Chapter 1
Evelyn
“Certainly, I will!” I assure my father, observing how he painstakingly fixes his neatly tucked, crisply buttoned-down shirt over the generous curve of his rounded belly. He rises from the mahogany dining table with a posture from years of training the world’s best jockeys and trading, breeding, and selling horses. My father is an admirable businessman and equestrian.
“Promise me, my darling,” he insists with a tender seriousness that borders on playful, prompting a light, effervescent giggle to escape my lips.
“Absolutely, Daddy. I assure you, I’ll return in good time for the party,” I declare cheerfully. Lightly skipping across the room, speckled with the warm, inviting glow of the afternoon sun, I approach my father. Reaching up, I softly kiss his forehead, my lips briefly brushing the thinning hairs.
“I’ll walk you out,” he says, putting his arm around my shoulder as we walk to our grand foyer, which has marble floors and high ceilings, a large crystal chandelier hanging above.
I grab my riding boots before sitting on the cream loveseat near the front door and putting them on. They are far too clean for riding boots, considering I’m walking in mud, riding, and cleaning stalls. Still, my father makes sure I clean them with the hose on the side of the house before coming in every night.
“When did you grow up?” My father ponders, and I smile at him.
“Oh, Daddy, I’ve been 25 for almost a year now.” I giggle.
“But you’ll always be my baby girl.”
I stand up from my seat and pull my father in for a hug. My head falls to his chest, and he squeezes me tight before letting me go.
I’ve always been a daddy’s girl, with him owning the most extensive breeding and horse-trading ranch in North America. He introduced me to the world of horses and equestrians at a very young age. I fell in love with horses and became an English equestrian rider. By the time I was seven years old, I was receiving gold medals in the young rider’s quadrant; by the time I was ten, I helped my father with assisting a mare through birth, and then at seventeen, I was the youngest rider to win gold at the Rokeby stables tournament.
I was on my way to being the greatest rider in America, but while training, even though my father told me not to, I went out. The Kentucky Derby was only two weeks away, and I needed to improve my times to end up on top of the leaderboards. It had just finished downpouring with rain, but I was determined, young, and far too idiotic. I went out with Silver, my racehorse at the time. We ran the track several times. He did amazing and deserved a short walk through the forest nearby.
It was the day I learned about the ridge that ran along the north side of Rokeby Stables. It’s one of the first things I caution all new riders and boarders about. Silver slipped, and we fell. The cliff caught me along my back, leaving me bleeding near the rapidly flowing riverside, with several ribs and thoracic spine bones broken. Silver lay lifeless beside me while I screamed for help. If my father hadn’t come to check on me, the doctors said I would have bled out beside my horse. They claimed I was lucky not to sever my spine, but at the time, I didn’t feel lucky.
After weeks of laying in a hospital bed and undergoing intensive physiotherapy, I went home with a walker in hand to the ranch and a funeral to attend. Silver’s injuries were too extensive, and my father had the best equestrian veterinarians flown in to save him, but it was too late. I killed my horse that night, and I’ll never forgive myself.
“I’ll see you tonight.” I fake a smile, keeping the happy façade present for my father.
He watched me break down after I returned home from the hospital, a shell of who I was. I didn’t know who I was without racing, but more importantly, who I was without Silver. He has been my racehorse since I was ten. My father and I raised and trained him together. It took months for me to come out of the dark cloud I was in, only for my mother to be diagnosed with cancer.
I wave a quick goodbye and run out of the house and down the cement stairs to our driveway, where my new black jeep awaits me. My father bought me this jeep for my birthday last year. He said I needed a good-quality all-terrain vehicle to drive to and from Rokeby Stables daily, regardless of the weather. I hop in and start her up with a quick and powerful roar before reversing her into a three-point turn so I can drive down our long driveway.
Tall, mature trees of all kinds line the driveway. My father owns several hundred acres of farmland that he converted into a horse ranch. The land is rolling and covered in bright green grass. When the gardener comes to cut the grass every second week, the robust scent is all you can smell for days after. Not that I mind it too much. It reminds me of home and picnics with my mother.
As I approach the gate with my father’s crest, I reach for the card I keep in my center console and scan it so the gates will open for me.
When my father’s services became increasingly well-known in the equestrian community, he set up a fence and gate to ensure nobody would randomly knock on our door without being invited. People are more than welcome to drive by Thomas Farms and admire the gardens and fields of horses, but unless invited, they can’t step foot on the property.
My father is a businessman, and as an entrepreneur, you need to know when to say enough is enough. Before the fence was put in, he had been working twenty-hour days to talk with the multiple clients who would show up unannounced and provide quality training sessions for the jockeys. When he started breeding and trading horses, it opened up more opportunities but also left him with less time.
Now, he delegates his tasks to various stable hands and managers and has a by-appointment-only client basis.
