“Some stories deserve repeating. The home stretch at Churchill Downs is one of them, right, love?” Mick met his daughter’s eyes in the mirror.
“I need to talk to you.”
Mick took a sip from the full tumbler the bartender put down in front of him and studied his daughter in the mirror’s reflection. “Let the ol’ man buy you a drink first, Dani girl. You’re getting as high-strung as the ponies.”
She felt the tension in her limbs, the jerk in her pulse. “No.” One syllable but it sounded of a madness in the making.
Her father swiveled slowly, his drink wrapped in one hand. Lou and Willie studied their beers. Mick studied her. She smelled the whiskey in his glass, on his breath. She should wait for a few more rounds when the liquor loosened his tongue. She thought of the child. She couldn’t wait.
“I saw Reid Hamilton today.”
Her father looked at her a long second. He swiveled back to the bar, avoiding her mirrored gaze. He stubbed out his cigarette long after it stopped smoking. Just as she decided he was going to ignore her or try to escape, he raised his gaze and gave her a long look in the mirror. With an exhale part breath, part sigh, he slid off the stool and gestured grandly to the square tables in the back. “Let’s have a seat, shall we?”
Sipping from his drink, he led the way. He was shorter than her, but his build was as narrow and taut. In his youth, he’d dreamed of wearing the silks, but the dream and the paddock were as close as he’d ever come.
Father and daughter sat down, facing one another. Dani’s hand clenched into a ball on the scarred table-top. She covered it with her other hand, her fingers curling, pressing into the thin flesh, slim bones. She had too much at risk to fall apart now.
“I saw Reid Hamilton today.”
Mick’s gaze shifted for a second, then came back to her. He took a long drink. His eyes watched her above the rim. She squeezed her hands together.
“So you’ve said.” He set his glass carefully on the wet ring that had formed on the wood.
She should’ve waited. Waited until the whiskey had made him brash. She’d been in too much of a hurry. Reckless.
“He had a child with him. A boy.”
She watched for his reaction. He reached out, his fingertips touching the cool sides of the glass.
“He said it was his nephew. His brother’s boy.”
Her father drew circles on the glass’s damp surface.
“I held the child in my arms.”
Her father’s hand went still. He lifted his fingers, touched the wetness to his lips.
Dani’s hands clutched each other as if to snap bone. “I held the child in my arms.”
Her father raised his glass to his lips. “Dani.” He stopped, said no more. He drank.
Her voice was eerily even. “Reid Hamilton isn’t the boy’s uncle. He’s his father.”
Mick pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapped one out and lit it, his eyes narrowing. “You said the child is the brother’s boy.”
“The child is Reid Hamilton’s son.” The words bubbled up, burned her throat. “He has a son.” She’d become a broken record.
“He has a son. My son.” It wasn’t a question. She wouldn’t ask. She wouldn’t let it be denied.
“Dani.” She heard pity in her father’s voice. The drum of her blood became louder.
“He’s my son. I saw him. I held him.” Her hands unclenched, reached out, pleading.
Mick exhaled. The stale smells of smoke and liquor came, clung to her. He tapped the cigarette on the ashtray’s edge. “That’s it? You held the boy in your arms and you decide he’s your child?” He kept tapping the cigarette after the ashes had fallen.
“The boy looks like Mom.” Her father stiffened, reached for his drink. “He looks like you.”
He set down the drink. His hand stayed curled around the glass. “Then he’ll have good luck with the ladies, but why would that make the boy your child?”
She looked away from the reasonableness in her father’s face.
“Reid Hamilton himself said the boy was his nephew.” Mick adopted a patient tone. “Why would he say that if it weren’t so?”
“You will have to tell me that. Tell me.” Her hand reached out, gripped her father’s hand holding the drink. Liquor sloshed over the sides of the glass. “Tell me.”
With that awful patronizing expression still on his face, her father pulled a fresh linen handkerchief from his pant pocket. No paper tissues for Mick Tate. Always a clean handkerchief, snow-white and starched. He ironed them himself. He had dried her tears with them. He now patted the whiskey off her hand.
“Today you saw Reid Hamilton with a child.” His tone stayed patient. “A child who’s about the same age as—”
She pulled her hand away. “I didn’t say anything about the child’s age.”
“No, but I’m guessing the boy isn’t five-foot-six and starting to shave or you wouldn’t have assumed he was your son, would you?” He smiled indulgently.
“He’s four. And he is my son.” She heard the plea in her voice and was ashamed.
“Dani, listen to me, five years ago, you weren’t much more than a child yourself.”
Five years ago. Her eighteenth birthday. Her father had been determined to mark the occasion. He had arranged the car, the dress, the engraved invitation that got her past the gate into Georgia Hamilton’s legendary pre-Derby dinner dance. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d strung the extra stars that seemed to light the sky that night over Hamilton Hills.
She stared at the man opposite her. His whole life Mick Tate had been trying to make fairy tales come true. That one night he had succeeded.
Three months later the pregnancy test had showed positive. Dani had stopped believing in fairy tales.
“What you did was the right thing to do.” Her father’s voice brought her back. “It was a brave thing.”
“To give my child up?” Pain sliced into her.
“To give your child more.” Mick lifted the cigarette to his lips, drawing deep, watching her. He picked up his drink. “Let me tell you what happened. Today you saw Reid Hamilton with a child about the same age as your baby would be, and it all became a bit too real. Much, much too real. Now the guilt gnaws at you. That’s what happened. Conscience.” He cradled his glass, looking into the amber liquid. “Such a liability.”
The waitress came to their table. Her father drained the glass and handed it to her. “Another double, darling. How ’bout you, Dani girl? Ready for that drink?”
She shook her head. Mick shrugged his shoulders and smiled at the waitress, watched the woman walk away. Dani studied her father’s profile. At one time, he could make her believe anything. It had been his charm. And her undoing.
He turned to her, saw her study. “You did the right thing, love. It’s no life for a child.”
“You didn’t give me up.” She spoke quietly.
“No, but after your mother died, I had Nanny to look after you until she got sick. By that time, you were old enough to come with me. Still, don’t think I wouldn’t have sent you to your mother’s family if they would have had you. Sons of bitches. With their fat bank accounts and their precious