Showdown

  He brought over a silver platter of mini-sausages wrapped in bacon and looked on disapprovingly as Milly scraped the whole lot onto her empty plate. After he’d gone, she took another swig of champagne from the bottle she’d purloined earlier and stuffed a handful of the hot, greasy food into her mouth. Depression seemed to have given her an appetite. Or perhaps that was the alcohol?

  Kicking off her high heels—stupid bloody things were giving her blisters, and Bobby obviously didn’t find them sexy anyway—she unpinned her hair while she ate. The hairdresser had pulled her updo in so tightly it was making her face ache. After her seventh sausage, she started to feel a bit queasy and thought perhaps a walk might clear her head. She could see Bobby still holding court by the stream, so she headed in the opposite direction, staggering aimlessly toward the rhododendron bushes.

  They were far enough away from the house that there was very little light, and even in bare feet she had difficulty picking her way over the bumpy ground. Suddenly, she heard a noise through the bushes, a sort of half groan, half pant. It sounded as though someone might be in trouble.

  “Hellooo?” she called tentatively into the darkness. “Is anyone there?”

  No answer.

  “Are you all right?”

  Silence. Then, there it was again. The noise. With courage that owed more than a little to all the champagne she’d just drunk, she fought her way through the leafy branches of the rhododendrons toward the sound. Her dress was snagging horribly on all the twigs and would probably be ruined, but if someone were lying back there, injured, and she hadn’t done anything she’d never forgive herself.

  “Helloooo?”

  “Jesus Christ! Milly!”

  It was Jasper. Not injured but standing, with his knees bent and his trousers around his ankles, receiving what looked to be a very enthusiastic blow job from Lucy McCallum, one of Rachel’s closest so-called friends. In fact, Lucy was so focused on the job in hand (or rather in mouth) that she’d failed to hear Milly’s approach and continued bobbing her sleek brunette head backward and forward like a clockwork woodpecker.

  Screaming, Milly turned and ran, stumbling onto her hands and knees more than once in her desperation to get away. She didn’t think she’d ever seen anything quite so revolting. Just knowing that J. was already cheating on Rachel might have cheered her up, but having to actually watch him, naked, doing that . . . the thought of it made her stomach churn. She began regretting the sausages even more.

  Without stopping, she ran mindlessly, back up the lawn onto the veranda, and bolted through the French doors into the drawing room. Through the combined fog of panic and drunkenness, it took a moment or so for her to realize that the entire room had turned to stare at her.

  Rachel, ironically, was one of the last to notice Milly’s sudden, bedraggled, barefoot arrival. Since Jasper had wandered off she’d been having a whale of a time being chatted up by a permatanned, white-toothed cockney sports agent called Desmond Leach.

  “No doubt abaht it,” Des had been assuring her in his smooth, cockney patter, “you could be makin’ a lot more dough than you are at the moment. It’s all about finkin’ big picture, innit?”

  He wasn’t the first person to tell her that she ought to be making more of the small flurry of press interest she’d received as a sexy female rider. Although she pretended to scorn publicity, secretly Rachel adored the attention and had often fantasized about becoming racing’s “It Girl,” a sort of Tori Spelling mark II, only in her case riding a horse rather than looking like one.

  “You’d look terrific in GQ,” Des went on, edging ever closer toward her on the sofa. “I’m finkin’ lovely, sexy shots, you in your undies in the stables. All very tasteful though, o’ course.”

  Rachel had barely begun to lose herself in this intoxicating idea when who should come staggering in but bloody Milly, looking for all the world like she’d just been molested. Her hair was everywhere; her hands, knees, feet, and face were all smeared with mud; and her dress was cut to ribbons.

  “What on earth happened to you?” Extricating herself from Des’s advances, she looked her up and down with distaste.

  “What?” said Milly, confused. She’d been so desperate to get away from Jasper she hadn’t given a thought to how she must look, but looking down at her shredded dress now, it finally dawned on her why everyone was staring. “Oh, that. Sorry. Nothing. I fell. Over. I fell over.” God, it was hard trying to string a sentence together after a bottle of Dom Pérignon.

