by Nora Roberts
No, he couldn’t. “But to tell her you’re dead. We can’t predict what that would do to her. Or how any of us would live with the lie.”
“Not so big a lie.” She drew her fingers back, stemmed the tears. “Part of me is dead. The rest wants to survive. Quite desperately wants to survive. I don’t think I could if she knew. She’ll be hurt, Philip. She’ll grieve, but you’ll be there for her. In a few years she’ll barely remember me. Then she won’t remember me at all.”
“Can you live with that?”
“I’ll have to. I won’t contact her or interfere in any way. I won’t ask you to visit me here again, nor will I see you if you come. I’ll be dead to her, and to you.” She braced herself. Their time was almost up. “I know how much you love her, and the kind of man you are. You’ll give her a good life, a happy one. Don’t scar it by making her face this. Please, promise me.”
“And when you’re released?”
“We’ll deal with that when it happens. Ten to fifteen years, Philip. It’s a long time.”
“Yes.” It made his stomach knot to imagine it. What, he thought, would it do to a child? “All right, Naomi. For Kelsey’s sake.”
“Thank you.” She rose then, fighting nausea. “Good-bye, Philip.”
“Naomi—”
But she walked straight to the guard, through the door that clanged shut behind her. She hadn’t looked back.
“Dad?” Kelsey put her hand on Philip’s shoulder and gave it a little shake. “What century are you in?”
Flustered, he rose. “Kelsey. I didn’t see you come in.”
“You wouldn’t have seen a fleet of Mack trucks come in.” She kissed him, drew back, then with a laugh kissed him again. “It’s good to see you.”
“Let me look at you.” Did she seem happier? he wondered. More settled? The thought caused a quick, ungenerous tug-of-war inside him.
“I can’t have changed that much in two weeks.”
“Just tell me if you feel as good as you look.”
“I feel great.” She slipped into a chair and waited for him to settle across from her. “The country air, I suppose, someone else’s cooking, and manual labor.”
“Labor? You’re working on the farm?”
“Only in the most menial of capacities.” She smiled up at the waitress. “A glass of champagne.”
“Nothing else for me, thank you.” Philip looked back at his daughter. “Are you celebrating?”
“Pride took his race at Santa Anita today.” Kelsey was still flushed with pleasure at the win. “I muck out his stall when he’s at Three Willows, so I feel some part of responsibility for the victory. In May Virginia’s Pride is going to take the Derby.” She winked. “That’s a sure thing.”
Philip sipped his wine, hoping it would open his throat. “I didn’t realize you’d become so involved . . . with the horses.”
“They’re wonderful.” She took the glass the waitress set in front of her, lifted it in a toast. “To Pride, the most gorgeous male I’ve ever seen. On four legs, anyway.” She let the bubbles explode on her tongue. “So, tell me, how is everyone? I thought Candace would be with you.”
“I suppose she understood that I wanted you to myself for a couple of hours. She sends her love, of course. And Channing. He has a new girl.”
“Of course he does. What happened to the philosophy major?”
“He claimed she talked him to death. He met this one at a party. She designs jewelry and wears black sweaters. She’s a vegetarian.”
“That ought to last about five minutes. Channing can’t go much longer than that without a burger.”
“Candace is certainly counting on that. She finds Victoria—that’s her name—unsettling.”
“Well.” Kelsey opened her menu and skimmed. “She wouldn’t find anyone settling right now where Channing’s concerned. He’s still her baby.”
“The most difficult thing any parent ever does is to let go. That’s why most of us just don’t.” He covered her hand with his. “I’ve missed you.”
“I haven’t really gone anywhere. I wish you wouldn’t worry so much.”
“Old habit. Kelsey”—he tightened his grip on her hand—“I asked you to have dinner with me for a couple of reasons. I’m not sure you won’t find one of them unpleasant, but I felt you’d prefer to hear it from me.”
She stiffened. “You said everyone was all right.”
“Yes. It’s about Wade, Kelsey. He’s announced his engagement.” He felt her hand go limp. “Apparently it’s to be a small wedding, in a month or two.”
