Showdown

  He was right, of course, on both counts. It made no sense to sell Thunderbird or to go on with the court case. But the latter wasn’t a choice. It was a matter of honor, like a captain going down with his ship. While he had a penny to his name, Bobby must keep fighting for Highwood, no matter what. He didn’t expect Barty to understand.

  The judge today had been sympathetic, especially after Bobby’s impassioned speech about his family having worked the land in the Santa Ynez Valley for generations, and the irreparable damage to the landscape, water table, and overall ecosystem at Highwood that Comarco’s planned drilling would cause. But effectively, his hands were tied.

  The law in this instance was clear: landownership rights and deeds of title applied only to the surface land, not the natural resources beneath it.

  “Call me on Monday,” said Jeff brusquely, clicking shut his briefcase. He felt sorry for Bobby, but at the end of the day the kid had only himself to blame for his problems, and he was tired of his client’s arrogance and moodiness. What did he want him to do, change the frickin’ law? “We’ll discuss next steps then.”

  Hurrying down the courthouse steps Bobby almost crashed straight into Dylan, who was bounding back up them two at a time. Along with the rest of his family he’d come to lend Bobby moral support. But he’d had to sneak out of court twenty minutes early to make a prearranged call to Amy, so he’d missed the final verdict.

  “What happened?” he asked breathlessly.

  For reasons he couldn’t quite articulate, Dylan had decided to keep his budding relationship with Jimmy Price’s daughter a secret, so he couldn’t explain his absence. Though he hadn’t seen her since their chance meeting at the Gagosian, they’d become regular text-message buddies. Before he knew it, the little snippets of contact he shared with Amy had started to become the highlight of his days. Whenever things at the ranch got too bleak, or he needed to talk to someone about art and life—or anything other than Todd Cranborn, oil wells, and legal fees—he turned to Amy. Kind, encouraging, and funny, she seemed to have the knack of knowing exactly what to say to make him feel better. Talking to her was like taking a deep breath of oxygen after hours underwater. Like being brought back to life.

  “They ruled in Todd’s favor,” said Tara.

  “Again,” added Summer bitterly. “And what are you grinnin’ about?”

  “Me? Oh, nothing. Nothing. That’s awful.” Guiltily, Dylan wiped the smile off his face. It wasn’t right to be feeling any happiness, let alone showing it, while everyone else’s world was in meltdown. “It’s not over though, right?” he said, turning back to Bobby. “We can appeal again. Right?”

  “You can. But I wouldn’t advise it.”

  En masse, they spun around to see Todd, flanked by two lawyers that looked more like minders, standing smugly behind them. He hadn’t been in court, so what he was doing here now was anybody’s guess.

  “No point pouring good money after bad, is there, Bobby?” He smiled. “How does that Kenny Rogers song go again? ‘You got to know when to fold ’em.’ Now, that’s the sort of cowboy wisdom I can appreciate.”

  “Why don’t you go on home, Mr. Cranborn,” said Wyatt, stepping forward. “We’re not looking for any trouble. Are we, Bobby?”

  Bobby, who was grinding his teeth so hard he was in danger of shooting sparks out of his mouth, looked as if trouble would suit him just fine.

  “Milly not here?” Todd feigned surprise. “When we split up she seemed quite passionate about how I’d wronged you. I’m surprised she couldn’t be bothered to put in an appearance in your hour of need.”

  “We don’t speak anymore,” said Bobby. He wasn’t sure why he was even dignifying Todd’s taunting with a response, but the words seemed to fall out of his mouth. “As you well know.”

  Though strictly speaking, this was still true—Bobby and Milly had not, in fact, spoken—she was very much in the forefront of his mind. The first time she sent him a check for the legal fund—guilt money as he still thought of it—he’d sent it straight back without even reading the accompanying letter. But when she tried again, his resolve had deserted him. He hadn’t accepted the money, of course—wild horses couldn’t persuade him to do that—but against his better judgment, he had opened her note.

  In some ways, it was vintage Milly: garbled, overemotional, full of childish spelling mistakes that for some reason made his eyes well up with tears. But in others it was different, more mature. He’d tried to read the changes in her character and her life between the lines.

