Susannah M. Colton
Fleetfoot Farm
RR 1
Versailles, KY 36502
Fleetfoot Farm. It rang a distant, somehow ominous, bell.
“Five cancellations,” Carol Anne muttered. “Doc Higgins will have kittens when I...”
They both looked up as headlights swept the room, followed by a second pair, then a third. Brakes yelped in the parking lot. Doors slammed. Footsteps approached at a run.
Tag groaned. As Carol Anne had said, this was a day to remember. And clearly it wasn’t done yet. He dropped Susannah’s ring into his pocket and clenched his fingers around it. Three cars at once, so this wouldn’t be a run-of-the mill vet’s emergency—an injured cat or a puppy with fits. Another car roared into the lot. He drew a breath and headed for the door. You heard of such crises in vet school. They were every beginner vet’s worst nightmare, a what-if scenario that if you were lucky, would never happen to you: A car wrecks on a nearby road—something messy and terrible, a head-on involving a school bus or a motorcycle.
And the way the nightmare always plays out, the local M.D.’s away or falling-down drunk. So they turn to the next best thing, a veterinarian. So here we go. People were just big furless animals, at heart, and if there was one thing he did well in life, this was it. He could help.
As Tag threw open the door a fifth car wheeled in off the road... No, this was a van. With the logo of the local TV station emblazoned along its side. Lights flashed in his face—he blinked and took a step backward. Not a wreck—a media feeding frenzy.
With its prey in sight. “Dr. Taggart?”
“Dr. Taggart!”
“Sir! How does it feel to have gelded Payback, the finest racing sire ever bred in America?”
No. No way. Not possible.
“Doctor, were you aware that Payback was insured for some sixty million dollars with Lloyd’s of...”
Pookie. Pookums. Payback. He’d never been to a horse race, but even he had heard that name.
A brunette in a tailored suit stormed the steps, fluffed her hair and spun toward the onlookers. Red lights gleamed like weasel eyes as cameras rolled. “We’re talking tonight with Dr. Richard Taggart, small-town veterinarian in southern Vermont,” she declared, and thrust a microphone under his nose. “Dr. Taggart, when America thinks horse racing in the twentieth century, only three names come to mind. Secretariat. Ruffian. And greatest of them all, the stallion Payback, Triple Crown winner, five-time Eclipse Horse of the Year, sire of some nineteen millionaire offspring, crown jewel of worldfamous Fleetfoot Farm in Kentucky, who up until today commanded a stud fee of four hundred thousand dollars per mare! So would you care to explain to racing fans everywhere why you gelded...”
Voices receded into a yammering din of white noise. Tag stared blindly into the blaze of lights. As if she stood just beyond them, meeting his gaze—and laughing. Laughing at him with her honeyed, lying, beautiful mouth and her eyes like a Texas blue norther. Well, she’d sure blown his life away! Seventeen years of it, since the day he’d decided to become a vet, instead of a car thief
“Sir, Stephen Colton, owner of Payback, states that you were never authorized to perform this procedure, which renders his stallion utterly worthless. Would you care to explain why you—”
“No comment.” Not for you, bitch. He stared out past the lights. Not for any of you vultures! He’d save his comments and his own questions for the one woman who could answer them, once he got his hands around her lovely neck. He winced as another flash went off, then gazed steadily into the cameras. Because somewhere out there, she’d be watching. Read it in my eyes, Tex, wherever you are. You can run, you can hide, but I’m coming to get you. Gonna get you, babe, if it’s the last thing I do!
CHAPTER FOUR
PAYBACK WAS THE LEAD story on the eleven o’clock news that night, and the network anchor reported it with a stern, semisorrowful expression that failed to hide his glee in relating such a juicy scandal.
Phone off the hook and with emergency bottle of scotch near at hand, Tag shoved a tape into his VCR, gazed owlishly at all its buttons, then nodded to himself and hit Record. Facts could be weapons and he didn’t mean to miss a single one.
“In a bizarre and still-breaking story,” intoned the anchorman, “NBC News has learned that sometime late last night, Susannah Mack Colton, wife of bluegrass millionaire Stephen Colton, secretly removed the world famous thoroughbred stud Payback from his stable at Fleetfoot Farm in Kentucky. The former exercise girl drove the Triple Crown winner and five-time Eclipse Horse of the Year to a small town in Vermont, where she paid veterinarian Richard D. Taggart to... geld the famous stallion.” Brief pause to let the magnitude of this outrageous act sink in around the nation.
“Seen here in his unforgettable Kentucky Derby victory, headed home eighteen incredible lengths ahead of the competition—” the camera shifted to a clip of a chocolate-brown stallion covering the ground in gigantic, effortless strides, a jockey crouched high on his withers with whip hand unmoving, while in the background a grandstand seethed with silently screaming racegoers “—Payback has long since retired to stand at stud at Fleetfoot Farm, renowned racing stable in the Kentucky bluegrass.” The view shifted to an overhead shot, showing the rest of the Derby field laboring farther and farther behind, then Payback sweeping smoothly under the wire at the finish line, while the anchorman continued off camera, “As top racing sire in America for the last eight years, Payback commanded a stud fee of four hundred thousand dollars... per mare.”
The camera returned to the studio and the anchorman. “And in an average breeding season, the stallion serviced one hundred of the finest thoroughbred broodmares in the world.” The newsman lifted his craggy brows to fix his audience with a significant gaze. “Meaning, folks, that this equine Romeo’s earnings averaged out to some forty million dollars per year!”
The anchorman touched the tiny receiver in his ear and his smile broadened to a blissful grin, immediately stifled. “In fact, NBC has just learned that one of the holders of a lifetime breeding right in Payback is Qeen Elizabeth II of England, herself an ardent racing fan.
“According to owner Stephen Colton, Payback was insured by Lloyd’s of London for sixty million dollars. But with his gelding today, this stud of the century’s value has been effectively reduced to... zero.
“The question that racing fans everywhere are demanding be answered tonight is why? Why did Susannah Mack Colton, er...pluck this fow-legged golden goose?”
The camera shifted from the newsman’s wounded perplexity to a shot of Susannah, standing somewhere in a parking lot, gripping Payback’s halter. The camera lights made her eyes seem enormous, bruised by shadows, but her chin was tipped to a familiar angle of defiance. “When Mrs. Colton, Payback at her side, was asked that question during a press conference she called in Boston earlier this evening, she had only this to say...” The sound switched to a taped recording, and Tag winced at the hunting-pack yammer of four reporters shouting questions at once.
An insistent tenor rose above the others as a microphone was thrust into the picture. “But why, Mrs. Colton? Why did you have Payback gelded?”
The gelding’s ears flattened back and he lunged teeth-first at the encroaching mike. Susannah staggered, then dug in her heels and hauled his nose around. “Why don’t you go ask my husband?” she cried over her shoulder. Payback shook his head again, shaking her like a rag doll.
The view swung wildly, showing reporters scattering like a flock of panicked pigeons, then steadied on Susannah, who stood poised and alert, facing Payback as he reared. When his flailing forefeet touched earth, she closed in and caught his halter, backing him away from her inquisitors.
“Damn, Susannah!” Tag