Christmas Countdown

“My gallop boy will be here at seven to work Navigator.” She emerged from the tack room with a halter, lead rope and a brush. “He needs to be warmed up. We’re going for a timed gallop this morning.”

Ahead of her he reached out, unlatched the stall door and pulled it open. She stepped past him into the cubicle, dropped the horse brush and put the halter on Navigator.

A nicker rumbled deep in the big bay’s throat. He nudged Emma affectionately as she bent over and picked up the brush.

Mac watched her take quick, even strokes across the colt’s back and down his withers.

“What’s his Beyer Speed Figure?”

She gave him a glance over her left shoulder and continued to groom the horse. “You do know something about racing.”

“Yeah.” A measure of hesitation pulled back any need he felt to enlighten her about his past in the world of Thoroughbred horse racing, or his knowledge of the Beyer system of combining a horse’s race time and the inherent speed of the track into a single performance number.

“It’s 126.”

A low whistle hissed between his lips. He eyed the bay, pausing on his definable attributes: a well-chiseled head, long neck, deep chest, long legs and powerful hindquarters.

“That’s not too shabby. Where’d he last run?”

“Churchill Downs, the Clark Handicap. He won his one and one-eighth mile race by five lengths.”

A charge buzzed through him, its pulse almost pushing him over the edge into excitement, but he cut the current off with memories of the disappointment that came after the high. A nose-first dive into reality. One he’d seen many men take. The one that ultimately had claimed his horse-trainer father.

“He’s got good confirmation and a great Beyer. He has a shot.” Mac stepped through the stall gate and leaned against the outside wall, his back to her and the horse.

“His great-grandfather won the Derby in 1987.”

Mac ran the date in his head, trying to reconcile the edge of anger creeping through his body like poison. He turned back around, clutching the iron bars that surrounded the stall. “Alysheba?”

“Yeah. He sired Smooth Sailing, who sired Nautical Mile, who sired Navigator’s Whim.”

The world was shrinking and he found himself smack in the middle of it. Smooth Sailing was the horse Thadeous Clareborn had stolen from his father in a claiming race. Now he was the grandfather of a Derby prospect? If the Beyer Speed Figure was any indicator, Navigator’s Whim stood a better-than-average chance of winning the Kentucky Derby, and reaching for the Triple Crown.

EMMA PUT HER FOOT INTO the stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn and climbed aboard her pony horse, Oliver. She reached down for the lead rope attached to the colt and Mac put it in her hand. He stepped back, catching her eye from under the brim of a well-worn hat he’d found in the tack room.

His gaze was electric, its intensity arcing through her body with a conductivity that left her breathless.

“It’s only forty-four degrees this morning, Emma. Warm him up good.”

She nodded. “I’ll jog him out a half-mile and back, then meet you at the gate.” Reining for the opening onto the racetrack, she hoped like crazy he hadn’t seen the blush she could feel stinging her cheeks even as the morning mist cooled her skin. She was feeling shy. She’d had a boyfriend or two, but there was something magnetic about Mac Titus, something primal, untamed, sexy and … haunting about the way he looked at her.

Tugging on Navigator’s lead rope, she threaded them through the opening and out onto the track.

Layers of fog obscured the mile-and-a-half oblong, but she could see it with her eyes closed; she’d ridden it a thousand times. Even in the dark.

Nudging Oliver into a gentle lope, she focused on the rail at the first turn and relaxed into the saddle.

Mac watched horses and rider fade into the flat gray mist and put his senses on alert. Turning his head slightly to the right, he picked up the whisper of hoofbeats churning soft soil.

He closed his eyes, letting the sight deprivation intensify his auditory ability. He didn’t know why it worked, but it did. Closing off one always heightened the other. Up until he’d been shot in the line of duty, he’d never really appreciated his razor-sharp senses or the capabilities they afforded him.

The hearing in his left ear would never—

Mac jerked around at the pressure of a hand on his shoulder.

Caught in an instinctive reaction, he leveled the man with his forearm and shoved him back into the fence rail.

“Easy!” The kid’s eyes went wide. He raised his gloved hands in surrender.

The adrenaline in Mac’s system diluted as he sized up the young man clad in a coat, breeches, boots and a riding helmet, its loose strap swinging back and forth from the force he’d exerted against him.

