The Horsewoman(42)

Matthew looked over at Tyler’s sullen face and told me, “Save it and drink it. You want mine, too?”

“I’m good,” I said.

I saw Dad and Mom and Grandmother standing together off to the side. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen them together like that. Maybe when I’d graduated high school. One big happy family, I thought. One night only.

I couldn’t see Steve Gorton anywhere.

Dad waved. I smiled back at him. Tyler Cullen turned and apparently decided I was smiling at him. Or mocking him.

“Something you want to say to me?” he said.

First words he’d spoken to me since the jump-off ended.

“Nah,” I said.

I walked over to my family.

“Everybody behaving here?” I said.

“Your grandmother is practically begging me to come back,” Dad said.

Grandmother blew out some air. “Full of it to the end,” she said.

“I think we need to go give that bottle of champagne the attention it deserves,” Mom said.

Now I smiled at her. “What are the rest of you going to drink?”

Mom and Grandmother led the way out of the ring. Dad put an arm around my shoulders.

“I’m glad I didn’t miss this one,” he said.

As always, he’d cast himself as the cool dad and was playing his part before he took off again for New York or California and missed even more of my life.

“Can you stick around for a couple of days?” I said, pretty sure I already knew the answer to that one.

“Back to Gotham in the morning,” he said.

I whispered, “How are you and Mom getting along?”

He grinned. “I’m fine as long as I don’t make any sudden moves.”

“Should have been with her tonight,” I said.

“You know what?” he whispered in my ear, “I’m not so sure about that.”

I looked around for Daniel now, but couldn’t spot him. Knowing him the way I did, I figured he might already be back at the barn with Coronado.

Dad and I walked back through the in-gate and took a left, on our way to the tent.

“Ask you something?” I said to Dad.

“Your grandmother still hates me, if that’s what you’re wondering about,” he said.

I poked him with an elbow.

“What did you say to Mr. Gorton at the tent?”

He grinned again.

“Well,” he said, “I might have mentioned that if I saw him down there talking to you before you went into the ring, I was going to knock him on his ass.”

“Still not a horse show guy,” I said, then asked him to wait while I checked the schooling ring for Daniel. He wasn’t waiting for me there, but Tyler Cullen was leaning against the fence and swigging from his champagne bottle.

Then he saw me.

“Looking for your boyfriend?” he said. “He left.”





FORTY-SEVEN

Daniel



THE CEREMONY WAS over. Becky had invited Daniel over to the house for a family celebration.

“I did everything you told me to do,” she said.

He smiled at her and said, “For once. I’ll see you a little later.”

The tent stayed open like a bar on championship nights and Becky had gone inside with her parents and grandmother. Daniel had passed the schooling ring on his walk to the barn when he heard a loud and familiar voice behind him.

Do not stop.

Just keep walking.

“Hey! Hey, Ortega!”

He stopped, turned, and saw Tyler Cullen, waving his champagne bottle in a mock toast. Directly above Cullen, on the pedestrian bridge, Daniel could see people streaming toward the parking lots. He wished he were with them.

Anywhere but here.

Cullen took a long swallow of champagne now, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then continued yelling.

“You know she was lucky to beat me.”

Daniel was moving toward him and before he realized it, he was climbing over the fence and into the ring.

“She had the better horse,” he said to Cullen. “And she was the better rider, whether you want to admit that to yourself or not.”

Cullen’s hair was shaved close on the side, with longer hair on top. Daniel always wondered about men who worried that much about their appearance. It was well known around the sport how hard the married Cullen chased after younger women.

“Yeah, go with that,” Cullen said.

He walked slowly toward Daniel.

Now it is the playground.

“You are just angry because you made an amateur mistake at the finish,” Daniel said. “You didn’t ride through the timer. That’s not Becky’s fault, or mine. It is yours. It is on you.”

“You’re going to explain riding to me, se?or?” Cullen said, and took another drink. “Why don’t you look up my record when you get home. You own a laptop, right?”

He laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

“You got a little something going with her on the side?” Cullen said. “Everybody sees the way you look at her.”

“Is it finishing second the way you did that is eating at you?” Daniel said. “Or something else?”

They were about ten feet from each other. The people were still walking across the bridge behind them. Daniel could not believe that Cullen would do something as stupid as starting a real fight with him. He had already embarrassed himself enough tonight. If he wasn’t drunk, he was getting there.