Showdown

  “I know you do,” said Sean, squeezing her hand. “The funny thing is, so do I.”

  The rest of his words were drowned out as, with a great roar, the crowd leaped to its feet. Sixteen quarter horses shot out of the gates—Milly and Demon were slap bang in the middle of the pack—and were almost immediately lost in a cloud of dust.

  “Nice start,” muttered Gill under her breath. She must have X-ray vision, thought Amy, who couldn’t make out a thing through the dust and who had to rely on the announcer’s voice telling her that after breaking from post three, Milly had quickly opened up a half-length lead over Dash with Ease.

  “Look. There she is!” said Sean, pointing out a tiny hunched figure at the front of the pack a few seconds later. “See her?”

  “Yes. Yes!” said Amy, hopping up and down excitedly. “I see her. If she can just hold that lead . . .”

  But at around a hundred and fifty yards out, something suddenly happened. The crowd groaned as one, but the visibility was so bad, it was hard to see what the commotion was about. All Amy was aware of were equine legs flailing in the air and jockeys looking anxiously back over their shoulders as they rode on.

  “What is it?” she asked, turning to Sean. “Did you see?”

  “It’s Demon,” he said, already vaulting over the barrier onto the turf below. “He’s down.”

  Sitting on the hard ground of the track, her head pounding as though millions of little men with hammers and anvils had magically materialized inside her skull, Milly struggled to reorient herself. By the time she’d begun to make sense of her surroundings the race was already over. Some of the other riders were cantering back toward her, joining the growing crowd of race officials, paramedics, and Looky Loos who already seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

  “I’m pleased to tell ya that Milly Lockwood Groves is sitting up, folks,” the commentator’s voice rang out over the loudspeaker. “Looks like she’s okay. But we do ask you to please keep back from the trackside so the veterinarians and paramedics can do their jobs.”

  Scanning the strange sea of faces, Milly searched vainly for anyone familiar and was immensely relieved to see Sean, head down like an angry bullock, forcing his way through the throng.

  “You okay?” he asked, when he finally reached her.

  She nodded weakly. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her look so vulnerable. Tears of bewilderment and shock were streaming down her face.

  “What happened?” he asked gently. “You seemed to be going great.”

  “I don’t know,” she sobbed. “One minute we were ahead and the next . . .”

  She looked across at Demon, who was still lying immobile on the ground only a few yards from where she’d been thrown. His chest was heaving with alarming speed, and he was wheezing like a pair of broken bellows. When he saw Sean, his watery eyes widened in what could have been recognition but could just as easily have been fear or pain. A slow, steady trickle of blood was pouring from his flared nostril onto the grass.

  “Please, don’t try and move, miss.” One of the paramedics laid a hand on Milly’s shoulder as she staggered woozily to her feet. But she brushed him aside, stumbling blindly over to where Demon lay.

  Please God, let him be okay. Just let him be okay.

  Kneeling at his side, Sean was already loading up a shot of Dormosedan to calm him enough to be examined. She could hear the track vet filling him in on what happened.

  “It was awful,” he was saying. “I saw the whole thing. Blood was flying out of his nose, then his foreleg just kinda crumpled underneath him. Like snappin’ a match,” he added, cracking his knuckles for emphasis. Sean winced. “Poor fella went straight down.”

  Milly heard a noise coming out of her mouth that was part scream, part primal, grief-laden moan. She shouldn’t have raced him. Why hadn’t she stood up to Brad and Jimmy? Why hadn’t she protected him?

  An announcement echoed around the grandstands that Dash with Ease was the official winner, but nobody seemed in celebratory mood. All eyes remained firmly glued to the drama unfolding on the track.

  Soon it was not just eyes but cameras too. It was always sad when a horse was seriously injured, but Demon being so young made it all the more poignant—and newsworthy. But of course, the real story was that it had happened to Milly, and during her first major, nationally televised race too.

  Who knew quarter horse racing had so much drama? ESPN was certainly getting its money’s worth.

