Native Silver (22 page)

“I don’t want to disturb you, but don’t forget that the Californio Days board breakfast is at eight.” Allison’s footsteps retreated down the hall and David reached for Shawnee again, but this time she was ready to fend him off.

Allison’s voice had brought it all back, all the pain and the talk about “bargains” and the inevitable suffering Granpa Jim was going to be facing. And all alone, too, if she didn’t get back before he woke up. And here she’d been….

Oh! She couldn’t believe what she’d done.
 

“No,” she told him firmly, rolling away and pulling on her sun suit and pulling up it’s long zipper at the same time. “I came to tell you how much I despise you, and I end up in your bed.”

Her glare seemed to be enough to stop him for the moment. He lay back watching her, his eyes unreadable. “You don’t despise me, Shawnee,” he said quietly. “You want to be in my bed as much as I want you here. Come back.”

She couldn’t look at him any longer. She rose from the bed and stood facing away from him, her stance wide and challenging. “You Santiagos, with your ‘bargains’ and your ‘deals’! You think you can buy the world.” She reached out a shaking hand to push her hair into a semblance of order. “Well, you can’t buy me with your counterfeit security for Granpa Jim.”

He closed his eyes and groaned. “You’ll reconsider after you’ve had time to think it over.”

She whirled and stared down at him, sadness edging out her anger. She’d just made love with this man—and she loved him. He knew that now. She had no place to hide.
 

“No, David. It won’t work. I wish it would. But it won’t.”

His eyes were unreadable but his mouth twisted in a slight smile. “You’ll be back. I’ll be waiting.”

“For what?” She threw open her arms in exasperation. “You’ve got Megan. What do you want me for?”

He shrugged. “Megan has nothing to do with this. She’s a different case entirely.”

The cold edge of truth cut deep. Megan was indeed different. She was the one he planned to marry. Shawnee was only a conquest to be won over, then discarded. How could she despise the man and love him so strongly at the same time?

She took a few steps towards the door. “I’m going now, and I’m never coming back.” She pulled the door open and turned to look back at him, “And I’m going to beat your sister at the horse-show, too.”

He didn’t move a muscle. After one long last look, she closed the door and started towards the stairs. They were all there as she came down, Megan and Allison and even Horst, all staring at her, their mouths hanging open. They could see where she’d come from, but none of them seemed to be able to believe it. She forced her chin up and was proud that she didn’t have any inclination to blush. She hated them all. She wouldn’t crawl before them. No one said a word and she walked through the hall like a queen, then continued out on to the long front porch and into her raggedy car.

“Good riddance,” she whispered as her car roared out through the gate. But there were tears in her eyes.

Her grandfather was still asleep when she got back. When he woke, she managed to concoct a credible story about government mapping to still his fears of what the surveying team was up to. But she knew that was only a stop gap measure. Each day that went by brought them closer to facing eviction.

She made the mistake of telling Lisa about David’s offer to put Granpa Jim on his own new ranch.

“How perfect!” Lisa had cried, not understanding at all.

Shawnee set her straight, and she had to admit Shawnee was probably right, that their grandfather wouldn’t go for it for a moment.

“We could move him while he’s asleep,” Lisa suggested impishly. “It would take him years to figure out what happened.”

Shawnee didn’t dignify that nonsense with a rebuttal. The foreman of the surveying team had warned her that work would begin in exactly three weeks. And Reid had finally convinced her that suing the Santiagos wouldn’t work. There was heartbreak ahead, and all she could offer Granpa Jim for consolation was a win in the horse-show. She trained harder and harder each day, determined to be the champion.

“We’ve got to prepare him,” Lisa would say, exasperated with her sister. If you won’t take David up on his offer, you’ll both have to move in with us. There’s no other way.”

“Not yet,” Shawnee answered. “Not until after the horse-show. It’s only one week away now. We can wait that long.”

David didn’t call. Not that she expected him to. Every thought of him brought an ache to her heart. How unfair to have fallen in love with the man she had to fight! The man who didn’t love her at all.

As the time before the show dwindled down, training gave way to exercising, keeping Miki fit, but rested. There was a trip to the farrier to have him shod with new shoes and to have special studs inserted for added traction. There was the trip to the vet for a health certificate. Luckily the man was an old friend of her father’s and though he detected the blindness, she swore him to secrecy and he managed to fill out form in a way that he didn’t have to lie to clear Miki for the competition.
 

And there was every bit of leather to oil and clean, and silver ornaments to polish.

Finally, Californio Days arrived. The celebration was a week long and run on the lines of a county fair. There were booths and rides and agricultural contests, as well as athletic contests and musical shows and, of course, the horse-show.

The competition was in the Western riding style and covered two days. On Saturday the riders would compete in classes in the show-ring, showing the judges and the crowd how nimbly and quickly each horse could pass the various obstacles. On Sunday came the trail ride where each horse was given four hours to complete a prescribed twenty-mile journey over difficult terrain, testing horse and rider for soundness, condition, and general horsemanship.

“Nervous?” Lisa asked as she and Granpa Jim helped with the last-minute preparations in the stall where Miki was assigned. All up and down the long building, other horses were going through the same ritual.

“What do you think?” Shawnee put a hand on her sister’s arm to let her feel how she was trembling.

“You’ve got hours to wait,” Granpa Jim said. “You need to get your mind off it. You two go on and watch the parade. I’ll stay here with this big fella.”

He was being remarkably bright and lucid. Shawnee thought it must be because of the horse-show. At last there was something in the present that interested him as much as the past.

