so ugly.”

He sat beside me on the bench and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “The pretty leg will crap out under the load and your residual limb won’t be as comfortable. You’re heading for hard work, sweetheart. You’ve gotta take care of yourself.”

Coming from Jimmy that didn’t feel like a reproach, but the straight truth. I leaned against his shoulder. “How will I hide it? No one’s supposed to know who I am.”

“Wear pants. Now that it’s getting warmer, that’s a bummer, but it’s the best option. I had Kristi find you a couple of pairs of boots and fitted them with Talux feet.”

I sighed. The carbon active heel would help me walk with a fluid, natural motion in a variety of terrains. Most of all, the unit could withstand moderate impact activities that my lifelike, silicone-covered cosmetic leg couldn’t—even with its computer controls. But none of that altered the fact that the metal workout leg was butt ugly.

Jimmy scrunched his bushy eyebrows and got all serious on me. “I need you to do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“You gotta promise me you’re gonna take care of yourself. Two of my three kids are down with some sort of spring flu, and Linda’s driving me crazy as it is. I don’t want to have to worry about you, too.”

Linda being his wife who only drove him crazy because he loved her so much. Sometimes I wished he wasn’t married because, with him, my leg would never be an issue.

“I promise.”

“You’ll be expending more energy than you’re used to, so you’re gonna have to increase your calorie intake. If you lose more than five pounds, your prosthesis won’t fit properly and you could end up with all sorts of problems.”

Keeping weight on wasn’t a new issue for me. “I promise I’ll eat.”

He glared at me with the ball-shrinking gaze that was said to have cowered more than one CIA recruit. He forgot that it didn’t work as well on women. “Three squares. No skipping.”

I nodded. “I’ll pack energy bars.”

“That’s my girl.” He stood up and clamped his hands to his hips. “Now get on the mat and let me take you through the exercises I want you to do every day to keep your core strong and balanced.”

He understood me, but that didn’t mean he cut me any slack. “Backbreaker,” I teased.

His chuckle negated his scowl. “Drop down and give me ten.”

The next morning I glanced at the ugly workout leg leaning against the wall next to my bed at my Darien estate and groaned. Suck it up, Alexa. There was no use complaining. The workout leg was the best tool for the job I had to do.

An hour after getting up, I used my Ally Cross frequent-buyer card at a Starbucks before getting onto I-95, treating myself to a grande Americano and choking down an energy bar to keep my promise to Jimmy. In Norwalk, Connecticut, I switched over to the Merritt Parkway because the ride was prettier. My grip on the steering wheel tightened and I belted out a tune at the top of my lungs along with Gwen Stefani on the radio to keep my thoughts from filling my mind with doubts.

In Hartford, I merged onto I-84 and dismissed my building jitters by concentrating on finding the Ashcroft signs. Make that singular. The town was farther and tinier than I’d expected, and the clock on the dashboard was inching closer to seven much too quickly. Showing up late on my first day wasn’t the best way to start.

Once I found Ashcroft, I followed the stone wall surrounding the farm for a mile before I turned into the red-bricked pillared entrance to the equestrian center.

To say the place was grand would be an understatement. The state-of-the-art equestrian facility was located on fifty-five rolling acres of woodlands, hills and pastures. Miles of fence made from the white PVC that imitated wood planks and would last forever without needing fresh paint lined the roadway. Definitely not cheap.

The stable was as impressive as the château-inspired mansion where Patrick Dunhill lived. Brick-red paint and white accents kept the color scheme of the main house going. The cupola in the center of the roof matched the mansion’s turret. And the covered entry was a nice touch. I left the Focus in the parking lot and, with a bit of trepidation swimming around my stomach—which I blamed on the large cup of coffee rather than nerves—I headed for the barn office.

I could do this. I could.

Bart Hind, the manager, sat behind a black metal desk, barking into the phone to what, I gathered, was the feed supplier. His skin looked slept in, the folds and wrinkles ironed in as if he’d stayed too long in one spot. His hair had once been brown, but now was so shot with white that it looked dusty. He wore navy work pants and a plaid work shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“Who are you?” he growled as he slammed down the phone.

