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Authors: Fern Michaels

Kentucky Sunrise (21 page)

BOOK: Kentucky Sunrise
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The land of numbered bank accounts.
Willow Bishop didn't look back.
10
Even though he was Asian, his appearance was as American as apple pie, with his blue jeans, Timberline boots, and Red Sox baseball cap. He said his name was Lee Liu. He grasped Nealy's hand and gave her a bone-crushing handshake.
“Welcome to Blue Diamond Farms, Lee. I'm Nealy Littletree, and this is my nephew, Jake Coleman.”
Everything about the slight young man was exuberant. “I never, ever, thought I would be standing on such hallowed ground, ma'am. It's an honor to be here, and I'd be more than honored to ride one of your fine horses. When I drove through those gates it was the most awesome feeling with those two bronze statues of Shufly and Flyby guarding the entrance. I feel like I'm making history, and all I'm doing is standing here. It's a real pleasure to finally meet you, ma'am. I've seen all your races. I bought tapes and studied them. If I had one wish, it would be to be half as good as you were.”
Nealy was so flattered she preened. “I appreciate the compliment, thank you. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication. Just ask Jake here.
“I'm glad you don't have a problem with staying here and getting to know Gadfly. No one rides my horses until they're comfortable with them and a two-minute ride in the Derby isn't going to do it. I don't like riding for hire. It just doesn't work for me. Jake showed me a few of your tapes and you're good with the horses. I like that.
“Jake's going to get you settled in. You'll be bunking in with him while you're here. Come down to the barn when you're ready, and I'll show you around.”
“This sure is a pretty place, ma'am. Do you ever wonder if Paradise is like this? I guess that sounds kind of corny,” the young man said.
“Not at all. I've always thought of it in those terms.” Nealy shielded her eyes to look across the vast expanse of bluegrass and white board fencing, then looked squarely at Jake. “I made my decision last night. You're going to ride Hifly in the Derby under one condition. You work your tail off from now till Derby week. I mean it, Jake. I want you and that horse to be one when you blast out of that gate. Now is the time to tell me if you have second thoughts. I think you're good enough, but you're the only one who really knows if you can do it. You have to feel it, live it, eat and sleep it. I want your answer by tomorrow morning.”
“I can give it to you right now, Aunt Nealy. Jeez, I can't wait to call Mom and Grandma Fanny.”
Nealy smiled. Was she ever that young, that enthusiastic? “As for you, Lee, you have one week to prove yourself. I've seen what you can do on tape, but I want to see what you can do with one of
my
horses. If you're ready in my opinion, then we're running two horses in the Derby, both of them from the same sire.”
Lee Liu's eyes danced in excitement. “Fair enough, ma' am.”
“Call me Nealy. Before this is over you'll be calling me a lot of things, and none of them will be flattering, but that's okay.”
In the barn, Cordell Lancer was hitching up his jeans over his bony hips, his eyes on Gadfly, who was trying to nose his pocket. “Do you see what this dang horse is doing, Nealy? You damn well went and spoiled him. All he wants is peppermints. Won't take an apple or a carrot anymore. No, sirree, this gentleman wants candy. Saw your new rider up there a bit ago. Whatcha think of him?”
Nealy slipped the big horse a mint. “He's got a lot of enthusiasm, that's for sure. You know I never make a rash decision. I have to think about it, stew about it, then fret on it. I think he's going to do just fine. This is all new to me, too, Cordell. Two horses in the Derby by the same sire is the stuff dreams are made of. The only downside is there will be one winner and one loser.”
“Assuming one or the other wins,” Cordell drawled. “They could both lose. You aren't the rider this time around. How old are you this year?”
Nealy bristled. “What does age have to do with anything? Are you telling me I should be put out to pasture?”
