One Hoof In The Grave [Carriage Driving 02] by Carolyn McSparren

went white. Peggy hoped the crockery was thick. “He will never know unless you tell him. Promise me you won’t.”
    “Of course I won’t, but I still think you should. Not only are there ethical considerations, but legal ones as well. I know you and Raleigh are having problems . . .”
    “A baby is not going to cure my marriage.”
    “Counseling might. This might be the impetus to get him to consider going with you. Listen, Sarah Beth, your biological clock is close to chiming the midnight hour. If you ever want a child, you better think long and hard before you get rid of the only one you may ever conceive.”
    In an instant Sarah Beth morphed from waif to Valkyrie. “How dare you? I thought you were my friend. Get the hell out of my trailer!”
    For a moment Peggy thought Sarah Beth was going to throw the cup. Hormones and misery.
    Peggy slid out of the banquette and started for the door.
    “And take your damn ribs!”
    So she did.
    As she walked back up the hill toward the party, Peggy heard the three-piece combo playing dance music from one end of the terrace. What on earth was she going to do with the ribs? She was ravenous, but couldn’t see standing deep in the shadows and scarfing down ribs with one hand while trying to hold the paper plate with the other. She wound up sitting in the front seat of Merry’s pickup in the dark like a lost soul cast into the darkness, while she worried about Sarah Beth.
    If Raleigh didn’t know he was about to become a father, then what on earth was he so doggone cheerful about?

Chapter 7
     
    Sunday morning
    Merry
    If we’d thought the early morning mist was bad Saturday morning before the marathon, it was worse , a London pea souper, at six-thirty Sunday morning. The thick pine forest that edged the dressage arena beside the stables held the fog tight among its needles. It swirled across the arena and left heavy dew that wet my supposedly waterproof paddock boots to the ankle.
    I’d given Peggy leave to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast with Dick at the motel before she caught a ride over to the Tollivers’ place with him. I am so used to getting up at dawn to feed horses that I can’t sleep in even when I’d like to. And since I didn’t drink at last evening’s party, I didn’t have a hangover to contend with.
    I’d agreed to help the volunteer committee set the cones course in the dressage arena. The third phase of the event after the marathon and dressage consisted of an obstacle course in which each carriage threaded its way through a corkscrew puzzle of tall orange traffic cones. Not the usual cones you see on the highway, however. These were cut at a slight angle that turned them into Leaning Tower of Pisa cones. A white ball topped each cone. If a horse or carriage hit one of the cones, the ball fell.
    The cones, like the hazards course, were set just slightly wider than the carriage running the course—smaller carriage, smaller ponies or horses, and the cones were set closer together. For the large four-in-hands like Raleigh’s, the cones were set at maximum distance apart, but still only a few inches wider than the carriage itself.
    The horses had to maneuver through very tight turns at the highest speed they could manage. The carriage with the fewest balls down and the shortest time on course won.
    I fed and watered Golden and Ned and picked the overnight manure out of shavings in their cushy trailer stalls, then wrapped my windbreaker around me tight and walked down to the dressage arena. After last night’s party, I wasn’t surprised to find I was the first to arrive.
    Tacked to one of the light poles I found the course designer’s outline of where the pairs of cones should be set. One set of volunteers were to pick up as many cones as they could tote and drop them in the general area, then a second set of volunteers would measure distances precisely and set the balls on top of each cone.
    The area was surrounded by pine forest on three