Heiress (55 page)

"Ross, I want to see you again, too. But, with Lane here, that will be impossible. And you have that television special to tape and all your other commitments to keep. It's not going to be as easy for us to meet after tonight."

"You could always leave Lane and come with me." He tried to draw her into his embrace, but Rachel flattened her hands against his chest to keep some distance between them.

"I want to be with you, Ross. I need you, more than you'll ever know. But, if you really love me, don't ask me to do that. I can't, not now anyway. It's too soon. There are too many other things to consider. I'm not even sure if I know this is right—for either of us."

"If I love you and you love me, it has to be right."

"You don't understand." She shook her head. "Once I thought I loved Lane, too. I want to be sure this time."

"Darling. . ." He started to argue, then paused and sighed heavily. "All right, I won't rush you, but it isn't going to be easy. Because I won't be happy until you're with me every day and every night. I know I'm not as rich as your husband is, but I'm not poor by any means, not anymore. I promise you you'll have everything you've ever wanted. Just name it and it's yours."

"I don't want anything." She didn't understand why every man thought he had to buy her love with expensive presents.

Another twenty minutes passed before Rachel was finally able to persuade Ross to get dressed and leave and she had time alone to think. As she lay awake, she almost wished she'd never gotten involved with him. True, she had been happy, but she'd been happy other times, too, and it had never lasted. Why hadn't she remembered that sooner?

Chapter 37

Abbie's legs felt as if they were made out of Eden's Silly Putty. And if the flutterings in her stomach were caused by butterflies, then Abbie was certain they were the biggest butterflies in the whole world. She'd been nervous before, but never like this.

She shivered, but it was from nerves, not the cool desert air. For at least the tenth time, Abbie brushed an imaginary speck of dirt off Windstorm's white satin coat and checked his polished black hooves while she waited for the stallion class to be called.

"This is it, Ben," she said grimly, wishing she felt as calm as he looked standing there holding Eden in his arms. "Windstorm has to win. He just has to. I couldn't stand it if Rachel walked away with the championship."

"He'll win, Mommy." Eden leaned over and petted the stallion's neck. "I just know he will. He's the most beautiful horse ever."

"Beauty alone does not make a stallion great, child," Ben lectured sternly. "If Windstorm should win this title, what would it prove? That he has courage, stamina, heart? No. It is the racetrack and only the racetrack that would show his true worth. This class is no more than a beauty contest."

"I'm not going to argue." Abbie knew she had about as much chance of changing Ben's mind on that as she did of convincing a bulldog to let go once he'd clamped his jaws on something. "But if he wins here and we race him this summer, we can have both."

"I'll bet he can run faster than any horse in the world," Eden declared.

Abbie started to correct her daughter, then changed her mind. She didn't feel like explaining why a Thoroughbred could run faster than an Arabian. Over the years, Thoroughbreds had been selectively bred for speed, even though the lineage of every one of those horses traced directly back to three Arabian stallions. Arabians, too, were born to run, but their physical differences gave them an astounding ability to carry weight and amazing endurance. But trying to make a five-year-old understand that would take too long.

"Hadn't you two better go get your seats?" Abbie suggested, wanting a few minutes alone to settle her nerves, if she could, before the class was called. "You be good and stay with Ben. Promise?"

"I promise." Eden wrapped her arms around Abbie's neck and gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.

As she watched them leave, she realized that for the first time she was going head-to-head with Rachel, her stallion against Rachel's. She had to win. She couldn't lose to her again.

All around her, grooms feverishly brushed, combed, and polished their respective stallions whether they needed it or not, while the trainers jiggled lead ropes, swished their whips, or quieted a stallion already too fired up by the electric tension in the air. Alone, without a cadre of stable hands to assist her, Abbie smoothed the stallion's long forelock, arranging it to fall down the center of his forehead.

It felt as if her heart leaped into her throat when the call for the stallion class finally came. An eternity of seconds seemed to tick by before it was her turn to lead Windstorm into the arena. "Okay, fella," she whispered as she swung him in a tight circle to head for the in gate. "Show them who's the best."