  I’ll be at the All American in August, she wrote at the end, assuming I haven’t lost my job by then. And I know you will too. Sean told me you’ve been training Dash for Dixie for Marti Fox.

  Damned Sean and his big mouth. What else had he told her?

  I’d like to think we could meet as friends, she went on. But whatever you decide—whether you take the money or not—please know that I’m truly sorry, Bobby. For everything.

  He’d thought about it so many times, run every possible motive she could have had over and over in his mind till it ached with confusion. And he still didn’t know what to think. All he did know, for sure, was that whether she was to blame or not, he missed her. He wished he didn’t. But there it was.

  Hearing Todd mention her name now only made him feel it more acutely.

  “Why don’t you fuck off, Cranborn,” he snarled, “before you get hurt.”

  “Easy,” whispered Dylan, laying a hand on Bobby’s arm. He could feel his biceps twitching with longing to lay into the guy. Not that he blamed him. He wouldn’t have minded taking a swing at Todd himself.

  “Don’t worry,” said Todd. “I’m on my way.” But he couldn’t resist one passing shot before he left. “You know, I reckon you had a lucky escape with Milly, actually. She turned out to be more trouble than she was worth. Clingy. Needy. And as for the sex,” he chuckled maliciously, “you’d have more fun screwing a skeleton.”

  That was it. Brushing Dylan aside, Bobby launched himself into the air with a roar of pent-up fury, wrestling Todd to the ground. The two lawyer minders scuttled back like terrified crabs, watching in awe as Bobby flipped their client over, grinding his face into the hard stone of the steps, before yanking his arm backward so painfully that Todd couldn’t help but scream.

  “Don’t you ever, ever, speak about Milly like that again,” he shouted. “You hear me, you fucking nasty, depraved little son of a bitch?” On the last word he twisted Todd’s arm still further, till it looked in serious danger of dislocating. “You’re not fit to know her.”

  “Bobby, let him go,” said Wyatt calmly but firmly. Bobby wavered for a moment, holding his position, before finally doing as he said and dropping a spluttering, wincing Todd facedown onto the hard stone steps.

  The two lawyers instantly rushed forward to help him to his feet, but Todd shrugged them off. His cheek was scraped and bleeding from where Bobby had ground it against the step, and his right arm hung limp at his side. He was evidently still in some pain.

  “First degree assault,” he hissed. “In front of witnesses. Smart move, Cameron. And here I was thinking you could barely afford the one lawsuit.”

  Turning away, he limped off to his car, leaving his threat hanging in the air behind him like a bad smell.

  “What did you do that for?” Everyone else looked concerned for Bobby, but Summer was outright angry. Ever since that awful day when he’d found out the truth about Hank being her father, Bobby had had to watch her anger and resentment toward him grow. When he came back to find her, after Diana dropped the bomb, she’d been expecting him to make love to her. Instead he’d been colder and more distant than ever—and he couldn’t tell her why.

  No wonder she resented him. She must think he’d been trifling with her feelings on purpose, leading her on just to let her down and humiliate her for the second time. But what could he do? He’d promised never to tell her the truth, and it was a promise he intended to keep.

  ??
?I had to do something,” he said, defending himself. “You heard what he said about Milly.”

  It was like gasoline on Summer’s flames.

  “Milly?” she shouted furiously. “You’re worried about Milly? She’s the one who got us into this mess in the first place.”

  “No,” said Bobby sadly. “She’s not, Sum. It was me. I’m the only one to blame.”

  But Summer had already stormed off, sobbing, down the street.

  “Don’t worry about her,” said Wyatt, wrapping a reassuring arm around Bobby’s shoulders. “She’s just emotional. We all are. Today’s been a tough day.”

  “Yeah,” said Bobby. He felt like crying and running away himself. “Yeah. It has.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The All American Futurity is to two-year-old American quarter horses what the Kentucky Derby is to three-year-old Thoroughbreds: the race that really counts.

  Every year at the end of August the normally peaceful village of Ruidoso, New Mexico, bursts into life as thousands of fans make their annual pilgrimage to the Ruidoso Downs racetrack and casino to watch the greatest quarter horses in the world compete in the Labor Day final.

