Page 87 of Hats off to Love

“Yes, ma’am. Horses love sugar, so as soon as he tasted that water, you know he took in way more than he should have. Who knows how long he had been drinking that sweet water.”

“What about the stolen horse?”

“He was found.”

My jaw drops, and she smiles at me. She’s loving telling me this story.

“Where?”

“At Red Star Ranch. It seems Dr. Miller felt slighted all these years. Since he was taking care of the horses who were earning everyone else so much money, he felt he should have been awarded a portion of each purse as well. After so much time, he thought he would be sneaky and opened a shell corporation, DRM Enterprises, and bought Red Star Ranch a few years ago. While it has been growing and last year had its first big payout with the horse who won the Belmont Stakes, it seems the management crew began to suspect there were shady dealings occurring, most recently a new addition to the farm who looked like the stolen horse, even though he had undergone surgery on his neck for a supposed tumor, according to the ranch’s veterinarian.”

I inhale sharply. “He cut out the tracking chip.”

She nods. “Yes. It’s not easy to find either. It’s an invasive surgery, but hey, stud him with a ranked filly and guess what you have in three years . . . a Derby contender. The farm crew started talking, and whispers spread from the Blantons’ farm to Shaded Oaks. When the detective approached Shaded Oaks, it was the staff who alerted him to the possible dupe.”

“Unbelievable.” I shake my head in complete bafflement.

“The detective said there has been an increase over the last couple of years in suspicious activities in the Louisville area, but none of them could be linked. Unfortunately for Dr. Miller, this year he became even more greedy and left a trail.”

“So what was in the syringe for Ace?” I ask, now leaning forward with my arms on the table. She matches my posture and leans on the table, too.

“Remember he claimed he was giving him vitamins to help with the inflammation? Turns out he was attempting to inject him with betamethasone. While it is not illegal to use on horses and it is an anti-inflammatory, it is illegal to be found in the bloodstream on race day. It is considered a doping drug and would have disqualified him.”

“Wow.” I shake my head again. This is nuts. “So he was wanting his horses to place higher, or better yet win, so he’d have a bigger payday.”

“That’s right,” she says, annoyance showing through as she presses her lips together.

“I have no words. This is all . . . too preposterous to even make up.”

“Thanks to you, the mystery is solved.” She leans forward more and places her hand on my arm.

Heat rushes into my cheeks at her appraisal. “Well, I don’t know about that. They eventually would have figured it out.”

“Not before Ace would have found himself disqualified and a black mark would have been put across Grayson’s name. We are extremely grateful.” She pats me and then squeezes once before sitting back in her chair.

“I love you and the farm. I just didn’t want anything to happen to him,” I tell her honestly. Regardless of how things are at the moment with Stokes and me, my love for them hasn’t changed.

With an appreciative and affectionate smile, she says, “And it didn’t.”

31

Not long after Birdie leaves, I end up locking up the shop and heading upstairs to shower. If they have work to do this afternoon at the farm, I may as well head that way to find him. I do need to thank him for all the things he’s done for me, but I think this time, instead of trying to sage the room and ward off anything unwanted, I need to ask the hard questions and get some answers.

Especially because my gut is telling me I’m in the wrong.

I was so convinced he and Christopher had been talking about me that I handled this all wrong. I’ve hurt myself and him in the process. A levelheaded person would have taken a deep breath and asked for clarification or answered yes when he asked if I had heard him, but apparently I’m not levelheaded—I am an idiot.

Poor Stokes. He’s been so good to me, and I was awful. This is going to take more than just an apology. I’m going to have to come up with a grand gesture.

Just that thought has me gasping.

All these months, the big and the little things he’s done, all of it has been his big grand gesture, his Hallmark moment to try to make up for all those years. I now know the bachelor of the season was because of Birdie, but she’s right—he didn’t have to handle it the way he did. He didn’t have to use his unfortunate circumstance as an opportunity to help me promote my name, to push me into the spotlight. But he did, and he did it for me. He could have slunk off into the background until the season was over, but he didn’t. He went out of his way for us to be known.

In addition to that, the coffees, the food, driving me to the family dinner, working in the shop—I mean he’s had a lot going on in his life too, but he went out of his way for weeks to make sure I felt like I was number one, like I was important and taken care of. All of this has been his way of trying to make amends and be the man I needed him to be—the man he is.

I’m not even sure the word idiot covers it. He is the best thing to ever happen to me.

Wanting a few minutes to gather myself, I head out to the back of the property. This has always been my go-to spot when I need to think, and well, if any day qualifies as a day for thinking, it’s today. I might have been here for thirty minutes or so when I feel and hear behind me the familiar canter of a horse as it comes closer and closer. The ground vibrates, the leaves on the trees shake, and with each breath, I know there’s only one person it could be. A lump instantly crawls its way up into my throat.