“With any luck, we won’t have to do this again,” he said

He trailed his fingertips lightly down her arms. Her skin was soft and smooth. He didn’t think he’d ever touched such soft skin as hers. He lowered his mouth onto hers. Her mouth was warm and soft, her breath sweet. She responded to his kiss immediately.

“Good. Now look like you’re enjoying yourself. This is looking more like sexual harassment than love.”

“It’s…not…love,” she breathed.

“No kidding,” he said against her skin. “But if you could possibly act like a warm-blooded woman, you might not ruin everything we’re trying to achieve.”

“Maybe you just don’t warm my blood,” she said haughtily, but her voice quivered at the end.

“Sweetheart, I haven’t even turned the burner on and you’re boiling.”

Dear Reader,

As the days get shorter and the approaching holidays bring a buzz to the crisp air, nothing quite equals the joy of reuniting with family and catching up on the year’s events. This month’s selections all deal with family matters, be it making one’s own family, dealing with family members or doing one’s family duty.

Desperate to save his family ranch, the hero in Elizabeth Harbison’s Taming of the Two (#1790) enters into a bargain that could turn a pretend relationship into the real deal. This is the second title in the SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE trilogy. A die-hard bachelor gets a taste of what being a family man is like when he rescues a beautiful stranger and her adorable infant from a deadly blizzard, in Susan Meier’s Snowbound Baby (#1791)—part of the author’s BRYANT BABY BONANZA continuity. Carol Grace continues her FAIRY TALE BRIDES miniseries with His Sleeping Beauty (#1792) in which a woman sheltered by her overprotective parents gains the confidence to strike out on her own after her handsome—but cynical—neighbor catches her sleepwalking in his garden! Finally, in The Marine and Me (#1793), the next installment in Cathie Linz’s MEN OF HONOR series, a soldier determined to outwit his matchmaking grandmother and avoid the marriage landmine gets bushwhacked by his supposedly dowdy neighbor.

Be sure to come back next month when Karen Rose Smith and Shirley Jump put their own spins on Shakespeare and the Dating Game, respectively!

Happy reading.

Ann Leslie Tuttle

Associate Senior Editor

Taming of the Two
Elizabeth Harbison

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Books by Elizabeth Harbison

Silhouette Romance

A Groom for Maggie #1239

Wife Without a Past #1258

Two Brothers and a Bride #1286

True Love Ranch #1323

*Emma and the Earl #1410

*Plain Jane Marries the Boss #1416

*Annie and the Prince #1423

*His Secret Heir #1528

A Pregnant Proposal #1553

Princess Takes a Holiday #1643

The Secret Princess #1713

Taming of the Two #1790

Silhouette Special Edition

Drive Me Wild #1476

Midnight Cravings #1539

How To Get Your Man #1685

Silhouette Books

Lone Star Country Club

Mission Creek Mother-To-Be

ELIZABETH HARBISON

has been an avid reader for as long as she can remember. After devouring the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden series in grade school, she moved on to the suspense of Mary Stewart, Dorothy Eden and Daphne du Maurier, just to name a few. From there it was a natural progression to writing, although early efforts have been securely hidden away in the back of a closet.

After authoring three cookbooks, Elizabeth turned her hand to writing romances and hasn’t looked back. Her second book for Silhouette Romance, Wife Without a Past, was a 1998 finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award in the Best Traditional Romance category.

Elizabeth lives in Maryland with her husband, John, daughter Mary Paige, and son Jack, as well as two dogs, Bailey and Zuzu. She loves to hear from readers and you can write to her at c/o Box 1636, Germantown, MD 20875.

To Miss Erin Sears, a heroine-in-training and Trey Sears, my boy’s best pal

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Chapter One

Kate Gregory couldn’t believe what her sister was asking her to do. “No way,” she said firmly, rolling on her squeaky wooden desk chair back to her desk, effectively turning her back on her sister. “I am not getting involved in this ridiculous plan of yours.”

“But, Katie.” Bianca whined behind her, like the little sister she was twenty years ago instead of the grown woman she was today. “It’s a good cause. Think about it—it’s romantic. Don’t you have at least a little tiny bit of romance in your soul?”