“Oh hell, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you coming until you were on me.” He lowered his arm and took a step back. “I overreacted. I’m Emma’s new groom, Mac. Are you Navigator’s gallop boy?”

“Yeah. Josh Duncan.” He smoothed the front of his jacket. “I’m early. My 5:30 a.m. ride over at McCluskies’ canceled. I came straight here.”

“Is Chester McCluskie still running Rambling Farm?”

“Yeah. He has a heck of a Derby prospect himself … had a prospect, I should say, until this morning. His filly Ophelia Mine went AWOL sometime last night, and went down in her stall. Hurt herself pretty bad. They’ve got the vet there now.”

Caution sluiced in Mac’s veins. Was it possible Navigator hadn’t been the only target of the disguised thug last night? He’d have to get the syringe they’d found turned over to the police for analysis.

“Emma ponied the colt out to the half-mile post. She should be back any time.” He turned his attention once again to the track, picking up the rhythmic clop of horse hooves in the dirt. “So what do you think? Does Navigator’s Whim have what it takes to win the Derby?”

“He’s a powerhouse with heart. I’ve barely tapped his speed potential. Under the right jockey he could take the Triple Crown.”

Great, another true believer. Mac gripped the top rail of the fence while he watched Emma, Oliver and Navigator materialize out of the mist like an apparition. For the first time he found himself analyzing the bay colt’s stride. Looking for that it factor. The look of eagles in his eyes. Knowing. Confident. Fierce. An old saying in the Bluegrass reserved for winners.

His heart hammered in his chest. There it was, a rush of hope that sent men and women over the edge. Compelling them to move heaven and earth for a chance to bet on a winner. He should turn around and get the hell out while he had the chance. He had nothing at stake in this gamble … but Emma Clareborn did.

Judging by the run-down condition of Firehill Farm in the light of day, she had everything to lose if the colt didn’t come through.

Concern embedded itself in his brain and he made a silent vow to do whatever he could to ensure disappointment didn’t destroy her.

Emma reined in her horse next to the gate and dismounted. “He’s good and warm, Josh. Take him to the wall this morning.”

“You’ve got it.” Josh took hold of the reins while Emma unfastened the buckle on the halter she’d used to pony him and slipped it off.

“Break on the outside rail and move him inside, just like last time. If we get a bad gate pick, he’ll be ready to overcome it.”

Mac stepped out onto the track and approached Josh. “Rider up,” he called. He caught Josh’s foot and hoisted him onto Navigator’s back.

Josh put his feet into the irons on the flat saddle and gathered the reins in his hands.

“I wish this blasted fog would burn off,” Emma said. Leading her pony horse, she headed for the opening in the rail.

Mac followed, watching her tie the leggy black gelding up before moving over to stand next to him.

“Want to do the honors?” She opened her hand to expose a silver stopwatch. Every horse racer’s instrument of delusion.

It should have been a simple decision, but he wrestled with it anyway. The track time wasn’t going to lie, it was finite, a rock-solid indicator of what the horse was capable of.

“Sure.” He plucked the watch from her palm and saw a slight smile bow her lips.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d spent a considerable amount of time around racehorses.”

Caution glided through him. Would she have been old enough at the time to remember the feud that tore their fathers’ friendship apart?

“It was a long time ago, I was a kid. But you don’t forget something ingrained in your DNA.”

“Solberg was right then, you’re the man for this job. I’m glad you’re here.”

Mac stared over at her, at the surety in her whiskey-brown eyes as she searched his face with her gaze. His throat tightened. He could easily fall under her spell if he didn’t pull back.

He turned abruptly, waiting for the sound of the horse breaking from the far left end of the track.

The fog dampened the swish of the mock starting gate, but there it was, hoofbeats pounding Kentucky soil. He raised the stopwatch in front of him, feeling his heart rate shoot up. Closer … closer … the colt flashed in front of them.

Mac started the clock, listening to the horse thunder down the front stretch and into the first turn.

Emma put her hand on his forearm and shook him. “I told you he’s fast. I know he can win.”

Her excitement leached into him and he let a degree of the sensation move through his body. Focusing, he turned his head to the right and picked up the hammering of hooves as Navigator thundered his way down the backstretch.

