Courting Disaster

“It was a boneheaded move,” Demetri reminded him.

“You were a friend.”

“So are you. Take the money. It’ll be an infusion of cash to tide Quest over until the ban has lifted.”

Hugh shook his head, not even hesitating. “Put your wallet away. First Elizabeth, now you.”

There was that name again, rolling in his head. He could feel the itch in his fingers, the ache in his body, the challenge. Always the challenge. “Elizabeth?”

“The money’s not needed here,” answered Hugh, slamming down his glass. “Thomas won’t take any loan, and I don’t want to discuss it any longer. For over sixty years I’ve been picking out the best legs, the biggest hearts and the horses that kept going when they had nothing left to give. After I retired, Thomas ran these stables with honor and integrity. They’re not going to take that away from us now.”

“Talk to Thomas. Please.”

Hugh sighed, downed the remainder of his bourbon and shook his head. “No.”

Okay, so the honest, aboveboard ways weren’t going to work. Not a surprise. “My teammate wants to stable some horses here. Would you mind if I show him around?”

“Stabling horses here? While people suspect us of cheating to win, and we can no longer race our own horses? Is this another cockamamy way of throwing money in my direction?”

Demetri had been stabling horses at Quest for nearly ten years. Last spring the Prestons’ own champion Leopold’s Legacy was on his way to winning the Triple Crown when a DNA test was required because of a discrepancy in the Jockey Association’s computer records. The results revealed that the stallion’s sire was not Apollo’s Ice, as listed, and a racing ban was imposed on all majority-owned Quest horses. The integrity of the stables had come into question and owners began to remove their horses. But Demetri could help add more horses to Quest Stables. Boarding fees didn’t bring in nearly as much as stud fees or racing purses, but whatever worked.

“No,” he lied. “Definitely not. He’s new to horses.” Actually, Oliver didn’t know that he was stabling horses at Quest. But he would soon. Demetri would buy them, Oliver would “own” them and Quest would stable them. Everybody was a winner.

Oliver was in his debut season as the number two driver for Team Sterling, with the promise of a great career ahead of him, assuming he didn’t muck it up. Young at twenty-two, he was powerful and aggressive, and what he didn’t have in brains, he made up for in grande cojones and gamesmanship.

Some of the other drivers didn’t care for Oliver. They said he was too aggressive, too manipulative, always chasing the top step of the podium, rather than driving for the team, but that was the exact reason that he and Demetri worked well together. It wasn’t about the team, it was only about the win. And James Sterling, former CEO of Sterling Motor Cars, and the principle executive for Team Sterling, was building up his reputation by picking drivers who drove to the edge.

Drivers like Demetri.

For a moment Hugh studied him, looking right through him, but Demetri didn’t flinch. Finally Hugh nodded. “Bring him to the barbecue with you tomorrow. Maybe he can keep you out of trouble.”

“Sounds like a plan,” answered Demetri, rising from the chair and heading for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Are you forgetting something?” asked Hugh.

Demetri looked around blankly. “No.”

“Are you planning on walking all the way back to town?” The faded blue eyes danced with mischief.

“Call me a cab?”

“You’re a cab, and if you give me your promise to keep your hands off my great-niece, then I’ll let you borrow one of the trucks.”

“You don’t need my promise,” answered Demetri, because he knew it was a promise he couldn’t keep.

Elizabeth.

Hugh moved to the desk, rummaging for a moment before throwing a set of keys in Demetri’s direction. “I know I’m going to regret this. And try not to smash up this one, Demetri.”

Demetri grinned. “I always try.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Chapter Two

Elizabeth found her cousin Melanie riding in the paddock, sitting on top of a big gray with flashing white stockings who looked speedier than Elizabeth ever wanted to travel. However, Melanie was of a different mind. She wanted to ride faster than some nuclear-powered rocket, and Elizabeth wished her all the luck in the world with that.

Everybody had a gift. Elizabeth could sing, and Melanie could talk to horses. Maybe not in words, but when you saw Melanie with a horse, you knew that two-way communicating was going on. Melanie would murmur sweet nothings to the Thoroughbreds, and when they were out on the track, those sweet nothings could make them move like nobody’s business. Baby talk, was how Elizabeth used to tease her cousin. After Melanie started winning her races, Elizabeth stopped her teasing.

