Purebred Page 3

  As Raul drove to the far end of the barn, Aidan noticed an outdoor arena and four paddocks. “So how big is the farm?”

  “Seventeen acres.”

  “What about the barn?”

  “Forty-two twelve-by-twelve-foot box stalls, nearly a dozen empty right now,” Raul said. “But it’s still early in the breeding season. In the next week or two, owners will be lined up to get their broodmares in and out of here, and then there won’t be enough room.”

  “So she has a good stallion.”

  “Good enough, I guess. He’s loco sometimes. Dangerous, like his name.”

  Raul’s lack of enthusiasm confirmed Cat’s reason for wanting to get Mac Finnian at stud. His sire lines were impeccable—Mr. Prospector and Bold Ruler before that—as were the dam’s sire lines—Sadler’s Wells and before him Alleged.

  “What else is in the main barn?” Aidan asked.

  “There’s two foaling stalls with video feeds to the house, an indoor arena, two tack rooms, office, laundry and medicine room.”

  “Impressive place.”

  “Miss Clarke does okay for herself.”

  Though it should have sounded like a compliment, Aidan sensed something else there. Resentment? Maybe Raul didn’t like working for a woman but didn’t have a choice. Aidan took a better look at the worker. The man was small but muscular and had bronzed features that were smooth but for the wrinkles around his dark eyes. Aidan guessed him to be nearing forty or so. Wondering how long Raul had worked here, but wanting to know more about the farm and Cat, he decided to keep his own counsel until he got to know the man better. Raul hadn’t said much since they’d loaded Mac into the trailer, had only spoken when necessary.

  As Raul slowed near a back door, Aidan could see another building farther back on the property, no doubt to hold equipment and supplies. And opposite the buildings, three large four-board fenced pastures and a small dirt track. The farm wasn’t as green as the countryside in Ireland, but it was far more so than he’d been expecting. Far more extensive, too.

  Cat Clarke was indeed doing okay for herself, which made Aidan feel better about his situation. He got out of the truck and went around to unload Mac from the trailer. She was a seasoned professional and would undoubtedly do everything in her power to help him make the colt into a champion.

  So why did he have the niggling feeling that everything wasn’t as it seemed?

  * * *

  WHILE AIDAN WAS GETTING the colt settled, Cat took the opportunity to shower. She’d bred Fairy Tail, one of Dean Hill’s broodmares, that morning and hadn’t had a chance to clean up and do something with her hair. Her sprucing up had nothing to do with wanting to impress Aidan McKenna, at least not in a personal way. She hoped to appear the successful businesswoman she wished she really was so that he would have confidence in their new partnership.

  Imagining what he might have thought coming in on her fight with her ex-husband, she quickly blow-dried her hair, then entered the bedroom where her two dogs, Smokey and Topaz, were waiting for her with hopeful gazes.

  “All right. Give me a second.” As she fetched treats from a container on her dresser, they pushed into her legs. “Go get it.” She tossed the treats across the room and smiled when the dogs bounded after them.

  She loved this room that had been hers since childhood. It was all grown up now, with pale gold walls and cranberry and gold bedding. Her favorite thing, though, was the wall holding a smattering of framed photos that traced her history—her on her first pony, her with the horse she’d ridden at her first competition with the ribbon she’d won attached to the frame, her with the first mare she’d bred. And of course the family photos—Mom, Dad, her brother Jens. And George. While not blood kin, she’d always thought of him as an honorary uncle.

  Thinking about his disappearance threatened to bring her down again, so she shifted direction. She hadn’t made a great first impression on Aidan. Time to correct that. Looking successful and acting confident went a long way toward becoming successful. Or so her mother had always taught her. To that end, she donned a new pair of brown slacks and a pale gold shirt and secured a thick gold link bracelet around her right wrist.

  Then she rounded up the dogs, using more treats to lure them out into their run alongside the house.

