Page 80

She felt the fires within her begin to flare and Brig’s answering shudder of surrender.

“I love you,” she whispered, while tears of relief filled her eyes. “I know it’s irrational, but I think I love you.”

“I know,” he murmured, kissing the wet strands of her sun-streaked hair and holding her trembling body as if life itself depended on it.

Chapter 5

When Brig opened his eyes, he noticed that his body was covered in sweat, evidence of his recent nightmare—the vivid and brutal dream that had interrupted his sleep repeatedly during the last six years. The nightmares had become less frequent, but being with Rebecca again had triggered the ugly, painful dream. He lifted his arm to touch her, to find comfort in the softness of her body and to convince himself that his memory of making love to her hadn’t been part of the dream, hadn’t been conjured by his imagination. His hand touched the crumpled sheets, cold from the morning air. The bed was empty.

Brig’s eyes flew open with the realization that she was gone. He lifted his head from the pillow too quickly, and a ton of bricks pressed on his skull in the form of a hangover. Then he saw her—as beautiful as he remembered. It wasn’t part of his dream. Rebecca was really here, in his father’s cabin in the foothills of the Rockies. She was huddled in his favorite blue robe, her fingers drawing restless circles on the window ledge where she sat as she stared out the window. She appeared absorbed in thought. Pensive lines of worry marred the smooth skin of her forehead. Her honey-blond hair was unruly and tangled as it framed her delicate face. Her green eyes stared, but saw nothing. What was she thinking?

He started to call her name, but withheld the impulse as he recalled the first time he had seen her. Dressed elegantly in shimmering blue silk, her hair coiled regally upon her head, Rebecca had combined beauty with grace. She had been refined and yet seductive.

Brig hadn’t fallen in love with her then. It had come much later when the feelings of respect and trust had grown into love. They had worked together side by side, day after day, in the sweat and grime of training a headstrong bay filly to become the racing wonder she was. With Rebecca’s fiery Thoroughbred and Brig’s money, they had formed a partnership intent on taking the racing world by storm. They planned to shake up the elite world of horse racing with Sentimental Lady, a filly who could outdistance the colts.

At the thought of the elegant horse, Brig’s stomach turned over and the taste of guilt rose in the back of his throat. For the first time in his life, Brig had allowed himself to be shortsighted. Perhaps his clear thinking had been clouded with love, but nevertheless it was a poor excuse for letting his emotions override his logic. He had known from the moment he laid eyes upon Sentimental Lady that her legs weren’t strong enough to carry the weight. If only he’d used his head instead of trusting a woman with beguiling green eyes!

His nightmares were a surrealistic replay of the events that had shattered his life. It was always the same. He was with Rebecca in a crowd of thousands of cheering people. The track was dry and fast—Sentimental Lady’s favorite. The warm California sun glistened on the flanks of a blood-bay horse as she nervously pranced toward the starting gate. The other horse in the match race, Winsome, had already won top honors as a three-year-old. His list of victories included two of the three jewels of the triple crown and now he faced an opponent he had never previously encountered. Although Sentimental Lady had stormed into the racing world as a two-year-old, and at three had won all of her starts, including the Kentucky Oaks, the Black-eyed Susan, and the Coaching Club American Oaks, she hadn’t raced against the colts. She had shattered several world records, and was clocked faster than Winsome. The press and the fans demanded a match race of the two most famous three-year-olds of the season: Sentimental Lady challenging Winsome.

There was another side to the story, an interesting twist that headlined the gossip columns. The filly, renowned favorite of the feminist fans, was bred and owned by Rebecca Peters, a young woman making her way in a man’s world. The colt belonged to the stables of Brig Chambers, heir to an oil fortune and rumored to be romantically involved with Ms. Peters. It was a story the press loved, a story that extended the bounds of the racing world and included the romantic glitter of the very rich. Pictures and articles about the famous couple and their rival horses were flashed in both racing tabloids and gossip columns alike. Reporters couldn’t get enough information on the horses or their owners. Speculation ran high on the future mating of Sentimental Lady to Winsome.

