He slowly shook his head. “My family has spent decades trying to breed horses like Dasher and Summer and Dandy. Years. You’re asking me to throw it all away, to potentially lose everything my family has worked for, because there’s a chance Dasher might hurt himself.”
She never wavered when she said, “I am.”
“That’s insane.”
She flinched. “How so?”
“Mariah, every time I send a horse out to race, every time, there’s a chance they could get hurt.”
“I know. That’s why I can’t watch it.”
“Do you watch car racing?”
She appeared momentarily confused. “It’s not the same thing.”
“All right, how about football?”
“I don’t watch sports.”
“Ice-skating?” He lifted a brow. “Come on, you have to admit, that hardly qualifies as a sport.”
She didn’t soften her stance. Not a little bit. “I know where you’re going with this, but it’s not the same. Animals are defenseless. They can’t tell you if they’re hurting or sore or scared. It’s up to us as human beings to guard them from injury.”
“By padding them with Bubble Wrap?”
He could see the frustration in her eyes. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
Dasher tugged on the lead rope, and Zach looked back in time to see the stallion stretch toward a patch of grass lining the gravel road. What she asked for was impossible. If both Mariah and her boss thought Dasher’s injury had healed, then that was good enough for him—no matter what she might think.
“I’m going to put him back in training.”
“Don’t.”
“I have to.”
“Then I can’t be a part of it.”
His whole body went on alert. “What are you saying?”
She lifted her chin. “If you do this, you’re not the man I thought you were.”
Chapter Nineteen
He thought she was crazy, Mariah realized. His look said it all.
“I’m exactly the man you think I am. I just don’t see the difference between jumping a horse and racing them.”
“There’s a world of difference.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, can we just discuss this later?”
It would be so easy to do that. So nice to postpone the inevitable. “I was talking to Jillian the other day.”
“Jillian.” He shook his head. “That woman hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She just hates what you do for a living.”
“Same thing.”
And there was the crux of the problem, she conceded. Zach and racing were interchangeable. Parts of the same whole. Inseparable. She’d been fooling herself over the past few weeks. He wasn’t different. The proof stood in front of her.
“Jillian told me the only way anything will ever change in your industry is if someone like you changes the way things are done. You have to stop putting horses’ lives at risk.” She took a step toward him. “Zach, she’s right. You have to know that racing Dasher is a huge risk. If something goes wrong—”
“Nothing will go wrong.”
He didn’t get it. She sighed in frustration. “Come here.”
She didn’t wait to see if he would follow, just turned toward the entrance to the clinic. The sound of Dasher’s hooves was her only clue that he’d done as she asked.
“Wait here.”
It seemed dark inside, but the fluorescent lights overhead helped her to spot her laptop lying on the counter of the exam room. She opened it, searching for one file in particular.
“Look,” she said, clicking on a button. She took Dasher’s lead from him, guiding the stallion toward his open stall not far from the exam area.
“What is it?” he called out after her.
“What do you think it is?” she asked as she turned the horse loose.
When she returned to the hospital area, he peered down at the screen, frowning. “It looks like a horse’s leg.”
“That’s right. A cannon bone.”
“Are those screws holding it together?”
“That’s exactly what they are.”
He turned toward her with dismay. “Mariah, these things happen. Hell, they happen to people—”
“They’re going to race him that way.”
To give him credit, his expression turned horrified. “What?”
“They’re Thoroughbred owners. The horse races down at Santa Anita and there’s a big purse next month. When Dr. Saffer told them the bone had healed, they were delighted. They bragged about how they could now race him. They didn’t care that the animal might break down in the middle of a race. Didn’t give a damn about the jockey that might be injured should the horse stumble and fall once the leg broke in two. All they cared about was the purse money.”
“Mariah,” he said softly, all traces of irritation gone. “You know I’m not like that.”
“Aren’t you?”
He flinched. “Dasher’s injury is nowhere near as catastrophic.”
“It could be.”
“He’s not going to break a leg.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know horses.”
“You’re not a vet.”
She saw him bite back some words, watched him take a deep breath, and when she looked deep in his eyes, she spotted something close to panic there. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered.
“Not to me.”
“I think we both need to calm down—”
“I’m not bending on this issue, Zach. All my friends at CEASE know I’ve been working toward getting Dasher sound. I’ll look like a hypocrite if you race him again.”
“And I don’t see the point of keeping an animal from doing something he’s been bred to do.”
“And I do.”
“So what are you saying?”
Her gaze didn’t waver even though inside she quaked with fear. “I’m not saying anything. I’m asking you, Zach. Please, don’t race him again. Please.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He’d gone pale. She saw his hands clench. “Mariah—”
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I have to at least try.”
“Then I guess that’s it.”
