“The cell?” Caution roared into Mac’s bloodstream, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. “Terrorists?”
“We’ve been tracking them and their chatter for the last two months, but all they seem to talk about now are horses, and winning on December 24 at the Holiday Classic.”
Mac’s gut fisted as more pieces of the puzzle locked into place. “What’s your next move? How are you going to stop them?”
Agent Donahue glanced over at his buddy for a second, then back at Mac. The exchange fired up the tension in his body.
“We’d like you to take over where Agent Coronado left off.”
Emma’s stomach revolted. She reached out and grabbed Mac’s arm. “Tell him no! Tell him you won’t do it.” She swallowed and stepped forward, putting herself between the two men. “You can’t. You can’t guarantee that they won’t kill him, too. Can you?”
She saw the agent’s hard-edged stare soften.
“No, Miss Clareborn. I can’t. But we don’t have time to get another agent in without risking the entire operation. They’d make him the second he stepped foot on Firehill Farm. Mac is already a fixture there and all we’d ask is that he keep his eyes open for any hint of what they’ve got planned.”
Her mind relented, but her heart never would. “Then I guess it’s his decision to make.” She stepped away and hurried deeper into the cavern where she lost it, and vomited up the water she’d guzzled too much of, too fast.
Mac stared after her, feeling his insides harden as he considered the options, or lack thereof. “Rahul said something strange a couple days ago when I gave him Emma’s notice to vacate the stud barn after the Classic.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, there wouldn’t be any stables left in two weeks’ time. I just assumed he meant they’d have nowhere to go, and no one would lease to them.”
Donahue blanched and glanced over at his buddy.
Mac turned and walked back to Emma, pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, wet it from his water bottle and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” A sad, sweet smile bowed her mouth. He reached out and smoothed his fingers across her cheek.
“Donahue is right. Rahul and his boys would eat a new undercover for breakfast. It’ll be business as usual at the farm, but I’ll stay vigilant, Em. I promise.”
She nodded and pressed the handkerchief to her mouth.
He returned to stare at Donahue, sensing there was more, something he was withholding.
“I wasn’t sure about you, Titus, when you first showed up at the farm, but I watched you fight to save Victor and I knew you were trustworthy. Rahul’s contact in the Middle East is Sheikh Ahmed Abadar.”
Now Mac wanted to puke, but he locked it down and resisted the urge to stroke his hand over the vicious scar on his left jawbone, the one he’d received when a gunman tried to shoot Sheikh Abadar at point-blank range while on his way to a secret high-level meeting in Louisville with someone from the Pentagon.
Had he saved a terrorist’s life?
Mac gritted his teeth and nodded to Agent Donahue. “I’m all in.”
“Good, now let’s get the hell out of here.”
MAC STOOD AT THE RAIL, tracking the big bay colt with his eyes as he galloped at an easy pace and leaned into the first turn for his second lap of the morning.
Tension sent a shiver through his body that he couldn’t fight off, and he wished like crazy it was excitement vibrating inside of him instead of foreboding.
The Holiday Classic’s race process started tomorrow afternoon in Lexington, and he planned to drive Emma in to enter the colt and pay the twenty-five-thousand-dollar entry fee. Four days later Navigator’s Whim would go to the post. Doc Remington had taken a final blood test, and ruled him bute-free. The colt was cleared to run.
They were back in the main stable and away from the stud barn, and he’d seen Emma smiling again. That alone meant more to him than all the rest combined.
But it played hard on his mind that she’d started to come to him again every night since their rescue from the cavern by Agent Donahue.
A measure of guilt sliced though him. He’d welcomed her and hadn’t pushed her away again. He’d let their lovemaking grow into a sweet, desperate attempt to hold on to one another and push back the uncertainty.
She’d become his only solace in a gathering darkness he could feel in his bones.
The sound of boots on frost-hardened earth caught his attention and he turned to watch her approach with two cups of steaming hot coffee.