Cordell burst out laughing. “I wish you could see the look on your face right this minute. I calculate you to be around fifty-seven, give or take a year or so. Now I'm not saying that's
real
old, I'm just saying you're on the shady side of fifty and the sunny side of sixty. In my opinion, that's too old to be running a race like the Derby or the Preakness and the Belmont as well. Leave that to the young ones. Women's bones are different than men's bones. You could have that condition women get when they get to be a certain . . .”
“Enough!” Nealy roared. She was about to stalk away when she changed her mind and turned to Cordell. “For your information, I do not have
that condition
all women of a certain age get. Chew on that, Cordell Lancer! Furthermore, I could ride that Derby with my eyes closed and probably win it. I don't want to hear another word about my age. Do you hear me, Cordell?”
“I hear ya, Nealy. Testy today, aren't we?” He grinned.
Nealy flipped him the bird and left the barn. She headed for the stallion cemetery, where she always went when she needed to calm down and think.
It's quiet and peaceful here,
she thought when she sat down on one of the small ornate benches.
Overhead the branches rustled and whispered in the late-afternoon breeze. Before long it would be dark, and the day would end. Ever since Emmie's discharge from the Thornton rehab center and her decision to move in with her father, Nealy had been out of sorts. She hated the darkness, hated being alone. Yet she had always reveled in her aloneness. Even with people around her, she was alone. She'd never understood how that could be. It just was.
She closed her eyes and thought about the last meeting she'd had with Emmie's shrink, Dr. Ian Hunter. He'd gotten right in her face and told her she was responsible for Emmie's mental state. She knew she'd said a lot of things in her own defense, but she couldn't remember even one of them. She did remember running from his office, tears streaming down her cheeks. From that moment on she had refused any and all contact with the pyschiatrist. What in the name of God had Emmie told the man? When she finally calmed down enough to ask Emmie, her daughter's response had been, “I just told him the truth.”
The truth as Emmie saw it or the real truth? Were they mixed up in Emmie's mind or were they mixed up in her own mind as Dr. Hunter had implied?
Nealy started to shake. She dropped her head into her hands and bit down on her tongue so she wouldn't cry when her daughter's words thundered in her ears,
You forgot to love me along the way.
And then the crowning insult—
Nick feels the same way I do.
It must be true since Nick's phone calls were almost nonexistent these days. She had thought it was because of Hatch and his tirade about a case he was working on. Now she knew better.
Alone. Always alone.
The shadows in the cemetery were deepening. How easy it was to lose all sense of time in this place. Here, unlike the world outside this quiet place, things were neither black nor white, they just were. Beyond the low wall, a sharp line defined her life, and it was black or white. There were no gray shadings, no maybes, no what-ifs. It was. She wondered if she tried to explain her thoughts to anyone if they would understand. Probably not.
Fifty-seven!
It was a number.
In the barn, Nealy's mood changed instantly as she walked with Lee Liu and Jake up and down the breezeway. “And this big guy is Gadfly. He's the horse you'll be riding in the Derby if things work out. Let him get your scent. Talk to him, stroke his head. When you're finished talking, slip him this mint. Always keep them in your shirt pocket, but be stingy with them. They're a sweet reward for a job well done. He already knows this, so he'll be looking for them. Praise goes a long way with this horse. Later, Jake can fill you in on the story of Gadfly, who, by the way, is the biggest horse ever to come out of Blue Diamond Farms.
“This small baby is Hifly.” She waited to see if Lee's reaction would be the same as her own when she saw Hifly for the first time. It wasn't.
“He reminds me of John Henry,” Lee said. “He's got a good configuration. The question is, can he run?”
“No!” Jake said. Then he grinned, and said, “He flies! And I'm his pilot.” He fingered the gold wings in his pocket.
“Ah, I see. That has to mean he's very good.”
“Yes, he's very good,” Jake said.
“And Gadfly?”
“He's like greased lightning,” Nealy said. “In my opinion, he's as good as his daddy, and that says it all. I'm going to leave you two now and go up to the house. Hatch is due home any minute. I'll see you both bright and early in the morning.”
