by Jessa James
“You coming?” Jake asked me as he brushed his reddish-brown hair back out of his face and wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve.
I looked at him bewildered. “Of course I am.”
He shrugged. “Don’t act like it’s a given. You haven’t been there in years.”
“Yeah, well…now I don’t really have any choice, do I? Dad is still in Costa Rica, and I don’t know the next time he’s planning on coming back, so I’ve got to be there to represent the ranch. And I think Emma would enjoy the trip to Tennessee, so yeah, I’ll be there.”
“You’re not nervous, are you?” Jake winked at me, and I frowned in response.
“Why would I be nervous?”
“Because,” he began, pausing to spit on the ground. “Little Sara Waters is going to be there. I wonder if she is going to follow you around like she always used to when we were kids.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sara Waters is thirty by now. I am sure she has got better things to do than chase around a nearly middle-aged man with his twelve year old daughter in tow.”
“Hey now, don’t write yourself off just yet. You’re only a year or so older than her, right? I bet she would be champing at the bit to get a piece of a Killarny brother.”
I shook my head and started off back toward the stable, Jake following behind me with Clement.
“Then she can have her pick of the other four. Hell, she can have both Stephen and Sam if she wants them.” I stopped and looked around. “Speaking of that, where are the twins?”
Jake shrugged as he continued toward the stable. “Who the hell knows. They’re out every night of the week. Probably still in bed.”
I knew he was kidding about the last thing. If we had been taught anything as kids, it was that getting up early in the morning was the Killarny way.
“Okay, well. I need to go find them. I’ll get back to you about the Waters derby. We need to talk about some logistics getting there, but it can wait until later.”
As I walked off toward the other barns to locate my two youngest brothers, I couldn’t help thinking about what Jake had said regarding Sara Waters. I hadn’t seen her since we were practically teenagers. It must have been a decade or so. I wondered what she looked like now and if there was a chance that we’d get some time alone when I was at her father’s derby in a few weeks.
2
Sara
* * *
“Sara?”
I looked up from the top of my reading glasses that I used only when I was working on my laptop. They were sliding down my nose, and I pulled them off my face and rubbed the bridge of my nose as I looked at Elsie, my father’s secretary, standing in the doorway of my office.
“Yes?”
“Your father would like to see you. He said he’s got a few last minute things to go over for the derby.”
Of course, he does, I thought as I flashed Elsie a smile and a nod. He was waiting until two weeks before our derby to go over something that I had a feeling would be of utmost importance and require my immediate attention. It was the typical stunt my father always pulled this time of year.
“I’ll be right there. I’m just finishing up a few things.”
My father acted as if his office wasn’t right down the hall from mine. He certainly could have used what little exercise the walk would have provided, but I knew he was never in any kind of temperament to hear my suggestion.
I closed my laptop and grabbed my notebook full of notes for the upcoming derby and headed down the hallway to his office. I found my father leaning back in his chair, grinning wide, with a cigar hanging out of his mouth as he chuckled into his phone.
“Well, well. How about that! I imagine we’ll be seeing her here in a couple of years then. That’s great, Jameson. I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks. I’ll talk to you later.” He snapped the flip phone shut, and I shook my head, still surprised that the man refused to upgrade his cell phone from the one he had gotten ten years prior.
“That thing is going to give out on you,” I said with a half-smile.
“Nah, she’s holding up. They don’t make things like they used to. I’ll use her until it’s time to put her out to pasture.” He tapped the end of his cigar on the ashtray on his desk.
“You know, I could probably call OSHA about you smoking in here. I’m sure they’d have something to say about your daily cigar and the fact that your most valuable employee has to be exposed to carcinogens.”
He laughed. “Sweetheart, that’s the beauty of a home office. I’m the king around here. What I say, goes.”
“And your lungs may as well,” I said as I scrunched my nose and waved the smoke out of the air. “Elsie said you had a few things to talk to me about.”
He cleared his throat and put the cigar down in the ashtray, a thin thread of smoke rising from the tip.
“I sure do. With the derby coming up we’ve got a lot going on, and I know you’ve been just as busy as I have.”
I smirked but didn’t say anything. The idea that my father had been doing as much work around here for the derby as I had was laughable. Beyond making phone calls to his good ol’ boys at ranches around the country, he didn’t do an awful lot for the derby anymore. Most of the work was left to the rest of us and since I was second in charge most of it fell on my lap to take care of.
“It is definitely the busiest time of year for us,” I said with a nod.
He narrowed his eyes, and I could tell the wheels in his brain were turning.
“I hate to ask you to do much more, but I need you to make a call and take care of something for me.”
“What is it?” I asked, leaning in to see what he was looking at on his desk. He pushed a folder toward me. It was labeled ‘Killarny Estate’.’
“What’s going on with the Killarnys?”
