“Jake!” she shouted again, flashing the light ahead of her.
“Mel!”
“I’m coming!”
Now she remembered this ravine from trail rides as a kid. It had been a scary ride back then—down the slippery path, over fallen trees, across the shallow creek and up the steep side, the horse’s neck and withers next to her nose as she leaned forward to give him his head. In the dark, the trail seemed even more treacherous.
Mel saw the frantic mare first. She pawed and tossed her head as she balanced on a firm ledge several feet above the creek. Was Mel just imagining it or was the water rising?
She fanned the light out away from the mare, searching for Jake.
“Mel! Damn, I’m glad you got here! Are you alone?”
“Yes. Sam’s gone for help. Where are you?”
“Down here!”
Taking a few more steps, Mel pulled up short. There in the creek with water up to his waist, Jake stood with his arms outstretched, stabilizing the head and neck of a small foal. The gangly colt was contorted with its fore leg stuck in the fork of a buckeye tree precariously perched over the creek. Without Jake’s support, the horse would drown in the rising water.
“Oh, my God!” Mel scooted on her haunches down the loose embankment. “How long have you been in that water?”
“Not long really,” he said. “You’d be surprised how cold it is, though.”
In the flashlight beam, Mel saw his heartening smile. He was trying to ease her fear.
“Couldn’t you free his leg?”
“That trunk is too shaky. With my weight, I couldn’t chance it.” He shook his head. “This is, unfortunately, all I could muster in the time I had. I was praying the cavalry would save the day before I had to abandon the colt.”
“Cavalry, huh? I’m afraid all you’ve got is one small, female horse trainer that you almost refused to hire.” Mel couldn’t resist the barb. It lightened the mood, causing her to ignore the thud of dread that sounded like a cannon in her ears.
“Mel, don’t try it. It’s too dangerous.”
“You’ve done it now, man,” Mel bantered. “Them’s fightin’ words.” She positioned the flashlight on the bank to shine on the tree.
“Be careful,” Jake warned. “That colt is spooked and his hooves are sharp.”
Mel knew that. She concentrated on the thrashing foal. He was a delicate creature with a fine head and well-shaped legs—legs that could easily be broken. Jake was right, the little horse had hooves like razors, and if she wasn’t careful, they would cut her to shreds.
“Easy. Easy.” Mel crooned while she slowly straddled the tree trunk.
Too bad she didn’t have her poncho. She could throw it over the hind legs of the colt. There wasn’t anything else. Except my t-shirt.
Not considering her modesty, Mel pulled her shirt over her head. Holding it by the sleeves, she stretched it out. Without looking at Jake and trying not to think about what king of picture she presented in her bra and jeans, she flung the shirt over the spindly legs.
It worked long enough for Mel to crawl out on the trunk over the colt. He squirmed beneath her like a fiend.
“Easy, darlin’,” she used Pop’s endearment. “Easy, boy.”
Carefully, she extended her right hand to grab his slim fore leg, and at the same time, tried to keep the free hoof from flailing her face. Moving slightly, she stretched out with her left hand, pressing her face against the slim neck. Steam rose from the warm horseflesh.
“Be careful!”
Inwardly cringing with fear, outwardly refusing to show it, Mel gripped the left leg, and loosened it from the rough wood. When she freed the leg, the colt thrashed trying to stand. It was impossible, and in a sudden whoosh, they both plunged into the icy water of the creek.
Jake broke her fall. He fell back under the water.
Mel and the colt struggled together. She found her footing, and somehow righted the foal. With all the effort she could muster, she shoved the wriggling horse toward the bank. He scrambled out of the creek onto the bank and was greeted by his mother.
“Jake!” The cold and the force of the water sucked her breath away.
“I’m okay!” Jake’s head popped up right in front of her face.