“Ally Cross. You were expecting me this morning.”

He glanced at the large clock on the wall and grunted. I’d thankfully found the place and squeaked in a few minutes early. He sidestepped from behind the desk. With a hand gesture, he told me to follow him. His work boots thunked on the concrete floor as he made his way into the barn.

I’d always loved the smell of stables—hay, sweet feed and leather. But there was no time to admire the bouquet. I had to pay attention to Hind’s rapid-fire instructions.

“You’ll have six horses.” He chewed every word as if it were the toughest cut of meat, then spit it out like gristle. “You’re expected to muck out their stalls, feed, groom, rotate them into paddocks and get them ready for their owners according to schedule. You work five till whenever the job’s done. Horses don’t care about a clock. Mondays are off.”

“Where will I find this schedule?” I asked, head spinning just a little bit.

“In the tack room and feed room.”

He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. A head popped up from a stall up the aisle and he gestured the woman over. “This is the new girl. Show her around. She’s got the Siegel and all five Hardel horses.”

The girl’s gray eyes widened behind her water-spotted glasses. “Sure. No problem.”

And just like that Bart Hind was gone, leaving me standing there as if I were a cartoon character suspended above a canyon with nowhere to go but down.

“I’m Dawn Waller,” the girl said, offering her hand. Her head full of droopy caramel curls bounced with each of her steps. Kristi had hit the wardrobe right on the nose, judging by Dawn’s outfit—jeans, boots, faded navy T-shirt.

“Ally Cross.” The calluses at the base of each of Dawn’s fingers scratched at my too-soft palm. I let go of her hand as politely as I could.

“Don’t take it personally,” Dawn said, leading me down the wide roughened-concrete center aisle. “Bart’s a regular jackass. But he’s not here for his personality. Mr. Dunhill cares about the horses. Period. He couldn’t care less about the people. Unless they’re helping pay the bills, of course.”

She waved her arm at the stalls, whose varnished pine gleamed gold under the daylight overheads running the length of the barn. “We have thirty-six stalls. Two are empty at the moment. But they won’t stay that way for long. Mr. Dunhill has a waiting list a mile long. Other than Hind, there are six grooms—well, six now that you’re here—a maintenance assistant and two trainers. You’ll meet them later.”

Dawn introduced me to a couple of grooms, then moved on to the tack room. The pine-sided room had a utility counter and sink. A large white board listed each horse down the left-hand side and the horse’s training and turnout schedule on the right. A multipronged hook hung from the ceiling to clean bridles. Each station had a saddle rack, saddle pad rack and a bridle rack and a built-in tack trunk. Separating each station was a locker with each owner’s name printed by a label maker. I’d have to find time to inspect their contents and see if they turned up anything related to the Horse Ripper.

Dawn showed me a similar white board in the feed room delineating each horse’s rations. She pointed out the two wash stalls with hot water and heat lamps and the six grooming cross-tie areas with nonskid pads.

“These horses are quite pampered,” I said.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet! Some owners bring in an equine psychologist and a massage therapist. There’s even one who calls in a certified hypnotist to make sure her darling’s happy. Can you believe it?”

Well, yeah, I could. I got massage therapy for my horse Persephone every week now that she was growing old. “Amazing.”

“Some people definitely have too much money to burn.” As we reached another section of stalls, Dawn cupped a hand over her mouth and whispered, “Watch out for Erin.”

“Why?”

“The bitch is a professional suck-up. She thinks ratting on us is part of her job.”

Dawn gave the stall wall a quick jab. Erin popped up.

“Erin Mays,” Dawn said. “Meet the new girl. Ally Cross.”

Erin’s wide-set green eyes squinted at me through the open stall door with the feral intensity of a killer iguana. Her brown French braid started right at her forehead, giving it the look of a ruff on top of her head. I almost expected it to pop up and spread like it did on nature shows.

“Nice to meet you,” I said and smiled as cheerfully as I could.

“Same here,” she said with all the warmth of wet wood.

As we moved on, I couldn’t help rolling my shoulders to dislodge the spear of ill will shot in my direction.

