The Black Sheep and the Hidden Beauty (24 page)

“Based on her word.” Mac lifted a hand. “Playing devil's advocate. Of course she'd say someone else was there, someone she conveniently didn't see, who conveniently didn't see her. Or two horses going at it. It doesn't play well, even if it is the truth.”

“That much is the truth. I was the one she told the story to, and I believe her on that and that she wasn't involved with his death. At least she believes that she wasn't.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, she didn't have anything to do with the fire that she knows of. The facts are still that she was there and her horse got knocked up, and the horse that did it died an hour later. It just seems too probable that those two things are connected, but if she didn't connect them, who did?”

“Okay, accident or planned conception, maybe someone saw what happened. The same someone who was out there for whatever reason, the guy who moved the tank. Maybe the fire wasn't the plan at that point—could be just a barn worker—but then he sees this happen and decides to take out Geronimo, knowing Elena's horse carried the only heir to a triple-crown champion. Wouldn't that make the baby that much more valuable?”

“Yes, but he would have no way of knowing if the mating took or not. Kill the fatted calf too soon and lose everything.”

“Maybe it was his only chance.”

“So…where is he?”

“Hiding, waiting for the baby to come?”

“Why not steal Springer?”

“Maybe that was the plan, but then she left and he didn't know where she went off to. She moved around quite a bit that first month or so after she left.”

Rafe thought about it, then shook his head. “I can't see someone just rashly killing off a famous horse like that, not without some guarantee.”

Mac leaned back and folded his arms. “I agree. You got any better scenarios?”

Rafe swore, hating every second of this. “Maybe it is just what it looks like. There was a guy out there, with plans to blow the place up, for some other reason entirely. Elena went out on the spur-of-the-moment—no one knew she'd be there. It could be as simple as that. She came and went, the other plan was already in motion.”

“And the miracle conception?”

Rafe shrugged. “All we know is that it was forty-five minutes after she left that the tank blew. And since the tank was moved after she left, then whoever came to set it up could have missed the whole thing, never known she was there. It could be coincidence.”

“If that's the case, she's lucky she didn't blow up with him.”

Rafe shuddered at the thought. To think he'd never have had the chance to meet her, to know her, to—He looked at Mac as another thought occurred to him. “Except, what do you make of this sudden interest in her? Simple as me digging around, making calls?”

“Could be. Probably is. Is there anything else going on back there that would make you think otherwise?”

“We have the most recent reports and they show a stunning lack of evidence, so it looks like the insurance claims will have to be paid. So it could be them stalling.”

“Maybe it was all an accident. The guy was just a worker who put the tank away, maybe damaging it in the process. Maybe nothing was planned.”

“Maybe.”

They waited two beats, then looked at each other.

“Yeah,” Mac said. “I don't think so, either.”

“I wish like hell I did. So now what?”

“Now we at least figure out what her culpability is, in terms of her horse carrying a million-dollar baby that may or may not be her property.”

Rafe nodded. “First thing.”

“And then we figure out if the investigator is snooping around because we snooped around. Or because someone put two and two together about her pregnant horse.”

“She's been here quite a while and no one has come looking for her.”

“Like you said, she moved around a bit.”

“Well, someone at Charlotte Oaks knew she was here the day she started, because Kate called to verify her reference.”

“Maybe the someone in question wasn't privy to that phone call, but overheard or intercepted yours.”

Rafe nodded. “Maybe so. But how does that translate to an insurance investigator?”

“Two ways. One, either the person who figured this out stands to lose something and alerted the insurance guy, or the insurance guy isn't who he says he is. Do we have any proof of that?”

“No. But we can take care of that when he gets out here. I'll make sure I'm part of that little visit. We'll put Kate on the alert, too.”

“What about the other guy? The vet? What does he know?”

“He only knows her horse is having problems. He's an old family friend.”

“You sure she didn't confide in him?”

“As sure as I can be. She said she didn't tell anyone about this. But that wouldn't keep him from maybe talking to the wrong person about her pregnant horse. He's pretty well known within the horse set, from what I understand. I'll talk to her, follow up on that.”

“Could there be anything more going on there?”

Rafe just looked at him. “He's old enough to be her father.”

“Some women like younger men, some women…” Mac ducked when Rafe made as if he was going to toss something at his head. “I'm just saying.”

“I watched them together. Trust me. Very father-daughter.”

Mac just shrugged. “Whatever you say. So, let's go over the conception thing again.”

“What's left to discuss?”

“It's just…that's the one part of all this that is the hardest to make fit. How long do you think something like that takes?”

“Hard to say, but I would think not very long, once things get going.”

“But something like that has to make some noise, cause a little ruckus. No one heard? No one came running?”

