Whitehorse (35 page)
The woman turned on Johnny, her dark eyes snapping with emotion, her waist-length black hair swirling around her shoulders. "As for
you…
" She glanced past Johnny to Leah, who remained nervously in the distance. "What the hell are you doing bringing
her
here?"
His eyes narrowing, Johnny looked her up and down. "Savanah?"
"What's wrong,
Whitehorse
? You look like you've just seen a mountain spirit up close and personal." She propped her fists on her hips. "Long time no see, you arrogant son-of-a-bitch. So much for dropping me a postcard from the Big Apple."
He opened and closed his mouth, refusing to believe that the shapely, beautiful young woman before him was Savanah Rainwater, Dolores's sister. "The last time I saw you you were thirty pounds overweight, four inches shorter, and were fighting a bad case of puberty acne."
"That was ten years ago. I've grown up. And you haven't answered my question. What is Leah doing here?"
"She was a friend of Dolores's—"
"Don't bullshit me,
Whitehorse
. Dolores hated Leah Foster with an Apache passion. And to top that off, you've been plastered all over the news trying to castrate her father. Don't tell me you and the senator are in bed together now."
"Hardly." He grabbed her arm and pulled her to one side, ignoring Billy's rambling. He glanced again at Leah, doing his best to reassure her with a smile as she stared at him and frowned.
"So it's true." Savanah yanked her arm away. "Dolores was right. You're back together with Leah. You dumped my sister—"
"I didn't dump your sister, Vanah. The fact is I had no intention of it—at least not at the time. Leah and I have just … after Dolores died—"
"She moved in on you like a copperhead on a lazy field mouse." She shook her head. "
Dee
was always afraid this would happen. She knew you had never gotten over Leah. She told me just a few days ago that she suspected something was going on between you."
"I wasn't aware you two were even in contact. Where the hell have you been the last few years?"
"Here and there. I came home when I heard about the accident."
"From…?"
Savanah crossed her arms and again looked past Johnny. He turned as Leah moved up beside him, her gaze locked on Dolores's sister.
"Savanah?" Leah smiled and extended her hand. "My gosh, I hardly recognize you. It's wonderful to see you again."
Savanah stared, ignoring her hand.
"I'm sorry about Dolores." Leah lowered her arm.
"I'll bet. Just like you were sorry when you stole Johnny away from
Dee
in high school."
Leah set her jaw and raised one eyebrow. "I see you're still cursed with an attitude. I thought you might have mellowed over the years."
"And I didn't come here to see two women get in a goddamn catfight," Johnny interrupted, grabbing them each by an arm and hauling them toward his truck. "In the last five minutes I've had my face slapped twice, been spat upon, and had my nose nearly cut off by a drunken Indian. My temper is slightly on edge so I suggest the two of you draw back your claws and shut up."
Reaching the back of the truck, he lowered the tailgate and set Leah and Savanah on it side by side. Then he paced, dragging one hand through his hair. "We're all here for the same reason, for God's sake. Dolores is dead." Pointing one finger at Savanah, he added, "And don't sit there and pretend you and she were tight again. Dolores herself told me you haven't spoken in years. She didn't even know where the hell you were. The last time the two of you were in the same room you about clawed each other's eyes out, according to Dolores."
Savanah looked off into the dark.
Leah took a weary breath and released it. "I knew I shouldn't have come. I start a job at six in the morning and it's nearly
now. I've only provoked more anger—"
"It's not your fault," Savanah said more softly, yet still refusing to look at Leah or Johnny. "Dolores never stood a chance in hell of landing Johnny Whitehorse. No one did except you. She knew it. She accepted it, I think. With
Dee
it was more of the chase, trying to prove herself by outdoing someone else. By being the best, not just in everyone else's eyes, but in her own. She simply couldn't get beyond the fact that she was an Indian. She never felt … equal. It made her take stupid risks…"
She turned her big eyes up to Johnny's. "Whatever caused that accident … I'm sure it had nothing to do with your carelessness. Or because you were drinking or taking drugs. My God, you're the finest role model we've ever hoped to have, Johnny. Since you've become a household name people have actually appraised us as a people with potential. The problem is, they're now asking, if you can do it, get educated and successful, why can't they all? Your achievements only make the rest of these people look like sluggards and exaggerates their own sense of failure."
Laughing, she shook her head and thumbed over her shoulder. "Take Billy for instance. He would never admit that he envies you. With his looks and his smarts he could have become a fine doctor. But he allowed my mother's cloying demands that he remain here and take care of her after our father died to drain him of his dreams and aspirations. He hates you now because you're a reminder of what he could have been."
