Christmas Countdown

by Jan Hambright

  Mac got the sense that the animal disliked them as much as they seemed to dislike him. The colt had good instincts.

  “Grady should be here any minute now.” Emma checked her watch for the umpteenth time before making sure the thin blanket bearing the colt’s name and his number, five, was evenly spaced under the flat saddle. “He’s ready.”

  “Relax, Emma,” Mac said in a tone that reassured her she’d done everything she could to prepare the horse, and then some.

  She fidgeted and looked at him, trying to absorb a fraction of his calm, even though her stomach was doing flip-flops. She glanced away, her gaze falling on box slot thirteen. “Look over there, Mac. I think Abadar just showed up.”

  The hair on the back of Mac’s neck bristled. Would Abadar recognize him? He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out his sunglasses and slipped them on. Agent Donahue had coached him and Emma on how to handle the meeting. Recognition could cause a whole series of problems, even alert the terrorists to his association with the sheikh.

  Tension twisted the muscles between his shoulder blades as he stepped back into the box, watching discreetly when Rahul pointed in their direction. Abadar wore a traditional kandora robe and a kaffiyeh secured by a black ekal on his head. He turned, looked and headed in their direction.

  “Greet him, Emma, that’s all you have to do.” Mac pivoted and began to rub his hands over the colt, double-checking the equipment with his back to the box opening.

  “Miss Clareborn?”

  Emma steeled herself and stared into the face of Sheikh Ahmed Abadar, into his narrowed black eyes, and wondered why on earth Mac had almost lost his life to save this man.

  “Yes. You must be Sheikh Abadar. It’s good to finally meet you.”

  “Rahul tells me you have given him notice to vacate Firehill. I hope we have not wronged you in any way.”

  She reran every warning Agent Donahue had given her about causing a scene, or drawing attention. “Consider your accounts paid until the day after tomorrow, when I expect that you will have all of your horses transported off of the farm.”

  “It is agreed. They will all be gone the day after tomorrow.”

  Mac moved around the horse, feeling the colt’s legs. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the sound of Abadar’s voice, but something about it wasn’t right.

  “Good luck in the race, Miss Clareborn. Your horse is impressive.”

  The voice was an octave higher and lacked the thick accent he’d listened to in the week he’d spent guarding the sheikh in Louisville prior to the shooting.

  “Thank you. Good luck to you.”

  Mac raised up and turned around at the last second to get a good look at the man just before he turned away. He bore a striking resemblance to the sheikh, but he wasn’t Ahmed Abadar, and he’d seen him before, the night of the crash.

  He was the man from the black Lexus.

  Easing out into the walkway, Mac caught a glimpse of a silver briefcase in Abadar’s hand as it pressed into the folds of his kandora.

  The imposter met Karif in the middle of the paddock as the field of jockeys filed out of their staging area, followed by a string of ponied-up stewards, ready to take the horses to post.

  “That’s not Ahmed.” He repeated it again, but louder, and hoped like hell Agent Donahue was listening at the other end of the microphone. “He’s not Sheikh Abadar, he’s an imposter.”

  Emma glanced at him for a moment and met Grady in front of the box. “He’s all yours.” She unlatched the double leads on the colt and led him out of the box.

  “Rider up.” Mac caught Grady’s boot and hoisted him onto Navigator’s Whim.

  A steward fell in beside horse and rider as they moved around the outside of the paddock, headed for the parade lap.

  The air locked up in Mac’s lungs as he witnessed Abadar hand the briefcase he was carrying over to Karif.

  Briefcase?

  Whatever they had planned involved the briefcase. That’s what Victor had been trying to tell him the night he died.

  “Mac, what’s going on?” Emma reached out and clutched his forearm.

  “Go to the box seat, Emma. Stay there. Promise me you’ll stay there.”

  She felt the tension in his body, saw it in the rigid set of his jaw as he stared at her.

