Christmas Countdown. Jan Hambright

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СКАЧАТЬ trouble last night, too. Maybe the incidents are related.”

      “I’ll get this to the lab and speak with Chester about it. There’s been some trouble at other farms in the area over the last couple of weeks. The horsemen are concerned.”

      Caution pulled Mac’s nerves tight. “Any other horses targeted with lasers on the practice track?”

      “Not specifically. But I can tell you two of the reported incidents have been at farms where Victor Dago stabled horses. I’m glad to hear you’ve been hired as a bodyguard by Miss Clareborn to look after her horse. Keep your eyes open and contact me immediately if anything else happens.”

      Mac took the business card Sheriff Wilkes dug out of his shirt pocket. “I will, and we’d like to know the results of the toxicology on the syringe’s contents as soon as possible.”

      “I’ll put a rush on it.” The sheriff turned to one of his deputies.

      Mac scanned the paddock and focused in on Emma, leaning against the fence watching Navigator cool down on the hot-walker. He walked over and took a spot next to her.

      “Sheriff Wilkes is going to find out what’s in the syringe.”

      “Who would want to hurt him?”

      Mac followed her gaze to the big bay colt moving around the circumference of the electric walker’s path. “I’d like to try and find out.” He watched the horse move, studying him for problems stemming from his contact with the rail.

      “He looks good.”

      “Yeah, not a scratch, but why can’t they just leave us alone? Making it in this business is hard enough without someone trying to sabotage you.”

      He nudged her with his elbow. “I’m not going to let anything happen to him, Emma.”

      Turning, she gazed up at him, her expression contemplative at best, skeptical at worse. “We’re so close to making the cut for the Derby prequalifiers. I need to win the Holiday Classic before I can nominate him in January so we get our shot at the Triple Crown. I need this, Mac. Firehill needs this.”

      “How bad is it?”

      She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. “Bad enough that I had to ignore the rumors circulating about Victor Dago and his crew and lease my stud barn to the man so I’d have the entry fee to get into the Clark Handicap.”

      “Has he done anything to you?” Tension coiled inside his body, ready to spring on Dago if he’d hurt her in any way.

      “Other than make a few inappropriate comments and giving me the creeps, not a thing. The sheikh sends a check religiously the first of every month. They respect my property and privacy. It’s nothing I can put my finger on and I should be satisfied when I put their money in the bank—”

      “But something’s off?” he said.

      “Exactly.”

      The sunlight had incinerated the fog and it blazed down a streak of copper in a loose strand of her dark hair.

      He resisted the urge to stroke it back into place behind her ear. “What kind of rumors are following Dago?”

      Her gaze dropped to the ground and she turned back to the fence rail. “Prowlers. Lots of movement after dark. At the Loomis farm, my friend Janet came out of the house to call in her dog and saw a man dressed in black and wearing a ski mask come out of their stable and disappear into the woods. The next morning she found her dog tied to a fence with duct tape around his muzzle to keep him from barking.”

      Caution worked through him. “Do they have a Derby prospect?”

      “No. They’re an anomaly in the Bluegrass—they raise quarter horses, for crying out loud. After that incident they decided to give Dago notice, and he came to me. I needed the money desperately, so I let him in.”

      He reached out and brushed his hand across her back, a gesture meant to reassure her, but it jolted him hard, and he broke contact. “I’ll keep my guard up. No one is going to hurt you or your horse.”

      “Thanks.” She grinned and pulled the lead rope off the fence post next to her then went to take Navigator off the hot-walker.

      Mac shoved his hand into his jacket pocket, coming in contact with the stopwatch. He pulled it out and glanced down at the time. His breath hung up in his lungs as he raised the watch out in front of him, like distance from his stare could somehow alter the race time, but it didn’t work.

      It read 1:56. Three-plus seconds faster than Secretariat’s record Derby-winning time in 1973.

      Navigator’s Whim could win the Kentucky Derby with a time like that.

      All he had to do was keep the colt and his determined owner safe long enough for that to happen.

Chapter Three

      Mac jolted upright on the cot, unsure what had awakened him. He glanced at the illuminated hands on his watch: 4:35 a.m. Turning his focus to his surroundings, he searched for visual threats inside the barn and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The only noise he heard was the sluice of Navigator moving through the fresh straw bedding in his stall.

      Heard. The hearing in his left eardrum had come back one decibel at a time after the shooting, but the healing seemed to have reached a plateau now. It would never be the same, at least that’s what the audiologist believed, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet.

      He laid back and thrust his hands behind his head, staring up at the cavernous ceiling overhead ribbed with giant timbers.

      Maybe he could attribute waking up to the sensation of being watched that seemed to follow him every time he entered the damn stable. Whatever it was, he’d made peace with it after clearing every stall twice last night, and poking around in the haylofts for half an hour only to come up empty.

      An electric purr coming from the entrance of the barn, reignited the caution in his blood.

      He sat up again.

      Silhouetted in the doorway by the first hint of dawn was a man in an electric wheelchair. Thadeous Clareborn.

      Mac cleared his throat as the chair advanced. He’d changed his last name, but would the old man recognize his face? He smoothed his hand over his hair, snatched the hat from next to the cot and slapped it on his head. Throwing back the sleeping bag, he stood up and prepared to go toe-to-toe with the man who’d, in his father’s opinion, destroyed everything Paul Calliway had going for him.

      Thadeous stopped the motorized chair. “What’s your … name, son?” The question was slurred, each word formed with extreme exertion. A by-product of his stroke.

      “Mac. Mac Titus.”

      The old man grunted and rocked the lever forward, rolling up next to the stall gate. “Emma hire … you?”

      “Yes.”

      He raised his hand and rapped his knuckles on СКАЧАТЬ