Dawn was back to her conspiratorial voice. “Katelyn Tierney’s voice is all honey, but don’t let that fool you. She’s not going to be happy to see you.”

“Why not?”

“She’s been maneuvering to get herself assigned to Ross Hardel’s horses, and here you are a newbie taking over her coveted spot. They’re hers this morning, and she’s not going to give them up without a fight.” Dawn smirked. “She has a crush on him.”

“Who? Ross Hardel?”

Dawn nodded. “She’s sadly mistaken if she thinks a romp between the sheets is going to get her a ring on the finger.”

“Great.” Would Katelyn’s infatuation make getting close to Ross difficult? With two out of five grooms wanting to cut me to pieces before they’d even met me, gathering the underground gossip Renee wanted wasn’t going to be quite as easy as I’d imagined. But Dawn seemed open enough. I’d have to cultivate her friendship and see what I could unearth about the goings-on at the Ashcroft Equestrian Center.

“Katelyn?” Dawn said to the blonde spreading wood shavings on a freshly cleaned stall floor. “Here’s Ally. The new girl. I’ll let you show her what Waldo and the Hardel horses need.”

I had a bad feeling about Katelyn. Her smile reminded me of a shark—the type that knew the difference between a seal and a swimmer and went after the swimmer every time.

She handed me a pitchfork and said, “Sink or swim, honey. I haven’t got the time or the inclination to hold your hand.”

Welcome to the team, Ally.

Chapter 3

Standing on the concrete aisle, I held on to the pitchfork with perhaps a tad too much force as Katelyn left me in her dust. Sink or swim, Katelyn had said. I could already taste the water filling my lungs and the need to put out an SOS screamed inside me like a little girl drowning. I fingered the locket at my throat. Take it easy. No need to call in the cavalry yet. This was no different from societal posturing. And I’d managed that dance often enough. I’d probably act territorial, too, if I felt someone was poaching on my domain.

Okay, since Katelyn was going to let me flounder on my own, the first thing I had to do was figure out what I was expected to accomplish. Hind’s list of tasks was long, but rather slim on details. I headed to the tack room and checked the board. I discovered that my charges had all had their morning rations and their morning grooming. I was expected to have the stalls cleaned before the lunch feed and Cielo Azur ready for the trainer by one.

Feeling a bit more oriented, I trekked back to my section of stalls and dug in.

Within fifteen minutes my back and legs were crying uncle from all the unfamiliar bending and scooping, and I had a line of fresh blisters at the base of my fingers that made each heft of the pitchfork pure agony. Even Jimmy’s torturing workouts had never made me as aware of my hamstrings as I was now. If I moved too fast, I just knew my back was going to spasm.

By stall number four, I was ready to close my eyes and let the jets in my hot tub knead away the tight knots in every one of my muscles. That little fantasy popped at the sound of Bart Hind’s voice barking at me.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I looked down at the sinus-clearing, urine-soaked pile of shavings precariously balanced on the pitchfork and had to bite back the automatic remark of, ‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ and said, “Mucking out Bay Bridge Bandit’s stall.”

“Your résumé says you have five years’ professional experience. At doing what?”

Managing a multimillion-dollar foundation, jack. That’s more money and responsibility than you’ll ever see. But of course, that wasn’t the right answer. “Taking care of horses.”

“Where? In Fantasy Land? Because in the real world, there’s a timetable. And you’re behind schedule. A five-year-old could work faster than you are.”

“Sorry, I’ll kick it up another notch.” I shoved the pitchfork into a pile of wet shavings with renewed enthusiasm. Still, I couldn’t help the first-day-at-school feeling, when you don’t know anyone but want everyone to like you, especially the teacher.

“Sorry isn’t going to get you anywhere,” Hind said, looking a bit Napoleonic with his swept-back forelock and a hand planted across his slight paunch as if it ached. “I don’t care who you slept with to get this job. If you don’t work to my standards, you’ll be out on your ass before you have a chance to go cry in your sugar daddy’s lap.”

