Promise Canyon (Virgin River #13)(71)

"Fiancee?" she asked, smiling. "Nathaniel is engaged?"

Lilly nodded. "For a while now. He met Annie almost a year ago and they're planning a spring wedding."

"That's wonderful," she said, smiling. "Good for him! But I won't bother her. I was actually waiting around for my husband."

"Husband?" Lilly asked, stunned.

"Well, technically ex-husband," she said with a laugh. "He's a tall Native American by the name of Clay Tahoma. We divorced before he took this position. But aside from his move up here, nothing has really changed between us. We at least talk every day."

Lilly's smile was weak. "How nice for you both," she said. And her brain turned over the at least. Since she'd become intimate with Clay he hadn't left town. And Annie was a friend--if Clay had had female company here, Annie would have told Lilly.

Yet here was a woman who believed her ex-husband was still her husband in almost every sense of the word.

"Of course I had another reason for coming so far to see Clay," she went on. "Clay's the best--we hated to lose him at our stables. But if he's the best then the vet he chose to work with must also be the best. And I have a lame quarter horse that the vet my stable has on retainer can't fix. Clay loves that horse. She's worth half a million dollars. She has many more wins in her if she gets treated. So," she said, grinning, "I get the horse treated properly and I get to spend a couple of nights with my husband."

First Lilly's stomach did a flip--a couple of nights with Clay? Then she got stuck on that figure: half a million. She tried some quick math--had she earned that much in ten years? More to the point, would she earn enough to equal the cost of this truck and trailer in a dozen years?

"Clay should be back before long," Lilly said. "It's unusual to have everyone away from the clinic for long."

"Thanks, dear," the beautiful blonde said.

"Sure," Lilly said, heading for her truck. As she did so, something nagged at her. She turned back to the woman. "Where's the horse?" she asked.

"Oh, she's in the stall. I got here yesterday--Clay already looked at her, we spent some time together and Nate was going to read the MRI study that was done. And I might stay a few days, depending on Clay's schedule."

"Ah," Lilly said, putting her hands in the back pockets of her jeans as she backed away.

He was different last night, she thought. Tired. Slow. Maybe not interested? Maybe well satisfied by the blonde with the expensive gear and winning horse?

No. No, surely not.

But after she drove away, she took an unnecessary turn down a country road, pulled off to the side and tried to think it through. To get her bearings.

He said he'd been divorced a couple of years; she assumed that was the end of the relationship he'd had with his wife. He'd been different last night, but still loving and sweet. But the woman...the ex...she was irresistible. Did the woman, whose name she didn't even know, still have a hold on him?

Lilly didn't know how to answer these questions or how to find the answers. After about an hour of thinking it through she decided to go back to the clinic, even if it meant confronting Clay while the woman was still there. Whatever the challenge, she needed to know what was going on.

When Clay pulled into the clinic, he saw Isabel's truck and trailer, but she was nowhere in sight. He parked and found her leaning into one of the small paddocks, looking at Streak. She turned toward him.

"What an incredible horse," she said. "What's his story?"

"He came to us a difficult, unfinished stud colt," Clay said. "Let me bring him in and I'll talk to you about Diamond." He got the bridle and lead, put Streak in the stall, and stood in the aisle between the stalls. Isabel followed. She stayed quiet and back while he took care of the horse and put up the tack. Then he brought Diamond out of her stall. He explained about the minor training injury that Nathaniel had seen on the MRI and confirmed with examination. "Is it possible her trainer overworked her? That's the most common cause, and it's usually in a younger horse."

"Possible," she said with a shrug. "I usually pay close attention to detail, but lately... I admit, I've been a little lost without you at the stable...."

He tried to ignore that and said, "Well, the cure will cost you--she can't train for at least three months," he said. "Which means she won't race."

"How'd he see it?" she asked. "My vet didn't--"

"You could use a sharper, more conservative veterinarian. And why a stable as rich as yours doesn't have an orthopedic specialist on retainer is a mystery to me. Nathaniel spent some time at an equine orthopedics clinic, studying for a specialty. If a horse like this doesn't work for a living--"

"Can we please talk about...us?"

He was caught off guard. He gave Diamond a stroke. "Isabel, there really is no us."

She moved closer to him. They both stood beside the magnificent mare. Clay was tall at six-two, but Isabel was a good five-eight in her bare feet, and in boots she stood up to him admirably and could look in his eyes.

"I didn't realize how much it would hurt when you left," she said.

"And it also hurt while I was there. You needed that divorce to appease your father."