Once Upon a Misty Bluegrass Hill (8 page)

Linda
,
a slender woman with short blonde hair and a ready smile who ran the Stockyards
'
kitchen
,
stood up when
Patrick
approached. 
"
Let me go get you a burger.
"

"
Right nice of you Linda, but I won
'
t leave without paying you for it.
"

She laughed
,
dismissed his statement with a wave
and hurried off
. 

Michael tipped his mouth with his napkin
and said,
"
Why did you bring a horse like him
to the stockyards?
"

Patrick
slid in the seat next to Mary Jane. 
"
Hell if I know
... some stupid reason like t
rying to locate a girl
I don't even know
.  I think it was
once
her horse and I want to find her.
"

Mary Jane laughed. 
"
Patrick
, the girls around here are dying to meet you all the time
.
I can
'
t imagine why you have to go to so much trouble
to meet one.
  What are you going to do with her once you find her?
"

Linda arrived with
Patrick
'
s burger
in time to
pick up on
the conversation
. 
"
The
young girl
that owned that horse has red hair.  She
was about 15 or 16 when she
survived the storm that k
illed her parents and went to li
ve with
crack-head-
Paula
in that terrible house down the road from me
.

Mary Jane leaned forward with a worried frown.  You mean that woman that lives in that old white house that is near falling apart and surrounded by trash and old cars?
"

"
One and the same.
"

Patrick
ate
on
his burger
thinking about this new bit of information. 
"
Well, we will soon find out
.
"

"
You could just go to her house now that you know where she lives,
"
Michael offered leaning back and putting his arm along the back of the vinyl seat.

Patrick
pushed his empty plate away. 
"
Better to draw her out to
hear
the story.
"

Mary Jane looked grim. 
"
What
exactly
is this about?
"

Patrick
filled them in on the details and left a few minutes later because
the
horse would
soon
be coming up
for auction so
he had to take him out of the line for bidding before then. 
"
The burger was fantastic as usual, thank you Linda.
"

His friends gave him a parting friendly farewell that included invitations to dinner
later that week
. 

"
I have brought back some good wine from California,
"
Michael offered by way of temptation. 

Patrick
waved just as he got to the door. 
"
You know I can
'
t say no to that.
"
 

He hurried out,
anxious to find out if
the
girl was going to show up
even though he felt
an idiot in
the attempt
. 
Patrick
was missing a whole day
'
s work with trainers, office work and a multitude of other issues he needed to take care of
in an
attempt to chase down some little
minnow
of a girl
who
shouldn
'
t mean anything to him anyway. 

Worse, his father had called and there were some matters to take care of dealing with his family and the estate
back home
.  Yet, here he was
,
the Earl of
Meath
,
in Paris, Kentucky at a stockyards filled with cattle
and locals
…hoping some stray cat of a girl
might
show up to fight for a horse.

It was absurd. 
But h
e just co
uldn
'
t get her out of his head. 
It amazed
Patrick
t
he way she handled that horse…the way that damned mean horse walked up to her gentle as a lamb when all he ever did was snarl at everyone else in his life.
  If he was ever going to do anything with that horse he could use her help.

Clearly she also needed his help.

He
knew the colt had lost his mother just
a month or two
before
Patrick
bought the farm
, so h
e was willing to give the stallion some space to deal with the
loss
.  Horses were intelligent and sensitive animals
…
perhaps because the colt had just been born it had been a trauma he didn
'
t forget. 

Patrick
had done his best when he came in
to buy the place
.  The owner
'
sister had sold the farm right away
for next to nothing just for a quick sale
.  The real estate broker that contacted him in Ireland explained about the horse
surviving while his mother died in a collapsed barn along with all the other horses and the owners
. 
Patrick
immediately
sent
his people in to take over the farm and take care of the horse. 
He had a new barn constructed as quickly as possible. 
From there he had moved
in
some horses he had been keeping on a smaller pi
ece of land that he planned to expand
into
a
plant to manufacture specialized organic feed for livestock.
 
