Leaping Hearts (17 page)

His eyes drifted toward the show ring. “I miss it. I really miss…all of this. I haven’t been to a show since…”

“You don’t have to stay,” she said. “If it’s too hard—”

“I would never leave. I’m here for you.”

Their eyes met and held. Abruptly, the crowd evaporated, the teeming noise around them stilled, the competition ceased to exist. For the span of a heartbeat, they were the only two people in the world.

And then Sabbath stamped a hoof and Chester called out a question about the tack and someone behind them let out a curse as a bucket of water was knocked over.

As he fought the urge to take her into his arms, Devlin
nodded toward the stallion. “So what do you say—shall we find out if we can work and play well with others?”

The two looked at Sabbath, whose eyes were darting around his head like Ping-Pong balls, and then toward the practice ring. Already, there were riders scaling jumps and trotting at the rail. All competitors shared the one ring and the same three or four fences for warm-up. At the same time.

“Any chance we can put a bag over his head for this?” she quipped as they went over to the horse. After taking the reins in her hands, Devlin gave her a leg up.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If he misbehaves, he’s grounded. No phone privileges, no TV. We’re taking a hard line.”

She laughed.

“A.J.,” he said softly.

She was still smiling as she looked down at him. “What?”

“Thanks for knowing me so well. For understanding me.”

His hand squeezed her leg.

“I…care about you,” she said softly.

“That makes me a very lucky man.”

They started out for the practice ring, A.J.’s heart swelling with joy.

Even though it was difficult to concentrate on anything other than Devlin, Sabbath demanded, and got, her full attention as soon as he entered the ring. Rearing up and letting out a royal holler, he announced his arrival to the other horses who were warming up. As A.J. struggled to get him under control, she thought again how getting romantically involved with her trainer was dangerous.

“Let’s get him loosened up at the rail first,” Devlin told her.

With some difficulty, A.J. coached the stallion into a trot. Head cocked like a gun hammer, he was eager to start something and everyone else in the ring knew trouble when they saw it coming. They all gave Sabbath a wide berth.

While she was trying to keep the stallion as calm as possible, the first competitor was ready to go into the big ring.
A.J. kept one eye ahead of her and one eye on the event course, anxious to see what was going to happen. When the buzzer sounded, the rider was off, the woman’s mount eating up the distances between jumps and sailing over the fences with great bursts of strength. It was a strong round but not a clean one. The horse had faulted over the second combination, the trouble spot Devlin had predicted.

Even though she would have liked to watch more of the event, A.J. knew she had to focus on Sabbath, and by the time the first eight competitors had gone through the course, she’d managed to muscle him over a few practice fences. The results weren’t promising. The stallion was skidding out from under her commands, fighting her at every turn, running free from under the bit. They looked like amateurs, as if she didn’t know what she was doing and the stallion didn’t know any better.

Bringing him to a halt at Devlin’s command, she wrung out her arms and tried to keep the string of curses in her head to herself. She was feeling like she’d made the worst mistake of her life and was showing it off to a peanut gallery that wasn’t inclined to be charitable even on a good day.

“Let’s get away from here,” Devlin said.

“But my turn’s coming up fast.”

“I know, but trust me on this. Your eyes are glassy and you look as if you’ve already lost. You need to focus.”

A.J. let him take the reins and lead the stallion out of the ring to a shaded area. Hidden by the side of a barn, they had some privacy.

“Look at me,” he said.

She turned slowly, like she was coming out of a dream.

“At this point, you’ve already lost and not because of the horse. If you don’t pull yourself out of this funk, you’re going to have more to be sorry for than the fact you took a chance and right now are feeling rocky about it.”

“I’m so embar—”

“Stop it. Going into the ring as you are now, this horse is going to plant you in the ground like a marigold. He’s going to hit those jumps and go hell-bent for trouble and you’re
going to wish you were back here, in this moment, making the choice to pull it together instead of pity yourself.”

A.J. shook her head, visions of failure swirling in her mind.

“What have I done?”

