by J. R. Ward
"Flowers." She lifted the bouquet a little higher. "I'm here to replace your flowers."
"Oh. Thank you. That's awfully good of you."
Clearly, he had no clue what he was saying to her. The politeness seemed like just a reflex, the conversational equivalent of a lower leg kicking when its knee was hit with a rubber hammer.
This is not your business, she told herself as she went across to the bureau.
The swap took a split second, and then she had the barely wilted, old one in her hands, and was walking back over to the half-open door. She told herself not to look over at him as she left. For all she knew, his favorite hunting dog had ringworm . . . or maybe that girlfriend of his in Virginia had found out about all his extracurricular exercise here in Charlemont.
That biggest mistake thing happened just as she got to the jambs.
Later, when things had blown up in her face, after she'd overridden her walls of self-protection and gotten burned, she would become convinced that if she'd only kept going, she would have been fine. Their lives wouldn't have slammed into each other's and left such shrapnel all over her.
But she did look back at him.
And she just had to open her mouth again: "What's wrong?"
Lane's eyes swung up to her. "I'm sorry?"
"What's your problem?"
He braced his hands against his knees. "I'm sorry."
She waited for something else. "About what?"
His eyes closed, his head ducking down again.
Even though he made no sound, she knew he was weeping.
And that was so completely not what she expected from someone like him.
Closing the door, she wanted to protect his privacy for him. "What happened? Is everyone all right?"
Lane shook his head, took a deep breath, and recomposed himself. "No. Not everyone."
"Is it your sister? I've heard she's had some issues--"
"Edward. They took him."
Edward . . . ? God, she had seen the man around the estate from time to time--and he appeared to be the last person anyone could "take" anywhere. Unlike his father whose office was at Easterly, Edward worked down at BBC headquarters in the heart of the city, and from what little she knew, he was the anti-Lane, a very serious, extremely aggressive businessman.
"I'm sorry, I'm not quite following?" she said.
"He was kidnapped in South America, and the ransom is being negotiated." He rubbed his face hard. "I can't imagine what they're doing to him--it's been five days since the demand. Jesus Christ, how did this happen? He was supposed to be protected down there. How did they let this happen?"
Then he shook himself, and pegged her with hard eyes. "You can't say anything. Gin doesn't even know yet. We're keeping everything quiet so it doesn't get out in the press yet."
"I won't. I mean, I won't say a word. Are the authorities involved?"
"My father's been working with them. This is a nightmare--I told him not to go down there."
"I am so sorry." What a pathetic statement. "Is there anything I can do?"
Which was just another pathetic bunch of syllables.
"It should have been me," Lane muttered. "Or Max. Why couldn't it have been one of us? We're worthless. It should have been one of us."
The next thing she knew, she'd put the vase down somewhere and was over by the bed. "Is there someone I can get for you?"
"It should have been me."
She sat down next to him and lifted a hand to touch his shoulder, but then she thought better of that--
A cell phone went off on the bedside table, and when he made no move to answer it, she asked, "Do you want to pick that up?"
When he didn't reply, she leaned to the side and looked at the screen. Chantal Blair Stowe.
"I think it's your girlfriend."
He glanced over. "Who?" Lizzie reached around and picked up the phone, showing the screen to him. "No, I don't want to talk to her. And she's not my girlfriend."
Is she aware of that, Lizzie wondered as she put the thing back.
Lane shook his head. "Edward's the only one of us who's worth a dime."
"That's not true."
He laughed in a hard burst. "The hell it's not. And that was your point last week, wasn't it."
Abruptly, Lane focused on her, and there was a strange silence, as if it were only then that he realized who was in the room with him.
Lizzie's heart began to pound. There was something in those eyes of his that she hadn't seen before--and God help her, she knew what it was.
Sex with a playboy was nothing she was interested in. Raw lust with a real man? That . . . was so much harder to walk away from.
"You need to go now," he said in a tight voice.
Yes, she told herself. I do.
And yet for some crazy reason, she whispered, "Why?"
"Because if I wanted you when it was just a game"--that stare of his locked on her mouth--"in my current mood, I'm desperate for you."
Lizzie recoiled, and this time when he laughed, it was deeper, lower. "Don't you know that stress is like alcohol? It makes you reckless, stupid, and hungry. I should know . . . my family deals so well in--"
*
"It is taken care of, Miss King."
Lizzie jumped out of her skin with a gasp. "What!"
Mr. Harris frowned. "The tent rental. It has been taken care of."
"Oh, yes, great. Thanks."
She stumbled as she turned away from the butler. Then she went the wrong way down the hall, heading toward the public rooms of the house. Before Mr. Harris called that to her attention, she doubled back, found a door to the outside, and broke out--
Right into the garden.
Right below Lane's bedroom window.
Putting her hands to her face, she remembered how he had kissed her two nights after she had sat with him in his bedroom.
She had been the one to seek him out--and there hadn't been any flower excuse that time: She had waited for as long as she'd been able to stand it, and then she'd deliberately gone to his room at the end of her work day to see how he was doing, what was going on, whether there had been any resolution.
