Born Of The Bluegrass. Darlene Scalera

nose. “Such big ol’ beautiful creatures.” Her laughter was breathy, billowing the white cover. “But such big ol’ nasties.”

      Moving toward the pile and out of earshot, Dani muttered, “I suppose yours smell like mint julep.” She heard a low chuckle. Her body stiffened. When was she going to learn to be careful? She lifted her head, saw the man in the trainer’s office door, a ghost of a smile remaining on his face as he met her gaze, sent her a silver wink. Her body flinched, seized by surprise. The face she looked at was as familiar as her own.

      Reid Hamilton.

      She looked away as if a shadowing bill of a baseball cap would save her. She steadied herself on the shovel, feeling his scrutiny, her incredulity. Don’t let him come closer. If he came closer, touched her shoulder, spoke a familiar name, she would have to turn and look at him, the whites of her eyes signaling surrender.

      She kept her head turned. She needed no study of this man. She knew that face too well—the high forehead, the abrupt angle of eyebrows, the overall excess of dark charm.

      She heard him come near. She focused on a faraway point, her breathing shallow, soundless, willing her body solid again.

      “The man’s blind, darling,” he whispered in that soft Southern singsong. She felt his breath warm on her neck. Her head turned without permission. She saw the dark sheen of his crown as he bent over and picked up a cream-colored square from amid the straw and sprinkles of feed.

      He handed her the piece of stationery. “I believe this is yours?”

      She stared at the invitation in her hand. Saratoga Under the Stars—A Grand Gala. If he’d read the card, he would’ve known it no more belonged to her than the sun suddenly too hot all around her. Yet hadn’t it been a night such as that five years ago? Didn’t she still hear the men’s sighs, their features soft with the last of boyhood, their hearts not yet hardened by disappointment or disbelief? Couldn’t she still see the women’s answering smiles as they’d watched, waited, wrapped in taffeta or silk, their beauty the very beat of the ball. Even now, she saw a young woman, a fine gentleman meeting, dancing, daring to draw close like undeniable dreams.

      Dani closed her eyes, closed her heart. Who would think beyond these lowered lids such dreams were spun? Only she knew too well that desires rarely rely on reality. On the contrary, they seemed to delight in pairing the most unlikely alliances.

      She opened her eyes, raised her head and met the man’s silver gaze. She shook her head, held out the invitation to Cicely watching them several stalls over.

      Cicely stepped closer to look at the card. She unsnapped her purse and looked inside. “It must’ve fallen out when I got a tissue.” She eyed the invitation. “It was on the ground?”

      “Yes, Miss Fox.”

      Cicely’s hand reached out, then retreated. “Throw it away.” She tossed her head as she turned to her cousin and laughed lightly. “I think they’ll let me in, don’t you?”

      Her smile turned inviting as she shifted her gaze to the gray-eyed man. “We should all go together.”

      Dani looked up from the embossed square straight into the man’s silver study. His face wore new lines but still the skin stretched too tight over raw bones. The glints of light in his eyes were gone, leaving shadow. She wasn’t the only one who had suffered.

      She didn’t look away. It was too late. She couldn’t risk the naked movement. Her eyes ached. Her heart ached. She pushed back the cap from her head, freeing the brown hair beneath, freeing the man who had known her only one night. One night when she’d been a mystery unraveling. Red-haired and reckless. And he had not resisted.

      Now she turned her head, not the elegant toss of wellborn women, but a wrenching movement. She felt the fine hairs along her nape pulling, her skin straining beneath her chin where first it would begin to slacken. The movement was too abrupt, but she had no choice. If she stared at the man one moment longer, her eyes would lock as her heart had locked all those years ago.

      Cicely’s hand reached out again, not for the invitation but for the gray-eyed man. The linen-smooth palm beckoned. Dani felt the heat of the man’s gaze. She stared at Cicely’s offered hand as if those ivory fingers would rise and bless them all. Take it, take it, she urged. Her thoughts could have been words said aloud as the man moved toward Cicely, her hand slipping into the curve of his arm and pulling him close.

      “We’ll pop in, have a few drinks, then be on our way,” Cicely said as her escorts matched her steps. She snuggled closer between the two men.

      Reid didn’t hear the soprano chatter beside him. He was thinking of the woman behind him. At first, he’d only seen her bare profile, the check of her jaw, the muscles working in her throat. It was when she’d looked up, the slopes of her face becoming less neutral, the feminine more forceful, he’d thought he’d seen something else. Something familiar. He had smiled at her mumbled comment; inside he had mocked himself and his own foolish obsession.

      Still, she seemed familiar in a vague, indistinct way like an image not quite formed that nagged and tugged at odd hours. He might have even looked over his shoulder once more if he hadn’t seen the lank length of her tarnished hair. The woman he thought of, the woman he always thought of had hair violent red and surely, wouldn’t be found mucking out stalls. Still…His head turned without thought. She hadn’t moved.

      Dani clenched the shovel handle, only the brace of muscle up her arm staying her. Go, she ordered unspoken until the man looked forward once more. She grasped her shovel and watched him, watched him go, the powder puff of a woman beside him. She dropped her gaze, seeking respite. She saw Cicely’s tiny feet stepping in thin leather straps, made for the most refined of arches. The shoes’ heels, high and equally thin, tipped the soles up, lightly muscled the calves. The stockinged legs shimmered like a heat wave, stretching up to a fitted flamingo pink skirt topped with a jacket. Dani had always hated the color pink.

      The trio moved farther down the row of boxes. She was safe. Even if Reid looked back again, he would still see only a woman brown and beige and dusty as the hay and dirt beneath her boots. She watched, made herself watch and felt the thin cotton of her T-shirt stick to her back.

      The three stopped before the stall Dani had left only minutes ago. “Here’s the one you saw,” Prescott said.

      The dark colt’s ears pivoted. He raised his head, arched his neck high above the metal half gate. Reid stared. The animal was the image of its sire. A Kentucky Derby winner who had run like the Devil and behaved twice as bad. A champion who went crazy one night, killing a man and himself.

      Reid stood before that stallion’s son now. Cicely started to speak, but Reid’s hand hushed her. Her cousin tapped her shoulder, silently gestured, and they stepped away. Reid stayed.

      Dani watched him. She knew he was remembering that night. They’d said he’d discovered them—his brother’s battered body on the straw, the magnificent horse, his right foreleg shattered. Before there had been only dancing and desire. Afterward, only death.

      Reid kept his gaze on the colt as he spoke to Prescott. “They predicted he’d end his first season as one of the top two-year-olds. What happened?”

      Prescott stepped toward the stall. “You know what they say— ‘if he didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all.’ That’s what you’re looking at right now. Began with a lung infection that cut his training short. Then recurring bouts of colic took their toll. Even still, he had broken his maiden and placed in an allowance when he acted up while being washed, slipped and cracked his pelvis. We rested him for nine months. He fought us the whole time. Some horses you’d never see on the dirt again after that, but this one, he lives to run.” Prescott looked at the horse but didn’t reach out his hand to stroke him. The horse didn’t offer himself to the man. “He’s got the breeding and the bone, but he can be a brute.”

      Reid’s stare stayed level with the animal. “You didn’t cut him.” The horse tossed his head and snorted.

      “Granddad