Kate turned her chair around to face her sister. Now this was a question she could answer easily. “No. Not even a little tiny bit.” No way. Romance was a gamble, and she was fed up with gambling in life.

“Kate!” Bianca was aghast. “You don’t mean that.”

“Oh, yes, I do.” Kate smiled and turned back to the ledgers she was trying to balance for Gregory Farms, her family’s Texas business, arguably the finest racehorse breeders in the west.

It was the perfect metaphor for Bianca’s question, actually. For the past forty years, the Gregory family had lived through feast or famine, depending on horses’ bloodlines, track conditions, weather, jockeys’ health and drinking habits, voodoo and a host of other variables that couldn’t be controlled.

She was looking forward to leaving. Already she’d saved a considerable amount of money, and once she hit her goal, she was moving to Dallas—close enough to be here for her father and sister if they needed her, but far enough to be out of the business—to start a new career. Probably as an elementary school teacher. Early childhood education, people in Avon Lake might be surprised to know, was what she’d gotten her college bachelor’s degree in.

Some people might have said the racing life was an exciting life, but not Kate. Though she loved the animals, she could still remember some difficult early years when her family had subsisted on rice and beans and lived under constant threat of losing their home. Mother crying, father impatient, children ignored…it had been a very stressful life.

Bianca had been young then, and was lucky enough to have forgotten the worst of it. Bianca believed she had lived a life of nothing but happy prosperity.

Frankly it made her act like a bit of a spoiled brat sometimes.

Like now.

“Katie.” Bianca whirled Kate’s office chair around to face her. “Please.”

“No.”

“Do it for me.”

Kate shook her head, unable to fully comprehend her sister’s selfishness. “No, Bianca. I am not getting married for you.” It was incredible that she actually had to say it at all, much less over and over again.

“You don’t have to really get married,” Bianca hastened to correct her. “Just tell Daddy you are. As long as he believes you’re getting married, I can go ahead and plan my wedding.”

Kate dropped her hands in her lap and looked at her sister coolly. “Tell Daddy I’m getting married.”

Bianca nodded eagerly. “That’s right.”

“Invent a fiancé, plan a fake wedding, move into an imaginary home, and churn out and raise pretend children, presumably for the next thirty or forty years, until I retire with my nonexistent husband to bounce grandchildren I never had on my knee.”

“Well…” It looked as though the light was finally dawning on Bianca. “I guess you’re right.”

Kate threw her hands in the air. “Hallelujah. She has finally seen the light.”

Bianca nodded. And for a moment it seemed she had really seen the idiocy of her plan. But then she said, “We’ll have to find a real guy.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Or maybe hire an actor.”

Kate’s jaw dropped. She gave Bianca a full ten, fifteen seconds to laugh and say she was kidding, but Bianca’s face remained completely serious. “Do you hear what you’re saying?” Kate asked at last. “Now you want to hire an actor? And have me pretend to marry him?”

“Well…”

“All this so you can mollify Dad’s old-fashioned, narrow-minded, Old World chauvinism? No way.”

Henry Gregory was adamant that his younger daughter couldn’t marry until his oldest had. But she knew it had come from the same place so many of his ideas about men and women came from: the old country and his own strict upbringing.

Before Kate’s mother had died, her father had left the business of the children to her. He’d been the parent who played with the girls, the soft touch who’d always had a smile and a wink for them even when they were in trouble.

But once Kate’s mother, Helen, had passed away, Henry had been like a lost animal, pacing the floors and trying to figure out the ways of the girls who, up to then, had just been playthings. Once he had the sole responsibility of raising Kate and Bianca, he had taken the job very seriously, even at the expense of losing his softer side with them.

“What else can I do?”

“You and Victor should just get married. Just do it. Elope. Dad will get over it.”

“What if he doesn’t? What if I do that and he disowns me and fires Victor?” Victor Blume was Bianca’s fiancé and her father’s top trainer.

“There’s no way he’s going to fire Victor,” Kate said, “he’s too valuable. And as for disowning you, that’s just silly.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because he loves you, Bianca, and he wants you to be happy. Even if it means going against his crazy outdated sixteenth-century notions of propriety.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.” Kate looked at her sister and shook her head firmly. “Look, I promise he’s just being an old blowhard.”

