Dark Horse

by J. Carson Black

  Having a great filly may have improved her relations with the other trainers, but it did not make her one of them. They were all polite to her face, but she knew that secretly many of them believed a novice shouldn’t have a horse like that. She’d been around racetracks long enough to know how people talked. They’d admit she was lucky, but it didn’t make her a racehorse trainer. Dakota was inclined to agree with them. It would take a lifetime for her to become as good a trainer as her father, if she had the talent and worked hard.

  Training Shameless was a humbling experience. When you had a filly that did everything you asked, you just thanked God and tried not to get in her way. Outsiders might confuse a talented horse with a talented trainer, but Dakota knew better. One of Coke’s favorite expressions was, “Any trainer can win with a great horse—for a while.” Keeping the horse sound, that was the challenge.

  Still, all the attention was exhilarating. Dakota couldn’t help feeling the thrill of pride as she led the filly to and from her gallops.

  For the second work in company, Dakota sent Shameless out with Dangerously in mid-April. Shameless ran away from the colt. After that, Dakota kept the filly to long gallops and a few brisk blowouts, just to keep the edge. She wouldn’t let Ernesto ask the filly to really run again until the Santa Cruz County Futurity trials in two weeks’ time.

  Then, she’d be running for money.

  Meanwhile, Dakota hauled Shameless to another town to have her “gate okayed.” Only when a horse showed he could act well in the gate, was he eligible to race. Until the Santa Cruz County Fair meet officially started at the end of April, all Sonoita had was a dinky little four-horse gate for trainers to school their horses. The actual racing gate, as well as the tote board, made the rounds from one county fair meet to another, towed by a semi.

  Unable to continue paying the security guards and still keep to her budget, Dakota set up Coke’s old trailer near the filly’s stall. Ernesto was only too happy to move in.

  At the eye of the storm, Shameless was remarkably calm, although it was clear she felt good. Dakota sensed that Shameless knew what she’d been made for. She saved her energy for running. She broke well from the gate. She never acted up on the way to the track. She always accepted the saddling and bridling, bathing and bandages, medication and shoeing with stoic equanimity. She was perfect.

  Except of course for the killing way she ran. This fear nagged at Dakota constantly, and many times, she wished she could just retire Shameless before the filly had a chance to race. But more and more, she could see it wouldn’t be fair to Shameless. The horse wanted to run; it was her destiny. Coke had been right, this time. Dakota only hoped her own courage matched the filly’s.

  A week before the Futurity trials, Rita invited Dakota to lunch. Curious, she accepted.

  Rita’s stucco palace sat on a hill in a newly subdivided section of Sonoita—a ratio of one house to every six or seven acres. Like a tall wedge of white cake topped by an orange frosting of Spanish tile, the house towered above a grassy plot dotted by junipers and oak. Typical of the new houses going up in Arizona that owed their architectural style to Taco Bell. A new dark-green Range Rover stood in the circular drive, a temporary license sticker in the rear window.

  Rita answered the door herself. The air-conditioning blasted air cold enough to freeze the blood. Rita wore a shocking pink exercise bra, matching headband, and a flippy skirt over tights. She smudged at her face with a fluffy towel. “I just finished my workout. Why don’t you sit down while I freshen up.”

  Dakota glanced around the spacious, many-windowed house. It looked as if Rita had bought out a Santa Fe boutique.

  When Rita returned, wearing a midriff blouse and tight jeans, she was accompanied by an enormous bodybuilder, whose massive jaw was framed by long, blond hair. “I hope you don’t mind, but I promised Mario I’d pay him.” She went to a tall, standing cabinet whose doors were striped with saguaro ribs, opening one side and extracting a checkbook. Dakota smelled the fresh, sweet scent of untreated wood.

  Mario had come around the couch and was trying to make small talk with Dakota, his ocean-blue eyes full of meaningful looks. Dakota found herself looking lower, fascinated by the ridged muscles of his stomach, as well defined as the jointed torso of a scorpion.

