A Kind of Man
By Syrinx
Disclaimer: All rights to the Thoroughbred series belong to Joanna Campbell and Harper Collins.
Summary: He's not the right one for her, and he knows it.

Pairings: One-sided Brad/Ashleigh.
A/N: Sequel to Too Little, Too Much.

This is a heady rush, and anyone in such a position would be aware of it without feeling the need to apologize for it. You certainly never have, and you have no desire to start. That was your chestnut colt out there, galloping out alone to a six length win over some of the finest east coast colts in the country, and you can't help but tell everyone around you right now that you own the Kentucky Derby favorite. No one bats an eye at that; the colt is absolutely worthy to hold that title. Townsend Acres is in the black now, you tell the reporters that swarm around you and the blonde at your side.

The horse is being unsaddled in the background, his classically lined and muscled body swiped with dirt and sweat. His grooms pour water over his back, sending steam into the air. The colt tosses his wet mane with pleasure, slapping droplets of water across your back and the arms of the girl standing by your side, who wrinkles her nose and looks at the colt in disdain. You ignore this; the suit is not important. Why on earth would you care? You're the heir of Townsend Acres, the owner of the Florida Derby winner. It's damn good to be you.

When the colt is led back to the stabling block and you've got another batch of purse money to send home, you silently sigh and wonder. When the colt is gone you stop talking, the reporters dart off with their stories and the cameras follow the horse. The blonde escapes to the little girl's room to clean up. The track is, after all, a dirty place, and you know she rarely enjoys going these days. All too fine with you; she is beginning to bore you anyway.

After an eternity of her absence she finally reappears with a request to go back to the hotel. You tell her you've got business with the colt and its trainers, and then pack her into a cab. You don't tell her when you'll be back. The look she gives you probably means you're in trouble, but what she fails to understand is that you don't care. Maybe you secretly hope she'll hop on a flight back to Kentucky by herself so you don't have to bother with telling her that she's lost her flair. Then again you know she won't do that. She's not exactly like Melinda. Hell, she's not even Caroline.

The cab drives off into the city, and you turn back to the track. The backside is scurrying with activity, working constantly through the heat of the day. It's loud and messy and you revel in it. You might say that you love it, but you know that would be taking it a step too far. You aren't naïve enough for love.

First and foremost, the backside generates the money. In each stable are stalls housing delicate and valuable horseflesh. You like to think of them almost as cash cows, and your farm has a fleet of the very best blood money can buy. Of course, therein lies the problem. No matter the best bloodlines, most aren't worth what the farm claims. You know that, but you also know the status quo. Keep pushing; keep believing, until you hit the proverbial wall.

You walk into the shed row stabling your farm's small group of runners, surveying the place like you're looking over your domain. It is yours, after all. You've paid for the space. Your eyes flick past the insignificant animals you have little interest in, and land on the chestnut colt in the furthest stall. He's cleaned up, but still fatigued from the race. Casually you walk toward him, wanting to see for yourself how well he really fared coming out of the race before you face Maddock and the girl, whose irritable way of arguing with every decision you make is starting to get under your skin.

When you reach the stall and take the colt's halter in your hand you realize you're too late. She's already there, kneeling in the bedding with her small hands pressing down the colt's white-marked legs. She's still in the good suit she had worn during the race, but her hair is thrown into a sloppy high ponytail that reveals the back of her neck. Dark brown strands of her hair that have already escaped the ponytail and cling to the collar of her suit jacket, brushing along her pale skin.

You've seen this before, but for some reason now you find looking down at her a voyeuristic thrill. You hate it, so you push the colt's head back a little, making him step away and causing her to look up in surprise. Her face hardens when she sees you and for this you're a little bit thankful.

"He came out well," she says to you, standing up to her petite height, but not moving out of the stall. You smile a little at the way she firmly places herself by the colt's head, as if daring you to enter the stall and form your own opinions. You lean against the edge of the stall opening and give her a bemused look that causes her to frown because you know she can't quite figure out why you're not offended.

"Glad you think so," you say lightly. "Mind if I take a look myself?"

This always gets her, and you always make it a point to reiterate that she can't refuse you anything. She purses her lips for a moment and shrugs, stepping aside and looking away from you as you enter the stall.

With a small chuckle, you move your hand over the colt's back and down his legs. The muscles quiver under the pressure you place upon the horse, but you love to feel the power the animal is capable of. Unlike many of the other horses at Townsend Acres this one is different, and you will make sure he lives up to the potential he shows.

"Are you finished?" she asks, and you smile at her impatience.

You lift your hands from the colt's legs and stand, nodding. "He looks good. A little tired," you shrug. "He'll have all of April to rest before the Derby, so I'm not worried."

