CHAPTER 25
BLAKE CARTER WATCHED TRACY and Nicholas as they rode up the hill toward him. Tracy’s hair had grown out a little and was now almost at her shoulders. It sailed behind her like the tail of a kite as she galloped into the breeze, racing against her boy, her slender figure perfectly meshed with the horse’s rhythm and movements as if they were one creature, not two. Tracy was a natural horsewoman. You couldn’t teach that kind of skill, just as you couldn’t fake the natural beauty that shone out of her like light from the sun.
Blake thought, I’ve loved her for so long, I hardly even notice it anymore.
Then he thought, I don’t want her to go.
Out of nowhere Tracy had announced yesterday that she was flying to Europe tomorrow for a week. Supposedly she was attending some fancy cooking course in Italy. But Blake Carter wasn’t stupid. He could smell something fishy, and it wasn’t bouillabaisse.
Nick wasn’t happy about it either.
“I win!” he panted, pulling his pony up short beneath the oak tree where Blake was waiting for them and grinning at his mother. “That means I get to give you a forfeit. And I say you can’t go to Italy.”
“Sorry.” Tracy laughed. She was panting too. The fast ride in the June sun had exhausted both of them “Doesn’t work like that. Besides, it’s only for a week.”
Tracy smiled at Blake, but he looked back at her sternly.
Nick said, “They have cooking courses in Denver. Why can’t you take one of those?”
“Exactly,” Blake Carter muttered darkly.
“I could,” said Tracy. “But Denver’s hardly the culinary capital of the world. Besides, I want to go to Italy. All this fuss over a little vacation! You two are quite capable of taking care of yourselves for a week.”
Nick rode off toward the lower fields, where Blake had set up some jumps for him to practice on. Left alone with Blake, Tracy shifted uncomfortably beneath his disapproving gaze.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I’m not a fool. I don’t know what you’re playing at, Tracy, but I know this trip is dangerous.”
Tracy opened her mouth to speak but Blake waved her down angrily. “Don’t you dare repeat that cooking school nonsense to me one more time. Don’t you dare!”
Tracy looked at him openmouthed. She didn’t think she’d ever heard Blake raise his voice before, and certainly not to her. Ridiculously, she felt her eyes well up with tears.
“You’ve lied to me for a long time,” Blake went on. “About who you are. About your past. And I let it go because the bottom line is, I don’t care who you are, Tracy. I don’t. I only care that you are. I love you and I love Nick. And I don’t want you to go.”
Tracy leaned out of her saddle and touched his arm. It was as solid and unyielding as the branch of a tree. Like its owner, thought Tracy. I’ve spent my life bending and twisting and compromising. But Blake lives in a world of black and white, right and wrong. Nothing moves for him.
“I have to go,” she said quietly. “Someone once saved my life. Someone I loved dearly. Now I may have a chance to save theirs. I would tell you more if I could, but I can’t.”
“That Canadian Rizzo’s involved in this, isn’t he?” Blake spat out Jean’s name like a mouthful of rotten fruit.
“No. Jean knows nothing about it,” said Tracy, semitruthfully.
“What if something happens to you?” Now it was Blake who was holding back tears. “Is this person you’re flying across the world for more important to you than Nicholas?”
“Of course not. No one’s more important than Nick.”
“Then don’t go. Because if you die, Tracy, that boy has no one.”
“Nonsense. He has you,” Tracy said fiercely, turning her mare around to head back down to the ranch. “And I’m not going to die, Blake. I’ll be back in a week, just like I told you. If you stop being so horrible to me, I may even bring you back a piece of pie. Just as soon as I’ve learned how to make one.”
That was Blake’s cue to smile, to break the tension between them, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead he watched, stony-faced, as Tracy rode back down the hill and out of sight.
DANIEL COOPER PRESSED HIS hands to his temples.
He had a terrible headache.
Jeff Stevens’s screams were starting to get to him.