The drive to Rokeby Stables is a half-hour from my father’s ranch, but overall, it’s beautiful and scenic. There are many rolling hills and farmland before it breaks into rock and tall trees. On warm summer days like today, I love to drive with the windows down, the fresh breeze blowing through my tied-back hair, and the sun kissing my skin. I rest my arm on the driver’s side door, letting my hand catch the wind and feel weightless as it blows by.
Taking a deep breath, I allow the peace of the early morning sun to calm me as I pull up to Rokeby. The fresh smell of the forest is replaced by the distant smell of muck and manure from the stables four hundred feet out from the main clubhouse. I park my jeep in the staff-allotted parking space before making my way over to the clubhouse to double-check my clients for today.
The clubhouse is a two-story, white and grey siding mansion turned into meeting rooms, banquet halls, a kitchen, and bathrooms. As you make your way to the front entrance of the building, perfectly manicured gardens surround a flagstone path. Birds fly to and from the bird feeder and houses that hang from the cherry blossom tree branches only twenty feet from the front. A small pond sits close to the tree with various koi and ducks basking in the early morning sun. Rokeby Stables doesn’t get its prestige for nothing. It both looks the part and plays the part, with over a hundred jockeys in the last fifty years of its existence, receiving top three at the Kentucky Derby and other equestrian races.
I open the cottage-chic white door to the main lobby, which smells like a familiar mix of lavender and chamomile, a strategic pairing to relax our riders before qualifiers and other major events.
“Evelyn, my dear!” Nancy greets me from the main desk, her perfectly manicured and polished nails typing away at a speed I can barely perceive.
“Good morning, Nancy! How are you doing today?” I ask, plastering on my biggest smile for her.
Nancy has been working at Rokeby as manager of front staff, the face of Rokeby’s clubhouse, for over thirty years. She would always keep me company when I finished my lessons but had to wait for my father to finish up with his clients. She’s a short woman—standing at 5’0, much smaller than my 5’5 frame—and has ample curves from her breasts to her hips. Her hair is cut short into the cutest dark grey pixie cut, and she wears cat-eye glasses.
“Good as always, sugar. Are you here for today’s client list?” Nancy asks, already gathering it even though I haven’t responded yet. I suppose that is the perk of having a routine. Nancy already knows what I need before I can get my day started.
When she hands it to me, I give her a small curtsy before exiting, “Thank you, Nancy! I’ll see you this evening.”
She waves me off before returning to work, and I am ready to head for the stables.
Jackson Mayfair and Phoenix 8 AM
Lydia Jones and Harriet 11 AM
Silvia Lovegood and Terrance 1 PM
Max Jefferson and Rain 3 PM
Noting the names of my clients today, I can’t help the giddy skip in my step as I notice Lydia is on my list. She is a young girl, seven years old, and after showing her passion for equestrian, her parents adopted their first horse, which they bought from my father. A small filly that has grown slightly too tall for Lydia to get up on her own, but she is fearless. I always have fun with Lydia. During her training sessions, including mini horse games we play together, I devise a plan for today’s game – ‘whose horse can find the carrot first.’
As I reach the stables to prepare Phoenix for Jackson’s arrival, I pull out my phone to call Delilah. She’s my best friend. We have been friends since the week she strolled into our small town. She’s very secretive and keeps to herself, but she has a heart of gold, and although I am the extrovert out of the two of us, she is still so much fun to hang out with.
I haven’t gotten her to answer my calls or call me back in just over three weeks after some nearby hunters scared our horses off. I found her horse not too far away but couldn’t see her. If it weren’t for the text I had received from her saying she was just a little spooked and went home early, I would have been more worried that night.
I haven’t made time to see her at the café or her apartment, with my new promotion taking up most of my days, my father’s dinner parties, and my boyfriend. I feel awful. I should have gone to check on her. But we have texted back and forth the last couple of weeks, primarily one-word answers from her, insisting she is just as busy.
The line rings a few times before Delilah’s sweet, northern posh accent comes through the phone, ‘Hello, you have reached Delilah Montgomery’s voicemail. Unfortunately, I am either away or on the other line, but if you leave me a brief message, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.’
Beeeeeep.
“Hey Del, it’s me, darling. I haven’t heard from you since the other day. I am just checking in on you to make sure you’re okay. I had no idea hunters would be out. I didn’t think hunting season started for another week or so. Call me back.” I hang up the phone, the pit of my stomach turning with worry as I walk to Phoenix, a male chestnut thoroughbred.
“Ready to run today?” I call for him cheerily, to which I receive a less than enthusiastic chuff as his right front hoof smacks the ground. Phoenix has always been a rather ardent and stubborn horse, and that’s putting it lightly. But his rider is even more stubborn than he is. With looks that have all the ladies swooning over him and skills taught to him by my father and then by me, he turns heads at the track for both racing enthusiasts and single ladies looking to mingle alike.
If only he weren’t such an ass.
