Remember Summer

by Elizabeth Lowell

  But she couldn’t leave the truth behind.

  You’re surrounded by well-trained lapdogs. You have been since you were old enough to have a period. But not one of those polite, soothing men has touched the fire inside you.

  Cord had.

  And he was the wrong man.

  Raine tested Dev’s cinch, checked her watch, and led the stallion to the mounting block. The U.S. team’s turn in the practice jumping ring would begin in half an hour. Time in the various rings was carefully divided among the competing countries. She didn’t want to waste a minute by being late. By the stroke of nine, she should have Dev warmed up and ready for the jumps.

  While she settled into the smooth, nearly flat English saddle, she took a quick, furtive look around the yard. Cord was there, leaning against one of the green stable walls, watching everyone who came and went among the tree-shaded rows of stalls. Though he never spoke to her after that one time, for the past several days he had been nearby whenever she moved from stall to practice ring, parking lot to stable, or wherever else her mood or duties took her.

  Hastily she looked away from him. She didn’t want to be caught watching him. She didn’t want to feel the slicing, irrational pain that came each time he treated her like he had never held her, never kissed her, never tasted her hunger.

  He didn’t want her.

  She shouldn’t want him.

  I’m still wearing a gun.

  The words had echoed in her head for days, warning her, haunting her. She couldn’t forget Cord’s sensuality, her own unexpected response, the heady spiral of passion wrapping around them in a kind of kiss she hadn’t even dreamed existed. But worse than that, worse than the passion and the pain, was the terrible feeling that she had stumbled over the other half of herself.

  And then she had thrown it away.

  Competition madness, she told herself bleakly. That’s all. Just competition madness.

  She wanted to believe it. Needed to. Even more, she needed to look over her shoulder and catch Cord watching her right now. She was certain he was. She felt his attention as surely as she felt the heat rising out of the stable yard.

  Yet she knew that no matter how suddenly she turned, she wouldn’t catch him looking at her.

  He’s too quick. Too damned quick. I’m always off balance with him, always searching for a center point that keeps sliding away, out of my reach. Like him.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to shake the uncanny feeling of always being the center of his focus, a permanent reflection in his ice-blue eyes. If he wanted her, he would approach her.

  He hadn’t.

  Yet still she looked for him, sensed him, remembered the heat and hunger of his kiss.

  “It’s just competition madness, you little fool,” she muttered to herself. “Get over it.”

  Dev’s left ear flicked back, then forward.

  “Competition madness,” she said firmly.

  She repeated those two words all the way to the jump ring. It was her own private litany designed to exorcise the man who wore a gun and spoke with a shaman’s midnight-and-silver voice.

  As Dev strode forward, bees in the potted flowers along the paths and fences hummed in counterpoint to Raine’s whispered words. Competition madness. The stallion’s ears flicked occasionally as he registered the erratic flight of insects or a shift in the tone of his rider’s voice.

  She took off her riding helmet, wiped her forehead, and replaced the hard hat, checking that the chin strap was secure. Today her hair was ruthlessly jammed beneath the tough plastic hat. Only a few wisps had escaped to tickle her hot cheeks.

  It was barely eight-thirty A.M., but the temperature was almost eighty degrees. The rising heat of the day was reflected back on Santa Anita by acres of blacktop parking lots and the massive, stony rise of the San Gabriel Mountains just beyond the track. Despite constant attention from water trucks, the grounds were dry. Dust hung in the air, bright gold in the morning sun.

  She held Dev’s reins loosely, letting the stallion pick his own pace. He shambled along with deceptive laziness, as calm as a rental nag. He barely flicked his ears at the background noise of voices calling and horses whinnying across the parallel stable yards. Men came and went around them, hauling in feed and hauling out yesterday’s straw. Laughter and jokes and stablegirls giggling around the tack house hid the fierce tension that coiled just beneath the serenity.

  Competition madness reigned.

  Dev had been at Santa Anita long enough for the background noises to become familiar. And the climate. The dry heat barely raised a sheen of sweat beneath his gleaming leather tack.

  Raine noted the stallion’s calm acceptance of his surroundings and smiled with satisfaction. It had been worth coming out to California early so that Dev could get accustomed to Santa Anita before the Summer Games began. Some of the other horses she saw being led around were still snorting and shying at shadows, anxious in the midst of unfamiliar scents and sounds.

  As she approached the practice rings, she collected Dev beneath her, tightening her contact with him until he was up on the bit and looking around alertly. Though he had never showed a tendency to be combative with other horses, Devlin’s Waterloo was nonetheless a stallion. When he was close to the other animals, Raine was never careless.

  “First one, as usual,” Captain Jon said, walking slowly toward the stallion.

  Dev’s ears came fully forward. He watched the man with dark, somewhat wary eyes.

  “Never let up, do you, old boy?” murmured the captain. His hand came up slowly, firmly. He gripped the reins just below the bit.

  Dev snorted, then stood quietly.

  “Nothing fancy today,” Captain Jon said, looking up at Raine. “Give him fifteen minutes of light dressage. Concentrate on the counter-canter for the last five. If he’s not behaving, keep after it. I’ll start Mason in the other ring and leave you here if Dev isn’t working well.”