  Cat finally headed for the kitchen, reminiscent of the fifties when it had been last renovated, other than the appliances that had been replaced several years ago. Even if she had a barrel-load of extra cash, she wouldn’t update the kitchen more than necessary. She’d been serious when she’d warned Aidan about her cooking skills—they were at a bare minimum. She spent as much time outside with the horses as she could manage.

  She’d barely set the table when she heard the back door open.

  “Aidan?”

  “Aye.”

  The in-law apartment had its own separate entry out back. She turned to see him come into the kitchen, his shoulders nearly filling the doorway. As had happened the first time she’d met him, he took away her breath for a moment. It wasn’t simply that he was attractive—which he was—but that he had a way about him that narrowed her focus so she couldn’t see anything beyond him. He’d changed into a fresh shirt, and his thick hair looked damp, as if he’d slicked it back with wet hands. Feeling herself flush, Cat blinked and turned toward the counter with the Crock-Pot.

  “I just have to put the food on the table.” She removed the cover.

  “’Tis making my mouth water already,” he said, moving close enough behind her that she nearly dropped the meat fork. “What can I do to help?”

  “Sit.” Cat waited until he moved away from her to set the meat on a platter. “Everything’s ready,” she said, adding potatoes and carrots and then ladling thickened beef broth over everything.

  “Looks perfect.”

  “I hope you’re not disappointed.” Carrying the platter to the table set in a nook surrounded by big windows with a view of the pastures, she put it down between the two place settings. “I’m not much of a cook.”

  “I think you’re anything you set your mind to be.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “A young lass running a grand business this size is pretty impressive.”

  Charmed by the very Irishness of his wording in addition to the lilt, Cat sat opposite him and indicated he should help himself. “I didn’t start the business, but I’ve worked with the horses since I was a teenager.”

  “So it was a family operation, then?”

  “Right. Both Mom and Dad ran it ever since I can remember. I always wanted to help them, but they made me wait until I was thirteen. They even paid me a salary. Which of course they made me save to pay for college rather than spend.”

  After heaping his plate with food, Aidan passed the platter to her. “No sisters or brothers?”

  “One brother. Jens liked riding horses well enough, but he hated the work involved in taking care of them. Particularly having to help with the breeding—rather the cleanup after—even more. He would disappear whenever possible. So he graduated from the Kellogg MBA program and then took a job as far away from here as he could get. New York City.”

  “’Tis a shame. That he hated the work, I mean. I understand the other part. Sometimes you do need to get away from family.”

  Why had Aidan needed to get away from his brother? Cat wondered as she filled her plate.

  Remembering the argument she’d witnessed, she thought it was likely that they didn’t agree on how to run their business. Good, then, that he was a trainer and she was a breeder. Hopefully there’d be no reason for either of them to step on the other’s toes. A perfect partnership. The phone call she’d gotten at the time, about George being missing and about Jack moving up the court date, had put her in a foul mood, an impression she was eager to correct.

  Cat wanted to believe they had a fresh start and that she’d been worried for nothing.

  Aidan dug into the food. “Your parents can’t be very old, Cat.
Why did they leave the farm?”

  She sighed. “As much as I love the business, I wish they were still here. Everything seemed perfect, like good fortune would go on forever, until the economy tanked. The stress got to Dad in a big way and he had a heart attack, thankfully not fatal. It was enough for Mom, though. She made him retire early.”

  Mom had feared Dad would just drop dead someday. The idea had scared Cat, too.

  “So they sold you the farm?”

  “The land itself is in a family trust, but they gave me the business and I give them a percentage of the profit to make their retirement easier.” Another reason she wanted to restore her financial footing. “Like I said, Jens didn’t want anything to do with it, so he was glad that I took it over. It would have devastated Dad if the business didn’t stay in the family. That was nearly three years ago.”

  Just before she’d gotten involved with Jack.

