Heiress (67 page)

Rachel led the way as they approached the box. She spied Ross immediately, the cowboy hat on his head distinctly setting him apart from the crowd. He had on a pair of dark glasses, partly to shade his eyes from the bright July sunlight and partly to avoid being recognized by the large holiday crowd at the racetrack.

"Lane, look who's here." But she didn't wait for his reply, quickening her steps to hurry to Ross. "This is a surprise," she declared, briefly going into his arms and kissing the air near his cheek. "I thought you weren't going to be able to make it. You told me last week that you had a performance scheduled on the Fourth."

"I do," Ross said, speaking up for Lane's benefit. "I promised Willie I'd be on hand to sing at his annual picnic. If I leave right after the race, I can just make it. I told my pilot to have the plane fueled and the engines running so we could take off as soon as I got to the airport." As Lane joined them in the box, Rachel moved to the side to allow Ross to shake hands with him. "Hello, Lane. It's good to see you again. With your busy schedule, I wasn't sure you'd be here today either."

"There was no chance of that, Ross. I've always made it a point to be with Rachel at events that are important to her."

Startled by his statement, Rachel looked at him—startled because it was true. Even though Lane hadn't been at every single horse show or race, he had been present for the major ones despite his busy schedule. Until this very moment, she hadn't realized that.

Minutes later, the horses paraded onto the track, its condition officially listed as fast. Immediately she gave them her undivided attention, excluding every other thought from her mind.

As the horses were led into the starting gate, Rachel lifted the binoculars to watch the proceedings, using them as well to hide the mounting tension that stretched her nerves thin. Sirocco had to win this race. Right now, it was more important to her than winning the Nationals this fall.

When the gates sprang open to the loud clanging of bells, it felt as if her heart leaped into her throat and stayed there, a strangling ball of apprehension. The eleven horses appeared to explode as one out of the gates and ran stride for stride for several yards. Then she saw Sirocco surge forward to take the lead, a black-tipped flame racing in front of the field.

A chestnut came up to challenge on the outside. Rachel scanned the rest of the field, finally locating Abbie's horse, running fifth or sixth position. Someone had told her that he usually came off the pace.

The other nine horses in the field didn't really mean anything to her. In her mind, this race was between Sirocco and Windstorm. As the horses rounded the first turn and headed down the backstretch with Sirocco still running in front, Rachel briefly lowered her glasses and stole a glance at Abbie, standing in a nearby owner's box. Even at a distance, she looked animated and excited, tense with emotion. Rachel felt like a statue by comparison, unable to let her feelings show. She wanted to yell and cheer, too, but she couldn't.

Instead she trained the binoculars on the blood-bay stallion leading the field by three lengths. But that distance was quickly shortened as other horses made their move on him coming out of the turn for home. The silver-white horse along the rail charged closer with every stride. But Sirocco's jockey didn't see him. He was concentrating on the black bay charging up on the outside to challenge Sirocco.

Rachel wanted to yell a warning to the jockey but she couldn't seem to open her mouth. The white stallion got a nose in front, but Sirocco came right back to race neck and neck with him, muscles bulging and straining, hooves pounding and digging the hard dirt.

An eighth of a mile from the finish line, Sirocco's jockey went to the whip. The bay stallion seemed to respond with a fresh burst of speed, but he couldn't shake off his challenger. The white stallion stayed right with him. Suddenly Sirocco appeared to stumble. The jockey tried to pull him up, but in the next stride, he fell, tumbling headfirst onto the track, directly in the path of the onrushing field.

"No!" Rachel screamed, trying to deny what her eyes were seeing as she struggled free from the pair of hands that gripped her. "Not Sirocco! No!"

Abbie never saw Windstorm cross the finish line in front. She felt numb with shock, her gaze riveted in horror on the fallen horse and rider, both lying motionless in the wake of the field. A hush had fallen over the crowd as several track personnel rushed to the downed victims.

"What happened, Mommy? Why isn't that horse getting up? Is he hurt?"

Hearing the fearful uncertainty in her voice, Abbie held Eden closer. "I'm afraid so, honey."

"Will he be all right?"