Bianca looked unconvinced. “Well, if you think about it, he’s really only looking after you. He doesn’t want you to be a lonely old spinster. You could give him real peace of mind if you convinced him you were happily engaged to someone.”

Kate gave her sister a long hard look before turning back to the desk and picking up a pen. It wasn’t worth responding to such an idiotic contention. “This conversation is finished, Bianca. Close the door on your way out, would you?” She looked back at the ledger and found the thing she was looking for. An item marked “Fire Essence” with a deposit amount of four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

As their supply of frozen semen from the great racehorse Fireflight dwindled, the price was going up. This was a great opportunity to convince her father to invest in something solid so he’d have a nice nest egg no matter what happened with the races.

She was going to talk to him about it right away, before he got the idea to reinvest the money into something risky. He thrived on risk—it was a real worry for her.

She picked up the phone and dialed her father’s extension, but was stopped when Bianca stepped forward and took the receiver from Kate, pushing the off button.

“What about this…” Bianca began, using her persuasive voice again. “How about if you just give dating a try. Go out with a couple of guys, see where it leads. Maybe this whole problem would solve itself, naturally and honestly.”

Kate laughed. “How altruistic of you.”

“Believe it or not, Katie, I do care about you. It would probably do you some good to date a little bit instead of just working all the time.”

Kate scoffed. “I’ve dated every eligible guy in town—all four of them—and, with all due respect, thanks but no thanks.”

“Not every guy,” Bianca persisted. “For example, Ben Devere’s back. You never went out with him, even though,” her voice became conspiratorial, “honestly, I think he’s always had a thing for you.”

Kate bristled at the mention of Ben Devere. Talk about a risk she wasn’t willing to take! She’d bet on that one before and lost.

The black sheep son of the otherwise decent family who owned the property adjoining Gregory Farms, Ben Devere had always been a wild child and more than a little dangerous. When they were children, he used to set off fireworks down on the property border and when Kate cried and begged him to stop, he’d just laughed and lit another one.

When they were in high school he used to take his Jeep four-wheeling all over the pastures, which annoyed both her father and his own to no end, but which amused him enough to keep doing it. He was a wild kid, in stark contrast to her own serious nature, and they had butted heads over their differences repeatedly while growing up. In junior high school, he’d called her “Serious Sally” and she’d privately been a little afraid of his untamed ways.

But Kate could also remember, with crystal clarity, a time when she’d seen him shoot his own dog as it ran in the paddock. She’d watched the whole thing in sheer horror, then run away without looking back, vowing to never go within sixty yards of the Devere Ranch again. It was proof of what she’d already begun to suspect: Ben wasn’t what he seemed at all. Sure, people thought he was charming and smart, and more than one girl—heaven knew!—had fallen for his charisma. But the fact was, Ben Devere wasn’t who he appeared to be.

That conclusion made Kate more comfortable with what he’d done to her.

Ben had been regarded in high school and in town as a hot playboy; the kind of guy girls wouldn’t count on to call them in the morning, but with whom they were willing to take the chance nonetheless. If the stories were true, scores of women had fallen prey to his charms. Even Kate had kissed him once at a party, the summer after their senior year. It had been a hell of a kiss, and for a few weeks afterward, she’d harbored hopes that he would call and that perhaps…well, whatever. Later, she realized it had only been a heat of the moment hormonal rush for Ben.

But perhaps had never come and Kate had learned to regret having admitted to her affection for him. She’d also learned to regret having trusted him. If his friend Lou Parker was to be believed, he’d only been with Kate as a joke, the response to a dare. Lou’s subsequent advances on her had only served to make the insult that much greater.

Shortly after that, Ben Devere had left town and, after the humiliation she’d been through, she was glad to see the back of him. She’d hoped he’d never come back.

But now he had.

And her sister, who should have known better, was actually suggesting she date him.

“No way,” she said to Bianca, and reached down to pet her dog, Sierra, who was lying at her feet. She’d had the retriever for twelve years now, and he was getting old and thin, but he was a member of the family. “I’d rather become a nun. Now let me get back to work, I have to talk to Dad about the finances.”

