Trouble Me: A Rosewood Novel (9 page)

But she was no longer that unhappy teen. When she saw Rob Cooper again, she’d probably laugh herself silly over how utterly non-intimidating he was. Heck, he’d probably developed a gut from a steady police-officer diet of donuts.…

Rob finished his last set of chin-ups, the veins bulging in his arms as he pulled his body up and held it, releasing slowly as he dropped to the ground. He walked over to the sit-up bench and switched places with Eric Drogan, his workout partner. Forty crunches followed by three minutes of jumping rope and the set was complete. Next they grabbed medicine balls for wood chops, side throws and slams, squat presses, and push-ups. They ended the last part of the workout with a set of plyometrics: lateral hurdle-jumping and tuck jumps.

“Damn, that was brutal,” Eric said, toweling the sweat off his face and neck and plucking his soaked shirt from his shoulders after he and Rob had stretched their hamstrings and quads.

“Yeah, it felt good, didn’t it?” Rob grinned as he brought his water bottle to his lips and chugged.

“That’s because you’re five years younger than me and don’t spend your day sitting in front of a computer. We’ve got to get Scott in here. I want to see him cry.” Scott and Eric had been on the football team in high school together, Scott playing quarterback, Eric wide receiver. They’d remained best friends.

“He’s got Emma designing workouts for him.”

“Forget it, then,” Eric said. “He’d kick my ass and then offer to write a freelance article describing it in detail for the
Courier
. And in spite of Scott having slept through Mr. Jawolski’s Honors English class, it’d be a damned good piece. That lazy SOB writes better than
most of my staff reporters.” Eric was the news editor for the local paper, the
Warburg Courier
, and though he pretended to complain about his junior staff, it was the excellence of their reporting that kept the
Courier
alive when so many other small papers were closing their doors. “You got time for a brew? After this workout I won’t even have to drink one of those damned light beers.”

“Sorry, I can’t today. Hayley’s birthday is on Wednesday. I still have a couple presents on my list.”

“What does she want?”

“A pony. Correction. She wants a herd of ponies.”

“A herd of ponies, huh? That’s what I like about Hayley. She thinks big. So, are you going to spend the rest of the afternoon building a corral in your backyard?”

“Nope. I’m going to swing by Steadman’s Saddle Shop and see if they can recommend a good riding teacher for youngsters.”

Eric slung his gym towel over his shoulder. “They’d know better than anyone. Every horse person in Loudoun County shops there. You planning a birthday party for Hayley?”

Rob nodded. “A family party on Wednesday and tomorrow, as a warm-up to the big event; seven of her friends are coming over for pizza, cake, and a sleepover.”

“A sleepover?” Eric, whose face was still flushed from the workout, shook his head. “Man, you’ve got guts. You going to wear your uniform to keep the peace?”

“Not necessary. I think I can keep eight little girls in line.”

Showered and changed into his street clothes, Rob drove through the quiet Warburg streets and pulled his Mustang into Steadman’s parking lot. It was funny: He’d lived in Warburg his entire life but had never entered the saddle shop, though he knew its owners, the
Steadmans. Like the Coopers, they were Warburg natives and the kids had all gone to the same schools, though not at the same time as Rob. Sara and Adam Steadman’s children were older, though he seemed to recall one Steadman—a nephew—being in high school a few years ahead of his sister, Emma.

The bell attached to the store’s door chimed as he entered. Immediately, the rich scent of leather filled his nostrils, and his eyes picked out the gleam of stainless steel—bits and whatnot—among the tack on display. While he stood taking stock, Sara Steadman, dressed in lime-green trousers and a yellow top, her silver hair cut in a short bob, came up to him. “Hi, may I help you—oh, it’s Rob Cooper, isn’t it?”

He nodded and smiled. “Yes. Hello, Mrs. Steadman. I came here to ask whether you might have the name of a good riding instructor.”

“Lots of names,” she informed him with a nod. “We keep a binder listing the local barns that offer services such as boarding, training, lessons—private and group, what ages and levels and discipline.” She walked toward the counter in the back of the store, leading him past displays of saddles and bridles and halters and circular racks filled with white, pale blue, yellow, and pink shirts, dark-colored breeches, and that other kind of riding pants whose name Rob didn’t know, just as he didn’t know squat about what Sara Steadman was happily rattling on about.