"I don't know." The jockey was attempting to get up despite the efforts of two men to make him lie still and wait for the ambulance speeding onto the track. But there was no discernible movement from the stallion. Abbie looked over at Rachel's box. Sirocco wasn't even her horse, but she could feel the pain, remembering her own terrible ordeal when River Breeze lay hurt.

Lane was at Rachel's side, an arm around her for support, as he cleared a path for them through the gawking crowd. Distantly Abbie could hear Rachel's hysterical, sobbing cries, "I've got to go to him. Please. I've got to go to him."

"Oh, God." Abbie turned away from the sight. She felt MacCrea's hand touch her shoulder.

"They'll want you down in the winner's circle for the cup presentation."

"I can't." She shook her head from side to side, protesting the need for her to be there. She'd won. At last she'd beaten Rachel. But she just felt sick inside.

"You have to. Windstorm won. The accident doesn't change that." Taking her by the elbow, MacCrea steered her out of the box toward the winner's circle below. Abbie knew he was right, but that didn't make it any easier.

Outside the winner's circle, she stopped, ignoring the attempts of a track steward to hustle her inside. The enclosure gave her a full view of the activity on the track. She could see the bay stallion lying in the dirt, the sunlight firing his red coat. The track veterinarian crouched beside the horse and several others stood around him. As two paramedics helped the jockey into the ambulance, Lane and Rachel walked onto the track.

"MacCrea, please. I have to know how serious it is. Will you go see?"

He regarded her solemnly for an instant. "Of course."

As MacCrea walked away, Abbie reluctantly allowed herself to be ushered into the winner's circle along with Ben and Eden. When Windstorm came prancing in, tugging at the groom's lead, lathered but still eager, she felt a rush of pride. She had bred and raised this stallion, a winner on the racetrack and in the show ring. Tearfully she hugged the Arabian stallion.

"We won, fair and square." The jockey was all smiles as he glanced down at her. "We were going past him before he went down."

"What happened? Do you know?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I heard a pop. . . like a bone snapping. He was a game horse, but we woulda won anyway. I asked Storm for more and he had it to give. The bay only had heart left."

"Like a bone snapping": the phrase echoed and reechoed in her mind. She tried to remind herself that a broken bone didn't necessarily mean the end of Sirocco. Look at River Breeze. "What about the jockey?"

"Joe, one of the stewards, said it looked like he broke his shoulder and maybe got a concussion out of it. Angel's tough. He'll be all right. I've seen worse spills."

A track official came over. "We're ready to make the presentation now, Mrs. Hix, if you'll just step over here."

As Abbie turned to follow him, the jockey repeated his earlier statement. "We woulda won anyway."

Numbly she accepted the congratulations from the race's sponsor, along with the silver trophy cup and the winner's share of the purse, and posed for the obligatory photograph, but she couldn't smile for the camera—not when, beyond it, she could see Rachel on the track, kneeling beside her stallion, mindless of the white linen suit she wore.

At last it was over. Abbie paused outside the winner's circle, watching as the jockey dismounted and pulled off the saddle to weigh in officially. A groom spread a blue blanket over Windstorm's lathered back and led him away.

"Aren't we going with Windstorm back to the barn, Mommy?" Eden frowned up at her, puzzled by this change in their routine and the strange undercurrents in the air.

"Not now. I want to wait for MacCrea." He was walking back across the track toward them now. She had to know what he'd found out.

"How come you look so sad, Mommy? Aren't you happy that Windstorm won?"

Sighing, Abbie tried to come up with an answer. "I am happy that he won, but I'm also sorry the other horse got hurt." But it wasn't just any horse. Sirocco was Rachel's stallion. Abbie didn't know how to explain to Eden why that was so significant. "Wait here with Ben while I go talk to MacCrea. . ."

Ignoring Eden's protest that she wanted to come, too, Abbie walked forward to meet MacCrea. She searched his face for some clue as to the seriousness of Sirocco's injuries, but his expression showed her nothing. Unconsciously she tightened her hold on the silver trophy cradled in her arm as a truck pulled to a stop near the fallen horse, its bulk blocking the stallion from her sight.

"How bad is it?" she asked.

