Chapter 3

Pete

When I entered the stable and saw the woman standing in front of Saoirse I couldn’t tell who she was. Obscured by the light coming from the entrance at the other end of the stable, all I could see was that she had one hell of a body and I wanted to get a better look.

When she turned and smiled at me, there was a glimmer of recognition in her eye, but I struggled to think when I had ever met this beautiful woman. And then she said her name.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, hardly realizing what I was saying.

She looked taken aback. “Well, it’s good to see you too, but that’s not any way to greet someone you haven’t seen in more than a decade.”

I cleared my throat. “I…uh, sorry about that. You just took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you standing here in the middle of my stable.”

“I called and made an appointment,” she frowned, “but you weren’t there for our meeting.”

I let out a breath and ran a hand through my hair. “Sorry about that. I’m still not used to checking the damn calendar every day. They’ve got a thing set up on my laptop but I’m not used to looking at it yet, and frankly, I’m pretty annoyed that some damn alarm keeps going off every day. Haven’t figured out how to fix that yet, but I’ll have someone get to it sometime.” I made a mental note to ask Emma. Of course, my twelve year old daughter would know exactly how to make the alarm stop bugging me.

But what was Sara Waters doing here? It didn’t make any sense to find her here in the middle of the stable, standing in front of Emma’s horse’s stall. I was still shocked at the sight of her. This was not the girl who had pestered me and followed me around everywhere I went when we were kids.

She was smiling at me, and I finally smiled back. “So, when was the last time I saw you?”

She crossed her arms and leaned against one of the stall doors. “Well, it was a little over ten years ago. And I think it was here for some event. I saw you, but we didn’t speak. You had a girl with you, and I think were talking about getting married sometime after that.”

I nodded, realizing exactly when she must have seen me last. “Ah, right. Yeah, that was Kelly. We got married.”

“Is she here? Can I meet her?” Sara looked genuinely interested.

I shook my head and held up my bare left hand. “We’re not married anymore.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. I guess? Or maybe you’re happier?”

I shrugged. “You know how it goes. Relationships come and go, and Kelly was gone from my life about as quickly as she entered it. She did give me a beautiful daughter though, and I’ll always be grateful for that. Other than that though…yeah, for the past twelve years I’ve been here, working on the ranch, raising my daughter, and just living.”

“Wow, well, it sounds like you’ve been a busy guy.”

“What about you?” I didn’t remember seeing her the last time she was here, and she had changed so much it was hard to believe this was the same, Sara.

She tossed her dark brown hair over her shoulder, and I admired the deep brown of her eyes, accentuated with her dark black lashes.

“I went to college and did all of that. Came back home to help my dad out and I’ve been doing that ever since. Got engaged for a little while, but that didn’t work out.” She shrugged, but I could see something in her eyes when she said that. It was clear the topic was off limits just from her body language, and I was surprised she had brought it up at all.

“Well, it is good to see you again.”

She tilted her head at me and asked, “Why didn’t you ever come to any of the derbies? I would have known if you were there. Too busy back here?”

I thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t that there was something keeping me away from the Waters derby, not really. There had been a shadow hanging over that part of my life for some time, and I didn’t want to bring it up with Sara. We weren’t close at all, but the truth was that I had thought about her often over the years as the family name was brought up. Some part of me didn’t want to go there and face her father or her. So much of what had happened with Kelly had left me reeling, and I had stuck around the ranch, never venturing far. I liked my work here, and if they didn’t need me at the derby, then I didn’t go. That’s why God gave me four brothers’ as far as I was concerned.

“Things come up. You know. But I was planning on being at the upcoming derby, as a matter of fact.”

She seemed to grimace somewhat, but I wasn’t sure why.

“Would you like to go to my office and talk?”

Sara hesitated but started walking back toward the stable entrance with me. “We probably don’t have to go back there. We can just talk out here in the open if that’s okay with you.”

