Heiress (63 page)

It was always a struggle for Abbie to pretend to ignore him, but today it seemed even more difficult for her. She tried to blame it on the rising tension she felt over the upcoming race, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that she had unwittingly admitted something during those few moments of fear earlier when she thought his plane might have crashed. For once she welcomed the distraction of Eden's nonstop chatter.

"Mommy, did you remember to bet the money Grandma gave you for the race?"

"Ben did earlier. He has the ticket."

"How much will she win?"

"Nothing if Windstorm doesn't, honey." Fully aware that that answer would never satisfy her daughter, Abbie glanced at the odds board. At the moment the number-four horse, Windstorm, was listed at seven to one. It was hardly reassuring to discover that the oddsmakers obviously didn't regard her stallion as much of a threat. "She'll win somewhere around seventy dollars."

"Wow! Are you going to bet some money on Windstorm, too?"

"No."

"But you could win a lot of money," Eden protested.

"And I could lose it, too." But that wasn't the reason. Betting on her own horse just seemed to be inviting bad luck.

"Why? You know he's the fastest horse ever," Eden insisted. "He's going to win. I know it."

"A thousand things can go wrong in a race, Eden," Abbie tried to explain. "He could break badly from the gate or get caught in a pocket surrounded by other horses. A horse could run into him or one might fall in front of him. You just don't know."

"I do," she replied, unconcerned by such dire possibilities, and turned to MacCrea. "You're gonna bet on Windstorm, aren't you, Mac?"

"I already have." He pulled several tickets out of his shirt pocket and showed them to her.

"All of these! Can I hold them?"

"Sure." He gave them to her.

"How much money will you win?"

"A lot." MacCrea smiled.

"Boy, I wish I could have bet on Windstorm." Eden sighed longingly as she stared at all his tickets. "I wanted to take the money out of my piggy bank, but Mommy wouldn't let me bring it."

"I told you that you're too young," Abbie reminded her. "Children aren't allowed to bet money on horse races."

"Well, when I get big, I'm going to bet on Windstorm and win lots of money," Eden declared.

"Something tells me that there's a strong gambling streak in her," MacCrea said in an aside to Abbie.

"Obviously she inherited it from her father," she retorted, and instantly regretted the quick rejoinder and its reference to him.

"I agree," he replied, his gaze running intimately over her face.

As a warmth stole over her skin, Abbie looked away, concentrating her attention on the track. Just then, the first trumpeting notes of the Call to Post sounded, stirring the crowd to life once again. An Arabian horse carrying a rider festooned in a scarlet-and-gold native costume cantered onto the track to lead the procession of Arabian racehorses on their parade to the post. Their appearance drew a smattering of applause from the stands.

"Look, Mommy. There's Windstorm!" Eden cried excitedly, the first to spot the silvery-white stallion, officially listed as gray.

Snubbed close to his lead pony, Windstorm entered the track at a mincing trot, his neck arched in a tight curve, his long tail raised and flowing behind him like a white banner. One of the other horses shied at the noise from the crowd as the seven entries paraded past the stands on their way to the starting gate. But not Windstorm. He played to the crowd as if in a show ring instead of on a racetrack.

"Sometimes I wonder if we were wrong not to race him first," she said to Ben.

"Do not worry. He knows why he is here," Ben replied studying all the horses through his binoculars.

Abbie thought she was nervous before, but she was twice as anxious now. When the horses reached the area behind the starting gate, cantering to loosen up, she shifted onto the edge of her seat. With only one other gray horse among the entrants and that one a dark gray, it was easy to distinguish Windstorm from the rest. But at this distance, Abbie could tell very little about him.

"How is he, Ben?"

"He is sweating a little. It is good."

"Let me see." She reached for the binoculars and trained them on Windstorm when Ben handed them to her. There was a telltale shadow on his neck, the sweat wetting his coat and letting the blackness of his skin show through. A little show of nervousness was good; it indicated alertness and an awareness of what was expected of him. But too much drained a horse's energy. Studying the white stallion, Abbie was forced to agree that Windstorm was by no means lathered. He looked ready. She hoped and prayed he was.

"Can I see, Mommy?" Eden tugged at her arm, jarring the focus.

