The It Girls
I could do this. I could.
Bart Hind, the manager, sat behind a black metal desk, barking into the phone to what, I gathered, was the feed supplier. His skin looked slept in, the folds and wrinkles ironed in as if he’d stayed too long in one spot. His hair had once been brown, but now was so shot with white that it looked dusty. He wore navy work pants and a plaid work shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Who are you?” he growled as he slammed down the phone.
“Ally Cross. You were expecting me this morning.”
He glanced at the large clock on the wall and grunted. I’d thankfully found the place and squeaked in a few minutes early. He sidestepped from behind the desk. With a hand gesture, he told me to follow him. His work boots thunked on the concrete floor as he made his way into the barn.
I’d always loved the smell of stables—hay, sweet feed and leather. But there was no time to admire the bouquet. I had to pay attention to Hind’s rapid-fire instructions.
“You’ll have six horses.” He chewed every word as if it were the toughest cut of meat, then spit it out like gristle. “You’re expected to muck out their stalls, feed, groom, rotate them into paddocks and get them ready for their owners according to schedule. You work five till whenever the job’s done. Horses don’t care about a clock. Mondays are off.”
“Where will I find this schedule?” I asked, head spinning just a little bit.
“In the tack room and feed room.”
He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. A head popped up from a stall up the aisle and he gestured the woman over. “This is the new girl. Show her around. She’s got the Siegel and all five Hardel horses.”
The girl’s gray eyes widened behind her water-spotted glasses. “Sure. No problem.”
And just like that Bart Hind was gone, leaving me standing there as if I were a cartoon character suspended above a canyon with nowhere to go but down.
“I’m Dawn Waller,” the girl said, offering her hand. Her head full of droopy caramel curls bounced with each of her steps. Kristi had hit the wardrobe right on the nose, judging by Dawn’s outfit—jeans, boots, faded navy T-shirt.
“Ally Cross.” The calluses at the base of each of Dawn’s fingers scratched at my too-soft palm. I let go of her hand as politely as I could.
“Don’t take it personally,” Dawn said, leading me down the wide roughened-concrete center aisle. “Bart’s a regular jackass. But he’s not here for his personality. Mr. Dunhill cares about the horses. Period. He couldn’t care less about the people. Unless they’re helping pay the bills, of course.”
She waved her arm at the stalls, whose varnished pine gleamed gold under the daylight overheads running the length of the barn. “We have thirty-six stalls. Two are empty at the moment. But they won’t stay that way for long. Mr. Dunhill has a waiting list a mile long. Other than Hind, there are six grooms—well, six now that you’re here—a maintenance assistant and two trainers. You’ll meet them later.”
Dawn introduced me to a couple of grooms, then moved on to the tack room. The pine-sided room had a utility counter and sink. A large white board listed each horse down the left-hand side and the horse’s training and turnout schedule on the right. A multipronged hook hung from the ceiling to clean bridles. Each station had a saddle rack, saddle pad rack and a bridle rack and a built-in tack trunk. Separating each station was a locker with each owner’s name printed by a label maker. I’d have to find time to inspect their contents and see if they turned up anything related to the Horse Ripper.
Dawn showed me a similar white board in the feed room delineating each horse’s rations. She pointed out the two wash stalls with hot water and heat lamps and the six grooming cross-tie areas with nonskid pads.
“These horses are quite pampered,” I said.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet! Some owners bring in an equine psychologist and a massage therapist. There’s even one who calls in a certified hypnotist to make sure her darling’s happy. Can you believe it?”
Well, yeah, I could. I got massage therapy for my horse Persephone every week now that she was growing old. “Amazing.”
“Some people definitely have too much money to burn.” As we reached another section of stalls, Dawn cupped a hand over her mouth and whispered, “Watch out for Erin.”
“Why?”
“The bitch is a professional suck-up. She thinks ratting on us is part of her job.”
Dawn gave the stall wall a quick jab. Erin popped up.
“Erin Mays,” Dawn said. “Meet the new girl. Ally Cross.”
Erin’s wide-set green eyes squinted at me through the open stall door with the feral intensity of a killer iguana. Her brown French braid started right at her forehead, giving it the look of a ruff on top of her head. I almost expected it to pop up and spread like it did on nature shows.
“Nice to meet you,” I said and smiled as cheerfully as I could.
