Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 01 - Dark Horse (42 page)

By this time, the results are available, and the brunette returns to her horse. Evan comes up beside Dan and gives
him
a playful hip check, which Dan repays with a fairly sharp elbow to the ribs. Evan grunts and laughs a little, and Dan says, “Yeah, okay, but at least I didn’t run over and drape myself all over you!”

They all walk over to check the results. Dan takes a quick look at the board and grins at Michelle. “We’ll just lead the other two out in coolers, but Kip won—do you want to saddle him up and ride him out?”

She looks tempted, but then shakes her head. “No, I guess not—he’s all comfy now, and it looks like most of the rest of the people are just taking them out in show coolers.” She brightens. “Besides, there’ll be lots of other times for him to win, right?” Then she looks a little panicked. “But do I get to keep riding him?”

“Dude, you won. Why would I take your ride away when you won?” Dan grins at her look of relief, and then goes to get Winston ready for the ribbon presentation. He’d gotten sixth, Chaucer had gotten eighth, and Dan’s thrilled with both of those results, considering that it’s their first event. When Dan takes Winston out and the judges come by to award the ribbons, they’re a bit chatty during the traditional handshakes.

“He was great all day, except for the first minute and a half,” one of them tells Dan.

“Yeah, I know—it’s his first event, and he’s young, so… he’ll get better.”
The judges nod, and a different one says, “I saw Three Willows at Rolex a couple years ago. Your
hors concours
horse, Three Card Monte— he’s her full brother?”

Dan nods. “I think he’s as good as she was—different personality, but the same strength and courage.”
The judges all nod, looking impressed. “Well, we’ll look forward to seeing more of both of you—welcome to California.”

They move on, and Dan looks at the green ribbon fluttering from Winston’s halter. Winston doesn’t seem too sure about it, and makes a few efforts to twist around to get a better look, apparently not understanding that it moves as he does. “You’d better get used to it, buddy—you’re gonna be seeing a lot more of them,” Dan mutters to him, thumping his neck.

They trail out of the ring and Dan sees Tat looking at the ribbons enviously. He thinks for a second, and then walks over. “You know, we could probably have you ride Sunshine
and
Chaucer in the next trial… as long as you work on your fitness, and we spend a lot of time training you and Chaucer together.” He shrugs. “You probably won’t be getting firsts for a while, but at least it would give you a shot at the ribbons—” The rest of Dan’s words are buried under Tat’s excited hug. He extracts himself eventually, and says, “So I guess that means you’re interested?” She just nods, and then scurries over to Robyn to tell her the good news.

Dan swears a little to himself, and heads over to explain to Robyn why he just gave away her ride. He tells her, “You did great today. It was a fantastic introduction for him. You can switch over to Winston if you want—he’s just a little too strong for Tat right now. Or you can bring up one of the younger horses.” She nods, and he thanks his lucky stars that she’s got enough self-confidence to accept that it’s not a demotion.

There’s a lot of work to do getting the horses cleaned up and relaxed and ready for bed, and it was already almost seven when the ribbons were awarded. Evan goes and picks up a few pizzas while the others are finishing off with the horses, and when he gets back everyone falls on him as if they’re starving to death. Robyn peers at the boxes a bit skeptically until Evan nods her in the direction of the vegetarian option. They don’t bother to talk; they just eat and then lie back, full and tired.

Evan sighs a little, and then says, “So, Tat… what d’ya say? Another night out here, or do you want to go back to the motel?”
Dan hadn’t really thought of that, but it does seem fair to trade around. “Yeah, if you guys want to go back and sleep in a real bed, I’m fine staying out here.”

Robyn shakes her head. “No way, man! This bed is fifteen minutes closer than the motel—that makes it mine.” She glances over at Tat. “But it’s no problem if you want to head back, sweetie. I’m good here.”

Dan’s chivalrous side has never really liked the idea of leaving a woman alone in the tack stall. The gate locks, but it’s not as secure as a motel room, and part of the job is being ready to leave the stall to check on the horses. But he knows that lots of women do it, and that it’s an important part of the groom’s job at many barns. Excluding women from the task would mean making them less employable.

Tat looks at Evan a little sullenly, and then says, “No, I’ll stay.”

“You’re sure?” Dan isn’t quite sure what’s going on between the two of them, still doesn’t know what caused Tat’s tantrum that morning, but Evan seems to be treating whatever her complaint is with some level of respect.

