Hot Coco (22 page)

She was feeling very emotional. Feeling proud of his big gelding, Ivan, and the terrific job that Mike had done training him for this day; Henry Snodgrass, her ex-husband, crept into her mind.

She remembered, how Henry had brought her to the races, had taught her how to read a racing form, and how to make an “educated” choice. She wasn’t here with Henry today.

Today was about Tom.

She tugged on her pink and black wide-brimmed hat that matched her black sheath dress, and hot pink Jimmy Choo stilettos.

Today was also the last time she would see Mike West, her gentlemanly cowboy.

She and Tom were going to live in his penthouse in Manhattan. Tom was already talking marriage. Colette was intent on taking their time. Mike had made arrangements with a trainer to take over the management of Ivan at Belmont.

She was going to miss her cowboy. His gorgeous hazel eyes, his buff body, and the way his Levis clung to his oh, so sexy buttocks.
I would’ve liked to take that cowboy for a little ride. But, it wasn’t meant to be,
she contentedly surmised.

Tom was more to her comfort. For some strange reason, she liked the company of older men. Standing along the rail, Tom pulled her close to him when Punch McMinn led Ivan into the paddock at Keystone Downs. She took in the pride that was swelling in Tom’s chest, and the anticipation of the race to come.

Mike noticed them at the rail. Smiling, he walked to them. “He’s a force to be reckoned with, Tom.”

“He looks fantastic, Mike.” Colette tugged him to her and kissed his cheek, which left a pink lipstick imprint behind.

He urged a gentle smile.
Hot little ballerina, I’m gonna miss her.

“Only ten minutes to post,” Tom noted. “We’d better find a good spot in the grand stands. We’ll catch you there, Mike.”

Ten minutes seemed like ten hours to Tom Mason. He fidgeted in the grand stands like an anxious little boy at Mass on Christmas Eve. Suddenly, he felt the strong clap of Eric’s hand on his shoulder. He was relieved to turn and see his old friend.

“He’s going off five to one. Not bad,” Eric duly noted. “I hear congratulations are in order. When’s the wedding, Colette?”

Colette tossed Tom an arched look. “Tom-Tom,” she scolded before turning back to Eric. “We’ll see. Maybe in a year.” When Tom’s eyes widened, she added, “or two.”

Eric chuckled.
This may very well be the woman that keeps Tom Mason in line. Who would have ever guessed?

“The horses are entering the starting gate,” the announcer proclaimed.

Tom whipped his binoculars into place. The flush to his face started at his neck, and slowly burned upward. He tapped his foot against the pavement, and his fingers against the binoculars, as if he were counting each horse being loaded into their post position.

Grinning keenly, Mike stepped up behind them.

The gates sprung open, and the Thoroughbreds leapt from their posts. Ivan stumbled, but the jockey gathered him up, and sent him chasing the pack.

Aware that Ivan now had plenty of real estate to travel to catch the lead horse, Mike’s grin faded.

Tom’s face became more flushed, his foot tapped frantically, and his fingers tightened around the binoculars. “Damned to hell.” he cursed.

“The number six horse, Call Me CJ, has a firm lead rolling into the turn,” the announcer called out. “Number four, Ivan, had a stumble start, but is making up ground, directly.”

“Bring him home, bring him home,” Mike urged.

“Down the stretch they come. Call Me CJ five lengths in front; number two, All Geared Up, is coming on strong; but here comes Ivan stealthily along the rail,” the announcer’s voice was coming to pique.

The photographer’s camera flashed and the crowd cheered when Call Me CJ crossed the finish line as the victor. All Geared Up followed by a length. Ivan had managed an impressive third after coming from behind the stampede.

“Call Me CJ wins comfortably,” the announcer shouted before clicking off the microphone.

Colette stiffened. Mike held his breath. With a glowing smile on his face, Tom lowered the binoculars. “Impressive, Mike, quite impressive indeed.” He grabbed Mike’s hand and shook it feverishly. He grabbed Colette, folded her tightly against him and kissed her neck like a hungry vampire.

