The Girl in the Window (24 page)

“I don’t want you to lay back,” Russ cautioned.

Clapping him on the shoulder, Josh said, “Stop worrying, Russ. I’m not risking what might be our best shot to get into the big leagues. And there’s still Chord. He has a real shot here. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Still the excitement, the anticipation was there, Beth could see it in both their eyes.

Despite all his admonitions, Russ nearly vibrated with all the pent-up energy he wouldn’t allow himself to show.

There was still another race to go before Chord’s.

A big bay stallion, Chord was a good horse, a game horse, with a great heart.

She felt the anticipation herself, exhilaration seemed to bubble in her veins and Ty was nearly jumping out of his skin. That wasn’t helping.

As much as she wanted to stay, she couldn’t. “Come on, Tyler, we’ll have a better view with the clients.”

Then Josh was guiding Chord out onto the track, his colors bringing out the sleek brilliance of the horse’s coat.

Once more Beth was caught by the sheer beauty of the horse, of the smooth sureness of his action, his gait. It was moments like these that had given rise to the phrase poetry in motion.

Chord tossed his head a bit as they came up to the other horses and took their place, but whatever nerves had been brought on by all the excitement vanished the moment the gates opened.

The race was on.

It didn’t take long for the crowd to see it, for the voices of those who knew, who understood what they were seeing, to go silent.

A chill went over Beth’s arms as she watched.

Josh held him, but Chord’s pace and gait were so smooth, so sure, that some of the horses around him just seemed to melt away.

Deftly, Josh showed Chord the hole between some of them and the horse went through it like thread through a needle.

Chord started to gain on the leaders.

By the time they reached the home stretch turn Chord was on the heels of the leaders.

Challenged from behind, the horses in the lead fought back, and it became a race of a kind that a small track like that rarely saw.

It was history.

Chord closed. Josh gave him a touch of the whip, and the horse surged forward obediently.

The third place runner seemed to melt behind them.

They closed on the second place runner, already pushed to its limits.

In the stands the crowd was on its feet, cheering.

It was close.

Chord closed on the leader, stretched to take him.

The two horses closed on the finish line. Both reached for it.

The other horse held on gamely, fighting as Chord kept pushing, but in the end the other horse held on that fraction of a second longer. Their fight set a record for the track, a matter of seconds, but still a record.

As they pulled up, Josh could only sit for a moment in shock.

He looked up and saw Beth coming around the corner at a dead run, her face alight, Russ beside her and gangly Tyler on their heels.

Russ looked like he would burst with pride, with shock.

“Second, Josh,” Beth called. “Chord took Second.”

One of the track employees went to block them.

“No,” Josh said, “let her through, she’s my assistant trainer.”

Beth looked at him, startled, but Russ just clamped a big hand on her shoulder and pushed her to keep her moving. He and Tyler caught Chord’s bridle as Josh came out of the bike to catch Beth up in his arms for a great big smacking kiss.

When all the hoopla was over, the next race running already, Josh stood with the check for his share of the purse in his hands, and watched Beth walk away to gather up her charges.

Her pale golden brown hair flagged in the breeze as her skirt whipped around her legs.

She was so beautiful.

“You know I’m going to ask her to marry me,” Josh said, to no one in particular.

“About time,” Russ remarked.

Startled, a little amused, Josh glanced at him.

“When?” Russ said, to Josh’s look.

“Fair’s first big race,” Josh said, watching as Beth walked through the horses, drivers, and bikes toward the stands, waving at those she’d come to know. “The first time Fair wins us a big race after the stakes race.”

He ran his fingers across the seam of the check. He’d buy her the ring with the money from this check.

“All I can say,” Russ said, “is don’t wait too long, Josh. A woman like that is rare, son.”

Josh stroked a hand down Chord’s neck. “I won’t, and don’t I know it.”

The truth was he couldn’t wait, but he wanted to make it special, something Beth would never forget.

The picture of the winning runners was mounted on the wall of Josh’s farm office.

It showed him in the bike, smiling, with a beaming Beth and Russ holding Chord’s bridle.

As always at the end of race day the stables bustled with activity as everyone prepared to pack up and leave, walking their charges around prior to putting them into the trailers, brushing out their horses in preparation for loading them, securing the bikes, gathering tack and equipment.

For the stablehands, of course, it was pretty much businesses as usual as they worked under the watchful eyes of the trainers while the owners – dressed in everything from pressed khakis and silk polos to their Sunday best jeans – observed from a polite distance.

Josh, that rare combination of owner/driver, nodded acknowledgement to stablehand and owner alike and received nods in return, some respectful, some assessing.

He’d changed into jeans and a simple white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms, in preparation for the drive home.

Beth stood, her arms clutched around their prizes, smiling so broadly it felt as if her face would split.