  She didn’t object, even though she knew it would be more of a workout for her than the stallion. Dev didn’t like the counter-canter, but it was a necessary skill for dressage, endurance, and show jumping. He had to be ready to switch leads instantly on his rider’s cue. In the show ring it made for pretty jumping. On the endurance course, it could be the difference between a clean jump and a dangerous crash.

  “I’m not setting up any jumps higher than a meter in the ring,” the captain continued. “Watch that triple combination. I’ve placed it so that you have a full stride, a half stride, then four and a half strides.”

  She sighed. Diabolical, as usual. A jump approach of four and a half strides was just long enough to allow you to lose control of the horse, particularly if you were on an animal that liked rushing fences. Fortunately, Dev usually didn’t.

  But today might not be usual. She was on edge. He was humming with health. Beneath his shambling act lurked a great, powerful stallion eager to fly over miles of hills and rivers and tricky jumps. In six days he would get to do just that. Until then she would have to stay deep in the saddle and firm on the reins or he would be scattering bars from show jumps like straws in the wind.

  With an expressionless face and sure hands, she rode Dev into the first practice ring. Other horses worked around the big ring, polishing whatever skills needed attention. Some practiced the absolutely immobile standing required by dressage. Others practiced changing leads at all paces. Still others flowed across the ring in the elegant diagonals of dressage.

  Keeping to the outer circumference of the ring, Raine positioned Dev to begin the workout. Unlike most riders, she rode without a whip of any kind. Dev wouldn’t tolerate one. Whatever displeasure she felt with her mount’s performance would be expressed with her heels and voice.

  She worked quietly, talking to Dev through lips that didn’t move, using a voice that went no further than the stallion’s sensitive ears. He worked willingly for her. Too willingly. The least shift of her weight was greeted with an eager bunching of muscles that fairly sc
reamed the horse’s desire for fifteen miles of violent exercise.

  Dev had been carefully, thoroughly trained for galloping over rough country and rougher obstacles. He loved it with a fervor that made him a great event horse. It also made him temperamentally unsuited for the mincing niceties of dressage.

  “Listen to me, you great red ox,” Raine muttered through clenched teeth as Dev tugged hard on the bit and danced sideways. “You’ll get all the run you want in a few days. Until then, settle down.”

  Gradually the stallion accepted his rider’s unyielding demand for a restrained walk, trot, extended trot, and all the rest of the highly controlled dressage movements. The counter-canter was different. He flatly refused Raine’s first instruction. After a brief, almost invisible struggle between rider and mount, Dev gave in. At least the counter-canter’s pace was more to his liking, though still far too slow.

  When she gave the command for walking again, Dev fought it. She locked her wrists and knees and bore down. When the stallion accepted the walk, she asked for him to stop and stand. Motionless. He did, finally, chewing on the bit in frustration.

  From the corner of her eye Raine saw Cord walk up to the fence. Adrenaline surged through her, a helpless response to her own emotions.

  Sensing the sudden change in his rider, Dev danced in place.

  Cursing silently, she brought the stallion back under full control with pressure from her hands and legs.

  Cord’s deep voice carried easily above the muffled hoofbeats of horses working in the ring.

  “There’s a call for you.”

  “Later,” she said curtly.

  “It’s your father.”

  Chapter 10

  “Dad?” Raine asked Cord in disbelief. “He called me?”

  “He’s waiting on the phone right now.”

  She stared, still not quite believing. Her father hadn’t called her in . . . she couldn’t remember the last time.

  Dev sensed his rider’s divided attention. He went sideways in a single catlike leap. Swearing as much at herself as at him, she fought a brief, sharp skirmish over control of the bit. She won.

  “He’s full of vinegar,” Cord said, half smiling, admiration clear in his eyes as he watched the blood-bay stallion dance. Then his voice shifted, velvet and moonlight and a silver river flowing. “Aren’t much for dressage, are you? I don’t blame you, boy. Don’t blame you one bit. Dressage is for people who like fences and rules.”

  Firmly Raine held Dev where he was—ten feet away from the fence. He resisted, dancing in place, wanting to get closer to the fascinating voice. Smoothly, relentlessly, she guided him toward the exit to the ring.

  Cord followed along the outside of the fence, talking to the stallion every step of the way. Ears pricked forward until they almost touched at the tips, Dev minced closer to the shaman’s voice.

  “Bet you’re one hell of a ride,” Cord murmured. “Go the distance without whimpering, take a mouthful of water, and turn around and do it all again. Will your mistress ever let you sire blood-bay colts, or is she going to keep you on a tight rein all your life?”

  As soon as Dev came through the gate, Cord grasped the reins just below the bit. The stallion stood motionless, his velvet nostrils flaring as he drank the man’s scent and watched him with liquid brown eyes.

  “Ask for Operator eleven,” Cord murmured. “I’ll take care of the Prince of Darkness for you.”

  If it had been any other man, she would have refused. But if it had been any other man, Dev wouldn’t have been standing around with a bemused look on his handsome face.

  “You’re as bad as I am,” she muttered to Dev. “Idiot.”

