Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [42]
He buried his face in my neck. “I’d rather have you come with us, but it’s up to you. Lydia may be gorgeous, but don’t forget she dumped me a long time ago.”
I laid my cheek on his damp, black hair, my heart troubled, thinking, that’s my problem, Friday. I’d feel a heap better if you’d dumped her.
LATER AT THE museum, in the early afternoon when I’d finally caught up on all my paperwork, I decided to take Bliss up on her offer to watch her work the horses. Since I knew it was her day off, I called the ranch, hoping she was there.
“Come on down,” she said. “You’re welcome anytime. I’ll be exercising Churn Dash in about an hour,” she said. “We’ll be down at the training track.”
I went by the house, picked up Scout, and arrived at Seven Sisters stables a little before two-thirty. Scout, his nose quivering with new, tantalizing smells, reluctantly obeyed my command to heel as we walked behind the stables and down the short path to the training track. Bliss was jogging Churn Dash around the freshly graded black dirt. I waved to her, and when she waved back, he took the opportunity to crow-hop and dance around, generally behaving squirrelly. She scolded him verbally and gently brought him back under control with firm, experienced hands.
I climbed up on the metal rail and watched her start around the track at a lope. With the cool, early-afternoon ocean breeze sweeping over me, I felt myself relax and really enjoy the pure, incredible beauty of a young horse’s muscles at work. He fought her, aching to break into a run. You could see the pleasure in his neck and ears as she rode him around the half-mile track. I knew enough about horses to see this one had something special—that unpredictable, unknowable thing you couldn’t breed into an animal, the thing that made them go the extra mile, make the extra effort, the thing that made you suspect they’d keep going until they collapsed. That thing some people called heart.
After two times around the track she walked him for a while, cooling him down. Then she rode him over to my perch on the railing. She pulled off her jockey helmet and shook out her blond hair.
“Glad you could make it,” she said, reaching down and patting his neck. “What do you think?”
“He’s something special, no doubt about it.”
She nodded, her hair blowing wild around her head. “We sure think so. Like Grandma Cappy said, we haven’t had a stakes horse in a few years. We’re hoping Dash will change that.”
She climbed down and led him toward the gate, which I’d already opened. I followed her to the tie stall where she untacked him and slipped on a baby blue halter. She stopped briefly, touching her hand to her stomach, her face tightening for a moment.
I hesitated before saying, “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she said. “Just a little sick spell.”
Knowing it was none of my business, I didn’t say anything about the safety of riding a racehorse so early in her pregnancy, but I couldn’t help wondering if it was a wise choice.
“Can I clean him up?” I asked, thinking she could at least rest while I did that. “I kinda miss doing that on a regular basis now that I’m a city girl.”
Her eyes were disbelieving, but she said, “Sure, if you want.”
We led Dash over to the wash racks, and she leaned up against an oak tree as I hosed him off.
“Why aren’t you coming to dinner tonight?” she asked, scratching behind Scout’s ears.
I ran the slow-flowing water over Churn Dash’s brown back. “I thought it might be easier for you to get to know Lydia without me there.”
She wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something bad. “Designer suits and those perfect nails. And she’s a defense lawyer. I can’t believe she and the chief produced Sam. Frankly, she scares me spitless.”
I laughed in recognition and camaraderie. “I know the feeling. I still feel that way about Gabe’s mother. But we get along okay. Of course, there are two thousand miles between us.”
“I’d feel a lot better if you were going.”
“Sorry, but I have a dinner date with Scout tonight.