SOUTH
Nora stayed calm and collected for the entire trip back to Wesley’s house. She barely blinked and didn’t cry. No emotion showed on her face or in her hands. Long ago she’d learned how to control herself under the most difficult of circumstances. She’d had to for her job. Lesson number two from the great Kingsley Edge, King of the Underground—you are the Dominant. Act like it.
Those seven words had kept her face straight and her hands still even as one submissive after another had come to her with the most desperate and dangerous of fantasies. One Wall Street trader had wanted to drink her urine from a wineglass. The deputy mayor of New York confessed to the most graphic of rape fantasies involving him as the victim. A Texas cattle billionaire had begged her on his hands and knees to brand his back with his own branding iron. No matter how disturbed she’d been by their fantasies, their fetishes, she always had to stay calm and in control, even as they begged her, pleaded with her to hurt them as they dreamed. “No,” she often told them. “You haven’t earned it.” That was her line, her cover for when she knew no amount of love or money could convince her to do such a thing. And then they would beg harder, up their offer and she’d acquiesce.
“Now you’ve earned it,” she would say, which was code for, “now you found my price.”
I am the Dominant, she’d told herself over and over again, even as she wanted to run or crumble. I will act like it.
And now, as Wesley’s father watched her in silence out of the corner of his eyes, as he drove her and Wesley back to the guesthouse, Nora told herself the same thing. Hitting a newborn foal with a riding crop should have earned her at least a year in prison for cruelty to animals. Even now she wanted to roll up into a ball, and cry or puke, or both. But her guts had told her all it would take for Track Beauty to find the will to stand up and live was to see her baby in pain. It had worked. Not only had the mare gotten to her feet again, but it had seemingly earned Nora the respect of Wesley’s father…or at least his fear. And in her world, they were one and the same.
The older man pulled up to the guesthouse and Wesley got out first. Extending his hand, he waited, and Nora took it with the grace of an English duchess descending from her carriage.
“Thank you, sir,” she said as her feet touched the ground. “And good night, Mr. Railey.”
Nora turned her head just enough to smile at Wesley’s father over her shoulder. Kingsley had taught her that little move, as well—no one flirted quite like that Frenchman.
“Good night, son. And you, madam.”
She walked to the house without waiting for Wesley. She could hear him whispering back and forth with his father. Usually she would have been rabid to know what they were saying about her, but now she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting into the house and finding the bathroom.
Five minutes, she prayed. Just stay out of the house for five more minutes, Wesley.
Nora made it to the bathroom, shut the door behind her and threw up everything she’d eaten since lunch. It came up and out hard and fast, so hard her eyes watered and her stomach ached as if she’d taken a punch to the abdomen. She flushed her vomit away and crawled into the shower. The hot water blasted down even as Nora struggled to remove her sodden clothes.
When she heard the door open, she quickly composed her face.
“I’m in the shower, Wes. I’m covered in horse placenta.”
“Yeah, me, too. Make room.”
Nora gave a mirthless laugh as Wesley shoved in next to her, also fully dressed.
“Good idea,” he said as he raised his hand and started to unbutton her wet shirt. “It’s a shower and laundry all at once.”
“I’ve got nothing but good ideas.”
“I’m starting to think that’s true.” He grunted in frustration when Nora’s shirt remained stuck to her soaking body. With a roll of his eyes he simply tore it and sent three small buttons to the floor. “Oops.”
Nora shrugged. “It was your shirt, anyway.”
“Damn.” Wesley laughed and brought his mouth down to hers, but Nora pulled her head away before he could kiss her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I have horse placenta breath. Let me brush my teeth before you kiss me.”
“That might be the grossest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“What? Placenta’s a good source of protein, right?” she asked, and laughed again.
“Nora…are you okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Of course I’m okay. Why not? I mean, why?”
Wesley looked down at her and Nora could barely meet his brown eyes, which bored into her with the fiery love of a guardian angel. God probably had eyes like Wesley’s…anyone who looked into them wanted to immediately apologize for any and all sins ever committed.
“You’re standing under hundred-degree water and shaking, for one thing.” He cupped her face in his hands. “Every time you laugh, I worry the mirrors are gonna shatter. Talk to me.”