She nods, and when Evan looks at Dan and Michelle to see if they’re ready, she stands with him and gives him a hug. Evan looks a little surprised, but wraps his arms around her immediately and hugs back. She looks up at him with her face still squished to his chest, and says, “Thanks for today, Evan. It was a good day.”

He smiles a little sadly. “Do you want me to stay out here with you? I can fold up some horse blankets, make a little nest for myself.”

She pushes him away firmly, and shakes her head. “No, I’m fine. I’m gonna be asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.”
Evan nods. “Your phone’s charged?”
She rolls her eye now. “Go away, Evan! Dan and Michelle are

waiting for you.”

“Okay, okay.” They smile at each other, and then Evan is heading toward the parking lot, Michelle and Dan trailing along behind him. Evan gets a call when they’re almost to the car, and has to hang back to take it, and Dan reminds himself that Evan has a lot of responsibilities beyond his family. It says a lot that he’s uncomplainingly sacrificed his weekend to sleeping in a room in a crappy motel and driving around with a bunch of horses, just because that’s what his sister wants. Dan thinks about their conversation of the previous day, and realizes that one more thing money can’t buy is time.

Evan returns, and they climb in the car, and even over the fifteenminute drive Dan has to fight to keep himself awake. It’s been a good day, but it’s been tiring. He catches Evan watching him in the rear view mirror and smiles a little, and Evan smiles back, although he looks a little tense. Dan decides that he can wait and figure that out the next day. Things with Kaminskis really don’t seem to stay buried for long.

Chapter 33

T
HEY
drive back to the motel quietly, then leave Michelle at her door and head back to their own room. As Evan follows him through the door, Dan says, “I’m gonna shower, so if you want the bathroom first….”

Evan nods, and grabs his toiletry kit before going to the bathroom. He’s out a couple minutes later, and Dan goes in, letting the warm water of the shower wash away the sweat and grime of the day. He realizes when he’s done that he forgot to bring in a change of clothes and he really can’t face the idea of getting back into the dirty stuff he’d just dropped on the floor. So he wraps a towel around his waist, brushes his teeth, and heads out into the main room. He’d expected Evan to already be in bed, like he had been the day before, but he’s not. He’s sitting on the end of his bed, and it really looks like he’s waiting for Dan. He turns his head toward the door as Dan hunts around for clothes, pulling underwear on under his towel and then putting on a pair of sweats. But when Dan turns to look at him, Evan leans forward a little.

“Are you super-tired now, or can I talk to you for a minute?” Dan’s tired, but he really doesn’t think he’s going to be able to sleep after that. “Uh, no, we can talk.”

Dan remembers his hickey and pulls a crew neck shirt on, then walks over and sits on the corner of his bed, his legs angled toward Evan. Evan swings his own legs around so they’re almost facing each other, and then he sighs. “Okay, I hope this isn’t going to be a big deal, but, uh….”

Dan sighs and braces himself. He guesses he should have known that the weekend had gone too smoothly.

 

“Okay, you saw that Tat was kinda pissed off this morning?”

Dan nods. He’d figured he’d be hearing about this eventually. “Well, that was because she saw a couple of the guys who do security for us at the site. She knows they’re necessary, but… she hates it. She just wants to be normal, you know?”

Dan nods. “How come she didn’t know they’d be there?” “I don’t know—wishful thinking, maybe? I mean, she doesn’t have them when she’s at home, and as long as she’s going somewhere totally unexpected she doesn’t usually need to have them if she goes out. But something like this, where her name was on the registration list, posted on the internet? When she’s going to be sleeping overnight on an almost abandoned site? She needed security.”

“It’s for kidnapping?”

 

Evan nods. “Yeah, essentially. I mean, they’ll jump in if there’s any sort of problem, but the real risk is kidnapping.”

Dan raises his eyebrows. He guesses it makes sense, but he can’t imagine living like that. “So, is there anything I can do to help? Like, things that I should be looking out for?”

Evan looks really uncomfortable for some reason. “Uh, just keep your eyes open, I guess. But, in terms of helping….” He gives his head a shake. “Okay, I’m sure it’s not a big deal. I don’t know if you remember, but when you got hired you filled out a lot of paperwork, and one of the things you signed was a permission form for the company to do an Investigative Consumer Report. Which is essentially a background check. I honestly don’t even know what all they look at—lots of stuff, I guess.” He looks over at Dan as if trying to read his reaction, but Dan keeps his face still. “Anyway, I trust you, so I didn’t put a rush on it or anything, but I guess when they were lining up security for the weekend they finally got around to putting together everything they’d got for all of you guys, and they called tonight and said they had a few questions they wanted to ask you.” Evan looks at Dan a little tentatively.