He thought I’d slept with Patrick Dunhill to get this lowly job? Ew, gross. The guy had to be over fifty and showed every year of it. As much as I’d like a hot and heavy affair, I’d rather do it with someone closer to my age and easier on the eyes.

Hind pointed at the black horse across the aisle. “Magnus was supposed to get his midmorning hay half an hour ago, and you were supposed to be done with stalls before then. And if that’s what you call grooming, I really don’t know what you did to get your recommendations.”

As if Magnus agreed, he pawed at his bedding. I ground my back teeth and hung on to my cool. “It’s taking me a little time to get oriented to where everything is.”

Hind made a noise that was half growl, half chuff. “I’ll cut you some slack for today.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the bedding in Bandit’s stall. “Don’t be stingy on the shavings. Mr. Dunhill wants the horses comfortable. Get Magnus’s hay. Now. And groom him properly.”

“Yes, sir.” Honest, I tried to keep the biting edge out of my voice.

His scowl deepened, giving him a Cro-Magnon ridge that told me I wasn’t making a friend. “Make sure everyone’s in on time. Azur’s hard to catch. Take a handful of grain.”

“I’m on it.” This time I was thankful for the tip.

After stuffing Magnus’s hay net with hay, I grabbed a lead line and the leather halter marked with Cielo Azur’s name and made my way to the network of paddocks. Might as well get the tough one out of the way first.

I rested my foot on the bottom rung of the fence to take the pressure off my throbbing residual limb and took a minute to bask in the breeze that dried the sweat sticking my shirt to my skin. I closed my eyes, fantasizing about lavender French-milled soap, moisturizing shampoo and the shell-pink silk teddy and tap pants I’d bought in Paris and hadn’t yet gotten to wear. Not that there was anyone special to wear them for right now. With a sigh, I stared at the dozen or so horses grazing in the various enclosures with no idea as to which one I was supposed to put in which stall.

Dawn popped up beside me, startling me. “What’s up?”

“You were right about Katelyn.”

Dawn snorted as gustfully as a horse in a dusty arena. “She’s been bitching about you all morning. She thinks you’re competition.”

“For what?”

“Ross Hardel.”

“Yeah, right,” I scoffed.

“You’d be surprised.”

Here was a chance to tap into some gossip. “He has a thing for the help?”

“Not all grooms. His grooms. He wants to be sure his horses get the best of care.”

“Broken hearts get him that? I’d think that’d make him worry about revenge.”

Dawn snorted. “But a girl in love’ll go out of her way to please him.”

“Ah.” I breathed in the scent of spring grass. “It’s so pretty here.”

“Yeah, just wait till the owners show up. It won’t seem quite as serene then.”

“How so?”

“All those Park Avenue princesses can be bitches. Not that the guys are much better. Divas all of them.” Dawn bobbled her head from side to side, taking on a whiny voice. “Do this. Do that. Take care of me first. No, me, I’m more important. Bunch of spoiled brats.”

Was that how I came across to my stable hand? I rolled my aching shoulders, hoping Dawn would take my self-conscious blush for sunburn. “With the competition moving north for the summer, is anyone worried about the Horse Ripper showing up here? I mean what with Firewall and Waldo both training here.”

“Naw, Mr. Dunhill hired a security guard to patrol at night. And there’s security cameras everywhere. I don’t think he’ll show up here.”

“There were guards at the showgrounds in Florida,” I pointed out.

“Showgrounds are more confusing. Strangers come and go. Here everyone knows everyone. It’d be hard to get to a horse without being noticed.”

Unless you were an insider. “Makes you wonder who could do such a thing, doesn’t it?”

Dawn pushed her glasses back up her nose. “Doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve seen owners stick electrodes up their horses’ butts or noses to electrocute them for insurance money. There was this vet who stole horses, spray painted their markings with Rust-Oleum and sold them to unsuspecting clients in a different city.”

“He got away with it?”

Dawn shook her head. “Not for long. He’s in jail now.”

“And drugging’s nothing new,” I added.

“Nope. Happens all the time.”

“Do you think anyone here’s hard up enough to want to get Waldo or Firewall out of the way?”

Dawn shrugged. “There’s certainly enough jealousy flying around, so you never know.”