  “I love you, Emma. I should have told you sooner.” He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth, then walked away in a hurry.

  Her throat closed. Fear welled in her veins as she watched him weave through the horsemen in the paddock and disappear around the end of the boxes right behind Karif, who now carried the mysterious silver briefcase she’d seen the sheikh holding only moments before.

  Where the hell was Donahue?

  MAC HUNG AT THE BACK corner of the slot barn and watched Karif cross the open area and turn down the row between barns four and five.

  He pushed away from cover and ran straight across to barn two. Karif had to be headed for Dragon’s Soul’s stall on the inside row of barn five.

  Did he have a bomb? Some sort of biological weapon in the briefcase? Mac wasn’t sure, he only knew that whatever they had planned was happening now.

  “I hope to hell you’re listening, Donahue,” he said as he jogged the corridor between stable two and three. “It’s happening now. Barn five, stall twenty.”

  A couple of grooms looked at him as if he was crazy as he hurried past them and pulled up at the end of the row. Poking his head out, he scanned the busy area between the clusters of stables, then hustled across to the end of barn four.

  Mac unholstered his weapon. Keeping it low, he hung close to the far right corner, and leaned out, spotting the top of Karif’s head just before he dropped behind the four-foot-tall wall panel of the stall.

  Caution ignited in Mac’s veins.

  He pulled in a breath, stayed low and headed across the open space between the barns.

  Reaching the corner, he went flat against the outside wall and turned to face it so he could listen for the sound of Karif’s movements inside. “Kham-sah…ith-nain…sit-ah…tiss-ah…ar-bah…ith-nain.”

  The hair on the back of Mac’s neck bristled. It was the same familiar rhythm of counting he’d heard in Firehill’s stud barn. The numbers they’d been writing down from the tattoos on the horses’ upper lips. “Thah-mahn-ee-ah…thah-lath-ah…sit-ah…sub-ah…wa-Had…ar-bah.”

  Mac eased his head around the corner and stared into the stall through a narrow crack at the edge where the panels joined.

  Karif knelt next to the open briefcase with a notepad in his hand, reading off numbers in a series of six as he punched them into a digital timer inside the case.

  Mac’s blood turned cold.

  “Bomb,” he whispered into the hidden mic, praying Donahue showed up in the next minute, because it looked as if the numbers were about to run out.

  Mac charged the stall gate and kicked it open.

  It banged against the inside wall.

  Karif pulled back and stared at him, then at the gun in his hand, then back up into his face.

  “Get back!” he yelled, motioning with his head to the opposite corner of the stall.

  Karif inched away from the briefcase.

  Caution rocked Mac’s nerves as he stared at Karif and watched his eyes narrow. “Get the hell in here, Donahue!” he shouted, holding a bead on Karif’s chest with his finger on the trigger.

  He heard a commotion on his right in the doorway of the stall, and expected to see Agent Donahue busting in with a string of armed agents. Instead he found himself staring into Emma’s fearful brown eyes, then into Rahul’s black ones as he pushed her through the open stall door in a chokehold.

  “Karif. Continue with the detonation codes.”

  Mac turned the gun on Rahul and aimed for his forehead, prepared to blow his brains out, but Emma was too close.

  Karif crawled back to the briefcase and began punching in numbers again.

  Emma sucked in a breath and ma
de her decision. She raised her right foot and jammed her boot into Rahul’s shin.

  He let out a yelp.

  She drilled her elbow back into his ribs as hard as she could.

  His arm on her throat went slack for an instant.

  She dropped away from him, diving for the pitchfork leaning against the wall next to the gate.

  Pop! Pop!

  She heard the crack of Mac’s gun and saw Karif drop into the straw next to the case.

  Snagging the fork, she whirled around and pinned Rahul to the wooden gate with the tines through the shoulder of his jacket, inches from his neck.

  “Go, go, go!” Agent Donahue yelled to his men as they rushed into the cubicle, guns drawn.