“Same here,” she said with all the warmth of wet wood.
As we moved on, I couldn’t help rolling my shoulders to dislodge the spear of ill will shot in my direction.
Dawn was back to her conspiratorial voice. “Katelyn Tierney’s voice is all honey, but don’t let that fool you. She’s not going to be happy to see you.”
“Why not?”
“She’s been maneuvering to get herself assigned to Ross Hardel’s horses, and here you are a newbie taking over her coveted spot. They’re hers this morning, and she’s not going to give them up without a fight.” Dawn smirked. “She has a crush on him.”
“Who? Ross Hardel?”
Dawn nodded. “She’s sadly mistaken if she thinks a romp between the sheets is going to get her a ring on the finger.”
“Great.” Would Katelyn’s infatuation make getting close to Ross difficult? With two out of five grooms wanting to cut me to pieces before they’d even met me, gathering the underground gossip Renee wanted wasn’t going to be quite as easy as I’d imagined. But Dawn seemed open enough. I’d have to cultivate her friendship and see what I could unearth about the goings-on at the Ashcroft Equestrian Center.
“Katelyn?” Dawn said to the blonde spreading wood shavings on a freshly cleaned stall floor. “Here’s Ally. The new girl. I’ll let you show her what Waldo and the Hardel horses need.”
I had a bad feeling about Katelyn. Her smile reminded me of a shark—the type that knew the difference between a seal and a swimmer and went after the swimmer every time.
She handed me a pitchfork and said, “Sink or swim, honey. I haven’t got the time or the inclination to hold your hand.”
Welcome to the team, Ally.
Chapter 3
Standing on the concrete aisle, I held on to the pitchfork with perhaps a tad too much force as Katelyn left me in her dust. Sink or swim, Katelyn had said. I could already taste the water filling my lungs and the need to put out an SOS screamed inside me like a little girl drowning. I fingered the locket at my throat. Take it easy. No need to call in the cavalry yet. This was no different from societal posturing. And I’d managed that dance often enough. I’d probably act territorial, too, if I felt someone was poaching on my domain.
Okay, since Katelyn was going to let me flounder on my own, the first thing I had to do was figure out what I was expected to accomplish. Hind’s list of tasks was long, but rather slim on details. I headed to the tack room and checked the board. I discovered that my charges had all had their morning rations and their morning grooming. I was expected to have the stalls cleaned before the lunch feed and Cielo Azur ready for the trainer by one.
Feeling a bit more oriented, I trekked back to my section of stalls and dug in.
Within fifteen minutes my back and legs were crying uncle from all the unfamiliar bending and scooping, and I had a line of fresh blisters at the base of my fingers that made each heft of the pitchfork pure agony. Even Jimmy’s torturing workouts had never made me as aware of my hamstrings as I was now. If I moved too fast, I just knew my back was going to spasm.
By stall number four, I was ready to close my eyes and let the jets in my hot tub knead away the tight knots in every one of my muscles. That little fantasy popped at the sound of Bart Hind’s voice barking at me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I looked down at the sinus-clearing, urine-soaked pile of shavings precariously balanced on the pitchfork and had to bite back the automatic remark of, ‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ and said, “Mucking out Bay Bridge Bandit’s stall.”
“Your résumé says you have five years’ professional experience. At doing what?”
Managing a multimillion-dollar foundation, jack. That’s more money and responsibility than you’ll ever see. But of course, that wasn’t the right answer. “Taking care of horses.”
“Where? In Fantasy Land? Because in the real world, there’s a timetable. And you’re behind schedule. A five-year-old could work faster than you are.”
“Sorry, I’ll kick it up another notch.” I shoved the pitchfork into a pile of wet shavings with renewed enthusiasm. Still, I couldn’t help the first-day-at-school feeling, when you don’t know anyone but want everyone to like you, especially the teacher.
“Sorry isn’t going to get you anywhere,” Hind said, looking a bit Napoleonic with his swept-back forelock and a hand planted across his slight paunch as if it ached. “I don’t care who you slept with to get this job. If you don’t work to my standards, you’ll be out on your ass before you have a chance to go cry in your sugar daddy’s lap.”
