It was Jay she understood.
If only, she thought with a pang, if only he would ask her to marry him.
* * * *
The following day was Wednesday, and the race was to be run on Thursday. Owen Macdonald took Caroline and Joe down to the racetrack on Wednesday morning so Caroline could see it. Jay was going to gallop Mahogany, Joe told her.
The track was a mile-long oval placed in a perfectly manicured setting, with grass and flowers. Caroline turned to Gerald, who had accompanied them, and said, “This is more like Virginia than the West, Gerald. Wyoming sure doesn’t look like this.”
“Nor does Kildare,” said Gerald humorously. He was wearing riding breeches, high black field boots, and the inevitable tweed jacket. The clothes were all well-worn and looked just right on his tall, broad-shouldered frame. Caroline was wearing jeans and sneakers. There was very little swelling left in her ankle and it ached now only when she stood on it for too long.
They stood at the rail and watched as a beautiful gray galloped around the track. “That’s Bold Decision,” Owen informed them proudly. “He’s my entry in the race tomorrow. He’s won it for the last three years.”
Caroline glanced at Joe, but his profile was rocklike. “Nice-looking horse, Owen,” he commented.
At the far end of the track a dark bay horse was suddenly seen. “There’s Mahogany now,” said Caroline.
“Is that your horse, Mr. Carruthers?” Gerald inquired courteously.
“Yep, my lord, he is.”
“He’s not going to fight tomorrow, is he, Joe?” Owen sounded a little nervous. “He’s a range stallion, Clontarf,” he explained in an aside to Gerald. “He was a devil as a yearling. Ken Madison at Greenway Stables said he’d never be able to run him on a track. He sold him to Joe here for stud purposes.”
“Good heavens.” Gerald raised an eyebrow at Joe. “And your son is riding him?”
“Jay broke him. They couldn’t break him in Kentucky, but Jay did.” In an unusual burst of paternal pride, Joe added, “Jay can ride just about anything on four legs. He’ll do okay.”
They watched as the horse started to canter down the far side of the oval. Gradually his stride stretched out into a full gallop as he came around, held dead in the middle of the track by his rider. When he came by the spectators they could see that Jay had a snug hold on the reins. The horse moved beautifully, effortlessly.
“Very nice indeed,” said Gerald.
“There’s no other stallion on the track with him,” Owen pointed out.
“Jay will do okay,” Joe repeated.
“It certainly looks that way,” said Gerald pleasantly. “Will they all be using Western saddles tomorrow?”
“Yes,” said Owen. “Unfortunately.”
“They add quite a bit of weight, don’t they?”
“Well, that doesn’t matter, my lord, so long as everyone is working with the same rules.” Joe sounded jovial, but his eyes on Owen were cold. “Western horses are working horses, you see. Not all the trucks in the world can replace the man on a horse in cattle country. And this race was started many years ago, by Owen here’s father, as a test for the working Western horse.” Joe’s eye got colder and some of the joviality left his voice. “Owen’s the only one among us who raises horses strictly to race them,” he said.
“Ah,” said Gerald, aware that he had trod on sore toes. “Quite.”
“Mahogany will be the only thoroughbred here tomorrow besides Bold Decision,” said Joe. He looked down at Owen, whom he towered above. “How many horses did you say were running, Owen?”
“Five,” said Owen uncomfortably.
“Used to be a lot more,” Joe told Gerald. “But the boys used to enter their cow horses, see. Lately they haven’t been that interested. The competition changed.”
Owen was looking angry by now. “What are you trying to imply, Joe?” he demanded. “That I fix the race?”
Joe looked surprised. “Now did you hear me say that, Caroline?”
Caroline laughed. “No. What I heard you say was that Mr. Macdonald had changed the rules.”
Joe looked pleased. “That’s it. That’s exactly what happened. Owen changed the rules.” He watched the figure of his son walking toward them along the rail. “He looked good, son,” he boomed jovially. “Looked real pretty.”
Jay came up to their group and joined it. “He felt real good. He didn’t try to fight me on the track.”
“He’s a beautiful animal, Hamilton,” Gerald said.
“Thanks.” Jay turned to his father. “Jim is going to put him out to graze. He should be fine for tomorrow.”
“Good, good,” Joe boomed.