He caressed her cheek, kissed her forehead and brought her head briefly to his chest. Goddamn tall men…she hated them. All of them. They made her feel so small and so weak by virtue of their size alone. And she hated feeling small and she hated feeling weak and hated Wesley for reminding her how much she hated that.
“I hit a baby,” she whispered into his chest.
Wesley sighed and pulled her even closer.
“You hit a horse, Nora. Not a baby. And he’ll be fine. Which he might not have been had his momma died on that stall floor or in a hospital room. Horses don’t mend well. They’re not like dogs and cats. They get sick, you just put them down. Track Beauty might not have survived a week even if the vet had got her in a sling. And—”
“You can stop talking now, Wes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Underneath the steaming shower spray, Nora stood in Wesley’s arms and cried, letting the water wash the tears away before they could even drip down her face. Ten minutes passed, maybe fifteen, while the pain and the shame she’d felt every time she’d brought the crop down with vicious strength on the little horse’s back eased out of her. Finally, she’d cried out all the tears she had, and found herself laughing against Wesley’s chest.
“Now that sounds like a Nora laugh. What are you laughing at?”
“Us,” she said, rubbing her face on his shirt to wipe her runny nose. “How come we always end up in the bathroom with me having a nervous breakdown and you keeping me together?”
“I dunno. The bathroom seems to be your favorite place to go have a breakdown.”
“It’s good for reading, too.”
“You’re so disgusting.”
“What? I read in the bathtub. What were you referring to?”
Wesley laughed and rested his chin on top of her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
He sighed so heavily Nora felt his chest heave against hers.
“Now what’s your problem, kid?” Pulling back, she looked up at Wesley and started to peel off the rest of her clothes.
“You. You’re my problem. I’m crazy about you and you’re going to leave me. Aren’t you?”
“Wes, I just got here a few days ago. And now it seems like your dad doesn’t hate the very sight of me. So that’s progress.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
“Ask it again.”
Wesley met her eyes as Nora removed her underwear and stood before him wet and naked.
“Are you going to leave me…again?”
Nora’s stomach clenched even worse than it had back in the stable when she’d realized what she had to do.
“I didn’t leave you the first time, Wes. I went back to Søren. And I made you leave me. I couldn’t have left you. That’s why I kicked you out. I wasn’t strong enough to leave you. I was only strong enough to order you to go away.”
“Will you order me to go away again?”
“No. I thought it would kill me the first time I did it. I could barely speak for a week after you were gone. I cried constantly.”
“Søren must have loved that.”
“He loved me. And forgave me every tear. And not once did he tell me not to miss you, not to talk about you, not to love you.”
“I hate when you tell me nice things he’s done. Makes it harder to hate him.”
“Don’t ever hate Søren.” Nora unzipped Wesley’s jeans and started to tug the wet denim down over his hips as he finally pulled off his wet and snot-covered shirt. “Hate me, but never hate him.”
“I have to hate him.”
“Why? Hate does not become you, my Wesley.”
“Nora…he put you in the hospital. I was there, remember? I drove you to the hospital after he—”
“He didn’t,” she said in a hollow voice and hated herself the second the words came out. She’d promised herself she’d never tell Wesley about that night.
“Didn’t what?”
“He didn’t put me in the hospital that night I went back to him. That’s not what happened.”
Wesley’s eyes widened. Nora turned off the shower, stepped out and grabbed a towel. Naked but for a towel, Nora sunk down on the floor. Still dripping wet, Wesley sat opposite from her, his back to the bathtub.
“The night I went back to Søren, it was rough. We played rough. He started with a hard slap. A good one. My favorite kind.”
“I should have broken his face for that.”
“Wesley—Søren slaps because I like slapping. I do it to clients all the time. It’s part of my kink. He knows that. He slapped me.”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“I can’t let you hate him. I thought I could but only because I thought it would make you hate me, too. I have to tell you the truth. You have to know what you’re asking me to do every time you ask me to stay.” Nora stared deep into his dark brown eyes.
“Nora…”
She heard the plea in Wesley’s voice, a plea she couldn’t heed.
“One slap and then he flogged me. A good thorough back flogging. I’d had one like that a thousand times before. Loved it. Then we were both so turned on and desperate for each other, he took me upstairs and we—”
“I know. You fucked, right?”
She shook her head.