He thought I’d slept with Patrick Dunhill to get this lowly job? Ew, gross. The guy had to be over fifty and showed every year of it. As much as I’d like a hot and heavy affair, I’d rather do it with someone closer to my age and easier on the eyes.
Hind pointed at the black horse across the aisle. “Magnus was supposed to get his midmorning hay half an hour ago, and you were supposed to be done with stalls before then. And if that’s what you call grooming, I really don’t know what you did to get your recommendations.”
As if Magnus agreed, he pawed at his bedding. I ground my back teeth and hung on to my cool. “It’s taking me a little time to get oriented to where everything is.”
Hind made a noise that was half growl, half chuff. “I’ll cut you some slack for today.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the bedding in Bandit’s stall. “Don’t be stingy on the shavings. Mr. Dunhill wants the horses comfortable. Get Magnus’s hay. Now. And groom him properly.”
“Yes, sir.” Honest, I tried to keep the biting edge out of my voice.
His scowl deepened, giving him a Cro-Magnon ridge that told me I wasn’t making a friend. “Make sure everyone’s in on time. Azur’s hard to catch. Take a handful of grain.”
“I’m on it.” This time I was thankful for the tip.
After stuffing Magnus’s hay net with hay, I grabbed a lead line and the leather halter marked with Cielo Azur’s name and made my way to the network of paddocks. Might as well get the tough one out of the way first.
I rested my foot on the bottom rung of the fence to take the pressure off my throbbing residual limb and took a minute to bask in the breeze that dried the sweat sticking my shirt to my skin. I closed my eyes, fantasizing about lavender French-milled soap, moisturizing shampoo and the shell-pink silk teddy and tap pants I’d bought in Paris and hadn’t yet gotten to wear. Not that there was anyone special to wear them for right now. With a sigh, I stared at the dozen or so horses grazing in the various enclosures with no idea as to which one I was supposed to put in which stall.
Dawn popped up beside me, startling me. “What’s up?”
“You were right about Katelyn.”
Dawn snorted as gustfully as a horse in a dusty arena. “She’s been bitching about you all morning. She thinks you’re competition.”
“For what?”
“Ross Hardel.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoffed.
“You’d be surprised.”
Here was a chance to tap into some gossip. “He has a thing for the help?”
“Not all grooms. His grooms. He wants to be sure his horses get the best of care.”
“Broken hearts get him that? I’d think that’d make him worry about revenge.”
Dawn snorted. “But a girl in love’ll go out of her way to please him.”
“Ah.” I breathed in the scent of spring grass. “It’s so pretty here.”
“Yeah, just wait till the owners show up. It won’t seem quite as serene then.”
“How so?”
“All those Park Avenue princesses can be bitches. Not that the guys are much better. Divas all of them.” Dawn bobbled her head from side to side, taking on a whiny voice. “Do this. Do that. Take care of me first. No, me, I’m more important. Bunch of spoiled brats.”
Was that how I came across to my stable hand? I rolled my aching shoulders, hoping Dawn would take my self-conscious blush for sunburn. “With the competition moving north for the summer, is anyone worried about the Horse Ripper showing up here? I mean what with Firewall and Waldo both training here.”
“Naw, Mr. Dunhill hired a security guard to patrol at night. And there’s security cameras everywhere. I don’t think he’ll show up here.”
“There were guards at the showgrounds in Florida,” I pointed out.
“Showgrounds are more confusing. Strangers come and go. Here everyone knows everyone. It’d be hard to get to a horse without being noticed.”
Unless you were an insider. “Makes you wonder who could do such a thing, doesn’t it?”
Dawn pushed her glasses back up her nose. “Doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve seen owners stick electrodes up their horses’ butts or noses to electrocute them for insurance money. There was this vet who stole horses, spray painted their markings with Rust-Oleum and sold them to unsuspecting clients in a different city.”
“He got away with it?”
Dawn shook her head. “Not for long. He’s in jail now.”
“And drugging’s nothing new,” I added.
“Nope. Happens all the time.”
“Do you think anyone here’s hard up enough to want to get Waldo or Firewall out of the way?”
Dawn shrugged. “There’s certainly enough jealousy flying around, so you never know.”
“Yeah?”
Dawn laughed. “You have no idea. It’s like a soap opera with all the bed-hopping and horse-trading.”
“Dish,” I said, hoping to narrow down my list of suspects.