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Mrs. Steadman. Discipline?”

“The type of riding the barn teaches,” she explained. “Around here, English dominates, but there are some Western riders too.”

“Oh. I think I’m looking for an English instructor.”

“Well, then, you’ll want to look in the first section of the book.” She opened a three-ring binder nearly as thick
as the Bible to the first page and tapped it with her finger. “We have a key here to help explain each barn’s specialty, equitation, hunter, cross-country, dressage …” As she ran her finger down the typed page, that totally lost feeling came over Rob once again. Too bad Hayley wasn’t crazy about basketball. There was a sport he knew.

Adam Steadman had just finished ringing up a customer. Seeing them, he came over. “Well, if it isn’t Officer Cooper. My wife break the law again?”

“Adam!”

“Happily, no, Mr. Steadman. And it’s Rob. I’m off duty.”

“And looking for riding lessons, not arrests,” Sara said, shaking her head as if despairing of her husband.

“And who’s going to be taking the lessons? You?”

Rob laughed. “No. Riding’s not exactly my cup of tea. I want to find an instructor for my daughter, Hayley. She took a few lessons earlier this summer and has become horse mad.”

“Bitten by the horse bug, huh? Well, that’s a great thing, especially in this day and age. Far too many kids are sitting on their fannies staring at some computer or idiotic video game. So you’re looking for lessons for your little girl. She’s what, six?”

“Seven, the day after tomorrow,” Rob said.

Sara Steadman beamed with pleasure. “Isn’t that wonderful.”

“What you need is a really good children’s riding instructor, and it so happens that you’re in luck, Rob. Ned Connelly was in here earlier today. Sara, did we already file the announcement?”

“Yes, I didn’t want to mislay it. Just a sec.” She began flipping through the pages.

“Ned Connelly. He works for the Radcliffes, doesn’t he?” Rob asked.

“Yes, at Rosewood Farm. Beautiful place. And they breed fantastic horses. Our nephew, Brian, bought a mare from them, an event prospect,” Adam told Rob, as if that meant something. “Gypsy Queen’s a terrific goer.”

“Travis Maher runs the horse farm for them.” Rob knew Travis. A good man, who had made something of himself in spite of his father being in and out of custody for public intoxication and disruption of the peace more times than any kid should have to witness. “Is he offering the riding lessons?”

Adam shook his head. “Travis only works with a handful of adults who’ve bought horses from Rosewood. It’s a good way to make sure the green horses get the proper training. No, the children’s program at Rosewood is being run by the youngest of the girls—Jade.”

“Here’s the flyer,” Sara announced happily. “I’ll write down the information and the days and times Jade will be teaching. Kids’ lessons don’t start until the third week in September, so everyone can get settled into the school year, but you’ll want to give Jade a ring ASAP.”

“Sara’s right about that,” her husband said. “Once people hear about Jade offering lessons, her classes will fill up fast. She’s an outstanding rider and she’s already proven herself as a teacher. She taught her nieces and nephew, and now those kids are winning their equitation classes.…”

But Rob had stopped listening to Sara and Adam Steadman. He was busy remembering what the teenage Jade Radcliffe had excelled at: seeking out trouble and finding it in spades. Out of respect for the Steadmans, he managed to keep his face expressionless, even as mentally he drew a big fat line through the idea of Jade teaching Hayley.

Jade Radcliffe. Christ, he’d blocked her from his mind for so long, the bitterness he felt at hearing her name took him by surprise. Though it shouldn’t. Not when
losing Becky was an ache in his heart he felt every single day.

Because if not for Jade Radcliffe, Becky might still be alive.

Rob hated thinking of that late-spring night. He’d been on duty when a call came through to the station that minors were drinking at the Den. The Den was known as the hookup bar in town, and the joint’s owner had been skirting the underage-drinking law with increasing frequency. From Rob’s earliest days on the force, underage drinking had been a hot-button issue for him, as too many young lives were lost to drunk driving.

