Showdown

  “The guy thinks he’s God’s gift,” he complained endlessly to Rachel and anyone else who would listen. “All that ‘yes, ma’am-ing’ and calling everybody ‘sir.’ And that ridiculous Clint Eastwood hat he wears around the yard He’s so faux, he makes me want to throw up.”

  But his irritation was as nothing compared to the anguish suffered by poor Milly. Watching Bobby head off to parties night after night, knowing that every predatory racing groupie in Newmarket would be throwing herself at him, made her want to weep with frustration. Worst of all were the nights when he’d bring a girl home. Lying awake in her single bed, teeth grinding with misery, she would try to block out the sound of drunken giggling, followed by the hideous click of his bedroom door that always plunged her aching heart into an even deeper abyss of despair.

  Couldn’t he see how much she loved him? And how much better she’d be for him than the awful sluts he brought back to the house?

  With each passing day her love for him grew like an out-of-control weed. But the affection he had for her remained steadfastly of the paternal variety. She’d tried everything to get him to notice her sexually, even investing six weeks’ worth of her allowance on a pair of skintight, Rachel Delaneyesque jodhpurs to wear to their secret training sessions. But he hadn’t paid a blind bit of notice. Sometimes she thought she could turn up naked, like Lady Godiva, and all he’d do would be to bleat on about form and how she needed to lean back more in the saddle. His indifference drove her crazy.

  The only faint silver lining to the depressing cloud of her unrequited obsession was that he seemed equally oblivious to Rachel’s charms as to her own. Jasper was too vain and self-satisfied even to register the outrageous way that his girlfriend flirted with Bobby, but to everyone else it was painfully obvious.

  When Milly had asked him, with her heart in her mouth, what he thought of Rachel, he’d replied with the three immortal words: “a bit desperate.”

  Just when she’d thought she couldn’t possibly love him any more.

  One Sunday evening, a few days after her training session with Elijah, Milly walked into the drawing room to find Bobby alone, staring into the dying embers of the afternoon’s fire.

  “Penny for them?”

  “Hmmm?”

  He looked up, startled, but smiled when he saw it was her.

  Not usually a big drinker, he’d been to a cocktail party at a famous jockey’s bachelor pad yesterday and had rather more tequila shots than he’d intended. Suitably loosened up, he’d been persuaded to spend the latter part of the night in the back of a trailer with a very friendly young lady named Deborah—an enjoyable experience, certainly, but one that he was paying dearly for today.

  So far England had been a blast, way more fun than he’d expected—even Sean O’Flannagan would have been proud of his pulling rate since he’d gotten here—but today he found himself in a melancholy mood. With an epic hangover and more aches and pains than a losing prizefighter, his mind had begun to turn back to the ranch and all the problems awaiting him at home. Milly’s training, and the progress he’d been making with Sir Michael’s colts, had distracted him for weeks now. But much as he might like to, he couldn’t put Highwood’s problems off forever.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I was miles away. Back home, actually. Thinking about the future.”

  Milly frowned. Coming from Bobby, “future” had become a dirty word, reminding her as it did that he would soon be leaving Newells, and her, forever. On the other hand, she loved it when he talked to her about his life back in America. Knowing he never spoke about these things to anyone else at Newells, it made her feel special to be the one he confided in.

  Curling her legs beneath her on the worn leather sofa, she artfully leaned forward just a little, so that a hint of cleavage peeped out beneath the undone top buttons of her new Miss Selfridge peasant blouse. Despite everything, she still hadn’t given up hope that he would wake up one morning and realize that she was, in fact, a woman.

  “The future? You mean your plans for the ranch?” she asked tentatively. “The quarter horses?”

  A glow of excitement spread over Bobby’s features, making him look even more ridiculously handsome, if that were possible. He was wearing faded jeans today and an old green T-shirt that clung to his biceps like shrink-wrap. Despite the shadows under his eyes and day’s growth of dark-blond stubble, he still looked as beautiful as a Michelangelo sculpture, with those hypnotic hazel eyes that could make Milly crumple from twenty paces.

