The Place I Belong (19 page)

The sound of Matt’s voice made them jerk apart at the same time. As they scrambled to untangle themselves, he continued to talk to the pony. “Let’s go to the other end of the barn, Satch. See what’s going on down there. The horses up here are deadheads.”

Hannah sprawled back onto the straw with her hand over her mouth to stifle the hysterical laugh trying to work itself free. Adam prowled over to her on his hands and knees. “Close call,” he said, hovering above her, his face half in shadow.

She moved her hand. “Sorry. I didn’t expect to get so intense.”

“No complaints here.” He bent his arms so he could touch his lips to hers for a lingering kiss that made her want to arch up into him. Rocking back on his heels, he seized both her hands to pull her upright.

“Time to make some more horse treats,” he said.

Hannah took hold of the lapels of his jacket. “Satchmo could still die.”

He covered her hands with his. “With you and Matt on his side, Satchmo will live to be a hundred.”

Chapter 15

A
S THE PALE
morning sunlight filtered through the window, Adam knelt in the straw by his sleeping son and gave him a light shake. “Matt, time to wake up.”

The barn had come to life around 6:00 a.m., with the racket of clanging buckets, banging stall doors, and stable hands talking to their charges. Both Adam and Hannah had roused from the doze they’d fallen into once it was clear Satchmo was going to make it to morning. Sharon had come by to find out how the night had gone. It took the combined persuasions of both of them to convince Hannah to go home and grab an hour’s sleep before she had to get to the office. And Matt had slept through it all.

Now the boy’s eyelids fluttered open. He looked confused and then frightened. “Is Satchmo okay?” he asked, turning his head to look past his father.

Adam shifted so Matt could see the pony standing in the corner, one back hoof cocked up on its tip. “Dr. Linden checked him over just before she left and said he’s making progress.”

“Dr. Linden left?” His son’s dismay was obvious.

“She had to go to work,” Adam said. “Satchmo’s not her only patient. She wouldn’t have left if she thought he was in danger.”

“I guess,” Matt said, wiggling out of the sleeping bag to stand up. He walked to Satchmo and ran his hand down the pony’s neck, murmuring something Adam couldn’t hear. Satchmo’s ears swiveled forward and he opened his deep, brown eyes. Matt looked at his father. “He seems better.”

Adam joined his son. “I think we can leave him in
Ms. Sydenstricke
r’s care while we go home to clean up and get some sleep.”

Matt shook his head. “I’m not leaving him until Dr. Linden says he’s okay.”

“If you rest up now, you can come back tonight,” Adam said. “That’s when he needs you the most.”

His son looked torn. Adam reached out and plucked a piece of straw from Matt’s disheveled hair. “There are a lot of people here who know more about horses than either of us. We can tr
ust Satchm
o to them for a few hours.”

Matt continued to stroke the pony’s neck. When he spoke, his voice was choked with unshed tears. “Something might happen while we’re gone.”

The stall door slid open and Sharon walked in. “Nothing’s going to happen.” She came over to scratch Satchmo behind the ears. The pony heaved a sigh of pleasure. When Sharon dropped her hand, Satchmo butted his face against Matt’s chest. “See? He’s back to his old, demanding self,” Sharon said.

That got a shaky smile from Matt. The boy put his forehead against the pony’s and said, “Okay, buddy, I gotta go for a while, but I’ll be back. And you’d better be here.”

Adam placed his hand on Matt’s shoulder and turned him toward the door. “Let’s get out of Ms. Sydenstricker’s way.” Stopping at the door, he looked back at Sharon. “I left a batch of Satch treats in a plastic container in the feed room. The recipe is taped to them.”

“I’ll keep it confidential in case you decide to go into the horse-treat business.”

Adam smiled. It felt good after the high drama of their night. “I’ll leave that to you and Matt. It’s not my demographic.”

His son gave a little snort that Adam chose to interpret as amusement. While they walked down the barn’s central corridor, he racked his brain for a way to keep the conversation going. “Maybe you could call it ‘Satchmo’s Horse Treats’ since he taste-tested them,” he ventured.

“Yeah, maybe,” Matt said. He thrust his hands into his jeans pockets as he slouched along beside his father. “We could put a picture of him on the label.”

Adam felt a flash of satisfaction that his son had volunteered a suggestion. “Good idea. Marketers say people respond to faces.”

Matt grunted and lapsed into silence as they walked toward the Maserati. Adam tried to conjure up the pleasure he usually got from the windswept lines of the sports car but today it didn’t work. All he could think about was how close his son had come to losing someone important to him. And the danger wasn’t over.

He brought the big engine to life and put it into gear as Matt buckled his seatbelt. The truth was Adam had thought Satchmo was a goner when his breathing started to rasp in that painful way. He now knew why they called it a death rattle. He’d prayed the horrible sound wouldn’t rouse Matt from his sleep. The d
read of
his son waking up only to watch the pony die had gripped Adam’s throat so tightly he could barely breathe.

He had seen the same helpless anguish in Hannah’s face as she stared down at the boy and the pony, their backs pressed together. And then she’d yanked Satchmo back from the edge of death.

“Dr. Linden is awesome.” Matt’s voice pulled Adam out of his grim thoughts.

“I was thinking how awesome you were too. Not many people would sleep in a stall with a sick horse.”

He glanced over to see Matt fiddling with the zipper on his jacket. “You did too,” Matt muttered.

“I slept in a stall with my son.”

“You made Satch the food that got him to eat. And juiced up his water to make it taste good.” Matt’s voice was still low.

“All I did was help you and Dr. Linden.”

