Born Of The Bluegrass. Darlene Scalera
out from the overhang into the sun, the light catching at Cicely’s gold and gems. Dani threw the invitation on the pile of manure and angled her shovel.
She was stopped by a frantic yell. Turning toward the cry, she saw a child come from around the corner of the opposite stables and shoot across the dirt circle between the two barns. An older woman, still yelling, followed in pursuit but she was no match for the child’s swift feet. Laughing, the child zigzagged around an overturned bucket, under a sawhorse and started up the row of stalls.
Dani waited until he was almost past her, then ducking beneath the rail, caught the child by the arm.
“Whoa there,” she said in the same voice she used to calm the horses. Still the boy squirmed to get away. She wrapped both her arms around him and lifted him up, bracing his wiggling body against her chest. He locked his legs around her and arched back so naturally she didn’t have time to stop him. He was hanging upside down and laughing once more, so free and full of glee, she found herself chuckling even as she tightened her arms and pulled him upward. They met face to laughing face. She saw the child’s silver eyes. It could have been her own soul staring back at her.
Chapter Two
“Good God, boy, you’ll give your grandmother and I both a heart attack one of theses days.”
Dani looked up to the voice, saw the same silver circles.
“Sorry.” The blood was beginning to come back into Reid’s face. “He’s four. And hell on wheels. I swear I’m going to have to attach a shank line to his shorts.”
“Four,” Dani repeated in a quiet voice. Her gaze went to the boy.
The child nodded and held up four fingers.
She smiled. The ache multiplied, moved across her skin.
“I’ve trained thousand-pound animals.” Reid shook his head. “But forty pounds of four-year-old…” He looked at the boy, his eyes soft as a night she remembered.
“They’re a special breed.” She almost touched the child’s hair, the same color as hers when she’d been a child.
Reid reached for the boy. “I’m afraid being raised by an overindulgent uncle and a doting grandmother doesn’t help the situation.”
Uncle? She didn’t mean to tighten her grip on the boy. “He’s not your son?”
The surprise in her voice caused Reid to look at her. She straightened her arms to give him the boy, still not sure she could let go.
“He’s my brother’s boy.”
No! She almost denied it aloud. Reid still studied her. She steeled her expression while emotions sliced through her: confusion, guilt, yearning, hope. She let go of the child.
Reid settled the boy on one hip. His gaze stayed on her. She faced him, her features purposely bland, her insides twisting. She’d been so sure.
“My brother died several years ago. There was an accident.”
She knew. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m the boy’s legal guardian.”
It made sense, she told herself. Perfect sense. Until she looked at the boy’s profile.
“He must give you and your wife a run for your money.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She had to know.
“No wife.” Reid looked at the boy. “Just you and me. Right, bub?”
“Right, bub,” the boy repeated.
Dani watched the man and child. It was like a dream.
“If you can teach the Thoroughbreds to run like that, you’ll make a fortune in this business one day.” Reid’s tone became stern. “Until then, Trey Adam Hamilton III, the barns aren’t your personal playground.”
She heard the name. Reid’s brother’s name.
“Understand?”
The boy nodded.
“Okay then.” Reid lifted the boy, swung him up on his shoulders.
The child wrapped his arms beneath Reid’s chin, crouched low over the man’s crown. “Rider up.”
Reid smiled as he caught the boy’s hands in his own. “It’s in the blood, I’m afraid.” The boy bucked up and down on his shoulders.
Dani stared at the child, wondering whose blood ran through those tender veins.
“An obvious champion,” she said. She didn’t realize she was hanging on to the hem of the boy’s shorts until she gave it an affectionate tug. She looked down and saw the strawberry-colored mark on the child’s thigh. Her fingers gripped the material. The first time she’d seen that thick V-shape, she’d thought it had looked like a bird in flight. She had to let go.
“Are you fellas ready?” Cicely called. Dani forced her fingers to drop, her gaze to shift from the boy to where Cicely stood, fanning Georgia Hamilton. “Your mother, Reid, needs a beverage,” Cicely said.
“Just gathering my guy here,” Reid told her.
The child rested his chin on the Reid’s crown, looked down at Dani. “Celery,” he pronounced.
“Cicely,” Reid corrected, trying not to smile. He lost. Still smiling, he looked at Dani. “Thank you.” Moving one hand up to support the boy, he extended his other hand to Dani in gratitude. Her hand touched his, withdrew before his fingers found hers.
“Trey,” Reid instructed, his silver eyes still on Dani. “Thank the nice lady for reining you in.”
Twin silver eyes looked down into hers. “Thanks, nice lady.”
She touched his bare sweet knee. “Any time.”
The boy looked down at her and smiled. How often had she imagined what he looked like, how his laughter sounded, what he would feel like in her arms? Her hand stayed on the child.
“Thank you again,” Reid said. “Say goodbye, Trey.”
“Bye,” the child told her.
“Goodbye.” Dani let go, clasping her hands behind her back to hide their tremble.
SHE FOUND her father sitting between Willie and Lou at the bar that served the huge blue margaritas. It was early. The night was maybe only two or three rounds old.
He looked up, meeting her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. His hair had grayed at the temples, and there was bloat beneath the eyes from alcohol and age, but overall, the face so many women had found handsome hadn’t changed. Good genes he would say. Bloodlines.
He tapped his cigarette against the ashtray’s edge. “Sit down. Have a sip with me and the boys here. I’m going to tell them about the day I rubbed a Derby winner.”
“C’mon, Mick, don’t you have any new stories?” Willie raised his beer to his smiling lips. Dani’s reflection in the mirror stayed grave.
Mick pushed his empty glass toward the edge of the bar, signaling the bartender. He was a man who believed a life of excess was the only life worth living. It was often the secret to his appeal. One day it would kill him.
“Some stories deserve repeating. The home stretch at Churchill Downs is one of them, right, love?” Mick met his daughter’s eyes in the mirror.
“I need to talk to you.”
Mick took a sip from the full tumbler the bartender put down in front of him and studied his daughter in the mirror’s reflection. “Let the ol’ man buy you a drink first, Dani girl. You’re getting as high-strung as the ponies.”
She felt the tension in her limbs, the jerk in her pulse. “No.” One syllable but