Page 94 of You'll Find Out
“I spoke to her about six months after the accident,” Brig replied thoughtfully. “It was the second call I’d made.”
Becca drew in her breath. “No one told me that you’d phoned.”
Brig’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “And that’s why you didn’t phone me back?”
“I couldn’t very well return what I’d never received.”
“Then someone—no, make that everyone in your house is lying to you.”
“Or you are,” she thought aloud.
His fingers carefully cupped her chin. “Why would I? What purpose would it serve. As soon as you go back to California you could check it out.”
“I don’t know.”
“Face it, Becca. Someone is covering up. Probably the same person who drugged Sentimental Lady.”
“It just doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone working with me to make Sentimental Lady a winner want to throw the race?”
Brig got up and began pacing on the weathered floorboards of the porch. He ran his fingers thoughtfully through his hair. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Unless someone had it in for you. Did anyone have an ax to grind with you? It could be something that you might think insignificant like . . . an argument over a raise . . . or the firing of a friend.”
Becca rested her forehead on her palm and forced her weary mind to go backward in time, past the ugly race. It was futile. She shook her head slowly.
Brig was desperate. He came back to her and forced her eyes to meet the power of his gaze. “You’ve got to think, Rebecca. Someone deliberately tried to keep us apart, probably for the single reason of keeping the truth of the race secret. As long as we suspected each other, we wouldn’t think past our suspicions. We wouldn’t be able to find the real culprit, even if he left a trail of clues a mile long.”
“But the racing commission . . . certainly its investigation would have discovered the truth.”
“Not necessarily—not if the culprit were clever. And remember, the commission was more concerned about Sentimental Lady’s recovery than the drugging. By the time all of the havoc had quieted, the culprit could have covered his tracks.”
She wanted to believe him but couldn’t think past the six lonely years she had spent in the shadow of that last damning race without Brig’s strength or support. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “It all seems so farfetched.”
“No more so than your half-baked accusations that I had something to do with it!”
“But why? Why would anyone want to disqualify the Lady?”
Brig closed his eyes for a moment and tried to clear his head. Nothing was making any sense. “I don’t know.” His eyes snapped open. “But you must. Think, Rebecca, think!”
“I have, Brig. For the past six years I’ve hardly thought of anything else. And the only logical answer to the question of who injured Sentimental Lady was you.”
“But you don’t believe that anymore, do you?”
Her smile was thin. “I don’t know what to believe. But if it’s any consolation, I never wanted to think that you had anything to do with it.”
“But you still have doubts.”
She looked bravely into his eyes. “No.”
For the first time that morning, the hint of a smile lightened his features. He took her into his arms, and held her body close to his. The power of his embrace supported her. “Then you’ll stay with me?”
“Not yet,” she said, dreading the sound of her own voice.
The arms around her relaxed and Brig stepped away from her. “Sometimes I don’t think I know what you want, lady, but I assume this has something to do with your filly. You still intend to race her, don’t you, despite what happened to Sentimental Lady.”
“I have to.” Couldn’t Brig understand? Gypsy Wind had more than mere potential for winning races—she was a champion. Becca would risk her reputation on it.
“No one’s holding a gun to your head.”
Becca put her hands on her hips and tried a different approach. “Why don’t you come to the farm and see first hand what it is that makes Gypsy so special? Come and watch her work out. See for yourself her power, the grace of her movements, the exhilaration in her eyes when she’s given her head. Don’t judge her before you’ve seen her.”