He pulled the leather glove off his right hand and took the mug she offered him.
Together they turned back to the rail.
“How’s he doing this morning?” Emma asked, stepping as close to him as she possibly could.
“Grady is taking him around nice and easy.”
“Good. I’d hate to have him strained this close to race day.”
“You’ve done a great job, Em. You’ve done everything right for that horse, and you’ve got his heart. He’d go to the wall for you if you asked him to.”
“Are you the same guy who stood here almost a month ago and said he’s just a horse?”
“Yeah, well, he’s not just any horse. He’s your horse.”
Why did she feel as if they weren’t even talking about the same thing? She let the thought pass and took a sip of her coffee. “Rahul is supposed to return midmorning with another horse. Number nine.”
“I’ll keep an eye out and snoop around when he gets here.”
She rested her cup on the rail with her right hand and touched his forearm with her left. “Be careful. Promise me you’ll get out of there if you feel like there’s anything hinky going on.”
“Promise, but you know Donahue is watching this place like a hawk.”
“I do, and that’s what scares me. He watched Victor die and didn’t intervene. Do you think he’d help you? Remember it only takes a second to die.”
“Relax, Emma. I know the risks and I’ve taken precautions.”
But she couldn’t, and she didn’t. “Will you come and spend Christmas Eve with us after the Classic?” Grasping for a thread of normalcy beyond the horse race and anything the terrorists had planned, she hoped he’d accept her invitation without any preconceptions.
“I guess that means I need to do a little shopping in Lexington tomorrow afternoon.”
She glanced over at him as the first rays of sunlight crested the hill behind the track and warmed her from the inside out.
“My dad says he’s working on a big surprise for me. He’s going to reveal it on Christmas Eve—he said he can’t wrap it.” Excitement pulsed through her. “Our family tradition is to open one present on Christmas Eve. Do you have a tradition?”
“Yeah, my mom and I would always string popcorn. I can still remember the smell in the kitchen, and the needle holes in my fingers.”
“We can do that if you want to.”
He stared over at her, his dark blue eyes narrowing in contemplation. “I’d like that.”
Her heart fluttered in her chest. She watched him drain the coffee in his cup, hand it to her, snag the lead rope from the post and stroll out onto the track to meet Grady and the colt.
He took a hold of Navigator’s reins below the bit.
Grady hopped down, and Mac turned back toward Emma, meeting her gaze straight on with a devil-may-care grin that quickly turned to one of raw sexual hunger.
Mind reader.
Heat surged in her veins. She let a brazen gaze slip to his jeans below his belt. Upping the ante, she eyed the length of his thighs. Places she’d touched and explored uninhibited. She knew every inch of him with her eyes closed. The man had turned her nights into a refuge from the coming storm and she ached for him when the sun went down. She ached for him now.
Her throat closed with pent-up emotion she knew she couldn’t hide if he continued to target her with his stare.
Shaking her head, she pushed off the rail and headed for
the barn. There was tack to clean and Firehill racing silks to size for Grady before the race, but there was also the agonizing knowledge that it could all end any second. And if the terrorists plotting in the stud barn across the paddock had their way, it would.
MAC RUBBED HIS HANDS DOWN Navigator’s left front leg below the knee and down to the fetlock joint, feeling for any heat in the ligaments and tendons, before he poured liniment into his palm and rubbed it in with a downward stroke. “He’s doing great. No heat whatsoever in any of his legs.”
“Let’s wrap him up and grab some lunch.”
“Okay.” Mac picked up the roll of thick cotton bandage, put it against the colt’s lower leg and started to wrap from the outside in, finishing just above his fetlock. He pulled a precut strip of cotton tape off his pants leg and secured the end of the wrap to hold it in place. “That should keep him warm and comfortable.”
He stood up and glanced out the barn door as the truck, trailer and Rahul rumbled past the stable and drove to the stud barn, where he angled the horse trailer in and stopped.
