by Teresa Hill
"Megan?" she whispered. "What's wrong?"
Megan hit a jarringly wrong note. She winced, and her hands fell to her lap. She turned briefly toward Allie, seeming to look right through her, and there were tears on her face. Megan was rubbing her hands together and shivering when Allie noticed the bruises on her sister's arm, as if someone had grabbed on to her and refused to let go.
"What happened?" Allie whispered. "Megan, please. Just tell me, what happened?"
But her sister didn't say a word. She brushed away tears, put her hands back on the keys, and started to play again.
Startled, Allie opened her eyes to find her own fingers on the keys, playing that same song she thought Megan had played that day. She felt a chill in the air, one that seemed to go right through her, and fought the urge to run screaming from the house. Instead, she closed her eyes, wanting one more look at her sister, and waited until the sound of the music faded completely away.
* * *
Five minutes later, Allie was still sitting with her back to the wall, still able to close her eyes and see the bruises on her sister's thin arm, when the phone rang, startling her yet again. She grabbed it like a lifeline and said, "Hello?"
"Hi," Stephen said. "I'm sorry, I know it's early, but I saw your lights on and thought I'd take a chance on calling. Tell me you were up."
"I was up," she said, wondering what he'd say if she told him, I saw my dead sister playing the piano and begged her to tell me what was going on, but she wouldn't.
"Are you all right?" he said.
"Yes," she lied, thinking bruises. Who had done that to Megan? Who had hurt her and made her cry?
"I was wondering if you'd like to get out of that house for a while."
She was trembling hard enough and was paranoid enough to think he knew everything, that he somehow just knew, but she managed to keep it to herself and simply ask, "Why?"
"I want to see you."
He'd said that the first night, and she'd wanted to believe it. It was harder now. Every bit as enticing, but harder to believe. She kept thinking about Megan. How awful it felt not to be Megan for the mother who had loved her. For the mother who could never love Allie as much as she had loved her sister. Allie didn't ever want to try to take her sister's place again, not in any way, no matter how little or how much Stephen might have felt for her sister.
"It's going to be beautiful today," he said. "Much too pretty to stay inside all day."
Allie frowned, thinking it wasn't fair that he could cast a spell over her, just with his voice. The familiarity of the cadence of his speech hit her again. It wasn't what she was used to from Connecticut, and yet she recognized it, much in the same way she felt a recognition of the place itself, of the trees, the grass, the sky, everything. The man could draw her to him with his voice alone.
"We were doing so well that first night over dinner," he coaxed.
Before she thought he was involved with her sister and that he was keeping something from her about Megan's disappearance.
Allie sighed. The saddest part was that despite all her doubts, all the reasons she had to be cautious around him, those moments in his arms had felt better than anything she'd experienced in months. More likely years. How many men could chase away loneliness and bone-deep sadness with a kiss?
Even so, she couldn't let it happen again.
"Let's back up, all right?" he said. "Be friends. I was wondering what you remember about Kentucky."
"Not much." And she didn't need to. She was likely leaving never to return again. She was supposed to resist any excuses he came up with for them to be together.
"I thought I could show you some of the sights."
"I don't have time for sight-seeing, Stephen. I have so much to do..."
"And you will. Later. Just give me an hour."
"I've barely started sorting through everything and packing. I only got half the kitchen done yesterday." And found pictures of Megan. And fallen apart in Stephen's arms.
"You can't mean to work every minute you're here," he argued.
"Actually, I did." That was why she'd come. To work. To find out what she needed to know and leave. She could scarcely remember the time when she thought it would be as simple as that.
"This is your home, Allie. There's no place in the world as beautiful as Kentucky on a cool, misty morning in the fall. I want to show it to you."
What did the beauty of anyplace have to do with anything?
Megan, she thought, closing her eyes and hearing her sister's name spoken with that deep Southern voice of his. Seeing the haunted expression on her sister's face as she sat playing the piano with bruises on her arms.
God, the bruises.
"Allie?"
She closed her eyes and counted to ten, knowing she should stay away from him, particularly when he was acting this way. Like this was about her and him and nothing else.
It was more than that. Something else had him here, acting this way.
"Come with me," he said.
"It's six o'clock in the morning, Stephen."
"It's the best time of the day."
"I'm not even dressed," she protested, although she couldn't help but be curious. What could he possibly show her at this hour?
She sighed, already finding excuses for herself and what she wanted. Like, how was she going to find out what he was up to, what he knew? Spending time with him seemed to be the simplest way.
"Put on some jeans and a sweatshirt. I'll be there in fifteen minutes," he said. "I'll even bring coffee. Very good coffee."
Before she could say another word, he hung up.
Torn, Allie glanced at the now-silent piano and shivered yet again. The thought of getting out of the house, for any reason at all, seemed too good to pass up.
