The Novels of Nora Roberts Volume 1

by Nora Roberts

There was only panic and relief, panic and relief, a bright and giddy pendulum swinging inside him. He stayed as he was, his fingers at her throat, his face in her hair, one arm cradling her.

  “Gabe. Jesus Christ, Gabe.”

  The frightened voice of his trainer snapped him back. He lifted his head and watched the somehow dreamlike movements of Jamison stepping into the box to calm the colt.

  “Easy, boy. Easy now.” Jamison dragged the colt’s head down, using his voice and his hands to soothe. “Settle down.” But his eyes were anything but calm when they focused on Gabe. “What happened here? Where’s Kip? He’s supposed to be bunking outside the box.”

  “I don’t know where the hell he is. But you’re going to find him. Find him and the fucking night watchman.” Forcing himself to move slowly, Gabe ran his hands over Kelsey, checking for broken bones. He located the knot at the back of her head. His fingers lingered there, gentle as a kiss, while his eyes sliced back to Jamison and burned. “Call a doctor, and the cops. Now.”

  “She’s hurt.” Jamison continued to stroke the quivering colt. “How bad?”

  “I don’t know. Call, goddammit!”

  As if in answer, Kelsey stirred under his hand and moaned.

  “Kelsey.” He had to yank himself back from snatching her up. “Kelsey, take it slow.”

  “Gabe.” Her eyes fluttered open, but her vision swam, touching off nausea. “God.” She closed them again, struggling to breathe evenly.

  “Don’t try to move yet.”

  “I’m not. Believe me.” She concentrated on moving air in and out of her lungs. When it seemed she had that down, she cautiously opened her eyes again. This time, she brought his face into focus. There was murder in his eyes, she thought dimly. Then remembered. “The colt. Someone was in with the colt.”

  “It’s all right. He’s all right.” Gabe cursed viciously when she winced in pain. “I’m going to take you up to the house now. I’m going to take care of you.”

  “Somebody was in there. The groom was gone. The door was open. But I couldn’t see who it was. Did they hurt him?”

  “No.” Gabe glanced at Jamison, who was sliding the box door closed. “Make the calls, Jamie. I want Lieutenant Rossi. I want Gunner, too. See that he gets out here and checks the colt over.”

  “He looks fine,” Jamison began, but was already nodding. His eyes were bloodshot and strained. “I’ll get him here, Gabe. Take her on up, do what you can for her. I’ll sit up myself with the colt tonight.”

  “I want two men on him.” Gabe lifted Kelsey as carefully as a man handling spun glass. “No less than two at any time. Is that understood?”

  “It is.”

  “And find Kip. I want to talk to him.”

  “All right.” With a heavy heart Jamison watched Gabe carry Kelsey outside. He turned to the colt, rubbed his weary eyes, then went to make the calls.

  “I’m all right, really.” But Kelsey kept her eyes closed on the trip from barn to house. “Just a headache.”

  “Be quiet,” Gabe told her, fighting to keep his voice light. “Just rest.”

  His jaw tightened as his boots crunched over bits of the shattered mugs. If he hadn’t stopped to make the goddamned tea. If he’d been with her . . .

  “Are you sure Double’s all right? I didn’t have a chance to see.”

  “Will you stop worrying about the fucking horse?” It exploded out of him, and unlocked the gates. “Do you think I give a damn about that horse right now? I’d have killed him myself if he’d have hurt you.”

  “Gabe—”

  “Shut up! Goddammit!” His face a mask of rage, he shoved the door open. She cringed, chiefly because his shouting caused her head to swim.

  “There’s no need to yell. You’re entitled to be upset, but—”

  “Upset?” He laid her down on the couch in the living room. The way his muscles were beginning to tremble, he wasn’t certain he could carry her up the stairs. “Is that what you think I am, upset? A little out of sorts maybe because someone knocked you senseless? Yeah, that’s right. I’m upset.”

  He fisted his hand and worked off a fraction of the emotions boiling inside him by ramming it into the wall.

  The words she’d been about to speak slid soundlessly down Kelsey’s throat. She stared from the dent in the wall to his battered knuckles.

