Fear of Falling (10 page)

Olivia's stomach knotted in confusion and anxiety, but Rafe's hand on her shoulder felt warm and protective. As he pressed a little deeper, he searched her face for her reaction. Apparently, she had struck some emotional chord in him. He didn't want to stay mad at her, and he needed her to acknowledge that they were adult enough to forgive and forget. Was he asking her to be friends?

His eyes were the color of the bluest spring sky, filled with unspoken promises. At that moment Olivia realized she was lost in him. Did he know she would give anything to feel his lips against hers? Could he sense her heart thrumming in her chest? Why wasn't he saying anything? And why was his hand moving so achingly slowly from her shoulder to the nape of her neck?

“Wish me luck,” he said with his mouth so close, his breath warmed her nose.

The pressure of his lips on hers was ever so slight. Just as he started to pull away, Olivia thrust her arms around his neck and pulled him in. She kissed him back tentatively at first, savoring the satiny texture of his lips. The swell of emotion in her heart nearly overwhelmed her. As strange and foreign as her feelings were, she welcomed them. Rafe cupped the back of her head, holding her as if he didn't want to let go.

When Rafe finally pulled back, he released her slowly, his hand lingering in her hair.

“Will you?” he asked.

Olivia was spellbound. Her pleasure and joy had vanished as quickly as it came. Suddenly, she felt alone in a way she never had before. She didn't understand any of it. “What?”

“Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” she managed.

He smiled softly and his eyes were filled with sincerity. Had that earnestness always been there? How had she missed it? She was the photographer. She caught emotions in people—even animals—each time she set up a shot. But for some reason Rafe's feelings eluded her. Perhaps his grief had overshadowed everything else—until now. Was this the real Rafe? And if it was, had she been the one to cut through his sorrow? Why her?

He leaned down and kissed her on the tip of her nose. “If you'll root for us, I know we'll win.”

With a jolt, Olivia remembered where she was. She was at the fairgrounds and a horse race was about to begin. She was back in hell. Back in the kind of place where her father had gambled away her future. This was the epicenter of betrayal, and it was Rafe's element.

“Yes, Rafe. I'll cheer for you,” she lied.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T
HE
JUDGES
'
TOWER
was four stories high with a 360° view of the racetrack from the roofed enclosure that was large enough for a dozen people. Luke Bosworth's construction crew had built it as their donation to the hospital fundraiser. The pine structure felt solid as Olivia climbed the staircase, noticing that the struts, stilts, stairs and crooked, knotty natural pine railings had been sanded to a smooth finish. The shutters and side walls were painted a dark pine green that blended in with the surrounding forest. The rustic details told Olivia that Sarah must have helped her husband design the tower. Sarah had contributed her talents to Maddie and Nate's lake house, and this tower had that same Sarah Jensen Bosworth aesthetic.

Inside, Olivia was pleasantly surprised to find battered, tin ceiling fixtures, stained cedar floors and plenty of outlets and surge protectors.

Her friends hadn't shared many details about the construction project, and it had clearly been a much larger undertaking than Olivia had imagined. Sarah and Luke had built this tower to last a lifetime. Maybe longer.

Olivia had assumed this was a onetime fundraiser. Did Sarah know something she didn't? Sarah and Maddie were as close as sisters, and Nate Barzonni was a heart surgeon at the hospital. If there were plans to make the horse race an annual event, they would have heard about them.

Olivia's heart tripped. Stalled. Her fear of horse races and gambling clutched her chest and impeded her breathing. She wiped her palm across her clammy forehead. Maybe she needed to see a therapist. It had been a long time since she'd reacted this strongly to her past. But then, she hadn't been confronted with her phobias for years.

Olivia understood with resounding clarity that the hospital foundation or someone in Indian Lake expected horse races to become a fixture in the community. That thought terrified her, but it was out of her control. She had a job to do today, and then she could avoid the fairgrounds for the foreseeable future.

As her breathing and heart rate returned to normal, she peered out onto the track. From this vantage point, her camera would be able to capture the critical sequence of events at the finish line.

Just below the south-facing opening was a long wooden table surrounded by folding chairs where the judges would sit and watch the race. There was a telescope on a tripod stand with no recording device attached to it. Curious, she thought, that one of the judges believed his eye was so impeccable, he didn't need any technological backup.

She shrugged.
Works for baseball umpires.

She had just removed one of her cameras from around her neck when she heard a gravelly voice behind her. “You must be the camera lady.”

“Photojournalist,” she corrected as she took in the tall, lanky and handsome man with sharp gray eyes so intense they looked silver. She guessed he was in his early seventies. He wore a white straw cowboy hat over a mass of coarse gray hair, and his blue Western-style shirt was belted into a pair of faded jeans with an enormous gold-and-silver buckle imprinted with a man on a horse and the word
Champion
.

