The Horseman

by Anna Jeffrey

  “The one thing in the whole damn world that I’m not worried about is the faculty at Drinkwell High School.”

  She gasped. “I’m not worried about them either. I’m trying to make a point. And the point is we haven’t used any kind of birth control once. We didn’t before we got married.”

  “We didn’t get together that often before we got married. You know that.”

  “I’m thirty-two years old, Pic, and you’re thirty-four. The window’s closing. I told Dr. Goodman all of that. That’s why she wants to see us both.”

  That barrage of facts brought a wince inside Pic. Better than most people, he knew the powerful animal instinct to procreate. He saw it every day. It was part of his occupation and his everyday life and had been for as far back as he could remember. Being a male part of the animal kingdom himself, why didn’t he feel that drive to propagate the species, especially with Mandy? “After Christmas. Can’t we talk about it after Christmas?”

  “We’ve already talked about it. I want us to do something about it. Like have some tests or something. If three doctors have said there’s nothing wrong with me...”

  Jesus! Did they think something was wrong with him? Something Grandma had said on the day of Drake’s wedding flew into Pic’s mind: “...Trying to get pregnant. It gets to be a chore when it doesn’t work. Bill Senior and I did everything trying to get me pregnant. We didn’t have all this artificial stuff they got now. We even tried raising the foot of the bed so Bill Senior’s semen wouldn’t run out of me. I was past forty before your daddy was born. We worried if he’d turn out okay....”

  Pic had been too busy to think about that talk from his grandmother, but now it bloomed front and center. Did some kind of problem run in the Lockhart family? At odd moments, he had wondered ever since he heard her say that stuff. Never mind that his dad had sired four kids.

  All the years he and Mandy had had sex, they said they used the rhythm method of birth control. But they had kidded themselves. Because they experienced long dry spells between hook-ups, plenty of times they both had been too horny to pay attention to a schedule and he shot his wad inside her with no barrier and without regard for the time of the month. Nothing had ever happened. They hadn’t even experienced one of those “late-period-scares” he had worried about when he was younger. Was it possible he might not be able to produce a child?

  The notion set off a new anxiety. “You think something’s wrong with me? You and that doctor think I’m firing blanks?”

  “I don’t know, Pic. There are a lot of reasons for failing to conceive. Like I said, Dr. Goodman is really easy to talk to. I’ve been thinking we should make an appointment with her and maybe discuss some things like artificial insemination maybe or even in vitro.”

  He knew as much as there was to know about artificial insemination in cattle and horses. His eyes bugged. “AI? IVF? Are you kidding?”

  “They don’t call it that in humans, Pic. There are several options. There’s IVF—”

  He knew, too, about embryo transfer to surrogate mothers, a common practice with highbred quarterhorses. He couldn’t imagine it with his wife.

  “No damn way am I gonna do this, Mandy. Nobody in this family likes IVF, even in horses. That’s why we do it sparingly and cautiously and not often. And I sure as hell don’t like the idea of a bunch of people in white coats standing around waiting for me to jerk off so they can try something that might not even work. It’s embarrassing.”

  She heaved a huge sigh. “Good grief, Pic. Maybe we should go to a fertility specialist. There are fertility drugs we—”

  “Are you kidding?” he repeated. Instinctively, his head began to shake. “You don’t want to do that to yourself, Mandy. Women end up having litters and—”

  “I am not kidding, Pic. I think—”

  “It’s the holidays,” he snapped. “I don’t want to think about it right now. I’ll deal with it after Christmas.”

  Mandy persisted. “What does that mean?”

  He regretted the sharp tone in his voice and softened his rhetoric. “Look, if I get a chance, while Drake’s down here next week I’ll talk to him. I’m sure he’ll know a good doc I can go see up in Fort Worth, okay?”

  Mandy’s hot glare came at him. “But of course. By all means, take up our personal issues with your big brother, like you do everything else.”