Nothing had made it into the press at that point. All that coverage had come later, after Edward had finally come home.
That second time she'd gone to his bedrom, she had knocked more softly--and after a moment, he had opened the way in . . . and she could still picture how much he had aged. He'd been gaunt, unshaven, with black circles under his eyes. He had changed his clothes, although they were just different versions of what he had always worn: A monogrammed button-down--except it was untucked on one side. Expensive slacks--except they were creased at the bend of the pelvis and unpressed at the heads of the knees. Gucci loafers--no, he'd only had dark socks on.
And all that pretty much told her what she needed to know.
"Come with me," she'd said to him. "You need to get out of this room."
In a hoarse voice, he'd asked her what time it was, and she'd told him it was after eight. When he'd looked confused, she'd had to clarify that it was at night.
She had led him down the back stairs as if he were a child, taking him by the hand, talking about nonsense. The only thing he said was that he didn't want anyone to see him--and she had made sure that happened, directing him away from the talk in the dining room, keeping him safe from prying eyes.
As she had drawn him out into the warm night, she had heard laughter from where dinner was being eaten in that grand formal room.
How could they do that? she'd wondered. Chatter on as if there were nothing wrong . . . as if one of them weren't far, far away, in danergous hands.
At the time, she had had no idea what she was doing with Lane or why she cared so much that he was suffering. She only knew that the one-dimensional playboy she'd written off as a waste of privilege had become human, and his pain mattered to her.
They hadn't gone far. Just down the brick walkway, in between the flowering shrubs and beds and ov
er to the gazebo in the garden's far corner.
They had sat together and not said much. But when she had reached for his hand, he had taken what she offered and held on tight.
And when he had turned to her, she had known what he wanted--and it wasn't talking. There had been a moment of traffic jam in her head, all kinds of whoa, wait, stop, too far . . .
But then she had leaned in and their lips had touched.
The thoughts had been so complicated. The connection had been so simple.
But it hadn't stayed that way. He had grabbed her, and she had let him. He had put his hands into her clothes, and she had let him.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, she had realized that she'd hated him because she was attracted to him. Crazy attracted. And she had watched him in the pool that afternoon, although there had been so much more than that: Every time he had come to the house or left, she had tried to get a look at him--even though she would have denied it to anyone and everybody. News that he was imminently arriving at Easterly had had the ability to electrify her, and his departures had subdued her. And the pathetic reality was that she had envied those women, those dumb blondes with their perfect bodies and their Southern drawls who had put the proverbial revolving door to his bedroom to good use.
The truth that she had not wanted to admit to herself was that she would have found something to dislike in him no matter what his demographics had been.
It hadn't been about his money, his old family, the multiple women, his too-good looks or too-slick smile.
What she had hated about him was how he made her feel. The vulnerability had been a vicious intruder into her life, an unwelcome houseguest that had moved in, and traveled with her to work, and dogged her even in her dreams.
In retrospect, she should have listened to that fear. Chosen that instinct over the incredible attraction.
Life wasn't always that proactively wise, however.
Sometimes you didn't heed the warning signs, and you put the pedal to the metal, and you went screaming around the blind turn.
She still had pain from the crash, that was for sure.
EIGHT
Red & Black Stables, Ogden County, KY
As the sun began to set, its golden rays penetrated Stable B's open bay, spilling onto the broad concrete aisle and leaving a trail of pure magic through which hay and dust particles ambled. The rhythmic sound of a box broom whisking down the way brought out the mares' heads, their intelligent eyes and graceful muzzles popping forward in inquiry.
Edward Westfork Bradford Baldwine went slow on the sweeping, his body not what it once had been. And the effort wasn't all that bad, the constant pain he was in ceding to the gentle exercise. The chronic discomfort would return, however, as soon as he stopped or fell into a different series of movements.
He had become used to that.
The combination of muscles and bones and organs that supported his brain on its journey through this current mortal incarnation was a machine that no longer made transitions well. It much preferred entrenched activity, repeated effort in a prescribed fashion or sustained rest in any position. His physical therapists, a.k.a. the Sadists, told him to stay active with varied pursuits, rather like, as they had explained, someone who was having to rewire their brain through occupational therapy.
The more he kept changing things up, the better for his "recovery."
He always put that word in quotation marks. True recovery to him was a return to what he had been--and that was never going to happen even if he were able to walk right, eat right, sleep through the night.
There was no going back to that other person, who had been a younger, better-natured, better-looking version of himself.
He hated the Sadists, but they were just part of a long list of things for which he held enmity. And this broken body they seemed so intent on rehabbing was simply not getting with the program. He'd been at it for how long? And still the pain, all the time the pain, to the point where it was hard to gather the energy to break through that wall of fire and get to where he was in this moment, where things were working in some semblance of order.
It was as if he were meeting the same mugger in every alley he tried to go down.
He sometimes wondered if he would feel less worn out if it were a different criminal from time to time, a different foe making off with his quality of life.
The robberies had been from a consistent thief, however.
"What are you doing, girl?" He paused to stroke a black muzzle. "You good?"
