After a while, she lurched up and tried again. Dino grinned and said he had to go too, but Mark said he’d take her.
Then they were all sitting around Kato’s grave. Mark had his own bottle of rum, and he wouldn’t share, but she didn’t care. She leaned against his chest, listening to it rumble while he and Dino spoke about horses and breakdowns and Barbaro.
“What’s wrong with Buddy?” she asked, and both men turned silent.
“Broken leg,” Mark finally said. “Condylar fracture.” And he let her take a sip of rum.
She kept sipping as Dino talked about euthanasia and how Buddy wouldn’t feel a thing, and later in her haze she heard Mark tell Dino they weren’t going to Breeders’ Cup after all, but that didn’t make sense because Breeders’ Cup was at Belmont that year and they were already there. Mark kept wiping her cheeks and murmuring about possible deals, and she fell asleep.
When she woke, Dino had Mark’s rum, and the two men were arguing about where they were going to sleep. When she woke again, she was still dressed but in her bed, and Mark had all the blankets. She got up, shivering. Stumbled down the aisle and into Buddy’s stall, but it was empty, and then she realized it wasn’t a nightmare.
She dropped to the straw and wept.
“What’s wrong?” The security guard touched her shoulder.
She stared into Terry’s concerned face but her throat was too raw to talk. Mark arrived and guided her back to her room.
“Was it because I rode him?” she asked brokenly. “Was it the stool?”
Mark didn’t answer, just gently stroked her hair and spoke in Spanish and she guessed he must be a little drunk too. He rose, took his clothes off, then hers, and she reminded him of his no-sex rule, but it was hard to talk and cry and kiss and besides, they weren’t her rules.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jessica stepped into the aisle and rubbed her aching head. Trudged out the back door so she didn’t have to pass Buddy’s empty stall and stood in the shower for a long, long time. She walked mechanically back toward the barn, feeling dull and dead and drained.
Strange that the shedrow looked the same. Everyone still followed the morning routine. She could see Mark leading a string to the track, Dino arguing with the hay man, and the nasty bay colt everyone avoided still bucked on the hot walker. Horses moved through the morning mist, and someone even laughed.
She circled back to Missy’s stall, concentrating on putting one heavy foot in front of the other. After all, she still had one horse to look after.
“Missy’s finished,” Maria called. “Mark had her out first set, and Dino cleaned her stall. Want to come over to the apartment for breakfast? Abdul has drawn some really good pictures.”
The thought of Abdul’s shrieks made Jessica wince. “Don’t you have a headache?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“A bit,” Maria said. “But life goes on.”
It sure does, especially around here, Jessica thought bitterly, as she walked into her room. The pictures on her walls seemed silly now, like posters left after everyone in the dorm had packed up their dreams and moved on.
She ripped them down, crumpling them in her hands. Jammed them in the garbage bin. Dumped out Buddy’s bags of grass. Dragged Lefty’s bike outside and left it beside the dumpster. Well, she’d move on too. No sense to hang around and hope Mark would let her stay. The insides of her chest were already too shredded.
The last set returned, and five sweaty horses were led down the shedrow, happy, tired and anticipating their baths. The horse Emma Rae usually galloped had a different rider, another apprentice jockey fighting to break into Mark’s lineup. Maybe the rider was happy Emma Rae was smashed up and stuck in the hospital.
Jessica bit her lip and stared, transfixed by the horses, each one acting the same as they did yesterday. The impatient bay still pawed. The nervous gray still chewed at his bit, and the pretty chestnut still flattened her ears when Assets called to her. The grooms still patted their horses. The exercise riders still twirled their whips.
Even though Buddy was gone.
She couldn’t expect everyone to act differently. If Buddy were alive, he’d be eating hay too. He’d be dropping pieces of alfalfa over his stall guard and blowing his warm breath down the back of her neck. She was lucky to have known him, and she’d never ever forget him.
And she was going to walk into his empty stall and say thank you, and maybe find a piece of his tail to wrap in plastic and keep forever.
