“Daddy said he’d buy him, but he wanted to steal him one more time. So he and Buddy and my great-uncle Harris Pulliam drove over there at two in the morning, left a check in the man’s mailbox and stole Smokey Joe for old times’ sake. He’s been chained to the front porch of my office ever since.” Trey shrugged and finished his brandy in one gulp. “The younger generation hasn’t heard that story and I don’t want ’em to. First thing I know, they’ll be stealing him again right off the front porch at the office.”
The story reminded Paul that he was and would always be a complete outsider in this family. His father would remain a stranger no matter how much Paul learned about him. This culture, this heritage, that was bred in Trey’s bone would forever be foreign to him. Paul managed a grin. “Great story.”
“Now, shall we join the ladies?”
About an hour later, as Ann and Paul were finishing their coffee and making a move toward leaving, Trey turned to Ann. “You haven’t been hunting with us since January. Shame on you.”
“No time. First I was in Buffalo digging my way out of snowdrifts, then I went to work on this job.”
“This Saturday is the last hunt of the season. You have to come,” Sue-sue pleaded. “Saga’s fit and ready to go.” She turned to Paul. “Do you hunt?”
When he said no as politely as he could, he heard Ann say, “But you’re going to try it, aren’t you?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
Her grin was devilish. “You made me go flying. Getting you up on a horse in return is the least I can do.”
“We’ve got a lovely crossbred gelding who’d be perfect for you,” Sue-sue said.
“His mama was a Belgian draft horse,” Trey continued. “He’s quite placid. He wouldn’t flinch if you set off a bomb under his feet.”
“You could ride second field,” Ann said. “All you have to do is sit in the saddle and walk along with all the other old fogies.”
“I don’t have the proper clothes.”
“Heck, you can borrow some of mine,” Trey said. “It’s an informal hunt, anyway. You and I look about the same size. What size shoe do you wear?”
Paul told him.
“Perfect. My boots will fit you, and I know my britches will. Say you’ll do it.” He gave Paul a smile that had a great deal of challenge in it. “Can’t be a real part of the community otherwise, you know.”
In the end Paul agreed to ride the unflappable horse, took home a pair of Trey’s riding boots, some boot hooks to pull them on, a boot jack to get them off, a pair of britches and a velvet hard hat to protect his head should he fall off.
“Which you won’t do,” Trey said. “Nobody falls off Liege.”
As they drove away from the house, Trey and Sue-sue’s arms around each other’s waist, waving them goodbye, Paul said casually. “I hate you.”
“Can’t imagine why. I don’t get mad, I get even. You scare me, I scare you back. Seriously, you’ll have a wonderful time, I guarantee it.”
SATURDAY MORNING dawned clear and chill with a brisk wind blowing out of the north. The weather report said the temperature would only reach fifty-five degrees.
Ann showed up at seven in the morning with coffee and sweet rolls hot from the café. “I’ve come to help you dress,” she said.
She looked fantastic. Despite the fact that Trey had said informal, she wore what Paul assumed was the entire costume, including a stiff white shirt with a white stock wound around her lovely throat and pinned with a gold pin.
They took their breakfast out on the porch, despite the cold. “Know what the stock is for?” she asked. “It’s to use as a sling or a tourniquet.”
“That makes me feel really comfortable.”
“Don’t be grumpy. Tally-ho.”
The area around the Delaneys’ pristine stable block was full of trucks, SUVs, horse trailers, horses and riders.
Paul’s heart sank. Over at the side, four or five carriages sat ready to depart, their horses already hitched. “Can’t I ride in one of them?” he asked plaintively.
“Nope.”
Trey and Sue-sue were nowhere in sight. To Paul’s untutored eye, Ann’s horse, a tall bay gelding that Ann said had once been a race horse, danced and snorted like a dragon. Paul’s own horse was immense. “The things I do for love,” Paul whispered.
“Give me a leg up,” Ann said. They had arrived late, largely because he had hung back as long as possible. Both first and second fields had begun to move off across the field. “You use the mounting block to mount. I’ll ride with you until you feel comfortable, promise.”
