That Summer (2 page)
I looked at him. He looked a little startled, that was all.
I snatched my hand away. “It's okay, “ I managed to get out. “I forgive you.”
He smiled at me. Whenever Liam smiled all my in-sides turned to goo. He stood up. “We should go back inside. People will be looking for you.”
At that moment Frank Michaelson, the owner of Pine Tree farm, came out. Next to Liam's splendid six foot three, he looked tiny. “There you are, Anne. I have to leave, but I wanted you to know that if there's anything I can do for your mother, please let me know.”
“Thank you, Mr. Michaelson.” I stood up to take his hand.
“Looks like you got yourself a Derby horse,” he said to Liam.
“Oh God, Frank, you know how it is. A horse's route to the Derby is so treacherous that I'm afraid to even think about it,” Liam replied.
“Ford's a good trainer. You have him in good hands.”
“I know.”
“All right. I'll stop talking about it. But I wish you luck.”
“Thanks,” Liam said.
As Frank went down the porch steps I said to Liam, “I'd better be getting back inside.”
“All right.”
As we passed through the door into the house, Liam put a brotherly hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Chin up, brat.”
All I could manage in reply was a nod.
T
he house that had been home to me from the time I was six had originally been built to house the farm's overseer. It had been renovated in 1890 and then again in 1950, when the kitchen addition was put on. It had a center hall opening to porches on both ends. On the ground floor the parlor was on the left of the center hallway and the dining room was on the right. The kitchen was in the back. Upstairs there were three bedrooms.
It was a small house, but Mom loved it. All of the furnishings, with the exception of a grandfather clock, a painting of a horse and a few tables and chairs, belonged to her, and she had lovingly chosen each piece to go with the house's original woodwork. Daddy used to say she should change professions and become an interior decorator.
I was sitting in the April sunshine on the front porch having a cup of coffee when a dusty Jeep Cherokee stopped in front. As I watched, a blond-haired man got out and walked up to the porch.
“Kevin,” I said. “How good to see you.”
He came up the stairs and stooped to kiss my cheek. “I am so sorry, Anne. I wanted to get here for the funeral, but I got held up.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“I'd love coffee.”
“Wait here and I'll get it.”
When I came back with his coffee he asked about Mom.
“She went back to school this morning. She said it was better than just sitting around and thinking.”
He smiled at me. It was a powerful weapon, Kevin's smile. He had made a fortune out of it in the movies. “You look gorgeous. How long are you staying?”
“I've taken off for the month. I didn't want Mom to be alone.” I smiled wryly. “To tell the truth, I didn't want to be alone either.” I sipped my coffee. “Why are you here if you didn't come for Daddy's funeral?”
“I just finished a nonstop run of promoting my new movie—I had a spot on Jay Leno, which is why I couldn't get here for the funeral—and I thought I'd come home for a little break. I miss the peace of Wellington when I'm in L. A.”
Kevin was Liam's cousin, the son of Senator Wellington's brother. He had been brought up at Wellington because his parents had split and neither one of them had wanted custody of him. He and Liam were the same age—twenty-eight. I had known him since I was six, just as long as I had known Liam.
“Will Nancy be moving up to Maryland with you?” he asked.
“No, she says she wants to stay here. She has a lot of friends, and then there's her job at the school.”
He looked doubtful. “Will she be able to stay in this house?”
“No, she's talking about moving into town.”
“That might be better. She'll be less isolated.”
“Yes. There are too many memories of Daddy in this house. I think she'll be better off starting anew.”
His azure eyes looked sympathetic and he nodded. “How is your practice going, Anne? Do you like it?”
“It's long hours but I love it.”
“That's good. You look great. If you ever get tired of being a vet, I'm sure I could get you a job in the movies.”
I laughed. “I love being a vet, but thanks anyway.”
“You get that horse-whisperer thing from your father. He had a magic touch with them.”
“That's true.”
“It's going to be hard to replace him.”
I nodded. It was going to be impossible to replace him. “Do you get to do any riding?” he asked.
“Very little. I work too long hours to have my own horse.”
