by JoAnn Ross
“I’m guessing she’s not blaming her breeding.”
“She may be right. This isn’t any nickel and dime operation. The woman’s damn good at her work.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“It’s complicated.” His old friend was salt of the earth, a practical, down-to-earth man. Alec wasn’t about to share the news that the woman who held the key to both their futures in her slender white hands believed herself to be a card-carrying druid witch.
Despite having instructed her to stay in bed, Alec sensed Kate enter the kitchen behind him, bringing with her a fragrance of soap underlaid with her own mysterious, enticing scent that would allow him to recognize her in the dark.
He turned, and skimmed a look over her, taking in the long skirt that swirled around her calves and a soft sweater the color of heather that clung in all the right places. She’d obviously showered but hadn’t taken time to dry her hair; it fell in a sleek wet slide down her back nearly to her waist.
“Gotta go,” he told Pete. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I’ve got a better handle on things.”
He hung up just as she retrieved two cups and a pair of deep bowls from an open shelf painted sunshine yellow. The pottery was a soft green and blue that echoed the shades of land and sea. He caught a glimpse of ivory flesh between the hem of her sweater and the waistband of her skirt when she reached up for the dishes, and he was not at all pleased when it caused his pulse to jump a few beats.
“That was my partner,” he informed her. “Pete Campbell.”
“The trainer who was elected to the Hall of Fame two years past?”
“That’s him.” He took the bowls from her hands. “Sit down and I’ll dish up supper.”
“You needn’t—”
“Lord, you’d try the patience of a saint. Would you just plant that curvy butt in a chair before I’m forced to tie you into it?”
The words, which she understood he didn’t mean literally, caused her knees to turn to water. A chill hit her, like a shower of sleet.
“Hell, I knew you should have stayed in bed.” She hadn’t realized she was swaying until he’d taken hold of her and lowered her to the rush-seated chair. “You’ve gone as white as a damn ghost.”
“It’s nothing.” There was a buzzing in her head, like a swarm of angry wasps. “Just a memory.”
“Must not have been a very pleasant one.”
“No. But it wasn’t from my own past. I believe it was yours.”
His fingers tightened ever so slightly on her arm. Then relaxed. “Sure it was,” he said in an outwardly disbelieving tone. “But the past is easy. You can read all about me in any old Sports Illustrated. So, how about we try something a little harder? I’ll cross your palm with silver and you can tell me my future.”
“Even if I were to foresee your future and share such insight with you, would you believe me?”
“Not in this lifetime.” He released her and went back to dishing up the soup. “Unless you tell me Legends Lake will sweep the Triple Crown this year.”
“I’m not able to see what lies ahead for him.”
“Too bad.”
“Sometimes it’s best not knowing.”
“I’ll take your word for that.”
He put the meal on the table, along with a loaf of crusty dark bread and sat down across from her. For a while neither spoke.
“You know,” she said mildly, “it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
He glanced up from spreading butter on a thick slab of the bread. “What?”
“What happened to you. The fault lies with your parents. Not yourself.”
His hands stilled and Kate, who was watching him carefully, saw his fingers tighten around the handle of the knife. His knuckles were white, his expression a smooth, unreadable mask.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about a child.” Knowing from experience that it would do no good to turn away from the painful image still lingering in the shadows of her mind, she closed her eyes and focused. “A boy. No more than four or five. He’s all alone in a cellar. No.” She shook her head. “That’s not quite right. But it’s a closed-in space, dark and musty—”
“A closet.” He’d gone as still as stone. His voice was tight.
“Yes.” She knew. Heaven help her, the boy’s helplessness was flooding her senses. Along with a very unchildlike anger and an icy determination to escape his fate. “His father was away, as he often was, and his mother was going out for the evening. The last time she’d left him alone, he’d gone over to the neighbors’—”
“Only after three days of not having any food in the house.”
“Aye.” Her own stomach clenched in empathetic hunger. “The neighbors called the sheriff, who threatened to arrest her if she continued to abandon her son for days at a time.” Her head was throbbing. Tears stung behind her eyelids. “So, this time she made him bring in the clothesline from outdoors and she …” Kate could not say the words out loud.
She opened her eyes again. “How could any mother treat her own flesh and blood in such a fashion?” Just the thought made her want to weep for the boy he’d once been, even as Kate knew the man he’d become would hate being the recipient of her pity.
“Not every woman is born with strong maternal instincts. Not every child is born into a loving, protective environment.”
“And isn’t that a shame.” She reached across the table, lifted a palm to his cheek and felt the muscle tense beneath her fingertips. “Everyone, no matter how lofty, or powerful, or beautiful, is damaged in some way. We all carry the wounds and scars of mortality on our souls and those experiences, as painful as they were, are what shaped you into the man you are today.”
His laugh held not an iota of humor. “Some people might not exactly consider that a plus. Considering the way I turned out.”
“Some people would be wrong. I think you turned out quite well.”
“Maybe you haven’t heard, but the reason I’m stuck with that crazy bag of bones currently boarding in your barn is because there’s not a Thoroughbred owner in the country who’ll hire me. Because I put my former employer in the hospital.”