She wondered if years ago she'd seen Megan with bruises on her arms, if the image had been inside her head all this time waiting to come out? The sister she remembered had been a solemn soul, quiet, serious, secretive even. But not sad. Not crying. Not bruised. This was like trying to put together a puzzle without having all the pieces, without knowing what the picture was supposed to look like in the end. But pieces of her life were coming back to her, the memories too vivid to be anything but the truth, pieces of her old life.
And next door was a man who knew more than he was telling her about her sister's disappearance. Maybe he knew about the bruises, too. Surely that alone was enough of a reason to spend an hour with him this morning.
She didn't have to take anything he said seriously. Perhaps she'd been right that first night when she thought he wielded his charm like a weapon, disarming women completely with it, blinding them to anything except him and the way he could make a woman feel. Had she made it easy for him? Did he think she would just give in and give him whatever he wanted?
Allie frowned. He probably charmed every woman he met. It was probably second nature to him. But she wasn't going to let him do that to her. Surely she had a bit of common sense left and could use it with him.
Exactly fifteen minutes later, he parked in front of her house in a luxurious four-wheel-drive vehicle with leather seats and every convenience imaginable. It still smelled new, had a logo on the side, Whittaker Construction.
"You take this to construction sites?" she said.
"I'm not that spoiled. Or that pretentious." He grinned at her as he helped her inside, then handed her a steaming cup of coffee. "I take very important people, like bankers, investors, and potential clients to construction sites in this. And when it's just me, I take a real truck."
She settled into the cushy, heated-leather seat and drank what had to be the best cup of coffee she'd ever had, as they drove through town and headed toward Lexington. She had to admit he didn't seem like a man who thought he was better than everyone else simply because he had money.
They skirted around the south side of town, past subdivisions and shopping centers and early-morning commuters. Allie recognized the route, the same one she'd taken
from the airport. They went past it, then turned into a farm with what had to be miles of neat wooden fences painted white, fancy barns in white with dark blue trim. The entrance gate was made of fieldstone with scrolling iron arching overhead. They drove down a narrow, private road lined with towering trees.
"It's like something out of Gone With the Wind," she said as they drove through the canopy made by the branches.
"Not quite." He stopped in front of a huge house made of whitewashed stone, with towering columns lining the front porch. "It's only a hundred and ten years old."
"It's takes my breath away," she said because it was so beautiful, so obviously lovingly preserved. "Did you restore it?"
"No." He grinned. "This is my great-grandfather's farm."
"Oh." She felt foolish and a bit in awe. Spoiled or not, this was the way he'd grown up, surrounded by all this. And yet, despite all her misgivings, she felt comfortable with him. The charm, she told herself. He had it down to an art form—putting a woman at ease, maybe saying just what she wanted to hear. Why, she wondered, would he work so hard to put her at ease?
"The house isn't what I brought you here to see, Allie."
He drove around the side of the house and down another narrow lane, and that's when Allie first saw the horses, sprinting along in the misty morning with their tails tilted up in the air. Two of them stopped to stare, but the babies kept right on playing. The sky was warming to the coming day, faintly lit with the palest of blues, the trees in the distance not much more than shadows. The pretty white fences did indeed go on for miles, pasture after pasture in the softly rolling hills, and up close she could see that the grass was an unusual, particularly deep shade of green.
"Is this the famed bluegrass?" she said.
"Some of the bluest." He stopped the vehicle and came around to her side to give her a hand out. "I'm going to sound like I'm bragging, but this is your home state and I promised to play tour guide. I think I'd be neglecting my duties if I failed to mention that you're standing in the middle of one of the most famous horse farms in the world."
"Oh," she said, noting the logo on the barn, an elaborately scripted W superimposed over an F, a logo quite similar to that he used in his construction firm. "Whittaker Farms?"
He nodded and steered her around the side of the big barn. There were a lot of horses, sleek, beautiful animals prancing in and out. The men leading the horses back and forth tipped their heads respectfully toward Stephen, and there was a track, a training facility she supposed, on the other side of the barn. He led her to the outside rail, and they leaned against it. On the dirt track, a tractor was pulling a device that carefully groomed the surface, and there were three horses that she could see working out. They walked behind lead ponies, galloped, sprinted, walked some more.
She couldn't believe they were this close to the city, because the farm obviously encompassed hundreds of acres, all so carefully tended, so pretty. The mist rising off the grass gave the whole scene a surreal air, and the sky to the east blushed in the softest of pinks. It was like being in another world, something wholly apart from anything else she'd ever known.
The horses snorted and pranced back and forth, as if daring her not to look at them, to admire them. They were tall and slender, their legs seeming much too dainty to ever support their weight, let alone send them streaking down the track.
She and Stephen watched for a long time without saying anything. He had brought a thermos, so there was more of the wonderful coffee. She could have sworn it tasted all the better on this breathtakingly beautiful misty morning, that her whole life seemed better in this moment. She'd been so tense for so long. Since she realized her mother was dying, since she found out all her mother had kept from her, since she decided to come back and found it so hard. She didn't remember the last time she felt this relaxed and wondered if this place did the same thing for him, if he'd somehow known she'd feel better just by being here.