“Good morning, Jessica,” Dino said as he walked past.
“Good morning, Dino.” She paused. “Thanks for last night.”
“We’ve all gone through it, honey,” Dino said, his handsome face uncharacteristically solemn. “Believe me, it never gets any easier.”
She forced a nod. But it can’t get any harder. She saw Mark standing across from Buddy’s stall and smiled at him because, even if he didn’t want her, she couldn’t stop loving him. He smiled back, a deep gentle smile that made her heart lurch, and she didn’t feel quite so dead.
A bay horse with a star on his forehead stuck his head out of Buddy’s stall, and her heart froze. Cathy Wright walked up to Mark, kissed his cheek and said how much she liked TV Trooper.
Jessica’s legs turned clumsy, but she forced them to carry her past Mark and Cathy, past the new horse, Trooper, who’d settled so nicely into Buddy’s stall. She heard them talking about Aqueduct and how much fun Trooper would be, and how they might go to Florida.
She shivered in the doorway and struggled to breathe.
“Cold?”
She knew it was Mark but didn’t turn around. “Nothing matters to you, does it?” she whispered brokenly. And she wanted him to hug and comfort her but knew he wouldn’t because he was at the track and everyone would see.
“Jesus, Jessica. Trust me a little bit.” He left her and returned to Cathy, and her heart shriveled.
She circled to the back. There wasn’t much to pack: Abdul’s drawing, Kato’s dish, Buddy’s win picture. She threw away the old Mars Bar wrapper, tossed her bag over her shoulder and walked away.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“That’s right, young lady.” The doctor peered at Jessica over half-moon glasses and resumed writing. “No clinical signs of damage.”
“You mean my knee is fine?” She gripped the edge of the examining table, stunned by his pronouncement.
“It’s perfect. But you’ll always have a little scar and some needle marks.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand the needling, but maybe you were looked after in a…primitive hospital?”
She stumbled to her feet and walked dully into the street. The track was eight blocks to her right, her grandfather’s house a two-hour bus ride to the left. Neither was an option.
The concrete sidewalk stretched in front of her and she shuffled along in a trance, picturing her grandfather’s smug expression when he’d said she couldn’t ski any more, how he’d patted her hand and said it was for the best. Rage filled her.
Mark had been right.
She slumped against a wall bright with graffiti while people and traffic streamed past. The rush, the babble, the confusion were so foreign, her head pounded, and it seemed like her entire world had derailed.
A teenager talked on a corner payphone, gesturing with one hand and gripping the arm of a pig-tailed child in the other. When she hung up, the phone would be free. Jessica could confront her grandfather. If she had a quarter.
She patted her pockets and felt the bulge of an envelope. Oh God, Buddy’s money. Unneeded now. Of course, she should return it. She should walk back to the track, pass it to Mark, and clean Trooper’s stall. She’d only been gone five hours. He might not even know she’d left.
But he didn’t want her sleeping in the barn. He’d feel responsible and take her home even though all he really wanted to do was prepare for the Breeders’ Cup.
The teenager left the phone booth and jogged across the honking street, child in tow. Okay, so
now the phone was free. She could call her grandfather and tell him he was a cruel, controlling snake.
She hesitated, staring at the phone and chewing on her lip until it throbbed. If her grandfather suspected Mark had pointed her to the truth, he might move Assets out of spite. Probably safer to wait six days before confronting him. At least give Mark his Breeders’ Cup.
An orange and white ambulance screamed past, curling through a line of clogged cars, and she wondered if it headed to Dick’s hospital. Maybe she’d visit him again. She had plenty of time now, and Dick was always happy to see her.
But not today. Today she needed a cheap place where she could hole up, a place where she didn’t have to talk, a place where her battered heart had a chance to heal.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Guess I’ll rewrap him,” Mark said as he bent over Assets’ legs. “I like the bandage lower on his hind. Protects him when he kicks the wall.” He couldn’t look at Dino. Felt sick. Wanted to hide Assets, not gift-wrap him.
