Dead Heat (ePub)

A Kentucky blue blood, Ashleigh Scott would go to any length to protect her family's legacy-Wind Racer Farm. Then one of her horses went berserk, killing a jockey. A syndicated handicapper from the wrong side of the track, Doyle McCoy knew the darker side of racing. They followed a trail of clues that led to murder and revenge. In this horse race, their lives were at stake.

Excerpt:
Walking across the Keeneland paddock area, Doyle McCoy spotted Ashleigh Scott mincing her way across the paddock area in too-high yellow heels the exact shade of her too-wide-brimmed yellow straw hat.
Doyle couldn't help himself. He stepped directly in front of her and grinned, his gaze fastening on the small mole below the left corner of her mouth. "Why, Ash, darlin', don't you look pretty as a picture."
Her obliging smile was a mere shade away from feral. He knew she hated the nickname he'd given her as a kid-she was Ashleigh or Leigh, depending on which side of the racetrack was doing the calling. He also knew she'd prefer he drop off the face of the earth rather than call her anything at all.
"Why, Doyle McCoy, how nice to see you."
Nice indicating he belonged in the earth with the rest of the worms. Any Kentucky woman worth her salt could sound like she was lavishing a man with compliments while grinding him under her dainty heel.
"I noticed Wind Racer has a couple of horses running today."
Wind Racer Farm being the Scott legacy, which, as an only child, Leigh would someday inherit from her mother Vanessa.
"Yes, the Blue Grass Stakes is the highlight of the day, of course. But I do have a filly in this next race, and I wouldn't think of missing Dancing Dawn win."
Her thick dark hair was pulled back from her fine features and gathered with a purple ribbon at the nape of her long, graceful neck that tempted a man's lips to assault of the very personal kind.
Not his lips, though.
When Doyle realized Leigh was staring at him openly, her thick-lashed eyes more brilliant than the Kentucky bluegrass, her guard relaxed for once, Doyle couldn't stop himself from spoiling the moment. "Hmm, I thought Lady Jane looked pretty good myself."
Her jaw tightened but a smile remained attached to her lovely lips. "You always do make interesting choices when it comes to fillies."
"Part of my job."
Though Doyle knew she meant the human kind of filly, like his high school sweetheart who eloped with a traveling salesman two weeks before they were to graduate. Only thirteen at the time, Leigh had volunteered to be Betty's replacement. She hadn't taken kindly to his rebuff, no matter that he'd tried to let her down gently.
"Since you're so enamored of Lady Jane," Leigh was saying, "it's too bad you predicted Dancing Dawn would win in print, isn't it?"
With that shot, she strolled off, her shiny waterfall of dark hair undulating down her back like a horse's tail. Doyle stared after her. So she read his column, did she? He wondered if she would ever have admitted to doing so if she hadn't been trying to best him.
He and Ashleigh Scott had disrespected and disavowed each other for as long as Doyle could remember, starting sometime after he'd put an end to her romantic schoolgirl yearnings. The five year gap in their ages had made any relationship other than friendship a no-no, of course. But they would have made an inappropriate match for other reasons, as well. She'd been too young to understand or accept the class/money structure that placed them in two different worlds.