"Heads up!" someone shouted as Abbie ran toward the arena gate, giving the stallion plenty of slack.

Windstorm bounded past her, a white flame of motion, neck tautly arched, mane and tail flying. As he charged into the arena ahead of her, Abbie knew their entrance looked to all the world as if he had bolted on her. But the lead never went taut as the stallion swung back to her and reared briefly on his hind legs.

When she heard the roar of appreciation from the crowd in the stands, Abbie smiled. "They're yours, Windstorm. Make 'em notice you." He trotted after her, floating over the arena floor as she moved to the outer perimeter of the oval ring. She knew they made an eye-catching pair—a sixteen-hand white stallion and a petite dark-haired woman. And she knew Windstorm loved the noise and attention of the crowd. The more they cheered, the more animated he became, firing up as only an Arabian could.

"Go get 'em, Abbie!" a man yelled to her as they passed his seat. Abbie stopped Windstorm a short distance from the next stallion to wait for the rest of the qualifiers to enter the arena. Officially, the judging didn't begin until the two-minute gate closed. She danced at the section of seats where Ben and Eden were supposed to be sitting. About ten rows up, a small arm waved wildly. Smiling, Abbie started to bring her attention back to Windstorm, but something—a movement or a sound from the seats to her right—distracted her.

With a sense of shock, she discovered MacCrea staring back at her. All the faces around him were a blur. His alone was distinct. What was he doing there? Why had he come back? Half turning in his seat, he looked in the general direction of Ben and Eden's seats. Abbie felt her heart knocking against her ribs.

At that instant, the man sitting beside MacCrea leaned over and claimed his attention. Abbie recognized that distinctive mane of white hair. Lane and Rachel were seated with him.

"The gate is closed," the announcer stated, his voice booming over the public-address system. "The judging of the stallion halter class will begin now. The judges ask that you space your horses along the rail and walk them, please."

On either side of her there was movement. Fighting the sudden attack of nerves, Abbie led an eager, dancing Windstorm in a snug circle, then walked him along the rail, letting him show off his leggy, smooth stride. The stallion was ready to get down to business, but she wasn't.

How many times had Ben told her not to look at the crowd? Don't pay any attention to them, he'd said. It's just you and your horse. Block everything else out. Don't worry about what the other horses are doing or how they're showing or whether the judges are watching you. Make him look his best at all times. Concentrate on the horse.

It began: the walking, the trotting, the posing with all four feet in picture-perfect position, tail up, ears pricked, neck stretched, first en masse, then singly. As always, the class seemed to go on forever, straining nerves and heightening tension.

At last the announcement came. "The judges have made their decisions. You may relax your horses while their scores are compiled."

Immediately Abbie stepped to the stallion's side and absently rubbed a white wither. Her legs were shaking and her stomach was all tied up in knots. Windstorm swung his head around to look at her as if to say, "Are you okay?" She wanted to bury her face against his neck and cry—with hope or relief, she wasn't sure which. Instead she stood there, trying to hide all the anxiety that came from not knowing the judges' result.

Almost unwillingly, she glanced down the line at Rachel's blood-bay stallion. The Arabian surveyed the crowded stands with absolute arrogance. She couldn't help noticing how confident the stallion's trainer looked. She felt better when she saw him nervously moisten his lips. Her own were dry as paper.

The minutes dragged by with agonizing slowness as Abbie and everyone else waited for the judges' scores to be tallied. When the announcer declared he had the results, the crowd noise fell to a murmur. Before he announced the Reserve Champion and Champion Stallion, he began naming the Top Ten Stallions, first explaining that the stallions placing in the top ten were all regarded as equal in status regardless of the order in which they were named.

Seven stallions were called, then eight, each followed by cheers and whistles from the crowd. And after each, Abbie held her breath, wanting the championship too desperately to settle for the honor of Top Ten Stallion.

"Next, number four fifty-seven, Windstorm!" Abbie froze as her number was called, everything inside her screaming no, her heart sinking to the pit of her stomach. "Shown by owner and trainer, Abbie Hix."