For a moment she looks at you, her eyebrows furrowed. You don't blame her. It's rare when you agree with any of her opinions.

"Okay," she says slowly, and leaves you in the stall. You blink in surprise. That's new. You've 

always been the one to leave her watching you, so you jump into action and follow her.

"Griffen," you call, walking down the aisle toward her. She stops and glances behind her curiously.

You don't know where the words come from, and you almost hate yourself when you can't stop yourself from asking. She's waiting for you, her hazel eyes glinting a little in the late afternoon light.

"What are you doing later?"

Of course, she blew you off. She laughed and shook her head, her eyes brightening a little in what you know was pleasure. She'll take what victories she can get over you, you think. You hate that her laughter nags at you. You pretend that you don't even know why.

You're always reminded of the day you knew. The colt's Hopeful Stakes that he'd won with such class. She'd stood on a chair in efforts to see the race, and you had placed a hand on her hip to keep her from falling when she jumped up and down to encourage her horse on. Just that she had let you touch her like that for so long made you stop to consider that this girl was more than a determined stable hand that had clawed her way into being a serious obstacle you had to jump.

In the winner's circle, with the colt standing in all his bright red triumph, she looked at you and showed you a smile that you'd never seen from her. You'd seen her tears, her frowns, her angry ranting faces, but never a smile. It meant more to you to see that smile than you thought it would. She hasn't smiled at you since.

You drive back to your beachside hotel, ride the elevator up to your floor, and meet an empty hotel room and all her things gone. You smile just a little bit, thinking that you had pegged her wrong. Then you get angry, upset that she did what you think she wasn't capable of.

You shower and change into blue jeans and a black short-sleeved shirt. You tell yourself that you don't care if she left. It's what you wanted anyway.

You get another drink and leave the room. It's warm enough in Miami to think it's summer, so you run your hand through your damp, dark hair and leave the hotel again, walking out onto the beach. You leave your shoes on the deck of the hotel, not caring about their fate. Then you step out into the sand.

The sun is setting on the other side of the city, and the light that slips through the buildings falls on the ocean. The water glitters all yellow and orange and makes the waves look like they're on fire. You glance at it once and then down at the sand as you walk along the edge of the ocean, remembering how you had read somewhere that this sand was trucked in from somewhere else in an effort to keep the city from falling into the sea. You liked that idea – that sand is the only thing standing between the destructive force of water and the skyscrapers of Miami. That the solution is so simple and temporary amuses you.

When you start walking by a stretch of seafood restaurants located right on the beach, you look up to see what's offered and instead you see her walking out of one of the establishments and down to the beach, shoving a white receipt into the pocket of her shorts. She stops at the end of the boardwalk and reaches down to her sandals, slipping them off her feet and holding them in one hand before she walks out onto the warm sand. You're not twelve feet from her, so when she looks up to consider where she's going her eyes instantly meet your face.

There are rare instances where you can remember seeing her outside of something that involved work, horses, and the farm. You can probably count all of these meetings on one hand. During those instances you had precious little to say to her; what do you really have to say to someone in these instances? You nod hello. You might ask how they're doing. It's not grand conversation.

So you don't know what to say now. Part of you is a little pissed off that eating alone seems to be preferable to her than having your company, but you shove that aside. You hadn't really thought she'd say yes to that question anyway and had been prepared for her answer.

She looks at you a little suspiciously for a split second, and you would laugh at that if you didn't think it would put her more on edge. As if you're following her. Then she seems to relax and offers a greeting that you barely hear over the crash of the waves.

You nod, and then feel like kicking yourself.

"Not out with Margot tonight?" she asks, walking toward you and stopping a safe three feet from you.

"No," you answer, shaking your head. You look away from her and then back, considering how casual you should make the explanation. "She decided to head back to Kentucky a little early," you say easily, not surprised when she gives you a disbelieving look. It is fairly common knowledge around the workers of the farm that your relationships are never full of sunshine and rainbows. She knows that better than almost anyone else.

"I see," she says slowly, then shrugs. "Probably better that way."

You don't say anything in response. She's made her remark about how women are better off staying away from you, and you know she's had this opinion of you since you broke it off with her sister. You don't fault her for saying it. It's more or less true.

"Where were you coming from?" you ask instead, switching to a new subject that has zero chance of irritating either of them.

"A place called Shore Seafood," she says, pointing it out up on the boardwalk. "It's pretty good, if you're looking for a place to eat." Then she looks down at your feet and absence of shoes, and she adds, "I think they're more of a shirt and shoes sort of establishment, though."

"Well, I halfway qualify," you say, then look down the beach to the hotel you'd left some time ago. "Left my shoes back at the hotel. Want to walk back with me?" you hazard, and she looks 

up at you and considers.