“I don't get much riding either. How about we go for a ride tomorrow morning? There are still a couple of hunters in the stable.”
“Clear it with Liam and I'd love to.”
He got to his feet and I followed. He was two inches shorter than Liam, but I still had to look up at him. With his blue eyes, blond hair and golden tan, he looked like a Viking. He was currently one of the hottest properties in Hollywood.
“I'll meet you at the barn at seven,” he said.
“Great,” I said.
He took my hand. “Give Nancy my condolences.”
“I will.”
He bent and this time he kissed my mouth. “I'll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodbye, Kevin,” I said, and took the coffee cups back into the empty house.
After I had washed the dishes, I decided to take a walk around the property and go to visit Thunderhead, Wellington Farm's premiere stallion, the sire of Derby hopeful, Someday Soon.
The graveled path took me through acres and acres of black oak-fenced grassy paddocks, populated mostly by horses.
It was one of the most beautiful sights on all the earth. There were the paddocks that belonged to the mares and their foals; the paddocks that were inhabited by the yearlings; those that held the two-year-olds; and finally the stallion paddocks. Close to the stallion paddocks was a large and airy shed which hosted “the most expensive thirty seconds in sports. ” It was the breeding shed.
Thunderhead was on the far side of his pasture, and I stood at the fence and watched as he assessed my arrival. He was a big boy, a grandson of Mr. Prospector, a perfectly balanced animal with a lovely head, a giant stride, long-sloping shoulders and powerful hindquarters. At the moment his glossy gray coat was somewhat spoiled by the dirt he had rolled in.
I watched him watching me, then I called his name. His ears flicked. Who was this stranger that knew his name?
He trotted toward me, stopped when he was about forty feet away, and glared. “Thunderhead,” I said. Liam had named him after the horse in Mary O'Hara's eponymous novel. He came a little closer, nostrils flaring. He was a little put out with me. This was his paddock, after all, and his farm, and who was I to intrude where I wasn't invited?
As a two-year-old Thunderhead had won three stakes races before an injury had caused Liam to retire him to stud. Last year his first crop of foals had been two-year-olds and they had done well at the races. Now his son, Someday Soon, was one of the favorites for the Derby. If he won, Thunderhead's reputation as a sire would be made. The stallion would be worth a fortune.
I watched him approach me, careful to keep my hands outside the fence. Stallions have a nasty habit of biting.
“You're gorgeous,” I told him in the soft, melodious voice I always used for horses.
His ears flicked back and forth.
I stood there talking to him and he listened. In the distance, a cloud of dust appeared on the road and both Thunderhead and I watched as the pickup truck went by the mare's pastures and headed in our direction. The truck pulled up and Liam got out, wearing jeans and a collared navy blue knit shirt.
“Visiting with Number-one Stud?” he asked.
“Yes. He looks marvelous, Liam.”
“One of his won the Fountain of Youth last year. And now Someday Soon is having this terrific season.”
“Storm Cat move over,” I said. At the moment, Storm Cat was the most popular and most expensive stallion standing at stud.
Liam leaned against the fence next to me. My heart beat a little faster. “I'll never get the money Storm Cat commands, not in Virginia, but if I could get even half it would be a salvation.”
I looked at Liam's profile and he turned and looked back at me. The sun shone on his black hair and his long black lashes made his eyes look deeply blue. “Salvation?” I said. “That's a strange word for you to use.”
His eyes looked bleak. “Things have changed around here since you left, Annie. For one thing, the stock market has crashed. Dad had a lot of money in bad stocks. For its entire existence, almost a century, the horse operation here at Wellington never had to worry about running at a profit. It was a gentlemen's avocation, propped up by private money—a small farm standing a few stallions and keeping a smallish number of quality mares. Since I've taken over, the horses have carried themselves, but Dad has always paid for the insurance and the upkeep of the farm buildings. Now it seems the money isn't there anymore.”
I blinked. “Is your father going to sell the farm, Liam?” I asked in a hushed voice.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “It's not as bad as that. But he's told me that I'm going to have to lease the land from him to run my business. And I'm going to have to shoulder the entire expense of the horse business as well. So there's a lot riding on Someday Soon's success. If he wins the Derby, it should enable me to generate enough income in stud fees to pay Dad the lease money he needs. Otherwise, it's going to be tight.”
