Stubborn Hearts

by Hutchinson, Heidi

  He shook his head subtly. “Story time is after lights out.”

  He would have to tell her. But later.

  Ryan took a deep breath and stepped to the dark corner of the stall where she snagged a couple of plastic bags out of her shoulder bag and an empty bottle of water. Collecting the samples would be relatively easy, sneaking them out would be a trick.

  But if anyone could do it, it was Ryan.

  nine

  “And daughter, I want you to live.”

  Elmont, New York

  Belmont Park

  Champagne Stakes

  October

  “This, right here, is the definition of bullshit.”

  Ryan had converted her small motel room into a makeshift lab. If the cops knocked on the door at that very moment, she would have a very hard time convincing them that she wasn't making meth.

  At least the CVS she'd stopped at had all of the things she needed. Also, hooray for her degree in Biological Sciences!

  Her cell phone rang and she answered it without really thinking as she concentrated on pouring one more urine sample out of her water bottle.

  “Hello?”

  “Do you wanna get dinner tonight?”

  “Miah?” she asked with a frown. They hadn't spoken in a week and a half and he was calling to ask her to dinner?

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “I'm in New York this week. Are you home?”

  He hissed something under his breath. “When are you coming back?”

  “I don't know,” she said tightly. “I'm kind of in the middle of something. Can I call you later?”

  “Fine.”

  He hung up and Ryan was distantly aware that she should be concerned about his tone, but right now she was more concerned about the protein levels in Red's urine.

  She knew that Jesse would tell her to stay in the motel, but she was never very good at being told what to do. She packed an overnight bag, took a couple of pillows off the bed, and quickly headed out the door.

  ***

  As long as Jesse stayed upwind of Red, the big colt seemed fine. Completely normal in fact. He was relaxed, calm, totally passive to his surroundings.

  Jesse had made a show of looking like he had left the grounds, then circled back and snuck through the back way with George's help. The whole team was on edge with Red's condition and so it wasn't difficult to convince them that absolute secrecy was paramount to making sure they had a fighting shot on the Road.

  Jesse had fashioned a bed out of horse blankets and straw in the box stall next door to his colt, against the far wall and hidden in the relative darkness. It would be visible in the clear light of day, but during the night, no one would be able to see him. And he'd be pressed to the shared wall with Red, so any noise or agitation from the big animal would alert him instantly.

  It was too early in the season for this to be fatigue. But not too early to suspect tampering. Jesse hadn't experienced that kind of issue at this level, but it wasn't unheard of.

  Which just had Jesse drifting through all the possibilities that could have set his racer off in the first place.

  Red didn't have a history of aggression. He was gentle, even if a bit headstrong. He wasn't a nervous animal. He liked to be near the other horses, he was a friendly competitor.

  Which meant someone had poked him.

  Either figuratively or literally.

  Hopefully Ryan would be able to help him solve it before it got out of hand and they all lost their jobs.

  Or worse.

  Soft footfalls coming down the darkened corridor caused Jesse to flatten his back against the wall of the box stall and hold his breath. He heard Red shuffle towards the door as the footsteps slowed down near the stall.

  “Jesse?” Ryan asked softly.

  Jesse pushed away from the wall and stood up. Ryan's wide eyes fell on him as soon as he stepped into the dim lighting. He silently pushed the door open so she could slip inside.

  “What's all this?” he asked, voice hushed, as he gestured to the bundle of pillows under her arm.

  She glanced around the box and dumped the pillows onto Jesse's “bed.”

  “Pillows.”

  Jesse felt his glower soften at her word and he licked his lips. “I can see they're pillows, doll. Why are they here?”

  Ryan worried her bottom lip as she frowned down at the pile of horse blankets. “You only made one bed.”

  Jesse narrowed his eyes. “You're not staying in here tonight.”

  Her head jerked up, defiance flashing in her dark eyes. “Don't be ridiculous, Hart. I'm his doctor. I'm staying.”

  Before he could argue with her, she was lifting her bag over her shoulder and moving to the back of the stall. “Besides, you promised me a bedtime story.”

  Jesse couldn't help it, he chuckled under his breath. “Has anyone ever told you that you're stubborn?” He followed her and took a seat beside her as she opened her bag.

  “Only every day of my life.” She pulled out her notebook and flipped it open, handing it to him and a pen light. “Okay, so this is what's weird. I found elevated white blood cell count in his blood, indicating infection. But — ”

  “No fever or cough,” Jesse murmured, going over her numbers.

  “I mean, it looks like the flu, except he had his vaccine on time and there were zero complications. Is it possible that he was exposed to a recently vaccinated colt while we were in Kentucky? Could this just be vaccine virus?”

  “If it is, he hasn't shown any other symptoms.” Jesse rubbed his chin, trying to think.

  “And the flu is more likely to make him lethargic, not aggressive.” Ryan's head thudded softly against the wall of the box as she leaned backwards.

  “No.” Jesse flipped the notebook closed and handed it back to her. “He's been fine since I've been here. Even when I left for a minute to make it look like I was taking off for the day. I left George to keep an eye and he said all was quiet.”