“Yeah?”

Dawn laughed. “You have no idea. It’s like a soap opera with all the bed-hopping and horse-trading.”

“Dish,” I said, hoping to narrow down my list of suspects.

She shook the halter in her hand and popped over the fence. “Gotta get my horses in before B. Hind barks at me.”

“Yeah, me too. Which one’s Cielo Azur?”

Dawn pointed at a small gray horse—in the farthest paddock, of course. “The dappled filly. She’s a bit hard to catch.”

I scooped out the handful of feed in my pocket. “I brought a bribe.”

“Good move.”

“What about the Hardel horses?” I asked. I’d seen Firewall in photos all decked out in show attire, but at pasture, he was just another red horse.

Dawn pointed out each one, as well as Waldo. “Waldo’s pretty well behaved. Firewall wants to lead and will drag you if you give him half a chance. Trademark Infringement bites and Bay Bridge Bandit kicks.”

“Hey, thanks.”

“No problem. Katelyn needs an attitude adjustment. She’s not a team player, if you know what I mean.”

I didn’t, but nodded anyway to show that I was and prove I belonged in this dead-end job. Dawn tossed a salute my way and trotted toward a group of horses. “Catch ya later.”

This horse business had me way over my head. Renee must be laughing in her tea, I thought, shaking my head as I made my way to Azur.

At the sight of someone entering her paddock, the mare popped her head up. Staring right at me, she wrung her tail, did a splendid turn on the haunches and took off.

Just as I reached her, she galloped off again. I almost had her cornered when I slipped and fell on my butt—on a fresh pile of horse apples, of course. I swear the little hussy smiled as she trotted away. This gray matador was enjoying the game a little too much and I was ready to choke her with the lead line, never mind the fact I couldn’t get close enough to her to accomplish the feat.

I sat there, too tired to move. Azur studied me and looked disappointed that I wasn’t playing anymore. She bent down, chewed off a bit of grass, then made her way closer to me, bite by bite.

“I know your type,” I said, thinking of high school and the games girls played there. “You like to bully. But you’re picking on the wrong person. Renee expects me to fail, but I’m actually really good at playing games. And I’ve been doing it a lot longer than you have.”

Azur’s ears flicked back and forth. Watching her nimble lips parcel out a juicy section of grass and hack it off with her big teeth, I chewed the inside of my cheek. This four-legged, four-year-old with a smaller brain than mine controlled the situation. How was that for irony?

Horses, being herd animals, have a strong sense of pecking order. Which, come to think of it, wasn’t so different from high school cliques. All I had to do was let her know who was the boss.

The horse-care book Alan had given me explained about the zones of influence. At first I wondered if I’d gotten my boss-horse signals crossed because Azur didn’t respond, except to walk away, swishing her tail. Then a burst of pleasure exploded inside me as she stopped, then lowered her head, chewing in a sign of submission. By the time I slipped the halter over her receptive head, we both knew I was lead mare and I felt much better about my chances of success as a groom.

The feeling of elation lasted only until I reached the stable. I clipped Azur to the cross ties in a grooming stall and was attempting to lift one of her feet so I could pick it out when a voice came up behind me.

“I’ve been watching you.”

Peering over my shoulder, I looked into a pair of deep brown eyes that were slicing and dicing me as finely as any Cuisinart blade. This couldn’t be good.

“Excuse me?” I straightened and dumped the hoof pick in the brush caddy.

He wore old leather boots on his wide feet, brown breeches that had seen better days and a beige polo shirt smeared with horse slobber on the shoulder. Physically, he didn’t look much older than thirty. But something in his eyes seemed to carry the scars of a hard life and shouted, “You can’t touch me.”

Grant Montney, the trainer. I recognized him from the background file Alan had given me. He had a reputation for being champion of the underdog. He lived in a trailer behind the barn and worked at this center because Patrick Dunhill indulged him in his obsession to fix the broken horses he rescued with free room and board for both horses and man.

“Who are you?” His voice was as sharp as his confrontational attitude.