Dino scowled and tossed Mark another rolled bandage. “Don’t know why you worry.”
“I still want the colt to win on Saturday.”
“You’re more generous than me. Boone moving all three?”
“Yeah.” Mark thought he managed to keep his voice level, but his hands fumbled, and he dropped the wrap in the straw and had to start again.
“They’re here, boss,” Carlos said as his glum face appeared over the stall guard.
Mark glanced up and saw Trish and two other grooms he recognized from Radcliff’s barn. They shuffled in, slightly self-conscious, with lead ropes slung over their shoulders. He gave Assets a last pat and left his gloomy barn.
Radcliff sat on a golf cart in front of the shedrow, waiting for his new horses. Assets appeared first, prancing and tossing his head, excited about this change in his routine. His sleek muscles rippled beneath the sun.
Radcliff glanced at Mark. “Looks fit,” he said grudgingly.
“He is,” Mark said, just as grudgingly.
Next came the talented filly, Belle. She snorted as she stepped outside, as though surprised she’d been taken from her lunch, but trustingly followed her new groom down the road.
“Belle coliced two months ago. Doing well now though.” Mark cleared his throat as the last one, hip 665, walked out. Maria called him Rocky, and he strutted after his stablemates, as though aware people watched and fully anticipated their admiration.
“That’s the Hard Spun colt that I…Boone, bought at Keeneland,” Mark said. “He’s got a few hives. Allergic to alfalfa.”
Radcliff nodded. “All right.” He nodded, straightened in the cart and sped after his new horses.
“Did you tell him not to run Assets in blinkers?” Dino’s voice tightened with resentment as he watched Radcliff’s receding cart.
“Guess I forgot,” Mark said, glancing at his employees who stood in a solid ring by the barn door. “Call a staff meeting. Gotta figure a way to get through this. Carlos and Maria might need a loan. They were depending on Breeders’ Cup bonuses. So were some of the hots and riders.”
“Don’t know if we can swing it.” Dino shook his head. “The account is damn low.”
“We’ll make it work. I’m going to set up a new schedule too, so everyone gets a day off.”
He gripped his phone as he headed towards his office. Owners rarely switched trainers five days before a Grade 1 race and even more rarely before the Breeders’ Cup. In a few hours the media would call, eager to hear the dirt. But he had a few hours of relative peace, and he needed to regroup.
He walked in, closed the door and stared at the gap on the wall above his desk. That hole wouldn’t be filled this year, maybe never. A trainer could wait a long time for a horse like Assets. “God damn you, Boone!” He kicked his chair, watching as it flipped upside down and crashed against the desk.
“Fire her, or I’ll take my horses,” Boone had said. He hadn’t been bluffing.
Mark dropped his head in his hands. He didn’t think Jessica had anything to do with the horses moving, but she’d looked so bruised this morning, she probably wouldn’t have tried to stop her grandfather. He knew she wouldn’t have picked Radcliff as their trainer. That had been Mark’s last-ditch negotiation.
He swore again.
How could she doubt how he felt? He’d shown her in every possible way, bent every single rule. He’d always feared she was attracted to him because he was the boss, and granted, that had made him a little edgy. Food and shelter ranked high on anybody’s list, and Jessica was a pragmatic woman. But it was impossible to run around the barn holding her hand every minute.
And this morning she’d walked away, just like Boone’s horses. No doubt winging her way to Europe or wherever it was they skied. At least she finally escaped her grandfather’s sticky web.
He ripped out Boone’s contact sheet, balled it up and tossed it into his wastebasket. Time to move on. The Boone family left a sour taste in his mouth, and he had a racing business to keep afloat.
He groaned as the phone buzzed insistently. Radcliff had probably called the media, delighted to spread the juicy news. But the display showed Kurt MacKinnon.
Mark slowly opened the phone.
“Your friend belongs to an Emirati group,” Kurt said, “who believe the UAE rulers are apostates violating Islamic law. A small timer, name of Josef Haddad.”
