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When the reporter, Rod Crawford, asked if he could come to the farm for an interview, Tiffany was wary, but decided the best course of action was to confront the problem head-on.
“When would it be convenient for you to drive out to the farm?” she asked graciously, her soft voice disguising her anxiety.
“What about next Wednesday? I’ll have a photographer with me, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” she lied, as if she had done it all her life. “Around ten?”
“I’ll be there,” Rod Crawford agreed.
Tiffany replaced the receiver and said a silent prayer that the two mares who were still carrying Moon Shadow’s unborn foals would successfully deliver healthy horses into the world, hopefully before next Wednesday. A sinking feeling in her heart told her not to get her hopes up.
Somehow, she had to focus Rod Crawford’s attention away from the tragedy in the foaling shed and onto the one bright spot in Rhodes Breeding Farm’s future: Journey’s End. He was a big bay colt, whose career as a two-year-old had been less than formidable. But now, as a three-year-old, he had won his first two starts and promised to be the biggest star Rhodes Farm had put on the racetrack since Devil’s Gambit.
Tiffany only hoped that she could convince the reporter that the story at Rhodes Breeding Farm was not the three dead foals, but the racing future of Journey’s End.
The reputation of the breeding farm was on the line. If the Santa Rosa papers knew about the unexplained deaths of the foals, it wouldn’t be long before reporters from San Francisco and Sacramento would call. And then, all hell was sure to break loose.
* * *
The doorbell chimed at nine-thirty on Wednesday morning and Tiffany smiled grimly to herself. Though the reporter for theSanta Rosa Clarionwas a good half an hour early, Tiffany was ready for him. In the last four years she had learned to anticipate just about anything and make the most of it, and she wouldn’t allow a little time discrepancy to rattle her. She couldn’t afford the bad press.
Neither of the broodmares pregnant with Moon Shadow’s offspring had gone into labor and Tiffany didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her nerves were stretched as tightly as a piano string and only with effort did her poise remain intact. Cosmetics, for the most part, had covered the shadows below her eyes, which were the result of the past week of sleepless nights.
She hurried down the curved, marble staircase and crossed the tiled foyer to the door. After nervously smoothing her wool skirt, she opened the door and managed a brave smile, which she directed at the gentleman standing on the porch.
“Ms. Rhodes?” he asked with the slightest of accents.
Tiffany found herself staring into the most seductive gray eyes she had ever seen. He wasn’t what she had expected. His tanned face was angular, his features strong. Raven-black hair and fierce eyebrows contrasted with the bold, steel-colored eyes staring into hers. There was a presence about him that spoke of authority and hinted at arrogance.
“Yes . . . won’t you please come in?” she replied, finally finding her voice. “We can talk in the den. . . .” Her words trailed off as she remembered the photographer. Where was he? Hadn’t Crawford mentioned that a photographer would be with him this morning?
It was then she noticed the stiff white collar and the expensively woven tweed business suit. A burgundy silk tie was knotted at the stranger’s throat and gold cuff links flashed in the early-morning sunlight. The broad shoulders beneath his jacket were square and tense and there was no evidence of a note pad, camera, or tape recorder. Stereotyping aside, this man was no reporter.
“Pardon me,” she whispered, realizing her mistake. “I was expecting someone—”
“Else,” he supplied with a tight, slightly off-center smile that seemed out of place on his harsh, angular face. He wasn’t conventionally handsome; the boldness of his features took away any boyish charm that might have lingered from his youth. But there was something about him, something positively male and sensual that was as magnetic as it was dangerous. Tiffany recognized it in the glint of his eyes and the brackets near the corners of his mouth. She suspected that beneath the conservative business suit, there was an extremely single-minded and ruthless man.
He extended his hand and when Tiffany accepted it, she noticed that his fingers were callused—a direct contradiction of the image he was attempting to portray.
“Zane Sheridan,” he announced. Again the accent.
She hesitated only slightly. His name and his face were vaguely familiar, and though he looked as if he expected her to recognize him, she couldn’t remember where she’d met him . . . or heard of him. “Please come in, Mr. Sheridan—”
“Zane.”
“Zane,” she repeated, slightly uncomfortable with the familiarity of first names. For a reason she couldn’t put her finger on, Tiffany thought she should be wary of this man. There was something about him that hinted at antagonism.
She led him into the den, knowing instinctively that this was not a social call.
“Can I get you something—coffee, perhaps, or tea?” Tiffany asked as she took her usual chair behind the desk and Zane settled into one of the side chairs. Placing her elbows on the polished wood surface, she clasped her hands together and smiled pleasantly, just as if he hadn’t disrupted her morning.
“Nothing. Thank you.” His gray eyes moved away from her face to wander about the room. They observed all the opulent surroundings: the thick pile of the carpet, the expensive leather chairs, the subdued brass reading lamps and the etchings of Thoroughbreds adorning the cherrywood walls.
“What exactly can I do for you?” Tiffany asked, feeling as if he was searching for something.
When his eyes returned to hers, he smiled cynically. “I was an acquaintance of your husband.”
Zane’s expression was meant to be without emotion as he stared at the elegant but worried face of Ellery Rhodes’s widow. Her reaction was just what he had expected—surprise and then, once she had digested his statement, disbelief. Her fingers anxiously toyed with the single gold chain encircling her throat.
