Page 35 of Irish Thoroughbred
“I think I’m due for one myself.” She brushed again without success at the clinging dirt, then lifted her face with a smile. The smile wavered as she found Travis looking down at her strangely.
“You know, Dee, I’m tempted to stuff you in my pocket where I won’t have to worry about you.”
“I’m small,” she agreed, finding it suddenly difficult to breathe, “but I think I’m rather too big for that.”
“Your size is intimidating.”
She frowned, wondering what he could find intimidating about a bare five feet. His hand wandered through her hair, gently for a moment; then, tousling it with a casual friendliness, he added, “I believe it would beeasier if you didn’t continually look fifteen instead of twenty-three.… I guess I had better change my clothes before I give you a hand bathing that mountain.”
As her marriage approached its third week, Adelia sat in her uncle’s hospital room, smiling at him as he spoke with excitement of his discharge scheduled for the following day.
“Anyone would think they’d been torturing you and starving you to death, Uncle Paddy.”
“Oh, no, it’s a fine place, with good and kind people,” he protested. “But a hospital’s for the sick and never have I felt better in my life.”
“You are better, and it makes me happier than I can say. But”—she paused and gave him a stern look—“you’ve still got to rest for a while and do as the doctors tell you. You’re coming home to stay with Travis and me for a few days, till you can get by on your own.”
“Now, Dee, I can’t do that,” Paddy objected, patting her hand. “You two should be off on your honeymoon, not worrying about the likes of me.”
With a great deal of self-control, she managed not to wince at the wordhoneymoonand went on in calm but firm tones. “You’ll be coming back with us, and that’s the end of it. I didn’t even have to ask—Travis suggested it himself.”
Lying back against the pillows, Paddy smiled. “Aye, he would. Travis is a fine man.”
“That he is,” Adelia agreed with a sigh. She forced a bright smile and continued. “He’s fond of you, Uncle Paddy. I knew as soon as I saw the two of you together.”
“Aye,” he murmured. “Travis and I go back a long way. Just a lad he was when I came to work for his father. Poor motherless child, so solemn and straight he was.”
Adelia’s mind wandered as she tried to picture Travis as a small boy, wondering if he was tall even then.
“Stuart Grant was a hard man,” Paddy went on. “He ran the lad harder than the horses he raised. Trish he left to Hannah, barely showing the girl a passing interest, but the boy he wanted molded in his image. Always giving orders, with never a kind word or a dab of affection.
“I found myself taking the lad in, telling him stories and making games out of the work we did.” He grinned, lost in memory. “‘Paddy’s Shadow,’ the hands called him, ’cause he took to following me about whenever his father wasn’t there. He worked hard, and he knew the horses even then. A fine, good lad he was, but the old man couldn’t see it. Always finding fault. I wondered sometimes when he grew older why he didn’t lay the old man out, goodness knows he was big enough, and the temper was there. But he took the abuse the old man handed him and only looked at him with his eyes so cold.” Paddy paused and let out a long breath.
“Travis was away at college when the old man passed on… that would be about ten years ago. He stood there looking down at the grave, and I went over and laid my hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry about your father, lad,’ says I, and he turned and looked down at me. ‘He was never my father, Paddy,’ says he, just as calm as you please. ‘You’ve been my father since I was ten years old. If you hadn’t been there, I’d have left a long time ago and never looked back.’”
The room was suddenly silent. Adelia gripped the hand that lay in hers tighter as Paddy’s eyes grew moist with memory. “And now the two of you are together, I couldn’t have wished it any better.”
“You’ll stay with him, Uncle Paddy, always, no matter what? You promise me that?”
He turned to her, surprised by the urgency in her tone. “Of course, little Dee. Where else would I be going?”
CHAPTER NINE
The following evening, after Paddy was comfortably settled into his room in the main house, Travis announced plans for a party.
“It’s expected after Majesty’s win, but with Paddy’s heart attack it’s had to be postponed.” He swirled a glass of after-dinner brandy, his eyes sweeping over her, resting for a moment on her hair shimmering on the shoulders of her Nile blue dress. “Our marriage has, of course, leaked to the press, and it will seem odd we don’t have some sort of gathering where you can meet some of my friends and business associates.”
“Aye,” Adelia agreed, unconsciously nibbling on her lip as she turned to gaze out the window. “And so they can get a look at me.”
“That, too,” he answered in solemn tones. “Don’t worry,Dee: as long as you don’t trip over your feet and fall on your face you should get by fairly well.”
She whirled around to rage at him that she wasn’t exactly a clumsy fool, but his good-natured grin stopped her. “Thank you very much, Master Grant.” She smiled back at him. “It’s a great comfort you are to me.”
She gasped out loud at the length of the list Travis gave her for the projected reception. There couldn’t be less than a hundred, she estimated, staring at the paper.
“You’ve nothing to worry about,” he assured her. “Hannah will handle the details. You’re only expected to make polite conversation.”
The attempt at reassurance hurt her pride. “I’ll have you know I’m not a complete cabbagehead, Travis Grant. I’m well capable of helping Hannah, and I won’t be making a fool of myself in front of your fancy friends.”