“Ally Cross. I’m the new groom.” To prove my point, I picked up a rubber currycomb and attacked the mud caked on Azur’s coat.

“Where did you work before?”

I shot him a look packed with attitude. “Why the third-degree?”

Azur turned her head as if she found the conversation fascinating.

“I like to know who works with my horses.”

“I worked at Applewood Farm for Belinda Carmichael.” Belinda was another of Renee’s agents. I suspected she would have this assignment if she weren’t seven months pregnant. If Hind, or anyone else, called to check up on my references, Belinda would back up what was on the résumé.

“I know Belinda,” he said with a nod. “Nice girl. What’d you do for her?”

“Took care of her show horses.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“Belinda’s pregnant and decided not to show this year.”

He eyed me as if I was horseflesh at auction and he’d found a major conformation fault. I prided myself on holding my squirming to a minimum and continued to lift clouds of dust from Azur’s coat.

“So you’ve prepped horses for the show ring.” Not a question, I noticed, but a fact that if I agreed to I’d probably have to prove.

“Yes.” Gulp.

“Braid Azur’s mane for her lesson.”

Crap. “Braid?”

He jerked his chin at Azur’s neck. “Give me a dressage braid.”

Dressage braid. Double gulp. I hadn’t gotten to that part of the manual yet. I’d always paid someone to do the tedious work of braiding for me and I had no idea how to do those button beauties. But I wasn’t a quitter. The last time I’d shown Persephone, she’d worn a running braid. I’d done something similar to my hair often enough to bluff my way through it. No braid was going to lose me this assignment.

I dropped the brush into the caddy, reached for a mane comb and attacked Azur’s silver mane. His stare was so rimy that my fingers felt as if they were encased in ice.

“You had a good showing in Florida,” I said, hoping conversation would throw off the pinch of his concentrated stare.

“I had good horseflesh to work with.”

“You were lucky to escape the Horse Ripper.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it.”

This guy was tougher to crack than a Brazil nut. “There’s a rumor he’s after any horse that wins a jumping Grand Prix. Since you’re coaching the two horses most likely to win at the horse show next week, aren’t you worried?”

“You should be the one to worry.”

“Me?”

“Grooms here are expected to show discretion. Hind hears you gossiping and you’ll find yourself out the door.”

Great. The last thing I needed was for him to report me to Hind. I opted for silence. When I finished the braid, there wasn’t an elastic handy, so I pinched the ends between my fingers and glanced at my tormentor over my shoulder. “Anything else?”

“I’ve seen better.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine why Dunhill would entrust the care of expensive horses to an inept novice.”

I frowned and wanted desperately to shake off the flash of myself at fourteen, ugly and awkward, always having to do better to meet my parents’ impossible standards and never quite being able to. “I don’t know who you are to be passing judgment on me like this.”

“What’s the real reason you’re here?” he asked again, ignoring my concern.

One thing I’d learned growing up was to read people and give them what they expected. Want to get noticed? Show off some flesh and throw your shoulders back as if you owned the world. Want no one to realize you’re around? Wear baggy clothes, flat shoes and hang your head. What Grant Montney wanted was an excuse to either champion me or kick me around. I took a calculated risk.

“You want the truth?” I asked, running a tentative hand down Azur’s neck. I hung my head practically to her mane.

Montney tilted his head to one side and crossed his arms beneath his chest. “That would be refreshing.”

“The truth is that I’m a screwup.” I kept my voice low and my eyes darted up and down the aisle as if I didn’t want anyone else hearing about my shortcomings. “My parents kicked me out of the house because I failed out of school. I had nowhere to go, so Belinda took me in. Now with the baby coming.” I shrugged the way people did when they wanted others to believe that whatever they were dismissing was no big deal but really was. I should have gotten to go to the Oscars instead of Porsche.

“I had to move on. She knows Patrick Dunhill and put in a word for me. She gave me this chance and I’m trying really hard not to blow it.” I slanted him my most innocent look. “Have I done anything wrong with Azur or with any of the horses?”

He didn’t say anything for a long while and I was starting to think my little act had failed to make an impression.