 
 
Nealy was sitting in the kitchen having her after-dinner coffee when Hatch walked through the kitchen door. She set her coffee cup down carefully and got up to greet him, not liking the grim set of his jaw or the cold look in his eyes. He barely grazed her cheek when he kissed her. He walked over to the coffeepot, poured a cup, then reached up into the cabinet for a bottle of bourbon. He poured generously into his cup. He drank it in two gulps, then fixed a second cup. He carried it to the table and sat down, his expression the same as it was when he walked through the door.
Nealy sat down opposite him. “Would you like some dinner, Hatch? You look awful. Tell me what's wrong.”
“I'm not hungry. Your son is what's wrong, Nealy. Willow went to visit him in Santa Fe. He didn't have the good sense to call the police. They're probably hauling his ass into jail as we speak. I had this gut feeling she was going to head for Nick. The minute I found out she walked out of the jail, I knew. I can't believe it, but, by God, that's what she did. No one saw her, no one tried to stop her. She had a good fifteen-minute head start before they knew she was gone. Nealy, she just up and walked away. What the hell was Nick thinking of?”
Nealy was so agitated, she spilled her coffee all over the table. Some of it dribbled onto Hatch's lap. She tried to mop it up with paper napkins. “I don't know, Hatch. His heart, I guess. Are you sure he didn't call the police? How do you know all this?”
“I told you, I had a gut feeling. I called one of the guys in the investigative firm we use and told him to watch Nick's house. I didn't want the kid getting into trouble, Nealy. I thought he had more damn sense. The whole thing is a big mess. The bottom line is, she's gone, and Nick is on the hook, unless he came to his senses and made the call later on. You need to give him a call, Nealy. For all I know his ass could be in jail.”
Nealy paced back and forth in the kitchen, wringing her hands. “This is terrible. I'm probably the last person he wants to talk to right now. I'll do it, I'll do it,” she said, reading the angry expression on her husband's face.
“You're his mother for God's sake.”
“Apparently, if you are to believe Emmie, I hold that title in name only. I'm calling him, Hatch. Just let me get my wits together.”
Hatch got up from the table and snagged a piece of celery from the cutting board. He chomped on it as he poured coffee into his cup for the third time. He tilted the bourbon bottle and poured. Nealy watched him out of the corner of her eye.
“Nick, it's Mom. I need to talk to you. Hatch just came back from Las Vegas and told me that Willow is on the run again. An investigator the firm uses says she visited you and that you didn't notify the police. Is that true, Nick? If it is true, you could be in big trouble. Hatch is here now. Do you want to talk to him?”
“No, I don't want to talk to Hatch. Why is it so easy for you to believe I would do something like that, Mom? Yeah, and why is Hatch so quick to believe I would break the law and damage the firm's image? You're both pissing me off here. Yes, Willow was here. She broke into my house in the middle of the night. She stayed till it was almost light, then she left. She asked me if I would give her a head start before I called the police. I told her I wouldn't call the police, but I did call them. If you want to stretch that hour into getaway time, then go ahead. I got up, took a shower, shaved, got dressed, drove to the police station, and filed a report. I did what I was supposed to do, so get off my back. And you can tell your husband to get the hell off my back, too. If you two are having sticky problems, don't lay them on me. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm going to hang up now before one of us says something we'll regret. Good-bye, Mom.”
Nealy turned to Hatch. “It appears you were a tad premature. Nick did go to the police station, and he did file a report. He wouldn't lie about something like that. He also said we're both, as in you and I, pissing him off. You're angry, Hatch, I can see that, but why are you taking it out on Nick and me? Clients burn their lawyers all the time. It goes with the job, doesn't it? It can't always be a hundred percent in your favor. It's called human error, being human, whatever. I'm starting to think you might be sorry you got mixed up with my family. Nobody forced you to take on Willow's case. I was grateful that you did, but when she ran away the first time, you could have called it quits and filed something with the courts. You didn't have to go back the second time.”
BOOK: Kentucky Sunrise
3.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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