For a few seconds she watched her cousin ride, noticing the way the horse and the rider moved together, and noticing the telltale droop in Melanie’s smile. At that disturbing sight, Eliza-beth squared her shoulders and pushed all the bad things out of her mind, including the inopportune car-crush—along with the correspondingly inopportune, hot-looking car-crusher. Out of her mind, and hopefully out of her loins. Briskly, she waved, looking just as bright and perky as a woman who had not just wrecked a car that cost more than God, or lusted after a man that she had no business feeling the heat for. “Hey, cuz. Ready to race?”

Melanie’s mouth curved up at the corners, and she dismounted, hopping down to the dirt. “Bet you twenty I can beat you out to the ridge.”

Elizabeth snickered. “I don’t bet with jockeys. I’m absolutely certain there’s something against that in the Bible. Don’t know where to find it, or specifically what it says, but I’m comfortable in my decision.”

“Spoilsport,” answered Melanie, pulling a face. She hollered at one of the stable hands, asking for another mount for Elizabeth—hopefully something not quite so zippy. Elizabeth found herself more than satisfied when the man led out a pretty little broodmare, soft brown with a coal-black mane. Courtin’Cristy was what they called her. A pretty name for a pretty horse.

Gingerly, Elizabeth climbed into the saddle, taking a deep breath and adjusting to the discrepancy in heights.

The stable hand opened the gate and the two cousins took off “racing,” which was Elizabeth’s word for a nice, steady trot, curving among the sturdy branches of the black walnut trees. Riding with her cousin through the hills and valleys with the wind at her back, Elizabeth felt like a kid once again.

The afternoon was crisp and cool, the last of the bright yellow leaves valiantly fighting against the November wind, carpeting the grass in a patchwork quilt of red and gold. In the distance, the smoky smell of burning leaves drifted in the air as the rituals of the first true cold snap of autumn commenced.

The ridge overlooking the winding valley had always been their place to go, a place to forget all the troubles of the world. They pulled up in a plush field of bluegrass, perfect for sitting and watching the clouds skate by. Melanie sighed, her face not nearly as happy as Elizabeth wished it were.

Quest Stables was in serious financial trouble, and to Elizabeth’s way of thinking, it was time for the Prestons to face facts. Their prize Thoroughbred, Leopold’s Legacy, had been pulled from the racing circuit because his pedigree was in doubt, and until the Prestons could get the mystery of his parentage resolved, things weren’t so rosy.

“Melanie, you should be happier. Your brother’s getting hitched day after tomorrow, but you don’t look happy, and Robbie’s going to see right through those fakey smiles. I keep wanting to help, y’all keep turning me down, and it’s getting real old, real fast. However, because I am determined, I’m not giving up, and by the way, how are y’all paying for this wedding? At least let me help with that.”

“Grandpa’s being stubborn. He put some money down on a race in Saratoga, won big, enough to cover the wedding, but I thought Dad was going to blow a gasket.”

Elizabeth clucked her tongue. “And now Uncle Hugh’s been driven to gambling…”

Melanie snorted inelegantly, a sound echoed by the mare behind her. “Grandpa isn’t driven to anything he doesn’t want to do. Elizabeth, do you remember when you were in bad financial straits and needed help? I tried to help, and what did you tell me?”

“I didn’t say anything,” lied Elizabeth.

Melanie glared, and Elizabeth felt a twinge of remorse. So Elizabeth repeated her words in a quiet whisper. “I said I didn’t want charity, not from my family, not from anybody. But this is different.”

Melanie nodded, in a completely annoying fashion. “And you made it all on your own, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” answered Elizabeth, wishing Melanie didn’t have to be so…right.

“So, why do you think the Prestons are any different?”

The Prestons. Elizabeth sighed, because there was that dividing line again, like the Mason-Dixon line, the Great Wall of China or the Berlin Wall, before they tore it down. The Prestons were her family, God bless ’em. Melanie’s momma and Elizabeth’s momma were sisters, but Elizabeth and Diane weren’t part of the inner circle. It wasn’t something that was rude or snooty or mean-spirited at all, but geographical instead. The Prestons lived right outside Lexington, and Elizabeth had grown up in Tennessee. Between the mad dash from one singing gig to another, guitar and singing lessons, and the odd jobs to pay the bills, it was only during the holidays that Elizabeth spent time with her cousins, and sometimes, on a rare golden occasion, a whole summer week.

