Lisa Jackson - Proof of Innocence - Yesterday's Lies / Devil's Gambit

“She tried,” Trask admitted.

“But failed, I assume.”

“This is something I have to do, Neva.” Trask placed his large hands on Neva’s slim shoulders, as if by touching he could make her understand.

With difficulty, Neva ignored the warmth of Trask’s fingers. “And damn the consequences, right? Your integrity come hell or high water.” She wrestled free of his grip.

“You’re blowing this way out of proportion.”

“Me?” she screamed. “What about you? You get one crank letter and you’re ready to tear this town apart, dig up five-year-old dirt and start battling a new crusade.” She smiled sadly at the tense man before her. “Only this time I’m afraid you’ll get hurt, Don Quixote; the windmills might fight back and hurt you as well as your Dulcinea.”

“Whom?”

“Dulcinea del Toboso, the country girl whom Don Quixote selects as the lady of his knightly devotion. In this case, Victoria Wilson.”

“You read too much,” he said.

“Impossible.”

Trask laughed despite the seriousness of Neva’s stare. “Then you worry too much.”

“It comes with the territory of being a mother,” she said, picking up a frosting-laden beater and offering it to him. “Someone needs to worry about you.”

He declined the beater. “I get by.”

She studied the furrows of his brow. “I don’t know, Trask. I just don’t know.”

“Just trust me, Neva.”

The smile left her face and all of the emotions she had been battling for five long years tore at her heart. “I’d trust you with my life, Trask. You know that.”

“Neva—” He took a step closer to her but she walked past him to the kitchen window. Outside she could watch Nicholas romp with the puppy Trask had given him for his birthday.

“But I can’t trust you with Nicholas’s life,” she whispered, knotting her fingers in the corner of her apron. “I just can’t do that and you have no right to ask me.” Tears began to gather in her large eyes and she brushed them aside angrily.

Trask let out a heavy sigh. “I’m going up to Devil’s Ridge tomorrow.”

“Oh, God, no.” Neva closed her eyes. “Trask, don’t—”

“This is something I have to do,” he repeated.

“Then maybe you’d better leave,” she said, her voice nearly failing her. Trask was as close to a father to Nicholas as he could be, considering the separation of more than half a continent. If she threw Trask out, Nicholas would never forgive her. “Do what you have to do.”

“What I have to do is stay here for Nicholas’s birthday party.”

Neva smiled through her tears. “You’re a bastard, you know, McFadden; but a charming one nonetheless.”

“This is all going to work out.”

“God, I hope so,” she whispered, once again sneaking a glance at her dark-haired son and the fluff of tan fur with the beguiling black eyes. “Nicholas worships the ground you walk on, you know.”

Trask laughed mirthlessly. “Well, if he does, he’s the only one in town. There’s no doubt about it, I wouldn’t win any popularity contests in Sinclair right now.”

“Oh, I don’t know, you seem to have been able to worm your way back into Tory’s heart.”

“I don’t think so.”

“We’ll see, senator,” Neva mused. “I think Victoria Wilson has never gotten you out of her system.”

CHAPTER SIX

ANNA HUTTON LIFTED Governor’s hoof and examined it carefully. Her expert fingers gently touched the swollen tissues and the bay stallion, glistening with nervous sweat, snorted impatiently. “Steady, there,” she murmured to the horse before lifting her eyes to meet Tory’s worried gaze. “I’d say your diagnosis was right on the money, Tory,” Anna remarked, as she slowly let the horse’s foot return to the floor of his stall. “Our boy here has a case of acute laminitis. You know, girl, you should have been a vet.” She offered Tory a small grin as she reached for her leather bag and once again lifted Governor’s hoof and started cleaning the affected area.

“I guess I got sidetracked,” Tory said. “So I’ll have to rely on your expertise.”

Anna smiled knowingly at her friend before continuing to work with Governor’s hoof. The two women had once planned to go to graduate school together, but that was before Tory became involved with Trask McFadden and all of the bad press about Calvin Wilson and the Lazy W had come to light.

Tory’s eyes were trained on Anna’s hands, but her thoughts were far away, in a time when she had been filled with the anticipation of becoming Trask’s wife. How willingly she had given up her career for him...

Glancing up, Anna noticed Tory’s clouded expression and tactfully turned the conversation back to the horse as she finished cleaning the affected area. Governor flattened his dark ears to his head and shifted away from the young woman with the short blue-black hair and probing fingers. “You might want to put him in a special shoe, either a bar shoe or a saucer; and keep walking him. Have you applied any hot or cold poultices or put his hoof in ice water?”

“Yes, cold.”

“Good, keep doing that,” Anna suggested, her eyes narrowing as she studied the stallion. “I want to wait another day and see how he’s doing tomorrow, before I consider giving him adrenaline or antihistamines.”

“A woman from the old school, huh?”

“You know me, I believe the less drugs the better.” She patted the horse on the shoulder. “He’s a good-looking stallion, Tory.”

“The best,” Tory replied, glancing affectionately at the bay. “We’re counting on him.”

“As a stud?”

“Uh-huh. His first foals were born this spring.”

“And you’re happy with them?”

Tory nodded and smiled as she held open the stall gate for her friend. “I’ve always loved working with the horses, especially the foals.”

Anna chuckled and shook her head in amazement as the two women walked out of the stallion barn and into the glare of the brilliant morning sun. “So you decided to breed Quarter Horses again, even after what happened with your father. You’re a braver woman than I am, Victoria Wilson.”

“Or a fool.”

“That, I doubt.”

“Keith thought raising horses again was a big mistake.”

“So what does he know?”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Go ahead. I think it takes guts to start over after the trial and all the bad publicity...”

“That was all a horrible mistake.”

Anna placed her hand on Tory’s arm. “I know, but I just thought that you wouldn’t want to do anything that might...you know, encourage all the old rumors to start up again. I wouldn’t.”

“You can’t run away from your past.”

“Especially when our illustrious Senator McFadden comes charging back to town, stirring it all up again.”

Tory felt her back stiffen but she managed a tight smile as they walked slowly across the gravel parking lot. “Everyone has to do what they have to do. Trask seems to think it’s his duty to dig it all up again...because of Jason.”

One of Anna’s dark brows rose slightly. “So now you’re defending him?”

“Of course not!” Tory said too quickly and then laughed at her own reaction. “It’s just that Trask’s been here a couple of times already,” she admitted, “and, well, just about everyone I know seems to think that I shouldn’t even talk to him.”

“Maybe that’s because you’ve led everyone to believe that you never wanted to see him again. After all, he did—”

“Betray me?”

“Whatever you want to call it.” Anna hesitated a moment, biting her lips as if contemplating the worth of her words. “Look, Tory. After the trial, you were pretty messed up, bitter. It’s no wonder people want to protect you from that kind of hurt again.”