“You left The Aerie on a Friday night.”

Adam threw a quick look sideways to find Matt’s gaze
on him
.

“Thanks for staying,” Matt said.

Adam wanted to assure Matt he would always stay, but he remembered the email from the private investigator and all the reasons he’d hired him. “You’re welcome.”

Matt went quiet again, but this time the atmosphere held no charge of anger. By the time they arrived at the house, Matt’s head was tilted against the car window at such an awkward angle Adam figured he had to be dead asleep. When Adam turned the engine off, Matt jerked awake, looking sheepish as he wiped a trickle of drool from his chin.

“I don’t know about you but I’m headed for the shower,” Adam said.

“Oh man, yeah.” Matt pushed the door open and staggered slightly as he got out. Adam caught up with him as his housekeeper, Sarah Duckworth, opened the door to let Trace out.

The dog raced up to Adam and dropped to a sit, his body quivering with the suppressed urge to leap on his master. Adam gave him the release signal, and Trace let loose all his enthusiasm, barking and dancing around both man and boy. When Adam knelt, Trace barreled into him, licking his face and hands as he tried to pet the frantic dog. “I’m glad to see you too, boy,” he said, sinking his hands into the Shepherd’s ruff and massaging it beneath the bandage.

Matt stood watching, his hands dangling empty by his sides. Catching a glimpse of his son’s face, Adam thought he read yearning on it. Maybe Matt needed a puppy as well as a
w
hisper pony.

Trace’s enthusiasm quieted enough so Adam could stand. Waiting until Matt had turned back toward the house, Adam gave the dog a signal to go to the boy. Trace pushed his head under one of Matt’s hands, and the boy’s reaction mingled surprise and delight. He mimicked his father in dropping to his knees so he could give the dog an energetic ear scratch. “Does this feel good, Trace?” Matt asked.

The housekeeper joined them in the driveway, shaking her head. “That dog sensed you were here at least five minutes before you pulled up. I guess that fancy car engine sounds different because he paid no mind to all the other cars and trucks going to the restaurant.”

“Those huge ears are like radio antennae,” Adam said, enjoying his son’s newfound pleasure in the dog. Satchmo seemed to have brought out the latent animal lover in Matt.

The boy rose and headed for the house with Trace by
his sid
e.

“Why don’t you take a few hours off?” Adam said to Sarah. “He’ll sack out, and I’m going to head to The Aerie after I clean up. You can come back about nine or so.”

The housekeeper nodded. “That’s mighty generous of you, but tell me how the pony is.”

Adam blew out a breath. “Well, it was touch and go for a while there, but between Dr. Linden and Matt, they got Satchmo on his feet and on the mend.”

“I don’t care what that gossip Bertha Shanks says, Dr. Linden is a darned good vet,” Sarah said. “She saved the life of my neighbor’s parakeet. I figure anyone who can fix a little bitty bird like that can get a pony well.”

“Dr. Linden did the right thing in Chicago,” Adam said. “She just got tangled up in politics that had nothing to do with her medical expertise.”

“I knew it!” the housekeeper said, putting her hands on her hips. “That old Shanks biddy can’t tell whether she’s punched or bored.” She tsked and bade Adam good-bye.

Lured by the prospect of a shower, he jogged into the house. Trace joined him as he walked down the hallway toward his bedroom. He could hear the water running in Matt’s bathroom as he passed. Once in his own bathroom, he kicked off his shoes and left his clothes in a heap of straw-laden, sleep-wrinkled black. Turning the shower jets on full, he stepped into the steamy glass enclosure with a groan of pleasure.

The hot water pounding on his tired muscles sent his mind in the direction of Hannah, not as a veterinarian but as a woman he’d made love to. Amidst all the night’s drama, he had sensed a subtle withdrawal in Hannah. Yes, she had wound herself into his arms in the aftermath of pulling Satchmo from the verge of death, but she had been holding him at arm’s length before that.

He frowned as the water sluiced over his bare skin, washing away the scent of horse feed that clung to him. Maybe Hannah had simply realized he was a bad bet. He couldn’t say she was wrong about that.

Yet he kept thinking of the Beluga caviar he’d stocked in the refrigerator. He wanted to feed it to her, naked in bed, and watch her reaction to the explosion of flavor on her tongue. Then he would taste her and feel her writhe in the cage of his hands. His body tightened at the thought and he let it, giving into the surge of pure sensuality washing through him.

What he thought and did in the privacy of his shower was no one’s business but his own.

Adam fastened the last button on his black shirt and shoved it into the waistband of his black jeans. Trace had vanished while Adam was showering, so he went in search of the dog. As he passed Matt’s bedroom, he took a quick look through the half-open door. To his surprise Trace lay beside the bed on which Matt was flopped belly down in sweatpants and a T-shirt, his fingers buried in the dog’s thick, glossy fur. It was unusual for Trace to leave Adam, but maybe he sensed the loneliness in the boy.

Matt’s face was lax with sleep, making him look more vulnerable. Adam’s fingers twitched with the desire to smooth back a strand of wet hair that was stuck to his son’s cheek.

He raised his hand to grip the doorframe, and tried to remember what he had wanted from a parent in his childhood. Maybe that would guide him toward how to handle his relationship with his son. The overwhelming answer Adam came up with was a father who didn’t hit his mother.

Instead, Matt had no mother. And no father really. Maggie had not given him the chance, but he wondered what kind of father he would have been to Matt. Ambition had burned in him with scorching intensity. If the demands of parenthood had thwarted that, would Adam have become the bitter, angry alcoholic his father was?