As he gained his balance, his hands closed around her arms and steadied her. The meager light of the flashlight cast weird shadows across Jake’s face. She couldn’t see him as much as feel him—the ripple of his muscles beneath his soaked shirt rubbing against her bare shoulders, the solid rock of his chest pressing against her cheek. He held her there with the water surging around them. She let him hold her, soaking in all his masculine strength.
“You were magnificent,” he said, stroking her dripping hair.
A drop from his hand rolled down her nose. She blinked up at him, and shook her head no. She didn’t feel magnificent. She felt scared and silly like a child.
“I couldn’t find you.” Her voice sounded plaintive even to her own ears.
Jake anchored her tightly against him. “But you did. That’s all that matters,” he said as he touched his lips to her hair. “Now let’s get out of this water before we drown!”
Chapter Eleven
Jake stood at the paddock gate, his gaze fastened on the rescued colt and its mother, but in his mind, he saw the top of Mel’s bowed head and mound of breast against his chest, her athletic bra straps crossing in the back where he placed his hands. Locked in his arms, water swirling around them, she’d turned to him for support. He liked that. Jake smiled at nothing in particular, his thoughts of Mel blinding him to the fierce August sun. He had never been much of a day dreamer. Not until Mel came back into his life.
The desire that now knifed through him and hardened his flesh was not a daydream. It was real and uncomfortable. Jake shifted his stance and placed a booted foot on the lower rail of the fence. He rested his arms against the upper rail and leaned forward. Mel had been worried about him. She’d searched alone through the darkness to find him. He grinned again. Her concern was like a warm caress. It stimulated his heart, causing it to march in double time.
Mel had needed him too. Needed him to carry the little colt up the sloppy bank and lower him into the truck Dave had brought. He’d freed her Jeep from the mud, an easy thing to do just by putting it into four wheel drive and rocking it back and forth. Mel had not thought of that. After all, she was a typical female. He smirked at the idea of Mel being typical. He’d better never say that to her face. She’d never let him live it down, for Mel was far from average. When he’d needed her, she’d come to his rescue. She’d taken a big risk and released the colt. She was as brave and courageous as she was good-hearted and beautiful.
“Must be thinking about Mel,” a sharp little voice said.
Jake glanced down to find Cory staring up at him, a dimpled grin spreading across her face.
Moving his foot off the rail and facing her, only an elbow resting on the fence, Jake asked, “What makes you say that, kiddo?”
“Oh, you’ve got that silly look on your face,” she bantered back.
He pulled his elbow down and crossed his arms in a defensive move. “What look?”
“That look you have on your face whenever you think of Mel!”
Satisfaction blazed in Cory’s eyes as if she knew she’d hit her mark. Flipping her blond braid, she twirled around and took off toward the barn.
“Am I that obvious?” Jake asked, catching up with her.
She slowed and sauntered along, trying to hide a smile. “Like a love-sick cat.”
“That’s bad.”
“Yeah, when my cat got like that, my mom got her fixed.” Cory was serious.
“Stop that!” Jake laughed. He snatched her up, swung her around and set her on his shoulders.
Laughing too, Cory pounded gently on his head. “Put me down, you meany.”
“I’m not mean! I’m a five-gaited horse and this is the World’s Grand Championship. You’re the wo
rld’s best female rider and this is your very first time to ride in Freedom Hall.”
Cory fell into the play acting. “Okay, trot. Pick up those hooves!”
Jake trotted in a circle around the dusty parking lot of the barn.
“Now canter!” Cory ordered, whipping the air with a pretend riding crop.
Jake changed his gait into a skipping lope. This was getting to be more like work than play, but he was having fun.
“Stop,” she said. “Now reverse.”
Jake stopped and changed directions. “Slow gait,” he said through his huffs and puffs, and started ambling around in a circle.
“Rack on!” Cory yelled, whooping like a cowboy at a rodeo.
Jake tried valiantly to comply, but it was too much. He racked into the dusky barn and tumbled the little girl over his head onto a bale of straw.
“Silly!” She succumbed to a spasm of giggles.
“Silly? I’m not silly.” He collapsed onto the sawdust of the barn floor with his back against the straw.
