Almost Home (20 page)
"It would be better if you didn't."
"I have a stake in this, too, remember?"
"All right, but I'm leaving at four-thirty."
Her jaw dropped. "In the morning?"
"I want to catch the morning workout at six."
He smiled at her look of discomfort. "Too early for a city girl?"
She rose to the challenge in his eyes. "Not at
all."
He nodded, sliding out of the booth. "I'll take
you back to the hotel now. I want you to lock your door and don't open it, no
matter who comes knocking."
She got to her feet. "I'll be fine."
"I hope those won't be your famous last words."
Chapter
10
F
our-thirty in the morning
was too damn early
for anyone to be up,
Katherine decided grumpily as she drew her heavy red sweater around her
shoulders. It was still dark outside, the air cold and crisp, the streetlights
casting menacing shadows on the empty sidewalks.
She was thankful she'd dressed for comfort in heavy
blue jeans and tennis shoes along with a pink long-sleeve T-shirt under her red
sweater. She'd pulled her hair into a no-nonsense ponytail and only glossed her
lips with a bright pink lipstick. It wasn't her most glamorous outfit, but she
was more intent on fitting in than looking beautiful. Besides that, she simply
couldn't be bothered getting up a second earlier to fix her face. She yawned
again as Zach's truck pulled up in front of the hotel.
Zach kept the motor running as she walked down to the
truck and got in. "Mornin'," he sang out with the most cheerful smile
she'd ever seen on his face. Wearing his trademark black jeans and a burgundy
and gold jacket, he looked far too happy for this hour of the morning.
"Beautiful day, isn't it?" he said. "I
love this time right before dawn when the sun is creeping up over the horizon."
She looked at him through narrowed, irritated eyes.
You've got to be kidding. I don't see any sun."
"Uh-oh, I'm sensing that you're not a morning
person."
"Why would you say that?"
Zach pointed to a thermos on the seat next to him. "I
brought hot coffee guaranteed to give you a jump start."
She reached for the thermos as if it were a lifesaver
and poured some coffee into a mug. As she lifted it to her lips, she saw the
picture on the side of a cartoon figure sitting behind a desk stacked with
papers and the words, "Are we having fun yet?"
"No," she said.
"Huh?" he asked, as he drove down the
highway.
She held up the cup for him to see. "I'm not
having fun yet."
"Take a few more sips," he encouraged.
"I don't suppose you have a nice fluffy omelette
and some hash browns stashed away somewhere."
"Cereal bars in the glove compartment," he
said. "Will that help?"
"Barely, but I'll take it."
After drinking half a cup of coffee and downing a
rather grainy, far-too-healthy cereal bar, Katherine felt marginally better.
Zach turned on the radio, and she settled back in her
seat, content to listen to the early morning news. It seemed odd to hear
reports from around the country. In
she felt isolated and somewhat protected. Now, back on the highway, she began
to feel the way she'd felt on her drive into town, edgy and unsure of herself.
She just hoped their trip to
"Did my father bother you last night?" Zach
asked, as if he had read her mind.
"No."
"Mm-mm."
"That doesn't sound good." She sent him a quick
glance, but his hard profile was unreadable.
"It's a little too easy," Zach said. "He's
up to something."
"Maybe he decided to back off."
"We'll see." Zach
leaned over and turned up the radio as the local news broadcast its daily
pre-Derby Countdown update.
The announcer said, "One
of the most renowned trainers in the world, David Montgomery, announced today
that he has scratched Camelot's Court from the
he showed in the Arkansas Derby. And now on to other news…"
Zach switched off the
radio.
"Is that good or bad
news?" Katherine asked.
"Doesn't matter.
Camelot's Court didn't have a chance."
"Is it hard to get
into the
They only take so many horses, right?"
"The horse has to have
earned a certain amount of prize money in the past year and have some key wins
in stake races."
"And Rogue has done
well?"
"Very well," he
said, flashing her a proud smile. "He's won three tough stakes races and
placed or showed in five others. So far, he's won more than three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars."
She raised an eyebrow in surprise. "No kidding? I
had no idea."
"Horse racing is big business."
"What do you get if you win the
"The purse is a million dollars."
"Wow! No wonder you want it so bad."
"It's not for the money," he said quietly. "I
just want to win the race."
And she believed him, because if Zach had ever been
motivated by money, he wouldn't have walked away from his father's moneymaking
schemes. He wouldn't have sunk every dime into a horse that might win or come
in last. No, Zach wanted the win for personal reasons. He wanted to prove he
could win without cheating. He wanted to prove he wasn't his father. She just
hoped his horse could run like the wind. Or Zach would be running for the rest
of his life.
