by Nora Roberts
“That’s because you’ve never had to ask. Or take.” He rattled the ice in his cup, then set it down. “At night I’d probably be listening, or trying not to listen, to the fighting going on in the next room. Or my mother crying. Or the neighbor earning an hour’s pay with some faceless john. If I was lucky, I’d wake up in the same bed I went to sleep in. If I wasn’t, my mother would come in in the middle of the night, and we’d sneak out before we were tossed out because my father had lost the rent money again.”
She saw the picture he was painting for her, and it was dark with harsh edges. “Where did you grow up?”
“Nowhere. It might have been in Chicago, or Reno, or Miami. In the winter we stuck to the south, because the weather’s better and the tracks run longer. It might have been anywhere. Places all look the same if you’re broke and running. Of course, the old man would say we were just moving on. That he was working on a big score. My mother scrubbed toilets so we didn’t starve, and he took most of her pay and blew it on the horses, or the cards, or how far a fucking grasshopper would jump. It didn’t matter what the bet was as long as he could flash a few bills and play the big shot.”
He spoke without passion, the bitterness barely a flicker in his eyes. “He liked to cheat. Mostly he was good at it, but if he wasn’t, my mother scraped enough together to keep him from getting his arms broken. She loved him.” And that was the most bitter of all the pills he had had to swallow. “Lots of women loved Rich Slater.”
He continued to eat, as if to prove to himself it didn’t matter anymore. “He liked to hurt them. Some women keep coming back for another fist in the face. They wear their black eyes and split lips like badges. My mother was one of those. If I tried to stop him, he’d just beat the hell out of both of us. She never thanked me for it, used to tell me I just didn’t understand. She was right,” he added. “I never understood it.”
“There must have been somewhere you could have gone. A shelter. Social services. The police.”
He simply looked at her, the flawless complexion, the breeding that went down to the bone. “Some people get swept into dirty corners, Kelsey. That’s the way the system works.”
“No, it doesn’t have to. It shouldn’t.”
“You’ve got to look for help, expect it to be there, have the nerve to ask for it. My mother didn’t do any of that. She kept her eyes down, expected nothing, asked for nothing.”
It was Kelsey’s eyes that held him now, the horror and the pity that darkened them.
“But you were only a child. Someone should have . . . done something.”
“I wouldn’t have thanked them for it. I grew up being taught to spit if I saw a cop, to think of social workers as interfering paper pushers whose job it was to keep you from doing what you wanted. So I avoided them. Sometimes I went to school, sometimes I didn’t. Christ knows he didn’t care, and my mother didn’t have the energy left to reel me in. So I did pretty much as I pleased. The old man liked me to hang out with him, sometimes to shill, or to drum up a game of my own. And if I was there I could make sure some money was left once he got too drunk to care.”
“You must have thought of running away, of getting away from him.”
“Sure, I thought about it. But I figured if I stayed, I could keep him from beating her to death. And I did, for what good it did any of us. My mother died in a charity ward. Pneumonia. I gave it six months, squirreling away the money I made hustling games or jobs at the track. Then I took off. I was thirteen.”
And tall for his age, he remembered. Canny. Already old.
“The old man caught up with me a few times. The problem was I had a taste for the horses, so I usually ended up at a track. So did he. He’d knock me around, shake me down. I could usually buy him off.”
“Buy him off?”
“If I’d been having a run of luck, I’d have money. A couple of hundred would send him off to a game of his own, or the nearest bar.” Of course, Gabe thought, the price had gone up since then. “Every time I cut loose, I’d start over—with one thing in mind. One day I’d have my own. He wouldn’t touch me. Nobody would. You’re not eating.”
“I’m sorry.” She reached out and caught his hand firmly in hers. “I’m really sorry, Gabe.”
It wasn’t pity he was looking for. He realized now that he’d wanted her to be horrified, wanted her to look at him and cringe back. He’d have an excuse then, wouldn’t he, to step away from her and stop the headlong race to a future he couldn’t see.
“I spent some time in jail over a poker game I wasn’t quick enough to spot as a sting.” He waited for her to comment on that, but she said nothing. “I was a small fish, but I got reeled in with the big ones. When I got out, I was smarter. I worked some short cons, but I was more into gambling than the grift. Working at stables was a good way to earn a stake. And I liked the horses. I stayed clean because I didn’t like prison. I didn’t drink because every time I started to I smelled my old man. And I got lucky.”
Finished, he sat back and lit a cigar. “Understand better now?”
Did he really think she couldn’t see the anger, the scarred-over hurt? People might pass by their table and see a man chatting over a meal, enjoying the company. But if they looked into his eyes, really looked, how could they miss that cold, steely rage? Determined, she put her hand back on his.
“Maybe I can’t understand the way you mean. But I think I know it was a nightmare to live with an alcoholic who—”
“He’s not an alcoholic,” Gabe cut in, his tone frigid. “There’s a difference between an alcoholic and a drunk, Kelsey. No twelve-step program is going to change the fact that he’s a drunk, a mean one, who likes to beat up on women, or anyone weaker than he is. And it wasn’t a nightmare. It was life. My life.”