Over Tom’s shoulder, she spotted Henry a short distance away. Wearing his old trusty binoculars around his neck and a smile on his face, he nodded at her and touched his fingers to his brow, as if he were tipping his hat, before disappearing into the crowd.

Eric walked Tom and Colette to their car. Tom could hardly contain his excitement. Eric thought he was going to break into a skip at any moment.

When Eric held the door of the Porsche open for Colette, she kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for everything, Mr. West, especially your patience.” She slid into the passenger’s seat. “And will you please tell Kate that I am truly sorry about her car?”

“Be happy, Coco ... Colette,” Eric said, with a wink and a smile.

The banana bread baking in the oven sent a heavenly waft through Margie’s kitchen.

She had carried the old battered box of her mother’s romance books into the room and set them on a chair. Carefully, one by one, she laid them on the table. She read each title slowly. The corners were brown and bent. Some of the books had been nibbled at by mice. The pictures of the erotic lovers on the covers were faded, but they were a beautiful mystery to her. The romance books were all she had of her mother after she had abandoned Margie and her father many years before.

The kitchen door opening and slamming shut broke through her concentration. Looking up, she found Doug staring at her and the box of books on the chair. She could see the seething burn in his eyes.

He said nothing. Frowning, he stomp to the sink, washed his hands, and dried them on a towel while studying her.

Indifferent to the resentment she could feel permeating from his gaze, she continued to sort through the books and arrange them on the table.

Pitching the dish towel to the counter, he clomped into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him. She could hear him rummaging around the room, banging dresser drawers, and plodding about like an angry child sent to time-out. His bedroom door whipped open to push a gusty draft through the room. Wearing a flushed, tight expression on his weathered face, he marched to the kitchen and slapped an old photograph face down on the table.

Her questioning wary eyes met his. When he withdrew his hand from the photo, he shot her a “go ahead” nod before going out the kitchen door.

After the slam, Margie leaned against the counter to stare at the photograph on the table. With a braced breath and a deep swallow, she reached for the picture. Her heart thrummed against her chest when she turned it over. Tears swelled in her eyes while she studied the face of the mother she had no recollection of.

There she was. Tall and thin with long brunette hair that was just like Margie’s. She was no raving beauty, either.
Pity, I’ve always imagined her looking like a movie star.
That’s why she didn’t want or couldn’t stay with dad and me. Her beauty was too grand to waste on this beat-up old farm. That wasn’t the case. She was as homely as me.

Margie strained to study the grainy image of her mother holding her daughter on her hip while smiling into the camera.
Funny, she doesn’t look unhappy at all in this drab old picture.
Slowly, she turned it over. There was an address on the back. Denver, Colorado.

Carrying a plate of warm banana bread, Margie stepped out of the kitchen door onto the small unkempt back porch. The cinnamon butter melted over the steaming aromatic bread. Her father leaned against the porch post with his hands tucked into the pockets of his worn-out flannel pants. He stared out at the old Thoroughbreds mulling about behind the baler twine fence. He seemed meditative and sad.

Doug spit tobacco into the bristly weeds beyond the porch. There was nothing genteel or tender about Doug O’Conner. He was a hard man, with a hard heart that seemed to have softened … maybe just a little.

“That’s as good as it gets, Marge. That’s the last address I had for your mom. She wrote me four years after she left. She wanted to see you. Screw her. She left. She had no right—not no more,” he said, bitterly. He turned and she offered him the plate of piping hot bread. “You patch things up with Scott?”

“Mostly.” Margie watched him savor the taste of the cinnamon and the banana.

“Suppose you’ll be leaving me, too.”

“Naw, who’d put up with you, anyways?” Margie chuckled while urging a tiny curl from his craggy lips.

“You gonna look for her?” he asked in probably the softest tone she’d ever heard from him.

“Maybe, I got some thinking to do.” She did something that she had never done before. She wrapped her arms around her father and rested her head on his shoulder.

The old coot seemed to like it.

Strong black coffee, that’s what Lugowski had a taste for. McDonald’s coffee never tasted as good as that afternoon when he sipped it with Kate West, the blue-eyed blonde that had his brain wrangled in a tight ball of confusion.

