“Hi, Rebecca.”
The girl cast her eyes briefly over Jill and lifted her arm to a disinterested handshake.
Jill offered the same greeting to the younger girl in the wheelchair. “Hi, Jamie.”
This sister couldn’t have been a more clichéd opposite. From her elbow-length chestnut hair to her softly faded jeans and pink T-shirt, Jamie exuded sugar and spice like puppies oozed cute.
“This is so cool,” she replied.
“I’m glad you think so. And I’m glad you could all come an extra day to get acquainted,” Jill said. “How about if we take our tour, and you can ask all the questions you want?”
Rebecca shrugged, leaving Jill to accept it as an affirmative answer. “Our first lesson is still on for tomorrow, right?”
Anita Barnes nodded. “Rebecca’s looking forward to it.”
Jill stared at the girl, who absolutely could have fooled her.
“I’ll be off, then,” David said. “I look forward to seeing all of you around the stables. Look me up whenever you need anything.” He gave a two-finger salute and left.
Five minutes into the tour of Bridge Creek’s two impressive barns and arena, it was clear Rebecca’s problem, whatever it was, had not been invented by the school psychiatrist. She was uncommunicative, sarcastic when she deigned to speak, and possessed an infinite array of shrugs she used much more frequently and eloquently than words.
“Have you ridden before, Rebecca?”
They stood right inside the arena, where the girls had already spent time, watching a lone rider circle the space. Jill could barely mask her awe over the expert calm and classic position of Colin Pitts-Matherson. Muffled hoof beats and the slip of leather against leather whispered like soft music. The loamy scent of sand, shavings, and wood filled her nostrils as she ogled the Michael Phelps of her sport.
“A couple of times.” Rebecca searched the space with uninterested eyes.
“We both rode,” Jamie added. “It was awesome. Becky was good.”
“Rebecca has a knack for sports, doesn’t she?” Anita smoothed Jamie’s hair with a quick motion. “You’ve always been good at the crafty things. You girls have such different strengths.”
Jill swore a shadow crossed Jamie’s face, but the girl nodded.
“So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Jill said, “you haven’t always been in the wheelchair?”
“A little over a year.”
“Oh.” For one instant Jill didn’t know what to say. She studied Jamie, but any clouds in her eyes had vanished. “I’m impressed at how skilled and strong you are. We’ll have to turn you into a groom.”
“Really?” Jamie’s hazel eyes lit with anticipatory sunlight.
“Sure.” She sensed Anita tensing beside her like a mother bear. “It’ll be good for the horses to learn about your chair. You can help get them used to something new.”
“Awesome!”
Movement at the far end of the arena caught Jill’s eyes and another rider entered, leading a bright chestnut mare. She knew the pair well. Colin stopped his horse and greeted Dee with a crisp British “Good afternoon, Miss Carpenter.” She cocked her hip and replied—perfect and perfectly confident, as always, around any human with testosterone.
“So.” Jill spun her attention away from her sister and led her small group out of the arena. “What kind of riding would like to do, Rebecca?” A shrug. “Have you ever ridden in an English saddle?” A head shake. “Would you like to? Or do you want a big Western saddle with a horn? Either is fine. With an English saddle we’d work on some dressage—like we were just watching—and maybe jumping. In a Western saddle we’d do more balance work and get outside on some trails.”
“If I have to do this I’d rather, like, jump.”
They were the first words of interest, if it could be called that, the girl had uttered. Jill seized on them. “Good! That’s exactly what I needed to know. Here’s the deal then. We’ll need to work a lesson or two on the flat. When I see how your balance is we’ll go on. Sound fair?”
“Fair. Sure.” Rebecca snorted.
“You’ll need to make sure you wear riding breeches or riding jeans—and I mean not regular jeans. The inner seams will chafe. