David gave her one of his smart-big-brother to dumb-little-sister looks. “Why don’t you just get up on him and work off some of his orneriness?”
Trish tossed the reins she held over the animal’s black head and turned for a leg up. Patrick gave her the boost. Trish let her legs dangle below the stirrups as she gathered her reins. “Y’all see if you can stay out of trouble now, ya he-ah?” Her laughter floated back on the breeze as she nudged her horse into a trot.
Trish and Spitfire stopped beside the track entry. She watched other horses coming and going as she slid her feet into the iron stirrups. With hands crossed on the colt’s withers, she kept her reins collected but at rest.
Spitfire, head raised, sniffed the morning scents of horse, damp sand, sweat, and the lingering aroma of the crowds from the day before. He blew, nostrils flaring with the force.
If Trish closed her eyes she could still see and hear the cheering spectators. Even though it had been pouring rain, she and Spitfire had taken their bow. What a feeling—to win the Kentucky Derby on the colt bred on their own farm!
“Can’t ya just see it all,” a familiar voice interrupted her daydreaming. Red Holloran, with hair that gave him the nickname and a smile to melt any female heart, sat on the back of a dark bay. He gazed around the track with Trish. “Never thought you’d do it after that start.”
“We Evanstons don’t give up easily.” Trish nudged Spitfire forward. They turned counterclockwise on the track and walked their horses side by side along the outer rail.
“I noticed. You see the morning paper?”
“Nope.”
“You’ll love your picture.” Red grinned at her.
“I’ll bet. Monster from the mud lagoon. They shoulda made me take a shower before I got on the scale. Coming from behind on a sloppy track like that one—” Trish shook her head. “If a person didn’t know we wore crimson and gold silks, they never would have been able to tell yesterday, at least not from my front. And Spitfire was just as bad.” She leaned forward to stroke the horse’s arched neck. “Weren’t ya, fella?” Spitfire pulled at the bit, a gentle tug that politely begged for more than a walk.
Trish obliged and posted to a lazy jog.
“How do ya like that new car?” Red kept pace.
“My mother is going to have a fit.” Trish shook her head. “Can you see me—at sixteen—tooling around Vancouver, Washington—where it rains three hundred days out of the year—in a bright red Chrysler LeBaron convertible?” Trish settled back in the saddle. “She’ll have a cow.”
“Your mother seems like a real nice lady to me.”
“She is. But she’s not your mother. And you’re not her only daughter. The daughter she’d much rather see not racing Thoroughbreds.”
“Well, she can’t make you give the car back.”
“No, but she can keep me from driving it.”
“Would she?”
“I don’t know.” Trish frowned. “We haven’t always gotten along the best. She and I—well, we have different ideas of what I should do with my life.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Ride, race.” Trish glanced up to the empty stands where a couple of men in green and white uniforms cleaned up trash. “To keep on doing what I’m doing—full-time.”
“And your mother?”
“She wants me to go to school, get good grades, and go on to college—also with good grades, so I can have a good, safe life.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
Trish raised her eyebrows at Red. “Would you?”
“No. But it is important to finish school.”
Trish sighed. “I know.” She turned Spitfire off toward the barn. “See ya later.”
“When do you leave for Baltimore?” Red raised his voice.
“Thursday, I think,” Trish yelled back. She felt her butterflies take an experimental leap when she thought of the race ahead. Baltimore, Maryland. Home of Pimlico Race Course, where the Preakness Stakes was the next jewel in the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred horse racing. The Derby was the first, the Preakness in two weeks, and the Belmont two weeks later.
“David?” Trish asked in the car on the way back to the hotel. They’d left Patrick grooming Spitfire, his hat hung safely on a nail in the tackroom.
“What?”
“Has Mom said anything about the car?” Trish concentrated on her driving, trying to sound casual. She could feel David studying her. “Well?”
“You mean your convertible?”
“You know that’s what I mean; don’t be difficult.”