“Just me?” Dan asks quietly.
“Uh, yeah. I don’t know what it’s about, and I told them I don’t want to know. I mean, I trust you. And I could just tell them to skip it and not bother, but… they’re professionals, you know? They’re not going to forget

about whatever it is, and if they’re busy being suspicious of you they’re maybe not going to pay the attention they should pay to somebody else who might really
be
a risk, and… it’s my sister, man. I can’t do anything that will get in the way of them doing their jobs.” Evan looks miserable.

Dan is really tired. “Yeah, that’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I… I dunno, but probably they found my juvie record.”

 

Evan cautiously says, “You have a juvenile record?”

 

“Yeah.” Evan hasn’t asked, but Dan doesn’t want to make him.

“Assault, vandalism, possession… theft… I was a pretty fucked-up kid.” He sneaks a look, and sees that Evan doesn’t seem too alarmed, so he continues. “The record’s supposed to be sealed, but Chris said that a good investigator might find it, especially if he throws a little money at the right people.” He grins a little bitterly. “I’m betting your guys had some money to throw.”

Evan frowns. “I told them I didn’t want to know, but maybe I should give them a call. I mean, if that’s all it was, then they shouldn’t need to talk to you about it.”

“It didn’t all stop when I turned eighteen, but at least I knew enough not to get caught anymore.” Another look, and Evan still seems reasonably calm. “I… I was on my way to leaving it behind when I met Justin, and… I don’t know, I guess he gave me something to lose, so I calmed right down.”

Evan takes a deep breath. “Okay. I… I don’t know how much they would have found if there’s no formal record of the adult stuff—you never got arrested after eighteen, or you never got convicted?”

“Never arrested, after eighteen. Questioned a few times… I expect my name might be in a few reports somewhere.”

Evan shakes his head. “Damn, Dan, I’m sorry they’re dragging all this up.”
“Like I said, don’t worry about it. Do they want me to go somewhere to talk to them?”

“Uh, they said they could come out to the farm. Tomorrow afternoon, if that’s all right.”
Dan nods, and then shakes his head. “No, wait. It… it might be better to keep this out of the barn. Can I meet them somewhere?”

Evan shrugs. “You could go down to the office, I’m sure. But they’d be discreet. They could go to your house, or you could meet them at my place if you want—use my office.”

“No, the guest house is fine. Do you know what time?” “I can just call them and tell them when’s good for you.” “It doesn’t matter. We should be back by noon.” He runs a hand

through his hair. “Does it matter to you? If that’s all they’re worried about, is it a big deal?”

 

“A juvenile record? No, man, I don’t care. I mean, they shouldn’t even have had access to it, right? Those get sealed for a reason.” “Yeah, okay.” Dan looks over. “Is that it?”

Evan seems to sense that Dan isn’t taking this quite as well as he’s pretending to. “Seriously, man, this isn’t me. I mean, I trust you… remember, that’s why I wanted to hire you.”

“Evan, really, don’t worry about it. You don’t have to apologize for screening your employees, or whatever. I get it. Just because we’re friendly doesn’t mean I’m exempt.”

“Friendly? Don’t… don’t downgrade us because of this, man. I mean… we’re friends. Working on maybe something more? This is separate from that, right?” Evan looks at Dan almost pleadingly.

Dan takes a deep breath, and then blows it out. “I’m just tired, maybe. It’s… right now, it’s… you’re my boss. I shouldn’t be letting myself forget that. Like I said yesterday, this is pretty much my dream job, and I don’t want to screw it up. And I could screw it up if I forget who my boss is.”

Evan shakes his head. “No. I’m not your boss like
that
. I mean, I’m not your boss like I supervise you every day, or get you in trouble if you’re late, or—”

“Evan. You’re my boss.” Dan knows he sounds testy, and he tries to modulate his tone. Tries not to snap at his boss. “Okay, I’m sorry. I don’t know… I’m just being a pussy. I’ll talk to the guys. It’ll be fine, no big deal.” Evan doesn’t look even a little bit convinced by this, but Dan tries to ignore it. He doesn’t know why this is bothering him so much. Maybe it’s because he had been enjoying the fantasy, having fun thinking of Evan as just a guy, rather than his employer. So maybe it’s a good thing that he’s been brought back to earth now rather than later, when he’d have had farther to fall. “So, maybe I’ll just get some sleep now, if we’ve covered everything….”