Mark blew out a sigh. “Why is he here?”
“No idea. Maybe he thinks your horse is owned by the sheikh,” Kurt said. “Need some help? Want me fly up?”
“Not necessary.”
“I have some people I can call.” Kurt sounded concerned. “They’ll keep anything safe.”
“Thanks…” Mark cleared his throat. “But it’s no longer my problem. Owner pulled all his horses half an hour ago.”
“Jesus, what an asshole! Who got ’em?”
“Radcliff.”
“Your horse run in blinkers?”
“No.”
“Good. Radcliff sticks them on all his two-year-olds. Your ex-owner just lost the Breeders’ Cup.” Kurt’s chuckle was deep and wicked, and Mark could picture him relaxed in his chair, feet propped on his desk, sucking on a coffee. “Tough to lose a horse like that,” Kurt added. “But I saw the colt at the sale and didn’t bother to bid. You spotted him, turned him into a racehorse. You can do it again.”
“I need money though,” Mark said wryly. “Is there a reward on this Haddad fellow?”
“Jesus, don’t go near him.” Kurt’s voice hardened. “And in an hour some of our intel people will be calling you with a shitload of questions. Sorry, buddy, couldn’t stop them. Not when they learned Haddad’s name.” He chuckled. “At least without a big horse, you now have some spare time.”
“Always a bright side,” Mark said.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dick adjusted the top of his hospital gown. His hand lingered over the angry purple line on his neck, and he made a rueful face.
“The scar’s not so bad,” Jessica said. “It gives you a rugged look.”
“My dear, that is not a look I ascribe to.”
No, that was more Mark’s look, she thought. That dark stubble before he shaved, the way his jaw set when he was annoyed, how his muscles rippled when he was all sweaty—
Dick rolled his eyes. “You’re thinking of him again.”
“I am not.” She filled Dick’s water glass, eager for something to do. “Now that I’ve left the track, I hardly think of him at all.” Except when she was awake. She turned away from Dick’s knowing smile and stared out the window.
Saturday morning, Breeders’ Cup day. Traffic was only moderate but probably jammed at the track. Tomorrow she’d call her grandfather and ask some tough questions. Then drop by the track and congratulate Mark. She had no doubt Assets would win. She’d also tell Mark he’d been right about her knee and thank him for everything. Pay back his money and apologize for leaving because he had put Cathy’
s horse in Buddy’s stall.
Maybe they could keep seeing each other even though she was unemployed and homeless and impulsive, and he could pick from any number of successful women. Confident women like Cathy or Emma Rae. Or maybe he’d already decided she was simply too much trouble.
Her hand trembled, and she tugged the curtain back, hoping the sliver of sun would warm her thoughts.
She should be happy. She was healthy and could do anything she wanted. Didn’t have to worry about pleasing her grandfather any more—or for that matter, Mark. Dick had it way worse. He was stuck in a hospital bed, and his well-wishers had trickled down to a grand total of one.
“It’s a different world, isn’t it?” She glanced over her shoulder at Dick. “The backside. It’s tough and transient and everyone forgets you in a heartbeat. Why do people do it?”
“Some because that’s all they can do,” Dick said. “Others because they can’t not do it.”
“You must be in the second category?”
“You tell me. But every winter my boss moves his stable to Florida, and I stay in New York and fundraise. And every spring I end up at the track. The horses get in your blood until it’s not even a choice. And my dear, if you can’t be happy with a man who thrives on strange hours and stranger owners and is maybe thinking of a horse instead of you, then you better keep running.”
“I’m not running. And it’s only been five days.” She wheeled from the window. “Besides, he wouldn’t keep me on as a groom.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want you as a groom. Oh, don’t glower so.” Dick patted the bed. “Come sit down. The television is hooked up, and we have a perfect view of the Breeder’s Cup. We can criticize the clothes, pick out the ugliest hat and you can point out all the rich folk so I can hit them up for a donation.”
Racetrack Romance BOX SET (Books 1-3) Page 66