“No. He made love to me. As gently as you have. He couldn’t stop telling me how much he loved me.”
“I saw you the next day, Nora. I know what he did to you.”
Nora narrowed her eyes at him and let him see that side of her she so often had to hide. “You don’t know anything about what he did to me. After we made love, I begged for more. He laughed and called me insatiable. He tied me to the bedpost and flogged me again, a bit harder this time. Then a little caning action. Just enough to leave some bruises. And I waited. Waited for my chance.”
“Chance for what?”
Nora’s mind went back to that night, the night she’d gone back to Søren after five years apart. She knew she had to do something, something ugly, something that scared even her. She had to do it so Wesley would want to leave her.
“Søren untied my hands and stepped away to get something—cuffs, another flogger, I don’t even know. As soon as he turned his back on me, I fell.”
“You fell? Like fainted?”
“No. I fell on purpose. Hard against the hardwood. I landed on the side of my face and on my ribs. It was like cutting down a tree. Timber…” she said, and with her hands feigned the falling of a heavy tree to the ground. “I hit the floor full body with my whole weight behind it. That’s how I bruised my ribs. That’s how I busted my lip…. He didn’t do it. I did it to myself.”
She knew Wesley believed her when all he could ask was, “Why?”
“Why?” she repeated. “For you. I thought if you thought Søren had really beat the shit out of me in a really ugly way, then you’d think I was…I don’t know…a hopeless cause. I thought it would scare you enough you’d want to leave. If I made you think he was a monster and you knew I loved him, then you would think…”
“I would think you were a monster.”
The deep sorrow in Wesley’s voice shamed her. She’d tricked Wesley into thinking Søren was an abusive brute. She’d terrified Søren by falling during that night. She didn’t deserve either of them—Søren or Wesley.
“I scared the shit out of Søren, too, you know.”
“Nora…please don’t make me not hate him. I need to hate him.”
“I hit the floor so hard he thought I’d passed out or something. I knew I’d scared him bad. It was the one time he’d ever called me ‘Nora.’”
“I have to hate him. Please…”
Nora ignored the “please.” She couldn’t stop now. He needed to know it all.
“He said, ‘Nora!’ and he knelt on the floor and ran his hands over me. And he looked at me, looked in my eyes. And he knew. He knew why I’d fallen on purpose. And he didn’t say a word. He knew I was going to lie to you about how I got so banged up, and he was going to let me lie. He knows not to ask questions he doesn’t want the answer to.”
Wesley bowed his head; he dug his hands into his wet hair.
“He picked me up off the floor and carried me to bed. He held me close and he…he told me to pick a number between one and one hundred.”
“Nora, I don’t want to hear any more.”
Nora felt something wet running down her face. Water from the shower? Or something else?
“It’s a game we play. Pick a number, but you don’t know what you’re picking. Are you picking one lash or one hundred lashes? Are you picking one kiss or one hundred kisses? I picked one hundred.”
Wesley went silent. Nora kept talking.
“He started to count…” Nora paused as she remembered the pain in her side, the blood on her tongue. Søren had gotten a cold wet washcloth and he gently dabbed her mouth. “He started to count the one hundred different things he loved about me.”
“Nora…don’t.”
Never had she heard such hurt in someone’s voice.
“Number one—he loves the way I laugh…all the time. And number seven—he loves the way I never answer my office phone like a normal person. And number fifty-eight—he loves the way my hair looks when I wear it pinned up.”
“You’re a sadist. You know that, right?” Wesley tried and failed to laugh. Nora did laugh, but it was a hard laugh and it hurt coming out.
“Are you just figuring that out, kid? I laughed at sixty-six. He loves the way my voice catches when I say his name while he’s inside me.”
“What was reason one hundred?” Wesley asked as water rolled down his cheek and dripped onto his clasped hands.
“One hundred. He loves that when he’s especially lonely for me, all he has to do is read one of my books. And he can hear my voice in the words I’ve written, hear it so clearly it’s as if I’m in the same room with him. I think if you asked me…I could tell you all one hundred reasons.”
“Please let me hate him,” Wesley begged, finally meeting her eyes again.
“Why do you have to hate him? He doesn’t hate you. I’m here now and he doesn’t hate you.”
“Because you’ll go back to him. And I’ll be alone again. And if I don’t have my hate, what will I have?”
