“You go,” said Bobby, flinging his crumpled plastic cup into the trash. “I’m gonna stop by the paddock first, take a last look at our boy. I’ll join you in a minute.”
It was a five-minute walk from the trailer to the paddock, where this year’s sixteen fastest, fittest two-year-old quarter horses and their riders had already begun to gather. For all of them this was the most important race of the year; for some, the most important of their lives.
Easing his way politely through the crowds, Bobby told himself it was only professional to show his face trackside. He really ought to bid a final good luck to Dixie and his jockey. It’d look churlish not to.
The truth, though, was that he couldn’t keep away.
He had to see her.
He wouldn’t go up to her or anything. Just hang back in the crowds and take a look. Then he could make a lightning dash over to Marti, make his excuses, and get out of there.
No problem.
Milly emerged from the weighing room looking greener than ever and walked straight into a sea of cameras.
“Over here!” they yelled. “Milly!”
“How’re ya feelin’? Confident?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” she said, forcing a smile as she tried unsuccessfully to jostle her way through.
“How’s Cally doing?”
“Word is you shaved two seconds off your best time with Demon in training last week. Is that true?”
“Has Rachel Delaney called to wish you luck?”
It was hopeless. She obviously wasn’t going to make it out to the paddock without help. Ducking back through the changing rooms where the press couldn’t follow, she bolted for the ladies’, locking herself in a cubicle and trying to get her breath back.
“Breathe,” she murmured to herself, fighting down the nausea. “Just focus, all right?”
She heard the door open and two female stewards coming in to check their makeup. At first she was able to tune out their idle chatter. But then she heard a name that made her sit up and take notice.
“It’s Delaney, not De Mornay,” one of the women was saying. “You know. Rachel. The one who hates Milly, the one who’s dating her brother.”
“Yes, yes, I know, whatever,” snapped her friend. “But how do you know she’s signed. I mean, you haven’t seen the contract, have you?”
Milly felt all the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. What contract? Signed what?
“Of course not,” said the first steward. “Jimmy Price is more secretive than the Kremlin, you know that. But I heard his wife telling her friend about it with my own ears. He’s putting her on the payroll.”
“D’you think that means he’s dropping Milly?” asked the other. “But what if she wins today? He couldn’t drop her then, surely?”
“I dunno. He might. I mean, let’s face it, she doesn’t look well, does she? I’ve seen starving Ethiopians with more meat on their bones than that one. If anyone needs to ‘get more,’ it’s her. More potato chips!”
Milly heard them laughing as they left, slamming the door shut behind them.
Her mind was racing. She thought today was going to be a make-or-break. But was it already too late? Had Jimmy really signed that bitch behind her back?
Thankfully, there was no time to dwell on what she’d heard. She was already late. Pulling herself together with an effort, she slipped out of a side door with her head down and made it out to the paddock, where Cally was waiting.
Bless him. He looked as relaxed as a grandpa off for a Sunday stroll, quietly munching the grass as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
“There you are,” said Gill, looking relieved as Milly vaulted up into the saddle. “I was starting to panic you’d run off.”
A few seconds later, Milly wished she had. She felt her heart drop down through her rib cage into her boots and blinked.
But no, she wasn’t imagining things. There, standing right in front of her like Clint Eastwood in an old Western movie, was Bobby.
She hadn’t laid eyes on him since that terrible night in Bel Air, the night she’d first slept with Todd. She was shocked by how different he looked.
Back then he’d been so strong. Furious, yes, and hurt but still physically powerful, like a dying bull shrugging off the matador’s spears, roaring and charging even as the blood poured out of his side. But now? Now he looked resigned, tired, almost broken in an awful sort of way.
She knew she wasn’t one to talk, but he’d lost a lot of weight. And he had a distinct slump to the shoulders she was sure had never been there before. Where was the Bobby she remembered, the Bobby of fire and fury, the arrogant, cocky, devil-may-care cowboy she’d first seen from the top of the stairs at Newells and fallen so totally and helplessly in love with?
