by Jean Carroll
She chose a periwinkle blue, wrap dress that showed a little cleavage. Leaving her hair hang long and loose, she used a touch of make-up. When she heard his car pull up, she flew downstairs to open the door.
“Wow, you look fantastic. A lot nicer than in your riding gear.” He gave her one of those smiles and walked in. He looked scrumptious in khakis, a white shirt, navy, sport coat and a navy and red striped tie.
“You do clean up great. You don’t look like a stable hand now.”
He gave her a little bow and said, “Thank you, my lady.” They got in the car and he asked, “Do you like Italian?”
“Yes, I love it.”
“Good. I made reservations at this little place in Alexandria called Poro Ristarante. The food is good there.”
They parked and he opened the car door and helped her out. He walked behind her but sort of guided her along with his hand lightly on her back.
She loved the restaurant, very upscale with nice linens and lots of atmosphere. He ordered dinner for them both along with some vintage year of red wine. Everything was delicious. He certainly was more sophisticated than she would have thought and started to relax with him.
“So, you’re a famous jockey? You don’t look like a jockey. You’re pretty tall.” She said.
“I’m five-ten, but remember I was a steeplechase jockey and they’re usually normal size people, not small like flat racing jockeys.”
“Why is that?”
“The steeplechase horses tend to be older, stronger and bigger. They can carry more weight. My racing weight was around one forty.”
“You can’t race at all anymore?” She asked.
“No, the accident put a stop to the racing.”
“Was it a car wreck?”
“No, it was on the race track.”
“What happened?”
“Actually, I don’t remember the accident at all. I just remember waking up in the hospital in a morphine-induced haze. You’ll have to ask Sean or Keary what happened.”
Yeah, why the hell didn’t I die in the stupid accident? How did I survive being trampled by all those horses?
“Were you hurt badly?”
“I was, yes. My right hip was … Let’s talk about you. Tell me about your work at the gallery?”
Okay, he doesn’t want to talk about that.
“I love being around all the art and working with the artists. It’s a very creative job.”
“Can I come and see it sometime and maybe we could have lunch?”
“I’d love to show it to you. That would be fun. Do you miss your parents and Ireland a lot?”
“I do, yes. I love my parents but we don’t see eye to eye on a couple of things.”
“So Sean’s your cousin and Jill’s your sister. It’s very much a family business then.”
“Yes. Sean and I were raised together. His Dad and mine were brothers. My folks adopted him when his parents were killed in a car wreck when he was two. He’s six months older than me and we’ve always been close. You’d never know it the way we fight,” he said and laughed.
“That’s so sad, but it’s neat that you guys are all together.
“I don’t know what I would have done after the accident if it wasn’t for them.”
While they were talking, Blackie stopped and stared at her.
“What?” She said.
“You’re really beautiful, you know,” he said, seriously.
She was instantly flustered. She didn’t know what to say. “Blackie, thank you, I’m embarrassed. No one ever told me that before.”
“You’re kidding, right? So you only dated men who were blind, then.”
“No, it’s just, well thank you, I’m very flattered,” She said trying to gain some composure.
“I’m not trying to flatter you, it’s what I see.”
He sat there, pensive, for some time, deep in thought. She thought maybe he didn’t want to talk anymore.
“Meg, do you believe in God?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I mean do you really believe in that power?”
“Yes, completely. Why?”
“Why would God save someone from certain death?”
“I guess because God loved that person,” she said, not sure where he was going with this.
“Suppose this person was wicked?”
“I’d think God loved this person in spite of it. It’s all through the Bible how God loves and forgives people who have committed great sins.”
“I mean why the Hell would he save this person? Should the person now
do something to redeem himself? And what? Why would God give him a second chance?”
“Boy you’re into some deep stuff here,” she said hoping to lighten him up a bit.
“These are questions I’ve asked myself for a long time,” he said frowning.
“You mean since your accident?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe God has a new, more important plan for your life and he saved you to do that.”
“You believe God has a plan for us all?” he asked.
“Yes I do and we, most of the time, don’t even realize it’s being played out. Do you
believe you were that bad of a person?”
“There’s no doubt in my mind. I did a lot of terrible things and enjoyed every
minute of it. I know damn well, if the accident hadn’t killed me, my lifestyle would have” he said with a grim set to his mouth.
“Maybe God caused your accident to make you take a closer look at your life and the
things you were doing.”
Blackie stared at her for a long time with a strange shocked look on his face.
This is a little spooky. What is he thinking?
“Are you okay?” She asked softly.
“If that’s true, then God took away the thing I loved most in the world. Is that
my punishment?”
“I don’t know if its punishment. I think more of a wakeup call to change your life.”
“To do what? Change it how?”
“What did you do that was so awful?” She asked, sticking both feet in her mouth. She
couldn’t believe she had actually said that out loud.
He let out a big sigh, “I’d be too ashamed to tell you, Meg. I guess I need to tell you soon
so you know what you’re getting yourself into. I have a lot of emotional baggage, Meg, and some of it is serious. Not tonight, it’s too soon in our relationship to dump all of it on you.”
