Fox River (24 page)

Julia gripped her reins tighter. “Did she?”

“Then I’ll be like you.”

“We’ll have to see what Mr. Claymore says about that. They’re his horses.”

“There’s somebody riding over there now. I can see somebody.”

Julia wondered who had wandered so far from the training track or the rings where the horses were usually exercised. She listened carefully, but the only sound to greet her was the yapping of a dog. “Ramon?”

“Callie, hold tight,” Ramon said. “The puppy’s coming this way.”

“What puppy?” Julia said. She heard a shout in the distance, and the yapping changed subtly, more the cry of a foxhound. “Ramon, does Peter have the hounds out?”

“Just one. A little one. It’s not Mr. Claymore.”

“Who is it, can you tell?”

“No one I’ve seen.”

Julia knew exactly who it was. “A young man? Blond?”

“Yes.”

“This would be a good place to turn around. We’ve come far—”

“Hold hard, Callie,” Ramon shouted. A torrent of Spanish followed.

Julia heard her daughter’s surprised cry. From behind her, she heard more profane Spanish intertwined with the trampling of hoofs. Sandman seemed unaffected, but she knew both her companions were having trouble subduing their horses. The puppy was closer now. Much closer, judging by the baying, and she knew, with a sinking heart, it had gotten through the fence.

“Ramon! Feather Foot doesn’t like—” Her words were interrupted by her daughter’s shriek and the sound of hoofs. “Callie! Are you all right? Callie?”

“Mommy!”

Julia had never needed her sight more than now, but even though fear was roiling inside her, the day was as black as a starless midnight.

“What’s happening?” she cried. “Callie!”

She heard hoofbeats coming toward her, then swerving. “I’ve got her,” said a familiar voice. “Circle, honey. Circle her! Big circles.”

“I can’t!”

“Circle. Now!”

Julia knew Christian had come to Callie’s rescue, but before she had time to even consider what that meant, Sandman began to sidle uneasily beneath her. She gathered her reins and spoke soothing words, but she was grateful when Ramon spoke from the ground below. “I’ve got him.”

“Callie! Where’s Callie?”

“She’s circling Feather Foot. She’s in control. The man is helping her.”

“Why didn’t you—”

“Morning, he spooked. I would have made things worse.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s a good little rider. She’s fine. He has the pony’s reins now.”

Julia swallowed the lump in her throat. “And the puppy?”

“At your feet. Sleeping.”

She wanted to cry. The need nearly overwhelmed her. She told herself to stay calm, that this moment would end quickly, but as she heard her daughter’s excited chatter, she knew it was just beginning.

“You jumped that fence. I saw you! That’s a tall fence!”

“How did you see me?” Christian said. “Your pony was running away.”

“Not running away. I had him. I just couldn’t…couldn’t get him to stop.”

Christian chuckled. “And that’s different. I can see that now.”

“Is that your foxhound? Mommy, I got rescued!”

Julia didn’t know what to say.

“Hello, Julia.” Christian sounded close by.

She followed the sound of his voice with her eyes. “Christian? Thank you so much.”

“He jumped the fence. His horse is beautiful, Mommy. What’s his name?”

“This is Night Ranger. Your mommy used to know him when he was just a colt.”

“Night Ranger?” Julia was shocked.

“Uh-huh. Peter found him in Maryland and brought him home.”

“He can jump so high!” Callie was obviously thrilled. “I never saw a horse jump that high. Can I ride him?”

“No!” Julia and Christian said together.

Julia realized how vehement she had sounded. “Callie, your pony just ran away, for goodness’ sake. You’re not quite ready for Night Ranger.” She paused. “Christian, is she all right?”

“Looks all right to me. Looks very excited, as a matter of fact.”

“Are you the Christian who went to jail?” Callie said.

“I’m afraid so.”

“I think that’s so mean. They should pay you a lot of money for making you do that. He didn’t do anything, Ramon, and they sent him to jail,” Callie said.

“That happens a lot in my country,” Ramon said. “I’m Ramon Lopez.”

“Christian Carver.”

Julia pictured the two men shaking hands without dismounting. “Is that dog still under my horse?” She was desperate to leave.

“Oh, look!” Callie was practically cooing. “Oh, can I pet him?”