She withdrew her hand. “You’d rather I didn’t understand.”
He turned his cigar, stared at the tip. He hadn’t realized that simple, unquestioning sympathy would bring so many memories, and the feelings that went with them, swirling to the surface. “You’re right. I’d rather you look at me and take what you see. Or leave it.”
“We’re both a product of our upbringing, Gabe. One way or another. I’m not going to care about someone because of what they seem to be. Not again. And if you want me, you’re going to have to accept that I care.”
He tapped out his cigar. “That definitely sounds like an ultimatum.”
“It is.” She shoved her plate aside and picked up her jacket. “It’s a long drive home. We’d better get started.”
She would think a great deal about the little boy who had hustled and conned his way through childhood. A child who had gone to bed at night listening to whores and drunks instead of lullabies.
How much of the boy remained with the man, she didn’t know. More, she thought, than Gabe believed. More, she was certain, than anyone would ever be allowed to see.
He had, quite simply, refashioned himself. The smooth, easy manners, the stunning house on the hill, his stable of champions. How many of the upper crust of the racing circle knew his back-alley upbringing? If they did, was it considered some amusing eccentricity?
Whatever Gabe wanted to the contrary, she was beginning to understand him. And whether he could see it or not, she already cared.
It was nearly one A.M. when Bill Cunningham hurried to answer the banging at his front door. Over his naked paunch he wrapped a Chinese red silk robe. A peek through the window made him glad Marla, his latest honey, was a sound sleeper. He liked to think it was great sex that had her snoring away in his big water bed. But more likely it was the ’ludes she ate like candy.
Whatever the reason, it relieved him that he was alone to greet his late and unwelcome visitor.
“I told you never to come here,” Cunningham hissed while smoothing down what was left of his hair. Once the Derby was over, he was going to treat himself to a weave.
“Now, now, Billy boy, nobody saw me.” Rich was past the midpoint of a solid drunk. He didn�
�t wobble, didn’t so much as slur a word. But it showed in the sun-bright glitter in his eyes. “And if they did, hell—no law against a man visiting an old poker buddy, is there?” He grinned, casting his gaze around the opulent foyer. Old Bill had bounced back pretty well, Rich noted, and figured he could squeeze his pal for a few more bills. “How about a drink?”
“Are you crazy?” Despite the fact that only Marla was in the house, and she was cruising on barbiturates, Cunningham whispered. “Do you know the cops have been here? Here,” he repeated, as if his overdone home were as sacrosanct as a church. “Asking questions because some big-mouthed groom told them I’d let Lipsky shovel shit for a couple of days.”
“Told you that was a mistake. But a little one.” He held up two fingers close together, squinted at them. “Where’s the bar, Bill? I’m dry as the fucking Sahara.”
“I don’t want you drinking in my house.”
Rich’s grin only widened, but his eyes turned hard. “Now, you don’t want to talk to a business partner like that, Bill. Especially since I have a new proposition for you.”
Cunningham moistened his lips. “We’ve got our deal.”
“Just what I want to talk about. Over a friendly drink.”
“All right, all right. But make it quick.” He shot a look up the stairs as he walked by them, going into a sunken living room done in golds and royal blue. “And quiet. I’ve got a woman upstairs.”
“You dog.” Rich gave him a friendly poke in the ribs. “Don’t suppose she’s got a friend. I’ve been dry there awhile, too.”
“No. And keep your distance. I don’t want her to know about you, or any of this. She’s built, but she’s not bright.”
“Best kind of woman.” With an appreciative sigh, Rich dropped down into a wide-backed chair covered in gold velvet. “You sure know how to live, pal. I always said, that Billy boy, he knows how to live.”
“Just make sure you don’t go around saying it now.” Cunningham poured two drinks, both twelve-year-old scotch. It seemed like a waste on Rich, but he needed to impress. Always. “You were supposed to handle Lipsky.”
“I did.” Pleased with himself, Rich swirled the scotch, sniffed it, then swallowed it. “Classy, don’t you think, to put him down like you put down a horse?”
Cunningham’s hand shook as he lifted his glass. “I don’t want to hear about that. I’m talking about before. Jesus, Rich, nobody was supposed to get killed. Old Mick was like a saint around the track.”
“An unforeseen complication,” Rich said, getting up to refill his glass. “And Lipsky certainly paid for it. But seeing that he did adds to my overhead, Bill. It’s going to cost you another ten thousand.”
“Are you nuts?” Cunningham sprang up, spilling some scotch. “You did that on your own, Rich.”
“To protect your investment. It would have taken the cops five minutes to have Lipsky pointing the finger at me. It points at me,” he said affably, “it points at you. So, another ten, Billy. It’s a fair price.”
He swallowed hard. The money that had come into his hands for Big Sheba had been a miracle. But the miracle had a price. “You might as well ask for ten million. I’m leveraged to the hilt.”