“The reports say the private stable was a distance from the main stables, and even farther from the main house. It was closer to the trailers, but not by much. They had music blaring, along with the all-night poker game, so that might have covered it.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Unless…” Rafe drifted off, really not liking where his thoughts were leading.

“Go on.”

He sighed, swore a little. “Unless she did have it planned and it was done inside the stables. I don't know how much room it takes, or what kind of facility the private barn setup was, but if it was done intentionally, it might have been controlled somehow. Which would have made it quieter, less likely to be seen.”

Mac held Rafe's gaze. “Makes a lot of sense.”

“I know. Dammit.”

They both fell silent for a moment, then Mac said, “Could she have orchestrated and pulled off something like that alone?”

Rafe looked up. “Doubtful.” He perked up a little. “Which is good news—great, even.”

“Her having an accomplice is good news?”

“She doesn't have an accomplice.”

“How can you be sure?”

“She might be good at avoiding a subject, but she's a terrible liar—her face gives away everything she's thinking. When we talked about that night, she led me through the events, and that clearly took a toll on her. She was tired, already stressed over the phone call, scared for her horse's health, definitely not at her strongest. Probably one of the reasons she finally relented and told me what she did.”

“She didn't tell you about the Geronimo hookup?”

“I didn't ask her about it. I didn't know to. I asked her about the fire, and she told me. If there was someone else in this with her, she'd have had to think a lot more quickly on her feet to cover for that. Besides, that puts someone else involved the whole time she's been here, and I highly doubt that scenario. She's damn determined to do things for herself. It was monumental for her to tell me about this.”

“Maybe she had her story ready. She's had a long time to perfect it.”

“Maybe.”

“But you don't think so.”

He shook his head. “You know how you were about Kate? How certain you were? That's what my gut says about Elena. It's not in her to do this, any of this. I'd bet money on it.”

“You're going to have to be willing to bet a whole lot more than that if this thing blows up and you've in any way helped her to conceal a crime.”

Rafe nodded. “I know.”

“So, we say she's innocent—how are you going to make it make sense?”

“Do what I do best. Dig. And talk to her.

“You going to tell her what we suspect?”

“I'm going to ask her who she bred her horse to.”

“You said she's good at avoiding, terrible at straight-out lying. So just ask her straight-out if Geronimo is the father.”

“I want her to tell me.”

“You don't want her to run.”

“That, too.”

“Any chance at all she's playing you?”

“If she is, then I deserve everything I've got coming to me.”

Mac stood up and stretched, then smiled and clapped his hands together. “Then we're in.”

“
I'm
in,” Rafe clarified. “It's sticky—I'll understand if—”

Mac's smile spread to a grin. “Like I said. We're in.”

Rafe smiled back. “Thanks.”

“Don't thank me yet. Thank me when it's over and we can get on with giving you shit for, oh, a few years ought to cover it.”

“You help me get her out of this, you can rag on me as long as you like.”

“Then I guess I better make sure that not only do the good guys win, but that you get the girl.”

Now Rafe grinned. “Leave that part to me.”

“H
ow's he doing?”

Tracey paused, hoof pick in hand. “A little setback today, actually.”

Elena frowned and walked closer, but stayed clear of Bonder's rear quarters. It had turned out that his stumble that day hadn't caused any damage. For which she'd been eternally grateful. Poor thing had enough to overcome as it was. But now she was worried. She ran a close eye over the leg that had buckled, but it looked okay, no swelling, and he wasn't favoring it. “Is it his forelock? Did we miss something?”

“No, nothing like that, his leg is fine. He got spooked pretty badly, though. We'd been out about forty-five minutes and I had him trotting along the back rail, or would have, but—”

“Trotting?” Elena glanced at Bonder, who chose that moment to shake his mane a little. She couldn't help it, she laughed. “All bad-ass now, are ya?” She looked back to Tracey, who had the grace to look a little abashed, but not enough to squelch the excitement and pride that shone in her light blue eyes.

“Well, we've been working up to it, but he seemed so steady today and he's been extremely well-behaved lately.” Before Elena could comment, Tracey added, “And no, no more Popsicles. I've been giving him carrots, like you suggested.” Her cheeks turned a shade pinker. “Okay, so maybe with a little peanut butter, but it worked. He's a total tramp for peanut butter, as it turns out.”

Elena patted Bonder's side. “That's okay—I'm a big fan of the stuff myself. Extra chunky,” she told him, then looked back at Tracey. “So, what happened to set him off?”

“We were on our second lap and I was working him up to speed, when some idiot in a monster-size pickup truck came roaring up the lane, heading toward the main house. I managed to keep him steady through that, but then they had to go and blow what sounded like a broken foghorn…Anyway, Bonder freaked and all but dragged me back in here.”

“You didn't let him turn tail, did you?”