"Not right now." Abbie briefly lowered the glasses to locate Windstorm again and noticed that the first horse was being loaded in the number-one post position. Quickly she raised the binoculars to observe Windstorm being led into the number-four slot without incident.

As the last horse went in, the track announcer's voice boomed through the stands. "They're at the gate, ready for the start of the fifth race." Her nerve ends picked up the expectancy in his voice, vibrating like a tuning fork.

An eternity seemed to pass as she kept the binoculars trained on the number-four position, watching the jockey's efforts to keep Windstorm alert and squared in the gate. The stallion's ears appeared to be on a swivel, constantly flicking back and forth, impatiently waiting for a signal from his rider. Finally he tossed his head, irritated with the delay.

Bells rang as the clanging gates sprang open and the horses burst out. "They're off!" A dull roar came from the surrounding crowd.

Abbie came to her feet, lowering the classes. "How'd he break? I didn't see." By the third stride out of the gate, three horses had surged forward to vie for the lead. Windstorm wasn't one of them.

"He broke well." Ben stood up, adding softly, "Do not hurry him. Let him find his stride."

Abbie heard him as she concentrated on the loosely bunched horses thundering toward the stands, but a full second passed before she realized he was talking to the jockey riding Windstorm.

". . . Windstorm is fifth; Kaslan is sixth. . ." the track announcer droned.

The white stallion was along the outside, five-and-a-half lengths back of the leader, but running easily, neither gaining nor losing ground as the horses approached the first turn. Abbie raised the glasses once more to follow him.

"I can't see, Mommy."

"Stand on the seat beside Ben." Abbie shifted to her right to make room for Eden. The horses entered the backstretch stringing out in a longer line. "He's in fourth now." Unconsciously she clutched at the sleeve of MacCrea's shirt, trying to contain her excitement as Windstorm began to close on the leaders. "I think he's making his move. I hope it's not too soon." But the stallion was still running with his ears pricked forward, a sure indication that he wasn't yet extending himself.

She lost sight of him as the horses went into the final turn. He was just a blur of white on the outside, obscured by the horses on the rail. She felt an unbearable tension in her throat.

The two leaders came out of the turn, neck and neck heading down the homestretch. But there, flying on the outside, was Windstorm, stretched out flat, each thrust of those powerful hindquarters driving him closer to the leaders, his large nostrils flared, drinking in the wind.

The cheers of the crowd were a distant roar in her ears, no match for the drumming hooves pounding over the dirt track. As Windstorm closed on the leaders, Abbie lowered the glasses, unconsciously using them to pump the air and urge him faster.

At the seven-eighths pole, the white stallion caught the leaders and started pulling away. The other jockeys went to the whip, but Windstorm's jockey continued to hand-ride him, driving for the finish line. He was a half-length ahead. . . one length. . . two.

Abbie screamed as Windstorm crossed the line, still pulling away. "He did it! He won! He won!" She turned to MacCrea, her excited cry becoming a jubilant laugh.

"Didn't I tell you he'd win?"

Thrilled by his decisive victory, Abbie couldn't contain her elation. She had to express it, let some of it out. Impulsively she flung herself at MacCrea. He hooked his arm around her waist, lifting her off her feet.

The instant her lips touched his mouth, she realized what she was doing and started to pull back. His hand cupped the back of her head, checking the movement. There was a moment of stillness, broken only by the thudding of her heart, as the rugged planes of his face filled her vision.

"Oh, no, you don't, Abbie," he whispered.

He kissed her, his lips moving warmly, possessively, over hers, taking what she had been about to give him. Abbie couldn't deny that she enjoyed it. She returned the pressure, savoring the pleasure that flickered through her.

The whole embrace lasted no more than a few seconds, yet it seemed a lifetime had passed when MacCrea finally set her down and shifted to include a laughing, squealing Eden. Together they hugged and laughed and rejoiced in Windstorm's victory, drawing Ben into their celebration. But the sensation of MacCrea's kiss lingered on her lips. Abbie couldn't look at him without recalling it. But what was more unsettling, she saw the same reaction mirrored in his eyes, too, each time he looked at her.

