Chapter One
Lake Placid, New York
"Omigod! Omigod! Ty, Ty, it's him!" The force of Lizzie's elbow into her ribs sent Ty stumbling, smearing a thick coat of mint chocolate chip ice cream across the front of her nose.
"Jeez Louise," Ty muttered in aggravation. She looked reproachfully at her perilously lopsided cone, now in imminent danger of landing on her beige breeches. Recognizing this as a crisis situation, Ty wiped with the back of her hand at the sticky green mess coating her face. Then she carefully brought the cone within range of her mouth once again and gave it a long, hard sweep with her tongue, righting the precarious lump.
Unfortunately, the sharp mint flavor no longer tasted quite so refreshing, even in the heat wave that was currently roasting the Northeast. It was barely nine o'clock, and already the thermometer was in the upper eighties. The forecast predicted a weekend high of a hundred and one degrees, practically unheard of in upstate New York. A wholly unanticipated side effect of the stifling heat wave, and an especially low blow for Ty, was how it destroyed her enthusiasm for one of her favorite foods. Now the ice cream treat was little more than a sticky, melting mess clasped between her fingers. She wanted to get rid of it. Normally, Ty loved the liberty on show days to eat the most improbable foods at whatever hour caught her fancy. Pizza at eight, a hamburger with the works at ten, ice cream -- who was going to argue that it was still breakfast time when she'd been up for hours already? And if her father bothered to come and watch, he wouldn't arrive a minute before her classes were scheduled to begin, so she never risked his chilly disapproval at the sight of his only child doing something so vulgar as eating ice cream before lunch. This morning, however, it was simply too darn hot to eat -- even ice cream.
Appetite gone, Ty spotted a trash can a few feet away, still three-quarters empty, with only a few bees buzzing around its rim, as very few of the spectators or competitors who'd arrived this early had begun eating in earnest. Ty dropped the offensive cone into its gaping mouth. Glancing down at her hands, she wished that earlier, back at the concession stand, she hadn't so hastily declined the offer of a napkin from the man scooping ice cream out of the enormous ten gallon cardboard drums. Now, she thought gloomily, she was doomed to walk around the show grounds with a patina of green goo all over her.
Recalling what had caused this catastrophe, Ty glanced over at her best friend, Lizzie, who was still standing transfixed, apparently struck dumb by whatever had caught her attention. That set warning bells a-ringing far more effectively than Lizzie's linebacker's shove of a few seconds before. Lizzie was constitutionally incapable of keeping quiet, as their eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Brockhurst, loved to proclaim at regular intervals. As this was about the cleverest thing Mrs. Brockhurst had ever said, the teacher was tickled pink each and every time she found an opportunity to repeat this insightful comment. Poor Mrs. Brockhurst.
But who in the world could possibly have her best friend acting as if she'd just caught a glimpse of Tom Cruise right here in the flesh? Tom Cruise...Wait a second, hadn't she read an article about him and horses in one of those glamor magazines she'd flipped through while waiting her turn for the orthodontist to torture her mouth? Ty's eyes lifted, scanning the crowd.
All thoughts of Tom Cruise vanished.
When at last she remembered to breathe, Ty had to force air past the lump that had taken residence in her chest. It was a lump of longing, formed by countless articles clipped from Equus, Practical Horseman, and other horse trade magazines she read, mentioning the man standing twenty yards away. She'd even videotaped interviews he'd given on ESPN, allowing Ty to replay the sound of his voice, his Kentucky accent wonderfully exotic to her ears, watch that quick grin of his flash across the TV screen, and then sigh wistfully whenever the camera lens happened to catch those twinkling blue eyes as he replied to the sportscaster's questions with clever, insightful quips about his fellow riders and their mounts.
He was her idol.
Steve Sheppard. Could it really be him?
She'd dreamed of seeing him so many times now, at the bigger horse shows she competed at, always wondering, as she lay in her bed the night before, whether he might just possibly be there, too. Maybe he'd happen to see her ride and would be wowed by the exceptional talent of this young rider. He'd want to meet her, and there'd be this instant attraction that would flare up between the two of them. They'd get to talking, and...he'd understand her.
"Do you see him?" Lizzie's voice carried an urgency appropriate for the occasion.
"Yes," Ty managed to whisper, still staring, drinking in the sight of him as he stood, his blond, close-cropped head bent at an angle as he listened to whatever the woman next to him -- also a competitor, judging from her rust-colored breeches and sleeveless rat-catcher -- was saying.
Ty looked on, filled with awe and longing as Steve Sheppard and the woman turned and began to walk around the perimeter of the schooling area.
"Come on," Lizzie urged, grabbing Ty by the elbow and dragging her along, "We've got to follow him."
"But we can't! We can't just follow Steve Sheppard around the show grounds. It's not right, I mean, he's Steve Sheppard!" Ty finished desperately, as if that were all the explanation needed.
"Yeah, and you've had a humongous crush on him for how long now? Since fifth grade, that's when. Remember when we first saw him at Madison Square Garden, when your dad gave Sam permission to take you to the National Horse Show, and you begged and pleaded until Sam let me come, too? Come on," Lizzie repeated impatiently, pulling the reluctant Ty after her. "We're not runty fifth-graders anymore. We're women."
Oh sure, retorted Ty silently. Lizzie might have acquired all the physical equipment necessary to make the boys drool every time she passed by, but Ty was sadly stalled in prepubescent limbo. Her body was just one embarrassing joke. A few months ago, she'd thought she was at long last growing breasts. Hah! All she had to show for herself were two puny bumps where her nipples were, sort of like the floppy end of a balloon where it hasn't been inflated fully. Only with Ty there were no balloons to parade around with.
But Lizzie had balloons, hips, and a lovely rounded bottom. Not too big, just right. The boys swarmed around her like bees in clover. Older guys, too. Not that Ty minded, she loved Lizzie too much to be jealous of her best friend's beauty. It was just that by comparison, Ty was a walking, talking stick and generated as much interest as a mushed sandwich among the few boys who mistakenly spared her a passing glance.
And Steve Sheppard wasn't a mere teenage boy. He was twenty-three, almost a whole decade older than her, and the most exciting American rider to grace the show circuit in many years.
Again, her eyes feasted on the sight of him.
He was dressed in jeans and a cobalt-blue polo shirt. His casual attire stood out in sharp contrast to the multitude of tan, fawn, and white breeches, black field boots, short-sleeve shirts, sleeveless rat-catchers; nobody was going to put on their hunt jackets until the last possible second, not in this heat. Ty suspected that splash of bright blue was what had caught Lizzie's eye. It was a cinch to identify him after that. Steve Sheppard's golden good looks, combined with his aura of quiet authority, made him a man people had a hard time forgetting.
Lizzie was still pulling her along in his direction, when Ty saw the young woman who'd been walking alongside Steve Sheppard stumble slig
