by Ann Self
Sam put a cowboy boot up on one knee, still studying her closely as he nursed scalding black coffee. “I’d say you need a day off to recover from your day off...” he opined, noting the smudges of gray under her eyes; something he’d never seen before no matter how long her day.
Jane laughed, “more true than you know.”
He thought that over, narrowing his eyes at her face, gazing over the telltale lines of stress. “I don’t think you ought to drive that old heap of yours all the way into Boston...it’s not a very reliable vehicle in that kind of nasty traffic.”
Jane nodded. “Commuter train from now on—I don’t think the old thing would survive another trip like that.”
“I’m surprised it survived this one,” he laughed. “When are you going to give up and buy a new car?”
“Soon, I guess. Whether I want to or not. It’s just a sort of terrifying expense for me—I never owed money before, I don’t even have a credit card.”
“I’ll help you find a good deal. I know who to go to. You wait much longer and you’ll be back on a bicycle.”
She winced at that. Sam always thought it a hoot that she used to commute to her first job on a bicycle. “Oh, God. Okay—next week maybe?”
Sam smiled and nodded. “Ready to take a walk down to see Charmante? You’ll be stunned, he’s quite impressive.”
“Just need a refill on this and I’ll be ready,” she announced.
Sam filled her mug again, topped off his own, then the two carried their coffees to the newer east wing of the barn to see Lucinda’s horse. They passed by the north wing, the front of which housed Elliot’s plush office and—across the corridor from that—the elegant show room used for only the best saddles and bridles. Like the office, it held many trophies and ribbons.
The stalls in the newest east wing were much bigger and more elaborate than the other wings, with automatic watering equipment and direct access to the just-constructed, but not quite finished, indoor arena. The enormous and impressive indoor ring with its stadium seating and observation lounge was being built, of course, by Whitbeck Development.
Outside, Jane heard the mower’s engine cut out, leaving only the sound of their leather boots tapping on the cement aisle as they sauntered past rows of varnished mahogany stall fronts and galvanized steel grills. Jane towered over Sam, even though his cowboy boots had the tallest heels he could get away with. She still felt like the Statue of Liberty walking beside him. Weakening sunlight reflected off door latches and the metal on trunks lined up against stalls. The pungent aroma of hay and the empty-church quiet helped clear Jane’s mind of the city and troublesome thoughts as they approached the stall of the Trakehner from Germany.
“Say hello to Charmante,” Sam spoke reverently, as he opened the top grille of a box stall. She heard a quick rustle of shavings and gasped as a sculpted statue of silver-gray moved across the stall toward them, stretching a long neck over the half-door in a crest of polished satin. He raised and lowered his shapely million dollar head so the liquid brown eyes would miss nothing. Ears of carved velvet flicked back and forth to see if she made any sound, and soft gray nostrils flared to rake in her scent and the scent of coffee, making little puffs of warm air on her skin.
On his left hind quarter, Charmante carried the distinctive double-antler brand of the German Verband, indicating he was of pure blood, and descended from Prussian King Wilheim’s royal stud of Calvary horses. That these purebreds still existed was thanks in part to a band of courageous people and Trakehner horses that made a grueling 600 mile trek to West Germany, escaping Russian occupation forces spreading over East Prussia in 1945. Many horses and people were captured or killed during the desperate attempt to flee advancing Soviet forces, but enough Trakehner stock survived to rebuild the breed.
As Jane was admiring him, Charmante’s head suddenly snapped up at the sound of footsteps entering the east wing from a small side door.
“A few million on the hoof!” Dylan Ripley yelled as he clomped through the door in heavy boots. He had finished the mowing he wanted to get done before the Whitbecks showed up. Dylan was six feet of muscle and bone, and at nineteen, still years away from filling in the angles with anything that resembled fat. Hours spent in the sun gave his young skin a sleek tan and painted his chin-length, light brown hair with a golden sheen only visible in a certain light; like a hologram. His eyes were a perfect match: dark honey with highlights of gold. Baggy jeans were weighted low on his slim hips from a heavy ring full of keys—most of which went to various tractors, hay trucks, lawnmowers, and other farm equipment parked in the “cave”.
Dylan stooped to brush grass off his pant legs and glanced back at the dark silhouette of the rooster standing in the doorway he had just entered.