  Mac holstered his weapon and pulled Emma into his arms, staring over her head at Agent Donahue and a bomb specialist who hurried into the stall and went to his knees next to the case. The color dropped from the man’s face as he rocked back and stared up at Donahue.

  “Son of a bitch. You just saved us from World War Three, Mr. Titus. This is a nuclear detonator, and somewhere within a hundred yards is a nuke.” He reached out, took the crumpled notepad from Karif’s lifeless hand and stared at it. “He only had two more numbers to enter in the detonation code sequence and it would have been over for all of us.”

  Emma’s knees buckled. Mac held her up. “Could be in their horse trailer in the parking lot.”

  Agent Donahue nodded to one of his men, who left the stall in search of the device. “I just learned ten minutes ago that the real Sheikh Ahmed Abadar’s body was found in Bahrain a week ago, but he’s been dead for over a month. Apparently he’d figured out the cell was planning to use his identity, his diplomatic immunity and his racehorse stable to plan some sort of attack on U.S. soil, and he was helping our government root them out.”

  That explained the high-level secret talks in Louisville that the sheikh had been engaged in with someone from the Pentagon, and why Mac had been forced to take a bullet to protect him. He’d do it again.

  “You mean to tell me they piecemealed the components into the country one at a time, and smuggled the detonation codes in disguised as tattoos inside the horse’s mouths out at Firehill?”

  “Looks that way. We would have known exactly what they were up to if the codes had been verbalized on any one of the chatter sites we’ve been monitoring.”

  “What about the sheikh’s horses?”

  “Don’t know if any of them are even his. So it looks like until we know differently, you’ve got nine additions to the Firehill stable.” Agent Donahue grinned. “You’re welcome to join the NSA, Mac. We could use someone like you in the organization.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve already got a job protecting Firehill Farm for a long time—that is, if the farmer’s daughter will have me.”

  In the distance he heard the race bugle blowing the traditional notes of the call-to-post. “We’ve got a horse in that race, Donahue. We’ll catch up with you later, give you our statements.”

  Donahue nodded. “I’ll see you both after the Winner’s Circle.

  Mac took Emma’s hand and hurried out of the stall.

  THE CLAPPER VIBRATED between the iron bells and the starting gate sprung open. “And they’re off,” the announcer shouted over the PA system.

  Emma stood next to Mac at the rail, watching Navigator’s Whim break from the number-five gate and thunder into the middle of the pack, gravitating toward the inside rail.

  She wasn’t sure if it was the horse race, the man standing next to her who’d said he loved her or the fact that they’d stopped an attack that would have wiped out the entire bluegrass region. Any way she figured it, her heart was racing, too.

  Mac squeezed her fingers and moved her down the rail, aiming for the finish line. His eyes fixed on Dragon’s Soul as he took last position in the field of fifteen horses.

  “Come on, Dragon,” he coaxed, watching the shiny black colt move up a length.

  “Polly’s Day crosses the line. Joker’s Rule in second, and Texas Two Step a length back in third place as they move into the first turn.”

  Mac looked up and spotted an opening on the first level. They hurried for it; he needed elevation to see the backstretch. They climbed the stairs and turned to watch the race.

  “Polly’s Day fades to third as the pack moves into the clubhouse turn. Joker’s Rule is in first, and here comes Dragon’s Soul on the outside, with Navigator’s Whim a length ahead.”

  Mac held his breath, watching both of the colts meet up at the head of the pack. Time slowed.

  Emma squeezed him arm. “Come on, Navigator, come on, babe, you can do it.”

  “The pack is fading, folks. It’s number five Navigator’s Whim moving to the inside on the rail as they power down the homestretch. Number thirteen Dragon’s Soul in second, Joker’s Rule two lengths back in third. Vagabond is fourth. Dixie Driver is in fifth.”

  He focused on the wire, watching the colts change up gears at the same instant.