There was a little silence, and then Owen cleared his throat. “I have planned a little picnic for us this afternoon. I’ve fixed up an old chuck wagon.” He turned to Gerald. “You should find it quite interesting, Clontarf. Years ago, during roundup, the chuck wagon was a traveling kitchen. I came across an old one in Laramie a while back and bought it and refurbished it.” He smiled at them all, clearly very pleased with himself. “Tonight we shall dine like the cowboys of old— only the food will be done by my French chef.” He chuckled. “No beans, I promise you.”
“It sounds very pleasant, Macdonald,” Gerald said good-naturedly. “I shall look forward to it. Do we ride on this—ah—chuck wagon?”
“No, no. We’ll ride horseback. I’ll provide the horses, Joe, don’t you worry. You won’t have to take Mahogany.”
Caroline heard Jay mutter something under his breath. He looked absolutely disgusted.
“You do ride, Miss Carruthers?” Owen was saying to her.
“Oh yes,” said
Caroline hurriedly.
“You should see her ride to hounds,” Gerald put in with a smile. “Neck or nothing.”
Owen looked impressed. Caroline’s dungarees had dropped her in his estimation—they were Lee’s and not designer jeans—but this information was clearly a plus in his opinion. “You hunt, Miss Carruthers?”
Caroline’s assenting answer clashed with Jay’s. “Didn’t you know, Macdonald?” he was saying with lethal pleasantry. “Caroline’s father is Randolph Carruthers.”
“Randolph Carruthers!” Owen gazed at her in wonder.
“Yes,” said Caroline shortly and stared at her stepbrother. His eyes were brilliantly blue, and he smiled at her with a vivid sweetness that deceived everyone but Caroline. He was paying her back for mentioning Nancy last night.
“The
Randolph Carruthers?” asked Owen.
“Is there another?” Jay’s voice was soft and innocent.
Gerald took charge. “Come along with me, Caroline, and I’ll show you Maire’s filly.”
“I’d love to see her,” Caroline responded.
“I’ll be happy to take you down to the barn,” Owen said fussily.
“That won’t be necessary, Macdonald,” said Gerald. His voice was amiable, but the note of aristocratic command was very audible. “I know the way.”
“Oh,” said Owen, deflated.
“I’ll come along too,” said Jay unexpectedly. Light-blue and dark-blue eyes met and held. For the first time Gerald did not look pleasant.
“Very well,” he said after a brief pause.
“See you later, Dad,” Jay said to Joe. “At the chuck wagon.”
Joe chuckled. “See you later, son.”
Owen stood, disconsolate, and watched his three younger guests move off together, the two men on either side of Randolph Carruthers’ beautiful blond-haired daughter.
As they walked toward the barn the two men maintained a conversation about horses, and Caroline looked from one to the other of them and compared. Gerald was taller than Jay, and broader. He was always courteous and good-natured, but there was something about him that let you know he was the Earl of Clontarf and accustomed to ruling his world. With his fair hair, blue eyes, and pleasant smile, he was very good-looking. He was an impressive man and would make the sort of husband every girl dreamed of having. He had not given up on her—she had seen that in his eyes last night. If she had a lick of sense, Caroline thought, she would pull out of this affair with Jay and marry Gerald.
But it was not Gerald whose presence she was feeling next to her, whose every movement she was aware of as acutely as if an electric current flowed between them. Gerald’s eyes were pale, not so incredibly dark a blue that they put even the Wyoming sky to shame. Gerald’s mouth did not look as if it had been chiseled by Michelangelo. Gerald could not make her so happy she could scarcely think.
“There she is,” said Gerald. “Isn’t she a beauty?”
They had reached the barn and were looking over the top half of the stall door at a beautiful chestnut filly.
“She’s lovely,” said Caroline and looked at Jay. His eyes were narrowed and he was regarding the filly intently.
“Let’s have her out,” he said to Gerald.
The two men busied themselves with haltering the filly and leading her out into the stableyard. They appeared in perfect amity as they discussed the filly’s points. Gerald was soon telling Jay about her dam, and Jay was listening with every indication of genuine interest. They both completely ignored Caroline.
At first Caroline was annoyed. She was not at all accustomed to being ignored by men—and certainly not by these two men. Then her sense of humor asserted itself. Upstaged by a horse, she thought. Wouldn’t you know.
So she smiled serenely at the two men after they put the filly back in her stall and said to Jay, “However do you suppose the French chef is going to cope on a chuck wagon?”
