Cassie's Hope (Riders Up) (31 page)

Sundays had always
been a fun gathering day for the family, whether at his house, or his mother’s,
or his grandmother’s. Now a kind of dullness washed over everyone. Laughter,
when it happened was no longer spontaneous. It seemed forced. His mother was
always polite and caring, but she seldom asked anymore about how he was doing. His
grandmother had not spoken to him of anything important since that day weeks before
in his driveway. She’d hardly noticed he was alive.

He felt responsible
for the fragmentation of his family, yet he could not figure out how to make
things whole again. Try as hard as he could, he could not see a way out of the
morass. He was not only lost, he was stuck, mired deep in a mud he feared was
gradually turning into quicksand.

“It took you long
enough to come in,” Mrs. Littlefield observed when her grandson stepped through
the doorway.

“It was a hard
decision. I didn’t know if you’d want to see me,” he drawled, slouched over
with Stetson in hand.

“Humph. You didn’t
know if you wanted to be found.” His grandmother gestured toward a chair.

Without quite
knowing how it happened, Clint sat at the ancient wooden kitchen table with his
hands firmly wrapped around a hot thick cup of coffee. His grandmother’s coffee
always had body. No one ever described it as weak. After scrutinizing his cup
for what seemed like an eternity, he looked at his grandmother’s wrinkled face.
“You were right about not wanting to be found. But now I’m here. I’ve decided
to be found. Now what, Grandmother?”

“What hurts most?”
she asked, watching closely every nuance of reaction her grandson made.

He thought long and
hard about her question. It wasn’t new. How many times had he asked the same
question in the past weeks? Not able to avoid his grandmother’s penetrating
stare, he answered the best he could. “The fear of not being found. The fear of
rejection, I guess.”

“You’re not
certain?”

“Yeah, I’m certain.”

“That’s not
surprising,” his grandmother said, buttering a piece of toast. “The way your
father treated you. You walked around afraid of what might happen next.”

Clint stared at his
grandmother blankly. How did she know? He’d loved his father, but he’d also
feared him. He’d done everything he could to live up to his father’s high
expectations, to win his praise, to bring honor to the family. But he always
came up a little short. As a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, he lived
in fear of his father, of his father laughing at his failures, or of being
rejected for not adequately measuring up.

And then the man
died before Clint could prove himself. He’d never been quite good enough in the
shadow of his father. He’d never told a soul about those fears. He never
realized anyone else knew, until today.

Yet this gnarled
woman with strands of gray shooting through otherwise black hair and with more
gum than teeth showing when she smiled—his grandmother—had known all along. Gradually,
it dawned on him that she’d been there through those difficult years, helping
him accept himself without ever asking him to name those fears, and without
undercutting his love for his father.

Now, with the
stakes so high, she challenged him to look inside himself and not shrink from
what he might discover. He realized, then, that she was encouraging him to find
himself.

“I didn’t know you
knew,” he mumbled at last.

“It wasn’t that
difficult to see.” The old woman shook her head. “I never could understand why.
Maybe he thought he had to be extra hard on you because you were of mixed
blood. In his mind, maybe he was doing his best to prepare you for a tough
world.”

“Maybe.”

“What next? What
hurts most next?” The elder woman wanted to know.

Clint’s eyes
focused sharply on the salt and pepper shakers. He nodded, recognizing a truth
that he had been coming to but had not quite named. “The fear of losing her, of
her rejecting me,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Ah, you have come
a long ways already, my Grandson.” His grandmother placed a weathered hand over
his. Her touch felt surprisingly warm. “You’re beginning to see how the past
colors the present.”

“But I don’t know
what to do next. I can’t just crawl back to her like some wounded animal…I don’t
know how to get her back.”

“No, you don’t have
to do that, but only fools are afraid of admitting their mistakes.”

Silence hung heavy
in the small once-yellow kitchen. A clock ticked loudly, time refusing to stand
still.

“I guess I should
call her,” Clint volunteered at last.

Smiling weakly at
her grandson, Mrs. Littlefield shook her head. “To listen to another person, to
truly speak to another, you must be in that person’s presence. Go to her, my
Grandson. Let your heart do the speaking. Let your heart do the listening. You
are a good man. You will be fine. Trust your heart.”

Clint fought back
the mist clouding his vision. He nodded silently. After talking with Tug O’Hanlon
a few days earlier, he’d initially decided not to go to the October Barretts
sale. Now it seemed like a good idea to go. He no longer wanted to avoid the
woman of fire. At least Barretts would be neutral ground for them to meet.

“Thanks,
Grandmother.” Standing to leave, Clint reached in his pocket, retrieved a small
pouch of tobacco and placed it on the table. “Thank you for helping me re-discover
who I am.”

Feeling much
lighter than he had for weeks, Clint Travers whistled as he walked to his
pickup. Once again he had a purpose and sense of direction.

He would not allow
the specter of his father to control his life. He had tried so hard to earn
that man’s love.

But now he had to
find her. He knew she would show up at Barretts. Whether the fire woman would
accept his apology or not, he had to tell her that he was sorry for mistrusting
her and for letting his own fears force him to run from her. Did she ever think
of him?

- o -

Cassie surveyed the
sales area. Barretts, on the edge of the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in
Pomona, was a horseman’s paradise. Row upon row of stalls, building after
building, housed thoroughbreds with fine breeding and considerable promise for
racing. Attendants would bring an animal out into an open area to walk and trot
for prospective bidders. All eyes tried to detect that telltale flaw that would
derail a horse from reaching its potential. Buyers compared one entry against
another trying to decide what weaknesses in conformation they would accept. Everyone
knew the perfect horse did not exist; yet, everyone looked for that horse.