“I see.” Odd, she thought, that there should still be so much emotion to swirl and collide inside her. “Well, that was quick work.” She hissed out a breath, annoyed by the edginess of her own tone. “Stupid of me to resent it, even for a minute.”
“Human, I’d say. However long you were separated, the divorce is barely final.”
“That was just a paper. I know that. The marriage ended in Atlanta, more than two years ago.” She picked up her glass, considered the wine bubbling inside. “I was going to be civilized and wish him the best. Nope.” She drank deeply. “I hope she makes his life hell. Now, I think I’ll try the blackened redfish. I feel like something with a little bite to it.”
“Are you going to be all right?”
“I’m going to be fine. I am fine.” She closed her menu. After they’d given their order, she found herself smiling at her father. “Were you afraid I’d throw a tantrum?”
“I thought you might need a shoulder to cry on.”
“I can always use your shoulder, Dad, but I’m finished crying over what’s done. Maybe working, really working for a living’s changing my outlook.”
“You’ve been working for years, Kelsey, since you graduated from high school.”
“I’ve been playing at jobs for years. None of them mattered to me.”
“And this does? Mucking out stalls matters to you?”
The snap in his voice warned her. She chose her words carefully. “I suppose I feel a part of a system there. It’s not simply one race or one horse. There’s a continuity, and everyone has a part in it. Some of it’s tedious, some of it’s rushed, and it’s all repetitive. But every morning it’s new. I can’t explain it.”
And he would never understand it. All he knew at that moment was that she sounded so much like Naomi. “I’m sure it’s exciting for you. Different.”
“It is. But it’s also soothing. And demanding.” Might as well get it done, she told herself, and she continued quickly. “I’m thinking of giving up my apartment.”
“Giving it up? And what? Moving permanently to Three Willows?”
“Not necessarily.” Why did it have to hurt him? she wondered, then sighed. Why had it hurt her to hear Wade was about to remarry? “That hasn’t been discussed. But I’ve been giving some thought to moving out to the country. I like seeing trees out of my window, Dad. Seeing land instead of the next building. And I enjoy very much what I’m doing now. I’d like to keep doing it, see if I’m good at it.”
“Naomi’s influencing you. Kelsey, you can’t let these kinds of impulses seduce you into rushing from one way of life to another. You can’t possibly understand the world you’re toying with after so short a time.”
“No, I can’t claim to understand it fully. But I want to.” She held back as their salads were served. “And I want to understand her. You can’t expect me to walk away from her until I do.”
“I’m not asking you to walk away, but I am asking you not to leap in without considering all the consequences. There’s more than the romance of a horse at dawn, or that last gallop over the finish line. There’s ruthlessness, cruelty, ugliness. Violence.”
“And it’s as much a part of who I am as the smell of books in the university library.”
“Why, it’s Kelsey, isn’t it? Naomi’s lovely daughter.” Bill Cunningham sauntered over, a drink from the lounge in one hand, his diamond horseshoe winking on the other. �
�No mistaking that face.”
Perfect timing, she thought, and forced a smile. “Hello, Bill. Dad, this is Bill Cunningham, an associate of Naomi’s. Bill, my father, Philip Byden.”
“Why, I’ll be goddamned. It’s been years.” Bill stuck out a hand. “Don’t believe I’ve seen you since the day you snatched Naomi out from under my nose. Teacher, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” With the coolness he reserved for careless students, Philip nodded. “I’m a professor at Georgetown University.”
“Big time.” Bill grinned, laying a hand on Kelsey’s shoulder for a quick, intimate squeeze. “You got yourself a real beauty here, Phil. It’s a pure pleasure seeing her around the track. Heard your mama’s top three-year-old outdistanced the field at Santa Anita today.”
“Yes, we’re very pleased.”
“Things are going to shake down different in Kentucky. Don’t let her talk you into laying your paycheck on Three Willows’ colt, Phil. I’ve got me the winner. You give your mama a kiss for me, honey. I’ve got to get back to the bar. Little meeting.”
As he walked away, Kelsey picked up her salad fork and began to eat with every appearance of interest.