“No.” He reached for her.
She stepped back. “I can’t, Zach. I can’t watch you do it.” Even if she wouldn’t actually physically be there when he raced, she would know. Just as she’d known when he raced his horses in the past. She’d just turned a blind eye to it, but she couldn’t do that anymore. Jillian was right. She’d gone to the dark side and all because she’d fallen in love.
You’re not in love.
Wasn’t she, though? Wasn’t that why this hurt so dang much?
“Look, let’s talk this over later.” He tried touching her again. This time she let him pull her into his arms.
You are not in love.
“We can have dinner at my place,” she heard him say. “Talk it over after we’ve both had time to think about it.” He leaned back, looked into her eyes. “I’ll call you later on.”
She wouldn’t change her mind. She tried to tell him that with her eyes.
“I’ll send someone over to pick up Dasher later today.”
Her head bowed. He didn’t get it after all. Despite what she’d thought the other day, he didn’t get her.
When he tipped her chin up, she had the damnedest time keeping the tears from her eyes.
“I’ll see you later,” he said tenderly.
No, he wouldn’t.
* * *
&nbs
p; “SO I DID the right thing, right?”
Jillian nodded from her position at the kitchen table. Mariah grabbed a pillow from her couch and hugged it to her. The same couch where she and Zach had—
She shuttered the thought.
“I mean, I was an idiot for assuming he wouldn’t race Dasher again.”
“You know what they say about ass-uming,” Jillian said. Her friend tried to smile, but it came out looking more like a Halloween-mask grin. “I’m glad you set him straight.”
“The thing is, Jillian, I know he loves horses. I mean, I could never be with a man that didn’t.”
“Apparently, he doesn’t love them enough.”
But he did. He did, she wanted to scream.
“What’d you do when he came to get Dasher?”
“I pretended I was on a call.” She fiddled with a loose string on the edge of the pillow, tugged on it in the hopes of tearing it off. The seam started to fray, the piping coming loose.
Like my life.
“That was smart,” Jillian said, her short dark hair mussed, no doubt due to Mariah’s panicked call and her pleas to come to Uptown Farms as soon as she could. Clearly, she hadn’t taken time to brush her hair.
“He’ll change his mind.” Mariah refused to believe otherwise. “When I give him the cold shoulder for a few days, he’ll get the point.”
When Jillian didn’t say anything, Mariah looked up.
“And if he doesn’t?” her friend asked.
“He will.”
But Jillian didn’t appear convinced. Mariah told herself to ignore her dour look of pessimism. It would all work out.
Still, as the evening came to a close and she ignored all ten of Zach’s phone calls, she found herself covering her head with a pillow and screaming. It was the hardest thing in the world to give him the silent treatment. Worse, she missed him. It amazed her how quickly she’d gotten used to having him around. It wasn’t just the sex, either. She missed the daily rundown of how their days had gone. Missed sharing a meal with him. Missed the laughter.
He stopped by the clinic the next day. She’d anticipated the move, so she’d asked the girls to schedule her on farm calls. Driving between the different stables gave her lots of time to think, the knot in her stomach doubling in size when she saw the number of missed calls on her cell.
He was waiting for her when she got back later that night.
She probably could have avoided him. They parked the clinic trucks around the back and she could have driven like a maniac and gotten there before him, but she couldn’t avoid him forever.
“How’s Dasher?” she asked the moment she slipped out of the truck.
“Why haven’t you been returning my calls?”
He was hurt. She could see it in his eyes. Honestly, she didn’t blame him. She might not like what he did for a living, but she hated manipulating him even more. That was what it felt as if she was doing—trying to force his hand. It didn’t sit well with her. Not at all.
“I needed time to think.”
He looked so handsome standing there. He’d come straight from the track, his standard-issue jeans, cowboy hat and red polo peppered by small specks of dirt. Clearly, he’d been splashed by mud at some point during the day. It didn’t look as if he cared.
“And?” he prompted.
“Nothing’s changed, Zach.”
And it made her sick. Despite what she’d told Jillian last night, she worried—no, she very much feared—there was no way around the matter.
“Dasher or you.”
She hadn’t thought of it that way, but she guessed that was what it boiled down to. “Sort of.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“I—” She opened her mouth to deny it, but she couldn’t. Suddenly, the fight drained out of her. It left her weak. She leaned against the driver’s-side door of the truck. “It’s not just Dasher. It’s the three young colts you have at the ranch, too. I’m going to have to watch you saddle and bridle and break them at some point in the future. And what about when one of them is horribly injured? If not Dasher, then some other horse of yours. It’ll happen, and I’ll be forced to fix it, only don’t you see, I’ll feel as if I’m enabling you. As if I somehow condone what you’re doing, and I just wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“So you’re willing to throw everything we have away...to simply pack up and leave. No compromise. No trying to make it work. Just toss it all away like my mom and my dad.”
