Courting Disaster

Even if he could overheat her with a glance.

Her hand started fanning all over again.

Shoot.

The Preston study was an impressive testament to the legacy of Quest Stables, the stables that Hugh Preston had built from scratch, one winner at a time. Dark wooden bookshelves lined the walls, filled with a mix of business books and racing books, the two skills that had made Quest Stables one of the largest racing operations in Kentucky. Hugh had handed over the reins to his son Thomas a long time ago, but was still active in the process, picking out horses with the same eye for a winner.

As Demetri waited for the old man to arrive, his gaze wandered over the room and all the racing memorabilia that it contained. A trophy case was filled with the old-style, two-handled cups that had been awarded so long ago, and pictures of the horses that had raced under the Quest name. The green walls were covered with framed news clippings of the stable’s winners. And now, all that history, the Preston legacy, was in doubt.

Not if Demetri could help it.

As a rule, Demetri didn’t play Sir Galahad well. Racing was a solitary occupation, and kept him moving from place to place. When the cars hit the track, friends turned to competitors, never a good idea. And as for his family, all that was left was his father, and he didn’t speak to Demetri unless he was forced to. It made for a solitary life.

Yet Hugh Preston had always been there for Demetri—a lot of the times with a sharp rebuke, or a shake of the grizzled head. A poor substitute for family, but Demetri would take what he could get. And for his friend, Demetri would wear the Sir Galahad mantel, no matter how badly it fit.

“There’s a tow truck dragging a cracked-up car from my drive, and I’m certain it belongs to you. You, a prizewinning Formula Gold driver, with a slew of records behind you. Which leaves me scratching my head, wondering how it came to be in such poor shape?”

Demetri turned and greeted the old man with a one-armed slap against the shoulder. At eighty-six, Hugh Preston still moved with the hurried pace of a much younger man, and spoke in a voice that was almost musical, with long-ago traces of an Irish brogue, the hard swagger of Brooklyn and the meandering drawl of Kentucky, all blended together in one.

“The accident wasn’t my fault,” defended Demetri, although technically, if someone wanted to split hairs or argue over “fact,” then yeah, he probably shared some of the burden of responsibility, or most of it.

Hugh settled his frame in a leather chair and poured out two glasses of bourbon. “That’s what the guilty ones always say,” he said, taking a long sip of bourbon, and ending with a contented sigh.

“It’ll take a few weeks for my engineering team to repair, but Louisville in the fall has a certain appeal.” A blond appeal, with wide blue eyes and a smart mouth. A smart, extremely kissable mouth…

Nope. Not going there.

“Hopefully your driving skills will improve before the race next week. Are you coming to the barbecue dinner tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” answered Demetri, because Preston social events were different from the social events of the racing circuit. On the circuit, Demetri was on display, a showman for the cause. The Prestons would expect merely the man, and Demetri wasn’t comfortable when the mere man was on display. Some things were best left in the dark.

“So who’s the blonde that backed into me?” he asked nonchalantly, deciding to go there after all. In the end, the sun rose on a daily basis, an old dog couldn’t learn to play fetch and Demetri was born to pull the wheel against the skid. “I think I scared her. Drives a tank of a Volvo.”

“That’d be Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth who?” he asked, rolling the name over in his mind. Elizabeth.

Hugh frowned. “That’d be ‘just Elizabeth’ to you, Demetri. She’s like family to me.”

The slight hurt, but Hugh would never realize that. Demetri’s smile was too polished, too practiced. “I would guess she doesn’t need your protection, Hugh. She seems capable of making up her own mind.”

Hugh’s harsh bark of laughter was answer enough. “Now what was that I was reading in the tabloids about you?A married princess? Whatever got you thinking that was a good idea?”

Demetri shrugged, the picture of casual indifference. “She was lonely. I thought I could help. I didn’t know her great-aunt owned forty-seven percent of Valencia Products and would pull her sponsorship of the team.”

“Elizabeth isn’t lonely. She doesn’t need your help.”

“All right. Lesson learned. Message received. Hands off. But she should have checked her mirrors,” he felt the need to add, because she should have looked behind her. However, Demetri wasn’t here to play, and he’d made polite small talk long enough. “Tell me what’s going on, Hugh. The stalls are empty. I heard there won’t be any Quest horses at the Keeneland sales. Thomas said that he’s losing McMurray’s horses and the Thornhills’, too. How much longer until this racing ban goes away?”

