The Hearts of the Jealous

By Syrinx

Summary: Theirs was a collision course starting from year one.

Pairings: Ashleigh/Mike, Ashleigh/Brad

Disclaimer: All rights to the Thoroughbred series belong to Joanna Campbell and Harper Collins.

A/N: What would happen if Wonder hadn't hit her stride until she was four, taking her out of the Triple Crown entirely? What if she didn't meet the Prince until later? What would have happened then?

1. Sovereign (Brad, Year One)

It was reasonable to say that he would remember the day Townsend Prince was born not because the foal was clearly the most promising of Townsend Pride's first crop, but because the farm was running on generators for the third day in a row. Ice caked onto the downed power lines and glistened on the blacktop of the roads, keeping residents to their fireplaces and the horses indoors. The only things that worked reliably were the phones while the city diligently tried to set things back to normal.

Without power, the main house seemed to stumble back in time, relying on the fireplaces for warmth when the farm below swallowed all the generators could produce. The maids pulled out all the down bedding from the cupboards, waiting until the crisis was averted. Brad remembered that his mother had tilted her head when the lights went dark and immediately called for the car. She would spend the next few days at the Hyatt in Lexington.

The cold effectively made works uncomfortable, but the ice made it impossible. Robbed of his one thing to do in the morning, Brad took to sleeping in, lying prostrate in the pocket of body heat the down comforters provided. At some point, a maid would let herself into his room to build the fire back up, stoking it into a crackling roar that served only to lull him into a deeper sleep.

For the life of him Brad felt like an English lord, and it was a feeling he had every intention of clinging to while the power was out, but at eight o'clock on the third day of the power outage, someone woke him to tell him the news.

"Mr. Townsend," Maria was shaking his arm gently, whispering his name as though her aim was to rock him into a stupor rather than prod him awake.

"For Christ's sake, Maria," Brad mumbled into his pillow, pulling his arm out of her hesitant grasp and propping himself up on his elbows lazily. "Call me Brad."

"You know I can't," Maria said, her Spanish accent lilting under her breath as she continued to whisper.

"Can't or won't?"

"Doesn't matter," she shrugged. "Get up. Your mare is having her baby."

"Three Foot?" Brad asked, looking up at her and shoving his disarrayed hair off his forehead.

"That is the one," she said. "Mr. Townsend say to come quick."

"Fantastic," he grumbled, lifting himself up and throwing the covers off and onto the floor. Maria stooped to pick them up.

"Later, Maria," Brad barked, sending her scurrying from the room.

It took no time at all to dress. He remembered pulling on jeans and a shirt, a sweater, a fleece pull over, socks, wool socks, and boots. He was still freezing when he left the relative warmth of the house and nearly ran down the salted steps, fastening the zipper of his coat and seeing his breath steam in the air.

This was the moment they were all waiting for, and the damn mare had to pick now to give birth. That's what he was thinking as he tried to avoid the slippery spots on the salted path to the barn. Three Foot was a week late, her foal ready to drop for days, giving everyone fits as the weather kept sending storm after storm of ice across the Bluegrass. Despite his annoyance, Brad was tempted to break into a run. He'd been waiting too long to miss this moment.

In his haste to get to the broodmare barn, he found a patch of ice and slipped, landing on his back on the ice coated grass. It was not like falling into a snow drift. That would have been comfortable. This felt like falling on concrete. For a dazed minute, he stared up at the clear sky and tried to get his breathing back to normal, which would have been fine if not for his aching ribs.

Slowly he stood up and looked around. The empty silence of the farm was excruciating, but it beat having a whole legion of stable hands staring at him in mute astonishment. Standing up, Brad checked himself over, took two cautious steps back onto the path, and picked his way to the barn at a snail's pace.

When he got there, the foal was curled up in the straw. Three Foot was standing protectively over the bundle, licking and nuzzling and snorting her welcoming warm breaths over the baby's neck. Even thought it was wet, Brad could see it would be a chestnut. A narrow white stripe ran crookedly right down the middle of its face, and its tiny hooves were folded underneath it, one tiny hind pastern exposed and splashed with white. A flashy chestnut, just like its father.

"It's a colt," Clay said over the hum of the generators. He was beaming, patting Brad on the back right in a place where he knew a bruise would be forming from his fall. He tried not to wince.

"Healthy as ever, I'd say," Tom O'Brien, the stud manager, said as he came out of the recently cleared breeding manager office. "But we'll get a vet out here to check up on him when this damn ice melts."

"Troy will come out this afternoon," Clay said, pushing away from the stall to confer with the other man. "The three foals born this week I'm not too concerned about, but some of the mares need checking in on."

"Holly is off her feed again," Tom sighed, nodding. "She's been damn persnickety this year."

"Make sure he looks in on her," Clay said. "When the new folks get here…"

The rest of his father's words blended together and faded away. He remembered that specifically, his inability to recall whatever Clay was saying or if he should even be paying attention. The mare was licking the rump of her colt, casually nudging him and tipping him off balance as he tried to get his spindly legs underneath his slender back. The colt toppled twice, and lurched back up each time, finally standing on his own on his third try, blinking with astonishment at the world around him.

Brad gripped the stall door in both hands, his eyes trained on the colt that was carefully sorting out the complicated process of walking. The mare snorted and lifted her head, tossing her unruly red forelock off her eyes as she gave Brad a look that he smiled at.

"Don't worry, babe," he told the horse, looking back down at the foal. Three Foot was a big mare, ruthlessly protective of each of her foals. Some of the broodmare grooms attributed it to her slight lameness, but all of them knew not to push her around when she had a baby by her side. Brad stayed where he was and studied the pair, wondering just where this new foal would stand among his stakes running half-siblings.

The mare went back to her job, and Clay returned to his son, a wide grin seeping back onto his features slowly at the sight. The foal tottered toward the stall door, sniffling and rustling in the straw.

"So what do you want to call him?" Clay asked, leaning one arm against the side of the stall.

Brad looked at the colt, who was peering up at his dam with big brown eyes. The mare moved around the foal, laying her ears flat at Clay when she felt he was leaning too close. Brad chuckled softly, knowing the mare was going to be a bear about this one.

"Let's wait on a name," Brad heard himself saying.

"Take your time," Clay said. "A colt like this one will need a grand name."

The foal, still damp but strong on his feet, nudged around his dam's belly, finding with keen precision what he was looking for by instinct. Brad didn't say anything. He leaned against the stall door and settled in, content to watch.

The generators continued to hum in the background.