Those hot summer days were the best, riding horses until she could barely walk, eating watermelon on the porch, Brent and Andrew trying to outwrestle each other, and giggling with Melanie over Robbie’s goofy little-brother antics. On those days, Elizabeth had watched her cousins with greedy eyes. She wanted that warm closeness of the Prestons. That after-dinner moment when two thousand conversations were all going on at once, and it didn’t really matter that nobody could hear a word. The Preston family kept together through thick and thin and that was all that counted.

Staying with the Prestons had once again reminded Elizabeth of what she had missed growing up. The grass was always greener, especially in Kentucky. She blew out a wistful breath.

A few feet away, the two horses were grazing under the scraggly canopies of the bur oaks that dotted the countryside. Melanie’s mount, Something to Talk About—now that was a true character. The gray was showing off and prancing around, as if he just knew people were watching.

Horses were the Prestons’ lifeblood, and now that blood was slowly being squeezed off. If the Prestons truly thought Elizabeth was just going to pack up her marbles and go home, they had another think coming.

“I have the means, you know it, and y’all are family.”

Furiously Melanie shook her head, short blond waves flying from the force. “No. I think it’s nice of you to offer, Elizabeth, but we’re not angling for handouts. We’re not that desperate yet. I don’t want to hear another word.”

“I want to help,” Elizabeth insisted.

“Elizabeth, you sing. You don’t know anything about horses or stables or financial matters. You help out by being here. Let somebody else take care of the rest.”

Elizabeth sighed, throwing a piece of grass at her cousin, wishing it had magical powers that could make her family see sense, instead of having Melanie look at her as though she were some space alien come down from Planet Helpless.

“I’m capable of doing a whole lot more,” she said, but her cousin went right on talking, as if Elizabeth hadn’t said a word.

“Yeah, like getting into car wrecks. I heard about your accident in front of the house. At first, I didn’t believe it was you. I mean, it’s not like you drive fast enough to do any damage to anybody, but then they said Demetri ran into you.” Melanie started to laugh, and Elizabeth could see no humor in this situation and thought it was downright…tacky to laugh at someone who had suffered such a tragic misfortune.

“It’s no cause for laughing, Melanie,” she answered, wounded, wounded to the quick.

“You don’t know,” answered her cousin, gasping between giggles.

“What don’t I know?”

“Demetri Lucas. He’s a race-car driver.”

Demetri Lucas. Race-car driver.

Oh, she didn’t want to know his name. She preferred to keep him as the hot-looking driver with the heavy hands and the lead foot.

A race-car driver, and didn’t that beat all? Elizabeth didn’t like car-racing. Cars were tools, a means to get from one place to another, not some durn-fool bleacher sport that took away good Sunday-afternoon television programming. “Driving cars. Now isn’t that the most useless pastime ever? I mean, why in heaven’s name does anyone want to zoom around that track, flying round and round, wheeling around the corners, and oh, Lord, I’m making myself queasy just thinking about it.”

Melanie stopped her giggles and her eyes got that sly little gleam that indicated she wanted to pry. “So what’d you think?”

“I didn’t think anything,” Elizabeth answered, lying through her teeth. “What’s there to think?”

“Elizabeth, you’re not blind.”

“And I’m not dumb, neither.”

Melanie nodded once, in that smug, supercilious way of people who know they’ve discovered the truth when someone doesn’t want them to discover the truth, because sometimes the truth is better left undiscovered. “He’s hot.”

“If you like that sort of look,” answered Elizabeth, idly strumming her fingers through the grass, because she didn’t usually go for the dark-and-dangerous look in men. Her normal type was clean-cut and upstanding. Men who took “no” for an answer and didn’t quibble.

“Every woman likes that sort of look.”

Elizabeth looked up and arched a brow, smug and supercilious, too. “Even you?”

“Oh, no.”

“Still nursing a hurt?” she asked, because Melanie had fallen for the wrong sort once. It seemed like every woman was destined to be a fool once.

Melanie shook her head. “Older and wiser, just like you, I bet. Are you still nursing a hurt?”

There was forgiveness, and then there was spotted-dog stupid. Elizabeth blew out a breath. She had been snookered once—and by the man who sired her—but now she was older and wiser, too.