  “I guess I’m upset because I found you unconscious in a stall with a panicked horse who might have trampled you to death at any minute.”

  She hadn’t thought of that, and the image it presented made her stomach lurch. She began to tremble. “Gabe. Don’t.”

  “I was a little upset because I thought, for a minute, the longest minute of my life, that you were already dead.”

  The tears began to spill over. One, then two, then a stream. “I guess ‘upset’ was the wrong word.”

  “Christ.” Abruptly hollowed out, he rubbed his hands over his face. But it didn’t help. He went to her then, gathering her close, holding her when she curled into a ball on his lap. “Christ, Kelsey, I lost my mind.” He kissed her, gently now, drying her cheeks with his lips. “I’m sorry. Let me get you some ice.”

  “No, don’t go. Just don’t go.”

  “Okay. Let me see if you’re hurt anywhere else.”

  “It’s just my head. He must have been behind me. It was stupid to rush in that way, but I wasn’t thinking. I saw the cot was empty, then that the stall door was open. All I could think of was what had nearly happened to him before. What happened to Pride.”

  “Next time think what would happen to me.” He tipped her face up. “I couldn’t handle losing you.”

  She took his hand, pressed his torn knuckles to her lips. “I guess we could both use some ice.”

  “Yeah.”

  But they stayed where they were until Rossi knocked on the door.

  An hour later, Gabe walked back from the barn again, this time with Rossi at his side. “You’ve got a hole in your security, Mr. Slater.”

  “I’m aware of that.” A hole big enough, he thought, for someone to slip through when the night watchman made his hourly outside rounds.

  “Somebody could have come in from the outside. Somebody who knows your setup here. You’ve got a lot of land, a lot of ways in and out.”

  Rossi scanned through the dark. He didn’t envy Gabe that. He much preferred his tidy apartment, the claustrophobia and comfort of the city.

  “I like taking the easy way,” he continued, “and looking at the inside.”

  Gabe was looking at the inside as well, at every hand he’d inherited from Cunningham, at every man and woman who had been hired on, or fired, in the ensuing five years.

  “You’ve already got a list of everyone who works for me. Do whatever you have to do with it.”

  “I intend to.”

  “I’ve arranged to have two men with the colt at all times. I’d be one of them myself, but I’m not willing to leave Kelsey any longer than necessary.”

  “I can’t blame you for that.” Rossi paused. It was a pretty night, what was left of it. He might as well enjoy the breeze. “She’s toughing this out pretty well. I’d say she’s taking her knock on the head better than your groom’s taking his.”

  “Could be her head’s harder.” They’d found Kip groaning back to consciousness in the empty box adjoining Double’s. “We didn’t have any trouble shipping him off to the hospital.”

  “She’ll be fine.” Curious, Rossi brushed a shard of china with the toe of his shoe.

  “I was carrying a couple of mugs when I heard the horse,” Gabe explained. “Guess I dropped them.”

  “Mmm. Like I said, she’ll be fine. You’re favoring your right shoulder.”

  Instinctively, Gabe straightened it. “It’s nothing. The colt caught me.” If it hadn’t been his shoulder, it might have been Kelsey. Her head, her face. The thought roiled in his stomach. “You’ve done a background check on me, haven’t you, Rossi?”

  “Standard procedure.
”

  “Then you know a little something about my father.”

  “Enough to know he wouldn’t win any Daddy of the Year awards.”

  “He’s in town. Has been for several weeks.” Gabe spoke without inflection. He might have been discussing the weather. “I’d say I was one of his first stops. I brushed him off with some money. Not nearly as much as he wanted. That tends to make him surly. He knows his way around the track, around the shedrow.”

  “You think your father would try to hit at you this way?”

  “He hates my guts,” Gabe said simply. “He’d hit at me any way he could, especially if he could make a profit at it. I thought I saw him at Churchill Downs during Derby week. So did one of the grooms at Three Willows. I tracked him down at Laurel a couple of days ago. He denied it.” Gabe reached for a cigar he didn’t have. “He’s lying.”