“Her,” Christian said. “Just a minute. Let me get your pony. We don’t want a repeat.”

“Callie, I think we’d better go—” Julia was interrupted by the sound of feet striking the ground, then her daughter’s voice at her side.

“Oh, look. She’s so pretty. You’re so pretty, aren’t you? And what a silly little dog. Don’t you know how little you are and how big a horse is?”

Julia stared straight ahead. “Will someone please tell me what’s happening?”

“Your daughter is falling in love with my dog,” Christian said.

“She’s always loved dogs.” It seemed inane, ridiculous, to be having this conversation. She wanted to scream; she wanted to sob.

“She has a few, I guess.”

“Well, no.” Bard hadn’t wanted them.

“She should,” Ramon said. “Maybe Moondrop Morning, he would behave if he was used to dogs.”

“She’s kissing me, Mommy!”

“I knew this dog was good for something,” Christian said.

Both men laughed. Julia didn’t know what to say or do. The situation was so impossible it defied convention.

“She’s a cutie,” Christian said, and Julia knew he wasn’t talking about the puppy.

She tried to sound grateful. “Thank you.”

“I thought she’d look like you, though.”

“She does. Through the eyes.”

“Look at me, Callie.”

Julia’s heart seemed to pause.

“Maybe a little,” Christian said at last.

She closed her eyes and tried not to cry.

Christian lowered his voice. “Julia, the other night…”

“It’s all right, Christian.”

“I didn’t know….”

She assumed he was talking about her loss of sight. “Of course you didn’t. How could you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve never been sorrier than when my daughter’s pony ran away….” She drew a deep, shaky breath. “And I couldn’t—”

“It’s all right. Nothing happened.”

“Aren’t you going to ask why a blind woman’s riding when she can’t take care of herself, much less her daughter?”

“It sounds like a question you expect to hear from somebody.”

“I think we’d better go.”

“If I can tear my puppy away.”

“Thank you again.”

“No problem. I found out Ranger and I can still make it over a fence. That was a real bonus.”

In her mind she saw the young Christian Carver sailing over hurdles on his glorious gray. If she had known what was in store for her that long-ago spring day, would she have left Claymore Park and never looked back?

She heard her daughter’s delighted squeal as Callie continued to play with the puppy.

The answer was clear.

W
hen Christian got back to Claymore Park with Clover, Peter was in the stables talking to a remarkably lovely woman with cropped strawberry-blond hair and a nose dotted with freckles. She was dressed in jeans and a green-and-yellow Claymore Park sweatshirt. “How’d she do?” he called, as Christian dismounted.

“By she, you mean Clover? I have a solution for you.”

Peter looked down at the puppy. “All the pistols are locked up in the house.”

“She spooked Callie Warwick’s pony.”

The young woman seemed concerned. “Is Callie all right?”

Peter interrupted to introduce them. “Christian, this is Samantha Fields, one of our trainers. She’s been on vacation for the past week.”

“I’ve been cleaning house and doing laundry,” Samantha said. “A year’s worth. Hello, Christian.” She held out her hand. “Callie is my daughter Tiffany’s best friend.”

He extended his own. Until that moment he’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to hold, even briefly, a woman’s hand. Samantha’s was anything but soft, but compared to his it was narrow and small-boned. Long repressed desires reasserted themselves.

“So, you were telling us about Callie?” she said.

“She’s fine. She was leading a trail ride of sorts with her mother and a man named Ramon.”

“Ramon Lopez. He works at Millcreek Farm,” Peter said.

Christian continued. “The pony took off thanks to Clover. I had to help her stop him.”

“Julia’s okay?” Samantha said.

“Seems to be.”

“She’s pretty daring to be riding now that she’s blind.”

“What?” Peter interrupted. “What are you talking about?”

“You hadn’t heard?” Samantha asked.

“I know she took a fall and went to the hospital, but I thought she was fine.”

Samantha shook her head. “I hate to think about it. She’s one of the nicest people I know and the only nice adult at Millcreek.”

“Sa-man-tha,” Peter warned, but he was smiling.

“Sorry, but it’s true. That husband of hers—” She paused. “Whoops, tell me he’s not a friend of yours?” she asked Christian.