In a blur of tears, she led Windstorm out of the line, deaf to the applause and a few boos of disappointment. They had lost. Engulfed by a terrible sense of defeat, she didn't even remember the ribbon presentation and picture-taking ceremony. She didn't hear the Reserve Champion Stallion named. Nothing registered until the Champion Stallion was called.

"This year's Champion Stallion is number three fifty-eight, Sirocco!"

As the announcement was made, Windstorm bounded into the air, nearly jerking the lead out of Abbie's loose grasp. Instinctively she checked his forward motion, forcing the stallion to swing in an arc in front of her. With a raking toss of his head, Windstorm came to a stop, then trumpeted a challenge at the bay stallion trotting proudly in the spotlight, as if disputing the decision.

Her stallion's reaction was almost more than Abbie's nerves could take. As quickly as possible, Abbie exited the arena, unable to acknowledge the congratulations offered her. For some, Top Ten Stallion might be better than nothing, but not to her. . . never to her. All her life, she had lost to Rachel. She hated the taste it left in her mouth.

Blessedly, Abbie had a few minutes alone in the stall with Windstorm to regain her composure before Ben and Eden arrived. No matter how bitter the disappointment was to swallow, she couldn't let her young daughter see how upset she was over Windstorm's placing.

The hardest thing Abbie ever had to do was to look at the tears in Eden's blue eyes and smile. More than anything she wanted to cry with her daughter. "It's about time you two got here. We've been waiting for you."

"I don't care what anybody says. Windstorm is the best horse ever in the whole wide world." Eden's lower lip quivered.

"He's one of the best," Abbie stressed carefully. "And he has a ribbon to prove it. Come on. Help me pin it on his stall so everyone who walks by can see it." As she started to lift Eden out of Ben's arms, she met his glance. For a split second she faltered, knowing that he saw through her charade.

"Remember what I said."

She nodded. "I know. It proves nothing."

"There can be no question of the winner of a horse race. It is the horse what crosses the finish line first. In Poland, it is a stallion's record on the track and his foals that prove his worth as a sire. That is the way it should be here."

I know." Just as she knew that more and more Arabian horse breeders, including some of the big ones, were turning away from the horse-show arenas and to the racetracks to test the worth of their stock, as their counterparts in Europe and the Middle East had been doing for hundreds of years. Gathering Eden into her arms, she gave her the ribbon and helped her to hang it on the front of the stall. "What do you say we all go get something to eat?" she suggested, wiping the last traces of tears off Eden's cheeks.

"I'm not hungry," Eden said, still pouting.

"Not even for a hot-fudge sundae with whipped cream and cherries on top?" Abbie looked at her askance, doubting her daughter's sweet tooth could resist such a temptation.

"A whole one. . . just for me?"

"I think this celebration might call for a whole one."

"Didja hear that, Ben?" Eden turned excitedly to him. "I get to have one all to myself and I don't have to share it."

“It will take a very big girl to eat a whole sundae by herself.”

"But I'm getting bigger every day."

You certainly are," Abbie agreed and set Eden down. "And a big girl like you doesn't need to be carried."

As they left the barn to head for the parking lot, Eden skipped along beside Abbie, swinging her hand as if she didn't have a care in the world, the prospect of a treat banishing all sorrow. Abbie envied that ability to forget and put it all behind her. She'd been like that at Eden's age. Unfortunately she'd outgrown that too many years ago. A special treat couldn't make the hurt go away anymore.

With their path blocked by the crowd milling in front of the stallion barn, Abbie was forced to slow her pace. She paid little attention to the shrieks of joy and late congratulations being exchanged by those around her, intent only on keeping her small party together and not getting separated in the crowd. Suddenly she found herself face-to-face with Rachel.

After an initial look of surprise, Rachel's expression became serenely composed, mannequin-smooth and smug. "Are you leaving already?"

Abbie stiffened at the insinuation she was running off to lick her wounds, angered most of all because it was true. "Yes."

"We're holding a little celebration in the stallion barn. Would you care to join us?"

Abbie was tempted to accept the invitation just to aggravate Rachel, but she resisted the impulse, knowing that Rachel would love the chance to rub her nose in the defeat. "What are you celebrating? Winning a beauty contest?"