Bianca perched her hands on her slender hips. “So that’s it? We’re just not talking about my marriage anymore?”

“No, I’d be glad to talk about your marriage. It’s my marriage, or the lack thereof, that I’m not talking about anymore.”

“Fine.” Bianca smirked. “Then I don’t have anything else to say to you at all.” She huffed out of the room and Kate watched her go with mild irritation.

It had always been this way with Bianca. She should have been used to it by now, but somehow she always hoped her sister would rise to the occasion and take the high road.

Oh, well. She didn’t have the time or the emotional cash to spend worrying about it now. She had to balance these books, and while a half million dollars was a nice thing to add to any accounting ledger, she was uncomfortable with keeping it in the regular accounts.

She picked up the phone again to call her father.

Ben Devere drove the muddy side roads from his farm to Gregory Farms slowly, trying to talk himself out of his mission even while he accelerated toward it.

He couldn’t believe he had to ask Kate Gregory—of all people!—for a favor, especially one that amounted to his only hope of saving his late father’s farm for his mother. Kate Gregory hated him.

Growing up, he’d had a little bit of a crush on Kate. Well, maybe crush was too strong a word. But he’d always noticed her. While the rest of the world had fawned over her younger sister’s blond-haired-and-blue-eyed version of Kewpie doll beauty, Ben had been fascinated by Kate’s more subtle—but infinitely more interesting—assets.

The long chestnut hair didn’t look like gold, the way they said Bianca’s did, but it glowed like amber in the sunlight, with hundreds of different variations of brown and auburn painting the strands. Ben could have studied it for hours without getting bored.

And her eyes—they were vivid green and just shy of catlike. They were warm and cool at the same time. Intelligent and alluring, and never lined with the unnatural colors so many of the girls wore.

Ben often thought Kate said a lot more with her eyes than she did with her voice.

Then there was her body. He took a breath just thinking about it. Tight and strong and slender. Ben guessed that while Bianca sat on her cushiony behind and asked the ranch hands to bring her bonbons, Kate did the heavy work around the place.

Privately, Ben suspected it was Kate who had kept Gregory Farms such formidable competition for the Devere Ranch for so many years, which made her an enemy in a sense, but an admirable one. All of which made it doubly hard to have to ask her for her help now, since it was to keep the competition in business.

Ben reminded himself how important this was for his mother’s quality of life.

The last time he’d seen Kate had been one of the worst days of his life. His old dog, Banjo, who had seen him through the loneliest of his childhood years straight through college, had stayed out one night and gotten into a tangle with a rabid raccoon. It hadn’t taken long to figure out what was wrong, and when the vet had advised them to take Banjo out back, Ben wouldn’t let anyone go except for himself. It was a private thing, between him and his old pal.

Pulling that trigger had been the worst moment of his life, and it had felt as though it had taken a year.

No sooner was it over with, and the dog had hit the ground, had Ben heard a gasp and turned to see Kate Gregory running across the lower pasture toward her house. She must have known what was going on; the word had gotten out as a warning to all the local residents of what had happened.

Yet, when she’d seen Ben have to shoot his own dog, she hadn’t even mustered a single word of sympathy. She’d just run off into the sunset, literally and figuratively.

That’s the way Kate had always been—aloof, detached. Like no one could really get close to her or touch her heart.

He pulled his Jeep to a halt outside the main barn and got out. He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to do it. He just had to remind himself that, if he was careful, he might just score the one thing that could save his family’s farm. His feet crunched the gravel below him as he took slow steps toward the barn office.

“Ben?”

He turned.

The surprised voice belonged to none other than the platinum-haired Bianca, who was coming from the direction of the office. “Is that Ben Devere?”

“That’s right.”

“Good Lord, we were just talking about you.”

“We? We who?” This was weird. He didn’t even know anyone knew he was back. “And what were you saying?”

“Oh.” She hesitated just long enough to imply she was hiding something. “Nothing, really. Just that you were here in town. So what brings you here?”

This was it. Time to take that step. “I was hoping to see Kate.”

“Oh, were you?” Bianca raised an eyebrow. “How interesting! Now, why is that? You’re not planning to ask my single sister out on a date of some sort, are you?”