The anonymous tip had been on the money. And one of the minors nabbed had been none other than Jade Radcliffe, who’d gotten into the bar with an ID as fake as AstroTurf. Not only had she been in possession of a fake ID—a Class 1 misdemeanor—she’d been the cause of a fight that had broken out when a friend of the Radcliffe family tried to hustle her out of the Den over the objections of one piss-drunk, lousy excuse for humanity.

While Rob had been busy hauling Jade Radcliffe’s scrawny underage butt down to the station, Becky had been sick at home, dosing herself with chamomile tea, applesauce, and dry toast as she battled the stomach bug that had hit her earlier in the week.

Only as it turned out it hadn’t been a bug or the flu, or even the vicious menstrual cramps that often plagued Becky. It had been acute appendicitis, and when Becky’s appendix ruptured, the bacteria flooded her system and laid waste to it. Sepsis had attacked her body with devastating efficiency, shutting down her organs one by one.

Instead of sleeping, Becky had stopped breathing.

And while his sweet, beautiful wife lay dying, Rob had been down at the station dealing with Jade Radcliffe;
Owen Gage, the Radcliffe family friend; and Howie Driscoll, the drunken slob who’d done his best to beat the crap out of Gage when he’d tried to stop Jade from shaking her booty in one of the Den’s notorious “dance” contests.

Rob had booked Howie first, since he’d already starred in one too many bar fights, then slapped Gage with a healthy fine for disorderly conduct. By the time he’d gotten around to testing Jade Radcliffe for alcohol, she was shaking with fear, from the top of her platinum-spiked head to her feet.

That she’d told the truth about not having consumed any alcohol meant squat—he’d already busted her before for underage drinking. He figured it was just a matter of timing. By the end of the dance contest she’d entered, she’d have probably worked up a decent thirst. With the fake ID tucked into her jeans’ pocket, she’d have had no trouble sauntering up to the bar and ordering whatever concoction tickled her teenage taste buds. A couple of drinks later, any iota of common sense would have deserted her, leaving her ripe for a truly stupid and dangerous stunt. Consumed as he was with figuring out how to make Jade Radcliffe sorry she’d ever waltzed into a bar with a fake ID, he hadn’t spared a thought for Becky.

But then his cell rang and his life changed forever.

His mother’s voice was almost unrecognizable from the effort to remain calm, and her story so strange as to be almost unbelievable. She’d dropped by the house with a quart of homemade chicken soup and some orange Jell-O, because she’d been worried Becky might have skipped dinner, and found her in bed—not asleep, but utterly unresponsive. She hadn’t been able to find a pulse. The paramedics were on the way.

Rob had raced to the hospital but arrived too late. The infection had spread too far and too fast, the ER doctors
told him. They hadn’t been able to do anything to save her.

His Becky, his wonderful, loving wife and the mother of his child, was gone.

It was so quick, so terrifyingly quick.

She had been alive and then she was dead.

Rob closed his eyes against the pain that assaulted him. Opening them, his gaze landed on Jade Radcliffe’s name.
No
, he thought.
No damned way
.

He knew it wasn’t right to blame Jade Radcliffe for Becky’s death. He knew it. But knowing and doing didn’t always go hand in hand. The Steadmans were obviously fond of Jade. Considering the Radcliffes’ involvement in all things equine-related, Rob didn’t doubt that Jade was a very good rider, but that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want Hayley anywhere near her. There were riding barns all around the county. He’d ask some other horsey people and find a suitable instructor for Hayley.

M
ARGOT HAD
made good on her promise to ask Ellie to prepare her fried chicken. Jade had already helped herself to seconds, which was fine since she’d ridden Cosmo, Valentine, and Carmen during the afternoon—in addition to working with a young mare named Blanche. The session with Blanche had focused on getting the brown Thoroughbred mare to stand still when Jade mounted her, then having her walk calmly toward the rail, the first baby steps in the under-saddle training process. If all that activity hadn’t justified an extra few hundred calories, well, Jade figured she’d burn them off after dinner when she sweated over the letter she had to compose to her new students.