My father took a deep breath. “I’m going to need you to tell them they won’t be entering a horse in this year’s derby. Not this one and, not the next one. Not ever again.”
I looked at him with my mouth agape. “Why would you remove the Killarnys from the derby? They’ve had a relationship with us for as long as anyone has and they have been a very valuable draw for us. People come from all over to see who the Killarnys are racing. Dad…you’re going to have to explain.”
“I’ve got my reasons,” he said, sounding suspicious as he picked up the cigar again.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and leaned back into my chair. “Well, you’re going to have to tell me what they are before I go about ending one of the oldest relationships we have with a stable. Aren’t you considering the kind of repercussions this could have?”
He shrugged. “Listen to me, Sara. There’s more going on here than what you think you know. I’ve been suspecting them of some things for quite some time, and I just want to keep things above board around here.”
“Above board?” I was confused. I had only ever known the Killarny Estate horses to be absolutely clean thoroughbreds. I couldn’t imagine the family being involved in something unsavory. “What are they doing? Are they colluding with someone? Fixing a race?” It was the only thing I could think of, but it seemed very far off base. Anything else though…would be nearly criminal to consider.
“I think they are doping their horses.” He said the words matter of factly and waited for me to respond.
“You’re kidding, right? Jesus, Dad, you’ve known Sean Killarny forever. The last thing they would do is dope their horses.”
“People do it all the time. You know that. When the testing isn’t as rigorous, it’s especially bad! And I’ve been noticing a few things over the years that have left me very suspicious of them. I also think that they’ve been using this relationship for a long time now and think that they can get away with it. Well, I’ve got news for Sean Killarny—it’s done. I don’t mess with dopers, and I won’t have them giving my derby a bad name. Imagine if the word got out that this was going on. People would bring this relationship up in the discussi
on for sure and then you would have folks looking at our derby. Think about all the sponsorship we could lose, not to mention our license.” He took a deep breath. “No, I cannot allow it to continue. They can’t keep coming here if they are going to operate that way.”
My mind was whirling, trying to put all the pieces together. I couldn’t believe that my father really thought the Killarnys were drugging their horses, but he was right—some people did, and if we were accused of having any connection to them it could look very bad for us.
“Evidence…I’m going to need to see something. I can’t just call them up and tell them without—”
“Sara.” He cut me off and held up his hand to silence me. “Trust me. I know what is going on over there. We can have no connection to it. I can make the call if you would rather not take care of this yourself, but since you are in charge of day to day operations, I thought it would be best if you took care of this yourself. If you can’t though…” he reached for his phone.
I shook my head. “No, I’ll take care of it. But I don’t think this is something I can do over the phone. I mean…Dad, they already paid the registration fee. We’re going to have to give that back to them if you don’t want any trouble out of this. They could sue you.”
He laughed. “There’s no way they are suing me. I know what they are up to and they sure as hell know what’s going on underneath the roof of their stables. Neither Sean nor his boys have the balls to take me to court because they know they are the ones who will end up in hot water if they do that.” My father opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a checkbook. He picked up his pen and began making out the check, complete with the required number of zeroes. He signed his name and thrust the check at me. “Here, take it. Put it in the mail.”
I sighed. “Unfortunately, I think this is the sort of thing that has to be done in person. You know, we want to finesse this and treat it as sensitively as possible. They were our friends for a long time, and no matter what they are up to now, it would be inappropriate to put an end to a decade long relationship over the phone. I’ll take tomorrow off and drive up there to deliver this myself. Then maybe there won’t be much animosity.”
I got up and headed back to my office, trying to think how I could possibly smooth this over with the Killarnys. If my father was right then, we did need to end the relationship, but I definitely didn’t want to call them out on doping their horses without any evidence. No, I was going to have to cancel their registration and chalk it up as some kind of a mistake on our end. I would deal with it next year when it rolled around. Maybe their registration could get lost in the mail or something, but I would deal with that when it happened. Right now I needed to focus on how I was going to get them to believe whatever I said. And I needed to do it in a way that didn’t look completely suspicious.
Picking up my phone I looked up the number for Killarny Estate and dialed. A woman picked up, and I gave her my name.
“Mr. Killarny isn’t in right now. Could I take a message?”
Of course, a message. But what on earth would Sean Killarny believe?
“Could you tell him it’s Sara Waters and I’m just checking on some derby business? I’ll be by tomorrow afternoon if that’s okay. I wanted a chance to speak to him in person.”
“Okay then…it looks like he’s got an open afternoon. If you ring the bell at the main house when you get here, then we’ll find him for you. See you tomorrow, Miss Waters.”