“That’s the kind of person you want to associate with?”
“Dad, you sound like Grandmother. ‘Standards, Kelsey. Never lower your standards.’ ” But Philip didn’t smile. “Dad, the man’s an idiot. Very similar to the pompous, blustering idiots I’ve run into at the university, in advertising, at galleries. You can’t escape them.”
“I remember him,” Philip said stiffly. “There were rumors that he bribed jockeys to lose, or to deliberately force another horse into the rail.”
She frowned, and shoved the salad aside. “So add sleazy to pompous and blustering. He’s still an idiot, and not someone I intend to cultivate a friendship with.”
“He runs in the same circle as your mother.”
“Parallel lanes, perhaps. There’s a great deal I don’t know about her, or trust about her, at this point. But I do know that Three Willows is more than a farm to her, the horses more than business assets. It’s her life.”
“It always was.”
“I’m sorry.” Kelsey reached out helplessly to take his hands. “I’m sorry that she hurt you. I’m sorry that what I’m doing now has brought all that hurt back. I’m asking you to trust me to look at the whole, to make my own choices. I need a goal in my life, Dad. I may have found it.”
He was afraid she had, and that when she reached it he would no longer recognize her. “Just promise me you’ll take more time, Kelsey. Don’t commit to anything, or to anyone, without more time.”
“All right.” She hesitated. “You haven’t asked about her.”
“I was working up to it,” Philip admitted. “I wanted your impressions.”
“She seems very young. She has this incredible well of energy. I’ve seen her start at dawn and keep going until after dark.”
“Naomi loved to socialize.”
“I’m speaking of work,” Kelsey corrected. “She never socializes. At least she hasn’t since I’ve been there. To tell you the truth, with all the work, I don’t see how anyone would have the strength left to party. She’s usually in bed before ten.” No point, she thought, in mentioning that Naomi wasn’t always sleeping alone. “She’s very controlled, very contained.”
“Naomi? Controlled? Contained?”
“Yes.” She paused, waiting while their entrées were served. “I take it she wasn’t always, but that’s exactly how I’d describe her now.”
“How do you feel about her?”
“I don’t know. I’m grateful she isn’t forcing the issue.”
“You surprise me. Patience was never part of her makeup.”
“I suppose people can change. I may not understand her, but I do admire her. She knows what she wants and she works for it.”
“And what does she want?”
“I’m not sure,” Kelsey murmured. “But she is.”
From the shadows of the bar, Cunningham watched Kelsey and her father talk over their meal. A pretty picture, he thought. All dignity and class. He rattled the ice in his bourbon.
“Quite a looker,” Rich Slater said from beside him. “Something familiar about her.” He laughed, carefully pacing himself with his own drink. It wouldn’t do to muddle his thinking just now. “I guess there’s something familiar about all beautiful young women after a man passes a certain age.”
“Naomi Chadwick’s daughter. Spitting image of her.”
“Naomi Chadwick.” Rich’s eyes gleamed, with pleasure and with bitter memory. He was here, after all, to dredge up memories. And to profit by them. “There’s a filly a man doesn’t forget. My son’s neighbor now. Small world.” He enjoyed another swallow of whiskey. Quality stuff—since Cunningham was buying. “You know, I think I saw her around the boy’s place a couple of weeks ago. He’d have his eye on her if I know Gabe.”
“He’s been cozy with the mother. Guess it follows he’d be cozy with the daughter.” And Gabe Slater wouldn’t have had the chance to be cozy with either, Cunningham thought now, if it hadn’t been for a hand of cards. Things would be different.
Things were going to be different.
“If he plays his cards right,” Cunningham continued, picking at his own scab, “he could erase the border between the farms.”
Rich eyed Kelsey with more interest. So, his son was making time with the ice bitch’s daughter. That would be something he could use. “Now, wouldn’t that be something? That kind of merger would make them the top outfit in the state, I’d say.”
