The Horsewoman(75)

I finished my champagne. His glass was still half-full. I said, “Nice night for a walk?”

We went down the back steps, toward what used to be one of the two golf courses at Palm Beach Polo, now featuring walking trails and spots for bird-watching and bicycle paths and water hazards that had been turned into fishing holes. Daniel reached over and took my hand.

“I still think I could have gotten to exactly where I am with you still training me,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re where you are supposed to be with things as they are.”

We walked in silence for a few minutes, still holding hands, finally got to the top of a hill, saw a wooden bench there and sat down.

“Well,” I said, “the good news is that we can still all make it to Paris together if things break right. Because I am announcing right now that even if I’m the one who makes it and Mom doesn’t, you are still coming.”

He leaned over then and kissed me lightly on the lips.

“I never thought I’d make it to Paris,” he said.





NINETY-THREE

Gorton



GORTON HAD A LUNCH appointment in Wellington about buying the golf property at Palm Beach Polo, which used to have two golf courses but now only had one. A potential gold mine, if he could turn it into one of those high-end clubs. He didn’t like golf, particularly. Too much of your day wasted if you played a full round.

He’d always heard about how much business got done on a golf course. Gorton had never seen the upside to spending four or five hours with people who’d worn your ass out after one.

At least you didn’t have to waste the whole goddamn day at horse shows. Where he was right now.

“Coronado isn’t jumping today,” Caroline Atwood said to him. “Are you lost?”

They were standing outside the old lady’s barn, at the far end of the property from the arena and the side rings and the shopping and the tent.

“We still need to have a chat about Coronado,” he said.

“What about him?” she said.

Her riding pants were pretty tight for someone her age. She had an Atwood Farm ball cap pulled down over her eyes and a long-sleeved shirt despite the heat. Gorton had to admit, she still had a pretty decent figure. Probably was something to look at about a hundred years ago. He wondered if she used to give people as much shit when she was young. Men, especially.

“Not the horse so much as the rider,” he said.

“Oh, for chrissakes,” she said. “Are we back to that?”

He sipped some iced coffee. Starting to think about his first Bloody. Hell, it was already past noon.

“I’m thinking about making a change,” he said. “And if I’m going to do it, sooner is better than later. It’s late enough already.”

“What, you just show up here and put that back on the table?” she said to him. “We dealt with this months ago. And besides, there’s no issue with Maggie.”

“She just got passed by her own kid,” Gorton said, “and even I know the kid doesn’t have nearly the horse that we do.”

There were other people inside the barn. A groom. A girl rider. The old woman walked across the path to a fence and leaned against it. He followed her.

“Even if I would ever consider a switch, which I’m not,” she said, “it’s already too late.”

She took off her hat and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. Gorton took a close look at her face, tanned to the color of a saddle.

“Coronado is Maggie’s horse, win or lose,” she said. “You don’t have to believe me. Maybe you don’t want to believe me. But she’s going to make this team.”

“Or,” Gorton said, “she could keep going one way while your granddaughter is going the other.” He grinned at her. “I mean, how crazy is this shit? The granddaughter is the one I wanted to pull off the horse. Go figure.”

She started to answer. Gorton held up a hand to stop her.

“Not finished,” he said.

“But I am,” she said. “I’ve got another horse going into the ring in about forty-five minutes.”

Gorton looked over his shoulder. One of his go-to moves. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you confuse me with somebody who gives a rat’s ass about that?”

Then he said, “She slips one more spot, she’s gone. I’m through screwing around here.”

“You have no legal right to do that,” Caroline Atwood said.

“Watch me,” he said.

Gorton laughed then.

“When are you going to get it into your head that this isn’t about her, and it isn’t about you,” he said. “It’s about me.”

“For the last time,” she said. “We have a contract.”

“And for the last time,” he said, “I will do whatever I need to do to get this horse to the Olympics, including folding that goddamn contract into a paper airplane.”

“My daughter will never give up that horse,” Caroline said.

“Won’t be up to her,” Gorton said. “So we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

“There’s an easy way?”

“Yeah,” he said. “She quits now and saves all of us a lot of aggravation and I give the horse to Tyler Cullen.”