I gave her a look. “Is everything okay?” I hadn’t seen her in a long time, but I didn’t have to be an expert to know that she looked like a woman who had something to say that she didn’t particularly want to.

She sighed and stopped there in the stable, and I turned to face her again.

“The truth is that everything isn’t okay and I’ve got some bad news to share with you.” Sara was looking from side to side, maybe to check if there was anyone else around.

“Tell me. What is it?”

She looked seriously troubled to be telling me whatever it was and I couldn’t imagine where she was going with this. Maybe her father was ill? Or the derby was going under?

“You’re not going to be able to run any horses this year.”

The words didn’t register at first. I tried to make sense of them, but how could she be serious? There had been a Killarny Estate horse in their derby for as long as it had been going. And this was the biggest one of the year. She couldn’t possibly expect us to sit this one out.

“You’re going to have to explain to me because I am completely at a loss as to why you could be asking us to sit this one out,” I said plainly.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Listen, Pete. I don’t want to do this, and I don’t really want to get into the middle of anything that is going on around here, but my father has some concerns, and we think it best that you guys are not a part of our event this year. I would really rather not get into details. I don’t want to offend you or your operation.” She pulled a check out of her purse and stuck her hand out toward me. “Here…it’s the full amount you paid for registration. Every bit of it. We don’t expect you to pay for a race you aren’t going to run in. Please take it and know that it’s with my deepest regrets that we have to do this.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You have to do this? Why, because your father told you to?”

She braced herself and thrust her chin forward defiantly. “I am acting in the best interests of my family’s company. This is the way it has to be, and if you have a problem with it well, I’m the one you have to talk to so let’s hash it out here.”

I chuckled and looked down at the check in her hand. “Honestly, Ron Waters sends his little girl out here to take care of his business? What a fucking joke.”

“I am no little girl,” she retorted and for a moment I was struck by the way she said the words. This was no little girl at all. She was a woman and while I’d been attracted to her just a few moments before, now that she was acting like she had some kind of power…I had to admit that it was turning me on. But there was no way I would let her think she was getting the better of me.

“Why doesn’t your dad just grow a pair and deal with this like a man. Do you know what this is about?”

Sara nodded her head, but I had serious doubts if she had any clue about the bad blood that he been brewing between our fathers over the past few decades.

I shook my head. “Bullshit! And I’m going to bet that when you asked your daddy to explain himself, he came up with some bullshit reason about why we can’t race. Maybe he even accused us of breaking the law. That sounds like some shit your dad would pull. Well, Sara, you can take that check back to where it came from and tell your daddy to shove it up his ass. We’re not taking that money. Killarny is better than that, and we’ve got a contract for this derby. If you are going to keep us from showing up you’re going to have to get a lawyer and then your dad is going to have to come up with a damn good reason, one that he can actually back up, before he’s going to be able to keep us from running in that derby.”

I hoped that my stern tone would be enough to get her to back off, but she was like a dog on a bone, and she wasn’t going to let go.

“We’ll call the sheriff on you. We won’t let you on the property. If my father says you’ve done something that disqualifies you from being a part of the derby, then I trust him, and you’re not going to be there.” She reached out and grabbed my hand and thrust the check into my palm, but before she backed away, I grabbed her and pulled her toward me.

“What the hell!?” she exclaimed as I pulled her close to me. Our bodies pressed together, and I felt like I was on fire, every inch of my skin spontaneously combusting just from being so near to her. I couldn’t explain the effect she was having on me, but I didn’t want it to stop.

“Just who the hell do you think you are?” I growled, my voice was low and deep. “Who do you think you are showing up at my ranch, walking into my stable, and threatening me? You believe your daddy? Well, you better believe this: it’s your daddy that’s got a problem. You want to know what it is…you can ask him yourself. That’s his business. But don’t you think for a fucking minute you can walk in here making demands of me, waving a check in my face like that’s going to make decades of racing in that derby go away.”

Sara’s eyes were like daggers, and I braced myself for a moment because I really thought she might spit in my face. She should just try it, I thought. See what that would get her.

