And try not to smash up this one, Demetri.”
Demetri grinned. “I always try.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter Two
Elizabeth found her cousin Melanie riding in the paddock, sitting on top of a big gray with flashing white stockings who looked speedier than Elizabeth ever wanted to travel. However, Melanie was of a different mind. She wanted to ride faster than some nuclear-powered rocket, and Elizabeth wished her all the luck in the world with that.
Everybody had a gift. Elizabeth could sing, and Melanie could talk to horses. Maybe not in words, but when you saw Melanie with a horse, you knew that two-way communicating was going on. Melanie would murmur sweet nothings to the Thoroughbreds, and when they were out on the track, those sweet nothings could make them move like nobody’s business. Baby talk, was how Elizabeth used to tease her cousin. After Melanie started winning her races, Elizabeth stopped her teasing.
For a few seconds she watched her cousin ride, noticing the way the horse and the rider moved together, and noticing the telltale droop in Melanie’s smile. At that disturbing sight, Eliza-beth squared her shoulders and pushed all the bad things out of her mind, including the inopportune car-crush—along with the correspondingly inopportune, hot-looking car-crusher. Out of her mind, and hopefully out of her loins. Briskly, she waved, looking just as bright and perky as a woman who had not just wrecked a car that cost more than God, or lusted after a man that she had no business feeling the heat for. “Hey, cuz. Ready to race?”
Melanie’s mouth curved up at the corners, and she dismounted, hopping down to the dirt. “Bet you twenty I can beat you out to the ridge.”
Elizabeth snickered. “I don’t bet with jockeys. I’m absolutely certain there’s something against that in the Bible. Don’t know where to find it, or specifically what it says, but I’m comfortable in my decision.”
“Spoilsport,” answered Melanie, pulling a face. She hollered at one of the stable hands, asking for another mount for Elizabeth—hopefully something not quite so zippy. Elizabeth found herself more than satisfied when the man led out a pretty little broodmare, soft brown with a coal-black mane. Courtin’Cristy was what they called her. A pretty name for a pretty horse.
Gingerly, Elizabeth climbed into the saddle, taking a deep breath and adjusting to the discrepancy in heights.
The stable hand opened the gate and the two cousins took off “racing,” which was Elizabeth’s word for a nice, steady trot, curving among the sturdy branches of the black walnut trees. Riding with her cousin through the hills and valleys with the wind at her back, Elizabeth felt like a kid once again.
The afternoon was crisp and cool, the last of the bright yellow leaves valiantly fighting against the November wind, carpeting the grass in a patchwork quilt of red and gold. In the distance, the smoky smell of burning leaves drifted in the air as the rituals of the first true cold snap of autumn commenced.
The ridge overlooking the winding valley had always been their place to go, a place to forget all the troubles of the world. They pulled up in a plush field of bluegrass, perfect for sitting and watching the clouds skate by. Melanie sighed, her face not nearly as happy as Elizabeth wished it were.
Quest Stables was in serious financial trouble, and to Elizabeth’s way of thinking, it was time for the Prestons to face facts. Their prize Thoroughbred, Leopold’s Legacy, had been pulled from the racing circuit because his pedigree was in doubt, and until the Prestons could get the mystery of his parentage resolved, things weren’t so rosy.
“Melanie, you should be happier. Your brother’s getting hitched day after tomorrow, but you don’t look happy, and Robbie’s going to see right through those fakey smiles. I keep wanting to help, y’all keep turning me down, and it’s getting real old, real fast. However, because I am determined, I’m not giving up, and by the way, how are y’all paying for this wedding? At least let me help with that.”
“Grandpa’s being stubborn. He put some money down on a race in Saratoga, won big, enough to cover the wedding, but I thought Dad was going to blow a gasket.”
Elizabeth clucked her tongue. “And now Uncle Hugh’s been driven to gambling…”
Melanie snorted inelegantly, a sound echoed by the mare behind her. “Grandpa isn’t driven to anything he doesn’t want to do. Elizabeth, do you remember when you were in bad financial straits and needed help? I tried to help, and what did you tell me?”
“I didn’t say anything,” lied Elizabeth.
Melanie glared, and Elizabeth felt a twinge of remorse. So Elizabeth repeated her words in a quiet whisper. “I said I didn’t want charity, not from my family, not from anybody. But this is different.”
Melanie nodded, in a completely annoying fashion. “And you made it all on your own, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” answered Elizabeth, wishing Melanie didn’t have to be so…right.
“So, why do you think the Prestons are any different?”
The Prestons. Elizabeth sighed, because there was that dividing line again, like the Mason-Dixon line, the Great Wall of China or the Berlin Wall, before they tore it down. The Prestons were her family, God bless ’em. Melanie’s momma and Elizabeth’s momma were sisters, but Elizabeth and Diane weren’t part of the inner circle. It wasn’t something that was rude or snooty or mean-spirited at all, but geographical instead. The Prestons lived right outside Lexington, and Elizabeth had grown up in Tennessee. Between the mad dash from one singing gig to another, guitar and singing lessons, and the odd jobs to pay the bills, it was only during the holidays that Elizabeth spent time with her cousins, and sometimes, on a rare golden occasion, a whole summer week.
Those hot summer days were the best, riding horses until she could barely walk, eating watermelon on the porch, Brent and Andrew trying to outwrestle each other, and giggling with Melanie over Robbie’s goofy little-brother antics. On those days, Elizabeth had watched her cousins with greedy eyes. She wanted that warm closeness of the Prestons. That after-dinner moment when two thousand conversations were all going on at once, and it didn’t really matter that nobody could hear a word. The Preston family kept together through thick and thin and that was all that counted.
Staying with the Prestons had once again reminded Elizabeth of what she had missed growing up. The grass was always greener, especially in Kentucky. She blew out a wistful breath.
A few feet away, the two horses were grazing under the scraggly canopies of the bur oaks that dotted the countryside. Melanie’s mount, Something to Talk About—now that was a true character. The gray was showing off and prancing around, as if he just knew people were watching.
Horses were the Prestons’ lifeblood, and now that blood was slowly being squeezed off. If the Prestons truly thought Elizabeth was just going to pack up her marbles and go home, they had another think coming.
“I have the means, you know it, and y’all are family.”
Furiously Melanie shook her head, short blond waves flying from the force. “No. I think it’s nice of you to offer, Elizabeth, but we’re not angling for handouts. We’re not that desperate yet. I don’t want to hear another word.”
“I want to help,” Elizabeth insisted.
“Elizabeth,
