Fate (Killarny Brothers 1)

“Dad, I watch TV and movies. It’s not that difficult to figure out.”

I just smiled and shook my head and continued eating my breakfast. I wasn’t sure what I thought about my twelve year old talking about good matches, but I had to admit that she was probably right. Me hanging my hat up and not going out and dating for the last few years hadn’t been the greatest idea, not if I ever intended to get back out there.

We finished eating breakfast while Emma told me about her slumber party and her plans with her friends throughout the spring. It sounded like they were going to be pretty busy before the summer got started. Once Emma had finished breakfast she bounded away off to the stables for her morning ride with Saoirse and cleaned up the dishes, my mind returning to dating and the prospect of starting all that again.

Sara Waters though—that was another story. She was something entirely different. The attraction between us was palpable, and I wanted her—badly. I wasn’t sure if she was someone I would want to date long term because I really didn’t know the woman beyond the interaction we had had the day before and that had been fairly intense. Before that, we had only known each other as children, so there was a gulf between who we were then and who we were now. But I was willing to find out more about Sara, and I planned to get much more familiar with her soon.

Derby preparation continued at Killarny Estate and all of my brothers stuck to their individual tasks to get us ready to take our horses down to Tennessee. It was one of our biggest events of the year, and since we hadn’t been in the Waters Derby for the past two years since my mother’s death, this was a big one for us.

Going to the Waters Derby had always been a family affair. We would all load up in our trailers and head down to Tennessee for the week. There was an area for all the people with horses in the derby to park their trailers and RVs and it was like one big family reunion with some healthy competition thrown in for that entire week leading up to the race.

I hadn’t been to the derby in years though. My work had been primarily back here at the ranch and with Emma so young I had always kept close by, instead of hauling her down to the derby. It was strange, now that I thought about it, because we had gone to a lot of the derbies that were closer by, but I knew what it was all about when it came down to it. I didn’t want to see Ken Waters and if not going to his derby accomplished that, then that’s what I would do. I knew that what was between my father and Ken Waters was just that—between the two of them. But I couldn’t get the bad taste in my mouth to go away about the man. I despised him, and I never wanted to see him again.

Because I had stayed away it had been years since I had seen either him or his daughter, Sara. And now that’s all I could think about as I went over some of the paperwork that needed to be finalized before we closed up shop for the week and headed to the derby. Sara and her beautiful face and amazing body. God, how I had wanted her there in my study when she had been stranded at the ranch. I could have had her, too, but that wasn’t the right time. I don’t know what had come over me, but I didn’t want it to happen right there. Maybe it was because I wanted to punish her for what she and her father were trying to do to us. Or maybe it was something deeper than that. I didn’t often dive into my subconscious that way, but I wondered if I was holding myself back from Sara because I thought there might be more…or at least the potential.

But it was so early. Far too early to start thinking about things like that. I brushed the thoughts aside and picked up the stack of notes my secretary had left for me. Somewhere in the middle, there was a phone message from Sara buried amongst the others. It simply read:

“Bring your horse to the derby. I’m trying to work som

ething out.”

I looked at the words over and over. Bring your horse to the derby. We were going to do it anyway, but getting the note from Sara was the kind of bolstering I needed. While I was ready to pack up and leave for the derby no matter what happened, it felt good to know that in some way Sara was trying to figure things out and would try to keep her father from causing a big problem for us. At least this way I could be fairly certain that when I arrived there wouldn’t be police waiting to escort us away.

I picked up the phone to dial my father in Costa Rica. He answered after the third ring and the line was a little fuzzy, but he seemed happy to hear from me.

“How are things going down there, Dad?”

He laughed, and I was happy to hear things were good. “Great, great. Just whipping up a pitcher of drinks for a party later. Is everything going okay back there?”

My father was always asking about the ranch now, but in the early days when he decided to go to Costa Rica, I felt like there was a level of avoidance. The man had lost the woman he had spent over half of his life with, and he was still coming to terms with what life would look like without her in it. After a couple of years of struggling to make things work here at the ranch without her, he decided it was better if he turned the ranch over to my brothers and myself to run. It was a single trip to Costa Rica that had changed his mind about everything. He had gone down there to clear his mind and instead he had found the sort of happiness he was looking for. While we all missed having him and his expertise around the ranch, I knew that he was doing the best thing for himself and he deserved that much. Besides, if there were ever any real issue, he would be back up here in a heartbeat to make sure everything was taken care of.

“Things are good now,” I gnawed on my bottom lip as I pondered whether or not to mention anything about Ken Waters and the drama surrounding the derby. If I didn’t say anything and something did happen, it would most certainly make it back to my dad, and I knew it was better to get it out of the way now. “Well, things are better now. It was hit or miss there for a minute. Had a bit of a run in with Ken Waters.”

My father went silent for a moment on the other end of the line. “What’s the problem? Do I need to come up there? Do I need to call him?”

“No, no. I think it’s all sorted. And it was less of a run in with Ken as it was with his daughter. He sent Sara to deliver a message instead of coming himself.”

I could sense my father’s disappointment in his onetime best friend. “What the hell was he thinking? And what was the message about?”

I didn’t soften the words. “He told us we couldn’t run in the derby. Tried to give us the registration money back.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope,” I said, and I was glad I was telling him now because he would have been furious to find out later.

“What’s his reasoning behind all this?”

I shook my head and sighed. “I think we both know the real reason for it all, but I’m not sure what he’s told, Sara. What I do know is that she doesn’t have a clue about the truth. Her father has sold her some pack of lies about us being involved in something illegal. I don’t know what…not that it matters, because none of it is true. But I thought for a moment she believed it.”

“Hmm,” my father muttered on the other line. “Sara is a really remarkable young woman. I would give her some credit if I were you. She is probably just following orders from her father, and I’m sure that up to this point he has never given her any reason not to trust him.”

“That may be the case; I just don’t know what she will think if she finds out…you know.”

My father sighed. “Pete, whatever she finds, if she finds anything, well…that’s between her and her father. I think you did right not to say anything. Ken is handling this poorly, and I’m afraid that he’s the one who will end up in hot water over it. At least with his daughter. She wouldn’t even be curious about anything if her father wasn't so goddamn underhanded about all of it.”

I nodded and looked at the stack of papers I needed to get to. “Okay, well, I just wanted to give you a heads up. We’ll be leaving in a week for the derby. Wasn’t sure if you were thinking about coming up for it?”

“Nah, not for Ken’s derby. He clearly doesn’t want to see me, so we’ll leave it at that. Let me know how things go.”