Who's Cheatin' Who?. Maggie Price

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СКАЧАТЬ about it this way. Your family still owns forty-nine percent of this guy. Any races you ride him in and win money, they get a portion of the purse. Seems to me that’s an important way for you to help your family.”

      Marcus met her gaze over the horse’s broad back. He could see she was wavering, but still wasn’t convinced. “You said it yourself, Something To Talk About will do better if he’s around people he knows. You sign on at Lucas, he’ll have me and you. Otherwise, you’ll still be here, and he’ll be there. That happens, there’ll be some other jockey riding him. I doubt that’s going to sit well with you.”

      Watching Melanie, Marcus saw clearly how loyalty to her family tugged at her. Family loyalty was something he knew little about. Instead, he knew how it felt to be cheated out of something because of blood kin. He was illegitimate, and his own father had refused to acknowledge he even existed. The almost-obsessive love his mother felt for her married lover had stolen any hope she might create a happy, fulfilling life with another man.

      “Don’t talk yourself out of this opportunity, Melanie. Your grandfather, your parents, your brothers—none of them would thank you for turning it down on their account.”

      She remained silent while skimming her hand along the colt’s jaw. After a moment she said, “I need time to think this over.”

      “Understandable. Just to let you know, housing is a part of the package.”

      “Housing?”

      “It’s an hour’s drive from here to Lucas. I doubt you’d want to commute every day.” He lifted a shoulder. “For now, you’ll have a staff apartment. There’s a lot of remodeling going on in the main house, but once it’s done you may have the option to move in there if you want. Demetri is engaged to your cousin, after all.”

      “I can’t even begin to make a decision until I take a look at your facility.”

      “You can drive over with me now. I’ll bring you back tonight.”

      She shook her head. “No, I’ll come on my own in the morning.”

      “All right. This offer is a win-win situation for everyone.” And, because he couldn’t help himself, he placed his hand over hers. In an instant, electricity coursed from her fingers straight to his gut. Her hand twitched, as if she felt it, but she didn’t jerk away.

      She simply kept her eyes locked with his. “I need to think about a lot of things.” She slid her hand from beneath his. “I’ll go get Joe Newcomb. He’ll load Something To Talk About in your trailer.”

      “All right.”

      Marcus blew out a breath as she strode off—slim legs in tight jeans and scuffed boots. He knew full well he was playing with fire. Probably destined to get singed in the process. But he didn’t care.

      All he cared about was having her near.

      Chapter Three

      After dinner, Melanie sought out her brother Brent. As was his habit most nights, he had settled at the massive desk in the second-floor study. There, he spent hours compiling information and reviewing the spreadsheets he’d created while a fire blazed in the gray stone fireplace.

      As Quest’s head breeder, it had been Brent who’d first learned that the routine recheck of Leopold’s Legacy’s DNA revealed that the Derby and Preakness winner had not been sired by Apollo’s Ice, the stallion of record. Since then, Brent had spent uncountable hours trying to find out how such a disastrous mistake could have been made. And at the same time attempting to unearth the name of the horse that had actually impregnated Leopold’s Legacy’s dam, Courtin’ Cristy.

      Making Brent’s job tougher was the need to balance work with raising twin eight-year-old daughters. Cancer had killed their mother three years ago, and Melanie still questioned whether her brother would recover from the loss of the wife he considered his soul mate.

      “Do you think we’ll ever find out the truth about Apollo’s Ice?” Nudging a stack of file folders aside, she slid a hip onto one edge of the paper-strewn desk.

      Brent leaned back in his chair. A good-looking man, he was more rugged than refined and wore his dark hair a little longer than Robbie and Andrew. But he had the same blue eyes. And identical grim expression.

      “Up until two months ago, I would have said yes,” Brent replied. “This wouldn’t have been the first time a mistake had been made at a stud farm. Most of the stallions and mares are trucked there, so the stable workers aren’t familiar enough with the horses to recognize them by sight. There are usually so many mares in heat at the same time that it’s always possible one could wind up being bred to the wrong stallion. Or a mare could get covered by the right stallion, but the paperwork on that covering shows a different stallion’s or mare’s name altogether.”

      Melanie nodded. She knew that at a stud farm, all horses were required to wear head collars with their names on them. Even so, it was up to the workers to check those names against breeding lists. As in any workplace, not all employees were as conscientious as others.

      Brent curled his hands into fists. “My thinking changed two months ago when Dubai happened.”

      His tone had gone as hard as tempered steel. Harrison Rochester, an English baron, had also owned a horse believed to have been sired by Apollo’s Ice. Rochester’s horse had died suddenly at his stable facility in Dubai. Tests conducted on the horse’s blood revealed that it had been poisoned. Equally shocking was the revelation that its sire was not Apollo’s Ice, but the same mystery stallion that had fathered Leopold’s Legacy.

      “Anything new on the Thoroughbred Registry’s computer tech who suddenly quit?” she asked, then furrowed her brow. “I don’t remember his name.”

      “Ross Ingliss, and I still haven’t been able to track him down. All I know for sure is he entered the corrupted data about Leopold’s Legacy’s DNA into the registry’s computer system. And that his financials show he’s got a lot more money than his salary brought in.”

      Too antsy to sit still, Melanie pushed off the edge of the desk and wandered to one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

      The scent of the fire mixed with the aged sweet aroma of leather-bound books sent her back in time. As a little girl, she had loved dashing into this room to sit on her grandfather’s lap at the big desk. He would spend hours regaling her with stories about horses and the daring men who rode them. Listening to him, Melanie had fallen in love with the sport of racing and set her heart on becoming a jockey. She had never been prouder than the day she first wore Quest’s colors.

      Now, it seemed that everything around her was slipping away. Only to herself would she admit that her heart ached with the possibility that she might never again ride for Quest Stables.

      She took in Brent’s bent head and the tight line of his shoulders while a sick dread rose inside her. If he couldn’t find Leopold’s Legacy’s true sire, or if he did and that sire was not a registered Thoroughbred, the winner of two Triple Crown races would no longer be considered a Thoroughbred. Her parents would then be forced to forfeit the millions the stallion had won racing. And they would have no way to recoup that loss because his stud value would be zero.

      Marcus was right, she thought. Her staying at Quest would be the equivalent of doing nothing to try to plug a ship that had sprung a huge leak. If she went to work СКАЧАТЬ