“Nothing. And don’t give me that look. Last time I checked, that stuff wasn’t a controlled substance.” She looked back down at the magazine, turning a page sharply. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“Why are you taking it so much?”
“I get sore after training sometimes. It’s no big deal.”
“I think you’re lying to me.”
A.J. threw the magazine aside. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
There was a long silence between them.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Whatever you say.”
He turned and left. As A.J. heard him go downstairs, she lost her composure and buried her head in her hands.
I can do this, she told herself as guilt and frustration swelled. I can do this. I can do this.
They were so close to the Qualifier. Less than forty-eight hours. And then she could say she took the stallion no one else could control and got him to that event. She told herself that feat, in and of itself, was an accomplishment she could be proud of. Something she could call her own. And that the feeling of achievement she would have would make all the stress worth it.
Really, it would.
By the time Devlin came back upstairs, she’d turned off the light and was lying on her side, looking out at the moon-drenched meadow behind the farmhouse. She felt the bed dip as he slid between the sheets and was relieved when he reached for her. Her hands linked with his.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you, too,” she replied, wishing the Qualifier was already past them.
16
BOREALIS HUNT AND POLO CLUB, read the discreet sign. The letters were black on a black-green background, barely readable. Underneath, the caption MEMBERS ONLY was in white, very readable. The entrance to the club matched the sign. A pair of stone pillars and a few precisely clipped bushes were understated. The guardhouse was not.
“Back in the land a’ the frozen chosen,” Chester said, making reference to the patrician membership.
As the trailer stopped in front of the security detail, a dour-looking man dressed in a green-on-black uniform stepped into the road. Leaning out of the cab, Devlin flashed the proper credentials and they were meticulously reviewed. When the guard passed them back, he caught sight of A.J. His face burst into a happy smile.
“Well, hello!”
“Good morning,” she said. “How’re you doing?”
“Just fine, just fine. Go on through, and good luck,” he told them with a wave.
“Amazing what a pretty girl can getcha,” Chester said. “Been passin’ through this gate every year feelin’ like a criminal. Didn’t think that man had the front teeth to smile with.”
“Membership has its privileges,” Devlin said under his breath.
Chester turned and looked at A.J. “Ya belong here?”
“I do, but I only ride here now and then.”
“It’s an impressive place.”
“Well, only because of the sticky buns. The food is overcooked in the English style, but boy, they can bake well.”
“Must move a lot a’ white bread at lunch.”
A.J. forced a laugh and glanced under her lashes at Devlin. His profile was etched in stone, the handsome features drawn tight. Her chest ached as she realized that, even though they were sitting side by side, she missed him as if he’d been gone for days. Things hadn’t been right since he’d found that empty pill bottle. She had yet to find a way to talk to him about the distance between them and tell him how scared she was by his withdrawal.
She looked away from him, back out the window. The winding drive they were on was a half-mile ascent marked by an alley of oak trees. It was a portentous approach, and when the clubhouse was revealed at the top, the building did not disappoint. An imposing structure, it had a formality and majesty of design that spoke volumes about its early-American roots and wealth of its patrons. Built in the late eighteenth century, the historic landmark had a prominent entrance marked with Corinthian columns and a portico. The center portion rose up a towering three stories and flanking wings emerged from this anchor in two L-shaped expanses. There were long paned windows on every side, portals that were marked by black shutters that stood out against white clapboard siding. All around the building, there were vast, rolling lawns.
Behind the clubhouse were the stables, training rings and paddocks as well as the polo field, which was used every year for the Qualifier. This field was a vast, flat plane of perfectly shorn grass that now had jumps cutting into its smooth surface. To one side, a set of green and black bleachers rose. These would soon seat members, who were used to the hard wood and liked it, and spectators, who weren’t and didn’t.
The inhospitable bleachers were just one way the club let it be known that the comfort of four-legged animals was more important than that of bipeds, regardless of what the evolutionary scale hierarchy might suggest. Whereas the mares and stallions had heated stalls and warm running water for their baths in the stables, outside of the clubhouse, people were forced to use drafty bathrooms with no mirrors, and faucets that might as well have been spitting ice cubes.
This disparity between the creature comforts of creatures and those of humans was part of the tradition of the place and the Qualifier. The Borealis had been playing host to the spectacle since the very first one had been held in the late 1800s but it was an odd choice for the notoriously closed club to sponsor. The open roster of the competition, which provided any professional rider could compete assuming they had the temerity to take on its infamous courses, was peculiarly egalitarian considering that becoming a member of Borealis was close to impossible.
Another disconnect between the club’s closed-door policy and the Qualifier was the attention the event drew and the resulting invasion of nonmembers. For one day every year, intruders rushed over hallowed Borealis land. This caused no small amount of consternation among the membership, most of whom would have been content to have the competition staged for their edification and no one else’s. They exercised their malcontent by ensuring that the foreigners were treated as inhospitably as possible. No matter how wealthy or important an outsider was, the no-guest policy barred him or her from the clubhouse. This meant there were a lot of well-dressed people using the bathrooms down at the stables, another source of grumbling among people whose butts were already sore, courtesy of the bleachers. These folks had a feeling, unconfirmed but strident, that the bathrooms were better where they weren’t allowed. They were right, of course, and nothing was more amusing to members than some woman in a Chanel suit tottering across the grass to a loo she wouldn’t have let her gardener use as a toolshed.