He climbed onto his horse clumsily and fitted his feet into the stirrups.
“Okay?” Ann said, and walked away from him. After her horse had taken half-a-dozen steps, she stopped him and jumped down. She called to a nearby groom. “He’s lame.”
“Si, señora,” the groom said. “Yesterday he was sound, but he’s lame on his front leg again this morning.”
“Okay, Marco. Better untack him and put him away.” She turned to Paul. “You lucked out. I can’t ride.”
He slipped out of the saddle. “Sure you can. He may not be a fire-breathing dragon, but I’ll bet my horse isn’t lame.”
She looked at the Belgian with longing.
“Go on.”
“What will you do?”
“I heard that,” said a tall, gray-haired lady in a feathered hat. “He can ride with me in my Meadowbrook cart. I hate driving alone.”
Ann’s face became wreathed in smiles. “Paul, this is Mrs. Adler. She follows the hunt in her carriage.”
“Uh, how do you do?”
“At the moment, I’m in a hurry. Climb aboard, young man, and hold on tight.”
Ann had already mounted and was trotting toward the fast-vanishing hunters.
After ten minutes with Mrs. Adler, Paul devoutly wished he’d stayed aboard his Belgian. Her big gray horse had a ground-covering trot. The ground, however, was bumpy. Mrs. Adler seemed determined to catch the main body of the hunt before they were out of sight.
Paul knew how Ann must have felt clinging to his aircraft for dear life. He swore that if he survived the morning with Mrs. Adler, he’d never go near a horse again.
As they topped the rise, he heard the call of a hunting horn. “They’re away! Come on, Delta.” Mrs. Adler popped her reins against the flanks of her horse. A moment later he broke into a canter.
Several times he was sure Mrs. Adler would fly right out of the cart, but she always landed back in her seat with a thump, the reins secure in her gloved hands. He clutched the sides of his seat and prayed.
Below him he could see the hunters galloping across a broad meadow divided in several places by barbed-wire fences. “They jump barbed wire?” he yelled at Mrs. Adler.
“Don’t be ridiculous. There are wooden jumps let into the fence at intervals. Watch.” She pulled the cart to a halt within hailing distance of the other carriages. He was afraid he’d have to pry his fingers loose from the edge of his seat.
Below him the hounds were running full out and the riders weren’t far behind. He spotted Ann on the Belgian flying over the ground. This was the placid horse they intended him to ride?
The hunters began to pour over the jump like gravy out of a boat. Ann was close to the tail end of the group. She galloped down to the fence, the Belgian left the ground, and without warning something went wrong. One minute Ann was in the saddle, the next she was flying off the right side of her horse to land out of sight on the other side of the fence.
Paul stood up and shouted her name.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Adler whispered.
The forward force of Mrs. Adler’s Percheron knocked Paul back in his seat. This time he didn’t begrudge Mrs. Adler’s hell-for-leather driving technique. At the foot of the hill hounds were milling about baying at nothing in particular, and riders were off their horses.
Paul vaulted out of the cart before it came to a full stop. He raced toward Ann, his
unfamiliar riding boots slipping and sliding on the wet grass.
He saw Trey and several riders bending over Ann’s prostrate form on the other side of the jump. He shoved through the crush of riders and climbed over the fence, hopped across the ditch and knelt beside her. He grabbed her gloved hand. “Ann, my God, Ann.” Out of the corner of his eye he caught the unflappable Belgian chomping grass. There was no stirrup hanging from the right side of his saddle. Paul looked around. Just behind him he spied the stirrup and the leather that should have held it on the saddle.
Ann opened her eyes, took a deep breath and said, “There. I thought I’d never breathe again.” She started to sit up, but Trey held her down. “No, you don’t.”
“I’m fine, Trey. I just got the wind knocked out of me. What the hell happened?”