“It’s too late to rehash a decision you made weeks ago. Quit with him after this event if you have to but don’t throw in the towel ten minutes before you’re supposed to be in the ring. It smacks of cowardice and you know it.”

It took her a moment to absorb the advice. He was right. Turning away wasn’t the answer because she’d only end up with more regrets later. In her mind, she pictured returning to the stables without having gone into the ring, knowing she’d backed down.

Whatever happened, A.J. decided it couldn’t be worse than how she’d feel if she walked away.

With a nod, she began to wheel Sabbath around.

“It’s going to be okay,” he told her.

As she looked at him, Devlin was facing her with such conviction, she felt herself buoyed by his confidence in her. She wondered how she could possibly go into the ring without his support. In the midst of her chaos and self-doubt, he was as steady as bedrock. She didn’t think for a moment he wouldn’t be there to encourage her, coach her, pick her up if she was to fall.

“With you here,” she said, “I believe that to be true.”

Her mind wandered as they went over to the show ring. There was a feeling in the middle of her chest that defied easy description. It made her wonder whether true love wasn’t a combination of the calming warmth of security backed up by the intense heat of passion. It was a hell of a mix, she thought.

Together, they paused in front of the show ring’s main gate and got updated on the competition. There hadn’t been a clean round yet and there were two riders left ahead of her with one of them about to start the course. When she heard Philippe Marceau’s name, A.J. didn’t bother hiding her disgust.

The Frenchman was astride a tall roan mare, one of his
frequent mounts. A good jumper, the horse was at the top of her form and, from the moment the buzzer sounded, she took the jumps with ease and power. Up on her back, Marceau was in total control, angling the mare well and driving her over each fence with confidence. As he led them into the final sharp turn, and barreled around to confront the oxer combination, A.J. held her breath with the rest of the crowd. If the two made it through, they’d end with a clear round; she was sure of it.

The mare took the combination and the last jumps perfectly and, as the two galloped over the finish line to a smattering of applause from the crowd, A.J. looked over to Devlin. “For a miserable human being, he sure can ride.”

“No, that’s a good horse. You could have put a bag of doughnuts on her back and she’d have done just as well.”

She grinned.

There was one more rider before her and A.J. waited impatiently for her turn. Sabbath began to feed off her tension, so she tried to hold herself as still as possible, regulating her breathing. The last thing they needed was any more juice in his blood.

When her number was called, she swallowed her fears and jogged the stallion into the ring, bringing him to a skittish pause in front of the judges. As she looked around, she noticed that all activity on the fairgrounds had come to a halt. It seemed as if every pair of eyes in the whole place were trained on her and the towering black stallion.

So this was what fifteen minutes of infamy was like, she thought, removing her hat and bowing her head to the judges.

What A.J. didn’t know was that people might have glanced up once to see what all the gossip was about but they stared because of how spectacular she and the stallion looked together. Sabbath’s imposing power and height as well as his midnight coat and flashing eyes would have been noticed anyway. But teamed with A.J.’s long-limbed grace and classic beauty, the two were a knockout.

Putting her hat back on, A.J. guided the stallion out to the rail. When she heard the buzzer, she coached him into a canter and approached the first fence. He fought hard for
his head but she didn’t let him get away with much and they cleared the jump well enough. Going into the second, he tried to skid out of bounds but she held him firmly and they went on to take the next several fences with no faults.

Underneath her saddle, A.J. could feel Sabbath surging over the ground, his great barrel chest drawing in gallons of air to feed the enormous muscles of his haunches. Pounding over the ground and then leaping off for moments that lasted an eternity, she could feel a rhythm growing between them. His power became her own as they leapt free of gravity and then crashed back down. It was a thrilling, pumping, harrowing journey.

And for a moment, she was grateful.

Unfortunately, her joy was short-lived. Heading into the straightaway before the final tight turn, A.J. defensively tried to slow their velocity but the stallion had no intention of giving in. No matter how far back she threw her weight, he charged ahead as if he were getting ready to jump out of the ring itself. They came into the turn out of control despite her efforts, and he fought her as she tried to bring him around, throwing his head and skipping out from under his hindquarters.