He didn’t dare look at the time; instinctively he knew it would be incredible. Better to wait until the colt passed in front of him. Seeing would usher in believing, and then some.

There was trouble. Mac felt it first telegraph through the top rail pipe that ran the entire length of the racetrack. Seconds later Josh’s yelp of pain reached out through the fog.

“Something’s wrong!” Emma squeezed his arm.

Navigator galloped from the mist minus his rider and shot past them on the inside rail.

Mac pressed the stopwatch and shoved it into his pocket.

“Take Oliver and go find Josh, I’ll go after the colt!” Emma said. She ran through the opening in the gate.

Mac turned for the pony horse at the same time he heard her shrill whistle for the riderless colt.

He jerked the knotted reins loose from the rail, untied the pony horse, jammed his foot in the stirrup and climbed aboard. He hadn’t ridden in years, but riding a horse was like riding a bike. You never forgot.

Spurring him forward, Mac trotted through the gate and out onto the track. Josh was somewhere on the back turn. That’s when he’d felt the vibration of Navigator’s impact with the outside rail. He reined the gelding to the inside and eased him into a lope.

A hundred yards around the track the fog vanished, giving him a clear view of the back turn.

Josh lay in a crumpled heap next to the outside rail at the one-mile post.

Worry ground over Mac’s nerves.

The kid wasn’t moving.

He nudged the horse into a gallop and reined him in just short of the spot where he lay.

“Josh! Can you hear me, buddy?”

Mac bailed off of Oliver and dropped the reins.

Going to his knees, he put his hand on the kid’s shoulder.

Josh moaned, rolled to the left and tried to sit up, but Mac held him down with gentle pressure. “No way, stay put.”

Mac gritted his teeth, staring at the dazed expression on the young man’s dirt-smudged face, but it was the deformity in his right forearm and the protruding bone, that told him Josh shouldn’t be moved. He was going to need a trip to the hospital ASAP.

“I gotta catch the horse.” Josh tried to sit up again.

Mac pressed his palm into his chest. “Relax, Emma is taking care of it. She’ll catch him. You broke your arm. Stay still.”

Josh glanced down at his right forearm and went pale.

“What happened?” Mac asked, praying he could get the kid’s attention before he passed out cold.

“I couldn’t see when I hit the midpoint on the backstretch.”

“The mist?”

“A flash of red light hit me in the eyes—”

“A laser?”

“Could have been. But it must have targeted Navigator too, because he went wide and slapped the rail. I couldn’t hang on. I hope he’s okay.”

Mac looked up and saw Emma and Navigator materialize out of the mist and into the sunlight.

“Is Josh all right?” she hollered the instant she was within earshot.

He waited until she stopped ten feet out, holding Navigator by the reins and trying to calm him down.

“Broken arm. He needs an ambulance, and we need the sheriff. This was no accident. They were targeted with a laser. Blinded. Probably from somewhere in the woods.”

Mac swept the grove of dense foliage with his gaze and considered looking for the perpetrator or perpetrators, but the shroud of fog would make it almost impossible to find them. And he had no intention of leaving Emma, Josh or Navigator alone right now.

Emma couldn’t prevent her hand from shaking when she pulled her cell phone out of her coat pocket and dialed 911. This was a turn she hadn’t anticipated. Whoever was behind the threats against her horse apparently wasn’t afraid to hurt his human handlers, as well.

She’d need Mac Titus now more than ever.

“WE FOUND THIS last night after someone attempted to get into Navigator’s stall. It could have the man’s fingerprints on it.” Mac handed the glove encased syringe to Sheriff Riley Wilkes.

“This happened last night?”

“Yeah, just after I arrived around 10:00 p.m. I heard Miss Clareborn scream, booked it to the stable and caught the man trying to run. I tackled him, but he got away. My guess is he wanted to administer whatever’s in that hypodermic to her horse.”

Mac watched the ambulance carrying Josh pull away and considered his revelation about McCluskie’s Derby prospect. “Josh mentioned one of Rambling Farm’s horses had some trouble last night, too. Maybe the incidents are related.”

“I’ll get this to the lab and speak with Chester about it. There’s been some trouble at other farms in the area over the last couple of weeks. The horsemen are concerned.”

