This can't have happened to me again, was all she could think. I've been in love exactly twice in my entire life and both times I'm betrayed? Left in pain? This can't have happened to me twice!

There was no possible way she could eat; her head began to pound and she knew it was from the effort she put into not shedding a tear over him. But she bolted both the front and back door so he couldn't enter, put on her opera CDs, shut her eyes and tried to drive the image of him making love to her from her mind. She barely slept.

The next day she called her grandfather and excused herself from work on account of the flu.

"Lilly, I saw--"

"You don't know what you saw, Grandpa, and I don't feel like trying to explain it until I've had a chance to think it through. Please. Give me a little time and space."

"If he's wronged you, I will--"

"I know how far you'd be willing to go to avenge me, Grandpa. But this time I'm going to take care of myself. I'll check in later."

Then she called Annie. "I'm afraid I can't help you with lessons the rest of the week, Annie--I'm under the weather."

"Lilly, we all know something's wrong," Annie said. "You're not here, Clay is miserable, Gabe is upset, and everything is upside down. Won't you tell me?"

"Will Clay tell you?"

"He won't say anything and I'm worried."

"No need to worry, Annie. Just please excuse me from my commitment the next few days. I'm sure I'll be fine soon. I'll give you a call."

She stayed home from the feed store for a couple of days. Clay waited almost twenty-four hours before he started calling her cell. Despite her desire to ignore him, she listened to his voice mails--he left several. Lilly, I have things to explain to you, but you have to give me a chance. Lilly, maybe I was wrong not to tell you more about Isabel, but honestly I didn't want her in our lives. Please forgive me. Give me a chance. And her favorite, Lilly, you're giving up on us too soon--we only need to talk to make this right.

She just wasn't going to do it, wasn't going to trust him again only to find out he was lying. She didn't take his calls or return them.

On the second evening after their confrontation, Clay came knocking at her door. She crept to the door and told him to go away, but he persisted.

"Please, just talk to me. Fifteen minutes, that's all I ask, just fifteen minutes. You have to understand about Isabel--she looks like she has everything, but she doesn't have any of the important things, Lilly. She's insecure and in so many ways she's childlike."

Hmm, Lilly thought. I wonder how childlike her bank account is. Or how childlike she is in bed. "Go away. I'm not letting you in. I don't want to talk to you!"

"Lilly, you mean so much to me and I know you care about me, too. Let's work this out. Let's hear each other out, clear the air. I'll try to explain. I just need you to try to understand.... We'll start over. We can't let this thing we have end so soon. Not now, not when we're just getting started."

She had to admit this was a vast improvement over the boy who said, "Baby? Well it can't be mine!"

But having him bang at her door threw her and she lost her mind. She wanted him to know she meant business, that she wouldn't be a naive little girl both he and Isabel could manipulate! So after she called the Fortuna police, she went into her bedroom and closed the door. She heard him pounding on the door, but his voice, which tempted her and angered her at the same time, was blissfully muffled.

And she thought, What have I done? What if they take him to jail? If anything could bring a final end to their relationship, calling the police on him would surely be it!

Clay had been knocking and talking for about twenty minutes when the squad car pulled up in front of Lilly's house. A cop equal to Clay in size got out, sauntered up to him and asked, "Sir? Did the lady ask you to leave?"

"I haven't done anything wrong," Clay said.

"You're creating a disturbance and it looks like you might be harassing her. How about you either leave or we go to the station and talk about this?"

"Damn," he said.

"Buddy, you gotta leave the girl alone. She's not into you, all right?"

"Yeah," he said, hanging his head. "Am I free to just go?"

"I'd like you to go. By the way, in case there's any confusion, Mr. Tahoma, I ran your plate and the young lady told the dispatcher where you work, so let's not give the woman any more trouble. We on the same page here?"

"Same page," he said over his shoulder as he headed for his truck.

And inside, Lilly lay on her bed and, for the first time since their dreadful confrontation, she cried.

Fifteen

When the phone rang in the office of the Jensen Clinic, Nathaniel picked it up, even though his assistant was in the same room working on the computer.

"Dr. Jensen," he answered. "I'll see if he's available, Isabel. Hold the line, please." He punched the hold button, turned to Clay and said, "It's Isabel. For you."

Clay nodded and reached for the phone.

"Clay," Nate said. "I can step out."

Clay thought about this for just a second, then nodded and said, "Thank you." He waited for Nate to leave the small office before he connected with the call. "Hello, Isabel."

"Well, hello," she said. "I hope you've simmered down a little."

"What's on your mind?"

She laughed lightly. "I'd have to be blind, deaf and stupid not to see that I really pissed you off. I've never seen you so angry, certainly not with me, certainly not from some offhand remark about an Indian girl! We had talked about this stuff before and you said the term was not offensive to you. I called to make amends."

"Forgiven," he said.

"But Clay, I'm still not sure what I did, what I said," she argued.

"I said, forgiven. Let's move on, please."

"Not until I understand," she begged.