“The jury’s still out.” He approached Azur’s side and ran a hand down her front leg, stopping at her fetlock. “Squeeze here and she’ll pick up her foot.”

And like magic, she did.

“Thanks,” I said, containing my elation at this small triumph over the trainer. “I love working with horses. I really am trying to do a good job.”

He nodded before heading back to wherever he’d come from. “See that you do.”

A short while later, a shrill whistle pierced my musings of bubble baths and silk sheets as I clipped a lead line to Harrison’s halter for his daily constitutional as outlined on the chore chart. I looked around half-expecting my stablehand’s Jack Russell terrier to come romping up the aisle. Then I remembered I wasn’t at my estate and I was the groom.

“Hey, you!” A thunderous voice rolled from behind me at the back doors of the stable. I fervently hoped I wasn’t the one in trouble—again. Bart Hind had already found a dozen ways to criticize me. If I wasn’t more careful, I’d end up heading home before I even got to unpack my suitcase.

The black silhouette at the door strode into the light, and I froze when I realized Ross Hardel was stomping his way toward me.

The last time I’d seen him was at a riding lesson at my dressage coach’s stable more than ten years ago—preaccident. He’d been an obnoxious teenage twit two inches shorter than me, all skinny arms and knobby knees. Now look at him. Six feet of hard, lean muscle and brooding bad boy.

And if you believed the gossip rags—every woman’s dream. Yeah, right. None of my dreams involved a one-night stand, but then, I had high standards. I still wanted to believe I had a chance at a relationship that lasted longer than a bump in the night with a stranger.

His Vogel boots, polished to a mirror finish and undoubtedly custom-made, struck the concrete with understated power. He reeked of cool aloofness, yet more electricity flashed from the killer blue of his eyes than a nuclear power plant.

And all that potent energy was directed at me.

Even though he looked as irritable as Nat in full PMS mode, even with everything I knew about him, something in me just kind of gave as he got nearer. Curiosity, undoubtedly. My downfall, I’ll admit. He was probably used to that reaction from women, likely even expected it, and for some reason that irked me. Having my hormones scramble to attention for a guy who was whistling at me as if I were a dog doubled the insult.

“Surely you can’t be whistling at me,” I said, tapping my chest with the tips of my fingers as he stopped in front of me and hitched his fists on his hips like some sort of bloodthirsty pirate.

“What the hell are you doing?”

His voice rumbled like thunder and rolled inside me in a way I found disconcerting. Did everyone pick on the new girl or was it just me?

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I shot before I could stop myself. In my defense, I’d already had a backbreaker of a day and it wasn’t over yet.

His eyes narrowed. “Where’s Mandy?”

“Who’s Mandy?”

“The girl who takes care of my horses.”

“That would be me.”

“You’re not Mandy.”

“I believe we’ve already established that.”

His scowl deepened. “What happened to Mandy?”

“She left?” I raised both eyebrows and widened my eyes in a duh motion.

“Why?” He asked the question as if somehow Mandy’s departure was part of a conspiracy against him.

I dismissed the follow with a half snort. “Do I look like directory assistance?”

“Whatever happened to yes, sir?”

I scratched Magnus’s velvety muzzle. “I believe Lincoln freed the slaves a while back.”

He shook his head. “Where did they find you?”

“Me?” I shot him my best country bumpkin smile. “Why, I’m fresh off the hay truck.”

He scowled again, definitely not amused.

“I don’t want anyone but Mandy taking care of Magnus.” He spoke to me, but his gaze flicked over Magnus as if my mere presence at his side had somehow damaged the horse.

“You’re out of luck, then,” I said, urging Magnus forward, “because she’s gone and I’m it.”

“Magnus is special.” Ross’s hand reached for the lead line, forcing us both to halt and me to let go of my hold.

“So are all my charges.” I stuck my hands in my jeans pockets, puffing out my chest and raising my chin.

Magnus nickered softly and, with nimble lips, sucked up the sugar cube in Ross’s palm.

“You’re going to rot his teeth,” I said, taking in Ross’s mink-brown hair, the stretch of custom-tailored breeches over ripped thighs and the breadth of shoulders beneath the navy polo shirt. A body like that was wasted on someone like him.