She smiled at him and hated herself for that smile.
“You’ll have your parents. A huge farm. Millions of dollars.”
“So that’s your answer?” Wesley’s eyes hardened and Nora knew she’d hurt him far worse than she’d hurt Bastinado.
“I don’t know what else to say…I belong to him. He owns—”
“He doesn’t own you, Nora.” Wesley stood up and started to strip out of his wet clothes. You and your stupid kinky bullshit rules. No one owns anybody. People aren’t property anymore. Søren doesn’t own you. “You don’t belong to him. You can leave him and stay with me if that’s what you want.”
“It’s not kinky bullshit rules.” Nora took a towel of her own and followed Wesley back to the bedroom. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about collars and leashes and leads. When you love somebody, they own you whether you’re kinky or not. Surely you can understand that.”
“I understand love because I love you.” He turned around in the center of his bedroom. “And you love me, right?”
“God, yes, I love you. You know that.”
“Stay with me. Please.”
“Wes…”
“Please,” he said again. Please was all he had.
Nora only leaned against him and sighed. She made the only pledge to him that she could.
“I’ll try.”
* * *
At dawn the next morning, Nora awoke and gently extricated herself from the tangle of sheets and legs and arms that imprisoned her. Looking down on Wesley’s sleeping face, she quietly dressed and prayed he’d still be asleep when she returned. Last night, after he’d pulled out of her for the last time, rolled onto his side and gathered her into his arms, she’d made a decision.
She left the house and got into her car. Without consulting anything but her keen memory for directions, she drove the forty-five minutes to Talel’s horse farm. Once there, she opened the trunk of her car and found the riding crop she’d brought with her from her house in Connecticut. She loved this crop. Short and red and vicious, it had earned her the nickname Little Red Riding Crop early in her career as a Dominatrix. Stories had been written about this crop. It had become the stuff of legend. But it was very real, very painful, and she was about to use it on someone, without any remorse.
She knocked on the door and waited. A bleary-eyed servant answered the door and let her inside. But when he tried to bar her from going upstairs, Nora had to remind herself of Kingsley’s rule number two.
You are the Dominant.
Act like it.
She acted like it. The five-foot-ten, two-hundred-pound butler ended up on the floor with his arm behind his back.
“I’m just here to talk to Talel, who is an old, dear friend of mine. That Aston Martin out there? He bought it for me. I know he’s still in bed. That’s where you should be. Go now or everyone in this state will find out that a five-foot-three woman put you flat on your face. Say ‘yes, Mistress’ if you understand.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Good boy. Scoot.” Nora let him up and raced for the stairs. She had no idea where Talel’s bedroom was, but it didn’t take long to find it, or Talel, wide-awake and waiting for her by the window.
“I heard you coming, Mistress. I’d know that engine anywhere.”
“You should. It was your engine before it was mine. Need it back?”
Talel turned around and smiled sheepishly at her, not meeting her eyes.
“I wouldn’t say no.”
“I would have given it back had I known you needed the money enough to kill a horse over it. How much do you owe?”
“Mistress…I didn’t—”
Nora stormed up to Talel and slapped him viciously across the cheek. He flinched and stared at her in shock that turned quickly to desire.
“How much do you owe?” she asked again.
“I don’t—”
Nora twirled the riding crop in her fingers. That had been her signature trick—the twirl. Playing with the crop like a baton before catching it by the handle and bringing it down hard.
Talel watched the spinning crop with fearful eyes. Nora let it slide through her fingers until she grabbed the grip and hit the back of Talel’s knees. He crumpled to the floor.
“Don’t lie to me. I defended you to Wesley. I saw the stables—the empty stables. How much do you owe?”
Talel didn’t answer, but that didn’t surprise her. He loved being broken, loved having his pride stripped of him. He’d give her the answers she wanted, but she’d have to work for them. She could do that.
“Take your clothes off,” she ordered. In seconds and without any sort of fight, Talel stripped naked. She wasn’t at all surprised to see him hard. The more vicious she’d been with him, the more he’d wanted her. “On your back.”
Nora straddled Talel’s stomach and sat on his erection. He winced in discomfort. Jeans plus force against naked skin couldn’t have felt good. She didn’t it want it to feel good. Holding the riding crop at both ends, Nora pressed it against his neck.