“I wouldn’t plan on driving it to school every day, and it’s a good thing you have money to pay the insurance. Other than that, I think she’s kind of waiting to see what’ll happen.”
“What do you mean, what’ll happen?”
“What she said was, ‘I absolutely refuse to worry about Trish driving around in a red convertible until I have to.’”
Trish saw the humor in that. Her mother was trying very hard not to worry anymore. But as she had said, worrying was as much a part of her nature as the color of her eyes.
Trish was also beginning to understand about worry. It was an easy habit to fall into. But as her little voice kept reminding her, worry and faith didn’t go well together.
“We were beginning to think you got lost,” her father said when the two young people entered the family hotel suite. Hal glanced at his watch. “We’re meeting Grandpa and Grandma at the restaurant in half an hour. The Finleys are coming too, so you’d better hustle.”
“You see the papers?” Trish didn’t wait for an answer when she spotted the opened newspapers on the coffee table. “Oh yuck!” She stared from the picture back to her father. “I look awful. You can hardly even tell it’s me.”
David looked over her shoulder. “Looks like you took a mud bath. Hey, we oughta blow these up poster size.”
Trish jabbed him in the gut with her elbow. “Sure, highlight of my life and I’m covered with mud. And Spitfire’s not any better.” She studied the pictures again and wrinkled her nose in distaste. “These would be in color too.”
“Well, the trophy’s shiny and the roses are red; what more could you ask for?” Hal handed her another paper. “The articles are good, but you’ll have to read them later. The grands are leaving for home today, so we need to spend what time we can with them.”
Trish nearly bumped into the wall as she read one article on the way to the bathroom. The headline “First Female to Win the Roses” gave her goose bumps. She plugged in the curling iron, washed, then brushed her teeth. As she brushed she studied the face in the mirror. Hazel eyes, like her mother’s, remained the same. Determined chin, only more so. Though her bangs were smashed flat from her helmet, the hot iron would take care of that. Her hair still curled just above her shoulders if she left it loose. You’d think there’d be a difference after the big win yesterday, she thought.
Trish pulled a summer-green cotton sweater over her head and stepped into a pair of white jeans. Three rolls with the iron, a brush job, hair clipped back, and she was ready. No time for makeup. She’d already heard her father making noises like they were late.
They ate at a fish house that overlooked the broad Ohio River. Just upriver they could see a paddle wheeler docked.
“I wish we could have eaten there.” Trish pointed to the newly painted white vessel. “Wouldn’t it be fun to cruise down the river like they did in the old days?”
“You’d have hated all the skirts and petticoats,” Marge reminded her. “And the parasols. Just think how many dresses and skirts you don’t wear now.”
Trish nodded at her mother. “You’re right.” She stared at the glistening boat again. “But still…”
They had all served themselves at the elaborate buffet and returned to the room they’d reserved. It was private and had a sweeping view of the river. Everyone sat at one long table, with Hal at the head.
“You sure pulled off a good one ye
sterday,” Adam Finley, a horse owner and trainer from central California, told Trish as he pulled out his chair and sat across from her. She’d gotten to know Adam and his wife on the trip to Santa Anita in April. “I thought Martha would squeeze my arm to death when that black colt of yours reared in the starting gate.”
“He doesn’t like thunder.” Trish shuddered at the memory. It hadn’t been one of her better moments either.
“I don’t know how you can get out there like that, with all that danger around you. Why, one jockey was ridden right into the rail.” Trish’s grandmother, Gloria Johnson, shook her head. A frown creased her forehead as she looked from Marge to Hal as if they’d lost their wits. “To think you’d let your daughter…”
Her husband, David, interrupted with a smile. “Now, dear, you promised.”
In the last few days Trish had really begun to understand where her mother got the worry habit. It was obviously an inherited trait.
Trish looked up in time to catch a wink from her father. He’d been reading her mind again. Trish checked to see how her mother was reacting.