  “Jesus. Are you okay?” The next thing Milly knew, Bobby was beside her, wrapping a strong arm around her shoulders, his concern in sharp contrast to Rachel’s hostility. She felt a brief flicker of happiness—he seemed to have gotten over whatever it was that had been pissing him off before—but it was soon replaced by horror when she realized what a sight she must look, especially standing next to Rachel in full-on goddess mode.

  “What happened, Mill?” he pressed her, his voice loaded with a tenderness that for some reason made Milly want to cry. “Did someone hurt you?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Nothing like that. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Uh-uh, I don’t think so.” He bundled her outside as people gradually drifted back to their prior conversations. If anyone had touched her . . . if anyone had laid one finger . . . “Tell me now.”

  “Look, it was nothing, okay?” she snapped. Perhaps it was Dutch courage, but she was getting sick of the way he kept running hot and cold with her: loving and sweet this morning, moody and withdrawn all evening, and now apparently back in knight-in-shining-armor mode. “I was down in the bushes—”

  “What?” Bobby’s face clouded over. “Why? Who with?”

  “With no one,” said Milly, exasperated. “By myself. At least I thought I was by myself.”

  Before she could get any further, Jasper came running up the hill, his face flushed with what looked to Bobby like exertion but Milly recognized as panic. Ignoring Bobby, he made a beeline for his sister.

  “Have you said anything?” he asked breathlessly, adding, when she didn’t reply instantly, “You’d better bloody not have or your life won’t be worth living, I can promise you that.”

  “Oh, up yours,” said Milly. The champagne was definitely helping. “What do you think I’m going to do? Walk into the party and announce to the world that I caught you playing hide the sausage with one of Rachel’s best friends? As if I care!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Bobby, grinning as he began to piece together what must have happened. “Hide the sausage? I don’t think I know that game.”

  “Bollocks,” said Jasper bitterly. “You’re Olympic bloody champion at it, so don’t go getting on your high horse with me, Cameron. And you’ll keep your mouth shut as well, if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Bobby, bristling at the implied threat. “And what if I don’t?”

  “I’ll—I’ll—you’ll see,” Jasper blustered lamely. “I’ll make sure you regret it, that’s all.”

  “To be honest, I doubt Rachel will even care,” said Milly, who was enjoying seeing her brother on the back foot for once. “She looked very cozy with that good-looking sports agent on the sofa a few minutes ago. I think she’s forgotten all about you.”

  “Rubbish,” Jasper said. But he looked intensely worried and quickened his pace as he left them and headed up toward the house.

  “Did you really catch them at it?” said Bobby, laughing, after he’d gone.

  Milly nodded. “Loose McCallum was giving him head in the rhododendrons. It was the grossest thing I’ve seen in my entire life.”

  It felt nice to be talking together like this, relaxed, the way they used to be.

  “No wonder you look like you’ve been through the wars,” he said.

  “Oh, God.” Instantly self-conscious again, Milly brought her hands to her tangled hair, and she began frantically rubbing at the smeared mud on her face with the back of her hand. “I must look awfu
l.”

  “No,” said Bobby, grabbing her hand and pulling it away from her face. “Don’t. You look so much better. Natural. I didn’t like how you looked before. It wasn’t you.”

  Milly stood there, achingly conscious of the warmth of his hand enveloping her own, until her reverie was shattered by a piercing cry from the terrace behind her.

  “Help!” Her mother’s voice was unmistakable, but the panic in it was unfamiliar and frightening. “Somebody help here! Quickly!”

  Pulling free from Bobby’s grip, Milly raced up the stone steps to where Linda was kneeling, leaning over what looked like a body.

  “Julia, call an ambulance.” Sir Michael’s authoritative voice cut through the night air like a foghorn.

  “Mummy?” With huge trepidation, Milly pushed her way through the gathering crowd. It was only as she got right next to her mother that she recognized the figure sprawled out on the stone, his head lolling from side to side in semiconsciousness. It was Cecil.