Cory snickered and tackled him around his neck. Through his fit of laughter, Jake regretted not having a daughter like Cory.
* * * *
It was seven o’clock when Mel paused on the threshold of The Old Stone Inn in Simpsonville and scanned the tables. Her fists clenched to control a shudder that filtered through her body. She wasn’t ready for this encounter. She had barely recovered from the panic and trauma of the previous day. Being unable to find Jake had affected her more than she realized. Then Lenny’s call in the aftermath of that gut-wrenching fear had made her physically sick.
She had to find out what Lenny knew.
“May I help you?” the hostess asked.
With a faint smile of acknowledgment, Mel turned to the woman. “Yes, I’m to meet someone.” Her voice sounded as thin as a badly played clarinet.
“Ah, the gentleman is already here.” The hostess gave Mel a speculative look. “Follow me, dear.”
Mel fumbled with a ball of rising anger rising. The woman’s assumption she and Lenny were having a romantic rendezvous irritated her. Yet maybe the anger was a good thing to hold on to. It was better than fear.
Lenny sat in an isolated corner with his back against the wall. It was so like him to have a commanding view of the area, to already have the upper hand. Mel drew a deep breath and lifted her chin. The palms of her hands grew slick. What does he know about Cory? With anger and hatred in her heart, she crossed the floor.
“Here you are. Enjoy your dinner.” The hostess placed a menu on the table and turned away.
“Melody, so good to see you,” Lenny said as if she were a long-lost lover, not an ex-wife. He stood and pulled out her chair.
Letting him seat her, Mel ignored his enthusiasm. Her skin crawled when his hand grazed her back.
Lenny returned to his seat and favored Mel with a look of dark amusement. “I’m glad you accepted my invitation.”
“Don’t play games with me, Lenny. What do you want?”
“Want? I just want to have dinner with you.” He handed her silverware wrapped in a white cloth napkin. “Here, relax. You used to love this place.”
Mel snatched the silverware from him and opened the napkin, laying it in her lap. He was doing it to her again. Like an intangible shadow, Lenny had a way of skittering away from an issue. She’d never been able to pin him down in their marriage. How could she hope to do so now?
“You’re up to something. I want to know what it is,” Mel stated and realized she’d fallen back into the same old defensive patterns.
His smile was slow and ingratiating. “Why do you ask?”
Catching her breath, Mel realized he was putting down another trap. She was too afraid to ask Lenny the real question. What did he know about Cory?
“I ask because I’m just a little curious about someone who threatens me. You’ve been following me around, showing up in the strangest places,” she said instead.
“A cocktail party is strange?”
“Coming all the way from Missouri is strange,” Mel snapped.
“Melody, darling, The Lexington Junior League Horse Show is a very prestigious event,” he replied, his voice oily. “It coincides with the Saddlebred auction at Tattersalls.”
Mel made a sound of bitter amusement. “I thought you gambled away all your money. You can’t afford the auction.”
She opened the menu, hoping to buy herself some time to regain control. Lenny enjoyed giving her a hard time. Being contrary was one of his games.
The waitress arrived to take their drink order. “We’ll take iced tea,” Lenny said, winking at Mel as if they shared a deep, dark secret.
A shard of ice-like alarm plunged through her veins. She didn’t have to buy into that any more. “I’ll have a Coke instead,” she told the waitress.
Touché. She’d made her point. She saw it in the smugness of Lenny’s gaze. He was entertained. Like a cat with a mouse. And like that hapless mouse, Mel felt cornered. Inwardly sucking up her courage, she returned Lenny’s steely gaze and tried to keep her expression bland.
“I suppose you’ll want the baked chicken,” he reflected, turning his eyes to the menu, “or will you contradict me on that too?”
“I don’t know what I want. I’m not very hungry.”
The tea and Coke arrived, and while Lenny squeezed his lemon into his glass and added his customary dose of sugar, Mel stirred the ice in her drink with her straw. If she actually ate or drank anything, she knew she would hurl.