And then it happened. He looked up and caught her staring.
In that split second the deafening cacophony of Ruidoso Downs faded into white noise, and the crowds seemed to melt away, till it was just the two of them standing there. If her heart was still beating, Milly couldn’t feel it.
Bobby, on the other hand, was aware of nothing but the pounding of his heart, getting faster and faster and louder and louder till he was sure it must be audible to passersby.
He’d seen countless pictures of Milly on TV and in the papers since the last time they met. But seeing her in the flesh was different. She looked ill. Tiny, pale, underweight. Just terrible. The urge to run over, lift her down from her horse and carry her away, was so strong he felt himself being pulled physically forward. But every step he took became more faltering and uncertain, till in the end he simply stopped in his tracks and stared back at her.
“Hi.” Her voice was so faint that at first he didn’t hear her, just saw her lips shape the word. Clearing her throat she tried again. “I didn’t know if I’d see you today.”
“Yeah, well,” he said gruffly. “Here I am.”
Milly felt herself starting to get the shakes and gripped Cally’s mane for support.
“You sent back my letter,” she said. “I understand why. I mean, I think I do.”
“No you don’t,” said Bobby caustically. “How could you? You don’t understand anything.”
He wanted her so much. Wanted to forgive her, to love her, to be everything to her. But in some inexplicable way, his desire seemed only to fuel his rage. It was like he was programmed to lash out, to keep on pushing and pushing until he’d pushed her away completely—like some twisted form of self-defense.
“All you ever cared about was your own success, no matter what the price. Well, now you’ve got it. I hope you’re happy, that’s all.”
He started walking off. Desperately she called after him.
“I’m not happy! Bobby, please. I didn’t know about Comarco. Todd never told me anything. You have to believe me. I didn’t know!”
But he was already gone.
“Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. That doesn’t look good.”
Dylan was up in the stands watching the race. Standing beside him, in the place that should have been Bobby’s, was Amy. She was holding his hand and—despite the nightmare playing out in front of them for poor Milly—grinning from ear to ear.
It hadn’t happened the way she’d imagined it. But it was perfect just the same. Having spent a fruitless hour trying to track Dylan down when she’d first arrived—stupidly she’d been in such a rush this morning at the hotel, getting the boys dressed and ready, she’d forgotten her cell phone—she’d all but given up hope when, miraculously, he bumped into her at one of the ice cream stands.
“Hey!” His eyes lit up immediately, banishing all her worries about him having changed his mind and not being interested anymore. “Is one of those for me?”
Glancing down stupidly at her hands, she remembered she was holding two ice cream cones, peace offerings for the boys who she’d left alone with their dreadful mother for far too long. The ice cream was already beginning to melt, sending trickles of sticky, slow-running goo dribbling down
her wrists.
“Actually, they’re for the kids,” she said, beaming up at him, unable to hide her delight at seeing him again.
“Hmm.” Dylan grinned. She was even sweeter and prettier than he remembered. “Well, do they deserve them? Have they been good?”
“Good? Hell no!” Amy giggled. “They’ve been vile, as usual.”
“In which case,” said Dylan, prying them out of her sticky hands, “I reckon we should eat ’em ourselves.”
But he didn’t eat them. Instead, he dropped them both unceremoniously on the ground, pulled her to him, and kissed her so hard and for so long that people stopped to stare at them.
From then on Amy had been lost in a delirious fog of happiness. She allowed him to whisk her off to watch the race with him and Bobby, only Bobby never made it. She didn’t even care anymore that her father would be apoplectic, left to cope with the boys on his own.
Dylan McDonald loved her. That was all that mattered.
But even in her cocoon of bliss, she felt sorry for Milly as the race unfolded, and she could tell Dylan did too.