“I almost didn't have a choice. I thought he was going straight through the fence, but I managed to turn him and slow him down. I walked him for another fifteen minutes, then brought him in here. He was still shaken up, very distracted, very jumpy.”

Elena moved in then, and stroked Bonder's mane and neck. “Poor baby. Just can't catch a break.” She kept talking to him, stroking him, as Tracey went back to cleaning out his hooves. “You're doing really well with him,” Elena told her. “You're making amazing progress.”

“Well, I spend a lot of my spare time with him.” She looked up quickly. “Off the clock, don't worry.”

“You don't have to do that,” Elena told her, knowing damn well it wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't have to her, either.

“I want to. I enjoy it. I actually look forward to the time I get to spend with him after I get done with the rest of my chores.”

“I'm sure he does, too.” She scratched him between the ears. “Don't you, big guy?”

Bonder whuffled a little, then lowered his head and nudged at her pocket.

“Nothing in there for you.”

Tracey fished in her pocket and came out with a small Ziploc bag. “Here. He only got one so far.” She pulled out a carrot and handed it to Elena.

“What the heck is this?”

“I halve the carrots and layer them with peanut butter.”

She laughed. “A carrot-and-peanut-butter sandwich?”

Tracey smiled sheepishly. “Pretty much. He's remarkably easy when you find his weak spot.”

“I thought women figured that out about us a long time ago,” came a deep voice from behind them.

Elena turned to find Rafe standing a few yards away. She hadn't seen him since last night and, given all that had happened between them, she wasn't sure how she'd feel when she saw him again. Or what conclusions he'd come to today, now that he'd had time to think about what she'd told him. She wondered if he'd talked to Mac…and what Mac's reaction had been.

“I, uh, do you two need to talk?” Tracey straightened and brushed her hands against her pants. “I can make myself scarce.”

“No,” Elena said, maybe a bit too quickly. “Keep on with Bonder.” She handed Tracey the peanut-butter carrot. “We'll leave you to it.”

She walked past Rafe, toward the opposite end of the barn, hoping he followed until they were out of earshot. And eyesight. It surprised her, the strength of her desire to run to him, to smile into his face and hope he pulled her into his arms for a kiss. Like a normal couple. She didn't know what they were, but she doubted they were that. Too many complications. So she wasn't sure how to act. It was all so new.

He fell in beside her and her entire body responded to his nearness. She wanted to ask him if his palms were sweating like hers were. Not sure if they were far enough away yet, she played it safe and said, “What can I do for you?” all businesslike, until his chuckle made her realize what she'd inadvertently offered. She smiled. “And here I thought you were such a gentleman.”

They were passing the tack room and, before she could sense the motion behind her, he snagged her arm and neatly spun her inside the dark, dank room. The door shut behind her and he turned her against him before she could so much as draw a breath. “You make me want to do very ungentlemanly things,” he said, his voice barely more than a low rasp. A low, amused rasp. “In fact, you provoke a whole variety of inappropriate responses. Ones I'm having an increasingly difficult time ignoring. Though I did try. I really did try.”

Tracey was not fifty feet away and she'd already caught them here once, though it was doubtful she'd follow them. Still, Elena should be pushing him back out of here. What she did, however, was take his face in her hands and do what she really wanted to do. She kissed him. Backwalked him up against the wall with such force, in fact, that several saddles came close to tumbling off their perches.

To his credit, he was smart enough to go with the flow. In fact, he was downright brilliant. He accepted her tongue with a smooth ease that told her she was giving him exactly what he'd hoped for. Well, good. But what started as a simple kiss, affirming their status quo, quickly turned into something else completely. She'd thought she was keeping it together, that she was handling this, but it turned out she was far from in control of the emotions he'd stirred inside her.

She kissed him like she'd never kissed a man in her life. She poured everything she had into it. Every single confusing, exhilarating, profoundly life-changing thing he'd ever made her feel was shoved right on out there. Let him deal with it—he'd provoked it, after all.

Not that he was complaining.

Her hands moved from his face to his hair, then rapidly down to his shoulders, where she sank what nails she had to get a better grip so she could kiss him even more deeply. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear the thrum of it in her ears, and it was quite probable that the moaning sounds echoing in the room were all coming from her. She didn't care. She started pulling at his shirt, suddenly wild to feel his skin again, to sink into that blissful, mind-blowing place where she didn't have to worry about her horse, or the baby, or the fact that someone from Charlotte Oaks was hunting her. She wanted to drown herself in the knowledge that he could very easily—oh, so easily—take her to another place, a place where it was just about sensation, about feeling, about pleasure.

Her fingers fumbled at the buttons, and, suddenly frustrated and completely out of patience already, she gave up and just started to rip his shirt open. That was when one of them came to their senses. And it wasn't her.