“No.” Christian knew he should be salivating over this long-legged dynamo; instead he was hanging on every word about Julia.

“Bard Warwick doesn’t deserve a daughter like Callie,” Samantha said. “He wouldn’t be happy with her if she was perfect. He’d find something to criticize.”

Christian found that hard to imagine, since in his brief encounter with Callie he had found nothing to criticize whatsoever.

“So what about the puppy?” Peter said.

Christian addressed his question to Samantha. “Callie doesn’t have a dog?”

“No, I don’t think she has any pet besides Feather Foot. Old Bard probably wouldn’t allow it. Small friendly creatures of any species seem to be on his hit list.”

“She and Clover hit it off. I think we should make one little girl very happy.”

“Give Clover to Callie?” Peter said. “Will Julia let you?”

“I thought I’d ask Maisy,” Christian said. He had no intention of getting close enough to Julia again for a conversation.

“I don’t think Julia would be the problem,” Samantha said. “But you know, Julia’s living with her parents now. Maybe Bard Warwick doesn’t have that much to say about what she does and doesn’t do for Callie these days.”

“She is? Julia’s staying at Ashbourne?” Peter sounded surprised again. “Why don’t I know anything?”

“Because you’re not the least bit interested in gossip unless it affects who’s hunting with you and who’s not,” Samantha said.

Christian cut to the chase. “Shall we give the puppy to Callie?”

“If they promise to have her spayed,” Peter said. “I don’t want any accidents with the pack.”

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”

“Then why not? It’s a humane solution.” Peter lifted a hand in farewell and started toward the house.

“We’ve met before,” Samantha told Christian when Peter was gone.

“I can’t believe I wouldn’t remember.”

“I was a friend of Fidelity Sutherland’s.”

He was searching his memory, but she made it easier. “My ex-husband, Tiffany’s father, was one of Fidelity’s conquests, a polo player named Joachim Hernandez. Is this sounding familiar?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Which came first, your friendship with Fidelity or Fidelity going after your husband?”

“Unfortunately she set her sights on him
after
we were married. I was away on a shoot, and he told her we were separated. She didn’t bother to check her facts.”

“I’m getting sorrier.”

“It doesn’t matter now. Both of them are dead. Joachim was killed in a bar brawl a couple of years after our divorce. In a way, Fidelity did me a favor. That was the first time I realized Joachim was lower on the evolutionary scale than a salamander. It took a few extra years and a kid to get up my courage to leave him, but Fidelity started me down the road.”

Christian had a sudden vision of a sleek, handsome Argentinian and a rail-thin model with long, red hair. “You were on the cover of…
Vogue?
”

“Never, unfortunately, or I’d be a rich woman. “But I was inside a time or two. In the days when eating once a week was a treat.”

“You look better now.”

“I’m so sorry about everything that happened to you. And to Fidelity. I wanted to hate her, but I never could. She wasn’t mean-spirited, just careless. No one ever taught her not to grab for everything she wanted.”

“How did you end up here?”

“I think I married Joachim because I loved horses.”

Christian smiled, and she smiled with him. “Once I was single again, I realized I’d rather ride than simper at a camera. And I had Tiffany to think about. I didn’t want to jet off to shabbier and shabbier shoots and leave her with God knows who. So I came here about six years ago. Started as assistant to the manager, took his job, then worked my way up to trainer once Peter saw what I could do in my free time.”

“How well did you know Fidelity at the end of her life?”

“As well as anybody did, I suppose. We had Joachim in common by then.”

“You know about Karl Zandoff.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Does he look familiar to you at all? Did you ever see him or anyone like him hanging around Fidelity?”

“That was a long time ago. She was nice to everybody. It was part of her charm. But she surrounded herself with the wealthy and the popular. It’s hard to imagine a man like that anywhere near her.”

“What about others? I’m trying to put it all together. I’m the only person in the world who knows for sure that I didn’t have anything to do with her death.”

“Then who better to find out who did?” She squatted to ruffle Clover’s ears. “Before and after Joachim there was a steady stream of men in and out of her bed.”

“Do you remember any names?”

“Get out the phone book.”