Marge was shaking her head. She rolled her eyes heavenward when she caught Trish’s questioning look.
Trish pressed her lips together to keep a grin from breaking out. Her mom had caught on.
“So, Trish,” Adam Finley said, leaning across the table. “How about coming down and riding for me this summer? You remember we talked about it in April?”
How could she forget? What a dream it would be to race again in California. But at the same time she wished she could get the man to lower his voice. She stole a peek at her mother. She’d heard all right. Her frown said it all.
“I—uh, of course I remember. I’m just not sure what we’re doing yet.”
“Trish, you promised to make up that chemistry class this summer.” Marge’s tone didn’t offer any outs.
Adam looked from Trish to her mother. “I see.”
“Now you’ve stuck your foot in your mouth,” Adam’s wife, Martha, who appeared everyone’s image of the perfect grandmother, scolded her husband. “You get so excited, you think everyone should think like you do.”
“Well…” Adam paused. “Trish is an amazing rider for one so young. I like the way she handles horses.”
“Thank you,” Trish responded. Her mother didn’t look one bit happy.
“We’ll see what we can work out,” Hal said as he pushed his chair back. “And now, I have some announcements to make.”
As soon as all eyes were on him he began. “First, congratulations, Trish. You have no idea how proud I am of you and Spitfire. Yesterday, you made one of my dreams come true. Thank you.”
Trish could feel the heat blazing into her cheeks when everyone began applauding. She chewed her lip, then rose and took a quick bow. “Thanks, everybody.” She could feel tears swimming at the back of her eyes at the look of love and pride on her father’s face. Trish tried to blink them back and almost made it. “I thought all my tears ran out yesterday.”
“Somehow I never seem to run out.” Marge blew her nose and sniffed again.
Chuckles, like dry leaves before a wind, blew around the table.
“And secondly, BlueMist Farms has offered to buy shares in Spitfire with the agreement that he will retire to stud there. Two other people want in too, so I’ll have a lawyer draw up the papers and Spitfire will be legally syndicated, if that is okay with everyone.”
“If I’m not one of those people you mentioned, I’d like in on the syndication too,” Adam said. “You just tell me your price per share and how many you’ll offer.”
“We’ll work something out.” Hal nodded. “I’d be pleased to have you in with us, Adam.”
Trish heard the exchange with one part of her brain, but the other part was in shock. So soon? She hadn’t thought of the colt leaving home till sometime in the far distant future. And then, not really. But many farms retired a stud colt after winning the Derby. And Spitfire carried good lines. His father, Seattle Slew, won the Triple Crown in 1977.
But Spitfire was hers. How could she let him go? And no one else could ride him. He wouldn’t let anyone. Trish chewed on her thumbnail. She hadn’t thought about Spitfire leaving Runnin’ On Farm.
“You know we’re not set up for a stud farm,” David whispered in her ear.
“I know.” Trish took a deep breath. “I just hadn’t thought about it.”
“You okay, Tee?” Hal had picked up her distress.
Trish nodded. She squared her shoulders but didn’t dare look directly at her father. She knew she’d break into tears right there.
“Think about Miss Tee,” David added.
A smile tickled the corner of Trish’s mouth. The little filly that had been born on her birthday always brought a happy reaction in her. At eight months, Miss Tee was just beginning her training.
“As I was saying earlier, I just don’t understand why Trish—”
“Now, Mother…” Grandpa Johnson patted his wife’s hand. He checked his watch. “I really think we’d better get on the road. I hate to leave you all, but I don’t drive after dark anymore and Florida is a ways off. So thank you for a good time and this fine meal.” He pulled out his wife’s chair after he stood. “Come on, Mother. Let’s get all the hugging and crying done so we can be going.”
Trish pushed back her own chair. “Sorry I didn’t get to spend more time with you,” she said as she gave her grandfather a big hug. “Thanks for coming.”
“You too, Grandma,” she added. “Maybe you’ll fly up for Pimlico. That’s not too far away from Florida.” Trish hugged the gray-haired woman who was short like herself.