As they neared
she sat up straighter in her seat. When she'd flown into the city the week
before, she hadn't seen much more than the airport and the roads leading out of
town.
Zach smiled at her excitement. "Missing the big
city?"
"No. But I didn't see much of
"It's a nice city. It's got pretty much
everything, the
home of the famous Louisville Slugger—"
"The what?"
"It's a baseball bat, Kat."
"Oh."
"I guess you know as much about baseball as you
know about horses," he teased.
"Well, I do know a lot about mutual funds and
stock splits and foreign investments."
He raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like fun. What do
you do when you're not worshiping the almighty dollar?"
"I plant flowers."
"In your stepfather's acre of incredible gardens?"
"No. I have a garden on the roof of my condo
building."
"A condo? You live in a condo?" he asked in
disbelief.
"It's a very nice condo. It has two bedrooms."
"But you don't have any land, any yard?"
"What is this—twenty questions?" she asked
defensively. She adjusted her seat belt, feeling constricted by the belt, by
Zach's attitude, by her own wish that she hadn't settled for a condo when she'd
really wanted a little cottage with a garden and a porch swing. "A condo
is practical," she continued. "It's close to my work. It's efficient
and low maintenance, and perfect for my needs." It was also sterile and
lonely and impersonal, but she wasn't about to share that with Zach.
She wasn't going to tell him that the tar-and-gravel
roof got hotter than hell in the summer and her flowers could barely survive
the southern California heat, because then he'd only ask her why she was living
in a place where her flowers couldn't thrive, where she couldn't thrive. And she
didn't have an answer. At least not one she wanted to say out loud, because
that would mean admitting that she'd been following someone else's game plan
for far too long.
"Fine, whatever makes you happy," he said.
"Well, I am happy there, very happy."
"Great."
"It is great." She dared him to say anything
more, but Zach changed lanes and seemed to be more interested in the scenery
than in her.
After a few minutes of unsettled silence, Katherine
pulled out her notebook and flipped to an empty page.
Zach cast her a quick glance. "What are we
listing this morning?"
"I just wanted to review what we want to
accomplish today so we won't forget to ask something important."
"We only have one question. Did my father get a
vasectomy?"
"And what year did it take place?" she
added, checking off one of the questions she'd come up with the night before. "Plus
we should ask where it was done, if this woman knows, in case we need to check
records. And we might even ask if she knows where your father spent most of
1972 or at least the month when I might have been conceived. Then we should—"
"Kat?"
"What?" she asked, looking up from her list.
"Flexibility can give you an advantage." He
sent her a small, intimate smile that made her toes curl inside her tennis
shoes and made her heart flutter restlessly against her chest. Focusing on her
lists, on her priorities, had kept her from focusing on him, but now she'd gone
and done the unthinkable, made eye contact. And what eye contact. She had to
force herself to breathe.
"Besides, I'm not very good at following
directions," Zach said.
She was so lost in his eyes, she could barely follow
his words. Fortunately for her, he had to look back at the road and the
connection was broken. She took a deep breath, wondering how this one man could
have such an effect on her. She closed her notebook and set it back in her
purse. "Are we almost there?"
"Almost. I have to warn you that while Churchill
Downs is one of the prettiest tracks in the country, the surrounding
neighborhood is fairly run-down. Horse racing may be the sport of kings, but
only inside the gates."
Katherine nodded, glancing out the windows as he
turned off the highway. As he'd said, the neighborhoods deteriorated as they
got closer to the track, an urban sprawl of small houses and faded lawns that
reminded her of some parts of
Angeles
"If you like flowers, you should definitely stick
around to see the
Zach said, drawing her attention back to him.
"Why?"
"The
its own greenhouses, and the week before the
set up in the paddock and the infield. I think the winner's circle is made up
of something like eight hundred red and white begonias. I don't know the exact
number, but when you see the track on
"I wouldn't have thought you noticed anything but
the horses," she teased.
He tipped his head. "Well, the flowers I'm most
interested in are the roses that will be draped around Rogue's neck when he wins
the
"Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?"
"I know what I've got."
"Isn't the
"Only the big ones count."
"I've always admired people who go for broke. Like
those little gymnasts in the Olympics who train every second of every day for
years and years and then it's all over in one vault, one floor exercise, one
mistake, one moment of brilliance. I can't imagine investing myself in anything
like that."
"Can't you?" Zach asked. "Isn't that
what you're doing right now? You've set a pretty high bar in trying to find
your father. There's a good chance you won't make it over, but that hasn't
stopped you from trying. I'd say that takes some guts. I'm not sure what it
says about your brain, but folks think I'm crazy, too."