She shook the halter in her hand and popped over the fence. “Gotta get my horses in before B. Hind barks at me.”
“Yeah, me too. Which one’s Cielo Azur?”
Dawn pointed at a small gray horse—in the farthest paddock, of course. “The dappled filly. She’s a bit hard to catch.”
I scooped out the handful of feed in my pocket. “I brought a bribe.”
“Good move.”
“What about the Hardel horses?” I asked. I’d seen Firewall in photos all decked out in show attire, but at pasture, he was just another red horse.
Dawn pointed out each one, as well as Waldo. “Waldo’s pretty well behaved. Firewall wants to lead and will drag you if you give him half a chance. Trademark Infringement bites and Bay Bridge Bandit kicks.”
“Hey, thanks.”
“No problem. Katelyn needs an attitude adjustment. She’s not a team player, if you know what I mean.”
I didn’t, but nodded anyway to show that I was and prove I belonged in this dead-end job. Dawn tossed a salute my way and trotted toward a group of horses. “Catch ya later.”
This horse business had me way over my head. Renee must be laughing in her tea, I thought, shaking my head as I made my way to Azur.
At the sight of someone entering her paddock, the mare popped her head up. Staring right at me, she wrung her tail, did a splendid turn on the haunches and took off.
Just as I reached her, she galloped off again. I almost had her cornered when I slipped and fell on my butt—on a fresh pile of horse apples, of course. I swear the little hussy smiled as she trotted away. This gray matador was enjoying the game a little too much and I was ready to choke her with the lead line, never mind the fact I couldn’t get close enough to her to accomplish the feat.
I sat there, too tired to move. Azur studied me and looked disappointed that I wasn’t playing anymore. She bent down, chewed off a bit of grass, then made her way closer to me, bite by bite.
“I know your type,” I said, thinking of high school and the games girls played there. “You like to bully. But you’re picking on the wrong person. Renee expects me to fail, but I’m actually really good at playing games. And I’ve been doing it a lot longer than you have.”
Azur’s ears flicked back and forth. Watching her nimble lips parcel out a juicy section of grass and hack it off with her big teeth, I chewed the inside of my cheek. This four-legged, four-year-old with a smaller brain than mine controlled the situation. How was that for irony?
Horses, being herd animals, have a strong sense of pecking order. Which, come to think of it, wasn’t so different from high school cliques. All I had to do was let her know who was the boss.
The horse-care book Alan had given me explained about the zones of influence. At first I wondered if I’d gotten my boss-horse signals crossed because Azur didn’t respond, except to walk away, swishing her tail. Then a burst of pleasure exploded inside me as she stopped, then lowered her head, chewing in a sign of submission. By the time I slipped the halter over her receptive head, we both knew I was lead mare and I felt much better about my chances of success as a groom.
The feeling of elation lasted only until I reached the stable. I clipped Azur to the cross ties in a grooming stall and was attempting to lift one of her feet so I could pick it out when a voice came up behind me.
“I’ve been watching you.”
Peering over my shoulder, I looked into a pair of deep brown eyes that were slicing and dicing me as finely as any Cuisinart blade. This couldn’t be good.
“Excuse me?” I straightened and dumped the hoof pick in the brush caddy.
He wore old leather boots on his wide feet, brown breeches that had seen better days and a beige polo shirt smeared with horse slobber on the shoulder. Physically, he didn’t look much older than thirty. But something in his eyes seemed to carry the scars of a hard life and shouted, “You can’t touch me.”
Grant Montney, the trainer. I recognized him from the background file Alan had given me. He had a reputation for being champion of the underdog. He lived in a trailer behind the barn and worked at this center because Patrick Dunhill indulged him in his obsession to fix the broken horses he rescued with free room and board for both horses and man.
“Who are you?” His voice was as sharp as his confrontational attitude.
“Ally Cross. I’m the new groom.” To prove my point, I picked up a rubber currycomb and attacked the mud caked on Azur’s coat.
“Where did you work before?”
I shot him a look packed with attitude. “Why the third-degree?”
Azur turned her head as if she found the conversation fascinating.
“I like to know who works with my horses.”
“I worked at Applewood Farm for Belinda Carmichael.” Belinda was another of Renee’s agents. I suspected she would have this assignment if she weren’t seven months pregnant. If Hind, or anyone else, called to check up on my references, Belinda would back up what was on the résumé.