  Mental eye roll. That he discussed everything with Drake had never been a secret. He always had, always would. Mandy hadn’t appeared to resent it before they got married, but too often, it was the cause of arguments now. “I talk over everything with my brother. You know that.”

  “I certainly do.” She pushed to her feet. “And I think I’ve said before, we do not need his high-and-mighty opinion to live our lives.” She pivoted sharply and stamped out of the room.

  Pic stared after her. He had just had his tongue all the way to her tonsils. He had sucked her tits until she was squirming, then finger-fucked her to a breathtaking orgasm. How could they follow up with an argument, all in a matter of fifteen minutes?

  He tried to piece together exactly when a change occurred between them. For years, they’d had a close, extremely intimate, sexy bond. But now, considering how their relationship had deteriorated over the past several months, she probably wouldn’t eat supper with him. And unless her temperature was right for her to possibly get knocked up, she would be asleep when he went to bed.

  Sad to say, it wouldn’t be the first time lately.

  Chapter 7

  At five o’clock, Troy ended the day’s clinic. The winter sun had lost its heat. Darkness was descending as everyone loaded horses and one by one drove away. He returned Batman to the corral and stalls Lou had let him use. After unsaddling him, Troy gave him a quick brushing in the dim light of the barn’s one bulb. “You did good today, ol’ boy.”

  While he put out feed, Lou came over and asked if he needed anything, to which he answered no.

  “I’m going to the house. It’s been a long day. You have a good night.” She ambled toward the tumbledown Beckman ranch house.

  Sal reappeared from somewhere. “Good day?”

  “Not too bad. Had some good horses. I’m beat. Not enough sleep last night. I’m gonna eat and go to bed.”

  “That wild horse okay?”

  “The one that acted out? Oh, yeah, he’s cool. Just expressing himself.”

  “You sure?”

  “He just needs some love.”

  “You’re not afraid of horses in the least, are you?”

  “’Course not. Are you?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Troy slapped his bodyguard on the shoulder and chuckled. “Sal, Sal, Sal. I imagine you’ve been in situations that would terrify me and you’re afraid of some poor ol’ horse?”

  Sal gave him a rare grin. “I’m working on it.”

  Inside his trailer, Troy built a ham and cheese sandwich. His diet during his travels left a lot to be desired. When he reached home again, maybe his first meal would be a big rib-eye charred on the grill on his patio or better yet, one of Johnnie Sue’s larruping homecooked meals at the ranch house.

  An image of Rudy stayed in his mind. Scarred, unkempt and scared. He had to help that horse and he would. He hadn’t yet figured out the links between the horse and the two women who brought him or the older man who picked all of them up. Tomorrow he would give it more attention.

  He lifted a gallon-jug of milk out of the refrigerator and poured himself a glass. Sliding into the booth with his sandwich and milk, the light over the table “spotlighted” him. He reached up and turned it off. No sense tempting fate.

  As he ate, Sarah Karol floated into his mind. She was something to look at and he should be a good judge. The cutting horse society was rife with rich, hot women. Groupies. He had met dozens, many of them making no secret of being on the make or searching for something they would never find in a place like a horse show. They all looked and behaved alike, putting on an act, s
eeking the attention of men like himself. Women like Dorinda Fisk.

  The woman he had met today was no groupie. He doubted she ever had been or ever would be. She was a no-nonsense cowgirl, the real deal. On top of that, she was the prettiest girl he had seen in a while and the most interesting. A story hid behind those striking blue-green eyes.

  And that mouth. Lord. She could do damage with that harlot’s mouth. With plump, heart-shaped lips, she looked as if she belonged in an old painting. Nude. He shook his head once, clearing it of those thoughts. He didn’t need a new entanglement with a new female. He hadn’t yet totally escaped from the one from whom he was trying to free himself.

  After finishing his sandwich, he moved to his reclining chair. Part of the custom design of the living quarters was eliminating one of the sofas so he had room for a reclining chair. He was sometimes on his feet the whole day, like today. He liked putting his feet up when he relaxed. He pried off his boots and kicked back. Then he reached for his phone and switched it on to a long list of text messages.