  While Milly was distracted talking to Sean, banks of TV cameras seemed to have emerged spontaneously from the earth like the hounds of hell. Within seconds they’d surrounded her, forming a threatening, intrusive wall between her and Demon’s prone, shuddering body.

  The yelled questions came one after the other, like machine-gun fire.

  “Milly, are you hurt?”

  “Did somebody bump you?”

  “Is Demon gonna make it? What have they told you?”

  “Milly! Look up! Over here, sweetheart.”

  “Christ,” said Sean, shaking his head as an overwhelmed race steward struggled to push back the baying media. “Can’t you do something? Get those fockers out of my face? This animal’s terrified enough as it is.”

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity, reinforcements arrived, led by Gill, who managed with some difficulty to convince Milly to leave the vets to it and come inside.

  “You’re not helping him by staying out here, you know,” she said gently. “The sooner you leave, the sooner the TV crews will back off. It’s you they’re interested in, not Demon.”

  She was right, of course. Brushing aside the army of track doctors and jittery insurance agents who kept trying to convince her to go to the local hospital, Milly let Gill take her into the relative privacy of the clubhouse. Relative because the place was swarming with T-Mobile execs, led by an excited-looking Reuben.

  “Any news?” Milly sounded desperate.

  “Not yet,” he said, stepping forward to remove a smudge of dirt from her cheekbone with his handkerchief. “But in the meantime, let’s talk about how we present this.”

  Milly looked blank. “What do you mean? Present what?”

  Reuben gave her the same look an impatient teacher might give a retarded student.

  “The story,” he sighed, exasperated. “We have to take control of the story. Present you in the best possible light. I’m sorry if that sounds callous, but it’s my job.”

  Milly was so dumbfounded that at first she said nothing. Didn’t he realize that Demon was fighting for his life out there?

  Misreading her silence as acquiescence, Reuben went on.

  “The main thing is to keep it real. To let people see what you’re feeling. That way, if he makes it, the fans can feel the joy and relief right along with you. And if he doesn’t—”

  The shrill, insistent ring of Gill’s cell phone cut him off before he could finish, leaving Milly no time to arrange the words “yourself,” “fuck,” and “go” into a coherent sentence.

  “Hello?” Gill picked up. Milly and Reuben both stared wordlessly as she turned her back on them, cradling the receiver tightly against her ear so she could hear better.

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded, after what felt like an interminable silence. “Okay, yeah. I’ll tell her.”

  When she turned back around, her face told Milly everything she needed to know.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Gill, the tears brimming in her own eyes. “But, yes. That was Sean. There was nothing more he could do.”

  The next three hours were a complete blur. Milly remembered sleepwalking through a couple of TV interviews and was dimly aware of an endless series of camera flashbulbs and microphones being thrust in her face before Todd finally arrived and took her back to Jimmy’s trailer.

  “It’s my fault!” she sobbed, flinging herself into his arms. “I should never have raced him today. I pushed him too hard.”

  “Nonsense,” said
Todd, wishing she wouldn’t use one of his best Gucci jackets as a handkerchief. “He was a racehorse, darling, not a pet. And it was Jimmy’s decision to run him, not yours. These things happen. You mustn’t beat yourself up.”

  It was hardly the comforting response Milly had been hoping for. Suddenly she remembered the way that Bobby had comforted her after Easy died—the warmth and the love and the understanding that they’d shared. Unlike Todd, Bobby knew what it was to love an animal. He knew the pain she was going through.

  For the first time in many long months, Milly found herself wanting to talk to him. But after all this time, and with the feud between him and Todd running hotter than ever, her bridges back to Highwood were well and truly burned.

  “Knock, knock. Can I come in?” Amy’s kindly face appeared around the trailer door.

  Milly’s eyes welled up with tears of gratitude. She didn’t think she’d ever been so pleased to see anyone.

  But before she could speak, Todd took control. “Thank you, Amy, but she’s fine,” he said. One hand was already on the door, ready to shut her out. “What she needs is a hot bath and bed. I’m going to take her home and see that she gets both.”

