Believe in Me: A Rosewood Novel (10 page)

But what impressed Jordan most was her little sister’s fierce loyalty and protectiveness. Ever since that horrific morning last year, when they’d listened to Richard’s philandering voice over the kitchen answering machine’s amplified speaker, Jade was always ready to leap to her defense, shield her from every hurt. Though she’d tried to convince her that she was okay, that she could handle things now, Jordan realized that when Jade looked at her, she probably saw her as she’d been that morning, curled in a ball on the kitchen floor, screaming in pain as her heart was sliced to shreds by her husband’s words.

Jordan flinched at the memory. No, she told herself, shaking her head as if she might dislodge the disturbing image, she wasn’t going to revisit that awful time. She wasn’t going to think about Richard and what he’d done or how much she hated him for destroying her faith and love.

That he and Cynthia had gotten married three weeks ago actually helped, effectively killing any screwy, masochistic reconciliation fantasies she might have harbored in moments of weakness. He was out of her life now. Even his role in their children’s lives was limited … thanks to Jade.

Jade had been canny enough to save the damning recorded message with Richard and Cynthia’s sexual banter turning to heavy breathing and guttural groans, silenced only when the tape finished with an audible click. The presence of the tape had been Jordan’s ace in the hole. Richard’s lawyer had murmured not a single word of protest when her lawyer requested full custody of the children in the separation agreement. In the months since their move to Rosewood, Richard had driven to Rosewood on weekends to take the kids out for an ice cream and perhaps listen to the story hour down at the Corner Bookstore, but because of Jade’s quick thinking, her biggest fear, that Richard might fight her for custody of the children, never materialized.

The only way Richard could continue to hurt her now was if she allowed the cut of his betrayal to fester. The same
principle applied to being passed over by Nonie. It was stupid to brood over the fact that Owen Gage had snatched the job away from her. She had plenty of things to do and ways to contribute to the farm. Indeed, even now she was wasting her precious free time while Kate and Max were at school and Olivia was bonding with her fellow tots at the toddler center’s water table and sand box. She should be down at the barns helping Ned rather than wallowing in self-pity.

Grabbing a quilted vest off the row of hooks along the mudroom wall, she took her cellphone from her purse and dropped it into the vest’s side pocket, then hurried out the back door into the spring morning.

With the mild weather, the foals were already in the pastures with their dams, but Jordan also worked with the yearlings and two-year-olds, helping Ned accustom them to a variety of stimuli and situations so they developed the confidence needed to be steady and dependable horses. Rosewood Farm’s reputation was built on breeding and training horses that were beautiful, sound, and sane. Fostering a willing and easy temperament in a horse was something everyone at the farm worked on, starting a few short hours after a foal’s birth until the day that horse was sold to a grateful new owner. Ned and Travis’s method of starting and training young horses was a time-consuming process that took infinite care and patience. But having a horse load calmly into a van, canter smoothly past a rumbling tractor or a barking dog, and soar fearlessly over a brightly painted jump was a deeply satisfying reward, a goal they all strove for and worth every minute of effort.

Ned was in the main barn with Solstice, a colt with a deep chestnut coat. Ned was brushing the yearling while Tito, one of the barn’s assistants, held him by a lead rope attached to his halter.

Walking up to them, she held out her hand for the colt to catch her scent. “Sorry I’m late, Ned. Hi, Tito.”

“Not a problem, Miss Jordan. We only just started. Travis and I were giving the three-year-olds their booster shots.”

“Did you catch Jade slipping Aspen an apple on the sly?”

Ned gave a laugh. “I’d have been surprised if she didn’t. Aspen’s the first horse she’s ever trained. That’s special.”

“She’s doing a real nice job with him. A little extra loving won’t do him any harm,” Tito added.

Jordan pressed her lips together to hide her smile. Tito was a burly man, with a close-shaven head and bulging muscles covered by extensive tattoo work. But though he came to work on a souped-up Kawasaki motorcycle, he was one of the gentlest souls she knew, always the first to volunteer for the night shift when the mares were due to foal.

“So what do you need done today, Ned?”

“How about taking Turner down to the ring? Miss Margot and Andy are riding Saxon and Mistral.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “They’ll be just about starting their workouts.”

“Okay,” she replied, nodding. They’d been teaching Turner, another of their yearlings, to stand quietly in the center of the outdoor ring while the other horses circled him at a trot and canter. This was a fundamental lesson for a herd animal, whose natural instinct was to join the group, and essential for a horse destined for the show ring or the hunt course. “Should I take him down to the pasture afterward?”

“Yeah. We’ll probably be done with Solstice by then. They can play outside together.”

“What are you doing with him today?”

“He’s going to get a mid-morning snack on a plastic tarp,” Tito said.

“Sounds like fun.”

Ned moved the cloth he’d been rubbing over Solstice’s back to his neck and shoulders. “If you have time before you pick up the children, I’d appreciate your giving Sava a workout. You could take her for a trail ride, get out and enjoy the spring sunshine.”

Sava was one of their broodmares. She’d come into heat
last week and had been covered twice by Nocturne. To keep her in condition throughout her pregnancy, she would be ridden several days a week on the flat. “I’d love to ride outdoors today.”

Ned nodded pleased. “Thought so. I heard you met the new owner of Hawk Hill.”

“Uh, yes, I did.”

“Travis said you were sure he’d let us continue to ride on the property. Next time you meet him, you might want to let him know we had an understanding with the Barrons. Hey, maybe you could ride over there today, see if there’s any sign of life. You don’t happen to have any idea if he’s a rider himself?” he ended hopefully.