“No.” She took a step toward him. “Not like that. I’m not like your mom at all.”
Far from appeasing him, he suddenly looked incensed. “Do you realize that I’m in love with you?”
She almost sagged against the door again.
“I fell in love with you the day you delivered that foal. I was going to surprise you. I was going to drag you to a race and ask you to marry me in front of the entire crowd.”
He took a step toward her. “I love you, Mariah. I love you so much it hurts, and this...this thing you ask of me, it’s wrong.”
Good Lord, was he serious?
“I can’t do this.” She tried to walk away.
He wouldn’t let her go. “This is my livelihood you’re talking about. Not just mine, but everyone I employ. And it’s the legacy my dad built. It’s the future I’ve been trying to create. Please, for the love of God, don’t ask me to keep a horse off the track when he deserves a chance to run. Not when I’m so close. Not when a horse could break a leg running out in a pasture. Or jumping. Or stepping out of a trailer wrong.”
She flinched.
“Please, Mariah.”
She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Zach.”
Those were tears in her eyes. They didn’t fall, but they were there nonetheless, hovering near her lashes.
“You’re a hypocrite, Mariah. If you think I’m bad, you need to call your friends who jump horses bad, too. And the people that rescue horses at auction and then barrel race them, they are evil, too. You should protest a barrel race. Hell, while you’re at it, go after the reining people and the cutting-horse people, too. Anyone that dares to give their horse a job, one that involves physical labor, that’s who you need to go after. Don’t just go after me.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it, Mariah? Is it really?”
It was. They didn’t do half the horrible things the racing industry did to their horses.
Right?
She brushed the thought away. He was just playing with her mind, that was all. Horse-show people treated their horses like glass.
Not all of them.
“Goodbye, Mariah.”
She opened eyes she hadn’t even known she’d closed and the minute she did, she wished she’d close them again. So much pain ebbed from his blue eyes, so much sadness and regret, it nearly killed her.
“Dasher came off the track sound. I’m increasing his work schedule. There’s a race next month. Not here, down south. A big one. I think Dasher has a shot. If it’s the only race you ever watch in your life, Mariah, let it be that one. It’s televised. You can watch it at home. You’ve worked so hard to get Dasher to where he is today—I want you to watch him run. I want you to look at him when he does. To see the pride he takes in his job. To watch him hold his head high and prance to the gate in anticipation of what he was born to do. He loves it, Mariah, and I swear to you, he wants to run. He wants to race. Don’t take that away from him.”
A tear ran down her cheek. She could feel the hot trail until it dropped off the side of her jaw. Somehow he’d approached without her knowing. All she felt was the soft brush of his hand on her cheek.
“Take care of yourself.”
And when he drove away a few minutes later, she knew it was for the last
time.
Chapter Twenty
He didn’t call her.
She’d known he wouldn’t. He’d made it clear he wouldn’t. Still, a part of her had hoped....
Stupid.
And to what end? she asked herself. What if he did call? Had anything changed? She refused to align herself with an industry that caused the death of two horses for every one thousand horses that raced. And that was just in the Thoroughbred industry. What if they combined stats from the other breeds? Horrible. Their relationship had been doomed from the start. Deep down she’d known that. It was why she’d refused to fall in love with him.
Still, as the days flew by, she wondered how Dasher was doing. The clinic had gotten a bunch of referrals from some of Zach’s friends. Each time a trainer or an owner came in, she wanted to ask how the stallion was doing. She assumed he was doing well based on the calls they were getting asking about their treatment plan, but she didn’t dare ask. If she did, she’d worry it would get back to Zach and he might get the wrong idea.
“Mariah, can I see you for a second?”
She’d just walked into the clinic after a busy day of farm calls, but Dr. Saffer’s eyes smiled at her above his glasses in a way that reassured her. It had been over two months since she’d started. The doctor who’d been out on maternity was scheduled to return next month, and so she’d been expecting a conversation about her last day of work and so forth. It still depressed her. Well, depressed her even more than she’d been before. She kept her eyes on the white lab coat and followed him to his office behind the reception area.
“Sit down,” he told her, motioning toward a chair in front of a beautiful wooden desk.
She loved this room. Tall ceilings, wide windows with a view of the low-lying mountains separating Via Del Caballo from the coast. Horse paintings: horse heads, rearing horses, running horses. Out in the wild. Galloping full tilt across a desert.
Where they might injure themselves.
Don’t go there.
“Mariah, we have really enjoyed having you here.”
Yup. This was it. The official “thank you for your service” speech. “I’ve enjoyed being here, too.”
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