With her cheeks warming swiftly, Cassie went on the offensive to keep her father from cornering her. “How come you’ve all of a sudden become enamored with California horses? Have you been talking to Travers?”
Tug O’Hanlon coughed loudly. “Well, of course, while he was here we talked a lot about breedin’ lines and about horses I hadn’t heard much about, me being here in the middle of the country. He did tell me about the Barretts Fall Sale. That’s it.”
Tug filled their coffee cups. “You know, kid, I don’t know if he’ll be at the sale, but if you stay active in the thoroughbred world at the level you want to, then you’ll run into him at some point. You might as well prepare for it.”
Squaring her shoulders, rising to the bait, Cassie snorted, “If it happens, I can handle it. Clint Travers is not going to make me be a captive of Chicago. Horses are my business, and I go wherever that business takes me.”
“That’s my girl,” Tug chuckled. “‘An O’Hanlon ain’t afraid of nothin.”
- o -
Sitting in his truck in front of his grandmother’s house, Clint rested his throbbing head on the steering wheel. Where had he made the wrong turn? Wherever he turned, no matter how busy he stayed, no matter how much he drank, he could not escape the woman his family called Fire Woman. Was it about honor? Was it about pride? Was it about something deeper than all of that? He no longer knew what to do. He was stuck. He was lost.
The days had dragged by. His sister gave him little slack. The kids were doing well in school, but at home they failed to have that spark that was so uniquely theirs. They seldom asked him to join in their play.
Sundays had always been a fun gathering day for the family, whether at his house, or his mother’s, or his grandmother’s. Now a kind of dullness washed over everyone. Laughter, when it happened was no longer spontaneous. It seemed forced. His mother was always polite and caring, but she seldom asked anymore about how he was doing. His grandmother had not spoken to him of anything important since that day weeks before in his driveway. She’d hardly noticed he was alive.
He felt responsible for the fragmentation of his family, yet he could not figure out how to make things whole again. Try as hard as he could, he could not see a way out of the morass. He was not only lost, he was stuck, mired deep in a mud he feared was gradually turning into quicksand.
“It took you long enough to come in,” Mrs. Littlefield observed when her grandson stepped through the doorway.
“It was a hard decision. I didn’t know if you’d want to see me,” he drawled, slouched over with Stetson in hand.
“Humph. You didn’t know if you wanted to be found.” His grandmother gestured toward a chair.
Without quite knowing how it happened, Clint sat at the ancient wooden kitchen table with his hands firmly wrapped around a hot thick cup of coffee. His grandmother’s coffee always had body. No one ever described it as weak. After scrutinizing his cup for what seemed like an eternity, he looked at his grandmother’s wrinkled face. “You were right about not wanting to be found. But now I’m here. I’ve decided to be found. Now what, Grandmother?”
“What hurts most?” she asked, watching closely every nuance of reaction her grandson made.
He thought long and hard about her question. It wasn’t new. How many times had he asked the same question in the past weeks? Not able to avoid his grandmother’s penetrating stare, he answered the best he could. “The fear of not being found. The fear of rejection, I guess.”
“You’re not certain?”
“Yeah, I’m certain.”
“That’s not surprising,” his grandmother said, buttering a piece of toast. “The way your father treated you. You walked around afraid of what might happen next.”
Clint stared at his grandmother blankly. How did she know? He’d loved his father, but he’d also feared him. He’d done everything he could to live up to his father’s high expectations, to win his praise, to bring honor to the family. But he always came up a little short. As a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, he lived in fear of his father, of his father laughing at his failures, or of being rejected for not adequately measuring up.
And then the man died before Clint could prove himself. He’d never been quite good enough in the shadow of his father. He’d never told a soul about those fears. He never realized anyone else knew, until today.
Yet this gnarled woman with strands of gray shooting through otherwise black hair and with more gum than teeth showing when she smiled—his grandmother—had known all along. Gradually, it dawned on him that she’d been there through those difficult years, helping him accept himself without ever asking him to name those fears, and without undercutting his love for his father.
Now, with the stakes so high, she challenged him to look inside himself and not shrink from what he might discover. He realized, then, that she was encouraging him to find himself.
“I didn’t know you knew,” he mumbled at last.
“It wasn’t that difficult to see.” The old woman shook her head. “I never could understand why. Maybe he thought he had to be extra hard on you because you were of mixed blood. In his mind, maybe he was doing his best to prepare you for a tough world.”
“Maybe.”
“What next? What hurts most next?” The elder woman wanted to know.
Clint’s eyes focused sharply on the salt and pepper shakers. He nodded, recognizing a truth that he had been coming to but had not quite named. “The fear of losing her, of her rejecting me,” he said, his voice cracking.
“Ah, you have come a long ways already, my Grandson.” His grandmother placed a weathered hand over his. Her touch felt surprisingly warm. “You’re beginning to see how the past colors the present.”
“But I don’t know what to do next. I can’t just crawl back to her like some wounded animal…I don’t know how to get her back.”
“No, you don’t have to do that, but only fools are afraid of admitting their mistakes.”