Sadly she checked her watch and sighed. Playtime was over. She walked over to her mount, leaves snapping under her feet. Gently she rubbed the velvety nose, letting the mare know that even though she wasn’t as fast as the colt, she was still special to Elizabeth—especially since she was taking her back over the ridge to the stables.

“Courtin’ Cristy, you’re a nice lady, aren’t you?” she crooned, the horse neighing softly.

Melanie nodded. “She is, too. Not a mean bone in her body.”

“She should have a nicer name. Flower or Buttercup, with those flirty eyelashes of hers.”

Melanie shot Elizabeth a telling look. “I don’t name them. I just ride them. And speaking of which, I do have a job to do.”

Elizabeth took a last look at the long, sweeping valley. “Don’t remind me. I’ve got a meeting in the city tonight. Album covers. You would not believe all the hoop-di-do that goes into deciding what goes on a cover. I could tell you stories that would curl your hair.”

“You’re going to leave? I thought you were staying at the house until after the wedding?”

“I’ll be back late tonight, Melanie.You think you can sneak out a bottle of apple wine and we can sit on the veranda and gossip?”

Melanie raised shocked eyebrows. “I don’t drink apple wine anymore, Elizabeth, only Chardonnay. Do you?”

Elizabeth was shamed. “No,” she lied. Three lies in one day. It was a world record, but Elizabeth knew exactly where the blame belonged.

The hot-looking driver with the heavy hands and the lead foot.

“So did Robbie invite him to the wedding?” she asked, the words flying out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Melanie leaped into the saddle, as graceful as a ballet dancer, and waggled a warning finger at Elizabeth. “Be careful, Elizabeth. That snowy-white reputation that you’re so proud of can disappear like that.” Melanie snapped her fingers, as if Elizabeth couldn’t comprehend the graphic on her own.

“Like I’d do something stupid with that man? You know me, cuz. Cautious is my middle name, my first name and my last name, too,” she answered, dismissing the idea, all while new ideas were seeping into her mind, ideas that were distinctly uncautious.

She shook her head, flicking all those ideas out of there.

Hopefully this time, it’d work for good.

Whenever there was a wedding in the works, the wind blew a little softer, the nightingales sounded a little prettier, and even Seamus, Hugh’s Irish wolfhound, walked around with a bounce in his step and a song in his bark. The Preston household might have been dreary lately, the pall of the scandal touching everything in ways that Elizabeth had never imagined, but in the hectic days leading up to Robbie and Amanda’s wedding, things were perkier and livelier. Betsy, the capable manager who ran the house, had the staff take out the best china, guest rooms were dusted, the silver was polished, and everything was set out for Jenna Preston’s white-glove inspection.

That evening, when Elizabeth got home from the meeting in town, she opted to do a little inspecting of her own. Said subject of inspection? One Demetri Lucas, whose car she had recently demolished, and whose image kept cropping up into her mind, and other places that she didn’t want any man cropping up into. Hopefully a hard dose of reality would help matters. After climbing atop the fluffy yellow guest room bed, she studied her laptop screen, and stumbled across the first of many, many, many damning sins. The most recent being that he had just lost a key endorsement from Valencia Products because he’d been boffing royalty. Elizabeth sniffed contemptuously.

Married?

Royalty?

Not only was he irresponsible, but he was also plain stupid. Thinking he wouldn’t get caught? Durn. The man might as well be blond.

To be fair, he did have some business sense, but it was that hard-nosed, hard-hearted shark behavior that Elizabeth didn’t like. Besides his race-car driving, Demetri Lucas bought and sold companies the way other men played the slots. He didn’t care, didn’t participate, only signed on the bottom line, made a bucketload of cash and then moved on to either the next venture, or the next princess, whichever caught his roving eye first.

And apparently his roving eye had been caught many, many times.

She was cursing the man six ways to Sunday when her cell phone rang.

“Liz?” Her manager was the only person who called her Liz. Thank God for small favors, because Liz was a shortcut name; it didn’t have nearly the regal grandeur of Elizabeth. And at five foot four, Elizabeth wanted all the regal grandeur she could get.