  Rita handed him his check and sat down, licking salt off a margarita glass that had materialized in her hand somewhere along the line. “Mario’s my personal trainer. He’s wonderful.”

  Was Rita parading her gorgeous personal trainer like a prize bull at a stock show to see if Dakota would bid?

  She leaned back on the leather couch and listened to Rita sing Mario’s praises.

  The onslaught continued at lunch in the “morning room” over pasta salad and white wine. Mario came in to make himself a blender drink. A towel hung around his neck, and spandex shorts bisected his mountainous thighs.

  Rita caught Dakota looking at him and permitted herself a satisfied smile. “What do you think of my Range Rover?”

  “Very nice. But what are those bars for?”

  “Bars?” For a moment, Rita looked puzzled. Then she smiled. “Oh, on the front. The dealer told me they’re used in Africa to deflect rhinoceros charges.”

  Dakota wondered how many rhinos Rita encountered on a milk run to the Circle K. “You must feel remarkably safe.”

  Dakota’s sarcasm was lost on Rita. “It’s the best,” she said simply. “Mario, would you bring the rolls please?”

  Mario hopped to. He set the basket down near Dakota, brushing her shoulder with his arm. She could smell his clean sweat and realized that she wasn’t quite unmoved by the sinewy play of his muscles.

  As he retracted his hand, he managed (quite naturally, she thought) to knock over her water glass. “I’m so sorry,” he said. He took a linen napkin and started blotting the shoulder of her blouse, headed for her breasts. She took the towel from him and smiled a thank you. He kept saying over and over how sorry he was and called her bella donna, which Dakota had always thought was a poisonous plant.

  She glanced at Rita, sending her a clear message. Rita snapped, “That’s all, Mario. Would you please take the Rover and fill it up, check the tires? I’ve got to go to Tucson tomorrow.”

  He bowed out, obviously disappointed.

  “He likes you,” Rita said.

  “That’s nice.”

  “Oh, all right then.” She shrugged, taking her glass of wine into the living room and sitting down. “That’s not what I asked you over here to talk about anyway.”

  A Himalayan cat tippy-toed into the room and hoisted herself onto Rita’s lap. Rita scratched the cat under the chin, making baby sounds. Then she said, “I’d like to buy Shameless.”

  Dakota could only stare at her in amazement.

  “Well?”

  “She’s not for sale.”

  “Have you ever seriously considered selling her? It would . . . get you out from under. I know how much you want to get back to LA.”

  Rita would never make a poker player.

  “I’m prepared to offer you a great deal of money for her. More than she’s worth at the moment.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “Look.” Rita leaned forward. “What did you pay for her? Twenty-five thousand? I’m prepared to offer ten times that.”

  A quarter of a million dollars? Momentarily, Dakota’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Think about it.”

  Dakota did some quick mental arithmetic. If Shameless won the Santa Cruz County Futurity, she’d earn less than twenty thousand dollars. The Rainbow was far more lucrative. The winner’s purse was over two hundred thousand. The big one—the All American—was one million dollars to the winner, but the odds against winning it were astronomical.

  A quarter of a million dollars. What kind of idiot would turn down money like that?

  Was Shameless worth that much? A cynical part of her said no, but Clay is. She had no doubt that leaving Sonoita was an unspoken
part of the deal.

  Dakota thought of what it would mean. The work she’d put in, the hours of preparing the filly: everything would be for nothing. She’d never get to walk on the backside again. Never get to stand at the rail, watching her filly run. Never get a chance to see if Shameless could win a big race. “I can’t,” she said simply and realized it was the truth. Shameless was a Black Oak horse, and she would carry Coke’s colors to the All American.

  “Forgive me, Dakota, if I don’t understand how you could be so cavalier about an offer like that. I understand your father’s estate is in arrears. Shameless has never even run in a race. That’s a lot of money to turn down for an untried filly.”