There was no way they were going to make the oxers, A.J. thought desperately as she tried to rein him around. The angle was all wrong.

She tried once more to shift her weight back and to the side. Sabbath’s breath was coming in great steamy explosions and she felt his body heaving under the tremendous pistons of his legs. She knew if they didn’t slow down, they were going to get hurt. Missing the turn at that kind of speed meant they would have to jump the ring’s fence or crumple into the corner in a heap.

That thought must have dawned on the stallion because, in the nick of time, he came about and shifted direction like a gale-force wind. It was too much, too late. They took the first oxer wide and scaled its mammoth girth at a thick angle. This meant they had to cover more horizontal distance than they would have if they’d approached the jump head-on.

A.J. heard his back hoof strike a rail hard but didn’t have
time to dwell on whether it hit the ground. They were so far off course, she’d have to steer them hard right so they didn’t make the second jump harder than it was, or worse, miss it altogether. Even more alarming, she had only one stride to correct their direction. She knew if she leaned too far or pulled his head too much, they’d take the jump off-balance, and that wouldn’t just be bad form; it was dangerous. They could both end up sprawling over the towering fence and, between their speed and its height, that could mean serious injury.

In a split second, it occurred to her the only way they were going to get over the oxer without getting hurt was if she let go and gave him his head. If Sabbath wanted to take the jump, he would. If he shot around the side of the oxer, it was better than her face-planting in the dirt, bouncing off the oxer or him injuring himself.

As soon as she loosened her hold on his head, Sabbath responded with a quick jab to the right. They sailed over the jump but lacked the good approach that would have let them clear it cleanly. As they landed, she heard the unmistakable sound of a rail hitting the ground.

Crossing the finish line, A.J. felt a measure of relief. The round hadn’t gone well but it wasn’t a complete disaster, either. Considering that Sabbath was prone to be more trouble than just being genetically disobedient, she figured she’d gotten off pretty easily.

But they hadn’t won. Not even close.

The announcer proclaimed their time and their eight faults. With Philippe’s clean round and the other riders who had only four-faulted, she knew they weren’t going to place.

Devlin was the only person she saw in the crowd.

“How do you feel?” he asked, walking up to them. He took the reins to give her a break.

“Okay, I guess.”

He thought she looked discouraged and he sympathized. It had been an exhausting round for him to watch. He’d tracked every movement of the pair, willing them to clear each of the fences cleanly, his hands clenching and unclenching each time they left the earth and returned to it.
He’d been caught up in the drama with the rest of the crowd but the stress had been compounded by a very special concern for her.

“You did a good job.”

A.J. tugged her helmet off. “Considering the potential for complete chaos, I suppose so.”

Devlin knew just what she was feeling. She’d been born with a competitor’s need to win and, like the color of her eyes, it was immutable. Even though she and the stallion weren’t ready to take an event trophy yet, he could feel her disappointment at not winning as if it were his own.

A.J. dismounted and they were walking Sabbath away from the ring when the final competitor finished and his results were read over the loudspeaker. As they headed back to the practice ring to walk the stallion out, the silence between them was filled by the noise of the crowd and then, shortly thereafter, the proclamation that Philippe Marceau had won.

After Sabbath had been cooled down, and Chester went to work grooming him, A.J. took a break and went over to the various booths where tack and riding apparel were being sold. As she meandered through the velvet hats and leather boots, breathing in the smell of fresh leather spiced with a whiff of the barbecue being started for lunch, she ran the round over and over in her head. The stallion’s actions and her responses. The way he’d felt over one jump and another. The battle into that final turn. The stallion’s abrupt choice to take that oxer after she’d given him his head.

A.J. knew Sabbath wanted to jump. That was what she’d learned again when she’d loosened the reins and left the choosing up to him. His abrupt correction, which she couldn’t have pried out of him by fighting in that short amount of space, told her he wanted to feel the clean air over those fences as badly as she did.