It was that very confusion that had made him break protocol by convincing Captian Lutz to let him interrogate Margie O’Conner. Being a by-the-book kind of man, he was shocked when the captain gave him the nod. Maybe Lutz enjoyed pissing-off Detective Steward as much as Lugowski enjoyed doing the deed.

After Margie’s release, he jokingly told Kate that she owed him.
Jokingly? So why am I steering my SUV through the stone entrance of Westwood Thoroughbred Farm?
Coffee and Kate. At the moment, they seemed like a tasty combination.

T
he grand Victorian style farmhouse was peeking through the tangle of branches of gracious oaks lining the driveway. He slowed the SUV to a stop in front of the house and stared at the steering wheel. Mechanically, he flipped an unlit cigarette through his fingers. Oh yeah, he wanted to light that sucker up.

C’mon. I finally have the woman I’ve wanted all my life. Ava. I wanted her before she was Ava West. I wanted her the entire time she was married to Mike. Now she’s exactly where I want her to be—in my life—and in my bed.

Again, he found himself wrestling with the same question:
What the hell am I doing in Kate’s driveway?
No argument, the girl stirs me. The girl has sass. The girl’s a keeper. She’s also Mike West’s little sister and Ava’s ex-sister-in-law. How out of the ball park is that?

Ava would rip me apart ten ways from Sunday, if she knew where I was. Correction: Ava would break it off with me, and probably go running back to Mike. How cozy would that be? Ava with Mike and me with Kate—not reality—but hey, crazier things have happened. Whoa, not that I want to be with Kate, right? Shit. I should throw the damned vehicle into reverse, and get the hell outta here before—

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Kate lightly rapped her knuckles on his window.
Too late.
He let the window down. She looked at him, bemused, with those beautiful, sensual, blue eyes that were the core of his confusion, stimulation, and straight-up trepidation.

“Hey, Carl, what’s going on? Am I under arrest?” She laughed.

God help me. I’d like to arrest her. I’d like to take her in my arms, feel the curve of her body against mine, kiss her, taste every inch of her, and try like hell to satisfy whatever it is that she stirs inside of me.
Instead, he dragged his gaze to hers, and with that boyish smirk unconsciously planted on his lips, he proceeded with the truth.

“I’m here to collect.”

The End

A Note From The Author

I hope you have enjoyed reading
Hot Coco
as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. The Unbridled stories are fiction. That said, there are pieces of my life experiences weaved into the storylines, small reminders of what was going on at the time of writing the book. Included within the anecdotes are situations, exaggerated upon, of course, that have actually happened. Example: The burning down of Coco’s kitchen—
Almost
a true story—enough said. ;}

Many of the Thoroughbreds mentioned in
Hot Coco
are horses that have actually raced for our stable, Salty Silver Sally, Call Me CJ, and the mischievous Charlatan.

Thank you for reading
Hot Coco
. I love to write these stories and I have many more to share. I invite you to read the following excerpt from the next book of the Unbridled Series ...

Dangerous Deception

The fading sunlight seeped through the curtains to shimmer over the silky white Persian cat, Stella, sleeping on the window sill. The flickering candles on the vanity sent a waft of vanilla throughout the room to camouflage the smell of sex.

Ava West’s auburn hair cascaded across her shoulders. Her breathing was shallow and steady against Carl Lugowski’s chiseled chest.

Lieutenant Carl Lugowski worked homicide for the Rosemount Police Department. He was normally a light sleeper, as most cops are. Subconsciously, they must always be prepared for that emergency phone call from the station to jolt them from their bed because a body had been found in some dark alley or a domestic argument had gone terribly awry to result in murder.

Today, Carl’s gentle snore was restful while holding Ava’s beautiful naked body in his arms. After their afternoon of abandoned love-making, his sleep was deep.

God, she knew how to get to him. He had taken a half day off. They were supposed to see a matinee, but when he arrived at her apartment, Ava had other plans. Not a problem. Nosiree, Bob. She answered the door in a dark blue lace teddy that accentuated the swell of her round breasts and her stiff nipples peeking through the sheer delicate fabric. Her sultry green eyes had a “come on” look. Her plump lips curled. They were begging to be kissed hard.