“With a broken jaw. I know.”
“Punching out your boss is not a way to win points.”
“You were standing up for a poor defenseless animal who couldn’t stand up for herself.”
“Too damn late.”
“Unfortunately that’s so. But short of horsenapping Lady Justice, what could you have done beforehand?”
The muscle clenched again. His jaw tightened. The chair legs scraped on the wooden floor as he stood up and moved away. Watching him standing at the window, seeming so very alone, Kate was suddenly reminded of a young groom she’d hired last winter.
Barely out of his teens, Donovan Burke had undergone ten plastic surgery operations in as many years. Erin, who’d done the most recent one herself, had recommended him to Kate, assuring her that he was a hard worker who just needed a chance to prove that the flawed outer package did not represent who he was inside.
His story had been a tragic enough one: His father, a widower, had gotten drunk one night, fallen asleep with his pipe burning and set the house on fire. The boy, who’d been ten at the time, had managed to carry his three younger brothers and sisters to safety. It had been when he’d gone back into the house in an attempt to rescue his four-year-old sister’s pet kitten that the roof had fallen on him, leaving his face and body horribly scarred. But his spirit and huge heart remained intact.
Indeed, she knew that nearly every cent she paid him was being sent to an elderly aunt who’d taken the younger children in.
Unlike her groom, Alec MacKenna’s scars might not be visible to those who didn’t take the time to look closely. But they were there just the same, encasing his heart, which she knew to be a great deal more caring than he’d admit.
He turned back, his jaw set, his eyes shuttered. “Too bad I
didn’t know you the day Lady Justice went down. I could have had you cast some sort of protection spell. Or better yet, a spell to make the sun shine, so the filly could have won on a dry track.”
“I explained—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You don’t believe in tinkering with fate.”
“Every action sets forth a series of unseen consequences no one can foresee. For instance, suppose I could have cast a spell that day so Lady Justice would win. Which you say you would have wanted.”
“It sure as hell would have been better than what happened.”
“Aye. But what if, by shifting the universal destiny, the horse that did win … what was her name?”
“You’re going to love the irony here—Destiny’s Darling.”
“That is ironic,” she allowed. “But getting back to my point, for your horse to win, her main competition, Destiny’s Darling, would have to lose.”
“That’s the way it usually works.”
“So, what if, on the flight from her own stables, the plane went down in a storm, causing the death of not only the racehorse, but Destiny’s Darling’s trainer and owner. As well as the owner’s wife and two little daughters. Would you be wanting that?”
“Hell, no, but don’t you think you’re overstating your point here?”
“Nothing in life happens in a vacuum. Everything we do stirs the universe in unseen ways. Ways that are better left to forces far more powerful than we.”
“Even if that’s true, and I’m sure as hell not going to claim to begin to understand how the universe works, this conversation doesn’t have anything to do with Legends Lake’s damn problem. Which is what we should be talking about.”
“He’s afraid of fire.” The appealing aroma of Nora’s nettle soup faded, replaced by the stench of remembered smoke that seared her nostrils.
“I’ve never met a horse that isn’t. It’s a primal survival instinct that probably goes back to the birth of the breed.”
“Aye.” The furious sound of flames eating their way across the hayloft roared again in her ears. Her eyes stung. Watered. “But this isn’t a general fear. It’s specific.”
Her hands trembled as she lifted the swirled blue and green cup to her lips. The tea, answer to all problems Irish, was rich and strong. Kate took a long drink that burned the roof of her mouth even as it soothed her tangled nerves.
“Legends Lake was in a fire. That’s why he runs.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” But she could tell he was considering her words seriously by the way he’d begun to pace. He reached the door, shoved his hands deep into the back pockets of his jeans and stared out the lace-framed window at the sea, which was bleeding red in the glow of the setting sun. “There’s nothing that could remind him of a fire out on the track.”
“You wouldn’t think so.” The images were too clear to be false. “But there’s a connection. We just have to find it.”
He spun back toward her, frustration etched on every line of his rugged, handsome face. “You’re the witch. Why don’t you save us a lot of time and trouble by just looking in your crystal ball?” He shook his head. Cursed. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right. You’re upset.” How many times had she said those words to her husband? Thought them? Used them to excuse behavior that went far beyond the pale?
“Yeah. But it’s still no excuse to take my frustration out on you. I was out of line and I apologize.”
“And I accept your apology.”
She’d never received one from Cadel. Not even the morning after their wedding night. The night he’d gotten drunk, taken her with a fury that frightened her, then afterwards struck her—a single sharp slap to her cheek with his rough open hand and called her a slut for carrying another man’s child in her belly.
There had been more blows over the years, and the open hand had turned into a fist. Yet she’d taken them along with the insults, hiding her secret as one might conceal an oozing sore. Until that day she’d feared he would murder her. That same day Quinn Gallagher had, in turn, nearly killed him.
“There’s something else you need to know,” Alec said, jerking her mind away from that terrifying, humiliating, yet ultimately freeing day.