  “I thought we weren't leaving him alone,” she pointed out.

  Jesse rolled his eyes her direction. “It's George.”

  George was Red's favorite groom. He was older and sweet and a little standoffish with other people because he had a slight learning disability. But he had a pure heart and that couldn't be missed.

  “You're right. Sorry,” she muttered, sounding genuinely disappointed in herself for even bringing it up.

  “No, it's good to be suspicious,” Jesse said. “We have no idea what happened while we were gone. But I highly doubt it was George.”

  They lapsed into silence as they both turned their thoughts inward. Red was quiet in his stall, as content as he had been at home. All previous irritation seemingly forgotten.

  Maybe his white count had nothing to do with it. Maybe they were looking in the wrong direction entirely. Something in the stall? Horses could get finicky about new scents and intruding rodents.

  “If it was an animal, the other horses would have been more responsive,” Ryan murmured, totally in line with his thoughts already.

  “Maybe they were. Maybe they just thought it was Red that had them worked up.” Jesse ran a tired hand through his hair and closed his eyes.

  “Too cold up here for snakes, right? A rat maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  He heard her shift slightly. Then she was crawling across the floor of the stall. Jesse opened one eye and watched her dig through the bedding.

  “Looking for rats?”

  “No.” She fiddled with the blankets some more, spreading them out and creating two distinct sleeping spots — side by side. She crawled back over to him and sat down again. “Are they going to let us work him out tomorrow?”

  Jesse nodded. “They should. As long as he behaves himself.”

  She took a deep breath and he heard the pause that signaled the question that was coming.

  “When are you going to tell me what's going on?”

  Jesse grimaced in the dark. “I hate this track.”
<
br />   “You said that.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. At least, in my life.” He knew how that sounded and he didn't like it. But it didn't make the facts less true. “You're not supposed to know this. It was never going to be anyone's business, but...” He shrugged, not really having a reason to hold back. “I trust you, so I'm telling you. Even if it might get me fired.”

  “Fired?”

  “Caleb had to register Red for entry in the Road back in March.” Jesse let that statement hang there, knowing that Ryan was a smart girl and she wouldn't have an issue doing the math.

  “He was still winning races for SimpCore in March...”

  “Yep.”

  “I don't understand. I thought he was going to be retired early and you took a shine to him. That's what the entire stable was talking about in July.”

  Jesse leaned back and rested his head on the stall wall as he stared up at the rafters. “I wanted that horse before he ever set foot on a track...” His lines, his blood, his passion. Jesse had never wanted anything more. He took a deep breath, his voice coming out rough. “Caleb and I had discussed trying to buy him out. But SimpCore wasn't interested in selling as long as Red was winning.”

  Ryan's soft intake of air hit him in the gut.

  “I know how it sounds. And I know what it looks like.” He swiveled his head Ryan's direction. “But it didn't go down like that. Red lost his fight all on his own. I had to talk Caleb into pursuing the purchase again.”

  “But he'd already registered him,” Ryan pointed out and Jesse nodded.

  “Yeah. So it was a huge test to see if I could do what I say I do. Caleb has been watching my every move these past few weeks. He has a huge investment in this. But also, if anyone starts looking into it — ”

  “It's gonna look shady as hell,” Ryan finished. Jesse swallowed. She leaned towards him and he lost her face in a shadow even though her voice was closer. “Do you think there was a third party involved? Someone else who wanted to get a hold of Red, and Caleb simply got there first?”

  Jesse felt his jaw tick and his voice dropped even lower, the topic at hand tapping into his dormant paranoia. “I'm saying that I don't believe in coincidence.”

  “Neither do I,” she whispered making him feel less alone and a little less crazy.

  “We have to keep an eye on him.” Jesse's whisper sounded too loud even to him.

  “I agree. Something about this doesn't feel right.” Ryan shocked the shit out of him when she reached over and grabbed one of his hands in both of hers and squeezed. “We can do this.”

  He took in a slow breath, wondering what he had done right to be able to have a person like Ryan at his back in a moment like this. She was way too smart for her own good. Way smarter than she realized. And loyal.

  Which was something Jesse sorely needed these days. The weariness of watching his back all the time was starting to make him numb.

  He returned her squeeze and then slipped his hand away, moving towards the bedding.

  “We should get some sleep. If anything happens, Red will wake us up right away. And I have a feeling we're going to need as much sleep as we can get.”

  Ryan nodded and joined him, crawling in between the horse blankets without pause. No balking or scoffing or stalling. One more thing that Jesse admired about her — when shit needed to get done, she just got it done.

  A pain shot through the left side of his chest and he chose to ignore it.

  He needed sleep and a plan.

  He looked over in time to see Ryan send him a bright smile as she curled around one of the pillows that she had brought along. She was a weird girl.

  Wonderful and weird.

  He was glad to have her on his team.

  ten

  “You have everything you need already inside of you. And what you don't know yet, you'll learn.”