“Your cock just twitched under me, Talel. You always liked being choked. I haven’t forgotten that.”
He swallowed hard and didn’t speak.
“I also haven’t forgotten how much you love submitting to a woman who’ll beat the shit out of you before fucking you for her own pleasure. You liked that, didn’t you? Being used? Answer me.”
“Yes, Mistress. I loved it.”
“I know. You didn’t have to tell me.” Nora sighed. “I’m really very unhappy here, Talel. I liked you. Genuinely liked you. It impressed me that you’re royalty in your own country, but you stay in the States so you can be treated like a normal person. Kingsley told me I shouldn’t fuck you, that I should see you as a paycheck and not a person. But I adored you. Stupid me.”
Nora stood up and put her foot on the center of Talel’s chest.
“Kiss it.” She let her dirty, horse-shit-covered shoe hover by his face. Talel lifted his head and obediently kissed the toe. “Good boy,” she said, before bringing her foot down to rest on his throat. All she had to do was drop her full weight onto her foot and Talel’s next breath would his last breath. “Now…how much do you owe?”
“Thirty million dollars.” The words were barely audible.
“That should be nothing for you.”
Talel shook his head. Nora lifted her foot a millimeter.
“My father found out…about me.”
Nora swallowed the pang of pity that threatened her resolve.
“He disinherited you?”
“I don’t know. I’m cut off for now, at least. The farm, the banks, the creditors…thirty million is an amount no one will forgive.”
“And Spanks for Nothing was insured for forty. Convenient. A miracle and spare change. You’re saved.” She glared at him with a mix of fury and pity.
“Not entirely. The investigators…they could discover it wasn’t an accident. We were careful but…”
Talel’s voice trailed off and the implications of that “but” hung in the air between them. Nora pulled the red clip out of her pocket and showed it to him.
“Not that careful.”
He said nothing, only stared at the evidence that could keep him from his miracle.
“Your creditors…are we talking banks? Or deep pockets?”
“Both.”
“Shit.” Nora’s jaw clenched. Deep pockets…that meant the mob. “Horse Mafia, huh?”
“Anywhere there is money there is the Mafia…as you know, Mistress.”
She nodded. Talel hadn’t merely been her lover, he’d been her friend. And she’d told him the truth about her background—her father with his Mafia ties, growing up in a chop shop, the car thefts that had gotten her sentenced to community service supervised by her priest. She better than anyone knew the reach and the power and the money of the mob. And if Talel got on their bad side and stayed there…it would be only a matter of time before the Underground had one less male submissive.
“Your friends…the Raileys,” Talel began and Nora pressed her foot harder on his throat again.
“Careful…” she warned. “You have no idea how much I care about Wes Railey.”
“You’re here and not with the priest. I think I know.”
“What about the Raileys?”
“They wield more influence than any investigators.”
“Wes said his uncle is the governor of Kentucky.”
“And his grandfather is the distinguished gentleman from Georgia.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Grandpa’s a senator? Lovely. Wesley left that part out.”
“He’s a humble young man. And kind. Too humble and too kind for this ugly business. Too kind for us.”
“Too kind for me, you mean. Tell me something I don’t know.”
Talel lay on the floor in silence. She wanted to kick him in the face and bust it open, but she stayed her wrath. Søren had taught her the lessons of sadism, but he’d taught her the lessons of mercy even better.
“What do you need from me?” she asked, cutting through the conversational niceties. Wesley was an early riser and she’d rather not explain where she’d disappeared to today.
“Can you convince Railey Sr. to make a phone call on my behalf? One call from him would put an end to the investigation.”
“I’ll try. Can’t promise he’ll do it. I’m not his favorite person, but at least I’m not his least favorite person anymore.”
“I’m sure he’ll bend to your will. We all do.”
“I said I’d try. But you killed a horse, Talel. For money. It’s murder…insurance fraud….”
“I’ve easily paid forty million dollars in insurance. It’s my own money they’d give back to me. And it’s hardly fair for a woman with more leather in her closet than I have in my stables to call the death of one animal ‘murder.’”
Nora said nothing as the unpleasant truth of Talel’s words sank in. When it came to issues of morality, she had long ago surrendered the moral high ground. She left that lofty plateau to Søren and his unusual code of right and wrong. Right now she wished Søren was here to tell her exactly what to do. Even during their years apart, she found herself going to him for advice and counsel and guidance, while she ran from his love and power and control.
