The Country Escape (23 page)

Tireless Tina was multi-tasking energetically as always, the dark smudges beneath her anxious whippet eyes accentuated by the Alice band drawing her unwashed blond bob back from her slim face. On full-time stewarding duty while rattling
a sanctuary tin with her two small boys and a dog in tow, her baby in a backpack, she still found time to pep-talk Kat in preparation for the five-furlong dash later that afternoon: ‘Think positive, Kat! You just have to stay on and point forwards!’ By the end of the fourth race, with the track a skidpan of mud and casualties piling up in the blood wagons, she was sounding fractionally less
positive.

Now, having gathered the number cloths as they came off the first three horses, she nipped across to the sanctuary stand where Kat was holding the long-suffering alpaca so that a group of giggling children could stroke her while their indulgent parents videoed them on iPhones. ‘The course is still riding deeper than ever,’ she said, as she panted up. ‘Thankfully Donald is a total
mud-lark – he’s not named after a duck for nothing. He’ll look after you.’ She watched indulgently as her children joined the others while Kat crouched down and showed them how best to stroke the alpaca’s long neck. ‘You’re such a natural with kids, Kat. Would you mind looking after mine for two ticks? They are
so
bored. I just have to get these cloths back for the Men’s Open.’ She started to
shrug off her backpack.

To Kat’s alarm, she found herself with two hyperactive boys at knee height and a baby on her back that was soon hitting her over the deer head with a set of teething rings.

Ten minutes later, there was still no sign of Tina and her boys were starting to pick fights with one another. The blustery wind was pushing rainclouds in overhead, droplets scudding into
the stand. The baby, normally a stoic little soul, grew increasingly cold, bored and bad-tempered.

Kat looked around for help, but Russ was still drinking his winnings deep in the beer tent and Mags had sneaked off to put flyers under windscreen wipers advertising Animal Magnetism’s ‘wildlife benefit gig’ in the pub later that evening. Cyn and Pru recoiled when she asked them to guard the
boys while she found Tina.

‘We’ll look after the animals, dear, but we’re not really equipped for lost children, and I don’t think the health-and-safety officer would approve.’

Taking the boys with her, Kat hurried towards the stretch of officials’ tents to look for Tina.

The jockeys were already coming out to mount the horses that had been parading for the Men’s Open. One,
resplendent in red and gold with a white silk on his skull-cap, was drawing a lot more attention than the others. Several members of the crowd were even calling him across for autographs.

Kat stopped in her tracks, baby weight lurching against her shoulders, deer head tipping forwards and blinding her as the eyeholes dropped level with her nose. She pushed it back. He was wearing dark goggles
beneath the peak of his silk, but the sharp line of his jaw and the amused, sexy curl of his mouth were still unmistakable.

It was Dougie Everett, the actor from
High Noon
. He had been looking for her earlier. A blush raged beneath her deer mask.

Noticing Tina’s boys had already burrowed through the crowd by the rails, she followed them to get a closer look.

The strutting
bay favourite, Kevin Spacey, was napping badly, his little Indian groom barely hanging on as the gelding towed him around the ring while the jockey in red and gold was given a leg up. Hopping alongside with the trainer hanging on to his left leg, Dougie managed to make a well-calculated leap at precisely the same moment as Kat arrived at the rails beside him. Taking one look at the strange, Atlas-shouldered
deer with the wailing baby on its back, Kevin shied and Dougie splatted to earth face first.

‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?’ Kat tilted her huge stag head so that she could look down at him.

‘No I’m not fucking okay!’

Kat was pushed aside by a shadowy figure in a long coat and a shooting hat. ‘Leave this to me, Dougie,’ she ordered, swinging round and snarling at Kat,
‘That was a deliberate attempt at sabotage!’

Kat immediately recognized the beautiful Indian woman, who was squaring up to her and saying, ‘I will report this. What is your name?’

‘Kat,’ she looked desperately around for Tina, ‘and I promise you, it’s not sabotage. Ow!’ She ducked her head away as the baby jerked it back by the antlers, almost blinding her again. The little one was
making a lot of noise in the backpack now.

‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ Kat soothed, jigging her up and down. ‘We’ll find Mummy soon, I promise.’

‘You are Kat Mason?’

‘Yes – ow!’ The baby was wrenching one antler from side to side now.