“Damned turkey,” he muttered.
“Hello Dylan,” Jane laughed, taking the last swallow of her coffee and setting the mug on a trunk. “I see Mean Chicken is living up to his name!”
“One of these days he’s going to have to call himself Recently Murdered Chicken,” Dylan groused as he straightened up and brushed more grass off a black tee shirt with the name of a popular rock band emblazoned on the front. As he stepped up closer to the stall, Jane could see a bloody scratch across his angular jaw. The gash glistened in the overhead bulb.
“Oh no...did the rooster do that?” She looked back at the doorway, but the bird had suddenly vanished.
Dylan gingerly patted the angry red scratch and scowled at the blood on his fingertips. He flashed a glance at the doorway again as he wiped his hands over his shirt. “Now he’s after someone else—he’s in a real mood today. Damn thing must have followed me down under the barn when I went to get the mower. I hop on the mower and was just about to start it up when he flies at me all claws and spurs from the top of the big hay rake next to it.”
Jane was horrified.
“I tried to fend him off,” Dylan continued, “but he managed to get a claw on my face. It’s so dark down there I just didn’t see him.” He raised an arm, slipped a hand inside the sleeve of his tee shirt and dabbed at his jaw, making Jane frown. She wanted to mention something about washing the wound and using a disinfectant ointment, but knew he would only smirk at her—so she saved her breath.
“He seems to have a special thing for you,” Sam joked, sitting on a tack trunk still working on black coffee.
Dylan looked at him. “Yeah, it’s special, all right. I had to beat him off with a rake before he’d stop attacking.”
“Wow—he is getting weirder and more aggressive,” Sam agreed, looking at the doorway. “I worry about the kids around here. We’re either going to have to eat him for dinner, or build a pen for him.”
“You can have him for dinner,” Jane shuddered. “I wouldn’t eat that thing. In fact I may never eat chicken again!”
Sam laughed and then said: “I’ll get Reggie to build a pen post-haste.” He stood and wandered over to look out the doorway. “Chicken used to be fine most of the time—except for occasionally flipping his wig, but now his crazy days outnumber his lucid ones.”
“His lu...what?” Dylan asked, frowning.
“Lucid. Clear thinking, as opposed to psychotic.”
“Yeah, psycho chicken, that’s him.”
Jane turned her attention back to Charmante. She touched his soft muzzle, and laughed when he snuffled her hand and made a low, rumbling nicker. She gently wrapped her arms around his nose and joked, “Can I have him for my room?”
“You’d have to throw out fifty teddy-bears,” Dylan cracked. “I, on the other hand, take up far less space!”
“Listen youngster...” Sam turned in the doorway and shoved his coffee mug in Charmante’s direction. “Get in there and brush that horse down before the Whitbecks get out here and find a flake of dust on him or something.”
A frog-green Mustang convertible jerked to a halt against the old south wing of the barn. Owen Flint usually parked in the front lot, with the better cars, but he wanted to hang out in Sam�
��s office while waiting for the Whitbecks. It was also the only place in a ten-mile radius with decent coffee. Owen launched his elegantly clad frame in its body-hugging breeches and sleek boots smartly out of the car and frowned when he spied Jane’s Buick also parked in the shameful-wreck area. As if it didn’t look bad enough, the whole rear end of the car was still splattered in dirt from nearly getting swallowed in a muddy lane. Owen shook his head. “Stuck-up chick drives that disgusting beater, doesn’t have two cents to her name and still she plays hard to get,” he muttered. Swinging his jacket on one finger over his back, he headed for Sam’s office. “She’s too damn broke to pay attention.”
As he strode past a parked horse trailer, the rooster suddenly flapped out from under it and tried to anchor spurs and claws in Owen’s leg, but had no luck with the heavy leather boot. Owen merely kicked him aside and then booted him again for good measure, swearing at him and muttering about finding a meat cleaver.