“Um, no.” He frowned. That was a strange question. “It was a business matter.”

Bianca’s face fell and her lips puffed into that famous Bianca Gregory pout. “Oh. Darn.”

He felt a little like he’d stepped into someone else’s bizarre dream. “I’m sorry…what?”

Bianca shrugged with the drama of a four-year-old child. “Nothing. Never mind.”

Ben looked down at the earth beneath his feet and briefly weighed the relative merits of selling the farm and moving his mother to a smaller place, closer to him, versus begging the Gregory girls for their help.

Saving the farm won, of course. “Look, I understand you have the capability of siring a mare by Fireflight.” It was awkward but he couldn’t think of another way to word it. Word underground was that the Gregorys had somehow acquired frozen genetic material from one of the finest racehorses ever to hit the turf and if there was one thing that could save his farm, it was a foal or two by Fireflight.

Dawning understanding came into Bianca’s pale blue eyes. “Oo-oh, I see. You’re here to make a purchase.”

“Depending on the cost, yes.” That was where this conversation was going to get really sticky. His finances were limited and he could only bluff so far before they, potentially, made him look like the desperate man he was. “So what’s your price?”

Bianca looked at him, raising her finger to her mouth and looking him over as she considered. “From what I hear, the Devere Ranch doesn’t have a whole lot of money, Ben.”

“Don’t listen to everything you hear.”

“Fireflight’s worth a whole lot.”

“Potentially.” He tried to look casual. “You never know what you’re gonna end up with. Artificial insemination of a mare…well, it’s a hell of a gamble. You know that.”

She gave a nonconcessionary nod. “It’s a gamble a lot of people are willing to pay a hell of a lot of money for.” She eyed him. “Victor’s working a colt out at the track every morning, and he says the times are absolutely amazing. He may even beat his sire. So I’m thinking it’s a pretty safe bet anyone who sires a mare by Fireflight will end up with a profit in the end. That is, if they can pay up front.”

“What are we talking about?”

“Half a million.”

He couldn’t shell out more than a quarter million. Not for such a risky chance as this. After all, the money was going to be coming out of his pocket, not the ranch’s. “Well, Bianca, this business being what it is, I think I’d rather just take a chance with what I’ve got.” He gave a short nod and started back toward his truck.

“I think I might know a way you can take it for free, though,” Bianca called behind him in a singsong voice.

This was no time to stand on pride. He stopped and turned back to her, cautiously keeping his face impassive. “Who do I have to kill?”

She laughed. “You only have to date my sister.”

She hadn’t said what he thought she’d said. Surely she wasn’t suggesting it was worth five hundred grand to Kate to have a date. “What are you talking about?”

Bianca gave a slow smile and sauntered over toward him. “I need a little favor. If you succeed, you get Fireflight and my sister, and you have a chance at real happiness. If you don’t succeed—” she shrugged “—well, you’re no worse off than you are now. What do you say, are you a betting man, Ben Devere?”

Chapter Two

It was a chilly, misty morning and Kate could hear the thundering hoofbeats on the turf long before the horse actually appeared from the mist, running all-out, white puffs of steam coming from his nose.

He was beautiful.

Her father had named the horse Kate’s Flight, in honor of her and in reference to his sire, so she felt a special affinity for the chestnut stallion. As much as she hated the gamble of this lifestyle, she loved the majesty of the animals and the heart they showed every time they hit the track.

The story of Black Gold—crossing the finish line with a shattered leg, to complete his final win—was never completely out of her mind. The horses loved to run and, more than that, they loved to win, there was no doubt about it.

So she smiled as she watched Kate’s Flight barrel past in the predawn light.

“Quite a horse,” a voice behind her said.

She turned to see a man walking toward her through the mist. He was tall and dark-haired, with piercing dark eyes and the sort of chiseled jawline usually reserved for the cover of a romance novel. He looked familiar, but it took her a moment to realize why.

When she did, it was with a start. “So it’s not a rumor. The prodigal son has returned.”

He smiled, that movie star smile she remembered better than she ought to. “I’m as surprised as anyone.”

She’d heard rumors that the Devere Ranch was in trouble. “Here on family business?”

He nodded.

