Free Dark Horse by Tami Hoag Page B

seventy.
    He watched his assistant go over a combination of fences with Park Lane, and frowned as the horse rapped his front ankles and took a rail down. As Paris cantered past, he looked up at her and called out a couple of corrections for her to make to get the horse to bring its hindquarters more fully under itself in preparation for takeoff.
    The other man seemed incredulous that his threats had not elicited a response. “You’re a real piece of work, Don. Aren’t you even going to bother to deny it?”
    Jade still didn’t look at him. “Why should I bother, Michael? I don’t want to be blamed for your heart attack on top of everything else.”
    “You smug bastard. You still think you can get people to kiss your ass and convince them it smells like a rose.”
    “Maybe it does, Michael,” Jade said calmly, still watching his horse. “You’ll never know the truth because you don’t want to. You don’t want me to be innocent. You enjoy hating me too much.”
    “I’m hardly the only one.”
    “I know. I’m a national pastime again. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m innocent.”
    He rubbed the back of his sunburned neck, checked his watch, and sighed. “That’s enough for her, Paris,” he called, clicking the camera off.
    “I’ll be on the phone with Dr. Ames today,” the other man said. “If I find out you’ve got connections at that lab—”
    “If Ames tells you anything about Stellar, I’ll have his license,” Jade said calmly. “Not that there’s anything to tell.”
    “Oh, I’m sure there’s a story. There always is with you. Who were you in bed with this time?”
    “If I have an answer to that, it’s none of your business, Michael.”
    “I’m making it my business.”
    “You’re obsessed,” Jade said, turning toward the stables as Paris approached on Park Lane. “If you put as much energy into your work as you do into hating me, maybe you could actually make something of yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Michael, I have a business to run.”
    Michael’s face was a twisted, freckled mask of bitter emotion. “Not for long if I can help it.”
    Jade walked off toward the barn, seemingly unaffected by the exchange. His adversary stood for a moment, breathing hard, looking disappointed. Then he turned and stalked off.
    “Well, that was ugly,” I said. Tomas Van Zandt stood less than ten feet from me. He’d watched the exchange between Jade and the other man surreptitiously, same as I had, pretending to watch the horses in the ring. He glanced at me in a dismissive way and started to walk off.
    “I thought men from Belgium were supposed to be charming.”
    He pulled up short and looked at me again, recognition dawning slowly. “Elle! Look at you!”
    “I clean up good, as they say down at the trailer park.”
    “You’ve never been to a trailer park,” he scoffed, taking in the hat, the outfit.
    “Of course I have. I once drove a maid home,” I said, then nodded after the man Jade had argued with. “Who was that?”
    “Michael Berne. A big crybaby.”
    “Is he an owner or something?”
    “A rival.”
    “Ah . . . These jumper people are so dramatic,” I said. “Nothing this exciting goes on in my neck of the equestrian woods.”
    “Maybe I should then sell you a jumper,” Van Zandt suggested, eyeing my shopping bags, pondering my credit card limit.
    “I don’t know if I’m ready for that. Looks like a tough crowd. Besides, I don’t know any of the trainers.”
    He took my arm. The courtly gentleman. “Come. I’ll introduce you to Jade.”
    “Swell,” I said, looking up at him out the corner of my eye. “I can buy a horse and collect the insurance. One-stop shopping.”
    Like flipping a switch, Van Zandt’s face went from courtly to stormy; the gray eyes as cold as the North Sea, and frighteningly hard. “Don’t say such stupid things,” he snapped.
    I stepped away from him. “It was a joke.”
    “Everything with you is a joke,” he said in