She could have asked. How had he known? Why did he seem to find it so easy to look inside of her and know these things? But she didn't. She wanted the moment, wanted every bit of peace offered by this wonderfully soothing place.
"Did you somehow make the sky bluer here?" she said finally.
"We've been known to do that here. But it's a little secret. Only the people who are born here can see it."
"And the grass really is greener, I suppose? Or bluer?"
"Of course," he said.
It truly was an odd shade of green, odd in a nice way. Every now and then she'd catch sight of it in a certain way and think it was one of the most intense shades of green she'd ever seen, and there was something about the way the green grass blended into the startlingly blue sky that she found utterly pleasing.
"Look," he said, pointing to a spot over her left shoulder.
A horse came flying by, a shiny black colt with pretty white caps on his feet and a brush of white on his long nose. He seemed especially proud of himself. The jockey turned around in the middle of the track and looked to Stephen, who must have given him some kind of sign, because the man gave a salute and turned the horse and took off.
Stephen pulled out a stopwatch and set it to zero. The horse galloped easily around the far turn, and on the backside picked up speed gradually until he was flying even faster than before. Allie found herself fascinated by the way the horse moved, stretching out its long legs and dipping its head down low. It was a symphony of motion, of sleek muscles and strength and style.
She heard the click of the stopwatch. Stephen looked down at it and then looked at her and grinned.
"He's breathtaking," she said.
"He's fast and absolutely full of himself." Stephen took her by the arm and led her to a gap in the rail. "Come on, I'll introduce you to the arrogant little beast."
The rider slid off the tiny excuse for a saddle and walked over to them, leading the horse behind him.
Up close, Allie realized just how big the animal was and how small the rider. She wondered exactly what it took to control an animal this strong and this big.
"Lookin' good, Mr. Whittaker," said the man who might have been five feet tall and weighed a hundred pounds.
"He does, but is he behaving any better?" Stephen took the reins, and the horse, who had steam rising off his back, dipped his head to let Stephen rub that splash of white on his face.
"He's got his moments," the rider said.
Stephen introduced Allie to the rider. They talked about the horse for a minute, and then Stephen sent the man on his way, saying they'd deliver the horse back to the barn themselves. The horse danced around, as if he wanted to play and hadn't been allowed to expend enough energy yet.
Allie rubbed his nose and tried not to be overwhelmed by him. He snorted and shook his head. Stephen scolded him, stroking him the whole time, and the horse finally settled down.
"He misbehaves often?" she asked.
"More than we'd like. But he's still a juvenile."
"As in delinquent?"
"No," He laughed. "As in two-year-old. A two-year-old horse is called a juvenile. We're hoping he settles down when he grows up a bit."
"Oh. Is he going to run in the Derby?"
"It's too soon to tell."
"But it's only seven months away."
"Which is an eternity with a young horse. He's only run two races in his life, and anything could happen between now and Derby day."
Stephen tugged on the reins, and they headed back toward the barn.
Allie couldn't help but appreciate the moment. It was still quiet, save for the occasional pounding of hooves. The sun was almost up, the mist nearly gone, the day seeming absolutely perfect.
"It's like a painting," she said.
"Better," he insisted.
"So... the Whittakers raise horses?" she mused. She hadn't a clue until she saw this.
"Some of us."
"And the rest of you?"
"My great-grandfather used to say there are four main branches of th
e Whittaker family, four acceptable career paths: raising horses, raising tobacco, making bourbon, and going into politics."
"The industries of Kentucky?"
He nodded.
"And that would make you... the black sheep of the family?"
He nodded.
Allie forgot she wasn't supposed to be enjoying herself and laughed. "You must be such a disappointment to the family."
"Actually, I am."
He smiled as he said it, but there was an unmistakable undertone. He was serious, Allie realized. Maybe she'd thought from the image he projected that he was indeed perfect, strong and supremely confident and in absolute control of his life. She'd liked all of those things about him, envied him even. She'd like to possess all those qualities herself. She knew all about disappointing people, knew exactly how it felt. But him? How could he ever be a disappointment to anyone?
"I find that hard to believe," she said, finding him utterly fascinating and unable to keep from asking.
"It's true. To my father, I am."
"Why?"
"God, I could make you a list, but I doubt you have the time to hear all of it."
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not."
"What have you done that's so disappointing?"
"I told you I have a law degree, but I'm not using it to practice law."
"But that's not on the list of acceptable professions."
"No, but the practice of law could lead to a judgeship, which he would understand and respect. Or a career in politics, which is on the list. Building things is much too common, as far as he's concerned."
She thought of what she knew about him already. No doubt, he was accustomed to being surrounded by beauty and elegance. He was appreciative of it, as he'd shown her by bringing her to this place.
"I can't believe you build common things," she said.
"Thank you." He looked genuinely pleased. "I don't. I build beautiful things, and I restore even more beautiful things, and I like it."