She looked at him for a moment, then said, “Look, I’m sorry things aren’t going well over there. I was sorry to hear about your dad’s death last year. Your mom must really miss him a lot.”

He shrugged, noncommittal.

“I really hope you can help her get it all straightened out,” Kate offered.

He looked at her with surprise in his eyes. “I appreciate that.”

“So what brings you here this morning? I haven’t seen any of your trainers around.”

“Actually, I’m here to see your trainer.” He nodded toward Victor and Kate’s Flight. “Or, more specifically, your horse.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

He kept his eyes fastened on the horse’s workout. “I’ve got a colt I think I can run against him. I just wanted to check him out first and talk to Victor about it.”

“Oh.” She thought about that for a moment. It made sense. If he could run a colt against the son of Fireflight and win, it would do wonders for the credibility of Devere’s breeding. “I see.”

“Does that worry you?”

Everything that had anything to do with failing on the track and losing financial security worried her. “Not at all.”

He nodded, his tightened jaw betraying an attempt not to smile. “Good.”

“I mean it.”

“I’m sure you do.”

She frowned and turned back to the track, where Victor was walking toward them. He was small but powerfully built. Every time Kate saw him, the thought came to her that he was shaped like a shoe horn.

“Hey, Kate.” He waved a meaty arm at her. “You take that dog to the vet yet?”

Victor had been telling her Sierra was getting too thin, so, even though she thought it was old age, she’d finally given in and made an appointment. “We’re going this afternoon.”

“Good girl. Better to check it out.”

“I agree.”

He nodded and turned to Ben. “Hey, Ben.” He smiled and put a hand out. “Good to see you again.”

Ben shook his hand. “Thanks. Looks like you’ve got a winner on your hands out there.”

“You know it.”

“How would you feel about running him up against one of mine?”

Victor laughed and ran a hand through his sandy-blond hair. “Bring it on.” He looked behind him and signaled to the jockey on Kate’s Flight. “You talking about that colt from Sunuawa?”

Ben smiled and nodded. “You’ve heard.”

“Hey, word travels. But I’d love to see what your boy can do. You know where to find us.” He turned to Kate and said, “I don’t want to interrupt you two, so I’ll see you later.”

“You’re not interrupting us!” she said quickly, but he was already leaving. Obviously, Bianca had shared her harebrained plan about Kate and Ben with him.

She watched him go, wondering what on earth to say to Ben, who was still standing beside her.

“So I hear you’ve got the technology for Fireflight to sire more,” Ben said, looking sideways at her.

“It’s not for sale,” she said quickly.

“No?” He looked surprised. “I was misinformed, then.”

“It was for sale. My father sold some, but there’s very little left now. As I’m sure you can imagine, offering Fireflight’s bloodlines is our ace in the hole.” She thought about that for a moment. “So to speak.”

“Hmm.” He nodded, keeping his eyes on the track and the horses that were running against each other. Kate’s Flight was leading the competition by a considerable margin. “Not at any price, huh?”

“Nope.” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “Sorry.”

“No problem.” His words were casual, but when Kate glanced at him she thought he looked grave.

“Hey!” a voice barked behind them.

Kate turned to face a squat, wizened old woman she’d noticed several times running the betting windows.

“One of you Katherine Gregory?”

Kate had to work to keep from laughing. “That would be me,” she said, adding the obvious, “Not him.”

The woman didn’t so much as crack a smile. “There’s a phone call for you up in the shop.”

Kate frowned. “That’s weird. Did they say who it was?”

“Think it’s your father or something.” The woman gave an exaggeratedly disinterested shrug. “He said he couldn’t get through on your cell phone.”

“That’s crazy. I don’t need to go all the way to the track shop to get a call.” She patted her pocket, looking for the phone she was sure had been there earlier. But it was gone. “Hmm. Okay, I guess I do need to go all the way up to the shop.” She started toward the main building, tossing over her shoulder, “Nice talking to you, Ben.”

He raised a hand in response.

The woman asked, “Ben Devere?”

“That’s right,” he said slowly.

“There’s a telephone message for you there, as well.”

Kate paused. “We both got phone calls up there?”

“Guess so,” the woman said.

Ben looked at Kate with a frown. “You don’t suppose that fence is down between the properties again, do you?”

