Tom and Dawn were allowed a full half hour visit with Ben, who listened intently and asked questions and gave comments as best he could. He was concerned about the status of his appeal to the racing stewards. Tom told him they’d put it on hold for the time being.
“Hmph,” he said, in that familiar, cynical way of his, and Tom laughed, teasing.
“So don’t be in a hurry to get well.”
Ben smiled a lopsided smile. “No, that’s okay. I want out of here.”
“All in due time, Mr. Miller,” a nurse in passing said. “All in due time.”
Tom thought he and Dawn might go get a bite to eat afterwards, but Dawn had other plans. “I’m going to try to track down Dr. Martin. I think I’ll have him paged.”
Tom looked lost. “Do you want me to wait?”
“No, you don’t have to. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Dr. Martin returned her call within minutes, said he was about to leave for the day but would answer any questions she had, and suggested they do it over dinner. I’m starved,” he said. “Where would you like to go?”
Dawn hesitated. She’d assumed he meant the hospital cafeteria. “Uh...”
“Where do they have good steaks? This eating out is new to me.”
Dawn said The Rib had good food, and since she didn’t have to go there alone now, which she would never do, it seemed as good a place as any. “I’m not sure where it is,” Dr. Martin said. “So I’ll meet you in the lobby and follow you there.” Which he did.
They sat themselves at a table to the back, away from the bar, where it was quieter and they could talk. Dawn wanted to hear all about the options on Ben’s therapy, wanted to discuss a controversial program she’d read about using electrodes. And Dr. Martin, “James...please,” he said, wanted to talk about life in general, and starting over.
It made for good conversation, but then again, Dawn was a good listener. He recommended traditional therapy. “Mr. Miller is a very strong man for his age. As long as we keep his blood pressure under control, I think he’ll do just fine.”
He talked about his son Jimmy. And displayed a bitterness against the legal system. “I understand I get him every weekend from now on. Some stranger in court gave me that right.”
Dawn studied his eyes, deep set but distinct with dark lashes and heavy brows. “Is your wife a good mother?”
He nodded, and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. Of course she is.” He didn’t mean to mislead her. “She was just a lousy wife,” he added, and the two of them laughed.
“What does she say about you?”
Dr. Martin grew serious and shrugged. “She says I’m a good doctor.”
Dawn nodded. That said volumes. Ginney and her father entered the restaurant then. Bud walked on, and Ginney approached the table. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Not much,” Dawn said, and introduced them.
“James,” Dr. Martin insisted again. “Please. It’s nice to meet you.”
Ginney nodded, smiling, and looked warily at Dawn. “Is Ben all right?”
“Oh, he’s fine,” Dawn said, thinking that was what the look was about. “Isn’t he?”
Dr. Martin smiled. “Yes. Or at least he will be, if we can get him to cooperate.” He studied Dawn’s friend, noticing how different the two were.
“Did you and Randy have a fight?” Ginney asked.
“No.” Dawn shook her head. “Why?”
“He was asking me about you earlier, and it seemed like... Well, never mind. It was nice meeting you, Dr...I mean, James. I gotta go. I don’t want Dad getting a head start on me.”
James stood as she left the table, sat back down, and in through the door came Randy. One look and his eyes hardened. He knew she was here; her Jaguar was parked right out front. But he’d figured she was with Tom or maybe Ginney. He never expected Dr. Martin. But then again, he asked himself, why should you be surprised?
He walked straight to their table. He’d be damned if he was going to ignore them or be ignored. Dawn looked up as he neared, and Dr. Martin rose to shake his hand.
“How nice to meet up with you again. As you can see, I took your advice and asked her myself,” James said, as congenial as could be. “And well, here we are.”
“I see that.”
Dawn stared, swallowed hard. What advice? What were they talking about?
“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Randy said, glaring at Dawn.
Dawn lowered her eyes to the table as he walked away, James sat back down, and Randy joined Bud and Ginney.
