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I chuckled and looked down at the check in her hand. “Honestly, Ron Waters sends his little girl out here to take care of his business? What a fucking joke.”
“I am no little girl,” she retorted and for a moment I was struck by the way she said the words. This was no little girl at all. She was a woman and while I’d been attracted to her just a few moments before, now that she was acting like she had some kind of power…I had to admit that it was turning me on. But there was no way I would let her think she was getting the better of me.
“Why doesn’t your dad just grow a pair and deal with this like a man. Do you know what this is about?”
Sara nodded her head, but I had serious doubts if she had any clue about the bad blood that he been brewing between our fathers over the past few decades.
I shook my head. “Bullshit! And I’m going to bet that when you asked your daddy to explain himself, he came up with some bullshit reason about why we can’t race. Maybe he even accused us of breaking the law. That sounds like some shit your dad would pull. Well, Sara, you can take that check back to where it came from and tell your daddy to shove it up his ass. We’re not taking that money. Killarny is better than that, and we’ve got a contract for this derby. If you are going to keep us from showing up you’re going to have to get a lawyer and then your dad is going to have to come up with a damn good reason, one that he can actually back up, before he’s going to be able to keep us from running in that derby.”
I hoped that my stern tone would be enough to get her to back off, but she was like a dog on a bone, and she wasn’t going to let go.
“We’ll call the sheriff on you. We won’t let you on the property. If my father says you’ve done something that disqualifies you from being a part of the derby, then I trust him, and you’re not going to be there.” She reached out and grabbed my hand and thrust the check into my palm, but before she backed away, I grabbed her and pulled her toward me.
“What the hell!?” she exclaimed as I pulled her close to me. Our bodies pressed together, and I felt like I was on fire, every inch of my skin spontaneously combusting just from being so near to her. I couldn’t explain the effect she was having on me, but I didn’t want it to stop.
“Just who the hell do you think you are?” I growled, my voice was low and deep. “Who do you think you are showing up at my ranch, walking into my stable, and threatening me? You believe your daddy? Well, you better believe this: it’s your daddy that’s got a problem. You want to know what it is…you can ask him yourself. That’s his business. But don’t you think for a fucking minute you can walk in here making demands of me, waving a check in my face like that’s going to make decades of racing in that derby go away.”
Sara’s eyes were like daggers, and I braced myself for a moment because I really thought she might spit in my face. She should just try it, I thought. See what that would get her.
“Listen, Pete…” she squirmed against me and I held her tighter, hoping that no one would come in and disturb this incredibly strange, but pleasing moment. I knew that from the outside looking in it would appear sketchy as hell. “I’m not trying to start some kind of beef with you. You just need to take the money and walk away. There won’t be anymore trouble. I’m not one to cause any problems that are unwarranted, but my father has instructed me that you aren’t racing. I’m telling you that if you show up in two weeks, there will be sheriffs there and they will escort you from the property.”
I leaned in so our faces were just centimeters apart. I wanted to kiss her right there, but that would be too easy. No, this would come to me in time, but right now I was going to let it go.
“I dare him,” I said as I released her and turned to walk toward the house.
I clinched my fists as I walked and I didn’t turn around to see what she was doing. She still had that check, and that was all that mattered. If she tried to leave it with my secretary or in the mailbox, then the thing would be right back in the mail to her father. We weren’t taking that money back. We would be at the derby. Come hell or high water, we would be there, and there wasn’t a fucking thing she could do to stop us.
This all came down to the shit that was between my father and her father. It was something that no one talked about, and I refused to let my mind dwell on the details of it, but what I was firmly convinced of was that this was business to be handled between two men and not in the way that Ken Waters was trying to do it. This was the coward’s way out to try and slam it all on us like we had anything to do with what happened all those years ago between my father and him.
The screen door slammed behind me as I entered through the back of the house and went into the kitchen. Emma was sitting at the kitchen table eating a snack and working on some homework. It was the sight of her that made me shift from the anger I had felt in front of Sara. I never wanted my daughter to see me that way, no matter how much what Sara said had stirred up inside me. For Emma, I was a rock and a place she could turn to whenever she worried about something. I never wanted her to be afraid to come to me, no matter what her problem was.
“Hey sweetie,” I said, my tone instantly softening. I felt my pulse slow somewhat and I went to the refrigerator to get myself a glass of water. What I wanted after that showdown in the stable was a shot of whiskey, but I would wait until later for that.
“Hey, Dad. What’s happening? Who was that lady here to see you? Amy said you had a business meeting with someone.”
I waved my hand in the air nonchalantly as I took a big gulp of water, then wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.
“Somebody I used to know,” I said.
Emma gave me a sly look. “Somebody you used to date.”
I almost choked on my water. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” Emma asked. She was always asking questions and lately it had turned to dating. I didn’t know if it was something she was reading or watching on TV, but the girl had decided recently that because I didn’t date that it was a problem she needed to fix.
I shook my head. “We knew each other when we were your age. We didn’t date though. She wasn’t really my type.” I thought about what Sara had looked like when we were kids and remembered that goofy grin of hers which was endearing even after she got the braces.
“But you’re grown ups now. Is she still not your type?”
“This conversation might be getting a little above your pay grade. What do you have going on over here in the way of homework?”
She frowned and turned the textbook toward me. “Hetty has me working on pre-algebra. It’s not that bad, but there are a lot of ‘x’s in here to figure out.”
“Exes have always given me problems,” I said as I looked at the work on her notebook paper. “Dang girl, I don’t think I was doing this kind of math until I was in 9th grade or so. How did you end up so smart?”
She shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure that one out. Uncle Alex says it doesn’t have a d-a-m-n thing to do with you.”
