Raising the Bar

Table of Contents

Blurb

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

About the Author

By Leigh Dillon

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Copyright

Raising the Bar

By Leigh Dillon

Destin Bellingham has inherited a problem. Thanks to his late playboy father, Destin faces putting a For Sale sign on his family’s historic horse farm. Getting his talented stallion, Black Sambuca, into the Grand Prix show ring would put Bellmeade back on the map—if only someone could make Sam behave like a show horse.

Disgraced top rider Tonio Benedetto has his own problems, but he can work magic with difficult jumpers, so Destin hires him despite his bad-boy reputation. The street-smart, openly gay loudmouth from Miami and the closeted, buttoned-down son of Old Dominion Virginia make a rocky pairing, but time is running out to save Bellmeade from bankruptcy.

Opposites attract, sparks of tension grow into flames of passion. But if Tonio fails to tame Sam, will true love become a lost cause too?

States of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the United States.

To my long-suffering mother, who thought the day she’d read this dedication would never come.

Chapter 1

DAMMIT! DESTIN Bellingham hurled the printout, and the bad news it contained, toward his desktop. Instead of sailing smoothly, the paper turned a midair flip and scooted under one massive mahogany pillar of the Bellmeade Farm office desk. Dammit, Destin said again, leaning on his hands against the desk’s edge, weak with defeat.

Outside the office window, three sleek broodmares grazed on the lush bluegrass in the mare paddock—three where there was once twenty. Rows of silver plates and trophy cups reflected the view, multiplying Destin into dozens of tiny images of despair. Above the trophy case, the oil portrait of Destin’s great-great-grandfather, dressed in his scarlet hunt coat, sneered down at his descendant over his luxuriant painted mustache. A framed studio portrait of Destin’s lately deceased father hung below the painting, and Destin clenched his fists, fighting the urge to throw something at his dad’s smiling face.

One corner of the printout peeked out from under the desk. Destin pawed at it with the toe of his paddock boot, but the paper didn’t budge. With a grunt Destin squatted and scrabbled at it with his fingers. And because things always seemed to happen that way, as he crouched on the floor with his hair hanging over his red face, a shadow and a pair of polished DeNiro riding boots appeared in the office doorway.

Albert. Crap.

Destin jerked upright, too late to save his dignity, and smoothed back his thick mane of wheat-gold hair—the only gold left in the Bellingham family these days, if the stats on the printout were true.

Hey, he said, summoning up what he hoped was a welcoming smile. It felt more like a grimace.

This a bad time? Albert asked, flashing a look up and down Destin’s broad-shouldered frame. Al, the very picture of a Virginia gentleman, wore a tweed hacking jacket in casual but elegant plaid, and those shining boots over fawn riding breeches, impeccably turned out for the afternoon of horseback riding they had planned.

Destin was, well, not turned out. At all.

No, I just— Destin looked down at the printout in his hand, then thrust it at Al. This came just now.

Al took the paper and read it, his frown deepening as he scanned the page. That’s not good, he said, handing the printout back.

I know. Maybe five swimmers in a sample of five million. That’s basically the end of Argento as a stud.

Al made a sympathetic face. You can’t run Bellmeade on just one stallion and three mares.

Tell me about it. Destin threw another dirty look at his father’s portrait.

According to this, not even one stallion, he said. And we’re down to only twenty vials of frozen semen with that one.

Al stared at him. Twenty! Where’d it all go?

Freebies to Dad’s friends with mares to breed, and Dad not bothering to collect any more. That’s where it went. Destin kept his voice even, despite his wild urge to kick things. Throwing tantrums had never been the Bellingham way, and Destin wasn’t about to break family tradition.

You need mares and another stud, Al said, giving his jacket a miniscule tweak. You’re not going to have much of a breeding operation without one.

Captain Obvious strikes again. No. I could get outside stud service, of course, but there’s not really room in the budget right now for breeding fees. Not if I want to pay the feed bill and the grooms, Destin said aloud, trying not to grit his teeth. And Dad sold off the best broodmares anyway.

Al shot him a surprised look. Yes, true. But you still have a few, and there’s that big black home-bred stud. What’s his name? Black Sambuca? You said he’s a great prospect.

Destin opened his mouth to answer, but before he could get the words out, faint, frantic shouting reached his ears. Oh no, he groaned, and raced out of the office and into the aisle of the stud barn. Al hurried after him, the rap-tap of his expensive boots echoing in the open rafters of the century-old brick structure. The shouts came nearer, and the thunder of hoofbeats reverberated through the ground.

Stay here, Destin snapped, putting his hand out to stop Al.

Why? What’s happening?

The sound of pounding hooves grew closer and louder. An immense coal-black shadow blew past the open doors at the end of the aisle and went rocketing off down the dirt lane that led away from the stud barn. Grooms came pelting after the black horse, shouting in Spanish and waving their arms futilely in his wake.

Destin didn’t join them in their hopeless foot chase. He took off running, the prick-eared faces of the stabled horses blurring as he spurred his long-legged athletic body down the center aisle. Thank God he had the keys to the farm truck in his pocket. The battered F-250 kicked up sawdust and dirt as he floored the accelerator, fishtailing down the delivery road that intersected the lane. There wasn’t much chance of Black Sambuca getting off the farm property. Even a horse of Black’s caliber couldn’t clear the ten-foot wrought iron gates that enclosed the main entrance. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try.

The truck shot out of the side road only yards ahead of the onrushing stallion. Destin wedged the pickup as sideways as he could get it without smacking the old drystone walls that lined the driveway, then got out, peeling off his barn jacket as he went.

Black came rushing on. Destin raised his jacket over his head and waved it like a man signaling an oncoming locomotive. Any normal horse would have shied away from the flapping garment, but Black didn’t even slow down. He was twenty yards away, now ten yards….

He’s going to jump the truck. Oh my God, he’s going to jump it.

Destin ducked and threw his arm up, bracing for the inevitable spray of broken glass when the sixteen-hundred-pound horse hit the windshield. Tucked against the door, he peeked out from under his arm, bracing for the worst.

Black flattened his ears. He was close enough now that Destin could see the whites of his eyes and the pink inside his flared nostrils. Muscles rippled under the black satin skin of his broad chest as he pounded forward. But at the last possible moment, instead of leaping, Black planted his forefeet, skidded to a dusty halt, performed an impossible pivot, and launched himself over the supposedly jumper-proof railing that topped the old stone wall of the hayfield beside the driveway.

Destin gaped after him as the stallion capered off across the fallow field, tail straight in the air like a departing middle finger.

Nobody could do that. Not a single horse in Destin’s living memory could turn and clear a standing jump like that. A horse that could do that in the show ring was practically unbeatable.

Too bad nobody spoke Black Sambuca’s language.

Chapter 2

THAT! DESTIN spat, tossing his jacket on the chair behind the office desk. "That is why Black Sambuca is not the magical stallion who can save Bellmeade."

Al, who had greeted Destin’s return to the stud barn with unaccustomed silence, dropped into the leather visitor’s chair and set the barn binoculars on the floor beside him. Outside a pair of grooms led Black, blowing and huffing but still feisty, away to the round pen between the stud barn and the house.

Standing jump, Al croaked.

Beg pardon?