by Nora Roberts
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Oh, and Moses said if I found you, he wants you back on the longe line.”
“Slave driver,” she muttered. “As soon as I’m finished here.”
She had no time to brood. A thorough strapping of a horse took an experienced groom an hour, and Kelsey about a quarter hour longer. Then it was time for the midday feeding, oats, bran, and nuts that needed to be mixed, measured, weighed. She added a tablespoon of salt, Pride’s vitamin supplement, and electrolytes. Because he tended to be a finicky eater, she treated him to a helping of molasses to sweeten the feed.
Later, she would bring him an apple. Not just to spoil him, she thought. Moses had explained that horses required succulents added to their feed. Pride preferred apples to carrots. He had a taste for the tart Granny Smith variety.
“Now you’re set,” she murmured when he settled into his midday meal. “And you eat it all, hear?”
He munched, eyeing her.
“We’ve got a lot riding on you, sweetheart. And I think you’d like standing in the winner’s circle with a blanket of red roses.”
He snorted, what Kelsey took as the equine equivalent of a shrug. She chuckled, giving him one last caress. “You can’t fool me, boy. You want it as much as we do.”
Rolling her shoulders, she left the barn to face the rest of the day’s work.
She doubted that Moses had anything sadistic in mind when he whipped her through the morning, but the result was the same. By three, her still developing muscles were sore, she was covered with mud, and her system was sending out urgent signals for fuel.
After thoroughly scraping her boots, she went into the house through the kitchen and headed straight for the refrigerator. With a little cry of pleasure, she pounced on a platter of fried chicken.
She had her mouth full of drumstick when Gertie came in. “Miss Kelsey!” Outraged by the sight of her little girl leaning against the counter in filthy jeans, Gertie bustled to a cupboard for a plate. “That’s no way to eat.”
“It’s working for me,” Kelsey said with her mouth full. “This is great, the best chicken I’ve had in my entire life.” She swallowed. “This is my second piece.”
“Sit down at the table. I’ll fix you a proper lunch.”
“No, really.” Sometimes manners simply didn’t apply. Kelsey bit in again. “I’m too dirty to sit anywhere, and too hungry to clean up first. Gertie, I’ve taken three cooking courses, one of them at the Cordon Bleu, and I could never make chicken like this.”
Flushing delightedly, Gertie waved a hand. “Sure you could. It was my mama’s recipe. I’ll walk you through it sometime.”
“Well, you outdo the Colonel all to hell.” At Gertie’s blank look, Kelsey laughed. “Kentucky Fried. Gertie, I could compose a sonnet to this drumstick.”
“Go on. You’re teasing me.” Red as a beet now, Gertie poured Kelsey a glass of milk. “Just like that brother of yours. Why, you’d think the boy hadn’t eaten a home-cooked meal in his life.”
“He’s been in here charming you out of house and home, hasn’t he?”
“I like to see a boy with a healthy appetite.”
“He’s got that.” And so, Kelsey thought, did she, as she debated whether or not to eat one more piece. “Is Naomi around?”
“Had to go out.”
“Mmm.” So, Kelsey thought, it was just the two of them. Perhaps it was time she took advantage of the opportunity and asked Gertie some questions. “I’ve wondered, Gertie, about that night. Alec Bradley.”
Gertie’s face sobered. “That’s done and gone.”
“You weren’t home,” Kelsey prodded gently.
“No.” Gertie picked up a dishcloth and began polishing the already spotless range. “And I’ve cursed myself every day for it. There we were, my mama and me, at the movies and eating pizza pie while Miss Naomi was all alone with that man.”
“You didn’t like him.”
“Hmmph.” She sniffed and slapped her rag on the stove. “Slick he was. Slick like you’d slide right off if you was to put a hand on him. Miss Naomi had no business with the likes of him.”
“Why do you suppose she . . . went around with him?”