“Listen, Pete…” she squirmed against me and I held her tighter, hoping that no one would come in and disturb this incredibly strange, but pleasing moment. I knew that from the outside looking in it would appear sketchy as hell. “I’m not trying to start some kind of beef with you. You just need to take the money and walk away. There won’t be anymore trouble. I’m not one to cause any problems that are unwarranted, but my father has instructed me that you aren’t racing. I’m telling you that if you show up in two weeks, there will be sheriffs there and they will escort you from the property.”

I leaned in so our faces were just centimeters apart. I wanted to kiss her right there, but that would be too easy. No, this would come to me in time, but right now I was going to let it go.

“I dare him,” I said as I released her and turned to walk toward the house.

I clinched my fists as I walked and I didn’t turn around to see what she was doing. She still had that check, and that was all that mattered. If she tried to leave it with my secretary or in the mailbox, then the thing would be right back in the mail to her father. We weren’t taking that money back. We would be at the derby. Come hell or high water, we would be there, and there wasn’t a fucking thing she could do to stop us.

This all came down to the shit that was between my father and her father. It was something that no one talked about, and I refused to let my mind dwell on the details of it, but what I was firmly convinced of was that this was business to be handled between two men and not in the way that Ken Waters was trying to do it. This was the coward’s way out to try and slam it all on us like we had anything to do with what happened all those years ago between my father and him.

The screen door slammed behind me as I entered through the back of the house and went into the kitchen. Emma was sitting at the kitchen table eating a snack and working on some homework. It was the sight of her that made me shift from the anger I had felt in front of Sara. I never wanted my daughter to see me that way, no matter how much what Sara said had stirred up inside me. For Emma, I was a rock and a place she could turn to whenever she worried about something. I never wanted her to be afraid to come to me, no matter what her problem was.

“Hey sweetie,” I said, my tone instantly softening. I felt my pulse slow somewhat and I went to the refrigerator to get myself a glass of water. What I wanted after that showdown in the stable was a shot of whiskey, but I would wait until later for that.

“Hey, Dad. What’s happening? Who was that lady here to see you? Amy said you had a business meeting with someone.”

I waved my hand in the air nonchalantly as I took a big gulp of water, then wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.

“Somebody I used to know,” I said.

Emma gave me a sly look. “Somebody you used to date.”

I almost choked on my water. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” Emma asked. She was always asking questions and lately it had turned to dating. I didn’t know if it was something she was reading or watching on TV, but the girl had decided recently that because I didn’t date that it was a problem she needed to fix.

I shook my head. “We knew each other when we were your age. We didn’t date though. She wasn’t really my type.” I thought about what Sara had looked like when we were kids and remembered that goofy grin of hers which was endearing even after she got the braces.

“But you’re grown ups now. Is she still not your type?”

“This conversation might be getting a little above your pay grade. What do you have going on over here in the way of homework?”

She frowned and turned the textbook toward me. “Hetty has me working on pre-algebra. It’s not that bad, but there are a lot of ‘x’s in here to figure out.”

“Exes have always given me problems,” I said as I looked at the work on her notebook paper. “Dang girl, I don’t think I was doing this kind of math until I was in 9th grade or so. How did you end up so smart?”

She shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure that one out. Uncle Alex says it doesn’t have a d-a-m-n thing to do with you.”

I laughed at that. “Thank you for not cursing. And your Uncle Alex may be right for once in his life. I’m going to my office to work on some things. You call me if you need help with anything, all right?”

Emma nodded, and I kissed her on top of her head before I headed off toward my office where I could be in the silence with my thoughts.

It wasn’t silent for long because just as I sat down to check out the calendar and see exactly what we were risking if we didn’t show up at the Waters derby, there was a crash of thunder and then the inevitable downpour began. It was spring in the south, and this was the expected forecast, so I wasn’t entirely surprised. What I didn’t anticipate was the door bell ringing and who would be on the other side of it.