“I’m going to kill somebody over this,” Trey said grimly. He held Ann’s other hand. “You must have broken a stirrup leather. That’s not supposed to happen in my barn.”
“Well, for Pete’s sake.” She smiled up at Paul. “Okay, we’re even.”
“Not even halfway,” he said grimly. “We need to get a cervical collar on you. Can you feel everything?”
She rolled her eyes. “I never lost consciousness, just my breath. I never hit my head—the hard hat took the brunt of the fall. I fell flat. My dignity and I are equally bruised, but that’s the extent of the damage.” She pulled herself to a sitting position. “Now, can somebody catch my horse and lend me a stirrup leather?”
Paul reached behind him and pulled the broken half of the leather free of the stirrup. While everyone concentrated on Ann, he stuffed both parts of the leather under his sweater. “You’re not going to keep riding, are you?”
“First rule of riding, always get back on the horse.” She touched his cheek. “Don’t worry. I’m just going to ride back to the barn with you and Mrs. Adler if she’ll take you.”
“Of course I will, dear,” Mrs. Adler said from her perch. “This is quite enough excitement for one day.”
No one had an extra stirrup leather, so Ann and her horse ambled back to the barn with her legs dangling at his sides. The horse wasn’t even breathing hard.
Paul noticed that the grooms had made themselves scarce. So he pulled off the saddle himself, let the big animal into an empty stall, hung saddle and bridle on the closest rack and found Ann leaning against Mrs. Adler’s cart.
“You mind taking me home now? I’m starting to stiffen up.”
He thanked Mrs. Adler, patted her horse and helped Ann to his car. For the second time he realized he’d never be able to carry her. Not even across a threshold.
He was halfway to her home before he realized the implications of that.
After he put Ann under a hot shower and rubbed liniment all over her body, already beginning to turn interesting shades of puce, he sat down to wait until she fell asleep.
As soon as he heard her regular breathing, he walked into the workroom, turned on the big lights over the worktable and took the two halves of the stirrup leather from under his sweater.
It was only a fluke that Ann had been riding the Belgian. If Paul had broken a stirrup leather unexpectedly even at a walk, he’d have fallen off. Unlike Ann, he probably would have been hurt.
He might have reinjured his right arm. Falling off the right side of the horse, he would instinctively have reached to break his fall with his right arm. He winced at the prospect of the pain and damage that might have caused.
The reason for the breakage in the leather was easy to spot once he looked for it. Someone with a very sharp knife had scored the underside of the leather without cutting through to the top. Anyone saddling the horse wouldn’t have seen it unless they examined the leather carefully.
His father had broken his neck jumping over a fence on a hunt.
Coincidence?
When the phone rang, he grabbed it on the first ring and heard Mrs. Jenkins’s voice. “Is Ann all right?”
He turned his back and cupped the phone so as not to wake Ann. “She’s bruised and she’s going to be stiff, but I think she’s okay.”
“Good. The idea that she could go first field when she hasn’t been on a horse since opening hunt. I swear, sometimes I don’t know what she’s thinking. Is she asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Stay with her, will you? I’ll head Buddy off so he doesn’t come barging in and wake her up. We’ll bring over supper for both of you. Say, about six?”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I realize that. Don’t forget Dante needs his walkies.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He hung up and looked at Dante, who sat by the back door expectantly. He found the dog’s leash, checked Ann’s breathing once again and slipped out the door with Dante. As he was crossing the street toward the little park, a squad car slid to a stop in front of him.
Buddy stuck his head out the driver’s-side window. “How’s my daughter?”
Paul repeated what he’d told Ann’s mother. Buddy nodded and drove off without a word. The way information passed around this town, he wondered whether Buddy knew he and Ann had been sleeping together.
For a moment he considered that Buddy might have been the one to set up the plane and the riding accident. He had no way of knowing he’d be putting his own daughter in danger.
He dismissed the idea at once. If Buddy had a problem with him, he’d haul Paul into the backyard and deck him.