Looking at him, a rush of love swept through her, filled her, swelled inside her in a great tide of emotion so intense it left her a little dizzy. She hadn’t known she could feel so much, or so deeply.

It staggered her, overwhelmed her.

Already brushed out, Fair waited patiently in the stable yard.

Lowering his head, he nudged her. Braced for it, she stumbled only a little, laughed, and freed one hand enough to scrub the area between his eyes.

“Yes,” she said, showing him what was in her arms, “see what you did?”

He snorted and blew.

It had been a gamble, a risk Josh had been willing to take, had had to take, balancing the chance of injury against success. Running the horses in increasingly more challenging races, upping the ante, running them against stronger, better known opponents in a race to make a name for Fair and the others, to join the rarified circle of horses who could run in the Triple Crown of Trotters or Pacers.

There was really no choice, and no more time, not for Fair.

It was as if Fair understood that this was his last and only chance to shine, to achieve, to reach for the stars. So he’d threw his whole heart into each race.

As Josh had hoped, racing against Fair had forced the others in his stable to stretch their capabilities. With the challenge of practicing against Fair Adagio, Bella and Chord were showing the strength of their bloodlines.

But it looked as if it were paying off, Beth thought as she looked at what she held.

To their delight in his last race Adagio placed third against horses they once would have considered far above him, losing second by a nose.

It was Chord, though, who surprised them, bringing the crowd to its feet for the first time in a battle for third that pushed the two horses close enough to second to startle the driver of the horse in second place. If Chord hadn’t placed, it hadn’t been for lack of trying, the horse had put his great heart into it, and was getting the attention he deserved for the effort.  He was beginning to look like a real candidate for some of the premier pacer races. Mention had been made of The Little Brown Jug in Ohio.

Beth smiled as Fair nudged her again, and she patted him enthusiastically.

He’d done the job himself, too.

She looked down into her arms once again. There was a gold cup there. She was half-tempted to fill it with water or oats and let Fair eat or drink out of it. He deserved it.

She knew Russ and Josh had debated putting blinders on Fair, worried that the noise and bustle of the larger tracks would distract him. In the end Josh had decided against it, he wanted Fair to see the other horses. It had brought out Fair’s competiveness.

Even so, given the condition Fair had been in when Josh had brought him, they hadn’t dared to hope for too much in this first major race.

The gamble had paid off.

Instead, he’d blown every other horse away.

A great roar of astonishment had erupted out of the crowd’s collective throats as they jumped up almost as one. Some in the stands had been shouting, pounding each other on the backs at the idea of a native son winning their most impressive race.

Beth had been standing at the rail screaming with them until her throat was raw, clutching the rail so tightly her fingers hurt even now.

But it had been worth it, every minute of it, to watch as Fair had come out of the corner, closing in on the lead.

It had been astonishing to watch, almost as if the lead horse had been slowing or even standing still, it looked so effortless.

Harness racing was as much a race of skill and strategy as it was a battle of horses, and Josh’s talent showed, too.

Sometimes, though, a horse comes along that just surpasses every expectation.

That was Fair, who never recognized that he wasn’t supposed to pass the leader by lengths…but he did, his legs reaching out smartly, eating up the distance as if it were nothing, to pass across the finish line. Alone.

Tyler had been pounding her on the back, although Beth never felt it, jumping up and down as he’d screamed with her.

Given his time, Fair had a strong chance to at least compete in the Hambletonian at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, the first race of the Triple Crown of Trotters. It was too much to hope for the other two races.

Now they waited to go home and do some celebrating of their own.

“Excuse me,” an unfamiliar voice said softly, from nearby.

Beth turned.

A man stood there, solemnly, his eyes on Fair.

He nodded his head toward the horse.

“Would you mind?” he asked.

For a moment, Beth hesitated, looking at him, but there was something about the man, a deep sadness that spoke to her. The look in his faded blue eyes stripped her bare and made her heart ache. She knew that kind of pain.

Slowly, she nodded.

“Have a care, though,” she said, softly. “He doesn’t like to be touched much.”

The stranger stepped up, holding one hand beneath Fair’s nose for the horse to smell him.

“I know,” he said, his voice deep, a little gravelly.

There was a bitterness and pain in the man’s voice that struck deep.

Beth went still, looking at him.

The horse pushed his nose against the man, as if he recognized him.

Tall, the man was lean in face and body, leaner even than Josh, but there was muscle in his arms, his shoulders, that was visible. Fine lines that spoke of years in the sun sprayed out around his faded blue eyes. Deeper lines had been engraved around his mouth.

Her breath caught at the gentleness of his touch when he took Fair’s bridle and stroked a hand along the arch of Fair’s neck.

So much pain. It was too much. Too much for her to bear alone, just looking at him.

Automatically, instinctively, she turned and looked for Josh.

As if in answer to her thought, Josh turned and looked over his shoulder at her.