by Nora Roberts
“Then I’d better go give it to him.”
When she started out, Boggs shifted, then scratched his throat. “You know, I saw somebody today I ain’t seen in a while. Somebody I knew back in that spring of ’73.”
“Oh?”
Stalling, Boggs took the apple from her and twisted it in his gnarled hands so that it came apart in two neat halves. “Mr. Slater’s old man.”
“Gabe’s father? You saw him here?”
“Thought I did. But my eyes aren’t what they were. Funny he’d be here. I recollect he was around the day Spot went down. Kicked up a fuss, too, like as if Miss Naomi had planned to lose the race and the horse that day. ’Course he was drunk. But Rich Slater’s persuasive. They checked the horse for drugs.”
Kelsey stood, the sun at her back, her face in shadow. “And what did they find?”
“They didn’t find nothing in that colt. The Chadwicks run clean. But they found them in the colt that bumped him. Amphetamines.”
“Who owned the colt?”
“Cunningham.” He spat on the ground. “Funny, isn’t it? Fingers pointed at Cunningham at first, but it turned out the jockey’d done it. Benny Morales, damn good rider he was. Left a note that said so before he hung himself in Cunningham’s tack room.”
“God, that’s horrible.”
“There’s plenty that don’t smell so sweet around racehorses, Miss Kelsey. Rich Slater, he had it figured that the Chadwicks bribed Benny to drug his horse, so’s even if he won, he’d be disqualified if’n they found out. That’s pure shit, of course, but a man like that’s got to point the blame at somebody. Thing was, most everybody lost that day. Probably wasn’t him I saw, but I figured if it was, you might want to keep your distance.”
“I will.”
Rich Slater had no intention of crossing paths with anyone from Three Willows. He was there as a spectator. And although it would certainly have been wiser for him to be well away from Louisville on Saturday, he wanted a front-row seat.
He was on a roll. A wad of bills in his pocket, a willing woman in his bed, and a raucous round of parties at his fingertips. He’d made it, finally, to the big time. And the best part, the sweetest part, was the people who would go down as he went up.
He had to admit, he was brilliant—and he made sure he didn’t get drunk enough to share that opinion with anyone but himself. Not only would he pay off an old debt and slap down his ungrateful son, he would also make a small fortune doing it.
And really, he was doing nothing at all. He’d simply put the right instrument in the right hands.
The Chadwick bitch would pay. Naked, he padded over to the honor bar to raid the stingy bottles of liquor. His companion for Derby week was passed out on the bed, her tight little body sprawled on the tangled sheets. He’d proved his manhood there, he told himself, and toasted the reflection in the mirror.
He still had it.
With the glass in his hand, Rich preened in front of the mirror. His vanity was blind to the loose flesh sagging at his waist. He saw the body of a thirty-year-old, trim and tough. The body he’d passed on to his son, who had blown him off with a five-thousand-dollar check.
Wouldn’t let your dad spend a night under your roof? I’ll own the fucking roof when I’m done.
He tossed back the whiskey and watched his throat ripple as he swallowed. The boy thought he was better than anybody. Always had. In a couple of days he wouldn’t be so high and mighty. In a couple of days, the worm would have turned.
He really had to thank circumstances, past and present, for giving him the opportunity. Cunningham was a bonus, one that had fallen beautifully into his lap. Of course the man was a fool, but fools were the best birds to pluck.
And he was going to be plucking Cunningham for many years to come. A nice steady sideline of blackmail would bring in a nice steady income. But the payoff, oh, the payoff would come just before six P.M. on Saturday. A job, he was sure everyone would agree, well done.
He opened another bottle, poured another drink. He wondered if Naomi Chadwick would remember him. If he walked right up to her, took a handful of that pretty little butt, would she remember him? He was tempted to try it, to walk right up and give her a quick squeeze and a wink.
He didn’t like the idea that a woman, any woman, could forget Rich Slater.
He remembered her, all right. He remembered that fancy, spoiled bitch, advertising herself in low-cut dresses or skintight jeans. Strutting around the track like a filly in heat, spreading her legs for any man who could still get a hard-on.