“Nora,” Talel said, his voice soft and desperate, “they’ll kill me.”
Nora closed her eyes. He was right. When the mob caught up with her father, they’d torn him up with so many bullets cremation had been the only option for his burial. One man…one horse.
“I’ll talk to Mr. Railey,” Nora said, knowing exactly what Mr. Railey would say to her request. She knew what he would say and she knew what she would do. And she knew Wesley would be devastated. Just last night he’d asked her if she’d stay with him or leave. If she did this for Talel, she’d have no choice but to go.
“Thank you, Mistress. Thank you….”
Nora removed her foot from Talel’s neck. He came to his knees and knelt at her feet. Starting at the tip of her toes, he kissed his way up to her ankles, to her calves and up her thighs. Sighing, Nora let him worship her in his favorite manner. She had missed this, missed the foot worship, missed men at her feet. But she couldn’t deny the simple truth that as much as she missed the Underground, she would miss Wesley more.
“But there is a price to be paid for me talking to Mr. Railey for you.”
“I’ll pay it. Anything.” Talel gazed up at her from the floor. Nora tried to not let the sight of his exquisitely burnished flesh and his erotic obedience affect her. She had Wesley waiting at home in bed. She didn’t need Talel underneath her. Wanted…perhaps. But needed, no.
“The price is this.” Nora stepped to the window and left Talel kneeling on the floor. “You’re going to sell every horse you have left. You can keep the money, but you’re out of the horse-racing business. Forever. And you’re banned from the Underground. If I were you, I wouldn’t even set foot in New York.”
Talel stared at her with his mouth agape.
“It’s done, Talel. Don’t bother begging. That shit doesn’t work on me anymore.”
He closed his mouth and visibly swallowed. Standing up, he bowed his head.
“Yes…Nora.”
“Good. You know how much Kingsley loves those dogs of his. You’d be lucky to make it out of Manhattan with your own hide still on.” She hoped the bluff would work. Kingsley couldn’t care less about a dead horse in Kentucky. “You should sell the farm, too, and get out of the state. You don’t deserve to be in the same county as my Wesley. He’d cut off his own hand before he’d hurt anything on earth, for love or money.”
“Then what is he doing with you?”
Only Nora’s training as a Dominatrix kept her from flinching visibly at Talel’s words. But Talel hadn’t been the first man to wound her to the core of her being. That had been Søren. Had Søren said something like that to her, she would have responded with fury or tears. But Talel didn’t merit such a reaction. So instead she merely smiled.
“I ask myself that same question every day, Talel. I’ve decided not to answer it.”
Nora walked back to him and stood in front of his kneeling form. For that comment, for making a liar out of her to Wesley, and most importantly, for killing Spanks for Nothing, she gave him one very special farewell.
“Kingsley was right. I should have kept you as just a paycheck.”
With a well-placed swat of her riding crop, she hit Talel squarely in the testicles with brute force. He lay on the floor in the fetal position, writhing. He’d be down there for the next hour or two.
Good.
All the way back to The Rails, Nora’s conscience gnawed at her—a strange sensation, as up to that point she hadn’t been entirely certain she had a conscience. What else could she have done? she asked herself over and over again. Turn in Talel? He’d be fined for killing his horse and perhaps banned from Thoroughbred racing. Proving intent to commit fraud would be a case no one would bother making, especially since admitting to electrocuting Spanks for Nothing would mean the insurance claim was null and void, anyway. A slap on the wrist…no more. What she’d done to him had been a far more severe punishment than any racing commission could impose on him. Kingsley Edge had a far reach. Banning Talel from the Underground meant no legitimate establishment of kink would ever let him through their doors again. For a man like Talel who couldn’t be himself in his world, cutting him out of hers was akin to a death sentence—a spiritual one, at least. She’d felt something like it during her year in hiding after leaving Søren. For those like her and Talel, their sexuality was almost a sixth sense. Being cast out from their dark paradise would be like losing one’s sight or hearing. Without Søren, without the Underground, Nora had felt blind for a year. Her eyes hadn’t worked. As deeply as she grieved, she hadn’t been able to cry.
