The Stable Affair

by Jessica Andersen

  “Whoa, Modi! Whoa!” The black horse panicked, wheeling and bolting into a full gallop headed back toward the barns. Sarah automatically set her feet and leaned away to break his bolt with her weight on the lead rope while she called for him to stop, but she had forgotten her injuries.

  When Modi hit the end of the lead, her shoulder separated with a sucking crack as bone and tendon strained against the screws that surgeons had used to rebuild the joint.

  “Modi!” The nylon lead ripped from Sarah’s hand, laying her palm open and freeing the young horse to gallop around the ring, tail streaming behind him like the proudest flag. She folded to her knees, bleeding hand curled to her chest, left hand holding her right shoulder as it began to scream in pain. She made no sound.

  “Sarah! Jesus, are you okay?” Dante was there at her side, having seen the accident from the other side of the ring. His hand hovered over her, afraid to touch. “You’re hurt. What can I do? Is there an EMT on the grounds? Do you want an ambulance?”

  “Get Modi,” Sarah croaked, still holding her arm close.

  “What?” Dante couldn’t believe he’d heard her correctly. She was hurt and she was worrying about the horse? Bugger the horse, it was the colt’s fault she was hurt in the first place.

  “Get Modi,” she repeated. “Catch the horse first then I can be hurt.” Sarah didn’t even stop to think that an outsider might find a horseperson’s priorities a bit skewed. When Dante didn’t respond, she shook her head disgustedly and went to catch the horse herself.

  Blessing the fact that she had retied the in-gate so Modi was contained for the moment, Sarah struggled to her feet. She made a strange hunchbacked figure with her shoulder and arm curled protectively against her chest. She began to wave the other arm at the horse as she stepped into his path. Dante stood rooted to the spot as the giant black creature galloped directly at Sarah, certain to mow her down. At the last possible moment Modi swerved and missed her by inches, cantering into a corner of the ring where one avenue of escape was blocked by a tall rainbow-colored jump. Sarah stepped to block the other side and Modi, knowing the game was up, stood still, blowing hard and quivering all over.

  At some point during his mad dash he had stepped on his lead rope, snapping the nylon right below the chain. Sarah reached up automatically to grab the dangling end but yanked her bad arm down with a hiss of pain. Startled by the quick motion, Modi shifted as if to run again, but she froze him with a glare and a low growl. Beaten, he lowered his head and allowed Sarah to grab his halter with her off hand.

  As always in these situations, she was surprised at how quickly the whole series of events unfolded. There were only a few people near the rings this early, but those that were had just reached the ring to offer help. She accepted an unbroken lead from a stout woman wearing a braiding apron and clipped it to the colt’s halter.

  Modi rolled his eyes and started to fret when the group of new people suddenly surrounded him. Sarah scanned the group for a familiar face as pain sung up her arm. Relief washed over her as she spotted a tousled black mop. “Danny!”

  A short, fit man pushed to her side, concern evident on his swarthy face. “Sarah, you okay?”

  “Fine.” She handed him Modi’s shank. “Can you get Modi back to Pruitt Farm’s stalls? We’re in the back barn next to the longing circle. Tell Tilda to have Mark look at him. I think he hurt himself running on those roots.”

  Danny led the lathered, panting colt away, and Sarah could see the horse’s head bobbing unevenly as the adrenaline ebbed from his system and he began to favor his left front leg.

  Well, that made two of them, she thought wryly as her arm throbbed in earnest.

  Excitement over, the crowd drifted away, leaving Sarah to sag against the rough bark of one of the ubiquitous pine trees. She closed her eyes and tried to isolate the pain in her shoulder from the other persistent aches, a technique she’d learned during her lengthy rehabilitation following the accident.

  Well, it hurt—that was for sure. But actually the rope burn on her palm was more painful than the ache from her shoulder, which had faded to just above background. Sarah extended her right arm palm up and rotated it experimentally.

  “Well, at least he didn’t dislocate it again,” she said aloud. “He just pulled some muscles.” She opened her eyes to see Dante still standing nearby, eyes wide. “Welcome to the horse world, Devers. A bit bloodier and messier than it looks on Olympic prime time coverage, isn’t it? Next time do me a favor and just go catch the damn horse, okay?”