“He’s back.”
Emma’s nerves thinned to the point of snapping. “Go. I’ll put the colt away and play backup for you.”
“You’d do that?” he asked, staring at her with a serious glint in his eye and an amused smile on his lips. It was a confusing mix of messages she didn’t know how to interpret.
“You know I would gladly kick some terrorist butt, if I needed to.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He turned and left the barn.
She watched him go, then led the horse into his stall, released him, stepped out and closed the gate. Hanging his lead rope and halter on the hook next to the door, she headed outside to inconspicuously clean up the tack around the hot-walker, well within earshot of the stud barn.
Rahul already had the horse unloaded and in the barn by the time Mac stepped around the nose of the truck and approached the entrance to the stable.
The intimidating sentries were no longer posted at the doorway. They’d disappeared the day Mac and Emma had removed Navigator from the stud barn, which seemed to indicate they’d only been there to keep an eye on him.
He slowed his pace, angling his head slightly to the right just in case he happened to catch a word of conversation going on inside the barn, but broken strings of Arabic were all he could make out as he darkened the doorway.
What he wouldn’t do to be able to understand what they were saying. Maybe that was what got Victor killed? Maybe he’d figured out what was going down on Christmas Eve.
Caution mixed with confidence as he walked down the breezeway, keeping his focus on Rahul as he stood at the door of Dragon’s stall, chattering to someone inside.
Rahul glanced up, his stare locking on him.
Mac raised his hand and pinned a friendly grin on his face as he moved in where he could see the action transpiring.
“Rahul. I trust you had a good trip?”
“Yes. Everything went smoothly.”
Mac eyed the crime in progress, with Javas and Karif trying to bridle Dragon in the corner of the cubicle. The black colt was having none of it. Instead, he continued to strike out at them with his front hooves every time they got close.
“He is too much trouble. I plan to encourage my employer to sell him, or have him destroyed.”
“After he runs in the Holiday Classic?” Mac asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Mind if I try?”
Rahul gestured with his hand while he rattled off a couple lines in Arabic to the men, fighting the horse as if he was a dragon.
Mac stepped into the stall. His senses went on alert and a measure of warning combed through him.
Was this how they’d suckered Victor in so they could kill him?
Javas and Karif stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, then handed him the headstall with a D-ring bit on it and shuffled out of the cubicle.
The sound of the stall door moving on its rollers made him nervous, but he didn’t flinch. Were they hoping the unruly colt would smack him down so they could finish the job?
Mac raised his hand out in front of him like he’d seen his father do. With calm, easy motions he reassured the frightened colt, watching his heavy breathing, rapid eye movements and head shy behavior begin to wane.
Somewhere in the stable he heard the familiar beat of counting in Arabic. “Tiss-ah…sub-ah…wa-Had…ar-bah…ar-bah…kham-sah.”
Dragon’s Soul dropped his head low and shuffled toward Mac, a sure sign that he’d capitulated.
Mac stroked the colt’s sweat-slicked coat, hearing the sound of Emma’s voice outside in the corridor.
“Mac! Mac!”
The stall door slid open and he saw panic on her face.
His heart rate shot up. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Navigator, he’s down in his stall.”
He gave Dragon’s Soul a final pat and lunged through the doorway, handing a stony-faced Rahul the bridle on the way out and falling in behind Emma, who was running along the breezeway.
Looking sideways he saw the other two grooms, Omar and Siraj, coming out of the cubicle that housed the new horse Rahul had just brought in. One of them had a notepad in his hand. More numbers.
They raced across the open paddock and ducked into the main barn, where Emma stopped and Mac continued. He’d seen the colt’s future flash before his eyes in the time it took them to reach the barn.
He hurried to the stall, opened the latch and stepped inside, staring at the horse, who stood in the front corner eating from his feed bucket. He pulled his head out, eyeballed Mac for a moment and went back to his sweet feed.
