Almost Home (5 page)
"That depends on when my car gets fixed. The
mechanic said it might be a few days."
"Oh, well, we have an extra car around here if
you need to borrow it. Just stop in at the front desk and Mama or I will give
you the keys."
"Thanks." As Katherine shut the door, she
thought about what Maggie had told her. It seemed like people were judging Zach
by the actions of his father.
Good stock, bad stock.
She'd never
associated those words with people until just now.
Zach's words came back into her head.
This is horse
country. Family, bloodlines, tradition, they're pretty damn important around
here.
She had a feeling Zach had learned that lesson the
hard way. Despite his warning, she knew she couldn't leave
She was missing a big part of her life, her biological father, her background,
her roots, her family history. Maybe she'd have the guts to stand up for who
she was—if she had any idea who she was. Even if she never spoke to her father,
if she could find out his name, maybe see him at work or with his friends
…
Who was she kidding? She hadn't come halfway across
the country to stare at some stranger from afar.
Well, she didn't know what she was going to do when
she found him, but she'd leave that be for the moment. Right now she just
wanted more information. It was time to stop hiding and get on with it. She
picked up her key and headed out the door to Golden's Grill. She knew the
restaurant had to be important.
Maybe Golden's was where her parents had met, a secret
meeting place for two young lovers. Katherine could almost imagine her mother
holding hands with some handsome young man in the shadowy candlelight, stealing
perhaps her first sip of wine, maybe leaning over now and then to share a kiss
…
Chapter
3
Z
ach winced as the noise in
Golden's grew louder
by the second. With most
of the women at the weekly quilting, Wednesday nights had become old boys'
night at Golden's. While the back half of Golden's, known as the grill, served
up burgers and fries, the front half, the bar, offered plenty of beer and
the bar, a television blared, the satellite dish outside picking up racetrack
feeds from all over the country.
Normally Zach avoided Golden's and all the other local
hangouts where his father's name still lived on in infamy. Whoever said the
sins of the father are visited on the son could have been talking about Jackson
Tyler and his son, Zachary. No one in
Zach took that back. One man had made the distinction—Harry
Stanton, owner of Stanton Farms, the man who had given him a job and a home at
sixteen and taught him everything there was to know about thoroughbred
racehorses. Harry Stanton had seen something in Zach that Zach hadn't even seen
in himself.
That was why he'd come to Golden's tonight—for Harry,
to pick up the weekly report from the private investigator Harry had hired to
do some work for him. Zach didn't know what Harry was investigating. Hell, it
could have been himself for all Zach knew. It wasn't his job to ask questions.
He simply had to meet Walter Simmons at Golden's every Wednesday night and take
a manila envelope back to Harry.
Zach had been making the trip into town for the last
six weeks. And each time Harry seemed to get more and more depressed by the
contents of that envelope. Zach picked it up. It seemed lighter tonight. He
wondered if that meant good or bad, or if he should give Harry a little space
tomorrow. Thursdays had become known as "black Thursday" around the
farm, with Harry venting all over the place, leaving everyone wondering what
the hell happened on Wednesday night to drive him into such a rage. Zach had a
feeling the answer was right in front of him.
His finger slid along the seal. He was itching to take
a peek, but before he could break his promise to Harry, Justin Blakemore, the
longtime bartender at Golden's, set a cold beer down in front of him.
"How you doing, Zach?"
"Not bad." Zach took a sip of his beer.
"Long day?"
"You could say that."
And more,
Zach
thought. Ever since Katherine Whitfield had come careening around that corner,
his life had turned upside down, and he still hadn't gotten it back right side
up. He'd spent most of the afternoon thinking about her, remembering the
softness of her skin under his hands, the sweet scent of perfume in her hair,
and the blue, blue eyes that expressed every emotion.
He'd been right to tell her to go home. No good could
come from trying to find a man who didn't want to be found.
Justin tipped his head to the television set where the
results of the sixth race from Keeneland were being posted. "King Meadows
likes the mud."
"I saw that."
"Rogue ran like the wind the other day. Too bad
about that early slip."
Zach nodded. He would have loved to win the Bluegrass
Stakes. But Rogue hadn't broken well and ended up in second. At first he'd been
disappointed, worried that he'd chosen the wrong race for Rogue to use as a
warm-up for the
He'd spent the last two days second-guessing himself, but he had to put all
that aside. Rogue had won in the past and he would do so again. Maybe it was
better this way. His odds would go up come
running his horse as an underdog than a favorite.
"What does Morgan think?" Justin asked,
referring to Cohn Morgan, Rogue's trainer.
"You know Morgan, he doesn't say much."
"Probably why the two of you get along."
Zach shrugged. He'd known Colin Morgan for almost six
years, and while Morgan wasn't the top trainer in the country, Zach liked the
way the Irish-bred trainer worked with Rogue. He also liked Colin's lack of
pretensions. While Sam and Zach oversaw Rogue's training at Stanton Farms, Colin
took over once Rogue got to the track.