  Lexington, Kentucky

  Keeneland Race Course

  Breeder's Cup Juvenile

  Late October

  Ryan-

  I have been successfully stalking you on the internet. The new story that you posted is decent. I see huge improvements even from your last posting. You've taken my notes to heart — well, most of them. I can see you have a bit of a stubborn streak. Either way, keep writing. You're finding your voice.

  Triston

  Triston-

  I'm not gonna lie, writing while watching horse racing is kind of exhilarating. My life has definitely gotten weird.

  Ryan

  Nothing happened in New York.

  Nothing remarkable anyway.

  Red placed fourth, which Jesse was satisfied with considering how the trip had started out. But then Jesse had stuck his horse and his people on a plane and went straight to Keeneland. Even though the Breeder's Cup wasn't for four more weeks.

  Ryan was sensitive to his tension, but she wasn't sure what she could really do about it. Not until he gave her something to work with. Her job and priority was Red. So she threw herself into it — making sure that his diet was on point, his workouts weren't too vigorous, his people were only kind.

  It was actually kind of easy. Red was happy. He seemed to thrive on the road. The issues that had occurred up north were like a bizarre dream.

  Jesse still slept in the stall beside Red every night, though. Occasionally Ryan would join him, bringing her own set of pillows and blankets. She ignored Jesse's lip twitches and rolling eyes, even though she was secretly pleased she could amuse him by doing nothing she wouldn't have done anyway.

  “What are you working on?”

  Ryan glanced up from her laptop as Jesse sat down across from her on the floor of the stall. The lines around his eyes had deepened significantly over the past couple of weeks, adding age that wasn't numeric.

  “Another story,” she answered, suddenly feeling protective of the words stored in her word document.

  “What kind of a story?”

  “A love story,” she said softly, licking her lips and trying to ignore the heat in her face.

  Jesse's lips twitched. “Is your main character a tall, sexy horse trainer from South Carolina?”

  Ryan's smile was immediate and she clicked on a box where her notes were, adding South Carolina to the list of things she was learning about Jesse. “Maybe.”

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Really? I was only giving you a hard time.”

  “Oh, I'm aware of that.” She scanned her notes, refreshing the questions she'd been meaning to ask him.

  “Does he have a deep voice?” Jesse continued to tease her.

  Ryan nodded. “Yep. Misunderstood loner with a mysterious past. Though he wears his heart on his sleeve and has no idea.” Her eyes slid up to connect with his as she finished her statement. Jesse's blue eyes darkened to a stormy indigo and he swallowed.

  “That sounds interesting.”

  “Maybe I'll let you read it when I'm done,” she offered, watching him closely.

  His gaze drifted to the side. “Pretty sure I know how it ends, doll,” he muttered roughly.

  “I very much doubt that,” she said, meeting his gaze again. They stared at each other for a long time. Too long. So long that Ryan felt a tear slide down her cheek and she had no idea why. Except she did. She knew it was Jesse. He was twelve feet away from her, but completely torn open. And she could feel him bleeding all over the both of them.

  “If you give someone everything.” He took a slow breath in, his voice increasing in ache. “You eventually have nothing left to give.”

  Ryan was having two reactions and they warred within her. She wanted to pull Jesse into her arms and hold him like she'd never wanted to hold another human being. She also wanted to find her next breath, because she was numb from the neck down.

  His eyes bored into her, the honesty and vulnerability shining out wasn't what she'd expected. She thought it would be sad and sweet. But it wasn't.

  No. It wasn't that at all.

 
It was savage.

  Raw.

  Wild.

  “Tell me,” Ryan said, against her better judgment, yet unable to stop herself.

  Jesse's jaw clenched. “Not today.” He abruptly shoved to his feet and left the stall. Ryan sucked in a clean breath, her body trembling with the heaviness that left with him.

  “Oh, boy.” It was an understatement. But it's all she had.

  ***

  Jesse stared up at the rafters, unable to relax and go to sleep. He overreacted today. Not the same way that other people overreact. But for him and what he expected of himself — that was a definite overreaction.

  And he was more than a little afraid that he had altered his friendship with Ryan forever. And not for the better.

  He normally kept those thoughts and feelings on lock down.

  She pulled it out of him with her smiles and her gentleness.

  And he'd scared her.

  He could see it.

  Even now, in the dark, all he could see was her wide brown eyes, her parted lips, the shallow breaths she'd taken as she tried not to run away from him.

  It wasn't her fault. He'd witnessed her gift with the horses over and over again, it was only a matter of time before she started using it on people. And who better than the guy she spent most of her time with? But it was unpracticed. Her skill was limited.

  “Hey, cowboy.”

  Jesse's body locked tight at the sound of Ryan's soft greeting. The gentle rustle of blankets and bedding had her taking her spot beside him.

  What was she doing here? She should be in the motel, where she felt safe — or at least, safer. Not here, with him, the guy who'd freaked her out earlier that day.

  “So, are you not speaking to me at all?” she asked on a whisper. “Because that's not gonna work for me, so we're going to need to come to some kind of arrangement.”

  Jesse's body relaxed. Of course she was fine. This was the girl who took whatever happened to her and rolled with it. Made it work, figured it out.

  She really was Buck.