The Final Turn (Cajun Cowboys Book 2)

by Patricia Watters

  "He's still a man."

  Anne let out an unladylike grunt. "If you figure you can get to Ace using female wiles, forget it. He's adjusted to having me as a sister-in-law out of loyalty to Joe, but he's not a man to be suckered into a woman's schemes, especially a Harrison woman."

  "I know and I'd sooner ride naked in next year's tournament than resort to using female wiles with Ace Broussard, or in fact, have any connection with him other than whatever it takes to exercise Rags. I've got a few more ideas though."

  "Like what?"

  "Like offering to let Ace use our starting gate since Rags has issues with gates and the gate here is a thirty-year-old piece of junk."

  Anne eyed her, dubiously. "When would Ace be over there? In the middle of the night when Daddy and the rest of the crew are asleep?"

  "No, when everyone's at a race."

  "Except there will always be stable hands left behind to tend the horses, so how will you explain someone coming in to use the gate?"

  "No problem," Piper said. "I'll tell whoever's at the barn that someone's coming to train and leave it at that. There's no reason for them to say anything to Daddy, and if they happen to see Ace, they won't know who he is."

  "This is crazy."

  "I know, but look at the extremes you went to in order to get around Daddy and the rest of the family to marry Joe. It infuriates me that I spend my mornings galloping the horses at our place and still Mick refuses to let me run, probably with orders from Daddy, so I'll do whatever it takes to get around the two of them, get established as a jockey, and realize my dream."

  "Okay, I do understand, and yes, Daddy can be completely unreasonable at times," Anne said. "Meanwhile, I'm curious about one thing. Where did you get the jousting regalia? Joe said you and your horse were decked out with all the trappings of a Renaissance fair."

  Piper laughed. "Not quite. I bought it online except the polyester chainmail hood, which I picked up at a Mardi Gras shop in Lafayette. I thought it was all pretty cool. I might even outdo myself next year with something showier yet, if only to irritate Ace."

  Anne let out a huff. "All you'd have to do is show up. He really is steamed."

  Piper smiled. "Good."

  Their attention was drawn to the sound of footsteps on the front porch followed by a knock on the door. "Go ahead and answer it. I need to get Joey up from his nap." Anne's voice trailed off as she headed down the hallway.

  Piper opened the door to find Ace staring at her, the look on his face about as startled as the look on hers must be. "If you want Joe, he's not here," she clipped.

  When she went to shut the door, Ace braced his hand on it, and said, "I came to talk to Anne."

  Piper drew in a long breath. "I suppose you can come in."

  "You suppose?" Ace let out a little snort. "You're the outsider here. I'm… the…" his voice tapered off as his eyes fixed on a point beyond her.

  Piper knew he'd spotted the trophy. Walking over to stand beside it, reinforcing the fact that she was a capable rider, she said, "You were saying?"

  Ace's expression went blank, his eyes perplexed, like he was completely caught off guard to find the jousting trophy prominently displayed on his brother's dining table. Seeming to regain his composure, he squared his shoulders, and said, "You're the outsider here. I'm the insider. I don’t need your permission to come in."

  Again his eyes shifted to the trophy, and Piper knew it was bugging the heck out of him to know why it was there, so she placed her hand on its base and answered his unasked question, with a little twist to the truth. "I brought this over to make you a proposition."

  Ace eyed her with skepticism. "What kinda proposition?"

  Piper lifted the trophy off the table. "A match race. I'm offering this as the prize."

  Ace stared at the thing with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. "It's got a plate on it that says Le Tournoi de Ville Platte."

  Piper shrugged. "No problem. It can be popped off and replaced with another plate. I'll foot the bill to have it engraved."

  Ace peered down at her, his expression guarded. "A match between what horses?"

  "The mare I rode in the tournament and the thoroughbred filly you claimed from us."

  "This is a joke."

  "I'm not laughing."

  Ace eyed her, warily. "The filly's never won a race. Why should I think she'd win this one?"

  "Because you wouldn't have bought her if you didn't think she has it in her to win."

