smile was slightly crooked as he tucked his hand around his wife’s rail-thin waist and turned to go. “Then we’ll see you in the winner’s circle, won’t we?”
“Oh, Jake.” J.D. could hear Tiffany laughing lightly as she walked away with her husband. “Don’t go getting that poor girl’s hopes up. She’s not going to be there with us.”
J.D. kept grooming June. She already knew that if Metal ran his way to the winner’s circle, it would only be the owners, their trainer and the jockey smiling for pictures and accepting trophies and winnings. She’d be back here, mucking out the stalls and polishing up tack.
She was part of the stable woodwork while the couple was definitely Millionaire’s Row.
They were welcome to it.
Give J.D. horses any day of the week. They never disappointed her. And she never disappointed them.
Chapter One
Five years later
“You didn’t go out with the rest of the boys?” Jake’s voice was deep and in some fanciful part of J.D.’s mind, she imagined it felt like a soft blanket sliding down her bare skin.
“I didn’t want to cramp their style.” She sent him a smile over her shoulder, but the wryness of it was mostly for herself. As the only female in the entire stable crew at Forrest’s Crossing, she’d never been one of “the boys.” She was simply an assistant horse trainer on Jake’s sizable payroll who—according to Miguel—usually had one too many opinions of her own.
Though this time, her opinion when it came to Latitude had proved right on the money.
Literally.
From the first burst out of the starting gate to the way the thoroughbred sailed across the finish line of The Sanford, the horse had been pure poetry in motion. He’d raced as brilliantly as J.D. had known he could, so of all the crew from Forrest’s Crossing, she was probably the least surprised.
And except for Latitude Crossing’s owner, Jake—who’d collected the tidy first-place purse he didn’t remotely need—she was probably the happiest.
Satisfaction curved her lips all over again, and it didn’t even matter that Miguel had been the one to claim the glory of Latitude’s unlikely win. He’d been so elated, he’d told the stable crew that drinks were on him, and they’d all tumbled out of the barn, looking ready to continue the celebration that had been going on since they’d touched down in Georgia from Saratoga.
Even though it was late, J.D. was still celebrating, too; but she preferred to do it in the company of the real winner.
She folded her arms over the top rail of the stall, looking at the gleaming bay contentedly munching his way through fresh feed as if he had done nothing remarkable at all. “Look at you acting all modest,” she chided the colt. “You ought to be wearing a crown.”
“The Triple Crown,” Jake murmured behind her.
That shiver dashed down her spine again. She’d like to blame it on the prospect of Latitude joining those few elite horses in history that had attained the coveted achievement, but she’d never been one to lie to herself.
The shiver came from Jake. Not from the idea of Latitude finding the elusive Triple Crown glory in the coming year.
“His chance at that is nearly a year away,” she said. The famous races that comprised the Triple Crown were run by three-year-old thoroughbreds only, beginning in May with the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes two weeks later and capped off with the Belmont Stakes in early June. Which meant a thoroughbred had one chance in their lifetime to accomplish the feat. “And who knows what Miguel will want to do between now and then,” she added practically. Miguel fired people at the drop of a hat. The fact that she’d survived his mercurial nature for five years was a record for Forrest’s Crossing.
“If he’s smart, he’ll leave you alone with Latitude. Miguel’s more interested in Platinum Cross, anyway.” Platinum was sired by one of Forrest’s Crossing’s most successful horses. But even Metal Cross hadn’t brought home the “crown.” He’d won both the Preakness and the Belmont. But he hadn’t won the Derby. Nor had any other horse for Jake.
They still made the trek every year to Churchill Downs. The only things that changed were the names of the thoroughbreds running for him, and the names of the glossy women on his arm who’d revolved through his world since his divorce shortly after J.D. came to Forrest’s Crossing.
He folded his arms over the top rail next to her, holding an open bottle of Cristal in one hand and a slender champagne flute in the other.
He held them just as casually as if they were a dime-store mug and a long-neck beer. But the expensive champagne was much more in keeping with the off-white silk shirt he wore. And the crystal flute was probably of the irreplaceable, antique variety, inherited from his father and great-grandfather just as he’d inherited Forrest’s Crossing.
It wasn’t the quality of the champagne or the stemware that made her nerves jumpy, though. There was wealth in her upbringing, too. Just not on the scale of Jake’s.
His family owned Forco, one of the largest textile firms in the country. For him, thoroughbreds were merely a personal passion that he could well afford to indulge. And where his family was into jets and setting, hers was more into jeans and settling down.
No, what made her nerves want to dance a jig had one, simple cause.
Him.
She slid her gaze away from his arms and those long, lean fingers, focusing again on the oblivious colt as she discreetly tried to put a little space between their arms. She needed every inch she could get just to breathe around the man.
“Miguel will take over again now that he’s seen for himself what kind of heart Latitude has,” she predicted, clinging to the thread with a desperation that she prayed didn’t show. Miguel was the head trainer. J.D., an underling. He had every right to make whatever decisions he wanted.
“Does that bother you?” Jake shifted slightly and his arm grazed hers, right across that spare inch she’d managed to gain.
She sucked in a silent breath and made herself remain still. It was no easy task. “Crossing the finish line first isn’t what I love about horses.” Her voice was blithe.
Latitude lifted his head, his large, liquid eyes looking into hers. He blew out a noisy breath, as if he were laughing at her nonchalance.
She stared back into the colt’s eyes. Mind your own business, Lat.
He snorted again and stretched his long neck over the rail, butting his nose against her shoulder.
She fell back a step, laughing softly despite herself.
Jake steadied her and he nudged Latitude’s head away. “Behave.”
“He just wants this.” J.D. pulled a peppermint out of the pocket of her FC-emblazoned polo shirt. She unwrapped the mint and held it out.
Latitude eagerly