  Picking up one of Linda’s overstuffed pink cushions, he chucked it over to the other side of the room and sat down beside her, his physical proximity making her organs liquefy with longing.

  “Quarter horses are so damn beautiful,” he said, warming to his theme, knowing that in Milly he’d found the world’s most receptive audience. “You’d be amazed. I swear, they’re the smartest, finest, most versatile horses you’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  He was so close, the urge to touch him, to reach out and stroke the rough shadow of stubble along his jaw, was almost overwhelming.

  “Did I tell you that the whole breed, all of ’em, are descended from just one Thoroughbred chestnut?” said Bobby.

  “No,” lied Milly, who never tired of hearing him talk. He’d already told her the story of Janus at least twice, but she didn’t care.

  “A planter named Mordecai Booth brought this stallion, Janus, over to Virginia from England,” he began again. “Started breeding him to quarter racing stock. That’s what started it all.”

  He brought his face even closer, till she felt the warmth of his breath against her cheeks. Oh, God, she loved him so much, she couldn’t bear it. How come he could talk to her like this, share his passions, his hopes, and his dreams, but not share himself?

  Agonizingly conscious of her chest heaving under the peasant blouse, she wondered if men could smell one’s desire the way that stallions could and prayed fervently that they couldn’t.

  “Of course, most Thoroughbred trainers reckon themselves ‘above’ quarter horses,” Bobby went on, apparently unaware of the turmoil he’d plunged her into. “But those guys are just idiots.”

  He shook his head incredulously at the thought of such philistinism, and Milly shook hers too, desperate not to be tarred with the same brush as those other Thoroughbred snobs.

  “Of course they are,” she said, showing admirable passion for someone who, until a few weeks ago, had never heard of quarter horses. “Complete idiots.”

  “But what they don’t realize,” Bobby insisted, “is that there’s really a lot of money in it. And I mean a lot of money. The All American Futurity—that’s kinda like the Derby for quarter horses—has a purse of over two million dollars. Two million! Imagine? If only we weren’t in so much debt and I could start training at Highwood right away . . . I could make a fortune, I know I could.”

  Overcome with excitement, he seized her hand. Milly could have sworn her heart stopped in that instant. It was with some difficulty that she regained enough composure to speak.

  “You’re so lucky,” she sighed, eventually. “You get to train horses, to do what you love, and no one can stop you.”

  “Well, not quite,” he said, releasing her hand at last to her great disappointment. “I know it might seem that way, but I have a lot of responsibility too. I have to get Highwood out of the financial shit before I can do anything.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” said Milly gloomily. “But you will, won’t you, in the end?”

  “I hope so,” said Bobby.

  “And then you can train. But I bet you I’ll still be stuck in Newmarket, not riding. Probably married or something, if Mummy gets her way.”

  She said the word with such disgust, it made him laugh out loud.

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “Yes!” she said fervently. “Of course it would.” Then, belatedly realizing the implication of what she was saying, she started to backtrack: “Well, I mean, I suppose it depends. You know,
on the boy. I mean, the man.” She blushed furiously. “But not riding would be awful anyway. You know it would.”

  Bobby stood up and turned away from her, back to the fire. He didn’t know what it was about Milly—how she managed to make him feel sympathetic and guilty and responsible all at once—but he couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that he really ought to do something to help her. Even with his father’s death and the problems at Highwood weighing heavy on his mind, somehow this girl—with her determination and her spirit and her sheer single-mindedness that reminded him so much of himself—tugged at his heartstrings harder than anyone had a right to.

  A long minute of silence ensued, during which Milly tortured herself wondering if she’d said something wrong and if so, how she might undo the imaginary damage.

  “I could train you,” Bobby said at last.

  She looked at him blankly for a moment, before managing a strangled, “What?”

  “You could come back to California with me,” he said, as though it were the most obvious, normal suggestion in the world. “You’d work on the ranch in return for room and board. And evenings and weekends, when I’m not traveling, I’ll train you. I’ll train you to race quarter horses.”