  Ace shrugged off her comment. "It's a moot point since the filly won't be ready to race for a few weeks, but when she is it'll be a claiming race with a price considerably higher than before."

  Piper digested that. With a higher claiming price she'd never have the funds to claim Rags, and if someone else claimed her, and she continued losing races, she could face the same horrific ending at a slaughterhouse many subpar racehorses faced. But the higher claiming price and Rags' poor record would also make it unlikely that she'd be claimed. Either way, Ace would need an exercise rider to prepare Rags, and a jockey to run her. She could do both, and a match race between Phantom Lady and any horse would prove her capability as a jockey.

  "Alright then, my mare against the fastest racing quarter horse you can find, and along with the trophy I'll toss in a couple hundred bucks as a winner's pot, which I'll get back when I win."

  Ace's eyes sharpened and she knew she'd presented him with a challenge he was having trouble turning down. To make it tougher, she added, "I'll throw in another hundred bucks. Three-hundred and the trophy. It'll be the first annual Broussard Downs Quarter Horse-Thoroughbred Match Race."

  Ace said nothing, but Piper could almost hear his internal monolog, probably interspersed with a few expletives, because he was trying to figure out what was in this race for her, which she was beginning to wonder. Being hired on as a jockey to race a Broussard thoroughbred was about as farfetched as anything could be, but for now her main concern was being able to exercise Rags with the idea of buying her back as soon as she could save the money. If she managed to break into the back-slapping, two-fisted, male-dominated world of thoroughbred racing as a female jockey in the interim, that would be okay too.

  "So, what would be the weight requirement, if any?" Ace asked, renewing her hopes that he might accept her offer, if only to prove she wasn’t the jockey she was holding herself out to be.

  "A hundred pounds minimum so you Cajuns can't strap on a five-year-old kid and send him down the track with tin cans tied to the horse's tail." Piper saw the muscles in Ace's jaws bunch and knew he was miffed with her dig at Cajuns, who were known for having had pretty down-and-dirty bush track races in the past. Horses hopped up on meds, rocks in beer cans tied to manes, fifty-pound kids as jockeys. Even squawking chickens tied on and flapping their wings were fair game when the only requirement was that the horse carry a live rider.

  Seeming to dismiss her snide comment, Ace said, "Your track or ours?"

  "Yours, so it'll be on your turf."

  Ace got a little bit of a smirk. "So you figure your thoroughbred can beat a fast quarter horse in a quarter-mile run." He let out a snort. "Not likely."

  "Not a quarter mile. We'd level the playing field by making it a half mile, but before the match I'd expect to be able to bring my mare here and run her once, at night."

  After a long pause, Ace said, "Why at night?"

  "Because I'll have to slip the mare out of the stable when no one's around, and the race would have to be run when everyone at my place is away, which is about every weekend now that it's racing season."

  "So you'd be racin' one of your father's horses without his permission."

  "I exercise his horses all the time when he's not around."

  "Not the same thing. And if something happens to you or his horse while you're over here, your father would jump at the chance to relieve us of our ranch and send us all packin' and settle his lawsuit that way. No thanks."

  "I can handle the mare, so nothing's g
oing to happen."

  "I know because this lamebrain idea you're suggesting's off."

  Piper could argue his point by telling him she had insurance, but she just got a better idea, one that would open a wider door, and she wouldn't have to put up with Ace. "Fine then, I'll run it past your grandfather since match races seem to be his baby, and I'll fill in as his exercise rider until his exercise boy's back."

  Ace let out a cynical grunt. "You don't seriously think my grandfather would hire a Harrison?"

  Piper shrugged. "He might if I sweeten the deal."

  "How?"

  "That's for me to know and you to wonder. Meanwhile, tell Anne I'll be seeing her. Ta ta."

  As she turned to leave, Ace called out, "To give you a heads up, my grandfather'd sooner make a deal with the devil than with a Harrison, I don’t care how sweet your deal is."

  Piper waved him off. "We'll see."