  Three ice packs, twenty-four hundred milligrams of Motrin and an Ace bandage later, Sarah was more or less functional. Modi was feeling far better than she; his limp had been caused by nothing more than a bent shoe that had been replaced by the show blacksmith.

  Looking back, Sarah wondered what might have caused the horse’s reaction. Sure, Modi was high strung and fretful, but he wouldn’t usually bolt without good cause. The only excuse she could find was a raised knot in the flesh of his left haunch that was sore to the touch and hadn’t been there the day before.

  “A bee sting do you think?” Sarah poked at the lump and her aunt looked closely at the spot.

  “It’s a bit early for bees around here, but that’s probably your best bet. We’ll make sure to bug spray all the horses before they go up to the rings. If one of the jumps is near a hornet’s nest there’s sure to be more stings before the day’s out. Remind me to warn the paddock master to be on the lookout in the jumper ring, too.”

  Dante could tell from Tilda’s tone of voice that she didn’t think it was a bug bite. Nor did he, although he was far from an expert on equine skin blemishes. No, he thought it looked more like a mark he’d seen once before and hoped never to see again.

  They’d been a month in the jungle, photographing rare butterflies in the midst of a small civil war. The group from WildThings had been detained at the scene of a skirmish between villagers and the local enforcers. Dante had taken a few pictures, one of which featured a small boy with black and blue marks all over his arms and back leading a skinny cow to water. The cow was covered with welts much like the one Modi wore, the mark made by a rubber bullet.

  Later that afternoon, Sarah and Modi sat at the muddy in-gate while Tilda fluttered around the pair, polishing the gelding’s flanks and buffing Sarah’s tall black boots. As the trainers had all expected, there had been an unexpected downpour that morning to start the show on a very muddy note.

  Dante stood to one side, his arms folded and a look of extreme disapproval on his handsome face. He couldn’t believe that Sarah was going to ride injured, and he couldn’t understand why everyone else seemed to think that it was completely normal. This business must be made up of a bunch of masochistic loons. They wouldn’t pull a horse out of its stall if it had a bruise, but thought nothing of humans riding with broken bones and slashed hands.

  Not that he should care if she rode hurt or not, he reminded himself. In fact, he should be reveling in the thought of Sarah Taylor in pain, even if it was just a fraction of the agony he had endured because of her mistake. He should be looking forward to the experience.

  So why wasn’t he?

  There was a loud clunk and the crowd groaned as the competitor before Sarah clobbered the last jump and was eliminated from the jump off.

  “Tough luck, Nikki!” Sarah called as the sweaty, puffing girl exited the ring, her bay horse lathered and prancing with adrenaline.

  “Watch that puddle in front of the combination, it makes it ride really long,” Nikki warned as Sarah pressed Modi through the in-gate and cantered him in a slow tour of the ring.

  Dante cocked a brow at Tilda and she obliged. “With the rain, the take-off point for one set of jumps is in a puddle which makes it slippery, especially for a green horse like Modi.”

  A tone sounded, and the digital board zeroed out. “Now Sarah’s got one minute to pass through the first set of timers. This is called ‘jumpers’ because all that matters is wheth
er or not the horse jumps all the obstacles clean within the time allowed. No rails down, no refusals, no falls.” Tilda fell silent as Sarah increased the black gelding’s speed and aimed him at the first jump.

  Dante’s heart was thudding unevenly for no good reason as Sarah galloped the horse toward what seemed like imminent death.

  Baby that he was, Modi spent most of his time looking at the crowd, the food tent that had already tried to attack him, the flags, and the other horses. Two strides before the first obstacle Sarah knew he still hadn’t seen the fence that was flying at them.

  “Okay buddy, time to learn a lesson,” she muttered as she tightened her knees and growled at him. A half-stride away, he locked on to the fence and put in an awkward lurch that carried him well past his optimal takeoff distance. Suddenly plopped right underneath the big vertical, Modi rocked back on his hocks and gave a huge, catlike leap that carried him up, up, and over. He landed with a thud that made Sarah bite her tongue viciously.