He’d wanted her, bad. Wanted to lift those frilly skirts and dive in. Show her what a real man could do. But when he’d offered, she’d looked at him as though he were something smeared on the bottom of her boot after a walk through the paddock. And she’d laughed at him. Laughed until he’d wanted to smash his fist into that beautiful face.
Maybe he would have, Rich thought, absently pounding one clenched hand into the palm of the other. Maybe he would have if that half-breed Jew hadn’t come along.
“Problem here, Miss Naomi?”
“No, Moses, no problem. Just a track rat. How’s our boy doing?”
She’d sashayed off, flicking her tail, to coo over her prize colt. And Rich had had no choice but to go home to the dingy rooms he’d rented and smash his fist into his wife’s pale, homely face instead.
Thought she was too good for him. She’d cost him his pride that day, but he’d cost her a great deal more later when he’d fixed the race. That hadn’t been his intention, of course. Nobody could have predicted Morales would lose control of his hyped-up horse and knock into hers so hard.
But then again, he thought now. Then again, it had turned out fine. Better than fine, because he’d been smart, he’d been cagey, and he’d used the circumstances against her. He’d paid her back, all right. But he wasn’t through.
The ten years she’d spent in prison had been only partial payment. The rest of the debt was coming due Saturday.
Kelsey passed on the Derby day breakfast at the governor’s mansion. Not only couldn’t she eat, she couldn’t bear the idea of being so far away from the track.
Post time for the first race was precisely eleven-thirty. Like the grooms, jockeys, and trainers, Kelsey was there by six. The idea of going back to the hotel at noon for a nap was impossible. Instead, she stayed with Boggs and some of the other crew, nibbling on the fried chicken she’d bought.
“Still here?” Moses dropped down on the ground beside her and poked in the bucket for a thigh.
“Where else?” She was eating from nerves rather than hunger, and washed down the chicken with ginger ale.
“You could sit in your box. It’s already a hell of a show. The infield’s packed, grandstand’s filling up.”
“Too nervous. Besides, some reporter will just stick a microphone or a camera in my face.”
“You won’t avoid them here, either. Your mama’s got pull. You could hide out in the Matt Winn Room.”
“Uh-uh.” Kelsey licked her fingers. “That’s for businessmen. Might as well be sitting in a boardroom. That’s no place to watch the race. How’s Naomi?”
“Wired. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she’s wound tight. Half of that’s you being here. She wants you holding that trophy with her.”
“We could do it, couldn’t we?”
“I’m not going to tempt the gods and say so.” He squinted up at the sky. “Good day. Dry, clear. We’ve got a fast track.”
“I was out there earlier while they were prepping it. It’s beautiful, all those neat furrows. I was going to watch some of the early races, but it just made me jittery.” Because her stomach still had too much room to flutter, she chose another piece of chicken. “Have you seen Gabe?”
“He’s sharing the box with Naomi. He’ll be back around to harass Jamie and stand in the paddock while his colt’s saddled.”
“Things were so busy yesterday, I barely saw him.” And never alone. “I
didn’t know whether to bring it up, since I have a pretty good idea how he feels, but Boggs mentioned that he thought he saw Gabe’s father.”
“When?” Moses asked so quickly, Kelsey was flustered.
“Well, uh, Thursday, late morning. He said he wasn’t sure. Moses?” She scrambled to her feet because he’d already gotten up and was heading toward the barn.
“The man’s trouble,” he spat out. “Bad medicine.”
“Bad medicine?” She wanted to smile, but she couldn’t make her lips obey. “Come on, Moses.”
“Some people carry trouble with them, and like to pass it out. Rich Slater’s like that.” He moved quickly to Pride’s box, satisfying himself, then forcing himself to relax. Horses picked up on emotions. He wanted Pride edgy, revved, but not spooked. “If he’s around, I don’t want him near here.”
“The guards won’t let anyone in who isn’t authorized. Boggs wasn’t even certain. Besides, what trouble could he cause?”