"It's not too late," Leah said. "It's never too late to change your life for the better. He could still go to school."
"He's a borderline alcoholic. He'll end up dying just like our father, his insides rotted by whiskey and his mind eaten away by ignorance." She looked at Johnny. "We need to talk.
Privately,"
she stressed, sliding off the tailgate. "I'm leaving tomorrow night. Will you call me in the morning?"
Johnny nodded and Savanah walked away.
SEVENTEEN
J
ake Graham didn't bother to look up as Leah stepped into his neat, sterile-smelling office with charts of horse anatomies on the walls, framed degrees from universities and veterinary schools, his state license to practice medicine on the track, and photographs of horses streaking across finish lines. With a stethoscope hanging around his neck and his long brown hair falling in a wave over his brow, he was focused on a clipboard of papers, scratching notes on one before flipping through others and writing something else.
"You're late, Doctor." He turned to a metal filing cabinet and yanked open the drawer. "Rounds start at six sharp. It's now
. Your tardiness has put us half an hour behind schedule."
Leah opened her mouth to apologize—
He slammed the drawer shut and turned on her, jaw unshaven that morning, eyes as clear blue as a mountain spring, and just as icy. She'd heard he wasn't bad to look at—true, in a rugged sort of way, if one liked the Foreign Legion mercenary sort who appeared as if he would rather run you through with a bayonet than say good morning. Whatever qualities might have made him appealing were canceled out by the intimidation of his scowl and the downward slant of his mouth.
Graham shoved the clipboard at her as he walked around her toward the door. "I just got a call from Lorian Farm. Their stakes winner, Cool Me Down, has a gut problem. Get your ass in gear and follow me."
Her face beginning to burn, Leah glanced toward the coffee maker on a table near a water cooler that sported a label from a distillery just outside of town. Graham had every right to be angry, she reminded herself. She'd fallen back to sleep when her alarm went off. If it hadn't been for Shamika dragging her out of bed, she would no doubt still be sleeping or thinking of Johnny and the ridiculous fear she'd experienced over his reaction to Val. She'd spent the better part of the night tossing and turning, not out of worry but over the memory of watching Johnny hold her son, and hearing his words, "I wish he were mine."
She hadn't bothered with coffee after her shower to revive her, and without coffee her mind would continue to feel like cotton for another two hours.
"Starr!" Jake shouted, causing her to jump and turn away from the coffeepot, toss her purse into a corner, and hurry out the door, into the bracing morning that was barely an hour old.
Business was bustling throughout the facility's vast barns. Electric horse walkers hummed as they went round and round with horses walking or jogging on the end of ropes. The high-spirited, muscular animals wore leg wraps around their cannon bones, their glossy bodies sending steam into the cool air. In the distance animals sprinted around the track with jockeys checking them back or driving them on, trainers standing on the sidelines with stopwatches in hand shaking their heads, cursing and shouting directives to the slender young men riding the horses.
Leah ran to catch up with Jake Graham, whose long legs made quick time of crossing one barn lot after another. She did her best to read the material Graham had shoved into her hands—not easy considering she was forced to jog just to keep up with Graham.
"Clinical Diagnosis," she read aloud. "Gastric ulceration hyperkeratosis. The horse is suffering from stomach ulcers."
"The gastric mucosa looks as if it's been sprayed with buckshot. You'll see the endoscopic evaluation there in the file. He's been on twenty-four hundred milligrams of Ranitidine tablets two times a day for the last week. He gets nothing more to eat than alfalfa and timothy hay four times a day. Until this morning the abdominal discomfort had abated. We were due to rescope tomorrow."
"Signs of discomfort this morning?"
"Pawing, lying out flat, looking at his side, camping in back."
"Colic."
"Maybe."
By the time they reached barn six, Leah was struggling to breathe. She paused at the door long enough to take a much-needed breath as Graham moved down the barn aisle, glancing back at her with a smugness on his face that made her want to take his stethoscope and palpate him with it.
Finally she followed, catching up with him just as he reached the string of stalls belonging to Lorian Farm. A tall, lanky man with faded orange hair that had thinned to a half-dozen strands wrapped over his bald head stood by a sleek black thoroughbred stallion with drawn-in flanks and heaving sides, its head down with nostrils wide and muzzle pinched.
His step slowing, Jake looked down at Leah and said quietly but firmly, "Watch. Listen. Do what I tell you to do and nothing more. Don't give Lorian an opinion. Don't even open your mouth. You have no license yet to practice here. If you were to diagnose wrong, that son-of-a-bitch could sue us and the state could close us down quicker than you could wiggle that cute little ass. Understand me?"
