She didn’t want to ask the question, but there was no avoiding it. “Who was in the stable when you left?”
“Patrick,” he said in a hushed voice.
Panic swept over her, blind and unreasoning. She trusted Patrick—reasonable or not, she was certain he wasn’t trying to kill her. But why would Toby lie?
“I don’t believe it,” she said in a horrified voice. “He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. You must be mistaken.”
“It’s no mistake, Molly,” he said. “I’ve warned you before. You can’t trust anyone, not even your own husband. Let me do the talking when Patrick gets here, all right? He’s going to be mad enough that we were even out together without this happening.”
“Why should he be mad we went riding?” she asked, startled. “Surely there’s no harm in that?”
“You really don’t remember him at all, do you?” He shook his head in amazement. “Patrick’s always had a dog in the manger attitude about you. He didn’t want you for himself, but he was always damned if he would let you go off alone with anyone. And that started years before you were married.”
She looked over at Patrick’s advancing figure and found a curious lightness inside her, banishing her fear. “How very encouraging,” she murmured, half to herself.
“What the hell is going on here?” Patrick demanded when he reached them. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Are you trying to kill me? she almost retorted, but some long-submerged sense of tact kept her silent as Toby tried to explain the situation.
“I thought you knew more about horses, Toby.” Patrick’s contempt was withering. “After all, you’ve been around them all your life. Molly hasn’t ridden in over a year. You should have put her on one of our horses, not that nerve-racked Bess. And why the hell wasn’t she wearing a hard bat?”
“Bess isn’t nerve-racked,” Toby protested, stung. “She’s a fine animal, and Molly always used to beg me to let her ride her.”
“That was years ago, when she was in better shape,” he said coldly. “And back then I told you no.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, she’s not a child,” Toby said in a tense voice, and Molly noticed a faint tremor in his hands. There was something else going on here, something besides the anger over a minor riding accident. Something between them, and it involved her.
“No, but you’re acting like one, doing a foolish and dangerous thing like that.” Patrick’s very calm made his stinging words all the more biting, and Toby’s face took on a mottled hue.
“Well, I’ll leave you to escort your wife home.” His accent on the word was bitter. “I’ll talk to you later, Molly.”
“Not for a while. I’m afraid,” Patrick told him firmly. “She’s going to keep to the house for a few days—I don’t like all these accidents that have been happening recently.”
“I don’t either,” Toby said angrily, and rode off.
Patrick looked down at her from his six feet three inches of male irritation. “Are you satisfied now?” he demanded. “You’ve managed to come between me and one of my oldest friends.” He started walking, and it was with difficulty that she managed to keep up with his long strides.
“I came between you?” she echoed angrily. “There was absolutely no call for you to speak that way to him. I think that whatever differences you two have are your own problem and none of my doing. And why aren’t I allowed out riding with one of your oldest friends? Do you think he’s going to throw me down and have his wicked way with me?”
He stopped and gave her a look of withering contempt. “I would say, judging from your behavior over the past ten months, that he’d be in more danger from you than vice versa.” And he walked on.
Once more she had to run to keep up with him. “Then if you hate me so much why don’t you let me go?” she demanded. “As long as I give the police my address I can go anywhere I please. I haven’t been accused of any crime—I’m just a witness. If I happened to remember anything I saw, that is. So why don’t you let me go somewhere and get a quickie divorce and finish this thing once and for all?”
“No.” He kept on walking. “You put me through hell for over ten months. I think I owe you six months of hell in return, and I mean to see that you get it.”
“Where’s Toby?” Mrs. Morse asked cheerily as Molly entered the kitchen alone.
“Gone home,” she said morosely, sitting down by the fireplace. “Mrs. Morse, why does Patrick hate me?”
“Oh, now, dearie, he doesn’t hate you,” she said earnestly, coming to sit beside her with one of her ever-present cups of coffee. “He just doesn’t know his own mind, that’s all.”
“He does hate me,” she insisted. “And I can’t remember what it is I’ve done to him to deserve it.”
“Well, I’ve always said what’s past is over and done with and should be forgiven and forgotten. Unfortunately Patrick’s always had a hard time with the forgiving and the forgetting.”
“But what makes him so full of hate all the time?” she demanded. “Isn’t he ever happy?”
“Well, now, of course he is. But life’s never been easy for him. His mother ran off when he was just a kid—died in a car accident a few years later. It’s not good for a child to feel abandoned, and his father, bless his heart, wasn’t the most nurturing soul. He was just as strong-minded as his son, and the two of them fought like cats and dogs, Jared trying to make Patrick do what he wanted, Patrick refusing. It was a real battleground. Finally Patrick just took off in his early twenties, and no one heard from him for years.”