In the pasture, Thunderhead lowered his head and began to graze, all the while keeping one eye turned in our direction.
Liam looked out over the rolling hills, the large green fields with their run-in sheds, the graceful old trees. He said fiercely, “One day this place will be mine, and I'm not giving up the horses. I've worked too hard to build what I've got here.”
“You'll make it succeed, Liam. I know you will.”
His mouth softened and he smiled. “I've missed you, Annie. Your visits home from school were always so short.”
Liam's smile made Kevin's look dull. I didn't reply.
“How old are you now anyway?”
“I am twenty-six, Liam.”
He looked surprised. “Twenty-six. You mean little Annie is twenty-six already?”
“Little Annie is twenty-six, and you are twenty-eight. We're not children anymore, Liam.”
“Believe me, sweetie, I know that.” He looked at me. “But you don't look twenty-six. You still have those big brown eyes and that shiny brown ponytail that makes a guy just yearn to pull it.”
You look your age,
I thought. He didn't from a distance, but close up I could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and his mouth. Well, Liam had known some hard times in his life, that was for sure.
I said, “I just saw Kevin.”
His face didn't change. “He must have gotten in after I left the house. Is he staying long?”
“I don't know. He said he was taking a break from promoting his new film. If it does as well as the last, he'll be in clover.”
“I wish I had some of his money.”
Deciding that we were boring, Thunderhead turned his back on us and continued to graze.
Liam reached out to tug my ponytail gently. Then he grinned. “I couldn't resist it. “ He straightened away from the fence. “We have a breeding session in an hour. I have to go see if the lady is ready. Can I give you a lift?”
“No, I'll walk. I'm reacquainting myself with the farm.”
“Okay.”
He got in his truck and drove away down the gravel road in a cloud of dust. I turned to look back at Thunder-head. Had I made a mistake in taking a month off from work so I could be here for Mom? After so many years of avoiding Wellington, of avoiding Liam, why would I do something so drastically different?
I knew the answer before I even asked the question. I had been in love with Liam since I was six years old. For ten years I had stayed away from him, hoping my feelings would run their course, like a virus eventually did. But it hadn't happened. I had dated other men, I had even come close to an engagement once, but in the end my feelings for Liam had always won out.
Absence hadn't worked; perhaps propinquity would. I had hero-worshipped Liam when I was a child. As an adult I would see him more clearly and, I was hoping, more objectively. I wanted, finally, to break the hold he had over me. I wanted to be free.
Or so I told myself as I leaned on the fence and watched Thunderhead pull up the green grass with his strong thoroughbred teeth.
That afternoon I took the car into town to pick up some supplies. Midville is in the heart of Virginia hunt country—there are nine separate hunts in the vicinity— and horses are everywhere on the landscape: in pastures; in horse trailers on the highway and back roads; on roadside signs. There are the restaurants with horsey-sounding names like the Coach Stop, the Jockey Club and the Horse and Hound. There's the tack shop right smack in the middle of Washington Street, the main street in town. There is a statue of a horse at the post office and horseshoes on the bathroom doors in the two local bars. There's an auto repair place called Auto Jockey. If you couldn't tell that Midville was horse country, you had to be blind.
I was in the Safeway, trying to decide if I wanted Tide or Cheer when a voice from behind me said, “Anne—is that you?”
I turned to find myself facing a red-haired young man in a suit. It was the hair that clued me in. “Justin,” I said. “How are you?”
Justin Summers smiled at me. “You look great. I heard you went to vet school.”
“I did. I'm working in Maryland now, but I'm home because of my father.”
“I was so sorry about your dad. Everyone in town loved him.”
My throat felt tight. “He was a good guy.”
“He was that.”
I managed a smile. “What are you doing here?”
“I'm just picking up some food for Lauren—my wife.”
“You're married. That's wonderful, Justin.”
“I'm married and I'm an attorney, working here in town.”