Nora returned to The Rails. Instead of driving straight to the guesthouse, she went to the main house, knocked politely on the door and waited. Wesley’s father himself opened the door.
“Weird,” Nora said the second she saw him.
“Good morning to you, too, young lady,” Mr. Railey said with confusion, but not his usual animosity.
“I’m sorry. Just thought you’d have a housekeeper or secretary or something to answer the door.”
“Don’t need one. Learned how to open a door a long time ago. Never forgot how.”
Nora laughed. “It’s just like riding a bike, I guess. Never learned that, though.”
“You don’t know how to ride a bike?”
“Do motorcycles count?”
“No, they do not.”
Nora sighed. “Damn. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Mr. Railey stared at her before taking a step back and ushering her into the house.
“Ohh…beautiful. Nice chandelier.”
“Thank you. It’s from Versailles,” he said as she followed him upstairs.
“I thought it was pronounced Ver-sayles?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her and raised his eyebrow.
“Oh,” Nora said, wincing. “The real Versailles.”
“That’s a fact. Now what can I do for you?” Mr. Railey asked as they entered what had to be his personal office. He waved at a chair as he sat behind his desk.
“Nice house,” she said, making the understatement of the century.
“We try to keep it up.”
“So far so good.” Nora glanced around the office and took in the various photographs of horses draped in blankets of roses. So many of the pictures included Wesley. In four feet of wall he aged from eight to eighteen. He got taller, got broader, but those eyes of his never changed—sweet and innocent in every last photo.
“I suppose asking you for a favor is a bit presumptuous of me,” she began without further preamble. “But I promised I would do it. And keeping promises is, for me, incredibly uncomfortable. I treat them like Band-Aids and let them rip.”
“A good philosophy, I suppose.” He leaned back in his chair and studied her. “Go on.”
“Talel killed his horse. He admitted it to me. Wasn’t an accident. He’s getting out of racing for good and selling all his horses. Getting him in trouble with the racing commission won’t do any good and would just cause a lot of trouble where none needs to be. Would you be willing to make a phone call or two to get the investigation called off?”
“Why would we call the investigation off? And why would you want them to?”
“Talel is an old, dear friend of mine. And he’s in some trouble. Serious, dangerous trouble that could get him killed. And that trouble will go away if we all pretend Spanks for Nothing died by accident and no other reason. Horses die pretty easily, right?”
“On occasion. They’re fragile animals.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Sons are fragile, as well.”
“I’ve noticed that, too.”
Nora stopped talking. She had a feeling saying another word would work against her cause. Instead of speaking, she merely braced herself for the inevitable.
“I don’t like you, Miss Sutherlin.” Mr. Railey looked her dead in the eyes as he said the words. Nora kept silent, neither questioning nor complimenting his taste in women. “But I don’t hate you.”
“I appreciate that, sir,” she said, and closed her mouth again.
“You did something last night I’d never seen before. That took nerves of steel and an iron will to get our Track Beauty back on her feet again. I’ve registered Bastinado’s name already. And I haven’t said a word to my wife about how close we came to losing her four-legged baby.”
“I’m glad everything turned out okay.” Nora clenched her jaw.
This not saying everything she wanted to say was more painful than getting
flogged. Would this be life at The Rails? Behaving herself? Not talking back?
Not making waves or causing trouble? Perhaps it really was for the best that
Mr. Railey would trade doing this favor for her in exchange for her
promise to leave Wesley once and for all.
“So am I, young lady.”
Mr. Railey said nothing more and Nora waited, biting her tongue.
He smiled, sighed and shook his head.
“‘Four things greater than all things are…women and horses and power and war.’”
Nora stared at him.
“That’s Rudyard Kipling,” Mr. Railey explained. “One of my favorite sayings. Women and horses and power and war…story of my life.”
Nora smiled. “Mine too these days. Apparently.”
“Did you need anything else?” Mr. Railey asked, tapping his desk with obvious impatience.
“No…that was it. Just…”
“Go on back to bed. It looks like you could use a few more hours sleep. I’ll make your phone call. But your friend better never step foot onto a race track ever again.”
“He won’t.”
“Good. Go on now. I’ve got work to do.”
Nora opened her mouth and closed it again just as quickly.