As the world saw it, Brig Chambers had it all: a beautiful, intriguing woman and two of the fastest horses ever run. Nothing could go wrong, or so he was told. So why then did he argue against the race, and when he finally relented, why did doubt keep filling his mind as he watched a lathered Lady being led into the starting gate? Why was there an uneasy sense of dread? Where was the exhilaration; the excitement? The false sense of security he had felt earlier in the week began to crumble. The race was a mistake—a terrible mistake.

Winsome, veteran of many victories and known for his calm temperament, was led into the starting gate. The crowd roared its approval and Sentimental Lady spooked at the sound. She skittered across the track and shied as her jockey attempted to urge her toward the gate. Nervous sweat lathered her withers and she tossed her head in apprehension.

“She’s too nervous,” Brig muttered, but his words of concern were lost in the approving roar of the crowd as Sentimental Lady sidestepped into the starting gate. The gate closed and the Lady reared, striking her head. It was too late; the door opened with the ringing of bells and shouts from the crowd. An empty track stretched out before her and Sentimental Lady bolted. Brig yelled at the officials, but his voice was drowned in the jumble of noise from the fans.

“No!” Brig shouted at the jockey, watching the race between colt and filly in silent horror.

Winsome was ahead, but Sentimental Lady seemed to get her footing. She was astride the black colt before the first turn. The speed of the race was incredible and Sentimental Lady finished the first quarter faster than she had ever run. Winsome liked to lead and was known for crushing his opponents early in the race, but Sentimental Lady hung on, holding her own against the powerful black horse.

The blood drained from Brig’s face as he watched the horses, racing stride for stride, heartbeat for heartbeat. “This is a mistake,” he screamed at Rebecca. “She’s not going to make it . . .”

“She will!” Rebecca disagreed, her eyes shining in pride at the way the Lady was running. The crowd seemed to agree, roaring, urging the horses onward in their blinding pace.

“We’ve got to stop the race!” Brig shouted, shaking Becca.

“It’s too late—”

“We’ve got to! Lady hit her head in the gate. Her stride’s off!”

“You’re crazy,” Becca screamed back at him, but a flash of doubt clouded her green eyes. “Look at her—she’s running with the wind!”

Sentimental Lady was a neck ahead of the colt, but he was pushing her, driving her to greater speeds, forcing her to run faster than she ever had. The horses were halfway down the backstretch, their legs pounding the track furiously, their dark tails trailing behind. Nostrils distended, they ran, neck and neck, stride for stride, eyeball to eyeball. The white fence inside the track hampered Brig’s view, but still he saw the misstep as clearly as if he had been astride her rather than on the sidelines.

The blow to the leg came with a sickening snap that Brig imagined rather than heard. It was the brittle crack of bone as nearly twelve hundred pounds of horse came crushing down on fragile legs.

For a moment Brig stood transfixed, watching in sickened dread. “She broke down,” he yelled at Rebecca, who had witnessed the fateful step.

Winsome pressed on, and Lady, her spirit and courage refusing to be extinguished, continued to race on her three good legs. The jockey fought desperately to pull her up, knowing that her competitive fires would carry her on and further injure her. Each stride pushed her tremendous weight on the shattered bone, further pulverizing the bone into tiny fragments ground into tissue, dirt, and blood.

Brig didn’t see Winsome finish the race. He ran across the track to the site of the injury, where the jockey was trying to calm the frightened animal. The veterinarian arrived and tried to soothe the horse, while attempting to examine the break. The Lady reared and Rebecca, with frightened tears running down her face, softly called to the horse, hoping to somehow forestall the inevitable.

“Good girl. That’s my Lady,” she said tremulously. “Let the doctor look at you, girl.”

The frightened horse reared. Blood was smeared on her regal white star, and her right foreleg was a twisted mass of flesh and bone. The whites of her dark eyes showed the fear and pain.

Rebecca reached for the horse’s reins but Sentimental Lady reared again. The injured leg glanced Becca’s shoulder, leaving her ivory linen suit stained with blood and her shoulder bruised.