Finding no one in Sam’s office, Owen poured himself the last of the coffee in a Coors mug, and sat in Old Ugly, slapping his boots on the scarred coffee table and flipping disinterestedly through a Dressage Today magazine. He cursed the rooster again and tried to rub away the claw marks on his boot. Owen would’ve sat in Sam’s chair and put his feet on the desk, but the vibes he picked up from Sam when he did made him nervous. The farm manager was a lot older and shorter than himself, but he was powerfully built and Owen sensed a fiery temper under his calm, controlled manner. Owen never tried to hide his temper; he blew up wherever and whenever he felt like it—unless of course, the Whitbecks were around.
He rested his coffee on the fat plaid arm of the Ugly chair, and with the other hand rubbed his forehead agitatedly with thumb and fingers, stiff from the tension of enduring yet another dinner with the family Whitbeck and remaining sane. Lucinda had been quiet, concentrating on moving the food around on her plate and pretending to eat—which always made him want to jump up and shove the food down her throat. He didn’t understand how any woman could exist on crackers, diet soda and cigarettes and still keep her looks. The clock was probably ticking on that.
Elliot, he mused, was his usual overbearing self, but wound up even tighter after the horse purchase; and even Cecily seemed agitated, but no where near as bad as Elliot. Owen tipped his head back and yelled to an empty office: “Megalomaniacal control-freak!” throwing a fist in the air. Then he glanced nervously at the intersecting corridors through the open door and listened like a cat. No one about. He sighed, recalling the irritating scene at the restaurant. Elliot’s running commentary on what and how Cecily and Lucinda ate; even to the point of monitoring their chewing and swallowing—which helped everyone’s digestion. Then Elliot had focused in on Lucinda alone, letting her know his opinion on how many hours a day she should practice with Charmante, and how she should smile and make eye contact with the judges...on and on, making Lucinda crazy—not that it would ruin her meal, since no food actually dropped into her stomach.
But Lucinda herself could drive a person to the loony bin, he thought, and most of the time she managed to be more of an aggravation than Elliot. Her and her snotty friend Ashley. Owen imagined himself slapping them around and chuckled. Then he checked his watch; he knew they would be out soon to pay homage to the horse and fuss over Lucinda and her birthday present.
He wanted to gag. “Spoiled, irritating little brat. If it weren’t for her father...” He found it a sharp thorn in his side to be around women he was absolutely powerless to intimidate, dominate or harass. Not with that squad of henchmen.
Owen set his mug on the coffee table and tunneled fingers through his sandy, razor-cut hair. He frowned when he remembered Whitbeck had even commented on the length of hair on the back of his neck. The only one at the table to escape criticism was Lars. Lars had eaten quietly, offering no comments and looking as if he had projected himself to a far away place—or maybe rethinking his contract. Owen laughed out loud, and then felt a stab of unaccustomed pity, thinking of Lars having most of the responsibility of coaching Lucinda. “Poor geezer.” He locked fingers together, rotated his palms and stretched them out in front, cracking knuckles and yawning loudly.
Springhill’s stone mansion was settling into early dusk, melting into shadows of surrounding pines; while its western eyes still reflected the lowering sun. A lavender mist ghosted over landscaped grounds and curled around the stone dogs while they stood guard with their blank, hard eyes. A rock edged free-form pool behind the mansion glowed like a topaz jewel as if it were collecting the remaining light for another day; and an entertainment pavilion stood dark and idle nearby, forlornly waiting for Lucinda’s party.
Inside the massive foyer of the mansion, a woman with silver hair paced back and forth impatiently, hands behind her back, mulling over the fortune they had just spent on a horse. In her mind, Cecily Whitbeck ticked off areas that equine insurance would cover as her paddock boots stepped methodically on black and white squares of Italian marble: Mortality, major medical, stallion fertility, legal liability, horseshow liability, loss of use... trainer and stable liability...
“I guess we are well covered,” she muttered to herself. “The premiums are steep, but if this horse will help Lucinda...” Her two gray dogs lay side by side on a small Persian carpet in front of the arched double doors, watching intently, ears twitching at the sound of her voice. Facets in the cut crystal chandelier high overhead reflected thousands of little dog and human faces.
Lucinda Whitbeck was finally through with her dressing, grooming and inspections, and strode across her carpet to exit the bedroom door. On the other side of the room, her reflection exited a door in the mirror, banished to some parallel universe until called for duty. Lucinda-the-real trotted down and around the flying doublewide staircase—long, fairy curls floating behind her as she slid one small hand along the carved railing in case her riding boots caught in the thick carpet. She did not want to risk her tiny little neck on the grand stairs.
