by Ward, J. R.
She looked away.
“The rumors are true, then,” Garrett said. “You are having an affair with him.”
A.J. was tempted to lie. A plausible denial was all she needed, but she didn’t have one she felt like offering.
In the silence, she could feel his disappointment. Her father had always hoped she’d marry a businessman like him and settle down into the cloistered life of a society wife. It would have been an existence he could understand, a vocabulary he was familiar with. She knew he imagined such a marriage would be easy, that it would be one endless, pretty stream of parties and dresses fronted by a man who cared for her, provided for her. Watched over her.
She knew he’d never understand it but, for her, a passionless marriage carpeted with jewels was no luxury, just a very pretty mausoleum where women rotted while walking around in Manolo Blahniks. When it became clear she was headed for a different future from the one he’d planned for her, they’d stopped talking about her life’s direction. Her father’s convictions were as tightly held as her own so they didn’t argue. Instead, they were both waiting for some future time when the other would finally see the light.
Her father was looking pained and she knew what he was thinking. Her affair with a riding champion turned tragic recluse was just one more part of a life he couldn’t relate to. The love for her was in his eyes but so was his sadness.
“I’ll be fine.”
She was trying to reassure them both.
“Is there anything you need?” he asked.
She shook her head.
What she needed, he couldn’t provide.
10
A WEEK later, Devlin stood at the rail of his ring, one boot resting on the lower rung to give his leg relief. His face was grim. It’d been a long, hard afternoon of doing nothing but cleaning up messes. Preceded by several days of the same.
Holding the line against chaos isn’t progress, he thought. Just self-preservation.
From the day A.J. left, things hadn’t gone well. First, there’d been a water main break in the stable. That calamity caused a flood in the storage room where the feed was kept, turning eight bags of oats into mush. Then, in a freak windstorm, a tree limb had broken off, landed on his truck and turned its bed into an arboristic Barcalounger.
But the worst had undoubtedly been the Blacksmith Disaster.
The blacksmith who had been by once before backed out without explanation the morning he was scheduled to come. Fortunately, a new man was located. He arrived with the tools of his trade and in a good mood, only to leave an hour later with a Band-Aid on his forehead and a vow never to return. Sabbath had been impossible, no matter what Devlin and Chester did. Even with two grown men dangling off his head like earrings, the stallion still managed to nail the blacksmith a good one with his hind leg.
And, once the loose shoe was secure, the man flat-out refused to get within a stone’s throw of the stallion’s other hooves, saying that the horse’s combination of tender feet and good aim was an occupational hazard he could do without. The Garfield Band-Aid plastered on his forehead didn’t help. The only one to be found, it was the insult part of the injury.
Devlin was still amazed that they’d been fired as clients by someone who was used to high-strung animals. It was like getting kicked out of a family restaurant because your kids set a new standard for food throwing.
He shifted his weight, heard a crack of protest and felt his foot hit the ground.
Now I know what it feels like to be cursed, he thought, looking down at the fallen rail.
Devlin put it back in its place and made a mental note to fix it. As his eyes returned to the ring, he went back to watching Chester lunge the stallion. Standing in the middle of the arena, the man was holding on to the end of a long lead attached to Sabbath’s halter. In theory, the horse was supposed to get some exercise by moving through various gaits while traveling around in a circle.
The stallion had different ideas and was highly resistant to changing them. The first time they’d tried lunging him, he’d hauled Chester after him, turning the lead line into a towrope and the man into a drag anchor. Days later, Sabbath still hadn’t warmed up much to the idea of concentric circles. He was cantering around in an uneven and disagreeable path, thwarting the discipline and throwing up his hooves in protest.
The cause of the stallion’s bad behavior was no mystery. He was antsy to get back to jumping, and the display of theatrics in the ring was only one of the ways he was making his frustration known. Aside from the fiasco with the blacksmith’s forehead, the horse had torn two blankets off his back, shredded them to ribbons and chewed the front of his stall until it looked like a beaver had gone at it.
Sabbath was angry and they were losing ground with him but there wasn’t much anyone could do. Chester certainly wasn’t up to the task of schooling him over fences and, with his bum leg, Devlin wouldn’t have been much better. All three of them, stallion included, were in a holding pattern until A.J. returned.
It was time for her to come back, Devlin thought for the umpteenth time. And not just for the damn horse.
Like his rotten luck, the need to apologize to her had also been dogging him all week. As soon as he’d calmed down that day, he’d gone rushing back to the stable. He wanted to tell her how much he regretted being so pushy and leaving her when she needed help. He wasn’t sure what the precise words to use were, although ones like coward and bastard certainly came to mind.
But by the time he’d returned, she’d already left. And when Chester had given him her message, Devlin had been caught in an awful limbo. He wanted to track her down and make her hear him out but he had to respect the distance she’d put between them.