“I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it.” And after learning how conniving Owen Gage could be, she’d rather walk over hot coals than set eyes on him again. “In any case, I think I’ll take Sava out toward the Gilchrists’. I haven’t been there in months.” Deciding it would be better to end the conversation now than answer any more of Ned’s questions about Owen Gage, she said, “I should get Turner down to the ring. Have fun with Solstice, gentlemen.”

J
ORDAN THREADED
the lead shank through Turner’s leather halter before leading the colt out of his stall and down the barn’s spacious aisle. The stalls had been mucked and the aisle’s concrete floor swept clean of debris, everything as neat and orderly as when her father was alive. As she walked the bay colt down the wide aisle, Jordan wondered what he would think if he could see Rosewood now, his three daughters running the horse farm that, in his day, had been an exclusively all-male domain. Would he be pleased that they’d taken on responsibility for the business that had been in their family for generations and were even making a success of it?

Their father had been such a frustrating mix of arrogance and inflexibility, viewing the world solely on his terms, understanding very little about his daughters. His rigid conservatism had been especially hard for Margot, who, though craving his approval, rivaled him for stubbornness. Time and again they’d clashed as he tried to mold her to fit his notion of what she should be and do, she resisting his every attempt.

Sadly, predictably, the inevitable showdown came. Ironically, the battle began because Margot wanted to work at Rosewood with him, learning to train and breed their hunters and jumpers. He refused to consider the possibility, insisting she go to college. Doubtless he expected Margot to follow the path Jordan had just taken: college graduation and, a short month later, a lovely antique lace wedding.
Had her father been remotely in tune with Margot, he would have known that she was already in love with Travis, at the time Rosewood Farm’s trainer, and an excellent horseman, though not exactly the husband RJ Radcliffe would pick for one of his daughters. The showdown culminated with Margot threatening to run away to New York and—horror of horrors—take up modeling rather than being packed off to college.

His response had been that of an enraged king bent on subjugation. He swore that if she left to pursue her harebrained scheme, she’d never be welcomed back at Rosewood. It wasn’t until eight years later, when their father was lying near death in a hospital’s critical care unit, that Margot saw him again. He had just a few brief minutes to gaze upon his adult daughter before his badly damaged heart failed.

It had been so much easier for her, Jordan reflected, to satisfy her father’s expectations. She often wondered whether, as the eldest child, she’d internalized cues from her parents, noting how her father adored her mother and thus adopting her gentle ways. But perhaps she was simply more like Mama, her desire to please others an inherited trait, just as Margot and Jade’s steely determination and even their devil-may-care attitudes pointed straight to their father. The question couldn’t but fascinate Jordan as a mother, as co-owner of a breeding farm.

Whatever the reason, she’d done her best to embody their father’s conception of what a proper Radcliffe woman should be. She’d always been domestically inclined, happy baking cakes and tarts with Ellie to surprise Mama with a treat when she was weak from the medications the doctors prescribed to fight the cancer. Unlike Margot, she never complained when the rain drove down in silvery sheets, making it impossible to ride outside. Those were sweet, quiet days when she could curl up next to Mama on her bed, sewing clothes for her dolls, asking her what colors
she should choose for the rooms in her dollhouse, listening to her tell stories about Rosewood.

Her mother had loved the old house and knew the history of the Radcliffe family probably even better than Dad, though he could recite the lineage of each of Rosewood Farm’s foals back to the first stud Francis Radcliffe brought to Virginia from England.

After Mama died, it seemed more important than ever to please her father by emulating her. So on that bright September morning of her senior year in college, when Richard showed up at her dorm with a box of fresh-from-the-oven pecan rolls with their tantalizing scent of cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter, and the news that James Saller, a senior partner at the lobbying firm of Hudson & White, had offered him a position as an associate, she’d felt a gush of pride that her handsome, clever boyfriend was going to make his mark on the world of business and politics. Pride blossomed into stunned elation when he pulled a square burgundy velvet box from his jacket pocket and set it on top of the bakery carton. “The salary’s good, too, babe. How about we call the folks after we eat these so they can start making wedding plans?” With that lopsided grin of his, which never failed to turn her insides to mush, Richard whispered huskily, “Say you’ll marry me, Jordan, or these sticky buns will go cold while I do my very best convincing.”

It had never occurred to her to suggest that they should perhaps wait to be sure of each other—or of themselves and their dreams—that perhaps they should grow up a little before taking such a big step. She was in love. And after all, her mother had married young; she’d been loved and cherished.

As Jordan cried with joy, kissing Richard over and over again while he fed her bites of sweet, buttery bun, she knew she could make a beautiful home with Richard, too, one that would be filled with love.

And like her mother, she’d been happy, blessedly so,
married to the man of her heart, until the day came when she was no longer what Richard wanted. And nothing—not her love, not three wonderful children, not nine years of marriage—could keep him by her side.

The sight of the exercise ring’s wooden rails jarred her thoughts. Enough with the navel-gazing. She had work to do. It was a beautiful morning and she needed to concentrate on something besides herself and her failed marriage. She was darned lucky Turner was such an easygoing fellow. She’d walked the yearling down the gravel path without his causing a moment’s fuss.

“Whoa, Turner.” She brought the colt to a halt and lifted the latch but waited to open the gate until Andy had trotted past on Mistral. Margot, astride Saxon, a big dapple gray, spotted her and circled at the far end of the ring to give her plenty of time to lead Turner into the ring. Even though Turner was a mild-mannered colt, he still needed to have his learning situations carefully controlled so that nothing came at him too fast. Once a young horse was overexcited, its ability to learn effectively went right out the window. If the horse became rattled or spooked, it might then have negative associations with the experience, making the lesson wind up like the game of Chutes and Ladders, sending the youngster backward rather than forward in its development.