Beauty and the Brit (30 page)

There’d been two beginner novice falls, but the kids landed like little bouncing balls. One horse had lost its rider and run off in preliminary, but the rider’s pride was far more wounded than her bum. And three dozen drops of rain. Total success.

Andy scratched his head. “I was thinking—”

A gunshot-like crash and the sickening screech of metal on metal cut him off and sent everyone under the canopy into shocked silence. David’s heart catapulted into his throat.

“What the hell was that?” Andy’s question rang through the stunned crowd, and suddenly everyone shouted at once.

David bolted from his chair, and Rio knocked a can of pop over in her scramble to get out of her seat. Kate stared in alarm, but he didn’t see whether she followed the near-stampede around the arena and toward the main drive. When they’d wound their way through two rows of cars parked alongside the barn, the source of the crash greeted them like a bad horror film. David slammed to a halt as if he’d hit an electric fence.

“Oh my! Oh no!” Rio covered her mouth.

The back end of a red Dodge pickup truck had punched clear through a corner of the barn. The truck bed had accordioned into disturbing pleats. Moaning sobs emanated from the cab.

Chase made the first move, dashing to the door of the truck. Rio ripped past David, but he caught her arm and dragged her back close to him. “Don’t rush in. Let Chase make sure whoever’s in there is all right.”

“Tully,” she whispered, her voice strangled. “That’s his corner of the barn.”

“He’s fine.” David made the promise without a clue as to whether it was true. “Come on, let’s see where they went through. The tack room is there, too, maybe that buffered the stalls. Kate, Mom, keep everyone back.”

It never dawned on him to leave Rio behind. She felt like a natural extension of him these days. By the time they drew even with the truck, Chase had the driver, a young woman perhaps twenty, out of the cab. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but Chase gave them a thumbs-up.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” she cried, when she caught sight of David.

“If you’re okay, that’s what matters.” He peered more closely at her; she wasn’t one of his students or boarders. “You are all right?”

“I’ll check her out,” Chase said. “You go see if anything needs to be done inside.”

David smiled wanly at the girl, too numb to be annoyed with her. He couldn’t see past the end of the truck, so he trotted to the barn door and stared down the aisle. Even from the front he could see debris strewn across the concrete floor at the back. Snorting and restless stomping greeted him, along with a handful of whinnies as he strode into the dimmed interior and flipped on the lights.

Rio sprinted down the aisle, skirting the mess on the floor, disappearing into Tully’s stall. When David reached her, she had her hands roaming over the big horse’s body. “He’s okay. He’s fine.”

His pulse eased, and he smiled through his tension. How could he not fall for a girl who went after the horse before worrying about the building? He let her tend to Tully while he studied the detritus pushed out from the accident site. Sure enough, the truck had hit between the smaller of his two tack rooms and an empty stall he’d just Friday night filled with two dozen hay bales to make it easier to feed the new horses during the show weekend. The inside tack room door stood blown open, bits of insulation and shards of metal siding thick on the floor. Leather, broken tack boxes, and crushed saddles looked like bombing victims. When he didn’t think his stomach could sink any lower, he noticed the water.

A waterline ran near ground level between the outer metal sheeting and inner wooden walls. The pipe had been sheared apart and water was rising in the corner next to the hay. At least three saddles lay in the growing puddle, and brushes, lead ropes, and bridle parts were starting to float.

“Aw no.” He groaned. “Andy, we have to—”

“I’m on the shut off,” he called and disappeared out the door.

David shot forward to scoop up soggy equipment as best he could. He caught sight of three more saddles beneath the truck, at least one of them flattened and pinned beneath a back tire.

Rio entered behind him. “Oh David. This is terrible.”

“I need to get as much off the floor as I can. There are saddles under the truck.”

She hit her knees without a word and seconds later wriggled her lithe body partway under the Dodge, arm extended. She dragged out a dripping Pessoa jumping saddle. David cringed.