“Had her reasons, I suppose. She’s got a stubborn streak does Miss Naomi. And I expect she was feeling stubborn about your daddy. Then she was feeling low about losing a horse at the track. He went down and they had to shoot him. She took that hard. That’d be about the time she was seeing that man.”
Gertie’s derision was plain. She refused, had always refused, to call Alec Bradley by name.
“He was handsome. But handsome is as handsome does, I say. I tell you what the crime was, Miss Kelsey. The crime was putting that sweet girl in jail for doing what she had to do.”
“She was protecting herself.”
“She said she was, so she was,” Gertie said flatly. “Miss Naomi wouldn’t lie. If I’d been home that night, or her daddy, it wouldn’t have happened. That man would never have laid a hand on her. And she wouldn’t have needed the gun.”
Gertie sighed, took the rag to the sink and rinsed it out thoroughly. “Used to make me nervous, knowing she had that gun in her drawer. But I’m glad she had it that night. A man’s got no right to force a woman. No right.”
“No,” Kelsey agreed. “No right at all.”
“She still keeps it there.”
“What?” Uneasy, Kelsey set down the half-eaten chicken leg. “Naomi still has the gun upstairs?”
“Not the same one, I expect. But one like it. It was her daddy’s. Law says she can’t own a gun now, but she keeps it just the same. Says it reminds her. I say what does she need to be reminded of such a time for? But she says some things you don’t want to ever forget.”
“No, I suppose she’s right,” Kelsey said slowly. But she wasn’t certain she would sleep more peacefully knowing it.
“Maybe it’s not my place to say it, but I’ll say it anyway.” Gertie sniffled once, then snatched a tissue to blow her nose. “You were the sun and the moon to her, Miss Kelsey. You coming back here like this, it’s made up for a lot. There’s no getting back what was lost, no taking back what was done, but old wounds can still be healed. That’s what you’re doing.”
Was it? Kelsey wondered. She was still far from sure of her own motivations, her own feelings. “She’s lucky to have you, Gertie,” she murmured. “Lucky to have someone who thinks of her first, and last.” Wanting to clear the tears from Gertie’s eyes, she lightened her voice. “And very lucky to have someone who can cook like you.”
“Oh, go on.” Gertie waved a hand, then dashed it over her eyes. “Plain food, that’s what I do. And you haven’t finished that last piece you took. You need more meat on your bones.”
Kelsey shook her head just as the chimes sounded from the front door. “No, Gertie, I’ll get the door. Otherwise I’ll eat this, platter and all.”
She took the milk with her, guzzling as she went. She passed a mirror and rolled her eyes. Dirt streaked her cheeks. The cap she’d tossed aside in the mudroom hadn’t prevented her hair from becoming hopelessly tangled. She hoped, as she wiped at the mud with the sleeve of her manure-stained shirt, that the visitor was horse-related.
Far from it.
“Grandmother!” Kelsey’s shock mixed with chagrin as Milicent winced at her appearance. “What a surprise.”
“What, in the name of God, have you been doing?”
“Working.” Kelsey saw the spotless Lincoln outside, the driver stoically behind the wheel. “Out for a drive?”
“I’ve come to speak with you.” Head erect, Milicent crossed the threshold with the same unbending dignity that Kelsey imagined French aristocrats had possessed when approaching the guillotine. “I felt this was much too important to discuss over the phone. Believe me, I do not enter this house lightly, or with any pleasure.”
“I believe you. Come in, please, and sit down.” At least Naomi was out of the house on some errand. Kelsey cou
ld thank fate for that. “Can I offer you something? Coffee, tea?”
“I want nothing from this house.” Milicent sat, her starched linen suit barely creasing with the movement. She refused to satisfy petty curiosity by studying the room and focused instead on her granddaughter. “Is this how you spend your time? You’re as grimy as a field hand.”
“I’ve just come in. You might have noticed, it’s raining.”