“Not long,” answered Hugh, which wasn’t much of an answer.

Thoughtfully Demetri swirled the ice in his glass before looking up. “Let me give you the cash to cover the expenses until then.”

“No,” said the old man, not even waiting to reply.

“Talk to Thomas. He’ll agree.”

Hugh scoffed at that. “You don’t know my son very well."

It was true, Demetri had never bonded with Thomas the way he had with Hugh. Thomas had a hard, uncompromising edge that reminded Demetri of his own father, whereas Hugh had been impulsive, reckless, a risk taker, but a man who had grown wiser as he had gotten older. “He can’t be prouder than you,” Demetri pointed out.

“Prouder, and in some ways, more stubborn.”

Demetri sighed, taking another long sip of his drink. This was going to be harder than he’d thought, and he had known coming in that it wouldn’t be easy. That was all right, though. For Hugh, he’d work a little harder. Demetri polished off the last of the bourbon and then put the glass on the table next to him. “Ten years ago, somebody spotted me a loan to move my father’s start-up to the big leagues. I repaid the money, but that man wouldn’t take a decent interest rate on the loan.”

Hugh smiled and waved the reminder off with a careless hand. “I liked you, Demetri.”

“It was a boneheaded move,” Demetri reminded him.

“You were a friend.”

“So are you. Take the money. It’ll be an infusion of cash to tide Quest over until the ban has lifted.”

Hugh shook his head, not even hesitating. “Put your wallet away. First Elizabeth, now you.”

There was that name again, rolling in his head. He could feel the itch in his fingers, the ache in his body, the challenge. Always the challenge. “Elizabeth?”

“The money’s not needed here,” answered Hugh, slamming down his glass. “Thomas won’t take any loan, and I don’t want to discuss it any longer. For over sixty years I’ve been picking out the best legs, the biggest hearts and the horses that kept going when they had nothing left to give. After I retired, Thomas ran these stables with honor and integrity. They’re not going to take that away from us now.”

“Talk to Thomas. Please.”

Hugh sighed, downed the remainder of his bourbon and shook his head. “No.”

Okay, so the honest, aboveboard ways weren’t going to work. Not a surprise. “My teammate wants to stable some horses here. Would you mind if I show him around?”

“Stabling horses here? While people suspect us of cheating to win, and we can no longer race our own horses? Is this another cockamamy way of throwing money in my direction?”

Demetri had been stabling horses at Quest for nearly ten years. Last spring the Prestons’ own champion Leopold’s Legacy was on his way to winning the Triple Crown when a DNA test was required because of a discrepancy in the Jockey Association’s computer records. The results revealed that the stallion’s sire was not Apollo’s Ice, as listed, and a racing ban was imposed on all majority-owned Quest horses. The integrity of the stables had come into question and owners began to remove their horses. But Demetri could help add more horses to Quest Stables. Boarding fees didn’t bring in nearly as much as stud fees or racing purses, but whatever worked.

“No,” he lied. “Definitely not. He’s new to horses.” Actually, Oliver didn’t know that he was stabling horses at Quest. But he would soon. Demetri would buy them, Oliver would “own” them and Quest would stable them. Everybody was a winner.

Oliver was in his debut season as the number two driver for Team Sterling, with the promise of a great career ahead of him, assuming he didn’t muck it up. Young at twenty-two, he was powerful and aggressive, and what he didn’t have in brains, he made up for in grande cojones and gamesmanship.

Some of the other drivers didn’t care for Oliver. They said he was too aggressive, too manipulative, always chasing the top step of the podium, rather than driving for the team, but that was the exact reason that he and Demetri worked well together. It wasn’t about the team, it was only about the win. And James Sterling, former CEO of Sterling Motor Cars, and the principle executive for Team Sterling, was building up his reputation by picking drivers who drove to the edge.

Drivers like Demetri.

For a moment Hugh studied him, looking right through him, but Demetri didn’t flinch. Finally Hugh nodded. “Bring him to the barbecue with you tomorrow. Maybe he can keep you out of trouble.”