  Now it was Milly’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, right,” she said. “And I’ll get there on a magic carpet by clicking my heels together three times and saying, ‘There’s no place like Highwood,’ right?”

  It was only when he didn’t laugh back that she realized he was serious.

  “But, Bobby, my parents,” she said. “They’d never agree. Would they? I mean—of course they wouldn’t.” She mustn’t allow herself to hope. “Why would they agree?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Because it makes sense? Because deep down, your dad knows he’s in the wrong about your riding? Hell, I don’t know. But we won’t know for sure unless we ask them, will we?”

  He was torn. Maybe he shouldn’t be getting the kid’s hopes up? After all, there was every chance that Cecil would tell him to take a hike. He’d probably be furious that he’d allowed Milly to ride with him in secret these past few weeks. He might even kick him out of the house. Even if he didn’t, letting his overprotected seventeen-year-old daughter fly to the other side of the world was a lot to ask of a man who’d already showed himself to be terrified about her welfare.

  But he had to do something, if only to let Milly know that she did have a talent worth fighting for. He knew better than most what it was like to have your father stand in the way of your talent. If he didn’t stick up for her, now, while he had the chance, who else was going to do it?

  “What do you think?” he said. “Is it worth a shot?”

  What did she think? Jesus. What would a starving refugee think if you offered him a bowl of soup? What would Michael Jackson think if he landed a job in a nursery school? It was too good to be true, that was what she thought. To be living and working with Bobby, in California? To escape from the claustrophobic nightmare of her life at Newells, from Jasper and Rachel, from her mother and the Newmarket ADC? To be trained properly, professionally trained as a jockey, even if it was with horses she’d never heard of?

  She felt like shouting from the rooftops. He’d really do this? For her?

  But reality crushed the fantasy almost before it had begun.

  “It’s a lovely idea,” she sighed. “But it won’t work. Even if you talked my father around, Mummy will never let me go. Not in a million years.”

  “You might be right,” he said, “but let me talk to Cecil anyway. You’ve nothing to lose, after all.” He was right there. “And even if they do say no, I want you to promise me you won’t lose faith in yourself. You’re a terrific jockey, Milly. Ultimately no one can decide your future but you. You know that, right?”

  At that moment, all she knew was that she would never, ever love anybody a zillionth as much as she loved him. Standing in front of her, so tall and strong and reassuring, she could almost believe that he would make Cecil see sense, that he would be able to rescue her like some white-chargered prince showing up at the foot of her tower.

  If only life worked like that.

  “Absolutely not.”

  Slamming the door of the stallion barn behind him, Cecil stalked off toward his car. It was three days after Bobby’s conversation with Milly, and he’d finally found the right moment to raise the subject of taking her back to Highwood with her father. So far, their little chat wasn’t going too well.

  “But why not?” Bobby pursued him. “Keeping her here makes no sense, sir. I’d take good care of her.”

  “What, by putting her back up on horseback where she could risk her neck?” Retrieving a half-smoked cigar from his pocket, Cecil relit it as they walked on. “I don’t think so, sunshine. If I wanted her to ride, I’d have her do it here. But I don’t, as you well know.”

  The roar of fury he’d emitted when Bobby confessed to his secret training sessions with Milly could be heard echoing halfway around Cambridgeshire, but Bobby had taken his life in his hands and floated the idea of her coming out to Highwood anyway. Having pissed his host off this much, he might as well see the thing through.

  Angry as he was, Cecil admired the boy’s tenacity, and Milly’s. How long had she been cooking up this little scheme? he wondered.

  “Look, Bobby,” he said, relenting slightly, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I know you and Mill have been getting on well, and she clearly adores you.”

  “This isn’t about me liking her, sir,” said Bobby truthfully, “although of course I do. She’s a great kid.”

  “She is.” Cecil nodded and billowed out a cloud of acrid cigar smoke in agreement.