  “See? There are jumps out here, and that’s your job. You can play tourist later.” Modi cantered away from the jump shaking his head in aggravation, but he had learned his lesson; the young horse focused much earlier on the next fence and let Sarah adjust his stride to bring him to a comfortable spot.

  She relaxed marginally as he picked his way around the next six jumps, but as soon as she did, Modi started to get cocky. “See Sarah? This is easy!” he telegraphed to his rider and pulled at the bridle when she attempted to steady him. He was so busy bullying her that he almost missed leaving the ground at the next jump, a wide hogsback oxer. His nose was so low on landing that he stumbled and his back end skidded out to one side on the rain-slicked footing.

  Sarah knew the next jumping effort was the big in-and-out off a short turn with that damn puddle right in front. Modi slithered around the sharp corner, throwing up chunks of mud with his flailing hooves and saw the in-and-out looming ahead: a solid four foot vertical jump—the “in,” one short stride and a huge oxer—the “out.”

  Danny often called them “in-and-offs” because that’s what happened if you screwed up your takeoff distance.

  Making a quick decision, Sarah jammed into her left stirrup and hauled on that rein, causing Modi’s head to whip around and his front feet to leave the ground. Her right hand sung in pain and the colt spun in a tight turn to gallop safely past the jumps. It took several strides, but eventually Sarah brought the horse to a slippery halt and backed him up several steps to remind him that she was in charge. She then set him to a balanced canter and lined the black colt up with the in-and-out. He cleared it easily with a kick and a hop.

  They galloped through the end timers well over the time allowed, disqualified from the jump off by both time faults and a refusal.

  Patting Modi’s glistening neck, Sarah walked her horse out of the gate and wished the next rider luck as they passed.

  “Good riding, Sarah.” Tilda nodded approvingly to her niece. “That was just the kind of confidence-builder he needed for his first time out. That’ll set him up just right for the rest of the week.”

  Sarah grinned and kneed her horse out of the gate, passing Dante as she went. For some reason, he seemed furious at her.

  “Why did you do that? You could have crashed!” Dante was aghast. “If you hadn’t been so foolish as to insist on riding hurt, you wouldn’t have had so much trouble!” His heart was still pounding from what he perceived as her near death experience in the slick, root-filled ring. When she had pulled the horse off that huge jump, he was sure she was about to crash into a tree. “I can’t believe that a game like this is worth your life!”

  Sarah just looked at him for a beat, too shocked to organize her thoughts and too tired to defend herself. Who the hell was he to tell her how to do her own job? He didn’t even know what a jumper class was an hour ago. Just who did he think he was and what was his problem? It was fine if he didn’t like kissing her—that was how she’d interpreted his quick retreat the night before—but that didn’t give him the right to yell at her in the in-gate.

  She took a deep breath and tried for a polite tone. It wouldn’t do for a trainer to ream a photographer in public, even if he deserved it. “I don’t know who you think you are Mr. Devers, but this is my job, not a game. It’s a job that I’m good at and that you know next to nothing about. What little you know is because I taught it to you, which doesn’t give you the right to say anything right now. If you need to know anything more for your magazine, don’t call me.” She kicked the colt through the crowd, heading back to the stables.

  Dante stood still, already regretting his words. Once again he’d let his own crankiness jeopardize their relationship and his grand plan. And why was he angry in the first place? What Sarah Taylor did with her life meant nothing to him, right?

  Wrong. Dante finally admitted to himself what his subconscious had been trying to tell him for days by way of his dreams. He liked Sarah Taylor. He liked her very much, and a part of him badly wished things were different for them. If he was just a photographer and she was just a horse trainer…

  Ah, but that was the issue, wasn’t it? They weren’t just a pair of strangers meeting by chance. They were two people bound together by a mistake made at Boston General’s Genetic Testing Unit.