Together they rescued ten saddles, at least that many bridles, and countless pieces of grooming equipment, along with two pairs of tall boots and a muddy pair of breeches. When everything had been removed to a dry section of the aisle, David finally stopped and took a good look at Rio. Everything from hair to borrowed boots dripped water. Her front was mud-streaked and plastered to her chest. All he could do was stare like a boy at his first wet T-shirt contest. A semi-hysterical laugh broke free.

“All this disaster, and the only thing I can look at are your breasts. Do you want to punch me now or lecture me later?”

“You are pretty shallow.” She smiled, stepped forward to put her hands on his cheeks, and kissed him. “I’m sorry. This is awful.”

“I’m not sure yet how awful. All the tack will need to be thoroughly cleaned fairly quickly so the leather doesn’t mildew or get cracked. And who knows if the saddles have broken trees or other issues.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“I expect it will.”

But this felt like one blow too many. He’d told her he was one disaster from disaster. It had come sooner than he’d expected. He had insurance, but it covered the building, not necessarily equipment for those not insured. He wasn’t at fault, but he had two or three very particular clients, and he could well imagine one of them finding a way to hold him responsible.

“David.” Her voice reached in through his fog. “Nobody is dead. This isn’t a disaster.”

“Okay. If you say so.”

“Come on.” She took his hand and tugged on it gently. “We’ll start fixing it.”

T
HREE HOURS LATER,
exhausted and numb, David dropped his head against the back of his sofa. For the first time since the accident, Rio was nowhere to be seen. Kate sat beside him while his mother buttressed her arguments for calling his father.

“You know he’ll help you, David. Your father, for all his faults, is a phenomenal problem solver. Look how he turned around that barn in Kent back in the nineties. Look how he made his way to the top of his sport from nothing.”

“He made it to the top by catering to sponsors, and he turns barns around by dictating stricter rules than Mussolini.”

He had trouble keeping his voice calm. Of course his mother would invoke the name of the perfect and failure-less Colin Pitts-Matherson. She might have divorced him, but that was only because she was smart, not because she didn’t still admire him with every fiber of her female self. Everyone admired his father. Hell, he admired his father. He just couldn’t stand the man.

“Oh David.” Kate’s voice, reasonable and modulated, grated. “Don’t be so dismissive of him. I remember Colin as quite a gentleman. He won’t turn his back on you if you’re in this much trouble.”

He wanted to shout that he was not in trouble. Unfortunately, after the fallout from tonight, both she and his mother knew that he was.

“He won’t turn his back, but his help will come with a steep price. It always does. I didn’t use Mussolini’s name just to be funny. It’ll be just like invading Ethiopia—his way or the highway.”

“Just talk to him, darling.” His mother came forward and sat on his other side. Instantly claustrophobia engulfed him.

“I am not calling my father.”

Both women stared at him, as if they could will him into being reasonable. Kate rested her hand on his shoulder and rubbed soothingly. He shrugged from the touch but was too tired to physically move away.

“All right,” his mother said at last. “You don’t have to call him. I just want you to know you have family on your side.”

“Thank you. But you have to let me figure this out my way.”

“David?”

He looked up. Kate’s hand stilled on his shoulder and turned into an icy weight as Rio slowly took the last step into the room, a sheet of paper in her hand, a sweet little wrinkle forming between her brows.

“Rio.” He stood, relieved to see her. Relieved to move from Kate’s touch. “How are you?”

“I’m . . . fine.” The crease in her forehead deepened. “Why?”

“You got awfully down and dirty tonight. I never properly thanked you.”

“No need to. We all did our parts. Stella and Kate kept the party going so everyone had a good time. That’s not something I’d have been good at. Down and dirty is much easier for me.”

“I’m grateful David had some help.” Kate stood and joined him again. “I’m not good at
all
with down and dirty.”

The first tension he’d ever felt between the two women crackled through the air. He swallowed, ignored it, and held out his hand. “What have you got?”

She handed him the sheet of paper. “Yesterday, while you were busy with the show, I did a bunch of research. This is all new to me, and I don’t actually know what I’m doing. So I hope you won’t mind that I exchanged a couple of e-mails with a hay grower in Watertown, South Dakota. This came back just a little while ago.”

He stared at the paper, almost unable to believe what he was reading.