‘Here, let me help.’ Suddenly all smiles, Dollar reached out to remove the deer head, but the baby had a firm hold of the antler and refused
to let go, letting out an enraged squawk. Tugging harder, Dollar pulled off a fluffy brown ear, making the baby scream yet louder.

‘Lay off our sister!’ demanded one of the boys, hitting her with a collection jar.

‘Yeah, leave her alone.’ The other gave back-up with a rolled-up STEWS poster.

If there was one thing that frightened Dollar more than horses and dogs, it was children,
and she backed rapidly away, smile fixed as she glared down at them. ‘I must warn you to leave me alone before you regret it.’

‘Whatever you do, don’t get out the gun,’ Dougie said, through gritted teeth, on the other side of the rails, picking himself up and discarding his broken goggles as he turned to mount, then realized his nose was bleeding.

‘Oh, God, I’m sorry – I lost a number
two somewhere!’ gasped a breathless voice. Tireless Tina appeared at the rails and gathered her boys to her sides, beaming apologetically at Dollar. ‘Have they been bothering you? Say sorry, boys.’ But they were snorting too loudly at the idea that a number two had been lost to hear the order.

To Kat’s surprise, Dollar was the one to apologize. ‘Miss Mason, I would like to make up for my
discourtesy just now,’ she said stiffly, the forced smile still on her face. ‘Perhaps you would like to join Mr Everett for a drink in the members’ enclosure after the Men’s Open by way of apology.’

‘That’s kind, but I’m riding in the charity race then,’ Kat explained.

Dollar looked extremely put out. ‘Of course. Another time.’ She nodded formally and ducked under the rails to stalk
across the paddock and talk to the trainer, still clutching a deer ear.

Tina turned to Kat in alarm. ‘Is that the one who offered you money to leave?’

But she wasn’t listening. She was staring at Kevin Spacey. The bay horse was taking another lap of the parade ring, Dougie stalking alongside ready to mount again, still stemming a nosebleed. The bay was practically hopping along on
three legs. ‘Is it me,’ she said to Tina, ‘or is he lame?’

Tina had eyes only for the jockey. ‘Oh, boy.’ She paused mid-way through hooking her baby off Kat’s back to take in the wide shoulders, narrow hips and handsome face. ‘Nothing lame about Dougie Everett. He’s sublime. Look at the muscles on those thighs!’

Kat couldn’t see a thing as her deer head twisted round, the baby still
clinging to one antler. She could hear several girls calling, ‘Good luck, Dougie!’ as the runners and riders paraded past.

Tina was wrestling furiously with the backpack now. With the baby still attached to the antler, Kat’s deer head came off with the child. As it did so, and her hair spilled around her hot, flushed face, she found herself looking straight into the most sensationally dark-lashed,
bruised blue eyes imaginable as Dougie Everett rode past, feet feeling for his stirrups, horse skittering sideways, his handsome features surprisingly pale, dark smudges eclipsing the red scars beneath his eyes. To her surprise, he looked almost frightened.

‘Good luck,’ Tina called.

‘Thank you,’ he muttered, forcing a quick smile, his eyes sliding towards Kat’s.

The big Mason
smile beamed back and he turned to look at her as he rode away, his eyes locked on hers.

To her shock, it felt as though a bedspring suddenly gave way inside her, a jolting twang that shifted her vital organs up and sideways without warning. Just as surprising, the expression on his face had seemed to convey the same fleeting jolt before the horse bounded forwards. He was moving even more
oddly, one leg snatching up as though in great pain.

‘Wait! He’s lame!’ she called desperately, but Dougie was out of earshot, heading towards the track that led out on to the course.

Kat felt panic grip her, certain the horse couldn’t race in that state. It was probably her fault. Kevin Spacey must have strained himself when he spooked at the sight of her in her deer mask. She owed
it to him to raise the alert.

‘Stop the race!’ Battling her way around the ring and through the queue for the local pig farmer’s hog roast, Kat marched into the officials’ tent to find the veterinary officer, only to learn that he was still examining a horse that had fallen in the last race. In his absence, the paddock steward was summoned – a hunting-mad solicitor known as the Deckman
because he fell off so often. As they went back out to identify the lame horse and recall it, Kat found herself being tailed by Dollar in her long coat and hat, looking curiously like Inspector Clouseau.