  “Mill?” Refusing to be fobbed off, Amy pushed her head further into the room and raised a questioning eyebrow at her friend. “Are you sure? There’s nothing that you need? Even just to talk?”

  For a second, Milly wavered. She would have loved to talk to Amy. To say sorry for the way she was before, for not listening, and to pour her guilty heart out about Demon. Amy might not be a horse lover, but she was the most instinctively sympathetic and kind person Milly had ever met. But one look at Todd’s impatient face changed her mind. He’d always hated Amy, for reasons Milly had never fully understood. Asking her in now would only cause a row between them. And she didn’t have the mental strength to deal with that, not now.

  Todd might not be the warmest and cuddliest of boyfriends. But right now he was all she had.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure. Thanks. Todd’s taking care of me.”

  “See?” said Todd briskly. And with that he slammed the door in Amy’s face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Bobby spent the afternoon of Christmas Eve at Hank’s grave.

  It was oddly quiet in Solvang. Those still on a last-minute present dash had all gone to the big malls in Santa Barbara, where they could stock up at the same chains—Gap, Brookstone, and the Discovery Store—and buy the same sweaters, gadgets, and toys as the rest of America. Everyone else, it seemed, was indoors, cooking, eating, or watching It’s a Wonderful Life on TV. Main Street was all but deserted, and once Bobby turned onto the Alisal road toward the cemetery he found himself completely alone.

  Laying down the small bunch of flowers he’d brought with him, he used his hands to sweep away the leaves that had built up at the base of the headstone.

  HANK CAMERON. COWBOY. 1918-2003.

  That was all it said. No “Loving husband and father” or “Much missed” like the other memorials. Just plain, curt, and to the point. In death, as in life, Hank didn’t like to give much away.

  Squatting down on his haunches, Bobby tried to say a prayer or at least to dredge up a clear mental picture of the father he’d spent most of his childhood trying and failing to please. But it was no good. His mind kept racing back to all the subjects he’d rather forget—like the ongoing, uneasy stalemate with Todd; the awkwardness that wouldn’t go away with Summer; and of course, Milly.

  Her Playboy pictures had been a knife in the heart. It was three months now since Dyl had taken his life in his hands and shown him the magazine, but to Bobby it felt like yesterday.

  Spread over four pages, under the heading “Ride ’em, Cowgirl!” were a series of naked images of Milly, all of them Western themed and all of them now seared on his consciousness forever like cattle brands. The first shot showed her lying back on a horse, her head resting against its mane as she gazed at the camera, tiny breasts jutting upward like walnut whips on top of her now-superskinny frame. Others were less modest. In one, she was kneeling on a hay bale, wearing nothing but a ten-gallon hat and a string of pearls, her neatly trimmed dark bush not only visible but very much front and center.

  To this day he struggled to get his head around what had made her do it. Sure, there was the money. But there were other ways to earn a dollar. The Milly he knew wouldn’t have dreamed of prostituting herself like that.

  But maybe that was the point: She wasn’t the Milly he knew. Not anymore. The innocent, freckle-faced kid he’d brought over from England was gone forever. And all because of the devil incarnate himself—Todd fucking Cranborn.

  Running his hands over the roughness of his dad’s headstone, he let out a short, bitter laugh. He’d been so full of himself when the old man died. So convinced that he had the answers to Highwood’s problems; that with a stroke of the pen, he could drag the ranch into the modern world and everything would work out fine.

  What he’d actually done, of course, was to open the door to the biggest Trojan horse of all time. Todd had already stolen Milly. Surely it could be only a matter of time before he found a way to take Highwood too? Bobby had seen it happen in Wyoming: families who’d owned land for six generations or more being forced out to make way for oil and gas companies. As the ranch’s sole owner, he’d at least have been in a position to defend her legally if an oil company launched an attack. Now, with Todd as his legal partner, he couldn’t even do that.

  Hank must be spinning like a top down there.

  Even if, by some miracle, there was no takeover bid, Highwood was still in trouble. Bobby had refused to accept a cent from Todd since Milly’s defection, which provided some small comfort for his battered pride but none whatsoever for his bank balance. The quarter horse business was barely breaking even, and the beef cattle continued to lose money hand over fist.

