“Is he okay?” Coach Iago asked as Joe fled the room.

Frank frowned as he watched his brother going upstairs. “Yeah,” he said slowly, not sounding very convincing, even to himself.  Refocusing on the man standing in the doorway, he gave an absent shrug.  “Sorry about that,” he apologized, but had nothing to offer by way of explanation as he had no idea what was going on himself.

“That’s okay,” the coach brushed it off, “we haven’t seen each other in a long time either.  I think I threw him for a loop.”

Understatement of the year, Frank thought as the coach continued, “He’s looking good though.  I haven’t seen your brother since he was what…nine or ten, I guess.”

Frank nodded – that sounded about right.  “Yeah.  Hey Coach, not to sound rude, but I don’t think you came by to discuss my little brother… ” He was anxious for the man to leave so he could find out what exactly was going on with Joe.

“No,” the coach laughed and Frank thought it was odd, that the coach glanced past him momentarily, and looked towards the stairs, before giving the dark-haired boy his full attention.  “I just wanted to make sure you were coming to the game tomorrow.  I have an appointment and might be a little late, if it runs long, so I wanted to make sure someone would be there at the start of the game.”

“No problem,” Frank grinned; that was what he had been trying to tell Joe about all day!  He’d run into his old coach at the track, and the man had asked Frank if he’d be interested in acting as assistant coach for him until the end of the summer.  His regular assistant coach was out of commission for awhile, thanks to an unfortunate case of shingles!

Remembering how much fun he’d had on the team when he was a kid, Frank immediately accepted his offer.  “I’ll be there.  Wouldn’t want to miss my first game as assistant coach!”

“Perfect,” Coach Iago said, chuckling at Frank’s enthusiasm, and as he turned to go, he added, “Invite Joe along; we can reminisce about the good old days.”

“I’ll ask him,” Frank promised, and then waved to the man before he closed the door, locked it and hurried upstairs to find out what was going on.

* * *

Laura looked at Gwynne in shock.  Standing up, she leaned across the desk, picked up the magazine and looked at it in disbelief.  “Didn’t you read what’s in here?  Is this some sort of misprint?!  And I quote…” she looked down at the article, although she didn’t really need to, having pretty much memorized the passage by now, “And there are many riders whom, while gifted, have sought to make a mockery of the very sport they profess to love.

“One such individual was Paul Scott, son of Dr. Daniel Scott, famed New York City surgeon, and sister of award-winning past Equestrian, Laura Scott.

“Undisputedly a talented rider, Paul never took the sport seriously, as he participated in event after event on a horse that disqualified him more often than she jumped fences!  Tragically, Paul was taken from us at the age of seventeen, so we have been denied the opportunity to see how this young man would have matured….”

Gwynne closed her eyes and sighed tiredly.  “It’s true, Laura.  I know it’s hard for you to hear, and honestly I had vainly hoped you wouldn’t read it…but it is true.”

Laura was shaking her head; she was trying hard to keep her temper in check, but it was difficult to do when it involved her brother or when she looked at the other woman and thought back to those hateful words, now so long ago.  “Paul had faith in Grace. That’s why he took her from show to show!  And you know as well as I do, that horse could out-jump any other horse in her own, or any, class!”

“Paul was tossed on his ass more times than not, Laura,” Gwynne reminded her, working hard to keep her own temper in check.  “Hell, the last time she threw him, didn’t you yourself forbid him from jumping her again?  Yeah, he told me all about that…” she added, seeing the surprise on the blond woman’s face.  “He had to tell me something to explain the bruise!  I cared about him!”  She ended savagely, her dark brown eyes ablaze with emotion.

Laura did a double take as she stared at Gwynne and suddenly got a very chilling insight into what this might really be about.  Although Paul’s intuition could set clocks, Laura, herself – no less a Scott than he – had her own fair share.  And she read between the lines and saw exactly what this other woman, really still a girl, wasn’t saying!

“You’re mad at him,” the blond woman said slowly, “after all these years, you’re still angry, as all hell, that Paul died.  Not at anyone for killing him…but at him for dying…”

Laura continued with an eerie understanding, “When you yelled at me at the funeral, it wasn’t me you wanted to yell at…but him….”  She had never realized that before, because her own pain blinded her to the words that had been hurled.  “It was never me you were mad at…. But I was there, and he wasn’t…” Her voice trailed off, as she was suddenly very weary.