  The drive to the hospital was all a bit of a blur. Linda rode in the ambulance with Cecil, now heavily sedated, and Jasper, who looked absolutely white with shock. It had been quite an evening.

  Never one to miss a drama, Rachel had insisted on coming along with him “for support,” so by the time Milly got to the ambulance, there was no more room. Reluctantly, she’d agreed to follow behind with Bobby in her parents’ car.

  “The paramedics told Mummy it was a minor stroke,” she said, wringing her hands anxiously in the passenger seat and sobering up by the second as they hurtled toward Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. “Can a stroke really be minor, though?”

  “Sure it can,” said Bobby, trying to sound reassuring although in fact he hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. “Half of his slurring and confusion is probably just booze. You wait and see. They’ll run a CT scan and he’ll be fit as a fiddle.”

  By the time they arrived at the hospital, Linda and Jasper were already in the waiting room, looking ashen. Rachel sat between them, her makeup still perfect despite the practiced look of concern that she now wore while she squeezed Linda’s hand. Any other day and Milly would have wanted to throttle her. But right now all she could think about was her father.

  “How’s he doing?” she asked Jasper.

  “We don’t know yet,” he said, forgetting to be rude for once. “They’re still running tests. The nurse said it may be a while before anyone can see him.”

  “I’ll do a coffee run then, if anyone wants some,” said Bobby. “I figure y’all could use some family time alone. Rachel, you wanna join me? Give these folks some room?”

  For a moment the Princess Diana angel-of-mercy mask slipped and Rachel snarled at him silently, her lips puckered into a tiny cat’s bum of fury.

  “No, thank you,” she said tersely. “I think I can do more good here. But I will have a coffee if you’re going. Milk, two sugars. And the same for Mrs. LG.”

  Linda smiled at her gratefully. “How sweet of you to remember, Rachel.”

  “Don’t go.” Bobby felt Milly grab his arm. “I want you to stay. Please.”

  Most of the mud had been wiped off her cheeks, but her mascara was smudged beneath both eyes, making her look like a monsoon-drenched possum, and she was shivering in the flimsy tatters of her wrap dress. The drafty hospital corridor was so cold it made the downy blond hairs on her forearm stand on end.

  Bobby hadn’t seen her looking so vulnerable since the night that Easy died. Nor had he wanted her as much since then.

  “Of course I’ll stay,” he said, once again resisting the urge to pull her to him. “If that’s what you want. I didn’t want to intrude, that’s all.” He looked pointedly at Rachel, who glowered back.

  It was over two hours before a smiling Welsh nurse emerged from the swing doors behind the reception desk and announced that “the patient” was now well enough to receive visitors. At Milly’s insistence, Bobby followed the family along the brightly lit linoleum corridor with its cloying scent of disinfectant (Rachel didn’t wait to be asked) and into Cecil’s room, a stark, windowless box with a cast-iron bed on which he was propped up with four large pillows. He smiled sheepishly as they all trooped in.

  “Darling,” sobbed Linda, rushing straight to his side and flinging her arms around him. “We were all so worried. Are you all right?”

  “He’s fine,” said a voice from behind the door. None of them had noticed the consulting physician standing there, and they all spun around now as one to stare at him. “I’m Dr. Triggs.” He introduced himself to Linda, nodding a vague acknowledgment to everyone else in the room. “Your husband has had a stroke, Mrs. Lockwood Groves, which is a serious thing, although thankfully his CT scan and the other tests we’ve run show no permanent damage to his brain or nervous system.”

  “See?” whispered Bobby, with a wink at Milly.

  “Do you know what caused it, doctor?” asked Rachel.

  Now that the worst was over, Milly allowed herself to feel the first small stabs of annoyance at the way Rachel had muscled in on the situation. She shouldn’t even be here, let alone be asking questions. It wasn’t her dad who’d collapsed.

  “Well, we can’t say for sure,” said the doctor, no doubt mistaking her for a daughter. He looked sternly at Cecil. “But his blood alcohol level was shocking, and his arteries look like the M25 in rush hour, so it’s a safe bet that an atrocious diet and complete lack of exercise had something to do with it.”