All of it
was a long way from his
home in the shadow of Sugar Loaf Mountain in Ireland.

His father hadn
'
t understood his need to go to America and work the horses when he had
his legacy and inheritance
at home.  His father took care of the massive investments of the family wealth with just
a
bit of
Patrick
'
s help and
Patrick
had gone to school to
obtain
a PhD in chemistry. 
Being an Earl was going to be a very la
rge job when the moment arrived, b
ut
Patrick
wanted more.  He loved the animals, especially the horses. 
And he wanted to get away from memories of Marta.

He had been looking for a horse farm to purchase of the size that would meet his goals for the future.  When he got the call, he acted
swiftly
. 
He bought the farm
sight unseen
and had someone immediately take charge of cleanup and the one remaining horse.

But the horse simply could not be tamed in any fashion at all. 
  Not by him, nor anyone else.

Patrick
was almost at his wit
'
s end of what to do with the fine horse until that morning he saw the young woman feeding him an apple. 
Was Linda right that the girl did
have a connection with the farm? 
Or
had she
just an affinity for animals? 
He had heard there was a storm and the family was killed.  No one told him anything about a young woman.
  Perhaps she was just an interested neighbor
who knew the horse
. 
No matter who she was, she was a very young girl living in poverty. 

Extreme poverty.

Which is something he could have lived with except when she showed up as an escort to the Derby
. 

So perhaps they could help each other.

Patrick
had his own
"
dates
"
….
women he was friends with that were waiting for him to get romantic with one of them.  He knew he was pleasing to the eye of most women
.  That
,
coupled with money and perhaps
his
title…though it meant nothing to most people
here
…
some even laughed when they found out
.  But all of it together
meant he had a steady stream a
nd a full share of the women, bo
t
h
locally and at home.
  He
could easily bring several guests to the Derby who wanted to be with him
and occupy
an exclusive box to say that
she
had done so. 

He had brought three of his
"
friends
"
who were in that category
to the Derby
. 
When he saw
Jolene
entering
in
to the box
like a filly on new legs he simply could not
fathom
that it was the same girl from the
pasture
.
  She had been a pretty thing that morning
he first saw her.  She was proud and graceful despite her jeans with hol
es and her plaid shirt that came near to her knees
.  That morning she had materialized
from
the mist with rosy cheeks,
big green eyes that reminded him of the Irish countryside
,
and hair of fire.
 

But in that
candy-apple-red
dress, she
was hints of
the woman that she most certainly was not. 
Painted lips and
lined
eyes….w
ith a few pounds on her she would have been downright sexy.  As it was, she leaned and slumped in her red dress only enough to attract those interested in someone very young. 

Which was extremely horrific in his mind. 

What sort of a twisted mind could be drawn to a girl who might be a grown woman in the physical sense, but just barely
,
and all k
n
obby legged and skinny like that
?
  Oh, yes, she was a pretty one to be sure, but not quite ready.

When he first saw her in the Derby box
Patrick
thought that he must have been fooled by her wide eyed innocence that first day…for how else could she have gained access to such an exclusive box, with the wealthiest in Kentucky and beyond
unless she had done this before
?

But it was painfully obvious in the first few minutes she had been sent in by someone else and was astonishingly unaware of her rol
e
.  He doubted anyone would take her seriously and was appalled beyond comprehension when Chad, that ass…
whose
father owned a green energy plant that got lots of dollars from the government on things that were never likely to work
….
and Mel, the tobacco king in his time
,
would take a serious interest
in the little shaky-
legged filly. 
It was the personal greed of men to
use someone when they were
too
young and innocent. 

Pure selfishness
. 

To take innocence for one
'
s own selfish pleasure.

How could any man n
ot let her grow into her own
?  How could they touch her when they
kne
w for certain she was not here
of her
own accord, but
rather because she was
desperate
, eit
her for herself or someone else,
or both.