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back to work.”
    “Didn’t look like you were working before. Looked like you were staring off into space.”
    Nick raised an eyebrow and cleared his throat.
    “Okay, Mr. Nick, I can
take a hint. I just want you to know that you can bring awoman here anytime. It won’t
bother me none.I may be old, but I
know how things are with you young people these days. Even my old Andrew thought we should test
out the equipment before we got married.”
    “Mrs. B.!”
    “I’ll leave you now, Mr.
Nick. Maybe you’ll get a skip in your walk soon enough.” Nick shook his head
and watched Mrs. B. leave the room. A skip, indeed.
    He turned more pages of
the Taming of the Shrew. The words blurred. Gray sultry eyes stared back at him. A long elegant nose and narrow chin emerged. Then there were full lips and a slight overbite. The mouth turned upward in a shy grin.
    Nick frowned. The only thing that skipped was his heartbeat.
     
    - o -
     
    Ten miles away, Daisy hugged Bear and drifted off to sleep. Words from Twelfth Night teased her mind: Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, youth’s a stuff will not endure. She wet her lips. The image of his face sharpened. His lips parted, inviting. She leaned forward. His image swirled, fading into the night.
     
    “Underwood checks out. Clean as a whistle, according to the guys in the Racing Office.”
Sam Gallagher sat at the desk in his tiny track office and chewed on the stem of a crusty pipe. He hadn’t lit it in years. “Not to worry. He’s
legit.”
    Daisy nodded and grinned at him. “Thanks for checking him out for me.” Gallagher had taken off his University of Maryland ball cap, exposing his gleaming white bald crown. She respected Sam’s skill with horses and his judgments regarding people. “So what do you think of him?”
    “Hard to know. Only talked with him twice by phone. He’s a businessman. That’s clear. And he’s honest. At least he admits to knowing nothing about horses.” Gallagher idly scraped caked mud from his boots with a ball point pen. “You sure got him hooked. He’s ready to get involved with racing, and apparently he has a checkbook that can back him up.”
    “That’s not surprising.” Daisy took a seat on the straight-backed wooden chair. “So do we work with him?”
    Gallagher smiled. “Do you work with him?
I think that’s the question. Oh, Underwood was respectful enough toward me. But he clearly sees himself as somehow sponsoring you in this training business. Every trainer needs to find an owner who will provide enough financial backing to carry him through the bad times as well as the good.”
    “But I’m not ready to go
out on my own.” Daisy shuddered. “I like working for you. And there’s so much
more to learn.”
    “Underwood has good business sense. He seems to know that. Talked to me about being your coach, and that I’d continue getting my training fees with any horses he might purchase.” Gallagher eyed Daisy. “Frankly, you’ll get a raise for bringing in a fair amount of business. Sounds like I’ll be picking up a small piece of the next horse he buys.
    “A lot of owners want to do business that way. Makes them feel like the trainer will be more committed
to their horses. Maybeit’s true. I’ve
done it both ways. And either works all right. There’s more potential profit when you own a share of the horse—and there’s more potential for loss.” He shrugged. “Like horses, each owner is different, and you have to kind of read their cues and shape the game for them without losing your own integrity.”
    Daisy sighed. “There’s so much to learn.”
    “You’ll do fine.” Gallagher glanced away. “I know I’m old enough to be your grandfather, and you’re a young woman on your own.” He stopped talking and then looked back at her. “I just want you to be careful with Underwood. He’s a legitimate businessman, but he’s still a man. He’s smitten by racing. And he may be smitten by you. That’s