  “I knew it!” said Linda. “How many times have I warned you about your diet, Cecil? How many?”

  “Before you get carried away,” said Cecil weakly, “Dr. Triggs also says that stress may have been a factor. So no one’s allowed to shout at me or force-feed me lettuce, because I find that very stressful. Isn’t that right, doctor?”

  The doctor looked at him rather as a strict headmaster might look at a troublemaking fourth former.

  “Shouting is perhaps best avoided,” he said. “But lettuce sounds like an excellent idea to me.”

  Linda looked triumphant.

  “For the moment, though, you need some rest. So no more than ten minutes visiting, please, and then I suggest you all get some kip and come back and see him in the morning.”

  “You do look tired, Dad,” said Milly, grabbing a plastic chair from the other side of the room and elbowing Rachel out of the way so she could sit right next to the bed. “Do you want us to go now?”

  “No,” said Cecil. “No. Actually I want you all to stay. I’ve been thinking about things a lot in the last few hours. Not knowing what was wrong with me. Not knowing if I was even going to make it or not.”

  “Oh, darling, don’t say that,” said Linda with a shudder. Rachel put an arm around her, and Milly noticed the way that her mother leaned into it, like an injured bird. Since when had those two become thick as thieves? Some time since Easy’s death, she imagined, when she’d been too off the ball to notice. Was there no tragedy the girl wouldn’t exploit to inveigle her insidious way into Milly’s family?

  “Whether or not I say it, it’s true,” said Cecil, shifting his position against the pillows, trying to make himself more comfortable. “Something like this really puts life into perspective.” He smiled weakly at Milly. “I owe you an apology, sweetheart.”

  “For what?” she asked, surprised.

  “For a lot of things,” said Cecil, his eyes welling up with tears. The sedatives they’d got him on must be making him overly emotional. “But most recently for standing in the way of you going to America. It’s time you got on with your own life, and if that means riding again, so be it. Bobby’s offered you a great opportunity. You should take it.”

  Milly looked at him blankly. It was too much to take in, especially after the roller coaster of emotions she’d been through this evening. It was like your jailer suddenly turning around and giving you not only the keys to your cell but a passport and a blank check too, to start a whole new life. “Thank you” just didn’t seem to cut
it.

  “Darling.” Linda laughed nervously. “I hardly think now’s the time to be making these sorts of big decisions. We should talk about this in the morning, when you’re more yourself.”

  “She’s right, you know,” said Jasper, backed up by some enthusiastic nodding from Rachel. The idea of Milly riding competitively again, even if it was going to be in America, racing obscure cowboy horses no one had ever heard of, filled both of them with horror. “You haven’t thought it through, Dad.”

  “Put a sock in it, J.,” said Cecil firmly. “I’m talking to your sister. Milly?”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said quietly, praying that this was real, that it wasn’t just the drugs talking.

  “You do still want to go?” said Cecil.

  “Of course, of course I do!” she said. “If you’re really serious. And if Bobby’s offer still stands?”

  Bobby, who’d been hovering at the back of the room, trying to keep a low profile, felt uncomfortably aware of ten eyes swiveling simultaneously in his direction: Linda’s, Jasper’s, and Rachel’s all narrowed in suspicion; Cecil’s wide with questioning anticipation; and Milly’s dewy and wet with hope.

  Even if he’d wanted to change his mind, there was no way he could do it now.

  “Sure.” He smiled. “Of course.”

  “All I ask,” said Cecil earnestly, “is that you take good care of her.”

  “The best, sir,” said Bobby. “You have my word on it.”

  So that was that. Milly was coming to Highwood, to his life, his world, whether he liked it or not. Part of him was thrilled not to have to leave her—but another part knew that her presence there would be more of an exquisite torture than a joy.

  Romance was out of the question. Apart from the fact that she was far too young and he had a ranch to rescue, he’d just promised her sick father that he’d act in loco parentis. And though he might be guilty of many things, Bobby Cameron didn’t break his promises.

  Once they got to California, his job was to be Milly’s father. And that was exactly what he intended to do.