Taming of the Two

“I agree.”

He nodded and turned to Ben. “Hey, Ben.” He smiled and put a hand out. “Good to see you again.”

Ben shook his hand. “Thanks. Looks like you’ve got a winner on your hands out there.”

“You know it.”

“How would you feel about running him up against one of mine?”

Victor laughed and ran a hand through his sandy-blond hair. “Bring it on.” He looked behind him and signaled to the jockey on Kate’s Flight. “You talking about that colt from Sunuawa?”

Ben smiled and nodded. “You’ve heard.”

“Hey, word travels. But I’d love to see what your boy can do. You know where to find us.” He turned to Kate and said, “I don’t want to interrupt you two, so I’ll see you later.”

“You’re not interrupting us!” she said quickly, but he was already leaving. Obviously, Bianca had shared her harebrained plan about Kate and Ben with him.

She watched him go, wondering what on earth to say to Ben, who was still standing beside her.

“So I hear you’ve got the technology for Fireflight to sire more,” Ben said, looking sideways at her.

“It’s not for sale,” she said quickly.

“No?” He looked surprised. “I was misinformed, then.”

“It was for sale. My father sold some, but there’s very little left now. As I’m sure you can imagine, offering Fireflight’s bloodlines is our ace in the hole.” She thought about that for a moment. “So to speak.”

“Hmm.” He nodded, keeping his eyes on the track and the horses that were running against each other. Kate’s Flight was leading the competition by a considerable margin. “Not at any price, huh?”

“Nope.” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “Sorry.”

“No problem.” His words were casual, but when Kate glanced at him she thought he looked grave.

“Hey!” a voice barked behind them.

Kate turned to face a squat, wizened old woman she’d noticed several times running the betting windows.

“One of you Katherine Gregory?”

Kate had to work to keep from laughing. “That would be me,” she said, adding the obvious, “Not him.”

The woman didn’t so much as crack a smile. “There’s a phone call for you up in the shop.”

Kate frowned. “That’s weird. Did they say who it was?”

“Think it’s your father or something.” The woman gave an exaggeratedly disinterested shrug. “He said he couldn’t get through on your cell phone.”

“That’s crazy. I don’t need to go all the way to the track shop to get a call.” She patted her pocket, looking for the phone she was sure had been there earlier. But it was gone. “Hmm. Okay, I guess I do need to go all the way up to the shop.” She started toward the main building, tossing over her shoulder, “Nice talking to you, Ben.”

He raised a hand in response.

The woman asked, “Ben Devere?”

“That’s right,” he said slowly.

“There’s a telephone message for you there, as well.”

Kate paused. “We both got phone calls up there?”

“Guess so,” the woman said.

Ben looked at Kate with a frown. “You don’t suppose that fence is down between the properties again, do you?”

She groaned. “I hope not. That was a mess.”

“We’d better go see what’s going on.”

They hurried to the building, up the stairs and into the darkened shop. “You’d think she could have left the lights on, at least,” Kate commented, feeling her way to the counter, where she remembered having seen a phone before.

“There’s something strange about this,” Ben said.

The door closed behind them and they both looked back at it for a moment. Then Ben found the light switch and the room was flooded with fluorescent glow.

Kate found the phone and picked it up, looking to see which line was on hold.

None of them were.

“For Pete’s sake.” She pressed line one and dialed her father’s number.

As soon as he answered, she asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Katherine,” he said. “Why?”

She frowned. “They said you were trying to get hold of me and couldn’t get through on my cell phone.”

“That’s nonsense,” her father said to her. “I didn’t try to call you.”

She was somewhat relieved, even while she was flummoxed. “What about Bianca? Where is she?”

“She’s at the track with Victor. With you, too, I guess, if you’re there.”

She watched as Ben poked around, looking for the message that had supposedly been left for him. An uneasy feeling snaked into Kate’s stomach.

“I gotta go, Dad. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up the phone and rushed to the door.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Ben asked. “What’s the emergency?”

She got to the door and tried it.