  When she left the house, it bothered her that she was attracted to Ace Broussard's rugged good looks. A frumpy-dumpy cowboy with a beer belly, grizzled chin and tobacco-stained teeth would serve the same purpose about now, if only to keep her mind focused on her primary goal, which wasn't to have errant thoughts about a Cajun cowboy with a sinfully-handsome face and a grumpy disposition.

  CHAPTER 3

  Ace awakened abruptly, uncertain why. The beam of a utility light streaming through his bedroom window told him it wasn't yet dawn. He checked the LED dial of the clock by his bed, the time registering 5:04. Glancing out the window he saw lights on in the stable and thought he heard the thrumming of hoofbeats, which puzzled him.

  While his cousin, Corky, was recovering from his injury, his grandfather had been exercising the racing quarter horses on the horse walker, but not until daylight. But there was definitely action taking place at the workout track behind the stable.

  After shoving his legs into jeans and pulling on his boots, he scurried down the stairs while snapping his shirt, dashed through the living room, and hurried out the front door then made a beeline to the stable, hoping the rider on the horse wasn't the person he least wanted out there. He couldn't imagine his grandfather hiring Piper Harrison for the job, no matter how sweet the prize she'd dangle in front of him, so he had to conclude that Pépère found a temporary exercise rider until Corky would be back.

  Skirting the barn, he found his grandfather standing at the railing gazing into the distance to where a lone rider galloped toward the far turn, the pair moving between shadow and light as they made their way around a track rimmed by utility lights that corresponded to the furlong poles of a five-eighth mile training track. Walking over to stand beside his grandfather, he said, "I hope to hell that's not Piper Harrison out there."

  Pépère's eyes moved with the horse and rider. "It is."

  Ace let out a huff of aggravation. "I suppose you jumped for her match race proposition."

  "Sure. We can use the money."

  "The money will be irrelevant if something happens to Piper or her father's horse during the match, or to Piper while she's workin' your horses because Charles Harrison will have us in court so fast we might as well kiss this ranch goodbye and hand him the title."

  "The girl's workin' as an independent contractor and she's got insurance."

  "How do you know? Did you ask?"

  "'Course I asked. I didn't just fall off a turnip truck. This family's been feudin' with the Harrisons since long before you was born."

  "What kind of deal did she make? A match with a purse of $300 and a trophy?"

  "That, and she's workin' my horses till Corky's up and goin' again."

  "There's a loophole right there," Ace said. "As soon as you pay her for exercisin' she's no longer an independent contractor, she's your employee, which makes you liable if she gets hurt."

  "No money's changin' hands," Pépère replied. "She's workin' for free."

  Ace eyed his grandfather with skepticism. "What's in it for her?"

  "Don't know and don’t care because I need a workout rider and she's what we got, and so far she's doin' okay. She's strong and she's got a good clock in her head."

  "Umm," Ace grumbled. It bugged the hell out of him that Piper managed to pull off the match race for whatever her dubious reason, and he was more than a little suspicious as to why she'd work his grandfather's horses for free, especially since her family bred and trained racehorses and she had access to any of them for workouts. He was also miffed with his grandfather for being suckered into whatever Piper was plotting.

  Eyes focused on the horse and rider galloping toward them from the far end of the straightaway, he was even more annoyed when he saw how skillfully Piper handled the horse, her body perfectly balanced, her figure in a classic jockey crouch high over the horse's withers. He also noted she was riding Jetstream.

  Sired by Jet Black Patriot, one of Louisiana's leading quarter horse sires, Jetstream was owned by a rice grower who was dabbling in racehorses, and the headstrong, obstinate colt was developing into a promising contender under Pépère's skilled guidance. He held no prospect of changing his grandfather's mind about this whole match-race scheme of Pipers, but he'd at least express his misgiving. "You think that's a good idea, putting Piper on Jetstream? Not only can he be pretty unmanageable, but he's not your horse and you know nothing about how Piper can handle a horse."

  "I watched her at the Tournoi. She knows more about what she's doin' than Corky ever did."