  Rita was right. It was getting harder and harder to meet all the bills. Black Oak needed a great infusion of cash if it were to survive. But Dakota had made a commitment to train one horse. After Shameless ran in the All American, Dakota might sell Black Oak anyway. “She’s entered in the All American. If she wins, she’ll make over four times that.”

  “Do you know what the chances are of getting a horse even into one of those races, let alone winning?” Rita leaned back, crossed one knee over the other, and bounced her leg. Her Abrazo sandal slipped down to nudge her painted toenails. “One million then. That’s what you’d win if she took the All American.”

  “Are you nuts?” The words burst out of Dakota’s mouth before she could call them back.

  “It’s a legitimate offer.”

  They were in the stratosphere now. Dakota tried to picture a million dollars, and what it could do for her—but couldn’t. The offer wasn’t at all real to her. They might as well be playing Monopoly.

  Rita sipped some more chardonnay, her expression smug. She acted as if it were a foregone conclusion that Dakota would sell. “You could have the money in ten business days.”

  Dakota’s head throbbed. This was too much. She thought of Samuel Riddle, the man who owned Man-o’-War. He, too, had been offered a million dollars for his horse, back in the 1920s, when it was worth one hell of a lot more. His answer had been that there were plenty of millionaires in the world, but there was only one man who owned Man-o’-War.

  But Shameless was no Man-o’-War. She was just a very fast filly. She could be injured tomorrow and never run a race.

  Rita seemed to read her thoughts. “Every time you run that horse, it’s a gamble. You know how easy it is to injure them, especially at this age. I’m offering you the money—one million dollars—and chances are, she’ll never make a fraction of that.”

  “Why?”

  “I have the money and I happen to like that filly. I want her for my own. And I’d like a shot at the All American,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

  “Would you be so anxious to pay a million dollars for an untried horse if I weren’t Clay’s ex-wife?”

  “That has nothing to do with it. You’re old business.”

  Dakota set her glass down on the coffee table. “I think I’d better go.”

  Suddenly, Rita’s face twisted into a mask of hatred. “He doesn’t want you.”

  “At least I’m not trying to buy him.”

  “I don’t have to buy him. I’m just giving you a way to save face.”

  “Save face?”

  “He’s toying with you.”

  Dakota laughed. “Clay’s not like that.”

  “Oh, isn’t he?” Rita took another sip of wine. “What else would you call it, flirting with you while he’s sleeping with someone else? He did it to you before.”

  Dakota’s breath went out of her, as if her lungs were a vacuum-packed can suddenly exposed to the air.

  Rita’s eyes glittered with triumph. “Why don’t you take the money? You don’t belong here. Clay will only hurt you if you stay.”

  “I don’t believe you.” The words tasted mealy in her mouth.

  “Ask him.”

  Dakota knew then that Rita was telling her the truth. Betrayal crashed into her. Why hadn’t he told her he had a relationship with Rita? Logically, she knew Clay didn’t owe her a thing. He was her ex-husband, she admonished herself. But Dakota couldn’t help the way she felt. The thought of seeing him every day at the track, spending time in his company— made her ill. God knew, he was probably laughing at her gullibility right now.

  “Ten business days,” Rita said.

  It was tempting. Take the money. Get on a plane and head for home. Forget the filly, forget the ranch—there was no future here. She’d been fooling herself, thinking she could fit in again. And always lurking at the back of her mind, the ridiculous idea that she and Clay might . . .

  Dakota closed her eyes to blot out the thought.

  “It’s dangerous here anyway,” Rita said. “There’s talk that Coke’s death wasn’t an accident.”

  “What? Where’d you hear that?”

  “Around. Somebody has it in for you. If you were wise, you’d hightail it back to LA as fast as you can. With a million dollars you could go in style. You know what they say. Accidents happen.”

  Shock bolted through her. Those were the exact words on the photocopy.

  An unfortunate choice of words, that’s all, Dakota told herself. A coincidence. Shaken, she headed for the door.

  “Think about my offer.”

