It was a sad state of affairs to admit that she visited often.
Moira was headed there now. Her packed suitcases were waiting by the door. She just had to get a few personal items and she’d head out, like thousands of others, to the interstate on a northbound evacuation.
She glanced at her wristwatch, a Longines her parents had given her on her graduation from Auburn University in equine science. The day was slipping away. She wanted to be on the road. All that was left was to gather her jewelry and she’d be off.
She’d evacuated Kiawah for hurricanes two of the four years that she’d lived here. Each time she felt like a horse bolting, her flight instinct in high gear. After every storm, there were those who swore they’d never evacuate again. Moira always heeded the experts’ advice. One of these years, that monster hurricane would hit full-on, and she didn’t want to be stuck on a barrier island when it did. Not to mention that every year more and more people moved south, which meant that every year more and more people crowded the highways during an evacuation. Leaving promptly was key.
Her cell phone rang as she crossed the living room. Moira picked up her pace to run to the master bedroom and grab it from her purse. The name GRACE PHILLIPS popped up on the screen.
“Hi, Mama,” Moira said breathlessly when the phone was at her ear.
“Have you left yet?”
Moira held back her smile. This was typical of her mother: abrupt and to-the-point. Grace was always multitasking and didn’t have time for idle chitchat. Long and meaningful conversations, yes. When the time was right, Grace would sit in a comfortable chair, coffee or wine served, and give you the full impact of her undistracted, razor-sharp attention. But when she was on a roll, her decisions came quickly, and she didn’t suffer fools.
“I’m about out the door.”
“Why haven’t you left?” The shock with a hint of scold registered with Moira. “The traffic is already building, and the governor is a breath away from declaring a mandatory evacuation for the barrier islands. You’ll be trapped on the interstate.”
As usual, her mother had all the up-to-date information. Moira could envision the large computer screen on her desk and the television on the wall of her home office, blaring the news.
“I’ll be trapped anyway. Take a chill pill. I’m just grabbing a few last things. What’s going on up there?” she asked, referring to Freehold Farm.
“Chaos,” Grace said. “Panic is setting in. Everyone I ever knew or met is calling to ask if I have a place for them and their horse. There just isn’t anything available. The hurricane wobbled again, and it looks like Wellington is going to be hit hard. Everyone is scrambling.”
“Who’s coming to the farm?” Moira asked while throwing things into a bag.
“The Klugs, of course. Gerta had her ducks in a row the moment the first wave was spotted off Sierra Leone. Gerta knows she always has a place with me if she needs it.”
Moira knew Mrs. Klug and her daughter, Elise, very well. Gerta and Grace had trained together as young women in Germany, and their friendship had endured after each woman married. Grace had given up competitive riding after she’d married. Gerta, too, had stopped competing after her terrible fall and focused instead on her husband’s breeding program. Trakehners from the Klug stable in Bavaria were highly sought after, and many had reached international competition. Grace and Gerta had maintained their friendship, despite the long distance. The Phillips family often traveled to the Klug estate, and when the girls were older, Moira had gone to Germany to study under a noted German dressage trainer with Elise. Like their mothers, the girls had become friends, bonding over their shared love of horses and competing.
Yet unlike their mothers, Moira and Elise had let go of that bond. After Gerta had divorced her husband more than a decade earlier, she and Elise had left Germany and moved to Wellington, Florida, where Gerta established her own equestrian facility. One would have thought that the move would have brought the two young women closer together. But Moira, like her mother, had given up competitive riding after her marriage to Thom, while Elise had continued competing hard in dressage.
“It’ll be nice to see Elise again,” Moira said. “It’s been ages. I hear she’s covering the circuit.”
“That’s an understatement,” Grace replied. “Gerta told me she’s getting ready for the Devon show in September, then after a break she has a big push during the Wellington winter season at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival.”
“That’s impressive.”
“She hopes that Robert Dover will encourage her to join the team going to compete in Europe during the spring and summer.”
Moira paused, stunned. “She’s going for the Olympic team.”
“You got it.”
Moira took a moment to digest that. To make the Olympic team would place Elise at the pinnacle of riders. She remembered how she and Elise had talked wistfully about someday riding in the Olympics. How they’d cheer each other on. As happy as she was for Elise, she couldn’t help but also feel a twinge of jealousy.
Elise had done it. She’d made her dream come true. While Moira . . . What? she asked herself impatiently. What do I want?
Grace spoke again. “Moira? You there?”
“Uh, yes, sorry. The connection went weak. Is anyone else coming?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Hannah,” Grace replied. “And,” she added with import, “she’s bringing her current beau. You’ll never guess who.”
Moira rolled her eyes. It was anyone’s guess as to who her current attachment might be. Be they wealthy, famous, or poor as church mice, Hannah went through men at such a pace that Moira’s father had nicknamed her the Man-Eater.
“I’m in a hurry, remember? Who is he?” Moira asked as she made her way across the dark wood floor of her master bedroom to a lowcountry beach landscape painting. She pulled on a corner of the ornate frame and it opened on a hinge to reveal a wall safe. Moira rested the phone in the crook of her neck as she punched in the combination.
“Angel de la Cruz.”
Moira’s fingers stilled as her attention sharpened. Javier Angel de la Cruz was a famous, even notorious, show jumper, winner of two team gold medals and a silver individual medal on the Venezuelan team.
Thom often said that his wife “didn’t like sports.” But this wasn’t true. Unlike Thom, she had no interest in football, baseball, hockey, or basketball. But Moira was a devoted fan of equestrian sports: show jumping, hunting, and dressage. Though she no longer rode competitively, she avidly kept up with the sport and the who’s-who. And in the equestrian world, Angel de la Cruz was a rock star.
“You’re kidding. Are you serious?”
“I am,” Grace replied, and Moira could almost see her smiling.
“If anyone could bag Angel, it’s Hannah. But isn’t she a little old for him?”
“Not really,” her mother replied, seemingly affronted. “She’s just a tad younger than me.” Grace was in excellent shape and took pride that at fifty-five, she looked years younger.
“Yeah . . . and Angel’s what? Forty?”
“Forty-five, but who’s counting? They’re both ageless.”