After a chuffing reply from the thoroughbred, Edward kept going. The breeding season had gone very well, and he had ninety percent of his twenty-three mares in foal. If all went as planned, their babies would be born the following January, critical for ensuring start-of-the-year birth dates: For racing, the clock began ticking by the calendar, not the actual drop date--so if you wanted the future three-year-old you'd run in the Derby to be as mature and strong as possible? You better get those mares foaling no later than March for their nearly year-long pregnancies.
Most racing people operated in a stratified system where the breeders were separate from the yearling breakers, who were different from the track trainers. But he had enough money and time on his hands so that he not only bred, but ushered his horses through elementary school here on his farm, to middle school at a center he'd bought last year, to the booking blocks of stalls at Steeplehill Downs in Charlemont and Garland Downs in neighboring Arlington, Kentucky.
The money required for his breeding and racing operation was astronomical, and any return on investment was a hypothetical--which was why syndicates of investors were typically formed to spread the financial exposure and risk. He, on the other hand, didn't do syndicates. Co-investors. Partners.
He hadn't lost anything yet. In fact, he was almost making money. His operation, in the last year and a half, had produced remarkable results--all thanks to Nebekanzer, his stallion, who happened to be the biggest, meanest sonofabitch anyone had ever come across. That nasty bastard bred fast sons and daughters, though--something he had discovered when he'd moved here to the Red & Black's caretaker's cottage and bought the four-hooved spawn of the devil and three of Neb's two-year progeny at auction. The following year? All three descendants had won more than two hundred grand apiece by April, and one of them had been second in the Derby, third in the Preakness, and first in the Belmont.
And that had been his farm off to the races, as they say. This year, he was slated to do even better. He had two horses in the Derby.
Both from Neb's loins.
He couldn't say that his heart was in the business, but it certainly was better than sitting around and ruminating on everything he had lost.
Just like all those racehorses, he had been bred, born, and trained for a given future: to take over the Bradford Bourbon Company. But like a thoroughbred who had broken his leg, that was no longer his future.
"Buenas noches, jefe."
Edward nodded at one of his eleven stable hands. "Hasta manana."
He resumed his sweeping, ducking his head--
"Jefe, hay algo aqui."
"Who?"
"No se."
Edward frowned and used the broom as a cane, limping down to the open bay. Outside, on the circular drive, a two-acre-long black limousine was rolling to a halt over in front of Barn A.
Moe Brown, the stable manager, walked out to the monstrosity, the man's long strides eating up the distance. Moe was sixty, lanky as a fence rail, and smart as a mathematician. He also had "the eye": That guy could pretty much tell a horse's future from the moment the animal stood up on its hooves for the first time. It was spooky--and invaluable in the business.
And he was slowly but surely teaching his secrets to Edward.
Edward's innate knack, on the other hand, was the breeding. He just seemed to know which bloodlines to cross.
As Moe stopped at the limo, a uniformed chauffeur got out and went around to the rear doors--and Edward shook his head w
hen he saw what emerged.
The Pendergasts were sending in the heavy guns.
The forty-ish woman emerging from the vehicle's backseat was thinner by three times than even Moe, dressed in pink Chanel, and had more hair than what was in Neb's entire tail. Beauty-queen pretty, pampered as a Pomeranian, and with a will to give those Steel Magnolias a run for their money, Buggy Pendergast was used to getting her way.
For example, about five years ago she'd played her hand and gotten one of the scions of an old oil family to throw out his perfectly good first wife in favor of her. And ever since then she'd been dumping his money into thoroughbreds.
Edward had already told her no three times over the phone.
No syndicates. No co-investors. No partners.
He bred for himself and no one else.
The man who got out after Buggy was not her husband, and given the briefcase he was holding, one had to assume he was an accountant of some kind. Certainly wasn't a security guard. Too short, and those glasses were a testosterone drain if Edward had ever seen one.
Moe started jawing with them, and Edward could tell it was not going well. Then things went from bad to worse when that briefcase got summarily laid on the hood of the limousine and Buggy opened it with a flourish--like she was lifting up her skirt and expecting everyone to moan with approval.
Edward came out into the late sunshine with his broom-cane and his bad mood. As he approached, Buggy didn't look over. And when he stopped behind Moe, she gave him nothing but a glare--as if she didn't appreciate a stable hand playing witness to all this.
"--quarter of a million dollars," she said, "and I'm leaving with my colt."
Moe moved the piece of straw he was chewing on to the other side of his mouth. "Don't think so."
"I have the money."
"Y'all need to leave the property--"
"Where is Edward Baldwine! I demand to speak with--"
"I'm right here," Edward said in a low voice. "Moe, I'll handle this."
"And the Lord grants us small miracles," the man muttered as he walked off.
As Buggy's colored contacts went up and down Edward's body, even her Botoxed face strained with the shock she clearly felt. "Edward . . . you look . . ."
"Smashing, I know." He nodded at the money. "Close that ridiculous show up, get back in your vehicle and go on about your business. I told you over the phone, I do not sell my stock."