“Tobey?” she said, kicking back on the bed. “What are you calling for? If you’re calling me about the album cover, I’m not going to listen. I told you tonight that I didn’t like that last mockup of the cover, and I meant it. I sing country, not heavy metal. Use something prettier than black. What’s wrong with yellow? Or pink? Or maybe one of those soft teals? I think—”

“Liz.”

Elizabeth stopped. “What?”

“I’m not calling about the cover. They’re going to change the background color.”

Elizabeth blew out a breath. “Well thank heavens for that. So why are we chatting when I’m supposed to be on vacation?”

“I got another call from the shampoo company Softsilk. They’re determined to get you. The woman said they have a new line coming out next year. Soft, sexy, womanly. Those were their words. They want you to do the spots.”

“Why did you call me with this? I sing. That’s it. I don’t want to do commercials or product placements, or be some shill for some shampoo that will probably make my hair fall out. I told you no the last five times you asked me. No, no, no. What I use on my head, what I put on my face, what jeans I wear, what car I drive is nobody’s business but mine, and I’ll be damned if Elizabeth Innis is going to help sell somebody else’s products. I’m not telling you something that you don’t already know, Tobey. Why are you calling, and this time, please tell me the truth.”

“Frank called. He heard you were in Kentucky and thought it’d be good for you to do a local concert the week after next. It’s for the University of Louisville, the Wednesday night before their homecoming game. Skew your demographics younger.”

Frank was the manger of Five Star Records, Elizabeth’s label, and when Frank told Tobey to jump, Tobey asked how high. Elizabeth didn’t mind, that was Tobey’s job, but Elizabeth wasn’t a business person. She was an artist. And everybody knew that artists were temperamental. Even though Elizabeth wasn’t temperamental, that didn’t mean she couldn’t pretend when it worked to her advantage.

“Tobey. I’m on vacation. My cousin is getting married day after tomorrow and I’m singing in the wedding. I need this break. I’ve been on tour for the last twelve months. Now, I love my band, but do you know how many hotels that is? Do you know how many frequent flier miles that is? More than I can count, Tobey, but I bet it’s not more than you can count. I bet you can tell me exactly how many frequent flier miles I’ve logged, can’t you? Let me make this clear so you can understand. I’m not doing any concerts here. I’m tired. Can’t you hear the tension in my voice? I don’t know why you can’t, ’cause this phone connection sounds pretty good to me.”

“Frank’s got something lined up, Liz.”

Elizabeth glared at the phone, which did absolutely no good, but it made it her feel better. “Let me repeat what I said, because I’m thinking this phone connection must not be as crisp as I thought. I’m not doing any concerts here. Not one. I’m tired. This is my family time, and nothing gets between me and my family time.”

“Frank already lined it up,” he answered, just as if he hadn’t heard a single word that she’d said.

Elizabeth snorted. “Well, tell him to unline it up. I’m on vacation. It’s three weeks, Tobey, not three years. Nothing trumps family for me. You know that.”

“The money’s good, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth humphed into the phone. “Do you think that matters? If it’s going to start mattering to me, then I need to fire you, because I’m not making as much money as you’re telling me I am. Do I need to fire you, Tobey? Don’t tell me yes, because you’re about as L.A. as I can handle. Everybody told me to get a Nashville agent, but I liked you, even if you were L.A, but maybe they were right, Tobey. Maybe I should get a Nashville agent.”

“Don’t make me go back to Frank and tell him no,” he begged.

“Go back to Frank and tell him no.”

“Oh, Elizabeth…” Which he only called her when he was really, really, really up a creek.

“Oh, Tobey…” she said, and she knew she was starting to get all soft, and she didn’t want to get all soft. She needed to be tough and hard-edged with a spine that wouldn’t break, no matter how much battering it took. Elizabeth drew in a deep, strength-injecting breath, happy to feel the steel return. “Now you listen—”

Suddenly she stopped, a lightbulb flashing in her head. “How much money are we talking about?” Elizabeth asked carefully.

Tobey named a figure that raised her brows, and her brows— which were perfectly arched—didn’t usually rise that far. That was all it took for her to change her mind. “Sign me up, Tobey. I’ll do it. Get the band down on the next plane out of Nashville. Actually, not the next plane, but maybe Monday after next. At least let’s give them the weekend off, then we can have two days’ worth of rehearsal.”

“Why did you change your mind so fast?” he asked suspiciously. Rightly so. A wise one, that Tobey. That was why she liked him.