“It might.” Cunningham lifted one finger, signaling another round. “Wouldn’t care for it myself. I’d just as soon see that connection shaken a bit.” He reached into the nut bowl, popped three into his mouth. Casual, he told himself. Keep it casual. It wouldn’t do for Rich Slater to know just how much he was banking on the deal. “Now, this business we’re talking about. It might just accomplish that in the long term.”
Calculating, Rich admired the diamond ring on Cunningham’s finger. “And would that extra benefit be worth an appropriate bonus?”
“It would.”
“Well now, we’ll just see what we can do about that.” He shot Kelsey another look. “We’ll just see what we can do. I’m going to need those traveling expenses, Billy boy.”
Reaching inside his jacket, Cunningham took out an envelope. He slipped it into Rich’s eager hands under the bar. The unsettling sense of déjà vu had him glancing over his shoulder. “Count it later.”
“No need, no need at all. You and me go back a ways, Billy. I trust you.” Once the envelope was safely tucked away, he lifted his glass again. “And may I say it’s a pleasure doing business with you again. Here’s to old times.”
By noon the next day, Kelsey was concentrating on her lesson on the longe line. The five-year-old mare on the other end was patient, and knew a great deal more about the process than she did.
It wasn’t the horse being trained, but Kelsey.
“Bring her to a trot, change her direction,” Moses demanded. The girl had potential, he’d decided. She wanted to learn, therefore she would. “She’ll do anything you want. You get a yearling in there, he won’t be so accommodating.”
“Then give me a yearling,” she called back, and flipped her whip. “I can handle it.”
“Keep dreaming.” But perhaps in a few weeks he’d assign her one. If she was still around. She had good hands, he mused, a good voice, quick reflexes.
“How long has she been at it?” Naomi asked.
“About thirty minutes.”
Naomi rested a boot on the lowest fence rail. “Both Kelsey and the mare still look fresh.”
“They’ve both got stamina.”
“I appreciate your taking the time to teach her, Moses.”
“It’s no hardship. Except I think she’s got her eye on my job.”
She laughed, then saw he wasn’t quite joking. “Do you
really think she’s that interested in training?”
“Every time I spend an hour with her I feel like a sponge that’s been wrung dry. The girl never quits asking questions. I made the mistake of giving her one of my breeding books a few days ago. When she came back with it she all but gave me a goddamned quiz. Pumped me about blood factors, dominant and codominant alleles.”
“Did you pass?”
“Just. I used to watch you do this.” Grinning, he tugged on his earlobe. “Ah, the fantasies. A man without fantasies is a man without a soul. I had a hell of a soul where you were concerned.”
“You still do. I’ll prove it to you later. Here comes Matt.”
“I didn’t know you’d sent for the vet.”
“I didn’t.” Naomi ran her tongue around her teeth. “He said he was in the neighborhood and thought he’d stop in to check out that case of sore shins.”
Moses glanced back at Kelsey. Ah, the fantasies, he thought again. “Yeah. Right.”
Smothering a laugh, Naomi welcomed the vet. “Well, Matt, what’s the verdict?”
“She’s doing fine. A blister’s not necessary.”
“Nice of you to take the time to stop by,” Moses commented.
“I was over at Longshot. One of his colts was injured.”
“Serious?” Naomi asked.
“Could have been. A puncture. It was small, easily overlooked. There was a lot of infection.” He kept his eyes on Kelsey as he spoke, admiring. “I had to lance it. Too bad. Jamison said the horse was supposed to ship off to Hialeah tomorrow.”
“Three Aces?” Instantly sympathetic, Naomi laid a hand on Matt’s arm. “Gabe was going down with him. That horse has been running like a dream.”
“They’ll both be staying home for now.”
“I’ll give Gabe a call later. Try to cheer him up.”
“He could use it.” Matt switched his attention back to Kelsey. “Everyone seems healthy around here.” When Kelsey acknowledged him with a quick wave, he grinned. “She looks like she’s been doing that all her life.”
When Moses took pity on him and signaled Kelsey to stop, she walked the horse over to the fence. “She’s so sweet-natured.” She rubbed her cheek against the mare’s. “I wish you’d give me a brat, Moses, so I could feel I was accomplishing something.”