“He’s selling grass hay for three-fifty a bale? Alfalfa mix for five seventy-five?”

“I asked him why so inexpensive. He said he cuts three hundred acres and they had a great year. Just two hundred miles away from here they had much different weather.”

“You . . . found him? How in the world?”

“I followed a few different trails, people who mentioned his name. Did you know there are online hay forums?” She grinned. “You can find anything on the Internet.”

David read further. “He’s delivering a semi flatbed full of hay to the western suburbs on Tuesday. He’ll come here for an extra fifty cents a bale? Good lord, what is he selling? It has to be half moldy or last year’s.”

“Says he guarantees no mold. If you want to call him, he’ll answer questions. If you aren’t interested, you aren’t obligated.”

He was almost as stunned as when he’d first seen the smashed barn. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“It’s not hard to look. I won’t be the least offended if this isn’t what you need.”

“It sounds too good to be true.”

“And things like that usually are, right?” Her blue eyes shone a little impishly. “But you need a little bit of luck tonight—maybe this is it. Oh, read the last line.”

“‘I’m willing to take two payments.’” He looked up. “Now I know this isn’t real. No hay guy is going to do that.”

“All you can do is call and find out, I guess.”

He did a quick calculation. This could save him hundreds. And the fact that Rio had done it on her own was the most astonishing. It was such a relief that he picked her up in front of his mother and Kate and spun her around. Only with effort did he keep from kissing her.

“This is extraordinary. Thank you.”

“Thank me if it turns out to be legit.” Her skin flushed to compliment her hair.

“Oh, you’d better believe I will.”

“You’re so resourceful.” Kate materialized beside him as he set Rio on the ground. “Have you run a business before?”

“No.” Rio took a step back from Kate, who topped her height by four inches. “But I’ve spent my life looking for bargains.”

“My goodness.” Kate then turned a beatific smile on him. David took his own half step back. “Do remember, love, that I, too, have means to help you if you need it. Don’t settle for poor quality.”

“Or . . .” Rio straightened. “He can make his own decisions. He can economize and scrabble like a normal person.”

“Scrabbling leaves very little time for running a successful business,” Kate replied, her voice smooth as steel. “Connections are much more efficient.”

“I’m guessing we’ll be doing a little bit of both,” he said.

Rio stared at him, the light in her eyes sharpening, impaling him with some sort of new annoyance. She waited, for what he had no idea. He waited for her to explain. She was right about him needing to figure out his way through this, but he’d cut where he could cut and would cut more if he could find places to do it. Meanwhile, Kate was right, too. He needed to find his connections.

“I wouldn’t know about the kind of connections you mean,” Rio said at last, turning her laser glare on Kate. “So it’s a good thing that finding and having money is your area of expertise.
He
should be the grateful one, now that he has your help.”

She shocked him by spinning away from them all and heading for the kitchen. Moments later the back door opened and closed.

He had no idea what in God’s name he’d done. One minute she’d been blushing in his arms, the next shooting him death-ray eyes.

“She’ll be fine,” Kate said. “She’s just naïve.”

“Kate, leave her alone. She’s only trying to help.”

He looked to his mother for support, but she was staring toward the kitchen, her face set in a scowl.

Chapter Twenty-Three

R
IO SEETHED ALL
the way into the barn, past the tarp-covered hole in the tack stall wall and to Tully’s stall beside it where the big horse munched his hay in happy equine oblivion. She stared at him through the bars until he snorted and shuffled to her, hoping for some sort of treat he couldn’t find in his feed bucket. She released her irritation with a heavy sigh.

“Sorry, boy. I forgot an apple, and the feed room’s kind of a mess.”

Talking to him calmed her. Equine magic still astounded her even though she’d known her whole life she wanted to be around horses. The fact that the reality of something actually matched the fantasy seemed too good to be true.

Like the hay she’d found for David. Ruefully she kicked Tully’s scattered hay into a neat pile fuming over Kate’s words. The way moneyed people problem-solved was beyond Rio’s understanding. She’d seen David’s books now, and even after the briefest of looks she knew there were places he could cut further. Why would he, or anybody, think tossing more money into the hole would help?