Caution pulled Mac’s nerves tight. “Any other horses targeted with lasers on the practice track?”

“Not specifically. But I can tell you two of the reported incidents have been at farms where Victor Dago stabled horses. I’m glad to hear you’ve been hired as a bodyguard by Miss Clareborn to look after her horse. Keep your eyes open and contact me immediately if anything else happens.”

Mac took the business card Sheriff Wilkes dug out of his shirt pocket. “I will, and we’d like to know the results of the toxicology on the syringe’s contents as soon as possible.”

“I’ll put a rush on it.” The sheriff turned to one of his deputies.

Mac scanned the paddock and focused in on Emma, leaning against the fence watching Navigator cool down on the hot-walker. He walked over and took a spot next to her.

“Sheriff Wilkes is going to find out what’s in the syringe.”

“Who would want to hurt him?”

Mac followed her gaze to the big bay colt moving around the circumference of the electric walker’s path. “I’d like to try and find out.” He watched the horse move, studying him for problems stemming from his contact with the rail.

“He looks good.”

“Yeah, not a scratch, but why can’t they just leave us alone? Making it in this business is hard enough without someone trying to sabotage you.”

He nudged her with his elbow. “I’m not going to let anything happen to him, Emma.”

Turning, she gazed up at him, her expression contemplative at best, skeptical at worse. “We’re so close to making the cut for the Derby prequalifiers. I need to win the Holiday Classic before I can nominate him in January so we get our shot at the Triple Crown. I need this, Mac. Firehill needs this.”

“How bad is it?”

She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. “Bad enough that I had to ignore the rumors circulating about Victor Dago and his crew and lease my stud barn to the man so I’d have the entry fee to get into the Clark Handicap.”

“Has he done anything to you?” Tension coiled inside his body, ready to spring on Dago if he’d hurt her in any way.

“Other than make a few inappropriate comments and giving me the creeps, not a thing. The sheikh sends a check religiously the first of every month. They respect my property and privacy. It’s nothing I can put my finger on and I should be satisfied when I put their money in the bank—”

“But something’s off?” he said.

“Exactly.”

The sunlight had incinerated the fog and it blazed down a streak of copper in a loose strand of her dark hair.

He resisted the urge to stroke it back into place behind her ear. “What kind of rumors are following Dago?”

Her gaze dropped to the ground and she turned back to the fence rail. “Prowlers. Lots of movement after dark. At the Loomis farm, my friend Janet came out of the house to call in her dog and saw a man dressed in black and wearing a ski mask come out of their stable and disappear into the woods. The next morning she found her dog tied to a fence with duct tape around his muzzle to keep him from barking.”

Caution worked through him. “Do they have a Derby prospect?”

“No. They’re an anomaly in the Bluegrass—they raise quarter horses, for crying out loud. After that incident they decided to give Dago notice, and he came to me. I needed the money desperately, so I let him in.”

He reached out and brushed his hand across her back, a gesture meant to reassure her, but it jolted him hard, and he broke contact. “I’ll keep my guard up. No one is going to hurt you or your horse.”

“Thanks.” She grinned and pulled the lead rope off the fence post next to her then went to take Navigator off the hot-walker.

Mac shoved his hand into his jacket pocket, coming in contact with the stopwatch. He pulled it out and glanced down at the time. His breath hung up in his lungs as he raised the watch out in front of him, like distance from his stare could somehow alter the race time, but it didn’t work.

It read 1:56. Three-plus seconds faster than Secretariat’s record Derby-winning time in 1973.

Navigator’s Whim could win the Kentucky Derby with a time like that.

All he had to do was keep the colt and his determined owner safe long enough for that to happen.

Chapter Three

Mac jolted upright on the cot, unsure what had awakened him. He glanced at the illuminated hands on his watch: 4:35 a.m. Turning his focus to his surroundings, he searched for visual threats inside the barn and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The only noise he heard was the sluice of Navigator moving through the fresh straw bedding in his stall.

Heard. The hearing in his left eardrum had come back one decibel at a time after the shooting, but the healing seemed to have reached a plateau now. It would never be the same, at least that’s what the audiologist believed, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet.

He laid back and thrust his hands behind his head, staring up at the cavernous ceiling overhead ribbed with giant timbers.

