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“I don’t think so. The way I understand it, he was a tenant farmer until a few years ago. The two hundred thousand dollars that your husband put into this farm as a down payment—”
“Yes?” Tiffany asked.
“He stole it from me.”
“Oh, dear God,” Tiffany whispered, letting her head fall forward into her waiting hands. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Obviously Zane thought he was telling the truth, and he didn’t seem like a dangerous psychotic, but what he was saying was absolutely ridiculous. Ellery might have been many things, but Tiffany knew in her heart he wasn’t a thief.
“I think it’s time for you to leave, Mr. Sheridan,” she said, her voice as cold as ice. “You’ve been saying some pretty wild things around here—things that could be construed as slander, and—”
Footsteps on the back porch interrupted her train of thought. Panic welled in Tiffany’s mind and she snapped her head upward as the familiar boot steps drew near. Within a minute, Mac was standing in the kitchen, worrying the brim of his fedora in his fingers, his dark eyes impaling hers. “You’d better come, Missy,” he said, his voice uncommonly low.
“Ebony Wine?”
“Aye.”
“The foal is here?”
“Will be soon, and . . .” His eyes shifted from Tiffany to Zane and back again. Tiffany’s heart began to thud painfully in her chest. She could read the silent message in Mac’s worried gaze.
“No . . .” she whispered, pushing the chair back so hard that it scraped against the hardwood floor. Her fearful eyes darted to Zane. “If you’ll excuse me, we have an emergency on our hands.” She noticed the glimmer of suspicion in Zane’s eyes, but didn’t bother to explain. Time was too imperative.
In seconds she was away from the table and racing toward the den. “Have you called Vance?” she called over her shoulder.
Mac pushed his hat onto his head and nodded. “He’s on his way. Damn, but I should have seen this coming. I’ll meet you in the shed.”
Tiffany kicked off her pumps, pulled on a pair of boots and yanked her jacket off the wooden hook. Mindless of the fact that she was dressed in wool slacks, angora vest and silk blouse, she opened the French doors and raced into the dark night. She had taken only three breathless strides, when she felt the powerful hand on her arm, restraining her in its hard grasp.
“What’s going on?” Zane demanded as Tiffany whirled to face the man thwarting her. Her hair tossed wildly around her face, and even in the darkness Zane could see the angry fire in her wide eyes. He hadn’t been able to decipher the silent messages passing from Mac to Tiffany in the kitchen, but Zane knew that something horrible was taking place and that Tiffany felt she could do something about it.
Tiffany didn’t have time to argue. She was trying to free herself. “A mare’s gone into labor.”
“And that upsets you?”
She jerked her arm free of his imprisoning grasp. “There might be complications. If you’ll excuse me—” But he was right beside her, running the short distance from the house to the foaling shed with her, his strides long and easy.
With a sinking feeling, Tiffany realized that there was no way she could hide her secret from him any longer, and she really didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the mare in labor and the unborn colt.
Chapter Four
The soft overhead lights of the foaling shed were reflected in the sweat-darkened coat of Ebony Wine. As the mare paced restlessly in the stall, she alternately snorted in agitation and flattened her dark ears against her head in impatience.
Mac’s arms were braced on the top rail of the gate to the foaling stall and his anxious brown eyes studied the horse. A matchstick worked convulsively in the corner of his mouth.
He spoke softly in quiet tones filled with years of understanding. “Simmer down, lady.” His gravelly voice was barely audible as the distressed mare shifted under the intense pressure of an abdominal contraction.
Tiffany’s heart was pounding more rapidly than her footsteps on the cold concrete floor as she walked rapidly down the length of the corridor to the foaling stall. The acrid smells of sweat and urine mingled with antiseptic in the whitewashed barn. One look at Mac’s tense form told her that the birth of Ebony Wine’s foal was going no better than he had expected.
Zane was at Tiffany’s side, matching her short strides with his longer ones. His dark brows were drawn over his slate gray eyes. He kept his thoughts to himself as he tried to make head or tail of the tense situation. Something was very wrong here. He could feel it. Though it hadn’t been stated, he had witnessed fear in Tiffany’s incredible blue eyes when Mac had entered the kitchen and made the announcement that one of the mares had gone into labor. Zane had noticed something else in Tiffany’s worried expression—determination and pride held her finely sculpted jaw taut, but worry creased her flawless brow. A sense of desperation seemed to have settled heavily on her small shoulders.
“Has her water broken?” Tiffany asked as she approached Mac and leaned over the railing of the stall.
Mac shook his head and ran bony fingers over the stubble on his jaw. “Not yet.”
Ebony Wine was moving restlessly in the stall. Her sleek body glistened with sweat, and her ears twitched warily.
“Come on, lady,” Mac whispered softly, “don’t be so stupid. Lie down, will ya?”
“She didn’t get off her feet the last time,” Tiffany reminded the trainer.