At the same moment Elliot strode out of his home office, purposefully holding his watch arm in the air in front of him.
Jane leaned on the stall door watching Dylan vigorously brushing shavings from Charmante’s tail. Sam was back sitting on the large tack trunk in front of the stall, still sipping his coffee. All three looked up when they heard quick boot steps on the cement aisle.
“Hello people.”
Jane smiled at Elliot’s other prized jewel, the German coach and high-ranked judge from the SpanishRidingSchool in Vienna. “Hello Lars!” she greeted. Lars Wallenberg looked like a short Santa Clause in the wrong clothes, and a slightly trimmer beard. He had the white hair, ruddy cheeks and rotund figure, but instead of a red suit he was a vision in country tweed even on a warm day. Tweed coat, tweed cap and tweed vest. Lars’s rotund breeches dove into pipestem boots, and he looked as if he’d need a crane to get him on a horse. But when Lars actually made the climb into the saddle, the horse performed as though he’d received a new, more talented brain and body.
“Hey Lars.” Sam raised his mug.
Lars smiled at Sam, and tipped his country gentleman’s cap at Jane. “Well, what do you think?” His English was excellent, due to a mother raised in the states, and a year spent at Yale. After the year at college to make his mother happy, he decided to follow his dream, return to Austria and apply to the SpanishRidingSchool. He was accepted and admitted at age nineteen. Every day of his life in the following four decades had been devoted to horses and Dressage. At this stage in his life—divorced, minus children, and joints flirting with arthritis, he wanted to settle in one place and scale back on his world travels.
“What a beauty!!” Jane answered him. “He’s the most gorgeous horse I have ever seen in my life.”
Dylan looked up from his tail brushing. “Anyone can have one for a few mil.”
“Just have to win the lottery,” Sam added. He paused as he was bringing the coffee mug to his mouth and re-focused his field of vision to the far end o
f the east wing. “Look sharp folks, here comes the Whitbecks.” There was a slight stiffening of the atmosphere and Jane thought she detected a small sigh from Lars. Sam took the last of his coffee in a big gulp, then rested the mug between his knees.
“Is fairy princess with them?” Dylan asked snidely.
“Yes she is,” Sam aimed the warning over his back, “and the Grand Pooh-bah himself, so watch it.”
Dylan muttered under his breath as he swacked at Charmante’s tail. The horse shifted weight and glanced back curiously at Dylan.
Elliot Whitbeck strode ahead of his wife and daughter and reached Charmante’s stall first, dragging with him a choking cloud of expensive cologne. He jingled change and keys nervously in the pockets of his gray Armani suit, greeting everyone with a nod and looking anxiously at the horse.” How’s he doing, Dylan?”
Dylan straightened, dropping the tail. Charmante focused his ears on Elliot, but didn’t advance a step. “Pretty good for a horse that’s traveled from Germany,” Dylan answered. “I don’t see a scratch on him.”
“Good, that’s good.” Elliot reached over the stall door to pat the horse’s nose, but Charmante elevated his head just enough to make Elliot pat air. “The vet should be here soon to check him over.” He began pacing in front of the stall door with his music of jangling change and squeaking Italian shoes. His gaunt frame was so thin he looked like a suit full of bones attached to strings that jerked him in all directions, and he sported the telltale badge of an uptight workaholic: a roll of Tums in his shirt pocket. Bleached out, squinty blue eyes peered over Elliot’s hawkish nose and his salt and pepper hair was styled in a low part and rake-over deal that was meant to hide a bare pink scalp. The strong scent of cologne seemed out of place in the barn, and bothered the horse. Jane noticed Sam watching Elliot with a guarded expression.
“Hi folks!” Cecily stepped up beside Jane, bestowing smiles on everyone. Lucinda followed sullenly, one hand plunged into the pocket of an over-sized sweater, and the other holding a container of diet Cola. Her expression was downcast as she sucked on a straw, as if it would take more than an expensive horse to make her jump around like an over-active puppy. But the gray eyes behind the screen of pale lashes flicked over people with more interest than her body language revealed. A shopping bag looped around her tiny wrist caught Jane’s attention.