“Thank you, Mr. Railey.” She bobbed a curtsy for no reason she could explain, other than the moment seemed to demand it. Mr. Railey laughed as he shooed her from the room.
At the bottom of the stairs, Nora peeked into the drawing room. Wesley’s mother sat at a petite desk with a fountain pen and a stack of cards, white with red trim, in front of her. With Mrs. Railey engrossed in her writing, Nora took a moment to look at her. Lovely lady really, with eyes as big and brown as her son’s.
She glanced up and smiled at Nora.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Nora apologized before
Mrs.
Railey could speak.
“You can interrupt the thank-you-note writing anytime you wish.”
Nora whistled at the stack of thank-you cards in front of Mrs. Railey. It looked like she’d written a hundred notes and still had another hundred to go.
“Writing that many thank-you notes is my definition of hell.”
“Mine, too,” Mrs. Railey admitted, capping her pen. “But we had two hundred people donating exorbitant sums to The Rails Foundation. Have to say ‘thank you.’”
“I’d tell them to keep the money.”
Mrs. Railey nodded. “I’ve wanted to a time or two. Have a seat if you like.”
“I won’t stay and bug you. This is just the first time your husband let me in the house.”
Mrs. Railey’s smile broadened. “My husband is as stubborn as a mule. He’s a good man. Only…difficult.”
“I’m well-versed in good, stubborn and difficult men.”
“Never considered my son to be difficult. He was, still is, the sweetest child you could ever hope to have. He gets that from me,” she said with a wink.
“I can see that. It’s the sweetness that makes him so difficult.”
With a sigh, Mrs. Railey sat back in her chair and gave Nora a long searching look. “You’re not planning on staying around these parts, are you?”
“I…” Nora shrugged. “I don’t really plan much.”
“I can see that about you. You look like a woman who never completely unpacks her suitcase.”
Nora opened her mouth to protest and then shut it again. Ruefully, she laughed her agreement.
“Someone called me a pirate once,” she said, not wanting to say Søren’s name to Wesley’s mother for some reason. “A born marauder destined for the high seas.”
“Even a pirate needs a safe harbor.”
“But is that harbor still safe when the pirates dock their ship?” Nora would have smiled as she asked the question but for the sudden lump in her throat.
The look Mrs. Railey gave Nora would have impressed even Søren. “I just don’t want to see my boy hurt again.”
“Then we’re in agreement there.”
“He loves you.”
“And I love him.”
“But?”
“Takes more than love for a ride off into the sunset together.”
“That’s true. It also takes hoses.”
Nora glanced out the window. Right on the east lawn she saw dozens of horses dotting a sea of green.
“I thought Wes was the brainiac in the family.”
“He also gets that from me.”
Nora nodded. “You have good genes. I’ll let you get back to your thank-you note slash prison sentence. I’ll get back to…”
“My son?” Mrs. Railey asked with a twinkle in her eyes.
“That guy.” Nora found her grin again. The pirate in her took hold of her tongue as she headed for the door. “He’s horny as hell in the mornings. He’ll notice if I’m not there.”
Mrs. Railey didn’t even bat an eyelash. She uncapped her pen again and picked up another blank note.
“He gets that from his father.”
All the way back to guesthouse, Nora tried to figure out what had happened. Mr. Railey had agreed to help Talel at her request…and he’d asked nothing in return. She would have bet her own life that he would have demanded she leave in exchange for his help. But he hadn’t. And he hadn’t threatened to, either. He’d said “yes” and sent her on her way.
She’d been almost counting on Mr. Railey trading her departure for saving Talel. And now that he hadn’t…
Nora started stripping out of her clothes the second she got into the guesthouse. She found Wesley only half-asleep in bed. Glancing at the clock, Nora couldn’t believe it was barely 8:00 a.m.
“Where were you?” he asked as she scooted in next to him. He pulled her close and she melted into him, her back to his chest.
“Just ran an errand. Go back to sleep. I’m about to.”
“Good idea,” he said, pushing his hips into hers. Nora laughed softly. Kid had been having sex for all of one week and he’d already turned into a typical horny-in-the-morning male. And she loved him for it.
And she loved him for everything else, too.
And she didn’t have to leave him.
And since she didn’t have to leave him, that meant eventually she’d have to answer Wesley’s question.
Would she stay with Wesley? Or would she leave him…again?