She groaned. “I hope not. That was a mess.”

“We’d better go see what’s going on.”

They hurried to the building, up the stairs and into the darkened shop. “You’d think she could have left the lights on, at least,” Kate commented, feeling her way to the counter, where she remembered having seen a phone before.

“There’s something strange about this,” Ben said.

The door closed behind them and they both looked back at it for a moment. Then Ben found the light switch and the room was flooded with fluorescent glow.

Kate found the phone and picked it up, looking to see which line was on hold.

None of them were.

“For Pete’s sake.” She pressed line one and dialed her father’s number.

As soon as he answered, she asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Katherine,” he said. “Why?”

She frowned. “They said you were trying to get hold of me and couldn’t get through on my cell phone.”

“That’s nonsense,” her father said to her. “I didn’t try to call you.”

She was somewhat relieved, even while she was flummoxed. “What about Bianca? Where is she?”

“She’s at the track with Victor. With you, too, I guess, if you’re there.”

She watched as Ben poked around, looking for the message that had supposedly been left for him. An uneasy feeling snaked into Kate’s stomach.

“I gotta go, Dad. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up the phone and rushed to the door.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Ben asked. “What’s the emergency?”

She got to the door and tried it.

It was locked.

Exactly as she’d suspected.

“I don’t think there is an emergency,” she said, not adding that there was going to be one just as soon as she got out of here and wrapped her hands around Bianca’s neck. “There’s been some sort of…mistake.” She jiggled the doorknob, hoping to throw the lock.

“Is that locked?”

Kate turned around and leaned her back against the cool door. “Yes, it is.”

“So we’re locked in here?”

“Yes, we are.”

He heaved a sigh and went over to the phone, muttering something about idiots in charge. He lifted the receiver and pushed a button. Then another. And another.

Then he tapped on the receiver button.

Kate watched with growing trepidation. “What’s wrong?”

“Phone’s dead.”

“I just used it.”

“Well, now it’s dead.”

“Do you have a cell phone?”

“No.”

This pushed her panic buttons. “What do you mean, no? How can you not have a cell phone?”

“I notice you don’t, either.”

“Yes, but I did.”

He looked at her too patiently. “Then where is it?”

“It must have fallen out of my pocket. Or something.” At this point she was sure Bianca was behind this somehow.

“Whatever. Let’s stop talking about what we can’t do and figure out what we can.” He frowned and looked around. “First thing is, we should look for keys.”

“Okay. Good.” Hope surged in Kate. Surely, Bianca hadn’t been that thorough. They began riffling under the counter and in the cash register, looking for a key.

At one point they both put their hands in the same cubbyhole at the same time and Kate pulled her hand back as though she’d touched a snake.

Ben looked at her for a moment. “Something wrong?”

“No, I—” What could she say? How could she explain what looked like such a distasteful reflex? “I was startled.”

He kept feeling around the cubby before pronouncing, “And for nothing. There’s nothing here.” He stepped back and folded his arms in front of him. “We’ll have to figure something else out.”

“We could break the window,” Kate suggested, gesturing toward what she thought was obviously the only thing left they could do.

“Kate, it’s a racetrack. They plan for security breaches. That’s not glass. It’s thick Lucite. You couldn’t break it if you tried. Not without a power tool.”

“Do they sell power tools in here?” she asked halfheartedly.

“Afraid not.”

They both looked at the inventory of horse-themed T-shirts and sweatshirts, key chains and the like.

“If it wouldn’t appeal to a thirteen-year-old girl, I don’t think they sell it here,” Ben concluded.

Panic began to rise in Kate’s chest. “So, wait a minute, you’re saying that we actually can’t get out of here? We’re stuck?”

He looked as if he was ready to give some smart-aleck answer until he looked into Kate’s eyes. Then his expression softened and he said, “I didn’t say that. We haven’t exhausted all the possibilities yet. Not by a long shot.” But he looked doubtful.

She didn’t care, she’d take it. “I have a Swiss army knife, do you think we can do something with that?”

“Hand it over. Let’s see.”

She reached into her pocket, thinking what a good thing it was that she’d gotten a splinter earlier because she’d ended up pocketing the knife after using the tweezers in it.