  At the time of Susie’s funeral, Dante had been all too happy to blame someone easy—a young female counselor who’d been careless in her job. Blaming Sarah had been far easier than blaming himself for not being there. So what if Daniel had thought the hospital’s explanation too pat? If they believed that Sarah was at fault, then Dante was convinced and nothing could shake him from his goal—to bring down his sister’s killer.

  Now he was finding it increasingly difficult to work up the necessary rage toward the lovely woman with alabaster skin and red-gold hair. Dante just couldn’t see her as lazy or sloppy or downright malicious, and he remembered Daniel’s words before he left. “Watch your back, my friend. I have a feeling that this goes deeper than you want it to, that there’s more here than just one suicide. Be careful, okay?”

  Daniel had wondered whether Sarah Taylor had been set up by somebody else at BoGen’s GTU. At the time Dante had rejected the thought, needing to believe that he could punish just one person, but now he reconsidered the idea because he so badly wanted it to be true.

  What if she was innocent?

  Sarah avoided Dante for the next few days. He was actually a little impressed by how well she made herself scarce in the confines of the show ground; he couldn’t even seem to bump into her down at Pruitt Farm’s stabling area.

  He thought it might have something to do with the walkie-talkies the farm’s junior riders all wore. Granted, most of the riders, trainers, and grooms on the grounds were wearing communication devices of some sort to orchestrate things, but Sarah’s riders invariably saw Dante, grinned right at him and spoke into their radios.

  It was a conspiracy.

  Once or twice as he had sat in his dingy hotel room tinkering with his cameras or flipping through proofs while the mindless TV played in the background, he thought he heard her footsteps in the hall. But the connecting door was now firmly locked on her side.

  He had tried Daniel’s number and left a harried message before remembering that his friend had taken an insurance fraud job as a favor and wouldn’t be back in the country for another week. So Dante had worked hard, quickly mastering the timing needed to photograph jumping horses and learning enough of the circuit politics to photograph the right people doing the right things for the upcoming articles Horseman’s Monthly had mapped out.

  He was content to let Sarah have her space for a day or two, but he watched her from afar, alert for more rubber bullets. If she was blameless in Susan’s death and had been set up by someone else, the incident in the restaurant suggested that the conspirators were still interested in her for some reason, which made her doubly valuable to Dante’s cause.

  Did she have something they needed? Did she kno
w something they didn’t want known? Who the hell were they?

  “Well, Susie. Now what?” Dante stared at the picture of his sister he’d taken to carrying in his wallet as a reminder. “What would you do now? Am I on the right track? You were always the smart one, why did you leave me with this? Why did you leave me alone with Ellie?” But the photograph had no answer and he pressed his head into his hands.

  He found himself cast in the unlikely role of Sarah Taylor’s protector, a job he couldn’t do for long if she wouldn’t speak to him.

  As she smoothed the last of the standing bandages on Larth’s legs, a salmon-pink spray of gladiolas suddenly obscured Sarah’s vision. She jerked back with an oath and overbalanced, landing on her backside in the soiled bedding of the stall.

  Larth looked at her with mild surprise and snorted.

  “Idiot!” Sarah glared up at Dante. “If this were Modi, or any of the other horses, I would have been trampled and you would have been kicked in those perfect teeth of yours! Never sneak up on me when I’m underneath a horse, got that?”

  Dante stood in a corner of the stall and the flowers drooped from his fingers while his face underwent an amazing series of twitches.

  “What?” Sarah demanded bad-temperedly. She had grown tired of avoiding the handsome photographer, even though the kids liked the game. She’d even decided to seek him out and give him an opportunity to apologize but she hated being caught unawares.

  “You’re sitting on a pile of dung,” he offered as if she were unaware of this fact.

  She could tell he was trying not to laugh at her. Maybe this was a good opening for some revenge. She felt like she deserved to rough him up a bit, both for yelling at her in public and for causing her a few bad moments over the last couple of days when she found herself turning to say something to him even though he wasn’t there.

  “Well, help me up!” she ordered, and he stepped forward to grasp her proffered hand. Too late he realized his mistake when she gave a yank that pulled him off his feet even as she skipped to hers and made for the stall door.