Jenna Mills - Darci's Pride

Dear Reader,

On May 6, 2006, I watched a young Thoroughbred race into history. Two weeks later, I sat horrified as that same horse shattered his leg.

I don’t know what it was about that valiant horse, but his fight to survive touched me deeply. For months I checked his progress, cheering at every improvement—and feeling my heart break when ultimately he lost his battle.

The horse was Barbaro, and his story was the stuff true page-turners are made of.

During that time, I was contacted about THOROUGHBRED LEGACY, and I immediately knew fate had handed me the opportunity to pay tribute to Barbaro, and the incredible people who loved him.

So sit back and let me take you to Australia, where a man named Tyler will do anything to protect a legacy forged in sweat and tears and dreams. Faced with tragedy, he discovers that second chances sometimes come from the most unexpected places….

Jenna Mills

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Bestselling author Jenna Mills has been creating stories for as long as she’s been able to string words together. A daughter of the South, she grew up immersed in legend and lore, the abiding love of family and, of course, romance. Today, these are the elements that shape her stories.

A member of Romance Writers of America, Dallas Area Romance Authors and North Louisiana Storytellers, Jenna has earned critical acclaim for her stories of deep emotion, steamy romance and page-turning suspense, including the 2007 Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence. Darci’s Pride is Jenna’s seventeenth book for Harlequin/Silhouette.

When not writing, Jenna spends her time with her husband and young daughter in a house full of cats, dogs, plants and books! You can visit Jenna at her Web site, www.jennamills.com.

There are many kinds of love: that between man and woman, parent and child, man and the land, man and animal. Darci’s Pride, a story that explores each of these facets, is dedicated to Team Barbaro, in particular the dedicated staff at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center and all the FOBs (Friends of Barbaro) who give so tirelessly of themselves to make sure Barbaro’s legacy lives on.

A special thank-you to Melissa James

for all things Australia, Linda Castillo and Ken Casper

for all things equine, and to Stacy Boyd and

Marsha Zinberg for inviting me into the

exciting world of THOROUGHBRED LEGACY!

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

He stood beneath the gnarled branches of an old gum tree. The late-summer sun baked the normally lush land of Australia’s Upper Hunter Valley, but the heat did not seem to touch him. He stood with uncanny ease despite his size, concealing the intense focus that simmered beneath the surface.

A mere passerby would never know someone wanted him dead.

“Came in the mail, just like the first one.”

With a foot perched on the bottom rail of a freshly painted white fence, Tyler Preston looked from the newsprint his trainer had just handed him to the gorgeous Thoroughbred in the pasture. Lightning Chaser grazed quietly, as he always did, but Tyler knew the horse too well to fall for the illusion. He’d helped deliver the colt one damp spring night three years before. He’d been there when the big mare went into distress. He’d gone down on his knees and helped her through her delivery. He’d been the first to see the foal.

The first one to…know.

Even then, in the first minutes following birth, Lightning Chaser had been tall, with the kind of presence a gangly newborn rarely possessed. There in the brightly lit barn, he’d lifted his head and shown off his blaze, and Tyler had rocked back on his haunches and…known.

This was the horse.

It was a big dream, an even bigger responsibility to heap on one so young, but big dreams and big responsibilities were something Tyler knew well. He’d been given the dream by his father. He’d blown the responsibility all by himself.

It was up to him to restore Lochlain Racing to the respectability he’d trashed through one careless mistake.

And Lightning Chaser was the horse to do it.

The big bay colt stood benignly in the shadow of that lone tree, ears perked, tail swishing rhythmically. In three years they’d come far. As a two-year-old, Lightning had burned up the track, garnering seven wins to only two losses. He’d come on strong at the prestigious Queensland Stakes, pulling away from the pack and engaging the favorite in a thrilling dash for the finish.

More Than All That had crossed first.

Tyler had been disappointed, but had set his sights on the upcoming Outback Classic—until his trainer had walked into his office the following morning. More Than All That had been disqualified. Steroids had been detected in his blood. Lightning Chaser, who’d run a close second, was named the official winner.

The racing community reeled. Allegations of fraud in the sport, quiet since the mysterious death of another race-horse, resurfaced. Everyone had their own opinion about who’d doped Sam Whittleson’s horse—and why.

Tyler’s name had been on just about every short list.

An ocean away, in America, another branch of the Preston family had been going through an equally nasty scandal.

That’s why his cousin Andrew, one of the Kentucky Prestons, had decided to run for presidency of the International Thoroughbred Racing Federation. To restore dignity to the Preston name—and integrity to the sport of kings.

With a twist to his gut, Tyler glanced down at the bold words scrawled atop the picture of Lightning Chaser. “Unmarked envelope?”

Daniel Whittleson nodded. “Just like the one my father received.”

The two had known each other since they were boys, when Daniel’s father had worked as a trainer at Lochlain. Sam had gone on to travel the world, eventually returning to Australia, where he’d fulfilled his dream of opening his own stables.

Daniel had stayed in America, working for Tyler’s uncle until eight months before, when he’d finally come home after a dispute over water rights had landed his father in the hospital.

“How’s he holding up?” Tyler asked.

“Still drinking more than I would like.” A quietly serious man, Daniel looked off in the distance, where beyond the drought-parched hills, his father’s property lay. “I’m not sure he’s ever going to get over losing the Queensland.”

It had been awkward. Daniel, Sam Whittleson’s own son, had returned to Australia to take over the training of Lightning Chaser. The racing community had had a field day with Daniel’s so-called desertion of his father. And though his friend seemed impervious to the criticism, Tyler knew it burned.