He knew she came to visit the stallion every day. She always showed up at lunch, confirmation, as if he needed any, that she was avoiding him. From the kitchen, he’d hear the throaty purr of the convertible as she drove up and he’d drop whatever he was doing to go over to the window and watch her walk into the barn. Each time, he hoped she’d look up at the house and come inside and he found himself assuming a daily vigil, eating his sandwiches standing at the window. He was waiting for her to give the slightest indication that she was ready to talk. Inevitably, he was disappointed. Every time, when she was finished with the stallion, A.J. would emerge from the barn with her head down, slide into the powerful car and leave.
In the days since she’d been gone, he’d thought a lot about her accident. Seeing her fall had been terrifying for him. When he’d thought about training A.J., it had always been in terms of what they needed to accomplish. The focus was on the work and the winning. Never once had he considered what watching her go down in the ring would be like. In that awful instant, when he saw her shake loose of the saddle and hit the ground, he’d been flooded with agony, and the depth of his emotion had scared the hell out of him. He’d assumed losing his horse and his career was the worst thing life could throw at him. He’d been wrong. Having something happen to A.J. was so much more terrible, and confronting that vulnerability and pain was what had made him lash out.
At night, as he lay in bed, he saw images of her face and remembered how much he’d hurt her with his careless words. It was eating him up inside. Every night, as he slept alone, missing her, he hoped on the next day she would come to him.
And then, at last, he’d had a glimmer of hope.
Today, at noontime, A.J. had emerged from the car without her arm in the sling. Waiting at the window while she was inside the barn, his turkey on rye hanging in midair with his hopes, Devlin tensed as soon as she stepped back out into the daylight and walked to her car. With her hand on the door, she paused. And finally looked up at him.
Their eyes met for a moment and he willed her to come inside. He was desperate to smell her, hear her voice, see her up close. At the slightest indication from her, he was ready to rush outside, to try to put things right between them, ready to speak…. But she’d looked away and then driven away. And his mood had
gone from foul to something darker.
It was a change in attitude that had not been met with enthusiasm by his lunch partner. He knew Chester had just about had it with him skulking around. And who could blame the man? Devlin was getting tired of being around himself, too.
That was the trouble, he thought. Everywhere you go, there you are.
Coming back to the present, he focused on Sabbath’s pathetic workout.
“I think that’s enough, Ches,” he called out.
Chester reeled the stallion in like a sailfish and approached Devlin with an annoyed look. The man and the horse were both out of joint.
“Just in time,” Chester said, dryly. “He’s gettin’ tired a’ the lunge an’ I’m gettin’ tired a’ him.”
“I know, Ches.”
The expectant look in the groom’s eyes was a demand.
“What?” Devlin asked.
“You know what.”
Devlin looked past the ring, to the mountains beyond. Was the eye contact they’d shared enough of a signal that A.J. was ready to hear him out?
He had to try.
“I’ll go talk to her.”
“About time,” Chester grumbled, leading the stallion back into the barn and leaving Devlin with a dilemma.
Having decided to take a chance and reach out, he found himself too impatient to wait for A.J. to show up the following day. And what he had to say was too important to do over the phone. He wanted to do it in person.
Then it dawned on him. It was Saturday. Her father’s birthday.
He thought for a moment. Then made up his mind. It looked like he was liberating his tuxedo from the mothballs.
Later that evening, while standing in her underwear, A.J. put the last pin in her hair and surveyed her new look in the bathroom mirror. Her thick auburn waves were twisted off her neck and piled on her head in a remarkably adept shot at a chignon. She’d been mostly interested in getting it all out of the way but the fact that the style emphasized her high cheekbones and heart-shaped face didn’t hurt.
She turned to the side, staring over her shoulder. With some eye shadow and a little lipstick, she looked like a different person. Granted, she wasn’t in jeans and muck boots, and lacy lingerie did add an allure.
A.J. heaved a sigh, and let her shoulders collapse. She didn’t feel like putting on a face and pretending to be happy. She didn’t want to interact with the kind of socialite crowd who were about to show up. She wanted to sit in her room, stare off into space, and try not to go crazy while her arm healed.
But duty called.
Resigning herself to the evening’s festivities, she went over to the dress hanging on the door. It was a filmy black creation, made of layers of paper-thin chiffon that fell from a tight, strapless bodice. She’d bought the dress for the coming holiday season, the only good outcome of an afternoon with her stepmother.
The two rarely spent any time alone and they never shopped together. Garrett, however, wanted some measure of connection between the women in his life and had a quiet way of getting his way. By playing to A.J.’s better nature and buying Regina off with the promise of a week at Canyon Ranch, stepdaughter and stepmother had gritted their teeth through a strained lunch followed by a trip to a high-profile boutique.
The gown had been heaven the moment A.J. slipped it on and now, standing in her bathroom, she felt its delicate waves go over her head again like a sigh. As she zipped up the back, she could feel the bodice clinging to her breasts and the floor-length skirt brushing against her legs. She took a twirl in front of the mirror, thinking the discomfort of shopping with her stepmother might have been worth it.
It wasn’t like anything she normally wore, even to formal parties. If she had to dress up, she usually put on silk pants and bolero jackets or tailored floor-length skirts with simple, classic tops. With her hair done up and wearing makeup, she imagined people were going to be surprised. Staring at her reflection, she decided the look was part damsel and part seductress. It made a very feminine and powerful statement.