“Hold on there,” he said, covering her hands and trying to disengage his mouth from hers. When she kept on clawing at the buttons on his shirt, he turned and pinned her against the wall, grabbing her hands and trapping them beside her head. “Wait just a damn minute, now.”

“Why?” she demanded, knowing full well she probably looked like a demented animal at the moment and still not caring. “You want this, too, right? You want more, you said. You want it all.”

“I—yes, but not like this. What the hell has gotten into you?”

“You. You've gotten into me. And I don't know how to handle it. My whole world is turning upside down and I can't make any sense of it anymore. I'm feeling things I have no business feeling about a man I just met. I'm confused as hell, scared as hell, and I don't know what to do about it.”

He turned her around, gently this time, and cupped her face with his hands. “You trust me. And trust this.” He leaned in and kissed her, only this kiss wasn't an assault on her senses…it was a promise. When he lifted his head, he kept his face close to hers, their gazes locked. “I know it's crazy. Insane, even. But so what? I'm right where I want to be. You?”

She could only nod.

He pulled her into his arms, tucked her against his chest.

“I feel like such an idiot. I should be handling this better. I always handle things.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don't have the slightest idea what I'm doing, either.” He leaned back enough so she could look up into his face. “I just know I'd rather be doing this, with you, than just about anything else on earth. So I'm going in that direction, see where it gets me. It can be that simple, Elena.”

“Nothing in my life is that simple. Not now.”

He traced the contours of her face with his thumbs. “It will be. We'll get it there.” He slid his hands down her arms, and wove his fingers through hers, then held on.

For whatever reason, that undid her like nothing else could.

Her heart was still pounding, her mind still reeling, but his gaze, and the way he held her hands, the size of his body, almost cradling hers, protecting her like a shield…it calmed her, soothed her in a way that at any other time would have had her scrambling to get away, as she didn't need any saving or soothing. But she'd be lying to herself if she said it didn't help her in that moment, to find a center in the storm, to feel safely buffeted for the first time in days. Weeks, even. Maybe forever.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he said, “so stop trying to scare me off, okay?”

“Is that what you think I was trying to do? Wait—my kissing you is scary? Am I that out of practice?”

His lips twitched. “Your kisses, under about almost any other conditions, would have had you naked and me buried deep inside you in about five seconds flat.”

She gulped. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“That's…” She had no words for that.

“Intimidating as all hell. As are you. And yet, glutton that I am, I keep coming back for more.”

“Gee, I'm feeling better by the moment, here.”

He squeezed her hands in his. “You are strong, Elena. I know that if anyone can handle everything you're presently dealing with, and somehow take care of every part of it and make all of it turn out right in the end, it would be you. I have no small amount of respect for you. Or I wouldn't be here. I am not your white knight and I won't pretend to be. I'm just a man who wants to be with you, and can, coincidentally, help you out of a jam you happen to be in.”

He lifted their joined hands and dropped a kiss on one of her knuckles, then another.

“My hands are dirty,” she said, stupidly and distractedly. She didn't know what to do with this, with him.

His response to that was to loosen his hold and turn her palm to his mouth. Then he kissed her there, too, before curling her fingers inward to hold on to it, another promise delivered and now sealed.

“To the rest of the world, we're two bad-asses who don't need anyone, okay?” he said, his voice a shade rougher now. “But right here, right now, you and I? We know different.”

“I scare you,” she said.

“
Terrify
would be accurate.”

Her lips curved, just a tiny bit, and she sniffled again. “Good. Just so the playing field is even.”

“Exactly.”

She felt his fingers tighten slightly around hers, felt the warmth of his body, the strength that poured effortlessly out of him, doing nothing more than standing there. And she wanted to wrap herself in it, just for a moment or two, just long enough to draw strength from it and get her bearings back. Would that be so wrong? So horrible a thing?

Except it wouldn't come without a price. That price being expectation. If she took from him, he'd expect her to give in return. Rightfully so. Could she do that? She wasn't sure what was more terrifying, that she'd fail…or how badly she wanted to succeed.

“What do I offer you?” she asked, not realizing she'd spoken out loud until he responded.

“You offer you.”

She snorted. “A stressed-out person who is more comfortable with horses than people and is in a fairly serious amount of trouble, or might be. Yeah, I'm a real catch. Any man should be so lucky.”

He grinned. “That is exactly what you offer. Right there. Blistering honesty, absolutely no artifice, and not a shred of concern about what others might think of you. I've watched you walk into a ring with a psychotic horse and tame him with gentle words, sweet caresses, completely confident that you can and will succeed. And I find myself wanting to discover what it would be like to have all that confidence and gentleness aimed at me. Which, if you knew me—and you will—you'd find absolutely hilarious.”