  Understanding the gesture, Rossi took out a pack of cigarettes, offered one. “I’ll check it out.”

  “You do that, Lieutenant.” Gabe’s eyes glowed steady in the flare of the match. “And keep this in mind while you do. The odds are he knew Lipsky. Rich Slater’s a man who likes to cheat. Winning the game’s more fun for him that way—and he’s been winning. He’s flashing money around.”

  “I’ll see if I can find out where he came by it.”

  “There was another race, when I was a kid. A horse from this farm was running against a horse from Three Willows.” Gabe drew smoke into his lungs, watched it drift away on the breeze when he exhaled. “The Three Willows colt stumbled, shattered his legs. They had to put him down. My father flashed some money after that race, too.”

  “That would have been in Lexington. Spring of ’73.”

  Gabe eyed Rossi through a cloud of smoke. “That’s right. That’s exactly right.”

  “Funny you didn’t mention this before.”

  “He didn’t hurt Kelsey before.”

  “Excuse me.” Matt Gunner strode up to them. His hair was still in sleep tufts. “The colt’s fine, Gabe.”

  “Good. I appreciate your coming out.”

  “That’s no problem.” Matt glanced toward the house. “Kelsey?”

  “She’s resting. The doctor advised a trip to the hospital, but she won’t budge.”

  “I’d like to look in on her, when she’s up to it.”

  “Sure.” He said his good nights, then turned back to Rossi. “You’d better find him before I do.”

  “You don’t have any proof your father was involved in any of this.”

  Gabe tossed down the cigarette, crushed it out. “I don’t need to prove anything.”

  Kelsey heard him coming up the steps and gingerly shifted to a sitting position. The pills the doctor had given her had smoothed the edges, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Double?” she said the minute Gabe came into the room.

  “Matt gave him a thumbs-up.” And he had personally discarded the colt’s night feed bag and replaced it.

  She sighed, relaxed. “Thank God. I’ve been sitting here thinking of all the possibilities.”

  “You’re supposed to be resting.” He sat on the bed, careful not to shake the mattress. “You’ve got shadows under your eyes again.” Gently, he traced them with his thumb. “Why do I always find that so sexy?”

  “Machismo looking for vulnerability.” She smiled. “Come to bed. Maybe we can both get a couple of hours’ sleep before we have to leave.”

  “I want you to stay here, Kelsey. Not here,” he corrected, “at Three Willows. You’re not up to the trip, and it would be safer and smarter for you to stay with Gertie. Rossi can arrange for a couple of men.”

  “Gabe.” She framed his face, touched her lips to his, then spoke softly. “No way in hell.”

  “Listen to me.”

  “I could,” she agreed. “I could listen to you, and you could listen to me, and we could bat this ball back and forth until morning. I’d still go. So why don’t we just pretend we’ve argued and discussed?”

  “You’re being selfish.” He pushed himself off the bed and began to undress. “You don’t want to miss the race, so it doesn’t matter that I won’t be able to concentrate or enjoy it myself.”

  Slowly, she ran her tongue over her teeth. “That was a good one. And guilt usually works with me, but not this time. You’ll worry whether I’m there or not. And I’m going to be there for you, Gabe. All the way.”

  “Goddamned mule.”

  “That won’t work either. Though name calling is an acceptable stage in a good fight. I could counter that by calling you an overprotective ass, but I’ll refrain because I’m a lady. So—” Her breath caught on a hiss. “Oh, God, what did you do to your back?”

  He twisted his head but could get only a marginal glimpse at the dark, spreading bruise on his shoulder. “Took a kick.”

  “When? It wasn’t there before . . .” She trailed off, realizing just when and just how he’d come by it. “Now I will call you an ass. What kind of numb-headed heroics is this? The doctor was just here. He could have treated it.”

  “It wasn’t heroics, numb-headed or otherwise. I was distracted.” Cautiously he rotated his shoulder. The sting wasn’t so bad, but the throb went deep and had teeth. “Just needs some liniment.”

  “Jerk.”