  Reluctantly, he’d reached a decision last month to close down the stables—quarter horses were a dream he could no longer afford. He’d have to go back to the Thoroughbred circuit in January. It broke his heart to leave Highwood at her most vulnerable. But without Todd, they needed cash, and a training tour was the only way he knew how to make it.

  Scrambling back to his feet, he brushed the dirt off of his jeans and, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets against the winter wind, turned back toward the road.

  “I know I’ve let you down, Dad,” he said with one last lingering look at Hank’s grave. “I’ve let everyone down. But I swear to you, on my honor as a Cameron, I’m gonna fix this. Whatever it takes. I’m gonna fix it.”

  Back at Highwood, Summer was busy hanging Christmas cards on a long piece of string that stretched the length of the McDonalds’ living room. She loved Christmas. Everything about it—fumbling through old boxes for the dog-eared decorations she and Tara and Dylan had made in kindergarten; helping her dad set up the live Nativity in the old barn; pigging out on her mom’s incredible pecan pie and cinnamon rum toddies, a Maggie McDonald specialty. Whatever else might be going wrong in her life, Christmas at home never failed to lift her spirits.

  Balanced precariously on a kitchen chair, she put the rude Santa card that Sean had sent her next to a boring religious card from her old school principal, smiling again as she read Sean’s inscription:

  “Darling Summer. LONGING to fill your stocking. Happy Christmas from your not-so-secret admirer, S xoxo”

  Though she couldn’t return his ardor, she did love Sean for making her laugh. He’d become a regular e-mail buddy since they’d met in the summer, brightening up her first semester at Berkeley with a string of outrageous, utterly unbelievable stories, usually featuring himself in various heroic situations. The notes were silly, but they made a welcome change from her dry-as-dust law books as well as from her gloomy, obsessive thoughts about Bobby.

  Climbing down from the chair, she walked over to the living room window and looked out across the yard. Though not yet four, it was already getting dark, b
ut she could make out the shadowy figures of Bobby and her brother talking, before Dylan turned back toward the house and Bobby struck off in the direction of the stables. They were empty now—the last of the quarter horses had gone last week—but he still spent a lot of time up there. It was where he went to think.

  “I love you,” she whispered, tracing the outline of his silhouette against the glass with her finger. “I could make you happy.”

  “Make who happy?”

  She jumped out of her skin as Dylan came in behind her.

  “Nothing. No one,” she said, blushing furiously. “I was just daydreaming.”

  “Oh.” He gave her a big, dopey grin. “Right.”

  “What are you looking so pleased about?” she asked. “You look like you just won the lottery.”

  “Me?” Flopping down on the couch, he helped himself to a huge handful of sugared almonds from the bowl on the coffee table.

  “Yeah, you,” Summer laughed, making him scooch over so she could sit beside him. In her oldest pair of cords, a tight turtleneck sweater with holes in it, and her hair scraped back in a ponytail, she looked terribly young, with that same eagerness to share his secrets that she’d always had as a child. “You’re obviously bustin’ to tell me,” she said. “So come on, spill it. What’s the word?”

  “Okay,” said Dyl, clasping her hands excitedly. “But it’s still a secret, okay, so you can’t tell anyone. Especially not Dad.”

  “Sure, sure,” she said impatiently. “My lips are sealed.”

  Dylan took a deep breath. “The Gagosian Gallery in New York contacted Carol Bentley yesterday. They want to do an exhibition of my stuff.”

  “Oh my God!” Summer screamed, leaping to her feet. “The Gagosian? Holy shit, Dyl! That’s huge.”

  “Shhhhh,” he said, pulling her back down onto the couch. Her pride in him was really touching, but he desperately did not want to have to tell his father, at least not till after Christmas, when hopefully he’d have figured out a way to soften the blow that he was planning to give up ranching for good. “It’s a secret, remember? I haven’t even told Tara. Only you and Bobby know.”