But MacCrea didn't answer until he was directly in front of her. When he gently gripped her shoulders, Abbie tried to brace herself mentally. "He's dead, Abbie. He broke his neck in the fall."

"No." It came out in one long, painful breath. "Oh, God, no." She sagged against him, moving her head from side to side, trying to deny it. "It can't be true. It can't."

"It is. I'm sorry."

"Why?" she cried, doubling her hand into a fist. "Why did it have to happen?"

But there were no answers to the questions she asked. Again, her gaze was drawn to the track as she pushed away from MacCrea. This time she understood the reason for the truck. It was there to haul away the dead stallion. Soon the horses in the next race would parade onto the track and everyone would be hurrying to place their bets, the tragedy of this race temporarily forgotten. But Abbie knew she would never forget that moment when Sirocco went down, or the tangle of legs as the onrushing horses struggled to jump the obstacle suddenly in their path, the stumbling, the near collisions, the wild swervings, and then, in the settling dust, Sirocco lying there, motionless.

Through a misting of tears, she saw Rachel, slowly walking her way, supported by Lane, her usually composed features wracked by grief. As she moved to intercept Rachel, MacCrea stopped her.

"Where are you going?"

"Rachel. . . I have to talk to her. I never wanted this to happen."

"Abbie, no. It's better if you don't."

But she wouldn't listen to him, pulling away to walk to them. Lane saw her first hand paused, but Rachel stared at her without appearing to see her at all.

"Rachel, I. . . just wanted you to know that. . . I'm sorry." The words sounded so inadequate when she said them. "I'm truly sorry." But repeating them didn't seem to give them more weight.

Yet they must have penetrated, as Rachel looked at her with bitter loathing. "Why should you be sorry? Your horse won the race. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"I wanted him to win, yes, but. . . not this way." But the cup was there in her arms, evidence of Windstorm's victory.

"Why not?" Rachel challenged, her voice threatening to break. "Didn't you set out to prove that your stallion was better than mine? You've done it, so just go away and leave me alone. Sirocco's dead. Do you hear? He's dead. He's dead." She sobbed wildly and collapsed against Lane, hysterical now with grief.

This time when Abbie felt MacCrea's hand on her arm, she let him lead her away without a protest. "It's my fault," she said miserably.

"It was an accident, Abbie, an accident. It could have happened to any horse in the field, including Windstorm. I'm not going to let you blame yourself for it."

"But it was my fault. She would never have raced Sirocco if I hadn't goaded her into it. Remember that night right after Sirocco won at Scottsdale, when I told her that he'd won a beauty contest, that he didn't have the conformation to race? My God. . . I even told her he'd break down if she did race him. I forced her into this."

"She made her own decision. She knew the risk she was taking and raced him anyway. You can't hold yourself responsible for that."

But Abbie knew better.

Chapter 45

The morning breeze skipped across the swimming pool, then paused to riffle the pages of the purchase agreement on Lane's lap and scurried on. Automatically, Lane smoothed the pages flat as he continued to stare at the slight figure in the distance, huddled beside the freshly turned earth.

His half-lensed reading glasses sat on the umbrellaed poolside table next to him. He had yet to read the first page of the document on his lap. Not that he really needed to. He'd already gone over the agreement thoroughly the day before. He'd merely intended to look it over once more before MacCrea arrived this afternoon for the signing. But his concern for Rachel made it next to impossible to concentrate on business matters for any length of time.

"Watch me, Daddy!" Alex shouted.

With difficulty, he forced his attention away from Rachel and turned in time to see his son cannonball into the pool with a mighty splash that sprayed water far onto the deck. He waited until he saw Alex surface and dog-paddle vigorously toward the ladder.

"That's enough diving for today, Alex," he called to him. "You aren't that good a swimmer yet." If dog-paddling could be called swimming. "Get your inner tube and go play in the shallow end of the pool."

When Lane saw his young son trotting to the opposite side, he let his attention revert back to Rachel. She hadn't moved from her silent vigil by the grave.

"Excuse me, Mr. Canfield." Maria, the housemaid, approached his chair, the thick rubber soles of her white work shoes making almost no sound as she crossed the deck. "Mr. Tibbs is here." She partially turned to indicate the man following her dressed in new jeans and a pearl-snap western shirt.