Together they all trooped down to the winner's circle for the presentation ceremony. When it came time for pictures to be taken, Eden insisted that MacCrea be included, but he excused himself, convincing her that he had to cash his winning tickets in.

Abbie watched him disappear into the throng, knowing as well as he did that there was no way she could have explained to Dobie why MacCrea was in the photograph. MacCrea was right, for all their sakes, to stay out of it. Yet as the photographer positioned them next to the silver stallion, Abbie found herself wishing he was there.

After the ceremony was over, the groom led Windstorm away to have the mandatory check for drugs. The stallion moved off at a dancing walk, still looking fresh and eager to run.

As she left the winner's circle with Eden firmly in tow, Abbie thought about the coming mile-and-a-quarter race, now less than three weeks away. "There can be no doubt about Windstorm running in the Liberty now," she said to Ben, shortening her stride to keep pace with his slower steps. "It's going to be a treat to watch Windstorm kick dirt in Sirocco's face when they cross the finish line. Windstorm beat his time for the mile by a full second today."

"Not only that, he set a track record at the mile for Arabians," the trainer, Joe Gibbs, chimed in, bringing up the rear.

"He did?" Abbie turned to stare at the trainer, stunned by the news. "I knew his time was fast, but. . ." She started to laugh. She couldn't help it. "Can you believe it, Ben?" She wondered what Rachel would think when she found out.

A track record. She could hardly wait to tell MacCrea the news. She sobered slightly, remembering the kiss, and absently ran her fingertips over her lips as if expecting to find a physical impression to match the one he'd left on her mind. . . and, if she was honest, on her heart.

Automatically, Abbie glanced in the direction he would come. The stable row was quiet, an island of comfortable sounds, removed from the din of the grandstands. Horses stood with their heads hanging over the stalls, swishing their tails or stomping their feet at buzzing flies, munching on hay or banging their water buckets. Occasionally there was the clop of hooves as a groom walked by, cooling out a horse, or the soft voices of passersby as they paused at a stall to stroke a velvety muzzle. The yelling and cheering belonged in the stands.

As MacCrea came strolling leisurely past the row of stalls toward them, Abbie felt the quick knocking of her heart against her ribs. She stared at him, a fine tension running through her. But the feeling wasn't unpleasant; it was more like a sharpening of her senses than anything else.

"Eden," she called to her daughter chattering away at the groom, relating Windstorm's life story, from the sounds of it. "There's MacCrea."

"'Scuse me. I've got to go." She was off like a shot, running to meet him. "Did you collect your winnings?" she called before she even reached him.

"I sure did." He fanned the bills for her to see.

"Wow! Look at how much money Mac won, Mommy!"

"It's a lot, isn't it?" Abbie said as Eden skipped ahead of MacCrea to rejoin her. "Did you tell him our news?"

"What news?" Eden stared at her with a blank frown.

Bending down, she whispered in her ear. "Windstorm set a track record for Arabians."

"Oh, yes!" She turned to MacCrea, her eyes bright with excitement. "Windstorm set a record."

"He had the fastest time for an Arabian at the mile here at this track," Abbie explained, feeling again that little surge of pride over her stallion's accomplishment.

"That's great. Now we have three things to celebrate: Windstorm's time and my winnings."

"What's the third thing?" Eden frowned.

"I bought the Jeffords' property—house, acreage, and all." He looked at Abbie when he answered her. "Just about ten miles from the farm."

"I know the place," she said, even though she'd only seen it from the road.

"Maybe you can come by sometime and see it," MacCrea suggested, but Abbie wasn't about to commit herself to that. She didn't want to see where he ate or. . . where he slept. At her silence, MacCrea shifted his attention back to Eden. "How do you think we should go about this celebrating we have to do?"

"Well. . ." She pressed her lips together, considering the problem seriously. "We could all go get a bi-i-ig hot-fudge sundae and. . . maybe look at some toys. And we could go to a movie," she concluded proudly.

"Sounds good to me." MacCrea smiled faintly.

"Count me out. You two go ahead. Ben and I have to stay here and see to Windstorm." She always begged off so MacCrea could spend time alone with Eden.

"But I want you to come with us," Eden declared insistently. "It won't be the same if you don't."