  He started to snap back, then sighed, defeated. “I love you too.” Slipping into bed, he cradled her against him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting some sleep. I’m supposed to check on you every couple of hours. We don’t have much more than that anyway.”

  “The liniment.”

  “Later. I just want to hold you.”

  Content with that, she brushed his hair from his brow. “Gabe. I’m going with you.”

  “I know. Go to sleep.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  NO ONE WOULD LET HER WORK. FOR HER FIRST TWO DAYS IN NEW York, Kelsey was all but barred from the track, outnumbered and outflanked by everyone from Gabe down to the scruffiest stableboy. It seemed the trip itself was to be her only victory.

  With too much time on her hands, and too much of it spent alone, she decided she had two options. She could go quietly mad, or she could treat the enforced inactivity as a short vacation.

  The vacation seemed healthier.

  She made use of the hotel facilities, swimming each morning to keep the muscles she’d developed over the past few months in shape. She shopped, began a love-hate relationship with the Nautilus equipment in the health club, and generally fought off boredom.

  It helped that Gabe had decided to give a pre-race party, using the hotel ballroom on the evening before the Belmont. It gave Kelsey the opportunity to plot out the details, talk strategy with the florist and the hotel caterer. Gabe, after one look at the yards of lists, took the coward’s route, and left the entire matter in her hands.

  Nothing could have pleased her more.

  She spent hours with the hotel manager, the concierge, the chef, debating and dissecting what could and couldn’t be done. As Gabe had put no ceiling on the budget, she had already decided there was nothing that couldn’t be done, and set about convincing the staff.

  “I’d have been smarter handing you a pitchfork and letting you clean out stalls all week.” Gabe grabbed a quick cup of coffee and watched Kelsey pore over the final menu for the evening. “You’d have gotten more rest.”

  “Stop fussing. You’re the one who started this.”

  “I thought a party would be a good idea.” He moved over to stand behind her, rubbing her shoulders as she muttered over her papers. “A little food, some music, an open bar. I didn’t realize I’d be backing a David O. Selznick production.” He narrowed his eyes. “How much champagne is that?”

  “Go away.” But she rolled her shoulders under his hands. “You’re not going to drink it anyway. You gave me carte blanche, Slater, and I’m using it. Just be in your tuxedo by eight.”

  “More like Captain Bligh tha
n Selznick,” he muttered.

  “Now you sound like the caterer. Go meet your reporters.”

  “I’m sick of reporters.”

  “You’re just jealous because they put Double on the cover of Sports Illustrated instead of you.”

  “I got the spread in People,” he reminded her, and entertained himself by nibbling on her ear. “This is a great spot right here,” he murmured, nipping his way up her left lobe. “I could be temperamental and miss the interview.”

  The quick, delicious shivers distracted her. Gabe took advantage and had the first two buttons of her blouse undone before she shook herself free.

  “Stop that! I have an appointment in fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll work fast.”

  “I mean it.” Breathless, she squirmed away, scrambled out of the chair. “I’m getting my hair done.”

  He grinned. Just now it was tumbling out of the bright, cloth-covered elastic. He’d done that. “I like your hair exactly the way it is.”

  “Keep your distance, Slater. The rest of my day is booked, minute by minute, and I didn’t schedule any time for you to chase me around the desk.”

  “Adjust.”

  “This may be just a party for you.” As ridiculous as it was, she scooted so that the desk was between them. “But putting it together has kept me sane all week. I have an emotional investment.”

  “So do I.” He put his palms down on the desk, leaned forward. “Come here.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I’ve got something for you.”

  “Oh, please.” She’d have rolled her eyes if she’d dared take them off him. “That’s very lame.”

  He straightened, cocked a brow. “A present.” He took a small velvet box out of his pocket. “Now aren’t you ashamed?”

  “A present?” Despite the instant flare of pleasure, she eyed it warily. “Is this a trick?”

  “Open it. I was going to give it to you after the race, but I thought it would be better luck for you to have it before.”

  It lured her. She came around the desk to take it from him, then lifted her mouth to his for a kiss. “Thank you.”

  “You haven’t opened it yet.”