“I know Belinda,” he said with a nod. “Nice girl. What’d you do for her?”
“Took care of her show horses.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“Belinda’s pregnant and decided not to show this year.”
He eyed me as if I was horseflesh at auction and he’d found a major conformation fault. I prided myself on holding my squirming to a minimum and continued to lift clouds of dust from Azur’s coat.
“So you’ve prepped horses for the show ring.” Not a question, I noticed, but a fact that if I agreed to I’d probably have to prove.
“Yes.” Gulp.
“Braid Azur’s mane for her lesson.”
Crap. “Braid?”
He jerked his chin at Azur’s neck. “Give me a dressage braid.”
Dressage braid. Double gulp. I hadn’t gotten to that part of the manual yet. I’d always paid someone to do the tedious work of braiding for me and I had no idea how to do those button beauties. But I wasn’t a quitter. The last time I’d shown Persephone, she’d worn a running braid. I’d done something similar to my hair often enough to bluff my way through it. No braid was going to lose me this assignment.
I dropped the brush into the caddy, reached for a mane comb and attacked Azur’s silver mane. His stare was so rimy that my fingers felt as if they were encased in ice.
“You had a good showing in Florida,” I said, hoping conversation would throw off the pinch of his concentrated stare.
“I had good horseflesh to work with.”
“You were lucky to escape the Horse Ripper.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it.”
This guy was tougher to crack than a Brazil nut. “There’s a rumor he’s after any horse that wins a jumping Grand Prix. Since you’re coaching the two horses most likely to win at the horse show next week, aren’t you worried?”
“You should be the one to worry.”
“Me?”
“Grooms here are expected to show discretion. Hind hears you gossiping and you’ll find yourself out the door.”
Great. The last thing I needed was for him to report me to Hind. I opted for silence. When I finished the braid, there wasn’t an elastic handy, so I pinched the ends between my fingers and glanced at my tormentor over my shoulder. “Anything else?”
“I’ve seen better.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine why Dunhill would entrust the care of expensive horses to an inept novice.”
I frowned and wanted desperately to shake off the flash of myself at fourteen, ugly and awkward, always having to do better to meet my parents’ impossible standards and never quite being able to. “I don’t know who you are to be passing judgment on me like this.”
“What’s the real reason you’re here?” he asked again, ignoring my concern.
One thing I’d learned growing up was to read people and give them what they expected. Want to get noticed? Show off some flesh and throw your shoulders back as if you owned the world. Want no one to realize you’re around? Wear baggy clothes, flat shoes and hang your head. What Grant Montney wanted was an excuse to either champion me or kick me around. I took a calculated risk.
“You want the truth?” I asked, running a tentative hand down Azur’s neck. I hung my head practically to her mane.
Montney tilted his head to one side and crossed his arms beneath his chest. “That would be refreshing.”
“The truth is that I’m a screwup.” I kept my voice low and my eyes darted up and down the aisle as if I didn’t want anyone else hearing about my shortcomings. “My parents kicked me out of the house because I failed out of school. I had nowhere to go, so Belinda took me in. Now with the baby coming.” I shrugged the way people did when they wanted others to believe that whatever they were dismissing was no big deal but really was. I should have gotten to go to the Oscars instead of Porsche.
“I had to move on. She knows Patrick Dunhill and put in a word for me. She gave me this chance and I’m trying really hard not to blow it.” I slanted him my most innocent look. “Have I done anything wrong with Azur or with any of the horses?”
He didn’t say anything for a long while and I was starting to think my little act had failed to make an impression.
“The jury’s still out.” He approached Azur’s side and ran a hand down her front leg, stopping at her fetlock. “Squeeze here and she’ll pick up her foot.”
And like magic, she did.
“Thanks,” I said, containing my elation at this small triumph over the trainer. “I love working with horses. I really am trying to do a good job.”
He nodded before heading back to wherever he’d come from. “See that you do.”
A short while later, a shrill whistle pierced my musings of bubble baths and silk sheets as I clipped a lead line to Harrison’s halter for his daily constitutional as outlined on the chore chart. I looked around half-expecting my stablehand’s Jack Russell terrier to come romping up the aisle. Then I remembered I wasn’t at my estate and I was the groom.