  Cat took a big bite of pot roast and remembered how lonely and trusting she’d been. Unfortunately she’d trusted the wrong man. A rookie horse trainer, Jack had put on a good show as to how he was all about her work and how he was willing to help her run the farm, but it had all been lies. The pretense hadn’t lasted long once they were married. Within six months, she’d started to suspect that he was more interested in the money the business could make for him than he was in her. She’d done everything to make it not so, but as Dad used to say, you couldn’t change a leopard’s spots. Still, it wasn’t until she’d learned about Simone that Cat had kicked him out.

  Swallowing the food that had suddenly gone tasteless, she said, “Anyway, my parents moved to Arkansas because Mom feared that if they stayed in the area, retirement would only be a word.”

  “Arkansas is one of your states, is it not?”

  “Right. It might as well be another country for as often as I get to see them.” Realizing Aidan had no idea of the huge distances one could travel in this country compared to his own, she explained, “It would be like you going from Dublin to Paris to see your family.”

  “That would be quite a distance, indeed. You must miss them, then.”

  “All the time. They come for a couple of weeks in the summer and at Christmas. I try to get to Arkansas for a visit in between, but I can’t leave the place for too long. And days or even weeks just isn’t enough when you’re used to seeing someone every day of your life. I take it you don’t feel the same way about Cashel.”

  Aidan laughed. “No, I am not missing him, not yet. I think we needed what you call a time out. ’Tis my younger brother Tiernan I miss. He lives here in America, and I have not seen him for nearly two years.”

  “He’s training horses?”

  Aidan’s smile softened the hard planes of his face. “Aye, but not Thoroughbreds. Your Western horses. He has a small horse ranch in a place called South Dakota. Would that be as far as Arkansas?”

  “Oh, much farther. Nearly twice as far.”

  The smile faded a bit. “Nevertheless, I’m hoping I’ll see him and meet his wife, Ella, sometime this summer.” He forked the last bite of meat from his plate and said, “By the way, the pot roast is excellent.”

  “Thanks.” She indicated the platter that still held half the pot roast. “Help yourself.”

  “I don’t mind if I do.” Aidan took seconds.

  Cat said, “Eat all you want, no rush. When I’m done, I need to get over to the barn to check on the mare I bred this morning.”

  “If you would not mind waiting a few minutes, I would go with you to check on Mac Finnian.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He ate in silence for a moment, his expression pensive. Then he said, “When I was in the barn earlier, I saw no other workers. Surely Raul is not your only employee.”

  A statement that reminded Cat of one of the reasons she was so desperate to take a chance on Mac. “Bernie Hansen is full-time now,” she said, feeling her stomach tighten. “Bernie was off picking up supplies when you came in. And then there’s Vincent and Laura. They come after school every day they can.”

  “So you only have two full-time employees and two children.”

  On the defensive now, she argued, “Those ‘children’ are teenagers, and they work hard mucking out stalls, hauling bales of hay, grooming horses.”

  “But surely that is not enough to run a breeding farm this size when the operation is in full swing.”

  “Then I’ll hire another couple men when business picks up.”

  “What about a barn manager?”

  “I’m doing double duty for the time being. I had a barn manager until recently.”

  “You said something about that in Galway. That was weeks ago. Surely you have thought of replacing him.”

  She shook her head. “I keep hoping he’ll show up.”

  “What happened?”

  “I really don’t know. No one seems to. George worked for my parents,” Cat said stiffly, starting to feel like Aidan was backing her into a corner. “I never remember a time when he wasn’t here. He left while I was in Ireland and I’m hoping he’ll come back.”

  “If he quit his job, why do you think he might show up again.”

  “That’s the thing. He didn’t quit.” Once again, an awful feeling engulfed her. “He simply disappeared. No one knows where he went.”

  When Aidan fell silent, Cat bristled.

  Was he silently blaming her?

  Or silently criticizing her for not replacing George?

  And for not adding more workers?