“Oh?”
“I’m not always an easy guy to work with. I expect perfection, not just from myself but everyone else around me. I can be, on occasion, single-minded to the point of shutting everyone and everything else out. I speak my mind and, as you’ve already pointed out, on occasion I can be rude. But despite what happened in Louisville two months ago, I would never—ever—lift a hand to any woman or child.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.”
“Okay.” He blew out a short breath. “So long as we’ve got that settled. I’m going to go check on the horse.”
With that he was out the kitchen door, leaving his supper untouched. As she watched his long-legged stride eating up the ground between the house and the barn, Kate found herself wanting to call him back. Wishing that they’d met in a different time, under any other circumstances.
She pressed the warm cup against her temple where a headache had begun to pound.
“I wish—” she whispered, then immediately cut off the errant thought.
Hadn’t she just given the MacKenna a lecture on the folly of interfering with the Fates?
What if she had met Alec before she’d made the mistake of her life and married Cadel? What if they’d become acquainted before she recklessly gave not just her virginity, but her young and vulnerable heart to another dashing American horse trainer? She would have escaped a great deal of physical and emotional pain.
However—and here was the key issue—Brigid and Jamie would not exist.
Even as she firmly reminded herself that she was too old for wishes, Kate desperately wanted to go back upstairs, pull the lace-trimmed sheets over her head, and weep.
15
ZOE COULDN’T STAND it another minute. Oh, the Gallagher family, with whom Alec had sent her to stay when Kate passed out after reading that horse’s mind, was friendly enough, but that was the problem. They were too damn nice. She figured that if she didn’t get out of the house that smelled like vanilla and lemon oil populated by aliens who genuinely seemed to like and care about each other, she’d end up with a mouthful of cavities from a sugar overdose.
Fortunately, she’d always had an excellent sense of direction, which was how, on the way back to the O’Sullivan stud, she’d managed to find her way to the lake where the kids had claimed Castlelough’s own Loch Ness monster lived.
Not that she believed in such things, of course, she thought as she sat down on the bank of the lake and wrapped her arms around her bent legs. Hell, she’d stopped believing in the tooth fairy when the silver dollars stopped appearing beneath her pillow after her mother had dragged her to Switzerland.
“I wish she’d never met that stupid duke.” She blinked furiously to stem the tears that were threatening to flow. “I wish she’d stayed married to Alec.”
She remembered what Rory had said about coming here to wish for a dad. Then actually getting one. Zoe didn’t believe some enchanted lake creature made that happen, but even if it had, there was no way it could bring her mother back to life so they could redo the last six years.
She picked up a smooth white pebble and threw it sidearm across the lake, the way Alec had taught her so many years ago. It skipped twice, creating ripples in the blue water before disappearing below the surface.
“I wish we hadn’t had that fight.” She picked up another stone, turned it over, then discarded it, selecting a flatter one. “I wish I hadn’t told her that I’d rather be an orphan than have her for a mother.” Three skips. Four. Five. A personal best.
“I wish I’d never been born.” This time she didn’t try to skip the stone, but threw it as far and as hard as she could. It landed close enough to send the swans into the red-streaked sky.
Zoe watched them soar over the dark castle ruins, then lo
wered her forehead to her knees. She squeezed her eyes shut, this time wishing instead that she’d been born a witch like Kate O’Sullivan. Then she could just cast a magic spell so that men and women would fall madly in love like in the fairy tales, and love their children, and everyone would live happily ever after.
Continuing to fight back tears of self-pity, she left the lake, walking back up the path toward the so-called secret passage. With her mind still on her problems, she failed to hear the faint, barely perceptible ripple on the surface of the water. Nor did she see the huge sea horse-like creature rise from the lake, water streaming off iridescent green scales that flashed emerald in the molten glow of the setting sun. The Lady’s gentle gold eyes shimmered with sympathy. She tilted her head, considering the matter. Smiled. Then, with a flick of her tail disappeared beneath the glassy water.
Following the directions given to him by a friendly young groom whose scarred pink face was mute evidence that he’d been tragically burned, Alec found Kate on the beach with her children. A touch of spring rode on the salt air, reminding him that the Derby was not that far away.
He stood beside the hawthorn faerie tree at the top of the cliff and looked down at the little family scene. The boy, Jamie, was holding onto the red plastic reel of a long-tailed kite, his young face a study in absolute concentration as he focused on letting out just enough string to allow it to soar higher, without sending it crashing into the surf.
The little girl’s hair blazed like wildfire in the lowering sun as she danced barefoot in the lacy sea foam. For not the first time Brigid O’Sullivan reminded him of one of those mythical faeries Kate had risked her life to protect. She was singing, in Irish, her small voice rising over the soft roar of the surf like silver bells.
Kate was seated on a rock, her skirt wrapped around her bent knees, her hair tumbling down her back, her smiling face lifted to the sun. She appeared more at ease than he’d seen her since arriving in Castlelough.
He made his way down the steep stone steps to the beach, realizing that she’d sensed his appearance when her shoulders stiffened ever so slightly.