“He seems like a nice guy,” James said. “Uh, how long have you known him?”
“Apparently not long enough,” Dawn said. “Or perhaps too long.”
James looked at her. Admittedly, he wasn’t the most intuitive person in the world, but even he could see there was something between these two. But it didn’t make any sense. After all, he’d asked the man about her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Dawn said. “It has nothing to do with you.”
Randy sat watching them from across the room. He’d been hungry when he came in, but had lost his appetite. This Martin guy didn’t waste any time. The son of a bitch. And where was his commitment from Dawn? Didn’t that ring he gave her mean anything?
Apparently not. Dr. Martin and Dawn stood up to leave, causing the hair on the back of Randy’s neck to stand on end.
Ginney glanced over her shoulder, looked at Randy, and shook her head. “You’re fucking up big time, Randy. I mean it.”
Randy looked at her, thought about setting her straight, letting her know she was being used too. They were research for a novel, nothing else. Dr. Martin was probably no more than that either. But instead, he just shook his head and stared across the room. Dr. Martin was paying the bill.
“They’re just talking about Ben,” Ginney tried to tell him.
“Yeah right,” Randy said.
And then they were gone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Randy had a smile pasted on his face late the following morning when he showed up at the Miller barn. He knew Dawn would be there since Cajun was running in the first race, wanted desperately to see her. But for all practical purposes, his appearance suggested he was just checking in.
“Am I needed for anything?”
Dawn shook her head, ducked out from under the webbing of Lady’s stall, and headed for the tack room to get her grooming bucket.
It pissed him off, her ignoring him like this. “Uh...”
She stopped and turned, looked at him. “What?”
Randy spoke without any forethought. “I have to come by and get my things. If you’re not home, I’ll just leave the key.”
Dawn nodded and stared. This was it; he was moving on. If she had any doubt last night, with that reference to his supposedly telling James to ask her out, on top of the way he’d behaved the night before on the phone...it was gone now.
“Fine,” she said. “I won’t be home this afternoon. Perhaps you can do it then.” She didn’t want to be there. It would kill her. It was taking everything she had not to break down and cry now. She turned and walked into the tack room and waited until she heard him start his truck and drive away before she crumbled onto the cot.
“Sweetie,” Gloria said, entering a moment later and witnessing her rocking back and forth, arms folded and hugging her sides. “What’s the matter?”
Dawn shook her head and forced some composure. Focus, she told herself. Focus. “Oh, it’s just one of those days.”
Gloria sat down next to her and put her arm around her. “And it’s no wonder, the pressure you’ve been under. There, there now. It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry,” Dawn said, wiping her eyes with her trembling hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Gloria said. “I’ve just come from the hospital, and Ben is just fine. It’s all just a matter of time. He’ll get better, you’ll see.”
Dawn nodded, sniffed, picked herself up, and went through
the motions of the day. Cajun ran second. Tom said he should’ve won. Gloria was thrilled anyway. At least no one had snuck in and drugged him this time. “Winning isn’t everything,” she said. And Tom and Dawn visited Ben afterwards. Dawn drove home exhausted, saw that Randy’s things were still there and crawled into bed.
During the night she thought the phone rang. She answered it, and it was Randy. He told her he loved her and she hung up. He didn’t love her. It was all a dream. Lies.
A creature of habit, she stopped at the donut shop on the way in. Then remembering the morning Randy surprised her there, how excited she’d been to see him, she berated herself all over again for being so taken in.
The training schedule was light, but for some reason, they were still walking horses at ten o’clock. Finally, the last were put away and Tom headed over to enter All Together. Dawn raked the shedrow, first one way then the other, back and forth, back and forth, in her customary herringbone pattern.
Randy came around the corner, hesitated, and watched her from the end of the barn. As hard as he tried, he just couldn’t stay away. He’d spent the whole night trying to make sense of what was going on between them, and why, and was still fighting his profound fear of being used. What else could explain her attitude?