“I’m a big girl and I have some baggage of my own. What, are you going to wait until
I’m hopelessly in love with you before you tell me? At that point, I won’t be able to get out.”
He looked at her again for a long time. “You’re right; you should know all the shit up front.”
“I care about the person you are now Blackie; the past is just that, past. What I’ve seen is
a caring, hard-working man who has been through a lot and I want to know more.”
“I’m afraid if you know more, you won’t want me at all,” he said with his head bowed.
“You have to trust that it won’t come to that,” she said reaching over and touching his
hand.
“Okay, promise me you’ll let me know straight, if you want out, if it’s too much for you.”
“I will, I promise. Hey, could we lighten this up a little? We’re supposed to be having
fun on our first date,” she said, trying to be upbeat when she had a sick feeling in her gut.
“You’re right, that was all kind of heavy. Let’s hit a movie; you can pick a chic flick.
That should be upbeat.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
They saw ‘Fools Gold’, a cute and funny movie. Blackie reached over during the movie and took her hand. His skin was warm and rough, but his grasp gentle. She had a hard time concentrating on the movie with him touching her. It was delicious! They laughed a lot during the movi
e and his mood had definitely improved.
“Do you want to get coffee and dessert? I’m still hungry,” he asked, with a shy smile.
“Let’s walk. I’m stuffed but I could use coffee. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of more to eat, either.”
“I’m not that hungry, I just don’t want the evening to end yet. I’m having a good time,
Meg.”
“Me too, I haven’t dated in quite some time and it feels good to be out.”
“It’s nice to be sober and be with a woman,” he said and stopped dead and stared at
her.
“That probably wasn’t a smart thing for me to say on the first date,” he blushed and blew out a big sigh.
“You mean you have a drinking problem?”
“Not anymore. It’s just there was always a lot of partying going on after the races and
that’s where I usually met women.”
He stopped again and his shoulders slumped, “Can we change the subject?” He said
with a frown.
“Sure, I’m sorry I said that.”
“That’s okay, but you’re right,” he said and didn’t say anything for a while. They finally got to the Cheesecake Factory and went in. They talked more over coffee and dessert; mostly about the horses.
“Tomorrow why don’t you come and have breakfast and visit with Jill while I work. I have to help Sean load horses and he’s going to the track with them so he won’t be around. I can’t actually believe we’re finally doing this. I’ve been thinking about asking you out for some time but wasn’t sure if you’d want to go,” he said.
“Why wouldn’t I? You should have asked. See, we’ve been wasting all this time.”
“Keary’s going to be in D.C. in the morning, so we’ll have the place almost to ourselves.
We can play with Sandman all day in the arena. How does that sound?”
“That’s a good idea. I want you to ride him and not worry about getting caught.”
“They don’t scare me. I’m tough;” he laughed. “Anyway, I don’t feel like getting in
another fight right now, but I’m not backing down.”
“Hey, by the way, how’d you get the name ‘Blackie’?”
“Well, when I was born, I had all this black hair. My dad started calling me ‘his little
Blackie’ and I guess it stuck.” He laughed.
“Awww ... that’s so cute! But what’s your real name? What does ‘SBL’ stand for?”
He stopped laughing and blushed again.
Uh-oh. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Why am I always saying the wrong thing to him?
I need to think about all this when I’m alone.
“It’s just this old-fashioned Irish name. It’s long and sounds dumb. Do you have a middle name?”
“Yes, it’s Elizabeth.” She told him, realizing that he’d just changed the subject again
away from himself.
“Megan Elizabeth, very pretty.”
They drove to her condo slowly. She didn’t want the date to end either.
“Okay, this is Sunday; do you want to go out Wednesday night?”
“I’d love to.”
He pulled up in front of her place and turned the car off. He just sat there for a few minutes. “I really had a good time, Meg.”
“Me too, this was wonderful.”
Is he going to kiss me or what?
He looked at her for a few minutes, then sighed and got out of the car. When they got to her door he turned her around and kissed her. Sparks went off in her head. He had a very sweet, gentle mouth. Then he put his arms around her, drew her against him and kissed her again. This kiss was hot! His mouth was not as gentle as he slipped his tongue in her mouth and groaned. She almost passed out. That kiss was incredible! His mouth said he wanted more but he pulled away from her.
“Do you want to come in?” She breathed.
“No, I better not. I don’t want to come in until I can stay all night,” he said firmly.
“Okay, that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”
He leaned over and kissed her quickly. “Sweet dreams,” he said and smiled. He
jogged down the steps and roared off in the Porsche.
“Sweet dreams.” She said out loud and sighed. “That’s putting it mildly.”
THIRTEEN
The next morning Meg drove to the farm with her head in the clouds. She had to pinch herself to realize she wasn’t dreaming. Jill was in the kitchen with a cup of tea when Meg entered.
“Good morning.” Jill smiled at her.