Gwynne opened her mouth to say something but then stopped. Getting up from behind the desk, she moved swiftly across the office floor and opened the door.  When she spoke, her voice was calm but venomous.  “Get out. You threw me out of your house 22 years ago and now I’m returning the favor.  Get the hell out.  Now.”

Laura put the magazine down on Gwynne’s desk; she picked up her purse and moved towards the door.  As she was passing the other woman, she paused.  “He didn’t mean to hurt you on purpose, Gwynne…but you’ve certainly hurt him.”  And then she was gone, hurrying out of the office, down the elevator and out through the front door before the first tears started to fall.

* * *

…Come with me…

“Joe?”

…to my secret place…

Joe bolted up in the bed and looked around wildly.  His heart was pounding and he gasped as he fought to take a breath.  What the—

“Joe? Unlock the door!” 

The blond teen blinked and looked around, the last of the nightmare slowly fading, as he realized he was in his own room and had obviously fallen asleep….

“Joe! The door!!”

“F-Frank?”  He finally registered the sound of his brother’s voice and the incessant banging on his room door.

“Who else would it be?” he heard Frank ask, sarcastically, as he stopped knocking on the door.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, the teen started to push the covers off his sweat-drenched body, wondering what the heck had happened, even as he unlocked the door.

“What’s going on?” Frank demanded immediately as he stepped into the room.  His tone was a bit sharper than he intended, but coming upstairs to find himself locked out of Joe’s room had unnerved him more than he cared to admit; although all the bedrooms had locks on them, neither Joe nor he used them…. Well, he amended, not in a long time, anyway.

Joe sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, rubbing a hand across his pale face.  “I fell asleep.”

Frank raised an eyebrow, a bit surprised, and reached over to touch Joe’s forehead.  It didn’t feel overly warm.  Sweaty yes, but seeing how the evening was uncomfortably muggy, that was to be expected. “Are you coming down with something?”

“I dunno,” Joe said and then sighed, “But I do feel a bit weird.”

The older boy paused and then just asked, “Weird, huh? Is that why you kind of freaked out downstairs?”

“Freaked out?” Joe said, confused sounding, “What are you talking about?”

Frank’s concern went up a notch.  “Well…how else would you describe your reaction to Coach Iago, when you opened the door? You basically flew out of the room as soon as I got downstairs, little brother.” His voice was non-accusatory, just curious.

Joe looked at him blankly.  “What are you talking about?”

“Joe.  We were having a conversation…doorbell rang…you answered it?  Does any of this ring a bell?”  Frank winced at the unintentional pun as he watched his brother very carefully.

The younger boy seemed to take a few moments to digest this and then slowly nodded, “Oh yeah. That.”

“’Oh yeah. That’. Exactly,” Frank said.  “Any explanation?”

“No,” Joe said and then stood up.  “I don’t know about you, but I think I’m going to take a cool shower.  It’s awfully warm tonight.”  And then he was in the bathroom and had the door closed before Frank could recover from the swift topic change.

“What the heck is going on?” he muttered, going into his own room and sitting down.  Sighing in frustration, he sat down at his desk and decided to see if Phil Cohen, one of his best friends, was online.

* * *

In the bathroom, Joe stared at himself in the mirror.

What the heck is going on?

For the life of him, he honestly could not remember answering the door….

* * *

Laura Hardy used the spare key to unlock the door to Gertrude’s condo and went in.  She had already been there earlier, but only long enough to drop off her overnight bag before catching a taxi to Gwynne’s office.

Exhausted, physically and emotionally, she took off her shoes and dropped down heavily into one of the large arm chairs that adorned the living room. The condo was on the 14^th floor of an apartment building, and while it had a magnificent view of the city, right now the scenery wasn’t something she was interested in.

She was thinking about her brother….

Seeing Gwynne had refreshed the pain, and being in the city again was doing nothing to help.  Her childhood home was less than an hour away from where she was now, and Laura resisted the strong temptation to flee there; to take some solace from the pain and pretend, for even an hour, that things were different.  And that she was only waiting for Paul to come home….

Of course it was no longer her home, her father having sold it after Paul died and Laura married Fenton.  It belonged to some other family now.  But that didn’t matter.  It would always be the place where she and Paul grew up…the house her father had bought for her mother as a gift, after finding out his beautiful bride was expecting their first child.

Brushing a tear away from her face, and so sick and tired of crying, Laura leaned over and picked up the phone.  Right now she really needed to hear his voice…and to gain some strength from knowing he was there….