  Thanks in no small part to Milly, whose T-Mobile ads had helped bring the sport to a much wider audience, this year the buzz in the village was even higher voltage than usual. Unheard-of crowds of over twenty thousand were expected for today’s final, many of them hoping to see the English cowgirl stage her much-vaunted return to form after a hugely disappointing second season.

  Milly herself had done her best to stay isolated from all the gossip in the weeks leading up to the race. She’d barely set foot outside Palos Verdes and had been focusing as hard as she could on her training. She’d even taken her life into her own hands and turned down engagements that her sponsors had specifically requested she attend.

  “You realize you’re hardly in a position to start dicking us around,” the new press liaison officer for T-Mobile had told her sharply the second time she cried off. “Your contract expires at the end of next month, and renewal is still very much an open question.”

  But for once Milly held her ground. “Make your mind up, would you?” she said. “Either you want me to win at Ruidoso or you don’t.”

  “Of course we need a win,” the press girl snapped.

  “Then bugger off and let me train in peace,” said Milly, hanging up. No one had called back, which she decided to interpret as a positive sign. If she’d been fired, she was pretty sure someone would have called to tell her so. And for the first time in months—since her win at the Humboldt County Fair, in fact, the day that she’d gotten home to find Todd hard at it with Candy—she felt both her own performance and Cally’s were genuinely improving.

  Gill thought so too.

  “You see,” she said, the day before they drove down to New Mexico, when Milly had pulled off a personal best time up at the gallops. “You two do have chemistry. All you need to do is trust him a little bit.”

  “I guess,” Milly said doubtfully, although deep down she was delighted and flooded with relief. After so many disasters, she was starting to believe the hype that maybe she was a one-season wonder and had lost her touch.

  “‘I guess’ nothing,” said Gill firmly. “You never did a quarter mile that fast with Demon. Your only problem is confidence.”

  She was right, of course. The truth was that by dumping her for Candy, Todd had shattered Milly’s already fragile confidence into a million pieces. It was hard to stick it back together on demand, especially with Rachel snapping hungrily at her heels like a piranha fish, and both her sponsors and Jimmy giving her a hard time about everything from her weight to her attitude.

  She didn’t know for sure whether Todd’s affair with Candy was still ongoing, and she didn’t want to know. But the dreamy, faraway look in Candy’s usually ice-cold eyes was a pretty clear indication that it was. Milly hadn’t told a soul about what had happened that day. Not, as Candy and Todd both assumed, out of loyalty to Jimmy but out of straightforward embarrassment and humiliation. Whatever she might feel about Todd—hatred, anger, righteous indignation—it was a blow to her pride to have to admit that he’d sexually rejected her for another woman. Not to mention blatantly used her to carry out some spiteful vendetta against Bobby. Whichever way you cut it, he had made her look weak and stupid. She wasn’t in a rush to share that with the world.

  It was that same feeling of weakness that stopped her challenging Jimmy directly about whether or not he was planning to drop her in favor of Rachel. If he was, she figured, she’d know about it soon enough. And as nothing she said would change his mind anyway, there wasn’t much point in humiliating herself by asking the question. The best thing she could do was get her head down and keep working. Try to prove to him once and for all that she was the one with the talent.

  Slumped over the toilet in her trailer on the morning of the big race, Milly threw up violently for the second time in an hour.

  “Are you okay?” Gill rapped gently on the door. Pre-race nerves were to be expected, especially with the press hounding the poor girl to death every time she set foot outside and fans demanding to have their picture taken with her or their programs signed. But she really sounded unwell in there.

  “I’m fine,” Milly croaked halfheartedly. She was still on her knees, her clammy forehead pressed against the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Christ, she felt awful. She’d never known nerves like it.

  If only Demon were here. Sure, Cally was coming on in leaps and bounds. But she still missed her darling Demon horribly.

  “You look like death warmed up,” said Gill, not unkindly, when she finally emerged. Handing her a hot, sweet tea she forced her to take a seat on the makeshift couch.