Silence hung heavy in the small once-yellow kitchen. A clock ticked loudly, time refusing to stand still.
“I guess I should call her,” Clint volunteered at last.
Smiling weakly at her grandson, Mrs. Littlefield shook her head. “To listen to another person, to truly speak to another, you must be in that person’s presence. Go to her, my Grandson. Let your heart do the speaking. Let your heart do the listening. You are a good man. You will be fine. Trust your heart.”
Clint fought back the mist clouding his vision. He nodded silently. After talking with Tug O’Hanlon a few days earlier, he’d initially decided not to go to the October Barretts sale. Now it seemed like a good idea to go. He no longer wanted to avoid the woman of fire. At least Barretts would be neutral ground for them to meet.
“Thanks, Grandmother.” Standing to leave, Clint reached in his pocket, retrieved a small pouch of tobacco and placed it on the table. “Thank you for helping me re-discover who I am.”
Feeling much lighter than he had for weeks, Clint Travers whistled as he walked to his pickup. Once again he had a purpose and sense of direction.
He would not allow the specter of his father to control his life. He had tried so hard to earn that man’s love.
But now he had to find her. He knew she would show up at Barretts. Whether the fire woman would accept his apology or not, he had to tell her that he was sorry for mistrusting her and for letting his own fears force him to run from her. Did she ever think of him?
- o -
Cassie surveyed the sales area. Barretts, on the edge of the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, was a horseman’s paradise. Row upon row of stalls, building after building, housed thoroughbreds with fine breeding and considerable promise for racing. Attendants would bring an animal out into an open area to walk and trot for prospective bidders. All eyes tried to detect that telltale flaw that would derail a horse from reaching its potential. Buyers compared one entry against another trying to decide what weaknesses in conformation they
would accept. Everyone knew the perfect horse did not exist; yet, everyone looked for that horse.
As Cassie evaluated a bay yearling being led away from her by an attendant, she heard a familiar low voice.
“Nice looking filly,” Clint Travers said softly.
Her toes curled immediately. Without taking her eyes off the yearling, she responded caustically, “It’s not a filly, Travers. It’s a colt. Have you gone blind as well as nuts?”
“I wasn’t commenting on the animal.”
“Oh.” She felt her face flush. “Thanks for showing me the colt,” she said, dismissing the attendant leading the bay. “He’s real nice. He’s got a lot of potential.”
“I’m curious,” Clint queried, “were you talking about the colt or about me?”
“Could be,” Cassie responded, ducking her eyes from his intense stare.
“Look, this is kind of a hard place to have a conversation. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Or do you have more yearlings to look at?”
“No, that was the last one. The ones I’m interested in will come through the auction ring mid-afternoon. I do have a few broodmares to check out before tomorrow morning.” Trying to keep her composure bland, she said, “I’ve always got time for a cup of coffee.”
Walking toward the canteen, they shared comments regarding the yearlings of interest to each of them. Both gave a sigh of relief when they realized they would not be bidding against each other.
After sitting down at a corner table with their coffee and rolls, Cassie shared how she’d ranked the eight yearlings based on conformation and breeding and elicited Clint’s evaluation. Cassie glanced from her notes to Clint, whose gaze was fixed on her. She looked back at her notes. This was surreal. How long could they carry on this very professional conversation before talking about what really mattered? Maybe now was the time. Neither one of them had said a thing for an entire minute. She’d never experienced such an enveloping silence. Who would go first? It had to be him. He was the one who had stormed out on her.
“Your dad said you’ve made a career change. That’s huge,” Clint said, taking the last bite of his cinnamon roll.
“Yeah,” she responded shyly. At least that was more personal. Damn, he was handsome in a white shirt and jeans. His deeply tanned skin seemed even sexier against the starched white. “I wasn’t aware how much it was in my blood until Hope ran the Lincoln. I do want to thank you for all your help. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
Before she started to slobber, she brought herself up short. “Say, did my dad know you were going to be here? Is he trying to play some kind of god in all of this?”
Clint spoke up quickly, “No, no, he actually thought I wasn’t coming. I’d planned on being here until I heard you were coming. Then I changed my mind.” Clint looked away.
“What made you change your mind again?” Cassie asked hesitantly, holding her breath.
He smiled briefly. “I realized I was lost. And I had a long talk with my grandmother. She’s always been in your corner, you know. The whole damn family is.” Clint shook his head. He hesitated and then forged on. “Grandmother doesn’t give a lot of direct advice. But you learn a lot just talking to her.”
Cassie smiled. “How is your family, Clint? How are Sammy and Lester, your mother, Silver Hawk, your grandmother? I miss them.”
“I had hoped you might stop on the way back and find out for yourself,” he replied cautiously. “Other than the fact that they all think I’m a jerk, everyone seems quite fine.”
Coughing on the coffee she’d been swallowing, Cassie stared hard at the flustered dark haired man who seemed suddenly very ill at ease. She wished she could read his mind. Had his family been putting him through hell all of this time? Still, discomfort with kids and relatives would not be enough on which to form a renewed relationship.