But when she handed it to him, he looked at it dubiously.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Well.” He turned the knife over in his hand and opened the small blade. “I was sort of picturing something a little bigger. But this might do.”

He went to the door and started working at the lock.

Kate went up behind him and watched over his shoulder. “Guess those years of juvenile delinquency might just be coming in handy, huh?”

He shot a look at her. “I’d hardly say I was a juvenile delinquent.” He worked more on the knob and said, without looking back, “But yeah, I guess you could say so.”

There was a click and for a moment they both sucked in their breath in anticipation. But when he tried the knob, it was still unmovable.

He closed the knife and started to hand it back to her.

“You can’t give up,” she said.

“I’ve got to. This place is built with security in mind. They designed it exactly so that people couldn’t do what we’re trying to do now.”

“So that’s it? You’re just…quitting?”

He laughed softly. “Well, it’s not like we’re going to die here. They open the shop a couple of hours before post time. Someone will be here soon.”

Kate looked at her watch. “It’s six-thirty in the morning,” she said, her breath feeling tight. “Post time isn’t until seven o’clock tonight.”

He looked pained. “That’s right. I was thinking 1:00 p.m.”

“Only on Sundays.” She began to knead her hands in front of her, noticing her palms were growing damp.

He sighed and leaned back against the counter. “Well, this bites the big one, that’s for sure.”

To Kate, it felt as if the walls were closing in. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“We can’t,” he said absently. “God, you have always been such a bundle of nerves.”

“I have not!”

He met her eyes. “Sure you have. Always.”

Anger rose in her, temporarily obscuring her growing claustrophobia. “How dare you say something like that to me. You, of all people, who did everything you could to make me a bundle of nerves.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t do anything any kid my age wouldn’t have done.”

“You did everything that no other kid your age was doing. We all watched, amazed, as you put glue on the teachers’ chairs and gum on the chalkboard and—”

“Nothing scary about that.”

“Well, no, not about that—”

“So what’re you blaming me for?”

She gave a humorless spike of a laugh. “Plenty. Believe me.”

He waved the notion away with his hand. “That’s bull. But it’s totally consistent bull. You always made a bigger deal of things than you had to.”

“So I was nervous and hysterical, is that what you’re saying?”

He looked her up and down. “That’s about the size of it.”

“Meanwhile, you were perfect.”

“Not perfect.” He cocked his head fractionally and very obviously tried to keep from smiling. “Just normal.”

She made a sound of disgust and threw her hands into the air. “You are amazing.” She walked back to the door to try to figure out some way to work it open. “Absolutely amazing.”

“Thanks,” he said behind her. “I’ve heard that, but I never thought I’d hear it from you.”

She glanced back at him. “It wasn’t a compliment.”

This time he did smile. “I know.”

She gave him the evil eye as best she could. “Please tell me you’re not staying long.”

He shook his head. “Just until about seven tonight.”

“Wha—” She frowned. “You know I mean in town, not in this shop.”

“Ah, in town. Well, now. That depends how quickly I can get the farm back into shape.”

“Oh, good Lord, that could take forever,” she said before she realized what she was saying. She quickly added, “You’ve been in the business long enough to know that every time you think you’ve got it figured out, fate throws you another curve ball.”

He studied her for a moment before giving a single nod. “I’m not looking to hit the ball out of the park.”

He didn’t offer any more information and even though Kate wanted to know more about what he’d done in the ten years he’d been away, she got the distinct impression that she shouldn’t ask for more.

In fact, she decided her time would probably be much better spent praying vehemently that someone would come to let them out of here, so she didn’t have to spend any more time at all making awkward small talk with Ben.

But at least he’d distracted her from her feeling of claustrophobia. There was something to be said for that, because for a moment there she’d actually thought she might totally lose it.

Why, she couldn’t say. She’d never been claustrophobic before. Those close to her might say she was a little high-strung at times, but never irrational.

Looking at Ben now, she almost wondered if he’d picked up on her panic and tried to help her by purposely getting her mad instead of scared.

For the briefest moment, her heart softened toward him. But then she remembered that Ben Devere didn’t make selfless gestures for anyone, least of all for Kate Gregory.

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