  “Go to hell,” Dakota said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The official county fair meet opened a week before the Futurity trials, and Dakota was no longer welcome on the backside until she was licensed as a trainer.

  She had to take a trainer test administered by the chief steward. Since the test was scheduled for eight o’clock on a Thursday morning, three days after the meet opened, Dakota was not allowed on the track unless she came as someone’s guest. Early Monday morning Clay came over to the gate to escort her onto the backside.

  “Is this charade really necessary?” she snapped as they walked to her barn. “I’m sure you have something better to do with your time.” Like boff Rita.

  “You’re not even supposed to be handling that horse. For all the state knows, you could be some bimbo who’d dash out onto the track right into the path of a runner. I’ve taken on a lot of responsibility.”

  “Yeah, right.” The ache in her stomach that had started Saturday at Rita’s wouldn’t go away. Logically, she knew there had never been any hope for a reconciliation, but the sense of betrayal was hard to shake.

  Why the hell did he have to kiss her?

  Clay leaned on the barn door as Dakota cross-tied Shameless for her grooming. “I forgot to ask. How was your lunch with Rita?”

  She busied herself with the dandy brush, careful not to look at him. “The entree was a bit thick through the middle,” she said, referring to Mario’s impressive stomach.

  “She served steak?”

  “Italian beef, but I didn’t have any.”

  “Are we talking about the same thing here?”

  “She’s got a Man Friday named Mario. She kind of thought he and I would make an item.”

  “I thought Rita didn’t like you. Why would she play matchmaker?”

  A leading question if she ever heard one. She suspected he knew exactly what was going on and was enjoying the thought of two grown women wrangling over him. Well, she’d be damned if she would confirm his suspicions.

  Clay took the hay net down and started filling it with flakes of hay. “I’m not seeing Rita anymore.”

  “What’s it to me?”

  “I thought you’d like to know.”

  Dakota got the mane comb from the tack box. “So I know.”

  “You can’t pull it off.”

  “What?”

  “The tough act. It doesn’t work.”

  She attacked the filly’s short mane with a vengeance. “You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you? Every woman within fifty miles wants you. How can you stand it? You must feel like a wishbone!”

  “What’s with you, McAllister?”

  “You annoy the hell out of me, that’s what.”
/>
  “Because it didn’t work out between us ten years ago? We were kids! Different people. At least I know I am.” He gripped her wrist.

  She glared at him. “Let go of me.”

  His fingers tightened, causing white streaks on her flesh, before he abruptly dropped her arm. She could tell he was seething underneath. He passed a hand across his forehead.

  “I’m sorry.” He stared into the middle distance, his eyes dark and brooding.

  Suddenly, the impulse to reach out and touch him was overwhelming. She wanted so badly to feel the warmth of his flesh against her fingers, the comfort it would give her.

  While he’s flirting with you, he’s sleeping with me. The pain hit her in the solar plexus. How in the world had she ever gotten herself into this mess?

  His eyes were dark with disappointment. “Blame me then, if it makes you feel better.” He walked away, leaving her feeling vaguely guilty and completely unhappy.

  Dakota passed the trainer’s test and was duly licensed as a horse trainer by the State of Arizona. The steward took her mug shot and fingerprinted her. All she needed now was an orange jumpsuit, and she’d be all set. Horse racing had to be the only job on earth where they treated you like a criminal.

  As she emerged from the trailer where the test had been given, she saw Clay just outside the door, ostensibly talking to an official. When their eyes met, electricity quivered through her. Had he been waiting to see how she did? He stepped forward, a grin on his face. She walked right past him, trying not to notice how his smile turned into a grim line.

  She “celebrated” by having an ice cream cone at El Prado. Alone. And found herself wishing that she hadn’t snubbed Clay like that.

  She sat on the tailgate of Coke’s truck, licking her ice cream and staring at the Sonoita crossing. Her head told her to steer clear, protect herself. But her heart told her that Clay had never lied to her. He might not have told her about his love life with Rita, but then she’d never asked.