“He’s recovering,” Ross said with warmth I hadn’t expected. His big hand cupped Magnus’s jaw and Magnus leaned his head into the caress. “He needs extra pampering.”

“Recovering from what?”

“An accident.”

My ears perked up. Renee hadn’t mentioned a Magnus in her rundown of the Horse Ripper’s victims, but then he was still alive and the others were dead. “What happened to him?”

“You’re full of questions.” His gaze lasered into me, leaving traces of heat where it landed.

Curiosity, as I said, was my downfall, and what Renee counted on to get a lead on the Horse Ripper. I shrugged as if I didn’t care. “If I’m caring for him, I should know all there is to know about him.”

“He needs a consistent routine and extra care. Mandy knew what to do.”

Not rolling my eyes took everything I had. “It’s not rocket science. If you tell me what he needs, I can take care of your horse the way you want.”

His gaze speared me again. The newspaper photographs had definitely missed something. The blue flame of his irises went right through me, causing a slow burn I’d all but given up on ever feeling. Too bad the flamethrower was a shallow playboy. He’d take one look at my prosthesis and move on to leggier pastures. But I didn’t need to get in his pants, just earn his confidence. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me.”

The slow glide of his gaze studied me from frizzy head to scuffed boot toe. “I’m not sure I like what I’m seeing.”

Of course not. I wasn’t blond or buxom and had a higher IQ than he was used to. The hairs on the back of my neck rose and a growl started to form in my chest. “I’ve been around horses a long time.”

“I’m sure you have. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but—” He shrugged. “I don’t know you.”

“On the other hand, your reputation precedes you.” I don’t know how Renee expected me to charm Ross Hardel when all my best features were hidden beneath Goodwill clothes, a bad dye job and eau de manure.

He shot me a wry smile. “Then you know I expect the best for my horses.”

And a few personal extras from the groom.

He hadn’t exactly hit on me, though, had he? For some reason I found that mildly irritating.

I still had two horses to groom and tack before five. “Magnus is due for his walk. Since I’m below par, he’s all yours.” Saving half an hour of hand walking was just fine with me.

Before Ross could answer, another whistle ripped through the electric eddy already swirling around the stable. Bart Hind this time, standing outside his office door in his usual Napoleonic stance. Was that Katelyn slinking out of his office? I’d bet a week’s pay she’d just finished complaining about my work, hoping she’d take over the horses she coveted.

“Sounds like he went to the same charm school you did,” I mumbled, giving Magnus’s neck a parting pat before starting in Bart’s direction.

“Don’t you walk away from me,” Ross said. “We’re not done here.”

I pretended to give his insipid command thought. “Let’s see. Um. Paycheck or attitude?” I shrugged and pointed a thumb over my shoulder at Hind. “Paycheck wins.”

Ross’s skewering stare as I walked away from him made me feel naked. I tried to ignore the burn of his gaze, but it seared me until I reached Hind’s office.

“What’s all the shouting about?” Hind asked.

Shouting? “Mr. Hardel is upset because I’m not Mandy.” Poor Ross would have to get laid elsewhere tonight.

Hind frowned. “Any questions are to be directed to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’d do well to remember that the owner’s always right.”

Against my will, my eyebrows lifted. “Even when he’s wrong?”

“Especially when he’s wrong.”

That was one hell of a philosophy. Keeping an impassive face and my mouth from dropping all the way down to the spotless concrete floor took all the muscle control I had left. “About Mandy—” I misdirected his glance to the aisle with a sweep of one hand, and with the other scooped up the master key I’d seen him use on an owner’s locker earlier and pocketed it. Easier to search the lockers with a key than attempting to finesse the locks open with a pick.

“I’ll take care of the situation. Leah Siegel is running half an hour late. Make sure Waldo’s warmed up for her five-o’clock lesson.”

Dismissed again. I wasn’t sure I could get used to this cockroach treatment.

As I slid past Ross and Hind discussing Mandy’s departure, Ross’s gaze flashed with potent anger that said he wasn’t through with me. Not by a long shot.

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