"Sure," she says, shrugging again as she falls into step with you.

After a few strides of silence, you can't take it anymore and start to talk. You start with common ground – Wonder's Pride. She loves that colt, and you know it. When she talks about him now she smiles just a little bit, and you wish she'd look at you, but she doesn't.

She asks about the Mischief Maiden colt you sold at auction the year before, and you tell her he's in training in Ireland. When she looks at you quietly you almost know what she's going to ask before she says it, but you let her go ahead. She surprises you.

"5.2 million," she says, then looks back ahead. "That's quite a bit of money. How's the situation with the farm, now? It's been a few months and either everything is great or everything is bad and we're pretending it isn't."

"Do you want figures or a grand estimate?" you ask, delaying.

She winces, as if that means the news isn't bright. You won't kid her; it's damn dim. "I'll go with grand estimate," she replies.

Suddenly you wish you could talk about anything else. Jabbing at each other with sharp words would almost be preferable to talking about the farm's deepening problems. You've sold horses, knowing many went for more than they probably deserve, but the number of creditors only seems to keep growing just like the number of meetings held behind closed doors. You can't tell her you feel like you're suffocating. They weren't on those kinds of terms, and she wouldn't react very well to such an admission. So you compose a short version of the truth and sugarcoat it.

"Numbers aren't adding up right now," you frown. "It's going to be a long process to get things back to what they were, Ash. What matters at the moment is that we're paying the major bills."

She chews on her bottom lip for a moment, nods her understanding. "Thinking of another large sale?"

"By June I'll know which yearlings head for the September sale," you tell her honestly. Immediately she stiffens.

"Mr. Wonderful won't be going," you add, and you can practically see relief flow through her entire body.

"Thank you," she says, looks at you seriously. "You know that means a lot to me – that you don't sell Wonder's foals."

"My father is as in love with that mare as you are," you shrug, brushing off her thanks and wishing that you weren't such an idiot. Charlie always talked about getting more with honey than 

vinegar, and even though you think that old man was mostly nuts you also think that you probably should have listened to him a little more when you had the chance. You would have picked up some valuable pointers.

"Does that mean that you send them to sale and he pulls them?" she asks with interest, thinking she's sniffed out a reason to turn on her heel and walk away from you.

"No," you say earnestly, irked that you always have to prove that you're on her side. "I don't send them because they're more valuable with us than elsewhere."

She looks at you like she still doesn't quite believe you, so you sigh and run a hand through your dark hair. "Pride just won the fucking Florida Derby, and is the favorite for the Kentucky Derby. I'd be insane to start selling Wonder's foals now, considering what they'd be capable of. Give me some credit for Christ's sake. I'm not out to…"

"Okay," she says, raising a hand and laughing as she trudges through the sand and up to the patio entrance of the hotel. Your voice dies when she looks at you, her laughter dissipating and stopping. Searching her face for a minute, you don't quite know what to do. You let the moment slip by when she turns and looks down at the only pair of shoes sitting on the patio near the sand.

"These yours?" she asks, picking them up and holding them dangling in the air.

Nodding, you accept them, but don't put them on. She looks at you like you're nuts, and right now you'd be willing to agree with her if she said it out loud.

"Well, I've got some phone calls to make before bed," she tells you. "It was actually a nice walk, so thanks for that."

That's when you want to act. She turns around, and you feel the time ticking by as she walks toward the door of the hotel that you share with her. Then it suddenly occurs to you that you never talked about anything outside of work, and that pisses you off so much you have to do something now or she'll walk into that hotel and you'll be stuck out here with nothing to draw from the experience of simply talking to her.

So you call out, "Griffen!"

And she turns, looking at you questioningly while you stand in the sand. It's darkening out, with the sun sinking below the horizon. Less light makes its way between the buildings and you can only see her in the hot orange light of that dying sun and the false florescent lights of the hotel. But she looks beautiful, and that's when you realize that you're not it for her. No matter what you want, or feel, she requires a different kind of man; a man that you clearly could never be.

"What's your favorite color?" you ask, trying not to stumble across words.

She looks at you and your mind races. This girl is something else. She's soft and hard, and at every point she defies you and makes you think. You love that. At the same time she's irritating 

as all hell and you hate her for putting up a fight and usually winning, but there's something in you that knows you'll never get what you want when you look at her. No matter how you act. It's all up to her, and you hate and love that as well.

Then she smiles at you and says, "Blue."

After that she grins a little longer, looks at you from under long lashes, and then turns back to the hotel door and disappears behind it. You watch her go as you stand in the warm sand, remembering her smile. Tightening your grip on your shoes, you turn away and walk back up the beach, the ocean glittering with the last light of the sun.