  A message from Kate told him to hurry up and get home because the family missed him. She was as proud of Dandy Little Lady as he was. She should be. She was the one who persuaded him to buy semen from Sandy Dandy’s owner, an outstanding performer belonging to a breeder west of Fort Worth.

  Pic’s text said Drake and his wife and kid would show up on Saturday. Last Christmas, Drake’s son was an infant, not good for much except spitting up, messing up and demanding attention. Even then, he was already showing personality traits from his daddy.

  Troy saw him again in June when he was a few months older but still barely human. Now, according to Dad, Will was walking around, full of piss and vinegar and getting into everything. Too bad baby humans weren’t the easy keepers that baby animals were. On that score, he and his brother Pic agreed.

  He came to two new texts from Dorinda. Setting the other messages aside, he keyed into the first one: Hi. Need 2 talk. Pls call me

  Not likely. He and Dorinda had already talked enough. He deleted that text and moved to the next one: Duncan home tomorrow pm. Pls call me B4.

  Fuck! Dorinda’s husband was coming home early? The senator spent most of his time in D.C. While his wife played in Dallas, he had his own thing going back there. Or at least, that was what Dorinda said. She also said he paid little attention to her social activities or her friends. He must feel a need to touch base with the voters in Texas.

  Senator Duncan Fisk and Bill Junior hated each other. The animosity went back years to environmental issues and legislation in Congress and campaign contributions and only God knew what else.

  Troy wished he hadn’t opened those messages from Dorinda. He hesitated, his thumb hovering between the “Write” and the “Delete” key. Did he owe Dorinda a Christmas message?

  She could have already cleared up the absurdity of Troy being on the Texas Rangers’ persons-of-interest list for Kate’s barn fire. All it would have taken was one short conversation with Blake Rafferty or the arson investigator from Kate’s insurance company. Dorinda had refused to do it.

  A flash of anger darted through Troy. Nah, he didn’t owe her a damn thing. He deleted her second message, too.

  He braced his elbow on the chair arm. Squeezing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and finger, he thought back on how in the hell he had gotten mixed up with her and her craziness in the first place.

  Their fling—that’s all you could call it—began two years ago when Jordan Palmer and one of Drake’s old girlfriends, Donna Schoonover, had introduced them over drinks after a cutting playday. Donna was drunk as usual. Drake had done himself a good turn by kicking her out of his life. Troy had spent his fair share of time partying, so he wasn’t a teetotaler. Still, he had a low tolerance for drunks. Living with their dad, all of the Lockhart siblings shared the feeling.

  Dorinda wasn’t the heavy boozer Donna was, but that day at the cutting playday, Donna, in her cups, had made it clear Dorinda was looking for a good time and left no doubt she was a sure thing. At the time, the sure thing was all Troy sought in women. He had no time for seduction and he never did courtship, ever.

  The hook-up had been off-the-wall weird from the get-go, starting with the fact that Dorinda was seventeen years older than he. Troy didn’t know her age at first, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. She was hot as a firecracker in bed and a woman’s age had never put him off.

  He soon learned that sex with Dorinda was anything but typical. She liked sex hot, raw and dirty, had introduced him to bedroom pleasures he had never known before. Being married and intending to stay married, she demanded no commitment. Traveling as much as he did, he didn’t see her that often. What straight, red-blooded unattached man would reject all of that?

  She hung with a small circle of friends with time on their hands and more money than they knew what to do with. Gradually, she had invited him into her orbit. He had willingly gone but soon learned that her friends were more than a little kinky, which turned him off more than it excited him.

  He drew the line at voyeurism, multiple partners, sharing partners and a few other acts that were the stuff of porn movies. She swore she didn’t take part either. If he got together with her and her crowd got too strange, he simply went home. Not that he minded watching porn movies under the right circumstances. Becoming a participant was another matter.

  Drake and Pic had chastised him for fooling around with not only a married woman but the wife of one of Dad’s enemies and one of the biggest crooks in Washington. Pic had even nagged him about going to see a doctor. Christ, why hadn’t he listened to what they tried to tell him?