He grinned. “I can’t begin to imagine.”
Gerald put his hands into his pockets as they all began to stroll back toward the ranch house. He and Jay were now walking side by side, with Caroline next to her former fiancé.
“I rather gathered from your father that Macdonald is not overly popular with his neighbors,” Gerald said.
Jay snorted and said something extremely rude. Gerald made an observation of his own, and Jay countered with a summing up of Owen’s character that was short, pithy, libelous, and extremely funny. The two men broke into roars of laughter and then, remembering Caroline, sobered and gave her identical glances. They looked like guilty schoolboys.
“Shame on you,” she said severely. “Mr. Macdonald is your host.”
“I don’t care,” Jay said, as if he had been ten years old. He grinned at her unrepentantly. “I was coerced into coming, remember?”
“Oh?” said Gerald. “How was that?”
“My father. All of our hands are dying to win this race. As a matter of fact, most of the population of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah would like to see anyone who is not Owen Macdonald win this race. And the only horse with a hope in hell of doing it is Mahogany. So I told the boys they could run him if they could ride him.”
“And they couldn’t.”
“And they couldn’t. So Dad put the pressure on me to do it, and here I am.”
“Don’t you want to win?” asked Gerald curiously.
Jay shrugged. “As long as I’m here, of course I’ll try to win.” He slanted a look at Gerald. “But I’d much rather punch Macdonald in the nose than beat him in a horserace.” And the two men grinned at each other with suppressed hilarity. Caroline looked at them in indulgent bewilderment, shook her head, and went into the ranch house to change her clothes.
* * * *
The chuck wagon was a genuine old white-canvas-covered prairie schooner, and it was drawn by a team of matched grays. Owen was obviously proud of his new toy and showed it off to Gerald with extensive explanations.
There was a collection of horses ready in the stableyard for Owen’s guests, eight of them saddled with Western saddles and four with English. Gerald, Caroline, and Owen would ride English, which left one Western rider having to make the switch. There was a little silence when Owen apologized for being short a saddle and asked if anyone would mind riding English. Then Jay shrugged. “I’ll take the extra English horse. It doesn’t matter to me.”
They all mounted up and soon were moving out, with Owen in the lead and the chuck wagon following them at a little distance. Caroline was wearing shoes once again, and her feet rested lightly in her irons. She put no weight into her heels. Gerald glanced curiously at her as he rode alongside. She was conscious that she presented a very different picture from what he was accustomed to seeing. Instead of breeches, coat, and highly polished boots, she wore jeans, a long-sleeved rugby shirt, and very well-worn rubber-soled oxfords. Two tortoiseshell barrettes kept her hair off her face. Gerald was dressed more traditionally, and Caroline glanced at him in admiration. He always looked splendid on a horse, and Owen had given him a big, well-muscled bay that suited him very well.
“You’re not putting any weight on that ankle,” he said to her. “It doesn’t still hurt, does it?”
“Oh no. I’m just being cautious, that’s all.”
“Good.” Gerald’s eyes moved to Jay, who was riding with Mrs. Banks, the good-looking woman he had been talking to the previous night. Jay had accommodated himself to the English-style horse and was riding more forward in the saddle than he usually did. The horses began to move out a little, and Caroline and Gerald posted effortlessly to the steady trot. The Western riders immediately put their horses into the slow lope that is so comfortable to sit on. Jay allowed his horse to continue to trot and sat easily in the saddle, his spine relaxed and flexible, absorbing the shock of the gait. His seat never left the saddle.
“Your stepbrother is an excellent horseman,” Gerald said to Caroline.
Caroline had been watching Jay work Mahogany all week. “Yes,” she said softly. “He is.”
They rode for two hours to the picnic spot that Owen had selected. It was a beautiful day. The sky was blue as lapis lazuli with an occasional dazzling white cloud to break the monotony; the grass was emerald-green; in the field where they spread out their picnic there was a tangle of wildflowers, bluebells, mariposa lilies, and white and lilac asters.
“This is magnificent country,” Gerald said as he stood in his accustomed posture, hands in pockets, blond head erect. “It’s—epic, isn’t it?”
He was speaking to Jay. “The top of the world,” said Jay in reply. “There’s nothing else like it.”
“What is the altitude at your ranch?” Gerald asked.
“The ranch house is at eight thousand feet.”