She didn’t care.
She just didn’t care.
He walked toward her. “Dawn.”
She swung around quickly, his voice startling her, and split her lip when she ran smack dab into the side of Son of Royalty’s face, who’d chosen that precise moment to hang his head out of the stall. “Oh my God!” she gasped, her hand instinctively going to her mouth, then realizing how dirty it was, and now with blood all over it.
Randy rushed to her side. “Here, let me see,” he said, reaching to turn her face so he could look.
“No!” She pushed him away, wiped her hand on her pants, stared at the grime and blood, and started backing up. “Oh my God!” she said, blood dripping from her mouth and not knowing what to do with it. The taste. “Oh my God!”
Tom started down the shedrow then, took one look, and turned on Randy. “What the fuck’s going on here?”
Randy glared at him. “Yeah, like I’d hit her?” He tried again to get Dawn to let him look at her mouth. It was bleeding quite a bit. “She ran into the side of the horse’s face.”
“Shit!” Tom said. “Let me see.”
“No!” She didn’t want him touching her either. She backed away from both of them, quickly rolled her sleeve, pressed the clean side hard against her mouth, and headed for the ladies room.
Tom called after her. “I’ll go get some ice. You hear me? Come right back,” he said, as if this were suddenly all his fault. And Randy walked away.
Dawn saw Randy in passing over the next few days, but neither made an effort to acknowledge one another. Randy visited Ben at odd times, when he was sure she wouldn’t be there, and was careful to have an excuse ready if Ben ever asked why they weren’t together.
Ben didn’t ask, not that he didn’t notice. He may have had a stroke, but his mind, now that he was no longer sedated, was as sharp as ever. Randy and Dawn both had that lost look in their eyes, and never once even mentioned the other’s name.
“How’s therapy?” they’d both ask, smiling.
“You’re looking stronger.” Smiling.
“How’s your appetite?” Smiling.
“You’ve got good coloring.” With more smiling.
Yet the look in their eyes.
“I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll see you later.”
Even Tom. “Stay at the barn,” Ben told him. All Together was running today, and he wanted her watched like a hawk.
“What we need is to pad her stall,” Tom said.
Ben nodded. He’d seen glimpses of that side of her even at the farm. When she wanted her way, she flat wanted her way.
“I’ll see you later.”
Randy had to stop by the Miller barn to give Branden a jug of vitamins and electrolytes. Tom thought maybe if Dawn held the horse, she and Randy would talk. But no such luck. It was all business, though in Tom’s opinion, Randy had at least made an effort.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Dawn,” he said, when Randy had gone. “I don’t even think you two know why you’re fighting anymore.”
Dawn looked at him. “Yeah, well that’s where you’re wrong, Tom. Because we’re not fighting. It’s just over, okay?”
“No,” Tom said.
Dawn started past him. “What’s it going to be, pizza or burgers?”
“Burgers,” Tom said. “And don’t change the subject.”
Dawn shook her head. “Since when are you an expert on relationships?”
Tom stared, visibly hurt by that, and Dawn found herself quickly apologizing. “I’m sorry.”
Tom shrugged. “Why? It’s true. What do I know?”
Dawn sighed. “Are you trying to give me the hiccups? Is that what this is all about? Do you want me worrying? Do you want me to be a basket case? Do you want me beating a path to the ladies room?”
Tom smiled. “Boy, those were the days, weren’t they?”
Dawn shook her head. “A lifetime ago.”
The filly was in the eighth race, and as the afternoon wore on, she got increasingly wound up. Dawn pulled the manes of every horse in the barn, to kill time. Everyone except All Together’s, that is, who she wouldn’t dare attempt, even without Ben’s rule, for fear of being trampled, kicked, or bitten, given the filly’s agitated state. As a result, she never had a chance to worry about herself, or have it manifest into a tic or nervous ritual. Finally, the ten-minute call was announced. All Together was tacked, Tom mounted Red, and off they went.
