The Horsewoman(53)

When he was gone, Gorton picked up his phone, punched in a number, waited, drumming the fingers of his free hand on the table.

“I need to see you,” he snapped. “Now.”

“What about?”

“I thought I explained to you before that I don’t like surprises,” he said.

“Where are you?”

“At my table.”

He put the phone back down.

He was working on his second Bloody, reading through some text messages, when he heard Caroline Atwood say, “What was so important that it couldn’t wait?”

Then he told her how it was going to go.

“You wouldn’t,” she said when he finished.

“Watch me,” Gorton said.





SIXTY-ONE



I WAS IN THE RING with Daniel in the late afternoon, just having schooled one of Grandmother’s new horses, when we saw Gus Bennett’s trailer pull up the driveway.

Mom walked toward us, announcing, “I’m moving Coronado over to Gus’s.”

Just like that.

“Wait,” I said. “Can we at least talk about this?”

“You’re right about something,” she said to me. “We’ve done enough talking for one day.”

She turned to Daniel.

“Gus is my trainer now,” she said. “You’re with Becky. I was angry before. But no hard feelings. If you don’t want me, I don’t want you.”

Daniel didn’t react except to offer his help. Mom said they could handle it themselves. About half an hour later, we watched the trailer pull away.

“Wasn’t I winning a Grand Prix on that horse about twenty minutes ago?” I said.

“Less,” he said.

“But now there he goes.”

Daniel and I had dinner that night at the Trophy Room. We talked over my mom’s suggestion from every possible angle, some I hadn’t even considered.

“I’m right,” he said. “And so is your mother. In this case, you must trust both of us.”

Now I was back from dinner, stopping in the kitchen to pour myself a white wine, hoping it might settle my nerves. And my brain. Still royally pissed off at my mother, as hard as she was trying to clean things up now. As much smoke as she was blowing at me.

If it was smoke, that is.

You hate to lose, Daniel had said over dinner. He was right. For all my newfound love of riding, how much did I want to win my way to the Olympics?

Maybe that was the real question, whatever Mom and Daniel thought: was Mom’s dream now mine, too?

I drank some wine, starting to think that maybe I should have brought the bottle.

I heard a car in the driveway, then got up and parted my curtains and saw it was Mom’s, finally back from Gus’s. Briefly wondered if more than horse business had been going on over there. Left my glass and walked downstairs after I heard her close the front door.

“Everything okay with Coronado’s new digs?” I asked.

She put a finger to her lips, motioned me to follow her into the kitchen.

“It was kind of crazy,” Mom said, “seeing him in a stall at Gus’s barn.”

“The universe is crazy,” I said. “You don’t even have to leave our house to know that.”

“We’ll get through this,” she said.

“Can I ask you one more question before you head up?”

“Please don’t make it a hard one,” she said. “It’s like we say about a horse that needs a cool-down, I feel like I’ve been rode hard and put away wet.”

“Why do you really want me to do this on Sky?”

She didn’t hesitate.

“Because in my heart I think it’s the best thing for you,” she said. “And I only want the best for you, even if you don’t believe that right now.”

“Best for me,” I said. “Or for you?”

If she was insulted, she didn’t show it. Instead she smiled.

“I can see how you might think that way,” she said. “But all I keep thinking about is how unbelievable it would be if we both made it to Paris, on the same team.”

Before I could answer, she said, “I assume you spoke more to Daniel at dinner.”

“He’s all in,” I said. “Actually said a lot of the same things you did.”

She looked very happy all of a sudden, as happy as she had been in days, like we’d been in an airplane and the clouds had parted and we’d finally cleared some turbulence. As if the worst was suddenly over.

“So you’re going to do it then,” she said.

“Not a chance in hell,” I said.





SIXTY-TWO



SIX O’CLOCK SATURDAY night at the Winter Equestrian Festival, parking lots overflowing, the Fidelity Investments 5-Star Grand Prix set to start in an hour or so.

I was already in the field, having prequalified by winning a Grand Prix on Coronado, even though I was riding Sky tonight. Mom was riding Coronado. She’d qualified, barely, in her first competition since the accident. She’d gotten two rails, both early, managed to pull it together, just enough, over the second half of the course. Forty riders had made it. One more rail and she wouldn’t have been one of them. But she was here. It meant she was back.