"Is Perdito going to ride Rogue in the
asked.
"I hope so. I wasn't impressed with Carmine's
start."
"I'll tell you something, Zach. I've watched you
grow up," Justin said. "Been serving you beer since before you was
legal, and my money's on you, kid."
"Thanks," Zach said with genuine pleasure.
There weren't many in
a success. People outside the valley were starting to know him from his work at
Stanton Farms, but the people in
should leave, start over fresh, but that was too easy, and he'd be damned if he'd
make life easy for the folks who blamed him for their own stupidity.
"No thank-you required," Justin said,
bringing him back to the conversation. "You're your own man. About time
folks realized that. But I expect you'll be showing 'em real soon."
"Show us what? That he doesn't know horseshit?"
John Thomas Baker stumbled over the chair across from Zach, setting it aside
with his big beefy fingers. "Maybe you do know horseshit. Alter all, you've
cleaned up enough of it. But horses, racehorses, thoroughbreds
…
you don't know squat."
Zach felt his body stiffen at the sudden attack. For a
moment, he'd let himself get too comfortable. A big mistake. J.T. Baker was one
of the good ole boys in
Pederson Stud, and while it had once been a thriving horse farm, J.T. was
steadily driving it into the ground. Two of his wealthier clients had recently
moved their horses to Stanton Farms, and having lost one of his prize stallions
the previous year, J.T. was not getting the roll of the dice that he wanted.
Instead of trying to turn things around, J.T. had
turned to bourbon. Not that anyone in
problem. No, they preferred to think that Zach was stealing J.T.'s business by
some underhanded means.
"I know what you're up to,
like your old man, trying to con Harry Stanton out of the farm he's sweated
blood over the past forty years. Why he can't see it, I'll never know."
"That's enough, J.T.," Justin interrupted. "Harry
Stanton knows his business, and if he wants Zach to run his farm, it's no
business of yours."
"You're sticking up for him, the son of the man
who nearly put this entire town out of business?"
"He's not his father."
"That's what he'd like you to think, but I can
see right through him. Now, get me another bourbon, straight up this time."
Justin hesitated.
"Go ahead, get his drink," Zach said, his
gaze resting on J.T.'s bright red, bloodshot eyes. "Maybe if he gets
drunk, he'll believe his own crap."
"No fighting," Justin said to J.T., shaking
his finger in his face.
"I'm not going to fight this piece of shit."
Zach silently counted to ten, feeling the familiar
rage build within his body, tense his muscles, stiffen his face, making him
feel like it would be so easy to hit someone. There had been a time when he'd
let the fists fly, but no more. J.T. Baker was an ass, a drunken ass tonight,
but the townsfolk would still take his side. J.T. was one of their own.
Although Zach could hardly believe J.T. was accusing
him of doing exactly what J.T. himself had done. Maybe John Thomas Baker hadn't
conned a stud farm out from under the Pedersons, but he'd done the next best
thing—married the only daughter, the only heir, the beautiful, compliant, ever-suffering
Mary Jo.
"My hound dog has better bloodlines than that
rogue horse of yours," J.T. said with a sneer. "You're an
embarrassment,
No wonder Crystal MacIntyre left you standing at the altar. You tried to fool
her, but it didn't work, did it?"
Zach sent him a steady look.
"Say something, dammit."
Zach didn't even move a muscle, much less open his
mouth, and he could see the fury build within J.T.'s eyes, his face growing
redder, his pulse racing out of control. It was a pleasure to watch him go up
in flames. J.T. was far better at self-destructing than anyone Zach had
ever
met.
"Someone ought to teach you a lesson." J.T.
made a futile grab at Zach's arm.
Zach stood up so abruptly the chair fell over behind
him. "Time for you to go home, J.T."
"Who's going to make me?"
It was a wild, drunken challenge from a balding,
paunchy forty-nine-year-old man who probably couldn't see straight enough to
land his fist anywhere near Zach's face. But J.T. was itching for a fight, Zach
realized. There was a wildness in J.T.'s eyes, the frantic, desperate look of a
man trying to hang on to life by his fingertips, a man who was battling
something deep and personal.
Justin stepped between them with a glass of bourbon on
a tray. "This is it, J.T. And you can hand me your car keys."
"You can stick your head in your ass."
"No keys, no drink," Justin said evenly. "Why
don't you go home to your wife? I'm sure Mary Jo is worried about you."
"Why don't you mind your own business?"
Justin didn't budge.
"Oh, to hell with you, and to hell with your
watered-down drinks."
J.T. grabbed the glass off the tray and threw the
contents toward the wall. Unfortunately, the door to the bar opened at the same
time J.T. launched his attack, and the splash of bourbon hit Katherine
Whitfield right in the face.
Everyone in the bar was stunned into silence.
Zach was the first one to move. He walked over to
Katherine, who had frozen in disbelief.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
She wiped her eyes with her hand. "What—what
happened?"