“Something must have happened,” she said, shaking her head. “She’s been riding so well. Oh, poor Milly. It’s just not fair.”
“It’s a lot of pressure.” Dylan shrugged. “Maybe the crowds are throwing her off?”
“No,” said Amy. “She’s used to that. It’s something else. It must be something else.”
It was only a four hundred and forty yard race, but Milly made it look like four thousand, staggering out of the gate slumped forward onto Cally’s neck like a drunk. For someone so light, she managed to act like a deadweight as the horse made a valiant effort on his own, dragging her toward the finish like an injured soldier. By post six they were already trailing the field. By the time they crossed the wire, there was clear daylight between Milly and the rider ahead of her.
The whole thing was over in under thirty seconds. But it was without doubt the worst race of her life.
“Do you think I should get down there?” asked Amy, her face clouded with concern.
Dylan nodded. “I think we should, yes.”
How she loved the way he said “we”!
Watching her gaze up at him with those wide, palest-of-blue eyes, Dylan felt himself melt. Slowly, still slightly nervously, he bent his head to kiss her again, pressing his dry lips against her own, delighting in the feel of her soft, porcelain skin against his day-old stubble.
“I don’t care what anybody thinks,” Amy whispered, drunk with happiness. “Not Dad, not Candy, not Milly, not any of them. I don’t want you to be a secret anymore.”
“Me either,” he said, hugging her so tightly she could barely breathe.
“Come on,” she said, reluctantly wriggling free. “We have the rest of our lives to do this. Right now I think Milly needs me more than you do.”
“I very much doubt that,” said Dylan, biting his lip with frustration. “But okay. Let’s go.”
Unfortunately for Milly, Amy wasn’t the first member of the Price family to make it to her trailer.
“What in the fuck was that?” Jimmy bellowed, his fat jowls shaking as he paced back and forth. “Are you fucking retarded or something?”
“Go easy on her,” said Gill. She had no idea herself what had gone wrong. But tearing into the poor girl now wasn’t going to help anyone.
“Go easy on her?” The concept was obviously a new one for Jimmy. “I’ve been going easy on her for the past six months, Gill. What am I, a fucking charity? You think T-Mobile is gonna go easy on her?” He gave a short, derisive laugh. “People invested a lot of time and money in you, Milly. I invested a lot of my time and my money.” He jabbed out each word with an accusatory finger. “But you let me down. You let yourself down. Jesus.”
Milly could hear his words but only as a faint, distant echo, as if her ears were stuffed with cotton or she was just emerging from a deep sleep. When Bobby had stormed off in the paddock, something fundamental had snapped inside her. Like all the myriad pressures of her life had finally reached boiling point, and her systems had simply stopped functioning.
She didn’t even remember riding Cally down to the starting gates. Nor could she explain to Jimmy, Gill, or anyone else what had happened during the race. It was all a blur.
“There’s no easy way to say this, Milly,” said Jimmy, lighting a new cigar. “So I’m just going to tell you straight. You’re fired.”
“Hey, now hold on, hold on,” said Gill, leaping to Milly’s defense. Someone had to. She herself was just sitting there as mute and unmoving as a statue. “Let’s not be too hasty.”
Today had been heartbreaking for Gill, too: watching all her hard work of the last month being washed down the drain.
At the worst possible moment her cell phone let off a series of insistent, high-pitched beeps. Some reporter, no doubt, looking for the first quote from Cally’s trainer on the shock result. She realized then that she’d been so caught up shielding Milly from the slavering bloodhounds outside, she didn’t actually know who’d won.
While Gill was delving into her purse to retrieve the damn thing and turn it off, there was another brief knock on the trailer door and Amy walked in, hand in hand with Dylan.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jimmy immediately turned his fury on his daughter. “Poor Candy’s been going outta her mind with the boys. And who is this clown?” He glared at Dylan, who glared back.
For once Amy ignored him, rushing straight over to Milly and hugging her.