  “Thanks,” said Milly shakily. “Look, don’t get mad.” Sipping at her drink, she shivered like a shipwreck survivor. “But, do you happen to know if Bobby Cameron’s here yet? I’d go out and look myself, but it’s such a zoo out there, I can’t face it.”

  Gill sighed. This, she suspected, was the real reason Milly’s digestive system had decided to go into orbit. It wasn’t Todd, or the rumors about Jimmy and Rachel, or even the pressure of the race that was terrifying her. It was the prospect of running into Bobby again.

  After he’d returned her first letter and check, Milly had summoned up all her courage and decided to try again. Somehow, she needed him to know how sorry she was, how she hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, how Todd had duped her too. But she never received a reply. Ever since then, she’d been haunted by the thought that, as far as Bobby was concerned, she had deliberately betrayed him and Highwood.

  “I haven’t seen him,” said Gill patiently. “But there are twenty thousand people out there. It’s pretty unlikely our paths would cross by chance.”

  “Yeah,” said Milly absently. In her mind she was obviously miles away. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  “Here.” Dylan handed Bobby a Dixie cup of warm beer and sat down beside him on one of the old canvas chairs outside Marti Fox’s trailer. “Drink up and cheer up, wouldya? You’re frightening the horses.”

  Today’s race would mark the official end of Bobby’s training tour, which ought to have been a cause for celebration. Even if Dash for Dixie hadn’t a hope in hell of getting placed.

  The beer was disgusting, but knowing how long Dyl must have stood in line for it at the overcrowded, overpriced bar, Bobby drank it anyway.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Oh, here, before I forget.” Reaching into his jeans pocket he pulled out a fat roll of fifty-dollar bills bound with a grimy plastic band and pulled off five of them, which he thrust into Dylan’s hand. “Your wages. For the last three days.”

  “My what?” Dyl frowned, swatting the money away. “Don’t talk crazy. That money’s for the fund and you know it. Besides, all I did was hold a couple o’ lead ropes while you did your thang. I know it’s sad, but coming out to Ru
idoso is my idea of fun, not work.”

  This was only partly true. He’d actually flown down to New Mexico for two reasons: to act as moral support for Bobby, which these days was about as much fun as having root canal surgery without anesthetic—and to see Amy.

  For the past three days he’d done the best job he could with the first part of his mission, listening patiently for hours on end while Bobby poured his heart out about losing Highwood.

  And it was heartbreaking. The last of the quarter horses had been sold to a rival outfit in Los Olivos, and the new stables, that less than two years ago had been Bobby’s pride and joy, were being used as temporary storage sheds for Comarco’s equipment. Thunderbird was now the only horse he owned, even then only in part, and he was thousands of miles across the country in Kentucky. All that was left of the cowboy idyll he’d inherited were the few remaining untouched meadows and a hundred-odd head of cattle. Not forgetting, of course, legal debts the size of the Grand Canyon.

  What Dylan didn’t know was that it wasn’t only the nuts and bolts of the ranch that Bobby was losing. Ever since Diana had told him about Hank’s affair, he’d had to face up to the fact that his father was not the man he thought he was. He’d spent his entire life trying to live up to an ideal that didn’t exist, that had probably never existed. In some ways, that was the heaviest blow of all.

  He couldn’t wait for Summer to go back to Berkeley. Having her around at home was indescribably painful. He couldn’t stop himself looking for glimpses of Hank in her face, then thinking back to their kiss. True, it was only a kiss. But remembering how he’d felt then opened the door to a Pandora’s box of awful, disturbing images. She was his sister. His sister. Some days he felt so guilty and revolted by it, he could hardly breathe.

  “We should go on up to the stands, you know,” said Dylan, grimacing. This wasn’t beer, it was cat’s piss. “The race starts in twenty minutes and there’s already a crush out there you wouldn’t believe.”

  In fact, it wasn’t the race that made him anxious to get back to the action but the prospect of finally seeing Amy again in the flesh, for the first time since New York. Absence, in this case, had certainly made his heart grow fonder, although he was also nervous. They’d both built today up into such a big thing, but they hadn’t even kissed yet. What if it was a disaster?