She wondered what Devlin would think of her.
The thought was like hitting a speed bump.
Devlin was never far from her mind and she missed him so badly it stung. Every day, when she went to visit the stallion, she knew he watched her from the kitchen window and there was a big part of her that wanted to follow the blue stone walkway up to the farmhouse, knock on the door and fall into his arms.
But she was still angry at him for lashing out at her. And she was scared. Scared by how much it had hurt to have him walk away from her. Frightened by the strength of her love for him. Terrified that he was right and they couldn’t have it all.
If she’d been just any other rider, he probably would have let her go after suggesting she see a doctor. That devastating argument would never have occurred. Instead, they’d had a blowout, she’d run away and now they were estranged. It was exactly the kind of situation he’d warned her about.
During her incessant introspections, A.J. often wondered if he was hurting as badly as she was. The need to know what he was feeling was why she’d finally looked up at him today. Across the distance that separated them, she’d seen the regret in his face and a yearning that went a long way toward making her feel better.
As she’d returned to the mansion, she’d decided it was time for them to talk. After almost a week of being away from him, she was ready. Tomorrow, she would go up to the farmhouse after she visited with Sabbath. She would tell him how much he’d hurt her and hear what he had to say.
And she prayed that whatever it was went far enough.
The idea of seeing him up close made her heart pound with a heady combination of emotions that was hard to separate. So much of her was just desperate to be with him and put the argument behind them but the rest was a jumble of unhappy contradictions.
A.J. sighed, refocusing on the full-length mirror. The woman staring back at her looked beautiful and confident.
What a lie, she thought. But let’s hear it for some damn good window dressing.
Turning away from the image, she left the bathroom and walked into her bedroom. It was an elegant space she knew well but she didn’t feel like it was hers anymore. Her childhood furniture, which she’d liked, had been thrown out when Regina arrived and redecorated everything. The baroque antiques and heavy satins that had been installed weren’t to A.J.’s taste but she’d learned to live with them. They’d been a concession so she could keep her trophies and ribbons displayed on the walls.
The only thing she still liked about the room was its bank of French doors that let in an abundance of light. Both sets opened up to a patio for her private use. Sitting there, she could look out over the magnificent sculptured gardens of the estate, four square acres of flower beds set off by blooming apple, cherry and pear trees as well as majestic maples, oaks and willows. In the distance, rising above the wooded tree line at the far end of the gardens, there was a mountain range that framed the lush flora beautifully.
Surveying her bedroom, A.J. found herself questioning its luxury for the first time. With her equestrian trophies sitting on antique mahogany and her show ribbons hanging off silk walls, it dawned on her how much she had taken for granted.
A knock interrupted her thoughts and she padded to the door in her stocking feet. When she opened it, Garrett was standing in the hall. He was looking dapper in his tuxedo and happy as he took in her appearance.
“You’ll be the most beautiful one there.”
“You never know,” A.J. said, accepting his kiss on the cheek. “I haven’t put on my shoes yet and barn boots are still a possibility. Far more functional than the pinpointed high-risers I got to go with the dress.”
“I’m so glad you’re back home.”
“Papa, I told you not to get used to this. I’m only staying here until I can find a place of my own.”
“I know, but I keep hoping…” At her warning glance, Garrett cleared his throat. “I’ll let you finish dressi
ng but I wanted to give you a little something.”
He pressed a leather-bound box into his daughter’s hands and interrupted her string of protests.
“It’s my birthday. You can’t turn me down.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I know. Now, when this is all through, you and I will get together at the end of the night, won’t we? Just like we always do.”
Holding his gift in her hand, A.J.’s eyes misted over with tears as she recalled their yearly ritual. “Yes. Yes, we will.”
Garrett reached out and stroked her cheek. “Your mother would have been so proud of you. Of your strength and your independence. All that fire inside of you comes from her.”
She grasped his hand. “I love you.”
“Thank you for saying that. I really need to hear it, some nights even more than others,” he said softly. Then he disappeared down the hall, the familiar smell of that spiced cologne drifting after him.
A.J. closed the door and went over to her bed, the dress draping in a cascade around her as she sat down. Unlatching a golden clasp, she opened the box and gasped. A pair of ruby and diamond earrings were nestled in a bed of satin. Even to her jaundiced eye, they were glorious. She plucked one out and held it up to the light, watching the sparkle and flash of the stones. She put them on to please Garrett and to shore up her confidence a little more.
After she stepped into her shoes, she smoothed the dress over her waist, did a recheck on the backs of the earrings and straightened her spine. Leaving the safe haven of her room, she took the winding staircase cautiously in her heels, telling herself not to feel nervous. She’d been through similar evenings countless times and, though they were unpleasant, nothing was going to happen that she hadn’t seen before.
Reality turned out to be quite the opposite.
When she walked into the formal living room, which was filled to capacity with a glittering crowd, she wasn’t prepared for the reaction. Tolerant smiles turned to surprise and astonishment as people saw her and stopped talking.