  “What?” Cord asked.

  “Nothing.”

  She slid off the huge horse and landed lightly on the ground beside Cord.

  “If you’ve bitten off more horse than you can chew,” she said irritably, “you have only yourself to blame.”

  He ignored her. Talking soothingly the whole way, he led Dev toward the stables.

  For a few seconds she stared at her well-behaved stallion. Then she shook off the spell of Cord’s voice and sprinted for the nearest phone, wondering what had gone wrong with her family. She grabbed the phone and asked for Operator eleven. By the time she was connected with her father, she had imagined every possible calamity that could have happened to her family.

  “Daddy,” she said urgently as soon as she heard his voice, thinned by distance and static but still unmistakably Justin Chandler-Smith. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to be the one to tell you that I’ll be out with your mother and your sibs for the Olympics.”

  “You will?” Raine asked doubtfully, years of hope and disappointment mingling in her voice. “You’ll try to be here?”

  “I will be there, Baby Raine.”

  She laughed almost sadly and shook her head. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

  “You never were,” he said ruefully. “Not really. Comes of being the fifth child, I suppose. You were going to be as old as your brothers and sisters or know the reason why.”

  “Speaking of siblings, are you sure everything is all right?”

  “Positive. All six of us will be there.”

  “Impossible,” she said dryly. “The six of you haven’t been in the same place at once since William was old enough to drive.”

  “The six of us never had a seventh competing in the Olympics. I’m not going to miss this one, Raine. I mean it.”

  She swallowed, trying to keep emotion from closing her throat. Before now, her father always had hedged his promises with the phrase if I can.

  “You don’t have to,” she said quietly, meaning it. “If not this time, there’s always another.”

  “Not for you, baby. I’ve got a cast-iron hunch that you’re through with wanderlust and adrenaline. If I don’t see you ride in a world-class competition this time, there won’t be another chance.”

  Her hand tightened on the phone as her father’s calm words swept through her, telling her what she was still discovering about herself. She was tired of living on the road, tired of the relentless demands of training and competition and pressure, the excitement that was a little bit less each time, diminishing so slowly that its loss could only be measured over the years.

  She still looked forward to the Olympics, still wanted very badly to compete and win. But her father was right. This would be the last time she hungered for world-class competition.

  “How did you know?” she whispered. “I just found out myself.”

  “You’re a lot like me. Except you’re smarter. A whole lot smarter. It took me a long time to figure out what I was missing. Well, I’m not going to miss it anymore. Look for me, Baby Raine. I love you.”

  She was too surprised to answer. By the time she whispered, “I love you, too,” her father had already hung up.

  She replaced the receiver and stood staring across the yard, seeing nothing at all.

  “Bad news?” Cord asked.

  She blinked and turned slowly toward the man who was holding Dev’s reins as easily as she would have. And Dev was just as calm. It was more than the shaman’s voice. It was the man himself.

  “Raine?” he asked, his voice very gentle. “Is everything all right?”

  “Daddy says he’s coming to the games.” Her voice was clear and almost childlike. “Always before he said he would try. This time he promised. He’s never promised before.”

  Cord’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “Don’t tell anyone else. If anyone asks you about it, lie. And then tell me who was asking you questions about your father.”

  The change in Cord from gentle to harsh was like a slap. She flinched and stepped back, off-balance again.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why?” His voice rose in disbelief. Then it went as cold as the ice color of his eyes. “Grow up, Baby Raine. There are people in this world who would murder your father if they could find him. But they can�
��t. That’s the reason his schedule is always unpredictable. It’s called survival. If you were an assassin and you knew your target had a daughter competing in the Summer Games, what would you do?”

  She closed her eyes on a wave of sickening fear. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head quickly, not wanting to believe.

  “Yes,” he snarled. “Why in hell do you suppose Blue has missed all your important competitions? Why in hell do you suppose he never came to his children’s graduations? Why in hell do you think he missed every Broadway opening night your sister ever had? Why in hell—”

  “I didn’t know,” Raine broke in, her voice tight as she tried to stop the relentless words.

  “You didn’t want to know.”

  Her hands clenched. “Daddy never told me.”

  “He didn’t want you to know. If he knew I was telling you now, he’d have my butt for punting practice.”

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “Maybe I don’t believe a father should have to be a sitting duck for an assassin just to convince his daughter that he loves her.”

  “I never asked for that!” Her voice shook. “I just wanted to feel like part of the family instead of a fifth wheel. I wanted to feel like I belonged! Is that so much to ask?”

  The anger went out of Cord as he saw the trembling of her pale lips, the tears that she refused to shed, the corded lines of her throat as she fought to control her voice. He wanted to gather her into his arms, to stroke and soothe her until her eyes weren’t haunted and her face wasn’t pale.

  He might as well wish for the moon while he was at it.

  “No,” he said, “it’s not so much to ask. Just everything. Just the whole world in your palm, spinning like a bright blue ball.”

  “But—”

  “Some of us aren’t meant to belong,” he said simply, relentlessly. “Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Yes. Once.” He watched her with eyes that were suddenly measuring. “And that’s just what I’m going to do again.”