He must have looked shocked. “I’m serious, Christian. I remember thinking that Fidelity was living her life like a racehorse galloping to the finish line. Did she know she was going to die, do you think? Was she trying to grab everything before she did?”

“What else was she trying to grab?”

“That whole crowd was into drugs.”

“Including you?”

“Nothing like them to keep weight off. But I was too smart to do anything more than abuse a few prescriptions. Fidelity was into the expensive designer stuff.”

“Do you have names you’d share with me?”

“I’ll do anything I can for you.” She smiled again, not a blatant, come-hither smile, just a healthy, outdoorsy, all-American come-on.

He thought of Julia Ashbourne Warwick, with her sightless eyes, expressive features and tension-racked body. He thought of his own, traitorous reaction to her today. He had wanted, more than anything and despite everything, to scoop her off her horse and carry her away on his.

“The names will do for now,” he said tightly.

She didn’t seem offended. “Then I’ll see what I can remember. Just be careful. These guys can play for keeps.”

“Somebody already did. I mean to find out who.”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had fresh fish,” Maisy told Jake, kissing his cheek. Jake’s fishing buddy tooted his horn as he raced down the driveway, and both of them waved.

“I had a good day,” he said, holding up a stringer with tomorrow night’s dinner. “How about you?”

“Terrific. Of course, that’s about to end.”

“Is it?” Moonlight cast a glow over his white head, something just short of a halo.

She was sorry he looked so beatific. Standing up to an angel was tough. “Yep. We’re about to fight.”

“You don’t say.”

“A rip-snortin’, no-holds-barred, rootin’-tootin’—”

“Why?” Jake asked.

“Well, far be it from me to create a reason, but—”

“Maisy, what’s going on? And whose truck is that in our driveway?”

“Funny you should ask those two questions at the very same time.”

Jake was good at waiting. He waited now, knowing he would get his answer when her patience gave out.

“Why don’t we take a little moonlight stroll and look at it together?” She tucked her arm through his.

“I’m sweaty, and I smell like fish.”

“Sexy smells, both of them.”

“Are we going to do more than stroll in the moonlight?”

“Would you like to?”

“I thought I’d already caught my share of fish today. Maybe not.”

He hung the stringer over the fence, and they strolled toward the barn where the new truck was parked. “Jake, a very wise man has been telling me recently that I don’t communicate the things that are important to me. At least I think that’s what he’s been saying.”

“I would listen, if I were you. Wise men are hard to come by.”

She tightened her grip. “There are a lot of things I need to say. I don’t have a clue how to say most of them. Or when. Or even why.”

“You’re doing pretty well right now.”

“Well, here’s the thing. One of them just hopped up and popped me in the head yesterday.”

“One of those things you needed to say?”

“Yes, well. And needed to do. One of those things I needed to do.”

“So you did it? Or you’re about to?”

“Well, both. I did it, and now I’m about to show it to you.”

He stopped about twenty feet from the truck. “It’s a very beautiful pickup, Maisy. And don’t you think it’s about time? I was repairing the repairs on the old one. There wasn’t one piece left of the original.”

She stood very still. “You old coot! Why didn’t you tell me you wanted another one?”

“You have to be at least seventy to be a coot.”

“I have hinted and whined and wheedled for years to get a new truck.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, why didn’t you do something?”

“I did.”

“What!”

“I waited for you to take the matter into your own hands. You look pleased. Are you pleased?”

“As punch!”

“This truck’s too good to waste on Loudoun County. We could buy a camper top and take it across country, over mountains, drive right straight through rivers. Nothing can stop us. We can lie in bed at night and look out at the stars. You can cuddle close. I can cuddle closer.”

She was so happy she wanted to sing. “Are you sure coot’s reserved for seventy and above?”

“It’s a beautiful truck, Maisy. Let’s climb inside.”

“Well, inside’s good. But I tossed a couple of bales of hay in the bed and spread them around. There are a couple of old blankets on top of it. You’ll see. We could lie down and look at the stars tonight….”

“Just at the stars?”

“I do have to read to Julia….”

“There’s still plenty of evening left, isn’t there?”

“Have I told you lately that I love you?”

“There should be music with that.” He put his arms around her and pulled her close. “I think I hear some about to be made.”