“I worry about you, Melody.”
“That’s nice.”
“You’re getting in over your head at Royalty Farm,” Lenny remarked. He sipped from his glass, his eyes boring into her over the rim.
“What do you mean by that?” Mel stiffened as a stray thought hit her. “You’re not responsible for those accidents, are you Lenny?”
“Melody, Melody. Do you mean that horrible barn fire? What a thing to accuse me of.” He flicked off her charge as if it were a pesky fly. “I know you don’t mean it.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Lenny.” Her voice was hard.
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, darling.” He smiled. “I know about you and that trainer, that Jake Hendricks. I made inquiries about him.”
Mel’s hackles began to rise like a frightened dog. She sat forward. “Why? What business is he of yours?”
“You might say he’s been my business for many years.”
The waitress came again. Mel sat back, subconsciously taking a hold of the cuff of her long-sleeved blouse, her gaze skittering to the table.
“I don’t dare order for my lovely wife,” Lenny said in an ingratiating whine.
“Ex-wife,” Mel growled, her gaze snapping up and confronting his.
The waitress turned to her. “Ma’am?”
Mel glanced at the woman. “I’m not hungry.”
“Oh, come on. I’m buying.”
“Very generous of you.” Mel thought of the many times during their marriage when she’d urged him not to spend so much money.
“Darling, you can be rude to me all you want, but you shouldn’t be rude to the nice lady, should you?”
She wanted to scream. She wanted to pick up the menu and slap him across his face with it. At the same time, she wanted to kick herself up and down for having fallen in with this man in the first place. What had ever possessed her? Lenny had come into her life at a terribly vulnerable moment. He’d acted as though he knew how to take care of her, and she had wanted to be cared for. She’d wanted to be protected and cherished and loved.
Fat chance. She had gotten precious little of that from Lenny after the first glorious months of courtship. In fact, after the rush of sex early on in their marriage, there had been little of that as well. Lenny had been traditional, cautious, dependable, but he had also been boring and distant. For the life of her, Mel wondered what had attracted her to the man. It was almost as if she had endowed him with greater depth of
character than he’d ever possessed.
When he refused to start a family, the fingers of doubt about her husband grew. Then he had pressured her to take a job at a more celebrated stable which would mean leaving the kids she loved to teach. When she’d refused, their relationship had soured. Lenny didn’t like not getting his way. About a year later, the insurance scam rumors had circulated among the show horse crowd in Missouri. By then Mel was only enduring the marriage in a vain attempt to prevent another failure. The gambling debts were the last straw.
“You order for me, Lenny. You always knew what was best for me,” Mel said, sarcasm dripping like the condensation on her glass.
“I’m glad you recognize that.” He smiled and then turned to the waitress and placed the order.
When the woman left, Lenny smiled again. “Where were we?”
“I don’t know, because I don’t know the purpose of this whole charade.”
“Ah, yes.” He looked away and then back like a snake ready to strike. “You know I always have your best interests at heart, don’t you, Melody?”
“No, I don’t know that. You used to say a lot of cruel things to me.”
“Oh, please.” He rolled his eyes.
“You hurt my feelings all the time,” she accused. Her heart kerthumped in her chest.
“You sound like a spoiled child.”
Mel glared at him. This was a senseless argument. One she never won. She didn’t answer him.
“If I ever criticized you, it was only to make you a better person. Sometimes you were too passive. I was just trying to give you spunk, make you stand up and fight for what you wanted,” he said. “You deserved a better job than the one you had at that pathetic stable.”
“I was doing what I wanted,” Mel shot back. “Teaching children.”
“But your career was stagnant.”
“In your viewpoint. But it was my career. You just wanted me at a fancy stable to make yourself look better among your horse show friends,” Mel accused. “In fact, that’s probably the very reason you didn’t want us to have children. It would postpone my illustrious career.”
Kentucky Flame Page 12