“You poor thing,” she said gently. “What on earth happened?”
For the first time since the race, Milly seemed jolted out of her stupor. Looking perplexedly from Amy to Dylan and back again, she finally broke her self-imposed silence.
“You? And Dylan?” She nodded toward their still-entwined fingers.
Amy nodded, beaming like a lighthouse.
“But how? I mean, when did you? . . . I don’t understand.”
“We’ll explain later,” said Amy. “You’re what’s important right now. Tell us what went wrong, Mill.”
The tears that had been welling in Milly’s eyes for the last few minutes finally began to trickle down her face. It was like the floodgates opening.
“I ran into Bobby,” she sobbed. “Right before the race. And he hates me, Amy. He really does. He hates me.”
“Damn it,” muttered Dylan under his breath. “I knew it. Stupid, stubborn son of a bitch . . .” Then, turning back to Milly, he said, “Look, sweetheart, he doesn’t hate you. I know that for a fact.”
“But you didn’t see his face, Dyl. The way he looked at me.” She shook her head miserably.
“Trust me.” Dylan took her hand. The year and a half since they’d last seen each other seemed to melt into nothing in an instant. “He’s just lookin’ around for someone to blame, that’s all. Losing the ranch has been so tough on him.”
“He’s lost it?” Milly looked horrified. “He’s lost Highwood?”
“Well, no, not yet,” Dylan corrected himself. “But the writing’s on the wall. He can’t afford to keep fighting the case.”
For the second time in as many minutes, a cell phone went off. This time it was Milly’s.
“Don’t answer it!” said Gill. But it was too late. On autopilot, she’d already picked up.
“Hello?”
“Milly?” The voice on the other end of the line was so crackly and faint that at first she didn’t recognize who it was.
“Yes? Who’s this?”
“Milly, it’s me. Mummy.”
It took a couple of seconds to sink in.
“Mummy?”
“Yes, darling. Oh, Milly.” Linda’s voice started cracking into tears so violent that she was soon struggling to get her breath. “Something . . . something awful’s happened.”
No shit, thought Milly wryly. I’ve just been fired; my career’s over; Rachel’s about to steal what was my job, along with any other remaining shreds of my
life that she hasn’t already taken; Bobby hates me; I have half the world’s press waiting to begin a feeding frenzy on my public humiliation—and you call to tell me you’ve got problems!
“Don’t cry, Mummy” was all she actually said, drying her own tears. As always, Linda’s extreme neediness brought out her own sensible, coping side. Someone had to hold it together. “What is it? I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”
“It is!” Linda wailed. “It is, it’s terrible. Jasper’s been charged with fraud! And they won’t grant him bail or anything. He’s in York prison, Milly. Prison! And he won’t let me see him. He won’t even let me call . . .”
She broke down at that point, the few words that made it through her subsequent heaving sobs not coherent enough to mean anything to Milly, or anyone else for that matter.
“Listen, Mummy, try not to panic,” said Milly, when at last she was able to make herself heard, adding, with devastating understatement: “I’m a bit in the middle of something right now. Can I call you back in half an hour?”
“Half an hour?” Linda was on the verge of hysterics. “It’s one in the morning here, Milly. I need to talk to you now.”
Milly sighed. “I’ll ring as soon as I can, I promise.” God knows what sort of a mess J. had got himself into this time. But there was obviously no way her mother could cope on her own. She’d have to go back to England, and the sooner the better.
Hanging up, she rolled her eyes at Amy, who had the good sense to giggle. Suddenly, nothing seemed quite so important anymore. In fact, Milly had an awful feeling she might be about to burst into laughter herself—hardly appropriate under the circumstances.
Jimmy, on the other hand, looked far from amused. He’d expected tears from Milly, and, if not begging, at the very least a groveling apology for today’s fiasco. Instead she seemed more concerned about Bobby Cameron’s problems and arranging trips to England than being given her marching orders.