“None.” Moses stroked the colt’s nose, murmured to him softly. “Guess I’m wired, too. Slater’s old news. Bad news, but old.”
“Boggs told me about the race in Lexington, when Sun Spot broke down.”
“Hard. That was hard on her. Slater tried to stir up a hornet’s nest there, but they stung the wrong person. Benny Morales was a good jockey. He was making a comeback that year. He’d been out for a while with a broken back. Cunningham put him up on his colt. I was never sure if Benny doctored that colt because he needed the money that bad, or if he just needed to beat the Chadwick colt.”
It hardly mattered why, Moses thought now. The worst had happened.
“He’d been riding for Three Willows when he took a bad spill at a morning workout. It was a year and a half before he was back on his feet. Mr. Chadwick offered him a job, assistant trainer. But Benny wanted to ride, wanted to prove himself. So Cunningham put him up.”
“Was he capable?”
“I can’t say. He ate a lot of painkillers. Worked himself to death to get back down to weight. There weren’t a lot of takers, so Cunningham bought him cheap. It ended up costing a lot more than a cut of the purse. Well”—he stroked Pride again—“that’s old news. We’ve got a new race here. The race. It’s almost time to take our boy to the paddock.”
A horse would take this walk from barn to paddock on the first Saturday in May only once. Less than three years before, he would have frolicked cheerfully alongside his mother in green pastures. One of the first steps in a dream. As a yearling he might have danced in meadows, raced his companions, or his own shadow. Training, growing as muscle and bone developed, learning the poetry and power of movement that was exclusive to the breed. He would come to the bridle eager, or fitful, feel the first weight of man on his back in a dawn-washed stall.
One day he would be walked to an iron gate and urged to accept the confinement. He would have trained on the longe, on the practice oval. He would learn the scent of his groom, feel heat in his legs and the crop on his back.
He would do what he had been born to do. He would run.
But he would take this walk, to this race, only once. There was no second chance.
At 5:06 they were in the paddock, Pride moving into his stall to be saddled. Tattoos were checked, as were the colors and markings of each of the seventeen entrants. No different from any other race, and different from any other.
There had been only one scratch. No one mentioned the colt from California who had broken down at the morning workout with an injured foot.
Bad luck.
Inside the jockeys’ quarters, riders stepped on scales. One hundred and twenty-six pounds, no more, no less, including tack. Reno stepped up, watched the scale, and smiled. The hours in the steam room had been worth it. Moments later, the silks bright, riders made their way from the second floor of their quarters to the paddock.
The waiting was nearly over.
In the stands people grew restless, excited, jubilant. Celebrations continued in the infield, some of them heated from liquor smuggled inside hollowed loaves of bread or diaper bags.
The odds board flickered, and the betting windows were packed.
It was 5:15. The horses were saddled, their lead ponies outfitted brightly with braided tails and flowers. Despite the powder-puff clouds riding high overhead, the air was thick. Tension had weight.
“Don’t worry about taking the lead,” Moses told Reno. “Let the Kentucky colt set the pace through the first turn. Pride runs well in the pack.”
“He’ll thread like a needle,” Reno agreed. Though his voice was cool, casual, he was sweating under his silks.
“And talk to him. Talk to him. He’ll run his heart out if you ask him to.”
Reno nodded, struggling to keep his cocky smile in place. There was so much riding on that quick two minutes.
“Riders up!”
At the paddock judge’s announcement, Moses slapped a hand on Reno’s shoulder, then vaulted him into the saddle. They would head back through the tunnel now, on the way to the track.
“Ready?” Naomi clasped a hand over Kelsey’s.
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath, then another. “Yeah.”
“Me too.” After two steps, Naomi shook her head. “Wait one minute.” In her trim red suit and elegant pearls, she made a dash across the paddock. She was laughing when she caught up with Moses, threw her arms around him, and kissed him.
“Naomi.” Blushing with a combination of pride and embarrassment, like a schoolboy caught pinching the head cheerleader, he wiggled away. “What’s wrong with you? There’s—”
“People watching,” she finished, and kissed him again. “The hell with your reputation, Moses.”