"I told you there was a woman and you treated her with disrespect. It wasn't what you said so much as the way you said it, laughing at her, as though she's nothing. Some little Indian girl. Shame on you, Isabel. I expect that cruel side from Frederik, but not from you."

"Ah. So an apology won't quite get it with you. Clay, you know I'm not savvy with these Native American issues, the vernacular. Come on, give me a break here. We were together a long time and we talked about this stuff a lot, but I didn't grow up in the Native community and--"

"It isn't about the Native community, Isabel. It's about mocking another human being."

"And she heard you say you'd always love me, she's angry, and you're upset. How can I help that?"

"Somehow you knew who she was before I even arrived at the clinic," Clay said. "You made sure she was aware that our relationship didn't exactly end with our divorce. Was that to taunt her? To anger her enough so that you'd get what you want out of me? Ah, never mind--what goes on between Lilly and me isn't your concern, so just drop it. Is there anything else you need from me?"

She sighed audibly. "The stable vet and trainer disagree with your recommendation for Diamond."

"Not the first time there's been a difference of opinion," he said impatiently.

"Will you please come? Just for a weekend? Talk to them?"

"I'm afraid that's not possible, but if you'd like me to ask Dr. Jensen if he's available for a quick trip to L.A., I could do that."

"You know it's not Dr. Jensen I need right now. I'll pay. Top dollar."

Clay leaned his elbow on the desk and applied his thumb and forefingers to his temples. "You never understood about that, did you, Isabel? I'm not for sale."

"You have your son there now," she said. "Your son and your girlfriend."

"Gabe is working in the clinic and living with my sister in Grace Valley. He told me he talked to you briefly before you left, so I'm sure you already know those details."

"And the girlfriend?"

He was silent for a long moment. "Do you want to talk to Dr. Jensen about a consult?"

"I want you to stop treating me as though I'm some horse breeder you don't know! I have a problem with a very valuable quarter horse."

Clay stayed stoically quiet for a moment. "Yes, I know. I think we addressed that problem. Didn't we?" There was no answer on the line. "Do you need the doctor?" he asked.

"I thought I was clear. I need you."

"I'm no longer available to you."

"What about my horse?" she asked indignantly.

"The doctor has given you a course of treatment. If you'd like to discuss it further, I'll call him to the phone. Otherwise, good luck."

The sound of the phone slamming several times against a hard surface answered him. Then there was a dial tone. He stared at the phone for a moment, then the door to the office opened and Nathaniel stood looking at him.

"You didn't step all that far out," Clay commented.

"Landlord rights," he said. "And maybe the only way I'm going to find out what's going on around here." He nodded toward the phone. "What's that all about, Clay?"

Clay put the cordless on its base. "That is proof positive that material wealth does not guarantee happiness. Isabel has many needs, and right now what she needs is to have me at her beck and call." He shook his head and didn't smile. "Poor Isabel."

"She's having trouble with the horse?"

"Possibly, but more likely she's having trouble accepting the fact that I moved on. This is my fault, Nathaniel. I thought patience was the way with Isabel. Patience and understanding. But I only enabled her."

"Enabled her to do what?" Nate asked.

"I've always seen her as a woman who needs love and acceptance, who needs reassurance that love wouldn't be withdrawn, that it would be permanent. But there's more to her. Isabel was raised by an abusive man and I can't even imagine the extent of that abuse. There are things she's never been able to talk about. I do know that as a child she was treated too harshly--affection was continually withheld. Earning a kind word from Frederik was impossible, even when she became an accomplished adult. And I see now there's a side to her that's...that's very like the man who raised her. It's not something I witnessed often, but her many needs can push her to behave as a selfish, self-pitying bigot. And I should have been clearer when I left L.A. that I was permanently leaving her and our relationship. Like I said--my fault."

"Bigot? A bigot who married a Native American?"

"Exactly. If Isabel is a bigot her father is a full-blown racist. It suited them to have a Native farrier and stable manager--it was interesting for them. I was a conversation piece, more so when I married Isabel. It escalated again when we divorced but I stayed on at the stable. This move was long overdue."

"This used to be a happier place," Nate said. "No one's happy these days. What are we going to do about Lilly?"

"We?"

"It's not just you and Lilly who are unhappy. My Annie is down--Lilly isn't ready to talk about this whole mess. Annie had just found herself the perfect training partner and had big dreams for what they could do for young girls when you and Lilly fell out. I used to have a much more content assistant. And poor Gabe--he walks around like he's afraid to sneeze. So, what are we going to do?"

"Nathaniel, I apologize. If I'd dealt with Isabel a long time ago none of this would be happening. I carried on with Isabel for a long time after our divorce. I was married to her, after all. There was no one else in my life and I didn't see the harm.... Isabel was here when Lilly came to deliver feed the other day and somehow she knew. She knew Lilly was my--" He took a breath. "Isabel made sure Lilly knew that even though I'd been divorced a couple of years, we'd continued on until recently."