“Howard Stillman,” he said, grabbing both her hands in his, though she still held her camera. He pumped both her hands and the camera up and down. “Nice to meecha.”

“Mr. Stillman.”

“Judge Stillman.” He leaned very close with a flirtatious gleam in his eye. “But you can call me Howard.”

Then he released her hands, slapped her on the shoulder and moved around the table. “Let's see what we got here.” He rubbed his hands together and opened his laptop.

As he waited for it to boot up, Howard jabbered on about himself. He explained that he was a “traveling judge” and worked the independent race circuit across the US. He was quick to relate his repertoire of personal statistics, though Olivia hadn't asked. In fact, she had a difficult time replying to anything he said given his rapid-fire delivery. Howard confirmed that he was indeed in his early seventies. “Though,” he said, hitching his chin up haughtily, “people say I don't look a day over sixty.”

“I'm sure they do,” Olivia agreed, though she'd pegged him from the first glance. Then again, she was a photographer. She saw the world in a higher resolution than most.

For example, though he was lean and muscular—from constantly riding and tending horses, he mentioned in one of his rambling monologues—Olivia's sharp eye caught a slight arthritic gait as he rose from the folding chair and then sat back down.

Howard's constant chatter was wearing on her, but she saw through his bluster to his disappointment that his life and career had brought him here to this little town to judge a charity horse race. Compassion for Howard found its way from her heart to her hands as her fingers slipped around her Sony NEX-5R and she quickly slapped off a dozen shots of Howard as he worked on his laptop. Then to cover her true motives, she spun around the tower and took shots of the tower interior and then readjusted her lens for some long-range shots into the grandstand and down onto the track.

Through her camera's eye she saw Curt Wheeling leading Rowan out of the horse barn. Rafe beamed at his mother, who walked beside him, her arm around his waist.

Gina would be saying all the encouraging words her son needed at a time like this. Olivia adjusted the lens again and zoomed in on Rafe's face.

She was over a hundred yards away, but she caught every nuance in his eyes as he gazed lovingly at his mother. He nodded and smiled so brightly, Olivia had to close her eyes for a second. The image would stay in her mind forever. She knew that kind of unbreakable bond because that was what she had with her own mother.

She had shared furtive, painful glances with her mother when they'd been at racetracks with her father. Even as a child, Olivia believed she could read her mother's mind. Her father's gambling had also cemented the bond between mother and daughter. Perhaps it was true that out of all pain came a measure of joy.

“Olivia?” Howard said behind her.

Olivia hadn't noticed herself tuning him out the moment her lens found Rafe. Her face grew hot, and when she turned to face the older man, she realized she'd also failed to notice the tower filling up with people. Nearly a dozen men and women sporting binoculars, iPhones and cameras had gathered in anticipation of the race.

“Yes, Howard?”

He wiggled his finger, motioning for her to join him. “What cameras did you bring? I was at a race outside Lexington for a private corporation last week. They loaned the judges a Phantom Flex.”

Olivia swallowed hard. “That's a fifty-thousand dollar camera.”

Howard's eyes twinkled. “It was shock and awe on my part, I gotta tell you.”

“Well,” she replied, unable to hide her embarrassment, “I thought I'd give you my Sony. I also brought a Casio ZR200 that can do slow-motion video. If we have any trouble naming a winner with those, I've learned some tricks with Twixtor we can use once I get the footage downloaded to my computer.”

Howard took the Sony, put it to his eye and adjusted the lens for the finish line. He handed the camera back to her.

“Have you ever shot a race before?”

“No,” she admitted.

“I was afraid of that. This being a volunteer effort.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “This is more than precise, detailed work—it has to be infinitesimally precise. A nanosecond can make a winner.” He shrugged. “It doesn't matter if these horses are bred for vanity or as a hobby, or entered in this race on a whim. Trust me—once they get to that starting gate, all bets are off. Suddenly, everyone catches the fever. The jockeys, the owners, the trainers...and certainly the horses.”

“The fever,” Olivia repeated. She felt as if she was talking underwater. The people in the tower dissolved from her field of vision as if she'd put too much acid in her developing solution. Everything faded out...

She was eight years old with her father at the races in Arlington, watching the horses round the final turn and head to the finish line. Her father's thick, dark hair glistened in the sunlight, and his sharp jaw lifted as he shouted excitedly. In his left hand he held a racing form and receipts that showed the bets he'd placed. Olivia reached out to touch his white knuckles, wondering why those pieces of paper were so important to him.