  She couldn’t afford to hire anyone else right now, not even a new barn manager. If George came back, she would find a way to pay him again. She hadn’t given up on him yet, even though she couldn’t stop worrying that something had happened to make him leave.

  That his disappearance was somehow her fault.

  Chapter Four

  “I cannot eat another bite. Allow me to help clear,” Aidan said, rising and taking the platter and his plate to the counter.

  “Thanks,” Cat muttered, head ducked away from him as she scooped up the flatware and threw it on her plate.

  He wondered what he and Cashel had gotten themselves into. Bad enough his partner had attitude and an angry ex-husband, but now to learn Cat didn’t have enough help made him worry that she didn’t have the finances to carry out their contract.

  Had he left Ireland simply to waste his time?

  The entry fee into a graded stakes race was thousands of American dollars. And what about the six-figure entry fee to the Breeders’ Cup Classic? The hope was that Mac could earn the money through the wins that would qualify him for the world-class meet, or, better yet, that he would win a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race. Aidan was confident that given decent weather conditions and no injuries, Mac could outrun his competition on any dirt track.

  But what if the payoff wasn’t enough?

  What if he didn’t win a Challenge?

  Could Cat really come up with six figures when she apparently couldn’t afford to hire more workers?

  Not wanting to get into it now lest he say something that he would regret, Aidan tabled that particular discussion for later. On edge, his gut in a knot, he forced himself to relax. Cat didn’t seem to be having an easy time of it, either.

  They remained silent as they finished clearing.

  When the last item was in the dishwasher, the leftovers in the refrigerator, she asked, “Ready to take that walk over to the barn?”

  “And eager. I want to make sure Mac has settled in.”

  Aidan followed Cat out the door and then walked beside her. As if the very action of taking one step after another was medicinal, he felt his inner tension dissolve. A quick glance Cat’s way told him she was more at ease, as well. He had no criticism of the grounds nor the barn, so, enough help or no, she was somehow managing to do things right. He had to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  “Dean’s truck,” she murmured, and Aidan followed her gaze to the dark blue truck parked to one side of the
barn.

  Also noting the old silver sedan parked opposite the truck, he asked, “A couple of your clients?”

  “My high school workers are here. And one of my two big clients at the moment. A few weeks ago, Dean Hill decided to change barns, and he wanted me to be in charge of breeding his mares. As a matter of fact, I bred one of his mares this morning. No doubt he’s here to check on her, as well.”

  “How many mares does he own?”

  “He brought eleven here. But they’re not being bred to Dangerous Illusion. That’s my stallion. He’s a little high-strung and low on the champion totem pole. Dean brought his own stallion. You might have heard of him—False Promise.”

  “I know the name.”

  “You should. Last year he won three consecutive graded stakes races, was third in the Kentucky Derby and won the Preakness.”

  “I remember…didn’t he have a twin who raced, as well?”

  “Right, but unfortunately, Memory of You broke down as a two-year-old, so his career ended and he never had the chance to make a name for himself. False Promise was headed for the Breeders’ Cup Classic and probably Horse of the Year, but a fracture to his rear right leg just before the Belmont Stakes ended his racing career, too.”

  Having experienced one of the horses he’d trained breaking down himself, Aidan could imagine the owner’s despair at such a horrible turn of fate. “Thankfully the horse survived. And the jockey.” At least the accident wasn’t the tragedy that Aidan knew it could have been.

  “Yes, both survived and the horse healed well,” Cat said, as they entered the barn. “His racing career might be over, but at least he can stand at stud and possibly sire future champions.”

  A consolation, Aidan thought, one that could never make up for the loss of a dream. Most owners didn’t get more than a single chance at a really fine colt or filly that could win the high stakes races. Winning was the dream of every owner and trainer and jockey, of every groom and hotwalker who came into contact with a fine piece of horseflesh. A whole team of support staff considered the horse their own.