Ann was still asleep when Paul went back inside with Dante. The dog padded over and carefully climbed onto the bed to snuggle against Ann protectively.
When Ann awoke and started to get up, she groaned. He went to help her, but she pushed him away. “Got to do it myself. Oh, boy.”
“Can I recommend a course of treatment?”
“And that would be what, Doctor?”
“Doctor dear, to you.”
“Okay, Doctor dear.”
“Twenty minutes of ice, twenty minutes of heat. Alternate on the sorest spots. Then another hot shower, another round of liniment, and you let me give you a massage.”
“Sounds lovely, except I don’t have either a heating pad or an ice pack.”
Not for the first time, Paul realized how limited Rossiter was for anything more exotic than eggs and butter. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “Oh, your mother’s bringing dinner here for both of us. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” She hobbled to the overstuffed easy chair and gently lowered herself into it.
He stopped by his room long enough to change from his borrowed boots and riding britches to jeans and sneakers, then he broke speed limits to town and back. During the entire drive he cursed whoever had cut that leather.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PAUL SHARED the soup, sandwiches and brownies that Nancy Jenkins had brought with Ann and her parents, then settled Ann in her big armchair with both heating pad and ice pack.
“Don’t forget,” he said, “twenty minutes hot, twenty minutes cold. It’s what got me through years of baseball.”
“Thanks, Doctor.” She looked over his shoulder to where her parents were cleaning up the kitchen and rolled her eyes. “Send them home. Say I want to go to bed.”
“Would I be telling the truth?”
She whispered, “Are you some kind of sex maniac?”
“I’ll be happy just to hold you and kiss your booboos.” He grinned down at her as she slapped at him.
“Well, baby,” Nancy Jenkins said, “you’re in good hands. Buddy and I are out of here. I don’t suppose I’ll see you at church tomorrow.”
“I don’t suppose. Thanks for coming.”
Paul saw her parents out and took Dante for a walk. He was growing fond of the big mutt.
Ann was still in her chair when he returned. “I think I’m going to sleep right here,” she said. “It’s better when I’m not flat on my back.”
“I’ll remember that,” Paul said.
Her eyes opened wide. “Listen to you.�
��
“Just trying to cheer you up.”
“Well, don’t. I want to feel pitiful, at least for tonight. You know, the first thing I thought while I was flying through the air was that all these people were watching me make a fool of myself.”
“You had help.”
“Liege didn’t do anything…” She stared at him, then said quietly, “That’s not what you meant, is it?”
Paul hadn’t planned to tell her about the cut leather and certainly not about the sabotaged plane. But, dammit, if someone was trying to maim or kill him, she might inadvertently walk into another setup meant for him without getting off so lightly. Earlier he’d hidden the stirrup leather in Addy’s button box. Now he went into the workroom, moved the buttons he’d carefully laid on top and brought both pieces of leather back to put into Ann’s lap.
“So?”
“Look at the underside.”
She turned both pieces over. She caught her breath. “Do I see what I think I see?” She sounded very small and frightened.
“If you see that someone slashed halfway through the leather so that it would break under pressure, then yes, you do.”
“It was on the right side, wasn’t it? A rider mounting from the left wouldn’t put any pressure on that stirrup until he was getting set to take the first jump. If it’s a practical joke, it’s a dangerous one.”
“I don’t think it was a joke.”
Her eyes grew round. “I wasn’t supposed to be riding Liege. I was supposed to be on Saga.”
“Right.”
“You think it was aimed at you? Paul, we may not accept incomers as natives until the second generation, but we don’t try to assassinate outsiders simply because they move to town.”
“That’s not all.” He told her about the sabotage to the oil seal on his Cessna. “Expensive to repair and dangerous—although we were close enough to the field that we weren’t in real danger. Hack called me yesterday to say he’d found a puncture in the oil seal on the Stearman, too. It hasn’t been flown recently. There was no engine damage, but I fly low and slow with a full load of fertilizer. With a punctured oil seal, I wouldn’t have had time to react to an engine failure.”
House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 18
