The Horsewoman(44)

FORTY-NINE

Gorton



TYLER CULLEN’S VOICE over the speakerphone filled the interior of the new Maserati. Gorton had treated himself to it the previous Monday, using his share of the goddamn horse’s winnings. Why not?

“Did they buy it?” Cullen asked.

“Who gives a shit?” Gorton said. “I actually kind of like Maggie. Might have tried to hit that under different circumstances. It’s the kid and the old lady who piss me off. The kid especially. She looks at me like I’m some old loser trying to hit on her.”

Gorton was taking his time driving back to the island. Blaine would probably just be getting up. He’d never seen anybody sleep like this girl. But the sooner he got back to the house, the sooner he’d have to talk to her.

“Tell me the truth,” Gorton said. “Do I have the best horse?”

“We’ve gone over this.”

“I want to hear it again.”

“Yes, you do,” Cullen said. “But that kid will never be as good as she was the other night. Just because she got hit by lightning doesn’t mean she’s still not over her goddamn skis. No chance in hell she’s good enough to ride like that over the next three or four months and make it to Paris. But I am. One hundred percent.”

“You screwed up the other night,” Gorton said.

There was a pause at the other end of the call.

“Totally on me,” he said. “Got ahead of myself because I wanted to beat her ass too much. Won’t happen again.”

“Better not.”

“It won’t.”

“And the kid isn’t good enough to get the points she needs?”

“No,” Cullen said. “She’s good. She is. She’s got potential, if she doesn’t let her arrogance get in the way. But she’s not her mother.”

His voice dropped for a couple of seconds and then Gorton heard him say, “And that kid sure as hell isn’t me.”

“Can you make the Olympics on your horse?” Gorton said.

“Probably,” Cullen said. “But put me on yours and we don’t just make it to Paris, we ride off into the sunset with a gold medal.”

Gorton was only half-listening. He was picturing himself stopping at the Honor Bar for a Bloody Mary. He checked the dashboard clock. A little early, but they’d goddamn well open for him.

“So we’re back where we were before she won the damn thing,” Gorton said. “We’ve got to find a way to get her off the horse for good.” He paused. Definitely the Honor Bar. He could already taste the first drink of the day. “You made any progress on what we talked about?”

Cullen was cautiously optimistic, saying he had to be careful.

“I like the way you think,” Gorton said.

Cullen laughed.

“Only because it’s the way you think,” he said.

“Couple of sore losers,” Gorton said.

They were both laughing when Gorton ended the call and headed for the Flagler Bridge.

Sometimes he screwed with people for the best reason in the world: because he could.





FIFTY

Maggie



MAGGIE WOULD HAVE gone to the gym instead of Gus’s barn had Becky wanted to join her.

She told herself, when she finally made the decision to reach out to Gus, that it just hurt too much not to ride. Only now it was riding that hurt. Like hell. A lot. Every day. About an hour into this morning’s ride, Maggie couldn’t decide if she’d come back too soon. Or shouldn’t have come back at all. Another way of looking at it.

She was being reminded right now how much riding taxed her legs. Her back was sore, too, and her neck, and even her forearms. And her butt. As she posted, the simple up-and-down of being in the saddle, every time she’d land, she’d feel a stab of pain that would shoot all the way up to her neck and shoulders, almost into her brain. At which point the ache in her upper body rivaled the pain in her legs. She’d get herself into a hot bath when she got home.

“Is there a problem?” Gus said from his chair. “You could always take up a new sport if this is too painful for you.”

“Who said anything about pain?”

“You didn’t have to,” he said. “My legs don’t work. But my eyes do just fine.”

“If I wasn’t ready for this, I wouldn’t be here,” she said.

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “Show me.”

“Do your other riders get this kind of tough love?”

“Who said anything about love?” Gus said.

Dr. Garry had told her two months, absolute minimum, to get back on a horse. She’d done it in half that time, as much out of stubbornness as need.

She winced suddenly.

“What?” Gus said.

“Cramps,” she said, through clenched teeth.

“Where?”

“Every…where.”

They could come up on her that fast and cause her legs to seize up the way they were seizing up now. Gus yelled for Seamus, who came running. When her boots were on the ground, both legs gave out, and she sat down. Hard.

Gus reached into his chair’s side pouch, grabbed a bottle of water, handed it to her, told her to drink all of it. She did. When the pain slowly began to subside and the muscles relaxed, she lay on her back and did some stretches that had helped her in the past.