‘You have a problem, Miss Mason?’ She followed them into the parade ring, then jumped aside as a horse passed very close by.

‘Kevin Spacey isn’t fit to run.’

‘You are mistaken,’
Dollar said tightly, watching uncertainly as Dougie jumped off and an Indian groom led the horse into the centre of the paddock beneath the shadow of a big chestnut tree.

Now they could both see the weird way the leg moved. Beckoning to the groom, Dollar consulted urgently with him in a language Kat couldn’t understand.

‘What exactly d’you think is wrong with him?’ asked the Deckman,
who knew nothing about horses other than how to get on and off and open a saddle flask of sloe gin.

Resplendent in bright red and gold, now splattered with mud and blood, Dougie stepped in front of the official. ‘What’s the problem?’

The Deckman smiled apologetically. ‘Just waiting on a course vet to check your horse, sir. Question mark over soundness.’

‘He’s perfectly sound,’
Dougie snapped.

‘He’s lame!’ Kat blurted, moving forward, which caused Kevin to start back and cannon into Dollar, who leaped away with a shriek and moved behind the tree.

Dougie registered Kat’s presence with a groan. ‘Put the antlers down. You’re freaking him out again.’

As soon as she looked him in the eye, Kat’s internal organs were jumping, her heartstrings twanging.
Now was probably not the time to thrust out a hand and hot-headedly introduce herself, she realized, as he glared at her.

‘I’m sure we can resolve this situation,’ Dollar was saying from behind the tree. ‘Perhaps we could talk somewhere more private. Shall we move away from the horses?’

‘Before Miss Mason frightens any more of them,’ muttered Dougie, a muscle ticking angrily in his
cheek as he watched the rest of the field streaming down towards the course.

‘Yes, let’s go somewhere a bit quieter to wait, shall we?’ suggested the paddock steward, aware that they were attracting quite a lot of attention – not least because the girl making the complaint appeared to be dressed as some sort of centaur – and the vet was still nowhere in sight. ‘Walk the horse around a bit
more,’ he told Kevin’s groom, ushering the others towards the officials’ tent, lifting the walkie-talkie to his mouth and repeating his entreaty for the course vet to come urgently to the paddock.

Dollar hurried Kat on past the hog roast queue. ‘I’m sure you have every right to be concerned, Miss Mason, but the horse has been passed fit to run.’

‘Rubbish,’ she said hotly.

‘He’s totally sound,’ said Dougie, banging his whip impatiently against his boot top as they moved away from the noisy crowd to the relative quiet behind the pig roast spit. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You only have to look at that leg to see!’ Kat stood up to the double assault, feeling the heat of the bonfire against her back.

They all looked across to the paddock
where the bay horse appeared even more lop-sided as he jogged around, eager to be on course, snatching up one leg in a strange, unnatural fashion.

‘The groom says it’s just halter string,’ Dollar said, with an authoritative air to her monotone.

‘Stringhalt,’ corrected Dougie, turning to look at Kat. ‘Surely you’ve heard of it.’

‘No, actually,’ she said. ‘But if this terrible
lameness has anything to do with being tied up with string, that’s downright cruel.’

‘Stringhalt is a common conformation defect in racehorses,’ Dougie said. ‘The uneven flexion in the hind legs at walk causes him to snap one up higher than the other. In Kevin’s case it’s unnoticeable at racing pace, and certainly causes him no pain whatsoever in any gait. The horse is in terrific health
and perfectly safe to run.’

Kat stepped back, feeling her face flame. She might have made a very stupid error.

Dougie was clearly livid. ‘It’s obvious you know fuck all.’

Dollar cleared her throat loudly. ‘Dougie, I think that’s enough.’

‘Why? She should be shot for this – don’t take that too literally.’ He held up his hands quickly. ‘Please don’t tell me she’s the
one who runs the horse sanctuary. What demented idiot employed someone totally clueless?’

‘You can say what you like about me, but don’t you
dare
speak about Constance like that!’ Kat flared. ‘She knew more about horses than you ever will.’

‘Shame she died before passing the basics on to you, then.’

Dollar hissed under her breath for him to keep quiet before stepping closer
to Kat, her monotone suddenly infused with soft apology: ‘Please believe me when I say that Dougie is not normally offensive. He is very tense about the race. You two have not been formally introduced, but as you will be neighbours, I insist you share that drink later.’