  Well ... he had followed Pic’s advice about seeing a doctor.

  Included among Dorinda’s friends was Jordan Palmer who, years back, was engaged to Troy’s little sister Kate. Small world. The hows and whys of his twenty-one-year-old sister being engaged to a thirty-two-year-old man of dubious reputation had passed through Troy’s thoughts maybe once or twice but hadn’t stayed there.

  When Kate and Jordan were engaged, Troy was a kid himself, the same age as Kate. She was in college at A&M and he was enrolled in Tarleton closer to home. His mind was on maintaining a high GPA, rescuing horses when he saw the need and building up to owning and training winners.

  After Kate graduated and moved back to the ranch, she came to her senses and handed Jordan his hat, but Jordan hadn’t given up easily. He stalked her and scared her and Drake kicked his ass. Then Jordan eventually latched on to Troy. Even after all of that, Troy still had given little thought to Jordan being his little sister’s former fiancée.

  When he thought of it now, the coincidence and connection were as confusing as a math problem with no solution. All of it swirled in his brain and fractured his focus. He didn’t need this crap in his life. He didn’t need Dorinda talking about divorcing her husband of years so something more serious could develop between herself and Troy. He didn’t do serious. If and when he ever did, it would be with a woman who had a few more morals than Dorinda and who was closer to his own age, a woman with whom he might have a family.

  He should have listened to his brothers and cut ties with Dorinda and Jordan both a long time ago.

  “Fuck it,” he griped and got to his feet. Horses were safer than women. He took a quick shower, brushed his teeth and went to bed.

  THE NEXT MORNING, TROY awoke early as usual. Rested, he expected to have a good day. He crossed his fingers, hoping Sarah Karol would be around with Rudy. Besides worry over Rudy’s future, something about the Karol woman had seized his attention and held it.

  He had been too wiped out last night to answer text messages, but he hadn’t forgotten the messages from Dorinda. He poured himself a mug of coffee then sat down in the dining booth with his phone.

  A new text appeared from Jordan Palmer: Hey, buddy. Merry Christmas. All the family getting together for a big holiday at the ranch?

  Jordan’s message stopped him for a few beats. Troy had
n’t been in touch with him in months. Now, in the past two days, he had received two messages. He scrolled back to Jordan’s text he had ignored on Sunday: Going to be at the ranch for Christmas?

  Jordan knew the Lockhart family, knew the family gathered at the ranch every Christmas. He had even spent a Christmas at the ranch when he and Kate were engaged. What the hell did he want? He wanted something because at some point in their history, Troy had finally caught on that using people was a pattern with Jordan.

  He set the question aside, mentally tagging it as something he would go back to. He scrolled to the last message from Dorinda and tapped in a reply: U need 2 talk 2 B. Rafferty. Need to clear up Kate’s fire. If U R not willing 2 dont text me anymore.

  Satisfied he had done all he could about the challenging people in his life for the moment, he dragged breakfast fixings from the refrigerator. Sal would soon be joining him.

  AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT, Amanda awoke slowly. Without opening her eyes, she reached across her and Pic’s king-size bed feeling for him, but his big body was missing. She opened her eyes and turned her head, stared at his empty space. They usually greeted the morning together, chatting and teasing and enjoying each other’s company. More times than not they had sex, one of the few parts of life they shared these days without debate.

  His dressing and leaving without waking her was evidence of how angry he had been yesterday afternoon after she didn’t put out for him. To be fair, she couldn’t blame him. After he had taken care of her needs, she had ignored his and ambushed him with talk of doctors and conception, a conversation she could have postponed.

  No wonder she made no progress trying to explain herself. She should have calmed down and waited for a better time.

  Then she compounded the problem by pouting like a kid and not coming out of their suite for supper, followed by pretending to be asleep when he came to bed.

  Her only excuse for such a big mistake was that she was excited after her visit to Dr. Goodman.