“Don’t take that tone with me. This is inexcusable, Kelsey, that you would waste your talents and your upbringing. Worse still, that you would send this family into a tailspin while you play out this little drama.”
“Grandmother, we’ve been through all this.” Kelsey set the milk aside and moved over to stir up the fire. Whether it was the rain or the visit, the room was suddenly chilled. “I’m well aware of your feelings, and your opinions. I can’t believe you came all this way just to reprise them for me.”
“You and I have rarely been sympathetic to each other’s wishes, Kelsey.”
“No.” Thoughtfully, Kelsey replaced the poker and turned back. “I suppose we haven’t.”
“But in this, I can’t believe you would go against me. Your name was in the paper this morning. Your name, in connection with a murder at a racetrack.”
News travels, Kelsey mused. She’d been up and at the barn before the first paper delivery. “I didn’t realize that. If I had, I certainly would have called Dad to reassure him. I was there, Grandmother. The man who was killed was a groom at the neighboring farm. My part in the investigation is very incidental.”
“That you were there at all is the entire point, Kelsey, at a racetrack, associating with the sort of people they attract.”
Kelsey tilted her head. “They attract me.”
“Now you’re being childish.” Milicent’s lips compressed. “I expect more of you. I expect you to think of the family.”
“What does that poor man being killed yesterday have to do with the family?”
“Your name was linked with Naomi’s. And her name in connection with a murder brings up old scandals. I shouldn’t have to spell all this out for a woman of your intelligence, Kelsey. Do you want your father to suffer for this?”
“Of course not! And why should he? Why would he? Grandmother, an old man was brutally murdered. By sheer coincidence I happened to find him. Naturally, I had to give a statement to the police, but it ends there. I didn’t even know him. And as far as Dad goes, he’s completely removed from this.”
“Stains are never completely removed. This world, Kelsey, is not ours. You were warned what to expect, what kind of people you would mingle with. Now the worst has happened. And because your father is too softhearted to take a stand, it’s up to me. I’m going to insist that you pack your things and come home with me today.”
“How little things change.” Naomi stood in the doorway, pale as marble. Her slate-gray suit only accented the delicate fragility of her frame. But fragility can be deceptive. When she stepped forward, she was as elegant and as powerful as one of her prized fillies. “I believe I overheard you say something quite similar to Philip once.”
Milicent’s face went still and hard. “I came to speak with my grandchild. I have no desire to speak to you.”
“You’re in my home now, Milicent.” Naomi set her purse aside, and with seamless poise chose a chair. “You’re certainly free to say whatever you like to Kelsey, but you won’t run me off. Those days are over.”
“Prison taught you little, I see.”
“Oh, you can’t begin to know all it taught me.” Her blood was cold now, without sentiment. That pleased her. She’d never been sure how she would react if she confronted Milicent again.
“You’re the same as you ever were. Calculating, sly, unprincipled. Now you’d use Philip’s daughter to satisfy your own ends.”
“Kelsey is her own woman. You don’t know her well if you believe she can be used.”
“No, I can’t.” Kelsey stepped between them, not to block the venom, but to speak her mind. “And don’t talk around me, either of you. I’m not a pawn in anyone’s game. I came here because I wanted to, and I’ll stay until I decide to leave. You can’t order me to pack, Grandmother, as though I were a child, or a servant.”
Color leaped into Milicent’s cheeks and rode high. “I can insist that you do what’s right for the family.”
“You can ask me to consider what’s right. And I will.”
“You’ve pushed yourself on her.” Milicent rose, her eyes boring into Naomi. “Using sentiment and sympathy to draw her to you. Have you told her about the men, Naomi, the drinking, the total disregard for your marriage, your husband and child? Have you told her that you set out to ruin a man, to destroy my son, but only succeeded in ruining yourself?”
“That’s enough.” Kelsey stepped back, hardly realizing the gesture put her squarely in Naomi’s corner. “Whatever questions I have, whatever answers I’m given, don’t involve you. I’ll make my own judgments, Grandmother.”
