The Glory Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

boots.
    â€œYou look like a Texas shitkicker,” he retorted contemptuously.
    â€œWhat do you expect me to wear around these horses of yours?” Trisha demanded angrily. “They’re always butting their heads up against me or slobbering all over me. I’m not about to let them ruin my good clothes! It isn’t my fault you gave Jimmy Ray the day off,” she said, referring to the regular groom.
    â€œHey, I never asked you to help with the horses. That was your idea!” He jabbed a finger in her direction. “I can always find a groom!”
    â€œSure you can. You’re a Kincaid. You can get anything you want!” She mocked his arrogance.
    â€œThat isn’t what I meant at all,” Rob muttered under his breath. He balled up the unrolled bandage in his hand and hurled it at the rest of his equipment on the ground. “When Grandmother Kincaid sees you like that, she’ll have a fit.”
    â€œSo? I won’t let her see me.” The solution was simple.
    â€œYeah, but she’ll hear about it. You could wear something nicer, Trish. Other people around here know you. Don’t you care what they think when they see a—”
    â€œI know,” she interrupted. “A Kincaid. Everybody seems to have conveniently forgotten that I’m a Thomas, too. Why are you so hung-up on this?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He combed his fingers through his hair in a defeated gesture. “I guess it’s the game. I wanted to win that cup.”
    â€œAll of us wanted you to,” Trisha reminded him.
    Anger and impatience returned to his expression as he dismissed her answer. “I can’t expect you to understand,” he muttered thickly.
    â€œWhy?” She hated it when he adopted this intellectually superior attitude.
    â€œI’m a Kincaid!” His angry declaration indicated that was a sufficient explanation.
    â€œSo what? You aren’t the only one on this earth—we have relations by the score!”
    He turned and leaned against the horse’s hot flanks, draping his arms over its sweaty back. “But I’m the one who was playing today.” His voice was low, almost muffled, and cutting in its self-condemnation.
    Her anger faded. Fights between them were frequent, sometimes initiated by a lot of goading on Trisha’s part usually when she was fed up with the damned noble ideas he’d get in his head. But she could rarely stay mad at him for long. She crossed to the horse and stood beside it, leaning a shoulder against the sorrel’s withers and folding her arms in front of her. At five inches over five feet she was nearly six inches shorter than her brother, but she was never conscious of it. The air she breathed was strong with the earthy smell of horse, an aroma she’d always liked.
    â€œRob, there were three other players on your team today. Two of them had five- and six-goal handicaps. They made mistakes out there. You weren’t the only one.”
    â€œI should have played better.” He dug the toe of his boot into the grass as he made the critical assessment.
    â€œRob, loosen up!” Trisha declared in exasperation.
    He turned his head to look at her. The expression on his raw-boned features was so earnest and intense it was almost frightening. “You don’t know what it’s like to play serious polo, do you? It’s just a game on horseback to you, isn’t it? It’s position, always position.”
    Trisha stopped him before he could go further in his lecture on polo tactics. “Don’t get serious on me. I can only take so much of your heavy thinking.”
    Rob pushed away from the sorrel pony and reached for the sweat scraper. “I have to practice more.”
    She mussed his hair, flattened by the helmet, as he swiped the scraper over the horse’s wet back, then dodged his upraised arm when it attempted to knock her hand aside. “All work and no