Rich had expected that and was ready to be reasonable. “I can wait until after May, no problem. What’s a couple of weeks between friends? Now . . .” He crossed his legs. “I’ve come up with an idea, Billy. A little variation on our theme that will pay off for both of us. You want to collect at Churchill Downs, and so do I. But I also have a job to do, and a score to settle with that boy of mine.”
“I don’t give a good goddamn about your family problems, as long as the job gets done.” But the idea of paying Gabe back began to creep through him, warming more thoroughly than the scotch. “This business with Lipsky damn near ruined things.”
“Not to worry. Not to worry.” Lazily, Rich waved his glass. “I’ve got it covered—with, as I said, a little alteration.”
“What kind of alteration?”
“Well now,” Rich sighed, sipped. “I’m going to tell you. And I think you’re going to appreciate the irony of the deal, Billy boy. I really think you are.”
Later, when Cunningham crawled back into bed, he was shivering. He wasn’t a bloodthirsty man, he assured himself. It wasn’t his fault two people were dead. Just the luck of the draw, as Rich had said.
Maybe he was crazy to have tied in with Rich Slater, but he was desperate. And the timing had fallen so perfectly in his lap, he’d considered it a sign. Rich’s adjusted plan made a hideous kind of sense.
What choice did he have? Cunningham asked himself. If he lost at Churchill Downs there would be no more Marlas, no more big country house, no more strutting into the paddock.
Big Sheba was, he’d thought, his ace in the hole. He’d sunk his money, every spare dollar and all he could borrow, into that filly. And she had short lungs. He squeezed his eyes shut, cursing himself for gambling on the horse.
He needed the Derby, just the Derby, to recoup. Once that was done, he’d breed her. He could live well on the price of her foals.
It had been done before, he thought, going back over Rich’s plan. And he’d slipped through that without much more than a ripple. One race, he thought, just one good race.
Needing warmth, he wrapped himself around Marla until her snoring lulled him to sleep.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
IT WAS A LONGER DRIVE THAN KELSEY REMEMBERED FROM RURAL Virginia to suburban Maryland. A long time to think. She didn’t doubt she would meet with resistance. And unless things had changed in the last few weeks, formidable resistance. Candace was sure to have contacted Milicent to tell her Kelsey was on her way.
Better to face them all at once, Kelsey decided. To shock them, disappoint them, outrage them. A perfect description, she thought with a wry smile. Candace would be shocked, her father disappointed, and her grandmother outraged.
And she, she hoped, would be happy.
When she pulled up in the drive, her father was working in the flower bed. He wore an old sweater, patched at the elbows, and grimy-kneed chinos to weed the just-budding azaleas.
The surge of love came first as she dashed from her car and across the neatly trimmed lawn to hug him. They stayed, knee to knee, admiring the flourishing shrubs.
“I love this house,” she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder. “Just recently I realized how lucky I was to grow up here.” She thought of Gabe and brushed a hand over salmon-colored blooms. “How lucky I was to have you, to have flowers in the yard.” She smiled a little. “Ballet lessons.”
“You hated ballet lessons after six months,” he remembered.
“But I was lucky to have them.”
He studied her face, brushed at the hair that tumbled over her shoulders. “Is everything all right, Kelsey?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve been worried about you. This recent violence—”
“I know.” She cut him off. “It’s horrible, what happened to both of those men. I wish I could tell you it doesn’t affect me, but of course it does. But I am all right.”
“I like seeing that for myself. Phone calls aren’t the same.” He gathered his gardening tools in a wire basket. “Well, you’re home now. That’s what matters. Let’s go around through the back or Candace will skin me alive for tracking the floors.”
Kelsey slipped an arm around his waist as they walked. “I see Grandmother’s car.”
“Yes, Candace phoned her when you said you were driving in. They’re inside, planning for the spring charity ball at the club.” He shot her a sympathetic smile. “I believe finding you a suitable escort is at the top of their list.”
She winced automatically, then remembered. “The spring ball. That’s in May, isn’t it?”
“Yes, the first Saturday.”
That was the day when spring came to Kentucky, she thought. The same day every year. Derby day. She supposed missing the ball would be another sin on
her part.
“Dad.” She waited as he set down his tools in the little mudroom that was as spotless as the rest of the house. “I’m not going to be in town that weekend.”
“Not in town?” He moved through to the kitchen to wash his hands. “Kelsey, you haven’t missed a spring ball since you were sixteen.”
“I realize that. I’m sorry, but I have plans.” He said nothing, only dried his hands on a towel. The disappointment, she thought, had already begun. “I have plans,” she repeated. “I’d better tell all of you about them at once.”
“All right, then.” Trying not to worry, he went with her to the sitting room.
Candace and Milicent were already there, chatting over tiny, crustless sandwiches and Dresden cups of tea. Jasmine, Kelsey deduced after a discreet sniff of the air. It occurred to her that if she’d been at the barn at this time of day, she might be wolfing down a sloppy cold-cut sub and strong black coffee.
Her tastes, among other things, had changed quickly.
“Kelsey.” With a delighted laugh, Candace rose to kiss both of