She was still laughing as she dashed back to Kelsey. “Well, that settles that.”
Amused, and oddly touched, Kelsey fell into step with her. “Does it?”
“A running argument we’ve had for more years than I care to count. He hasn’t wanted our relationship made public because it’s unseemly for a woman in my position.” She tossed back her hair. God, she felt young and free and incredibly happy. “Nothing but male pride, of course, which they all wear in their jockstraps.”
Kelsey snorted out a laugh. “Why don’t you just marry him?”
“He’s never asked me. And I suppose I have too much female pride to ask him. Speaking of males.” She saw Gabe walking toward them. “I’d like to say, before he can hear me, that there is one of the most gorgeous examples of the species that I’ve ever seen.”
“There’s something about the eyes,” Kelsey murmured. “And the mouth. And the cheekbones.” Her smile curved slyly. “And of course, there’s that incredible butt.”
“I’ve noticed.” Naomi giggled. “Just because I’m nearly old enough to be his mother doesn’t mean I’ve lost my eyesight.”
“Ladies.” Gabe cocked his head. When two women had gleams like that in their eyes, something was up. “Want to share the joke?”
They looked at each other, and shook their heads in unison. “Nope.”
Each hooked an arm through one of his and strolled to their box to the strains of “My Old Kentucky Home.”
Deep in the stands, surrounded by picture hats and silk jackets, Rich Slater swirled his third mint julep. The seats Bill Cunningham had arranged for him weren’t choice, but he’d sprung for a new pocket-size set of binoculars. With them, he watched Gabe escort the women up to their glitzy box.
Quite a picture they made, he thought. Naomi in her flashy red suit, the daughter in her flashy blue, both blond heads gleaming. Like a couple of sexy bookends for the tall dark man between them.
He wondered if the boy had taken them both to bed yet. A blond sandwich with four milky legs and arms. He’d bet they could fuck like rabbits.
“Look, honey, aren’t they the cutest things with the flowers in their hair?”
Cherri, who’d lasted out the week with him due to tireless sex and a high tolerance for sloe gin fizzes, tugged on
his arm. Dutifully, Rich shifted his attention back to the game at hand.
“They sure are, baby. Cute as can be.”
The entrants were ponied around the track, their flower-bedecked escorts carrying liveried riders. The Arkansas colt danced and tried to nip at the colt in front of him. The pony rider helped the jockey calm him.
The entrants cantered around the track to the cheers of the crowd.
“It’s incredible,” Kelsey said. “All of it. Just incredible.” She shook her head at Gabe’s offer of a drink. “I can’t swallow. I can hardly breathe. Oh, God, they’re loading them in the gate.”
Everyone was in place, horses, jockeys, assistants, officials. In the stewards’ stand, two judges stood outside, peering through binoculars, waiting for the start. A third remained in the stewards’ room, with two television monitors. Others were stationed at poles and the finish line.
From the announcer’s booth: “It is now post time.”
Once they started the Derby with a whip. Now it was the press of a button, and the words everyone had waited for.
“And they’re off!”
A plunge through the gate, the roar of the crowd, and the first feet of the race were eaten up by flashing hooves. Kelsey’s heart leaped to her throat and stayed there.
So much color, so much sound, could be lost in the blur of dazzled eyes and speeding pulse. The pack swept past the grandstands for the first time, around the clubhouse turn. The first quarter whizzed by in a fraction more than twenty-two seconds with the Kentucky-bred favorite in the lead.
With her binoculars all but glued to her eyes, Kelsey searched the pack for Pride. His colors blazed as he began to surge forward, almost hoofbeat to hoofbeat with Gabe’s colt. Cunningham’s game Big Sheba thundered between them.
“He’s moving up! He’s moving up!” She was screaming but didn’t know it. Her voice was lost in the wall of sound. Naomi’s fingers were on her arm, digging in.
Pride nosed out Midnight Hour at the half-mile, in forty-five seconds flat, Reno curved over his back.
She could see the turf fly, the swing of silk as bats were whipped, the incredible power of long, slender legs bunching, reaching, lifting.