“Emma. What the hell—”
“Shh.” She glanced over at the barn door and stepped inside the cubicle. “Keep your voice down, they might be listening.”
He saw fear turn her body rigid.
Stepping closer, he whispered, “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I saw Karif and Javas hurry out of the stud barn a couple of minutes ago to get a tire iron out of the back of the pickup. They were heading back inside with it when I started yelling for you.”
He took her into his arms, feeling her body shiver uncontrollably.
“They were going to use it to kill you, Mac, just like they murdered Victor.”
And he’d fallen for it, dammit. If he hadn’t calmed the colt, and Emma hadn’t been paying attention…playing backup, he’d be history right now.
He held her until she stopped shaking.
Chapter Sixteen
Emma moved forward in line at the registration window with Navigator’s paperwork in hand and her heart in her throat.
The buzz of excitement ignited the air in the room and gave her goose bumps.
Glancing around, she spotted Mac standing next to the entrance trying to look relaxed, but he couldn’t fool her, not anymore.
Smiling at several of the owners she knew from competing farms, she waited patiently until it was her turn. She spotted Rahul two lines over, already at the window and handing over the paperwork to enter Dragon’s Soul in the Holiday Classic.
Pulling in a breath, she averted her gaze and focused on the back of the man standing in front of her to keep from making eye contact with Rahul.
Since she’d managed to foil their attempt at smashing Mac’s head in with a tire iron, she’d done everything she could to avoid coming in contact with Rahul and his crew, because she couldn’t keep her obvious hatred from showing. Mac had run interference for her more than once in the last couple of days.
“Miss Clareborn,” Rahul said, cutting the line to stand next to her. “Good luck running Navigator’s Whim, I’m certain he can win.”
“Thank you, Rahul. Good luck to Dragon’s Soul.”
Rahul nodded and smiled, but his cold black eyes belied the friendly gesture and once he left her side, she let her guard down and sucked in a deep breath. She would be glad when this was over and he was rotting i
n prison.
The man in front of her completed his entry transaction and left the window.
She stepped up and put her paperwork down.
“Firehill Farms, Old Lemons Road, Lexington, Kentucky.” The woman examined the entry form, Doc Remington’s vet report, her owner/trainer’s license, her liability insurance card and the workman’s comp paperwork. “Your check, Miss Clareborn.”
Emma reached into her coat pocket and took out her personal check for the entry fee, squeezed it in her palm and put it down on the counter.
“Thank you. It looks like you have everything in order. I’ll get your paperwork processed and give you a barn assignment, gate pass and a slot number in the paddock. Your pre-post time is three o’clock. Your horse will get one parade lap with a ponied-up track Steward who will lead him out of the paddock once your jockey is on board. From there you head to your owner-reserved box seat.”
The woman sucked in a short breath and continued. “Your horse must load into the starting gate at precisely three-twenty, or he risks disqualification and you will forfeit your twenty-five-thousand-dollar entry fee.”
Emma’s stomach clenched with excitement. It was becoming so real she could almost taste it.
The race secretary pulled out her computer keyboard and began tapping in the information.
“How’s it going?” Mac whispered against her ear.
She closed her eyes for an instant, then opened them again, feeling more in charge of her emotions with him standing beside her. “You saw Rahul?”
“Yes.”
“He wished us good luck. He says the colt could win.”
“Did he.”
The woman turned to her printer and began pulling out page after page.
Emma fidgeted, praying she could keep it all straight. Her father had always handled this stuff in the past, never her, but it was time she learned to manage things.
“Relax.” Mac stroked his hand across her back. “I’ll help you learn the paper routine. You’ve already done the hard stuff. You’ve raised and trained a winner, this is just your ticket to the gravy.”
She leaned into him and he put his arm around her waist.
“You’re all set, Miss Clareborn. Here’s your race-day packet.” She slid a thick manila envelope across the counter. “Have a nice day and good luck at the Holiday Classic.”
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