She followed Lisa out to the curb of the road to watch the local talent stream by. The high-school band passed, then the Californio Days queen on her flower-strewn float, followed by the hot-rod club in their shiny machines. The mayor was in a flashy convertible, waving to the crowd, and then came the descendants of the early settlers in their Spanish regalia, with David leading the way, Allison and Petra close behind him, as well as other neighbors of early extraction.

She’d known she would see him if she came out to watch the parade. She should have stayed away. But something had drawn her here, and now that she’d come, she was glad.

David was dressed like the Spanish caballero she imagined him to be, with silver buttons down the seams of his trousers and a red-velvet waistcoat. He held his head so high and proud, he might have stepped out of another century. She watched him hungrily, unable to tear her gaze away.

Then he looked across the road and saw her, and something flashed in his eyes. For one breath-stopping moment, she thought he was going to ride by and swoop her up into his arms to carry her off with him. But then the moment was gone and he looked away. And her heart crumpled within her.

He rode on and her eyes were filled with tears. She wasn’t sure why. But at least there was one good thing to cling to. At least Megan wasn’t riding with the Santiagos. Not yet.

Time seemed to drag with excruciating slowness, and then finally the horse-show was begun with a flourish of trumpets and a short choral performance from the local Junior High School choir.

One after another the horses entered the ring, were examined by the judges, and then put through their paces. One after another, horses stumbled or balked, and Shawnee knew she and Miki had a very
good chance to do much better. Allison had drawn
an early time and Shawnee watched as she performed flawlessly.
 

That is what we have to beat,
she whispered to herself, steeling her determina
tion.

And finally it was her turn. The applause from
the crowd was only polite. Miki was a beautiful
horse, but not at all like the thoroughbreds they were used to. She turned Miki into the ring and
toward the spot where the judge had pointed out
for her to stop, and suddenly there was a loud crash
as a set of stacked barrels fell over. Miki jumped,
pulled away from Shawnee’s control and reared
high into the air with Shawnee holding on for dear
life.

She quickly got him under control again, but she
knew what had happened had looked very bad to
the judges. Loud noises were not part of the testing
and they would take that into account, but still, it
would stick in their minds.

“We’ll just have to make up for it,” she whis
pered, leaning low to talk to Miki. “We can do it.”

“Miss Shawnee Carrington riding Native Silver,” the
announcer said clearly, and the crowd clapped
again. Shawnee put what had happened behind her
and the two of them, horse and rider, went to work.

The judges put them through a whole array of
tests to check Miki’s willingness and training.
There were barrels to jump, obstacles to make their way through, complicated gates to open as though
they were riding the range and had to get through
the gate quickly and smoothly without letting other stock through.
 

At one point Shawnee was asked to drop the reins and walk away to see if Miki would
remain absolutely motionless. He did. At another, she demonstrated putting on a rain-slicker while
mounted. At every maneuver, Miki was rock
steady, depending on the signals she gave him through her hands, her knees, her voice, to guide
him through the minefields.

Elation filled her as she left the ring. She knew
they’d done well. “You’re a dream, you great big beautiful horse,” she whispered as she rubbed Miki’s neck. “I think we did it.”

They had to wait until all contestants had finished
, but shortly afterwards, the announce
ment came. “Shawnee Carrington, riding Native Silver, takes first place.” Allison was a close second, and
Petra was well back in the standings.

“You did it, you did it!” Lisa was jumping up and
down, Brad was grinning from ear to ear, and Granpa Jim was looking happy, but slightly stunned.

“She beat the Santiagos,” he kept repeating over and over, as though he just couldn’t believe it.

“I haven’t really beaten them yet,” she reminded
them all. “This is only the first day of competition.
The combined total will tell the tale.”

“You’ll do it,” Lisa crowed, forgetting how sure
she’d been that there was no chance. “You’re a winner, kid. We love you!”

The glow dimmed a bit when time went by and no
one from the Santiago family came to congratulate her. There was no reason why anyone should, but
she couldn’t help but wish
...
 

No, she wasn’t going
to do that anymore!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ABOVE ALL, HONOR

Shawnee wasn’t nearly as nervous the second day. Whether it was because of winning the day before, or something else, she wasn’t sure, but there was an excitement sizzling in her blood, a sense of elation that wouldn’t go away. She just might do it. She just might win the Cup. And if she could do that—if she could put that cup in her grandfather’s hands— they could live with all the rest.

She was alone in the stall, grooming Miki, when David came to visit. One minute she was murmuring soft encouragement to her animal, the next she looked up and there was David standing in the doorway.

She straightened, but for a long moment, neither of them spoke. He was no longer dressed as a caballero. His grey slacks had a modern crease and his blue shirt was open at the neck. He held a sheaf of white papers in his hand, but they were folded.

Her mind filled with memories of sound and taste and feelings of the lovemaking they’d shared before she managed to shut it off. She had to forget all that.
 

“I guess congratulations are in order,” he said at last.

She tried to smile. “Thank you.”

He took a step into the stall. “How do you assess your chances for today?”

She tilted her chin. “I hope to win. You know that.”

His eyes were so very large and so very dark. “Does it mean that much to you?” he asked searchingly. “Do you have to go out there?”

She frowned, not really sure what he was saying. “Of course,” she answered. “I have to win.”

His hands were clenched into fists, crumpling the paper he held. A pulse was throbbing at his temple. She stared at him, sensing that he was tormented by something but unable to understand what it could possibly be.

Finally, he said it. “I don’t want you to ride today,” he said simply.

Her jaw dropped at his audacity. “What?”

“I don’t want you to go out.” Miki nuzzled into his shoulder and he stroked the big horse’s head.

Shawnee was completely confused. Did he really think he could stop her from beating his sister this way?
 

“I’d like to see you stop me,” she challenged.

He shook his head, “I can easily stop you,” he said softly. “I’d rather you withdrew yourself.”