“Look,” Clint suggested, regaining control and checking his watch, “we both have other horses to evaluate. I have to get over to the auction ring soon. But can we have dinner this evening? There’s so much to say, and so little time.”
“Sure,” she said, reaching for the bill. “I’ve got a lot I want to tell you too, but we do have other responsibilities.”
Her body simmered. He did say he’d been a jerk, right? At least they agreed on something. But there wasn’t time to pursue that line further. “We’re on for dinner, but right now I’ve got to get focused. Wouldn’t want to spend thousands of dollars without a clear mind.”
Matching Clint’s strides toward the stables, Cassie’s step was lighter than it had been since before leaving Chicago. Nothing was settled. Much had been left unsaid. Yet much had been said with the eyes, with body language, with the heart. She trusted they could at least talk honestly with each other before the day was finished.
- o -
Feeling like a soaring eagle, Clint glanced down at the sleek redhead walking beside him. He let go of a deep breath he’d been unaware of holding since he’d seen Cassie checking out the bay yearling. She’d looked so lovely, even with short hair.
It was growing on him. He liked the way the new look set off the ivory skin of her neck. He could easily imagine running his lips up and down that bare skin. Too easily, he could visualize her in something other than that conservative yellow dress she wore. In no way did it do justice to the body he’d memorized square inch by square inch.
They hadn’t cleaned up all their emotional garbage, but this might yet be the red-letter day he’d hoped for.
- o -
Cassie sat on the edge of an aisle chair in the fifth row of cushioned seats at Barretts’ plush carpeted and paneled pavilion. Awed by the atmosphere, she nervously fingered the pages of the tattered sales catalogue she and her father had spent hours poring over. She’d been to horse auctions before, but never one like this, where a half dozen auctioneers and floor men were dressed in tuxedos, and where bids often were measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The place reeked of money—the kind of money she and her father didn’t have, even after selling a piece of the farm..
“Don’t be paralyzed by the richness of the place,” Clint counseled, sitting on her left. “A lot of these animals will sell for under thirty thousand. Hell, by late afternoon some will go for less than two. But you didn’t come this far to pick those up. It’s usually the first fifty or so hip numbers that attract the big buyers and the largest dollars.”
Nodding, Cassie welcomed his advice. She wasn’t about to let the tension between them get in the way now. After all, he did this for a living. She rummaged in her purse until she found the package of antacids.
An attendant led out Hip Number 52 onto the raised podium. The dark bay yearling colt looked tremendous under the lights. Cassie hoped the bidding wouldn’t push the animal beyond her price range. The opening bid was seventy-five hundred. Her shaking hand raised the bid a thousand. She didn’t have to do more than twitch to stay in the bidding game once she was identified by a floor man as a bidder.
Rapidly, the bidding moved to thirty-five thousand. Longer time lapses between bids occurred as bidders reconsidered just how far they would go for Hip Number 52, but with so many lots of horses to be sold, the auctioneers would not wait very long. Decisions to spend large sums of money were made in seconds, not minutes. At forty-five thousand the bidding stopped. The gavel fell.
“Sold to the pretty young lady in the fifth row,” the affable auctioneer announced.
Cassie tried not to jump up and shout. She wanted to do a victory lap. But instead, she waited impatiently for the floor man to bring over the purchase slip for her to verify and sign. Damn, she’d just spent more than her old annual salary on a yearling and a dream.
Grabbing her hand, Clint whispered, “You did great. Real cool down the stretch. I can see we’re going to have to do this often.”
“Yeah, well how come I’m shaking like a leaf before gale-force winds?”
He smiled at her lazily. “That’s normal. You’re having an adr
enaline rush in the midst of some fierce competition.”
After picking up Hip Number 68, a nicely conformed yearling filly for twenty-two thousand five hundred, Cassie was ready to call it a day. Once she’d signed the slip, she got up to leave, then sat quickly sat back down, aware that Clint hadn’t made a move to follow.
“You haven’t done any bidding,” she told Clint. “I don’t want to offend you, but I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to go see those two yearlings I just bought.”
“Cassie,” he said, watching the handlers lead in another horse, “I know you’ve got to double check that those yearlings are okay. And you have to go look at them and wonder what you missed when evaluating them on paper and in the flesh. Run along and check them out. There’s something I need to see about before leaving. Meet me back here at five and we’ll find a place to eat.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Cass whispered. “Thanks for understanding.”
As she stepped through the swinging doors of the pavilion, she leaned heavily against the wall, clutching her stomach, hoping passersby wouldn’t notice her trying to catch her breath and steady her nerves. What a day, what a day, she wanted to shout. Two beautiful yearlings and the possibility of getting her man back in her life.
Would he really listen to her? They’d been quite calm in the canteen, given the circumstances. But what about when they were alone, away from the horse crowd? Would he be honest with her? Could they trust each other enough to let go of the past and look to the future?
Uneasily, Cassie pushed herself away from the wall to check on her horses. Her spirits lifted again when she walked along the horse stalls. If nothing else, she had two very fine prospects to take back to the farm. The trip had already been worthwhile.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I’m sure I’m repeating myself.”
Cassie's Hope (Riders Up) Page 27