“I don’t know, dear. Watching you up on that black horse of yours nearly worried me to death. Now, you be careful.” She stepped back and shook her head.
“I will, I promise,” Trish said.
The Finleys left for the airport soon after the Evanstons waved off the departing grandparents. Hal had his arms around both Marge and Trish as they all stood in the parking lot waving good-bye.
“Well, let’s get back to the hotel. We have a lot to do before we leave tomorrow,” Hal said.
“I thought we were leaving for Pimlico on Thursday.” Trish looked up at her father.
“We are. But I have to fly home to Vancouver for a chemotherapy treatment. Your mother is going with me and we plan to be back on Wednesday.”
“But I thought…” Trish started to say. Her little nagging voice didn’t give her a chance to finish. No, you weren’t thinking at all. Not about your father and the cancer. You just think about horse racing.
Chapter
02
I wish Dad were still here.” Trish flopped back on her bed on Monday morning.
“Well, he’s not and you’re wasting time.” David whirled around and headed for the door.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing!”
“Right.” Trish grabbed her windbreaker and trotted after him. David nearly ran to the elevator, or at least it seemed that way to Trish. I didn’t oversleep. No one’s called. What set him off? Trish’s mind played with the questions while she studied the stern profile of her usually easygoing brother as they waited for the hotel elevator.
“Let’s take the stairs.” David wheeled to the right and pushed open the exit door. As they clattered down six flights of stairs, Trish’s mind took up the game again. Even the set of David’s shoulders declared his…anger? Resentment? Disgust? Trish wasn’t sure. Just keeping up was effort enough.
“Okay, what is it?” She crossed her arms over her chest after snapping her seat belt in the rental car.
David’s sigh sounded as if it had been trapped inside long enough to build up steam. “Does it ever occur to you that sometimes I get tired of being in charge?”
Trish was taken aback. “No. I mean, I guess I thought we kinda shared that, the responsibility and all. It’s not like Dad does this on purpose. Leaving, I mean.” She felt as i
f her words and thoughts rattled together and came out broken. “Besides, we have Patrick now.”
“I know.” David gripped the top of the steering wheel and leaned his forehead on his hands. “I guess part of it is this awful feeling I have in the pit of my stomach.”
“Awful feeling? About what? Did Dad say something to you before they left this morning? I just gave them a hug and fell back to sleep.”
“I don’t know. No, nothing was said. Maybe it’s just Dad’s leaving us here.”
“At least you don’t have to talk with that guy from Sports Illustrated again. All by yourself.”
“I’ll be there if you need me,” David reminded his sister.
“I meant without Dad. He always says exactly the right thing. I sound like someone with half a brain.”
“Well, the article is mostly about you and Spitfire. Besides, you know what kind of questions they’ll ask. Think of your answers in advance.”
Trish nodded. Silence fell while they both looked out the window of the car. A flicker of red caught Trish’s eye as a scarlet cardinal lighted on one of the blossom-frosted branches of the dogwood tree in front of them.
“Look,” Trish whispered. “Halfway up the tree on the right.” She breathed a sigh of delight as a dull-colored female joined her mate on the branch. The little male glistened like a ruby jewel set among the creamy blossoms.
“Well, we better get going.” David reached for the ignition key and then paused. “We’d better be praying, Tee.”
“For what? Right now things are going pretty smooth.”
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling.” David turned his head to back the car out of the parking space. “A bad feeling.”
Trish mentally sorted through her favorite Bible verses. They were printed on three-by-five cards and tacked above her desk at home. Her father had started the collection during his first hospital stay the previous fall. Finally she settled on “In everything give thanks.” It was hard to pray when she didn’t know what to pray for.
What if you really don’t like what’s coming? her nagging little voice inquired. Then you’re going to feel pretty stupid giving thanks for it. Some days her inner voice seemed to be a help, but more often it nagged at her—like today.
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