As Cassie evaluated
a bay yearling being led away from her by an attendant, she heard a familiar
low voice.

“Nice looking
filly,” Clint Travers said softly.

Her toes curled
immediately. Without taking her eyes off the yearling, she responded
caustically, “It’s not a filly, Travers. It’s a colt. Have you gone blind as
well as nuts?”

“I wasn’t
commenting on the animal.”

“Oh.” She felt her
face flush. “Thanks for showing me the colt,” she said, dismissing the
attendant leading the bay. “He’s real nice. He’s got a lot of potential.”

“I’m curious,”
Clint queried, “were you talking about the colt or about me?”

“Could be,” Cassie
responded, ducking her eyes from his intense stare.

“Look, this is kind
of a hard place to have a conversation. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Or do you
have more yearlings to look at?”

“No, that was the
last one. The ones I’m interested in will come through the auction ring
mid-afternoon. I do have a few broodmares to check out before tomorrow morning.”
Trying to keep her composure bland, she said, “I’ve always got time for a cup
of coffee.”

Walking toward the
canteen, they shared comments regarding the yearlings of interest to each of them.
Both gave a sigh of relief when they realized they would not be bidding against
each other.

After sitting down
at a corner table with their coffee and rolls, Cassie shared how she’d ranked
the eight yearlings based on conformation and breeding and elicited Clint’s
evaluation. Cassie glanced from her notes to Clint, whose gaze was fixed on
her. She looked back at her notes. This was surreal. How long could they carry
on this very professional conversation before talking about what really
mattered? Maybe now was the time. Neither one of them had said a thing for an
entire minute. She’d never experienced such an enveloping silence. Who would go
first? It had to be him. He was the one who had stormed out on her.

“Your dad said you’ve
made a career change. That’s huge,” Clint said, taking the last bite of his
cinnamon roll.

“Yeah,” she
responded shyly. At least that was more personal. Damn, he was handsome in a white
shirt and jeans. His deeply tanned skin seemed even sexier against the starched
white. “I wasn’t aware how much it was in my blood until Hope ran the Lincoln. I
do want to thank you for all your help. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Before she started
to slobber, she brought herself up short. “Say, did my dad know you were going
to be here? Is he trying to play some kind of god in all of this?”

Clint spoke up
quickly, “No, no, he actually thought I wasn’t coming. I’d planned on being
here until I heard you were coming. Then I changed my mind.” Clint looked away.

“What made you
change your mind again?” Cassie asked hesitantly, holding her breath.

He smiled briefly. “I
realized I was lost. And I had a long talk with my grandmother. She’s always
been in your corner, you know. The whole damn family is.” Clint shook his head.
He hesitated and then forged on. “Grandmother doesn’t give a lot of direct
advice. But you learn a lot just talking to her.”

Cassie smiled. “How
is your family, Clint? How are Sammy and Lester, your mother, Silver Hawk, your
grandmother? I miss them.”

“I had hoped you
might stop on the way back and find out for yourself,” he replied cautiously. “Other
than the fact that they all think I’m a jerk, everyone seems quite fine.”

Coughing on the
coffee she’d been swallowing, Cassie stared hard at the flustered dark haired
man who seemed suddenly very ill at ease. She wished she could read his mind. Had
his family been putting him through hell all of this time? Still, discomfort
with kids and relatives would not be enough on which to form a renewed
relationship.

“Look,” Clint
suggested, regaining control and checking his watch, “we both have other horses
to evaluate. I have to get over to the auction ring soon. But can we have
dinner this evening? There’s so much to say, and so little time.”

“Sure,” she said,
reaching for the bill. “I’ve got a lot I want to tell you too, but we do have
other responsibilities.”

Her body simmered. He
did say he’d been a jerk, right? At least they agreed on something. But there
wasn’t time to pursue that line further. “We’re on for dinner, but right now I’ve
got to get focused. Wouldn’t want to spend thousands of dollars without a clear
mind.”

Matching Clint’s
strides toward the stables, Cassie’s step was lighter than it had been since
before leaving Chicago. Nothing was settled. Much had been left unsaid. Yet
much had been said with the eyes, with body language, with the heart. She
trusted they could at least talk honestly with each other before the day was
finished.

- o -

Feeling like a
soaring eagle, Clint glanced down at the sleek redhead walking beside him. He
let go of a deep breath he’d been unaware of holding since he’d seen Cassie
checking out the bay yearling. She’d looked so lovely, even with short hair.

It was growing on
him. He liked the way the new look set off the ivory skin of her neck. He could
easily imagine running his lips up and down that bare skin. Too easily, he
could visualize her in something other than that conservative yellow dress she wore.
In no way did it do justice to the body he’d memorized square inch by square inch.

They hadn’t cleaned
up all their emotional garbage, but this might yet be the red-letter day he’d
hoped for.

- o -

Cassie sat on the
edge of an aisle chair in the fifth row of cushioned seats at Barretts’ plush
carpeted and paneled pavilion. Awed by the atmosphere, she nervously fingered
the pages of the tattered sales catalogue she and her father had spent hours
poring over. She’d been to horse auctions before, but never one like this,
where a half dozen auctioneers and floor men were dressed in tuxedos, and where
bids often were measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The place
reeked of money—the kind of money she and her father didn’t have, even after
selling a piece of the farm..

“Don’t be paralyzed
by the richness of the place,” Clint counseled, sitting on her left. “A lot of
these animals will sell for under thirty thousand. Hell, by late afternoon some
will go for less than two. But you didn’t come this far to pick those up. It’s
usually the first fifty or so hip numbers that attract the big buyers and the
largest dollars.”