Milicent fought to keep her breathing even. Her heart was thumping dangerously fast. She, too, would make her own judgments. “If you stay here, you’ll force me to take steps. I’ll have no choice but to alter my will, and to use the power I have to revoke your grandfather’s trust.”
It was sorrow rather than shock that settled in Kelsey’s eyes. “Oh, Grandmother, do you think the money matters so much? Do you think so little of me?”
“Consider the consequences, Kelsey.” She picked up her bag, certain the threat would bring the girl quickly to heel.
“Hey, Kels, you’ll never guess what I . . .” Channing came to an almost comical halt two strides in front of Milicent. “Grandmother!”
Enraged, Milicent whirled on Naomi. “So, you’d have him as well? Philip’s daughter, and now the son he considers his own.”
“Grandmother, I’m just—”
“Quiet!” Milicent snapped at him. “You paid once, Naomi. And I swear to God you’ll pay again.”
After she swept out, Channing hunched his shoulders. “Ah, bad scene, huh?”
“And one of the more colorful ones.” Drained, Kelsey rubbed her hands over her face. “Channing, you did call Candace and tell her you were here, didn’t you?”
“I called her.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, then drew them out again. “I just told her I was okay and settled in. I didn’t mention where I was settled. I thought I’d avoid the complications.” He blew out a breath as Kelsey continued to stare at him. “I guess I’d better let her know before it gets any stickier.”
Kelsey shook her head as he clattered up the stairs. “Channing’s prone to leaving out vital pieces of information.” She glanced back at her mother. “Want a drink?”
Naomi managed a smile and eased her shoulders back against the cushion. “Why not? Two fingers of whiskey ought to take out some of the sting.”
“We’ll try it.” Kelsey walked to the sideboard and poured. “I’m sorry for that.”
“So am I. Kelsey, the money might not be important to you, but it’s your heritage. I don’t want to be responsible for your losing it.”
Absently Kelsey ran a fingertip over one of Naomi’s crystal horses, following the flow of glass from withers to tail. “I have no idea if she can block my trust fund. And if she can, well, I haven’t exactly been squandering the interest to date.” With a shrug, she handed Naomi a glass. “I don’t particularly want to lose it, either, but I’ll be damned if she’ll rein me in with dollar signs. Cheers.” She rapped her glass against Naomi’s.
“Cheers?” With a shake of her head, Naomi began to laugh. Letting her eyes close, she ordered her body to relax. “Oh, Christ, what a day.”
She’d spent the last two hours with her lawyers, working out the details on how to align her own wishes with the ones her father had outlined before his death. Now, she thought, if Milicent made good on her threats to cut Kelsey off, she’d have to make further adjustments.
She opened
her eyes again and tossed back the first swallow. “I was awfully proud of you, the way you stood up for yourself.”
“Same goes. When I saw you in the doorway, I thought, Jesus, she’s like a lightning bolt, frozen. Cold, sharp, and deadly.”
“She’s always affected me that way. Not that everything she said was completely off the mark. I’ve made mistakes, Kelsey, very bad mistakes.”
Kelsey turned the glass in her hand, around and around. “Did you love Dad when you married him?”
“Yes, oh yes.” For a moment, Naomi’s eyes softened. “He was so shy and smart. And sexy.”
Kelsey choked on a laugh. “Dad? Sexy?”
“Those tweed jackets. That dreamy, poetic look in his eyes, that calm, patient voice reciting Byron. That unflagging kindness. I adored him.”
“When did you stop?”
“It wasn’t a matter of stopping.” Naomi set her half-finished whiskey aside. “I wasn’t so patient, or so kind. And the dreams we had were different ones. When things began to go wrong, I wasn’t smart enough to compromise. To bend. It was one of my mistakes. I thought I could hold him by proving I didn’t need him. I opened the