  “It’s about her being a potentially world-class rider. Believe me, I’ve worked with some topflight jockeys in my time. Milly’s got what it takes. I’m certain of it. Given a little tweaking her technique would be perfect for quarter horses. She could be the next Joe Badilla, Jr.”

  “I’m sorry, Bobby, but I’m not so certain,” said Cecil, frowning. He had no idea who Joe Badilla was, nor was he in any hurry to find out. “She hasn’t ridden for two years—at least I bloody well hope she hasn’t. She can’t be that good.”

  “She is, sir,” said Bobby flatly. “Watch her.”

  Cecil felt his anger bubbling up again. He didn’t want to “watch her.” Nor did he take kindly to being lectured by a womanizing American trainer he’d only known for five minutes on what was or wasn’t best for his daughter. He liked Bobby. But this was going too far.

  “What makes you so concerned about Milly, anyway?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. “Are you quite sure your interest is purely professional?”

  Bobby threw his shoulders back and gave a short, arrogant laugh that would have crushed Milly had she heard it. “If you’re implying what I think you’re implying,” he said, “you’re way off. I may be many things, Mr. Lockwood Groves, but I’m not a pedophile.”

  “Hmmm.” Cecil sounded unconvinced. “Well, anyway, I’m afraid it’s out of the question. And your little sessions up at the school have got to stop as well.”

  Climbing into his Range Rover, he slammed the door shut with what he hoped was unmistakable finality. But Bobby wasn’t through yet. He’d promised the kid he’d do his best to help her, and he had to try.

  “She’s not happy here,” he said, thrusting his head through the open passenger window. “And I think you know it. Stevie Wonder can see that she can ride the pants off her brother, but she never gets the chance to show what she can do. Hell, if your wife had her way, Milly wouldn’t even get to help out at the stud; even though she’s brilliant with your stallions, better than any of you give her credit for.”

  “All right, that’s enough,” said Cecil with a face like thunder. “Where the hell do you get off criticizing Linda? Do I have to remind you that you’re a guest in this house?”

  Bobby stepped back from the car. For the first time, he felt slightly chastened. He’d given it his best shot, but he obvio
usly wasn’t going to talk Cecil into it.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just that . . .”

  “Well, you were rude,” said Cecil furiously. “This is none of your business. You had no right getting involved in the first place.”

  Watching him speed out of the driveway, churning up gravel like angry machine-gun fire, Bobby was surprised to find himself feeling intense disappointment.

  He really didn’t know why he cared so much about Milly. But he did. The thought of her talent being left to wither away on the vine was just plain wrong—it bothered him more than it ought to.

  But his disappointment was nothing compared to hers.

  “It’s okay,” she said bravely when he caught up with her later and told her how the talk with Cecil had gone. She was in Easy’s stable—he’d been off his feed earlier in the day and she wanted to check up on him—and was making a valiant effort to sound cheerful. “I knew he wouldn’t go for it. I appreciate you trying, really.”

  But she couldn’t fully hide the tears in her eyes, and Bobby saw the way her shoulders shook when she buried her face in the horse’s neck, trying to comfort herself the same way that he did when things went wrong.

  Poor little thing.

  He should never have gotten her hopes up.

  “Maybe he’ll come around?” he said. “Maybe he just needs time to get used to the idea?” But the words sounded hollow, even to himself. They both knew that Cecil wouldn’t budge, however much time they gave him.

  “Maybe,” said Milly despondently. “At least he wasn’t too mad about the sessions we’ve already had.”

  “Yeah.” Bobby tried to remain upbeat. “That’s something, right?”

  Despite her best efforts, a single, fat tear began rolling down Milly’s cheek.

  “Aw, shit,” he said. “C’mon now. Don’t cry.” Not knowing what else to do, he walked over and, pulling her gently away from Easy, enveloped her in a hug.

  Burrowing into his chest, Milly breathed in the smell and warmth of him and dried her tears on his shirt, all the while trying desperately to lock the memory into her brain forever. He was holding her! He was actually holding her! But, at the same time, she knew he might never hold her again. Soon he would be gone, back to America, and all her hopes of riding again would be getting on that plane with him.