The filly was unbeatable, and all business once she left the gate. It was in the paddock that she put on a show, and in the post parade and even at the gate. She broke on top, led by a length down the backside, ears pinned, and finished eight lengths in front and widening.
“A walk in the park,” Tom said.
The photographer’s good memory cautioned him against getting too close when snapping the picture in the winner’s circle. Everyone swung wide after Johnny jumped off, beaming, and Tom turned the filly around. Dawn followed them to the spit barn, leading Red who, sweating up a storm, kept rubbing his left ear against Dawn’s arm until she scratched it for him.
“You big baby,” she said affectionately, and grew quiet as they passed the spot where Randy’s truck would always be parked for the race. “He’s gone,” she told Red, who wanted scratching again. “I guess my number was up.”
The filly was obnoxious to bathe, pushing, kicking out, tossing her head, swishing her tail, and dancing back and forth in place. Eventually she started settling down. Tom rode Red back to the barn then, saying how he was too tired to walk, and later he and Dawn commiserated about running her, and what it took out of them.
“She exhausts me,” Dawn said, stretched out on a bale of straw, arms sprawled. “I can’t move.”
Tom nodded. “We’ve got to get some help, before you get hurt.”
Dawn raised her head and looked at him. “Don’t be doing that just on my account. I’ll be all right; just get me some oxygen.”
Tom laughed. “We need some help anyway. What with my ponying and saddling and entering, and going back and forth to the hospital. Shit, I ain’t never been so tired.”
Dawn smiled, and got up and looked in at the filly, just as gentle as could be now. She clicked to her, and the filly came over and nuzzled her face.
“I’ve known women like her,” Tom said.
Dawn chuckled. “Spare me.”
“Okay. But they were all winners too.”
Ben insisted they go out and celebrate. “My treat.” He wanted it just like before, even though he couldn’t join them. “Call Randy,” he said.
Dawn hedged. “Uh, I think he’s busy.”
“Page him then,
” Ben said, and looked at Tom. “Leave a message.” He reached for the phone with his good hand, passed it to him, and that was that. Dawn could’ve said something at this point, and probably should have, she thought. But she didn’t want to spoil the moment for Ben.
Tom apologized in the hall. “What was I going to do?”
“Nothing.” Dawn eased his mind, said it didn’t matter one way or the other, that it was no big deal. “He probably won’t come anyway.” She invited Dr. Martin before they left, phoned Ginney at the racetrack, who phoned right back and said she was on her way, and they were all seated when Randy showed up.
He walked to the men’s room, washed his hands, and thought about walking right back out the front door. Originally when asked to join them, he’d said yes because he knew Dawn would probably be in a good mood, and maybe, just maybe, they would talk. He hadn’t expected Dr. Martin, though he should have known, he told himself. Or Ginney either for that matter. So now what?
He dried his hands, combed his hair, smoothed his beard, picked up a drink at the bar, and sat down in the chair saved for him, directly across from Dawn.
She smiled at him, a smile he’d seen before, one usually directed at a stranger, then turned and continued her conversation with Ginney. “What did you say this was again?” she asked, referring to the tall icy refreshments they were drinking.
“Iced tea. Long Island Iced Tea.”
“Hmph.” Dawn took another long sip through her straw. “It’s delicious.”
“What’s it taste like?” Tom asked.
Dawn shrugged. She wasn’t sure. “Tea, I guess.”
Tom sniffed it, opened his eyes wide, and they all laughed. Dawn smiled at Randy again, that same indifferent smile, and he sat back and crossed his arms.
I know every inch of you, he was thinking, like the back of my hand. And yet I know nothing about what’s going on in your head. Nothing. He lowered his gaze, noticed she was still wearing the ring, and thought about the day he’d bought it, the hope he’d felt, the promise. And about the other night, when at two in the morning he phoned her, and how she hung up on him.
Winning Odds Trilogy Page 37