Christmas Countdown. Jan Hambright
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it in the protective layer. “We have another problem.” He turned his attention on Emma.
Her eyes narrowed.
“I think there’s someone in the barn. I want you to put this on the bench and come with me.”
She didn’t protest, didn’t question—a good sign, in his opinion. She’d be safer if she followed his lead and let him do the job he’d been hired to do.
Taking the gloved syringe from him, she went into the tack room, put it on the counter and returned to his side as he flipped up the tail of his shirt and unholstered his weapon.
“Stay close.”
She nodded and snagged the pitchfork from its spot next to Navigator’s stall.
The air thickened around them as Mac focused on the rear exit of the stable. One by one he kicked open the stall gates with his booted foot, clearing the cubicles on both sides of the row as they made their way down the wide aisle.
Staying two steps behind him, Emma wielded her pitchfork like some sort of medieval she-warrior.
He stopped at the last stall door.
The hair on his neck bristled.
Reaching out he shoved it open with his hand and aimed inside, spotting over the barrel of his.44 Magnum.
Empty, save a tabby cat with a mouse in its jaws, who freaked and shot past them, vanishing into the barn somewhere.
“It’s clear,” he said as he scanned the loft for anything that moved. Nothing. He tried to relax and lowered his weapon. But the sensation of being watched persisted, locking onto his senses with a tight grip that wouldn’t release.
Relief softened Emma’s features, convincing him to let it go for the night. The search hadn’t turned up anyone.
“I’ll walk you to the house.”
She smiled up at him and turned for the exit. “Thanks. I’ll show you the bunkhouse real quick. I stocked the refrigerator, and I’ll spot you a couple hours a day so you can clean up.”
“SWITCH TO CAMERA ONE, Agent, and capture a clear shot of his face.”
“You’ve got it.” The man flipped a toggle switch on the control panel inside the surveillance van. An image appeared for an instant on the second monitor, then faded to a black screen peppered with white specks. “We’ve lost camera one again. We’ll have to get inside the barn to fix it.”
NSA Agent Renn Donahue stared at the blank monitor. “Go back to camera two.”
The opposite screen flicked on, displaying a clear image.
Agent Donahue studied the man next to Emma Clareborn as the video streamed in live from the single working surveillance camera hidden high in the stable’s hayloft. There was a new player on the scene, but how did he fit into everything?
“Log his image. I want to know who he is and what he’s doing at Firehill Farm. He’s packing a concealed weapon. Consider him armed and dangerous.”
Mac dumped the last wheelbarrow of manure he’d mucked out of Navigator’s stall and pulled off his leather work gloves.
A crisp December dawn was breaking and he watched the first rays of sunlight push through the waves of mist blanketing the rolling Kentucky hills encircling Firehill Farm.
He’d forgotten how much he appreciated this time of morning. The stillness that gripped the air, the cold, quiet peace before another day roared to life and sucked him into its grind.
“Good morning.”
The sound of Emma’s voice just over his right shoulder jolted anticipation into his blood. He turned around, letting his gaze slide over her curvy body. His impression of her from last night solidified.
She was beautiful, but his eyes had lingered an instant too long, he realized when their gazes locked and he saw color flood her cheeks.
“I see you’ve done my morning chores.” She stepped past him and walked into the barn. “Thank you.”
He followed, not totally unaffected by the sway of her hips, or the thick brunette braid brushing the low-rise waistband of her Levi’s. Yeah, he liked mornings and this was by far the best one he’d spent in a while.
“My gallop boy will be here at seven to work Navigator.” She emerged from the tack room with a halter, lead rope and a brush. “He needs to be warmed up. We’re going for a timed gallop this morning.”
Ahead of her he reached out, unlatched the stall door and pulled it open. She stepped past him into the cubicle, dropped the horse brush and put the halter on Navigator.
A nicker rumbled deep in the big bay’s throat. He nudged Emma affectionately as she bent over and picked up the brush.
Mac watched her take quick, even strokes across the colt’s back and down his withers.
“What’s his Beyer Speed Figure?”
She gave him a glance over her left shoulder and continued to groom the horse. “You do know something about racing.”
“Yeah.” A measure of hesitation pulled back any need he felt to enlighten her about his past in the world of Thoroughbred horse racing, or his knowledge of the Beyer system of combining a horse’s race time and the inherent speed of the track into a single performance number.
“It’s 126.”
A low whistle hissed between his lips. He eyed the bay, pausing on his definable attributes: a well-chiseled head, long neck, deep chest, long legs and powerful hindquarters.
“That’s not too shabby. Where’d he last run?”
“Churchill Downs, the Clark Handicap. He won his one and one-eighth mile race by five lengths.”
A charge buzzed through him, its pulse almost pushing him over the edge into excitement, but he cut the current off with memories of the disappointment that came after the high. A nose-first dive into reality. One he’d seen many men take. The one that ultimately had claimed his horse-trainer father.
“He’s got good confirmation and a great Beyer. He has a shot.” Mac stepped through the stall gate and leaned against the outside wall, his back to her and the horse.
“His great-grandfather won the Derby in 1987.”
Mac ran the date in his head, trying to reconcile the edge of anger creeping through his body like poison. He turned back around, clutching the iron bars that surrounded the stall. “Alysheba?”
“Yeah. He sired Smooth Sailing, who sired Nautical Mile, who sired Navigator’s Whim.”
The world was shrinking and he found himself smack in the middle of it. Smooth Sailing was the horse Thadeous Clareborn had stolen from his father in a claiming race. Now he was the grandfather of a Derby prospect? If the Beyer Speed Figure was any indicator, Navigator’s Whim stood a better-than-average chance of winning the Kentucky Derby, and reaching for the Triple Crown.
EMMA PUT HER FOOT INTO the stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn and climbed aboard her pony horse, Oliver. She reached down for the lead rope attached to the colt and Mac put it in her hand. He stepped back, catching her eye from under the brim of a well-worn hat he’d found in the tack room.
His gaze was electric, its intensity arcing through her body with a conductivity that left her breathless.
“It’s only forty-four degrees this morning, Emma. Warm him up good.”
She nodded. “I’ll jog him out a half-mile and back, then meet you at the gate.” Reining for the opening onto the racetrack, she hoped like crazy he hadn’t seen the