“Good morning to you. Has Blackie been in yet?” Meg asked hopefully.
“He has, yes. You missed him by ten minutes. He’ll be back before too long.”
Meg guessed that she must have looked crestfallen because Jill started to laugh.
“What?” Meg said.
“You two are going to be sooo cute together.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Blackie. He’s been in here all morning chattering away about your date last night. He never shut up. Keary didn’t know what to do. He just watched him go on and on and listened with this little smile on his face.”
“Oh God, what did he say? Did he have a good time?” Meg asked breathlessly.
“Yes, Meg, I think he had a wonderful time. He’s very happy this morning.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. I didn’t see you after the show. Did he tell you about the fight we had yesterday?”
“A fight! No, he didn’t say anything. What happened?”
“I found out who he is and I was so pissed at him for lying to me.”
“Meg, what are you talking about? What do you mean, who he is?”
“Oh, just the fact that he’s a famous jockey, his name is O’Brien and he owns this farm, that’s all. All this time I assumed he was a stable hand. I feel so stupid.”
“I thought you knew. You mean he didn’t even tell you his name. That’s ridiculous. Why would he do that?
“He said because he wanted me to like him without knowing who he was.”
“I guess that made sense to him. What happened after the fight?”
“Well, we sort of made up in the tack room.” Meg said with a sly smile. “Then we went to the show and he asked me to go out after for dinner.”
“Now I know why he was whistling this morning.” Jill said with a chuckle.
“He said we should start dating like normal people.”
“That’s a great idea and he did have fun last night.”
“Oh, God, that’s fantastic.” She hugged Jill.
“He was worried that he messed up. Apparently he said something that he thought was going to put you off,” Jill said quizzically.
“Oh, I’m sorry he’s worried about it. He didn’t mess anything up. I was a little concerned when he said it.”
“What did he say?” Jill asked, frowning.
“We were talking about finally dating. I said I hadn’t dated in awhile. Then he said it was good to be sober and be with a woman. He instantly got upset about saying that.”
“Oh, God, poor guy,” Jill said, “He wants to change all that so much.”
“What happened to him? Does he have a drinking problem?” Meg asked hesitantly.
“Oh gosh, Meg. I don’t know where to start. No, he doesn’t have an alcohol problem now, but he did. Let me go back a bit,” Jill said with a sigh.
“No one’s ever had much control over Blackie, even our parents. They had a little bit when he was younger, but once he turned eighteen, that was that. He pretty much ran wild and then he fell under the influence of this agent named Mickey Reegan. Mickey made a lot of money off Blackie’s talent and managed to get Blackie in a lot of trouble. He was one of the major “movers and shakers” of the jet set type among the racing crowd. He introduced Blackie to all the wild partying including alcohol, women and drugs.”
“Drugs!” Meg exclaimed.
“Y
es, unfortunately, he was addicted to cocaine. He’s trying very hard to get past all that. A lot of bad things happened to him because of Mickey’s influence. Blackie won’t talk about most of it. I hope you’ll give him a chance to prove that he’s changed. He really is a good guy.”
“I know he is, Jill, and, of course, I’ll give him a chance. Who am I not to?” she asked.
I’m not so sure about this. Drugs, for God’s sake! How am I going to deal with that? This is just the kind of thing I didn’t want to distract me, damnit. I like him so much, though.
“Meg, I don’t quite know how to put this, but Blackie has always been a sort of wild and free spirit. My Dad loves it. He says it goes back to his ancestors who were Irish warriors and kings. Dad has always encouraged it; however, it makes it hard on the rest of us. Dad says he has this warrior spirit inside him and that’s what drives him. This is a bit weird but my parents believe Patrick died because Blackie was coming.”
“What do you mean? Coming from where? I don’t understand,” Meg said.
“I know. The Irish are very superstitious and magical. They really do believe he came from the past and is like the reincarnation of this Irish warrior,” Jill said with a little crooked smile.
“You’re serious? I’m getting a headache. You know he’s not some spirit, he’s flesh and blood, damnit!”
It’s been subdued since the accident, but I see it starting to surface again as he gets better. He’s so different now, unsure of himself. Sean gets so upset because of the way Blackie is now. He’s the youngest of all of us, but Blackie was always the leader, always fearless.”
“You know Jill, he might surprise you,” Meg said with a secret little smile. Jill looked at her quizzically but didn’t ask.
“Is he really descended from warriors?”
“Meg, he is descended from fierce warrior kings who took Ireland by force from other kings and invaders, like the Vikings. He’s the direct, male descendent of Brian Boru, the last High King of Ireland.”
“You’re kidding, right?” she said, completely dumbfounded.
“No, I’m not kidding. Our dad is the current king or would be if Ireland had one but he’s content to breed horses and sit in Parliament. So Blackie is next in line.”
“This is unbelievable. I have to have time for all this to sink in. What am I supposed to do with him? I can’t handle some wild spirit,” Meg said, completely blown away by all this information. “And another thing, what’s with that crazy tattoo down his back and the green one?”