* * *
I left the next morning and made the three hour drive to the Killarny Estate. It was nestled in an area with rolling green hills and was the most picturesque kind of horse ranch you could imagine. I knew I was getting close when I saw the pristine white fencing, but I was still several miles from the main entrance to the ranch. As soon as I pulled up to the stone arch, memories came flooding back of the time I spent here when I was a child. On occasion when my father purchased a horse from the Killarnys or had some derby business with them we would come up for a day visit, and I spent most of the time tormenting Pete Killarny, the oldest of the brothers who was the closest to my age. And to my ten year old eyes, he was the cutest. Back then he had sandy blond hair, blue eyes, and a few freckles dappled across his nose. I wasn’t quite as cute at the time. A little on the chubby side, my hair was frizzy, and I was just about to get braces. Soon after the glasses followed and it didn’t surprise me that when I had made Pete Killarny my first kiss he had been very reluctant.
I cringed at that particular memory and hoped that I wouldn’t run into him here. Of course, it had been years since that had happened and we had seen each other several times since then, but it didn’t change the fact that it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my entire life. Pete had looked at me incredulously and somewhat shocked, then turned around and left the old barn where the kiss had occurred. It was while they had been visiting Tennessee for our derby and now that I thought about it, it must have been exactly twenty years prior. So much time had passed. I eventually grew up and out of my braces, glasses, and baby fat, and Pete had grown into a very attractive young man. The last time I saw him, he was dating a new girl, and I remember how she had clung to him like a leech from a pond on a hot summer day.
It surprised me to remember how jealous I had been at that moment. The girl was unknown to me, but I hated seeing Pete with another girl, no matter how ga-ga they appeared to be over each other. She had been drop dead gorgeous, and there was no way I could hold a candle to her black hair and blue eyes. She had been thin as a rail and just looked the part of a girl who would end up marrying the heir to a massive horse ranch.
“God, maybe I’ll run into her again, too,” I said as I pulled into the circle drive in front of the main house. It was a gorgeous white colonial with massive pillars and a lamp that hung down in front of the front door. The place was positively palatial, and I was sure there had to have been many renovations since the last time I had stepped foot in the house.
I hopped out of my SUV and made my way to the front door where I rang the bell that let out the longest chime in the history of doorbells, and I waited for someone to answer. A middle-aged woman came to the door with a smile on her face.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
I smiled back at her. “I’m here for a meeting with Mr. Killarny. I called and spoke with his secretary yesterday.”
She nodded. “Come right in. I’ll show you to his office.”
The woman led me from the main foyer with it’s wide staircase that was appropriate for a royal presentation, down a hallway that led to an even smaller hallway. She opened the first door and ushered me inside.
“I’ll see that Pete knows you’re here,” she said as she closed the door behind her and before I could say anything she was gone.
I looked around in surprise. The nameplate on the desk said it plain as day. Pete Killarny. Where was Sean? Maybe the man didn’t have time for me, and he was letting one of his sons take care of the business today. Thoughts ran through my mind, and I tried to calm myself down. It wasn’t a big deal that I had to deal with Pete. He was probably just as knowledgeable about the ranch business as his father was. After all, what was I doing here? Taking care of things for my father.
And it wasn’t as if Pete and I had a history beyond me kissing him once when I was a child. There was some kind of electric tension in the air though at the thought of seeing him again. It was a little like when I had gone back to my ten year high school reunion. Of course, that had been a bust because of social media and the fact that I still lived in the same town where I had graduated from, but this meeting held the same kind of nervousness for me.
I wondered what he looked like and I glanced around the office to see if there was any sign of a photo. The walls were covered with bookshelves which were filled with hardback, leather-bound volumes. It looked like mostly classics or the sort of thing you could get an interior decorator to put together for you. I wasn’t sure if Pete was much of a reader, but he
had never struck me as one. When we were young, he had been the jock, the kind of guy other guys wanted to be, and all the girls wanted to be with. He was less obvious about it than some guys were though and really seemed to have a sweet and genuine side if you could get past the hard exterior.
A quick sweep of the room revealed nothing, and there was no sign of any photos on his desk. I thought it was peculiar, but it also didn’t look like it was Pete’s office for some reason.
I waited and watched the grandfather clock tick until several minutes had passed and then I heard the doorknob rattle. When I turned I saw that another woman was standing there, this one much younger and looking a little uncertain.
“Miss Waters?”
“Yes, I was just waiting for Mr. Killarny…but I thought I was going to be seeing Sean today.”
Understanding swept over her facial features. “Oh, I’m sorry about that. I thought you knew that Pete was running the day to day operations now. But about that, I think he must have missed your name in his schedule for the day, and I’m afraid he is somewhere out on the property. Probably working with the horses. If you’d like me to try to call him, I could do that…”
I stood and shook my head. “No, there’s no need for you to bother with that. I’m familiar with the place. If you don’t mind, I’ll just head out for a little stroll and see if I can find him.”
She smiled at me and nodded. “By all means.”
* * *
I made my way outside and down one of the pathways that led to the main stable and barns. The property was massive and meant he could be anywhere, so it might have been a foolish move not to have her call him. I had time to take a self-guided walking tour of Killarny Estate though.