  Piper directed the horse to where they stood and drew it to a halt. On raising her goggles, she gave Ace a caustic look, like she was peeved he was there, then ignoring him, she dismounted and said to his grandfather, "You told me to let him go at his own pace and I did. He moves well, has a flowing stride, and covers a lot of ground without much effort."

  Henri eyed the colt with appreciation. "He comes from good racin' stock so runnin's in his blood. No one's seen the best of him yet but they will. He's the colt you'll be racin' against in you match race."

  Piper's face showed surprise, and a touch of uncertainty. "You mentioned before I started working him that he's not your horse, so I assume whoever owns him has a jockey."

  "They do for this race," Henri said. "Edgar Robichau."

  The stretch of silence that followed led Ace to believe a little of the wind had been knocked out of Piper's sails, and rightly so. Edgar Robichau, the son of one of Pépère's friends, was among the nation's top thoroughbred jockeys. As did many Cajuns who'd made it to the top, Edgar rode horses in big-stake races like the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, and like the other Cajun jockeys, he too had cut his racing teeth while riding quarter horses in backwoods match races when he was growing up.

  Piper's brows drawn in bafflement, she said, "Why would Edgar Robichau ride in a two-bit match race? What's in it for him?"

  Henri shrugged. "A good run I suppose. He's home visitin' family, and since he grew up match racin' quarter horses in these parts he's up for the challenge. He's set to race you next Sunday after eleven o'clock mass, at your father's track."

  Piper's eyes sharpened with alarm. Whatever her original motivation was for this match race, it was slowly unraveling, which gave Ace an enormous sense of satisfaction.

  "Why my father's track?" she asked.

  "Because it's harrowed several times a day. Edgar's okay with this as a working track but you'll be runnin' flat out and he's worried a horse could break down."

  "Then it’ll be only the two of us, no spectators?" Piper asked, her tone hopeful.

  Henri eyed the big stallion, and smiled. "There'll be spectators alright, you can bet on that, yeah. And you've got a good startin' gate over there."

  After another long pause, Piper said, "We won't have starters to load the horses into the gate."

  Henri stroked the big horse's neck. "We've got a gate crew."

  Ace studied Piper, who stared at the colt with concern. He suspected she'd boxed herself into a corner, one that now included a world-class jockey and the makings of a
world class racehorse. She'd also lost some of her earlier spitfire, which surprised him. At the tournament she'd been all show and bluster.

  Curious to test his hunch that she was feeling intimidated with this turn of events, he said, "You issued a challenge for the fastest quarter horse in the parish and that's what you got, yet you act like you're having second thoughts. Have you lost faith in your horse? Or maybe it's your ability as a jock you're questioning now that you're fixin' to face off with Edgar Robichau."

  "I'm not worried about the race," Piper snapped, "but holding it at my folk's place changes things. Unregulated racing isn't illegal. It's the gambling the law frowns on so there can't be any betting on the premises. So you'd better make sure that everyone coming understands."

  Ace eyed his grandfather, who shrugged and said to Piper, "There'll be no bettin' at your place. What happens before and after the race is their business."

  Piper pressed her lips as if holding back a retort, then said, "And we can't have cars blocking the driveway, so all spectators have to park here and cross the cane field on one of the access roads and watch from this side of the track. And as soon as the race is over they'll have to leave."

  Henri took the reins from her. "They'll leave since there'll be food and dancin' here."

  Once Pépère disappeared into the stable, Ace said, "I'm surprised you're still goin' through with this match now that it'll be at your place. When you approached me the race was to be run here after dark, presumably so your father wouldn't know what's goin' on."

  "He still won't know because he and the rest of the barn crew, along with my mother and grandmother, will all be at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans and won't be home till later."

  Ace wondered again what the real motive was behind Piper's determination to have this race. Deciding to probe a little deeper, he said, "Word of a match between one of your father's horses and the son of Jet Black Patriot with Edgar Robichau up will draw considerably more than a few spectators, a couple hundred I imagine, so you'll eventually face your father's wrath when he finds out what the mouse was doing while the cats were away."