Maybe he could attribute waking up to the sensation of being watched that seemed to follow him every time he entered the damn stable. Whatever it was, he’d made peace with it after clearing every stall twice last night, and poking around in the haylofts for half an hour only to come up empty.

An electric purr coming from the entrance of the barn, reignited the caution in his blood.

He sat up again.

Silhouetted in the doorway by the first hint of dawn was a man in an electric wheelchair. Thadeous Clareborn.

Mac cleared his throat as the chair advanced. He’d changed his last name, but would the old man recognize his face? He smoothed his hand over his hair, snatched the hat from next to the cot and slapped it on his head. Throwing back the sleeping bag, he stood up and prepared to go toe-to-toe with the man who’d, in his father’s opinion, destroyed everything Paul Calliway had going for him.

Thadeous stopped the motorized chair. “What’s your … name, son?” The question was slurred, each word formed with extreme exertion. A by-product of his stroke.

“Mac. Mac Titus.”

The old man grunted and rocked the lever forward, rolling up next to the stall gate. “Emma hire … you?”

“Yes.”

He raised his hand and rapped his knuckles on the door. “Good horse?” Angling his head, he stared up at Mac, his eyes narrowing in the shallow light streaming in the barn door.

“Damn straight, Mr. Clareborn.”

A crooked smile pulled up one side of his mouth. “Do I … know you?”

Mac’s nerves tensed as he shook his head back and forth. It wasn’t a lie. He’d been a distant witness to the transactions that had transpired between his father and Thadeous Clareborn. He didn’t know the man personally, had only seen him one time. The afternoon he and his father had delivered Smooth Sailing to Firehill Farm, after which Paul Calliway had descended into a bottle of Kentucky bourbon on Christmas Eve and never found his way out.

Glancing over the stall door, concern took hold of Mac’s senses. Something wasn’t right. Navigator was an animated colt who enjoyed haranguing anyone who ventured close enough to his stall gate for him to nudge, but he stood in the corner now, his head pitched below his withers, his breath coming in long low grunts.

Mac stepped around the wheelchair and opened the door latch. He stepped inside and moved up on the animal. Reaching out he brushed his hand down Navigator’s right shoulder, the one he’d slammed into the railing.

“His shoulder’s swollen. We better get the vet in.” Worry ground through him, bringing his thoughts to Emma, and the devastating reality an injury could cause her and Firehill Farm.

“I’ll … go.” Thadeous turned his wheelchair and rolled out of the barn.

“Hang in there,” Mac said, rubbing the horse’s neck.

DOC REMINGTON STOOD outside Navigator’s stall next to Emma. “Three weeks, a month. Keep him moving, so he doesn’t stiffen up. But no strenuous exercise on that shoulder muscle. It’s a deep bruise.”

From the pained look on Emma’s face, Mac knew the vet’s prescription for Navigator was going down like a poison pill. The Holiday Classic was three weeks away and Navigator’s fitness level would rapidly decline without regular workouts, thereby diminishing his chances of making the first open qualifier for the Kentucky Derby.

“What about a yarrow-and-mustard poultice?” he asked, recalling the technique his dad had used more times than he could count to speed healing.

A line creased between the vet’s eyebrows. “That’s an antiquated remedy, labor intensive, but you might get it to draw. It’s worth a try.”

His only consolation was the look of hope that flared in Emma’s dark eyes.

MAC SPOONED ANOTHER square of cheesecloth up from the kettle of boiling water and plopped it down on the piece of plywood they’d been using as a makeshift table since dawn.

Wearing rubber gloves, he spread out the hot cloth and dumped a cup of the yellow paste he’d concocted onto it. He smoothed it around, folded it over to form a pocket for the poultice and pulled off his gloves.

Emma smiled at him as she reached down, picked it up in her gloved hands and headed back into Navigator’s stall where she pressed the remedy against his shoulder.

He stepped into the cubicle and watched her over the bay’s back. “How are you holding up?”

“My shoulders hurt like crazy and I’ve got a cramp, but I’m not going to stop.”

He liked knowing she wasn’t a quitter. The physical strain would have already put an average woman under the table, but not Emma Clareborn. She wasn’t the spoiled Kentucky blue blood he’d expected to find living at Firehill Farm. She had grit and substance. Respect stirred in his bloodstream.