One Hoof In The Grave [Carriage Driving 02] Read Online Free PDF

do without her as my second-in-command at the farm.
    I stuck my nose into my coffee cup as though I hadn’t heard Sarah Beth’s comment about Giles. Peggy may invite confidences. I, on the other hand, generally run from them. Peggy saved me by coming out of the shower.
    “Lord, I may live,” she said and accepted a mug of coffee. I slid out of the banquette, picked up my clothes, and left her to deal with Sarah Beth while I showered.
    By the time I came out after my shower I felt human again, even though my short hair was still damp.
    “Sit,” Sarah-Beth said. Something about her was different. She seemed to have undergone a backbone implant. I wondered what she had told Peggy.
    “Sorry to scrub and run,” Peggy said and slid out of the banquette. “But we really need to check on the horses, and I want to find out if they’ve managed to winch Dick’s carriage out of the lake yet. Dick talks as though it’s a piece of cake, but someone’s going to have to dive in and attach a cable from the tractor to the rear axle. That lake is cold, not to mention murky.”
    “Dick will handle everything. I suspect he’d rather you stayed out of the way,” Sarah Beth said. “He’s such a sweetie. He taught me the difference between a real southern gentleman and the man I married.” With no warning, she burst into tears.
    Uh-oh again. I’m not insensitive. I’m simply incompetent when it comes to nurturing anything with fewer than four legs. I’m terrified I’ll make things worse. Thank God Peggy takes up the slack.
    Peggy sat back down and stroked Sarah Beth’s shoulder. “Honey, can we help?”
    Sarah-Beth shook her head without raising it from her hands. “Nobody can help me.”
    “Did that man hit you?” Peggy asked.
    Again the head shake. “He doesn’t have to hit me.”
    “Divorce the bastard,” I said. See what I mean? No gray areas. Always cut to the chase. “God knows he’s committed adultery enough times.”
    Peggy rolled her eyes at me. Surely Sarah-Beth knew about her husband’s serial infidelities.
    “I can’t.”
    Peggy mouthed, “Drop it” at me. I would have divorced him long since. I divorced Vic, after all. Okay, so maybe I took my time about it, but I eventually did it.
    “Sometimes I think the only pleasure he gets in life is hurting other people,” Sarah Beth pulled a paper napkin out of the holder on the pop-up banquette where we sat. She wiped under her eyes carefully so as not to smear her mascara. “You know what I’m talking about. What on earth does he have against you ?” she asked me.
    Peggy gave the kindest of the answers I could have given. “Uh, remember last year when one of the vets at Southern Pines called his black gelding lame and wouldn’t let him compete?”
    “Oh, Lord, yes. I thought he’d have a coronary right there.”
    “Since I was show manager,” I said, “Giles thought I should overrule him.”
    “You can’t do that,” Sarah-Beth said. “Can you?”
    “No, I can’t, but even if I could, I wouldn’t have. The gelding was moving short on his off hind leg. A full day of showing and racing around a marathon course could have done real damage. Giles swore he was being discriminated against to give the other competitors an unfair advantage. I told him to take the horse back to his stall. When the gelding went sound the next morning, he called me everything except a child of God.”
    “Why you and not the vet?”
    “Giles had a few choice remarks for the vet as well, but you can’t ball out a vet with impunity. That can get you set down and fined. Anyway, Giles said I was incompetent and couldn’t manage my way out of a paper sack.”
    Sarah-Beth nodded absently. “So that’s why.”
    “Why what?” Peggy asked.
    Sarah-Beth slid out from behind the banquette and pulled a couple of sheets of paper out of a drawer under the computer desk. “I think you should read this,” she said and handed it to me.
    The top sheet was a list of top rated