Then she looked up at her father and saw joy fill his face.

“I won! Olivia, I won!”

He lifted her in his strong arms and covered her face with dozens of kisses. “I won! Now I can buy your mom that washer and dryer she needs. I knew I could do it!” He bounced her up and down. “I had a feeling it was my day. My day!”

Then he hoisted Olivia up and onto his shoulder. “Come on, pretty girl. I want to take you down to the paddock so you can see the horses.”

“Can I ride one?” she asked.

“No. They won't let you ride them. These are special horses. They make kings out of men.”

“They do?” Olivia wondered why all these men who rode the horses weren't wearing crowns.

By the time her father had picked up his winnings and chatted with some “friends” he knew at the “cages,” most of the horses were being led into the horse trailers down at the paddocks. Others were being brushed and put in the stables.

Only one horse was still on display. Dozens of people clamored around the horse, his owners and the jockey with cameras and microphones.

“That's American Dream,” her father whispered reverently, pointing at the chestnut Thoroughbred. “I have a brochure with all his statistics for you to keep, so you'll remember him. You should always remember the winners, Olivia. They give us inspiration.”

Olivia nodded. “Can I take a picture of you next to the horse, Daddy?” She pulled her pink plastic camera out of the white patent leather purse her mother had given her for Easter.

“I don't know if they'll let us,” he said sheepishly. “Maybe we should just go.”

“No,” she'd insisted. “I have to get a picture of the winner.”

Her father grabbed Olivia by the waist and held her up so she could get an overhead shot of the jockey sitting on the horse. Then he put her down and instructed her to take one of him standing near the rail.

“When we get them developed, we'll glue them together and it will look like I'm in the winner's circle with them.”

“Okay!” Olivia replied, delight coursing through her body...

Olivia shook herself back into the present. She'd felt like a winner that day, and she'd thought she'd understood her father.

Jake Melton had caught the
fever
all right. And it had burned them all.

“Olivia?”

Howard was talking to her again.

Olivia felt as if she was swimming in deep waters; she was in danger of drowning in the past. She fought the current that pulled her under and tried to focus on the man in front of her. “I'm sorry, you were saying?”

“I said I won't be using any camera at all. I'm somewhat old-school. I have a telescope I've used for years. On the other hand, I have a new Marathon Adanac digital stopwatch to clock the time. Time is history and can make or break a horse's future. I'll be announcing the race. I tested the sound system earlier this morning—it's pretty darn good.” He barely took a breath as he spoke.

Olivia was thankful Howard didn't appear to need another person in order to have a conversation. At the moment she was still clearing the water out of her ears. “I'll put the Casio on a tripod and set it up for video, then use the Sony to take as many shots as possible.”

“Great,” he said. “I want the count at the first quarter mile. Try to capture the back field, as well. Then at the second turn, get the middle field, though the front runners will be key. In these amateur races, the winner usually comes from those front three runners unless there's a strategic runner in the back. Once they hit the last turn, right up to the finish line, each second is important—each nanosecond, even.”

“I'll get it all for you,” Olivia replied confidently. And she believed it. Though she'd never been hired to photograph a professional sporting event, she had spent hundreds of hours documenting football games, basketball games and baseball championships at Indian Lake High School.

“Sounds like a plan.” Howard handed her a sheet of paper. “Here's the roster of horses, their numbers and the names of the jockeys and owners. I included their colors because that's how I memorize them. This race is easy because there are only eight horses running.”

Olivia studied the list. Rowan was number four. She looked up at Howard. “Who's the favorite?”

“Mr. Blue.” He pointed to the sheet. “Red and white. Watch him. I saw him run yesterday.” Howard shook his head. “That horse should be in the Derby trials, he's that good.”

“Really?” Olivia scanned the list. Other than Mr. Blue and Rowan, there was Old Man River, Sensation, Silver Lining, Swept Away, Mama's Boy and Dark Knight. Howard's tip to memorize their colors helped enormously.

“Now, I suppose you know most of these people,” he said, motioning toward the staircases.

Olivia glanced over to see Sarah, Luke, Annie and Timmy walk in. Sarah was dressed in pink jeans, a floral blouse and pink sneakers, and Annie's outfit was almost identical. Olivia smiled. Sarah and Luke had obviously blended their lives quite well. Olivia had admired Sarah's courage to love a man who'd been so deeply in love with his first wife that after her death, he'd nearly lost himself to grief.

Sounds like someone else I know.

Tamping down her thoughts of Rafe, Oliva hugged her friends and greeted the kids. “I can't believe what a fantastic job you did on the tower,” she gushed. “Neither of you said a word during the construction. I feel like I should have helped. I can wield a mean paintbrush.”