  Neck and neck they reached for the finish line, then Navigator pulled ahead of Dragon’s Soul by a length and surged under the wire.

  “And it’s number five Navigator’s Whim with the win! Dragon’s Soul comes across the line in second and Joker’s Rule takes third. Followed by Vagabond in fourth, and Dixie Driver in the money in fifth place.”

  Mac pulled Emma into his arms and lowered his mouth to hers, feeling the rush of need overwhelm his system as he kissed her like a starving man.

  He pulled back and stared down into her face. “I love you, Em.”

  Emma’s heart squeezed in her chest. She went up onto her tiptoes and kissed Mac again for good measure.

  “I have a Thoroughbred farm, you know, and I need a bodyguard around to make sure it’s always safe. Can I interest you in a lifetime position?” She smiled up at him and felt her cheeks heat.

  “I thought you’d never ask.” He took her hand and they headed for the Winner’s Circle.

  MAC HELD THE TWO STEAMING cups of mint cocoa and waited for Emma to settle in the porch swing. He handed her a mug and took his place beside her.

  “Can you believe it? This whole time, my dad’s nurse, Samantha, has been helping him learn to walk again so he could surprise me on Christmas Eve. He says he’ll be jogging before the Kentucky Derby rolls around in May, and he wants to sit in the owner’s box before he walks to the Winner’s Circle.”

  He reached out and smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear, watching her eyes close for an instant, then open as she turned to look at him in the twinkle of the tree lights shining through the window.

  “It was good to see him get up out of his wheelchair, Em, and walk down the hall. He’s going to do it. He’s going to make it.” Mac put his mug on the porch rail behind him, took hers from her hand and set it on the railing, as well. He’d saved the best of Christmas Eve for now. “We all made it. We survived this day, and that’s a miracle all by itself.”

  “I’m just glad it’s over. I need normal in my life.” Emma stared at Mac, at the quirky smile on his mouth and a glimmer in his eyes she’d never seen before. “I have something for you.”

  “Really? I’ve got something for you, too.”

  She shivered, hoping it involved the entirety of the night, a warm bed and his body next to hers.

  Reaching inside her coat, she pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper tied with a strand of red ribbon. “This is long overdue, Mac. Merry Christmas.”

  Mac reached out and took the gift from her, but there was really only one thing he wanted. He watched her eyes widen with excitement and a smile broaden on her lips as he pulled the ribbon loose and unscrolled the page.

  He read through the legalities and felt the air lock in his lungs.

  “We talked about it and made the decision last week. My father always intended to give Paul back his share of Smooth Sailing when he sobered up, but he never came back. So as his son, you have a right to what belonged to him.”

 
; Mac’s throat tightened. “I don’t know what to say. A half share in Navigator’s Whim is too much, Em. I can’t take—” She leaned in and kissed him, shutting the protest inside of him forever. He kissed her back and pulled her into his arms. His heart expanded inside his chest and he broke the kiss, reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his gift to her.

  “Then let’s at least keep him in the family.” He opened the ring box and watched her tear up. “I want you always, Emma Clareborn. Will you have me?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  For Immediate Release to the Press

  Kentucky Derby–Churchill Downs

  Louisville, Kentucky

  Mr. and Mrs. Mac Calliway Titus and Mr. Thadeous Clareborn, all of Firehill Farm in Lexington, stood proudly in the Winner’s Circle on Saturday with their horse Navigator’s Whim, blanketed in Kentucky Derby roses. The cream of the story rests with the second-place finisher, Dragon’s Soul, a horse that also hails from Firehill Farm. The heated rivalry between the two magnificent colts is sure to go down in horse-racing history as the battle of the decade. It was a breathtaking race in the homestretch, but Navigator’s Whim pulled it out by a length. Stay tuned, because Firehill plans to take this colt all the way to the Triple Crown.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6917-4

  CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN

  Copyright © 2010 by M. Jan Hambright

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.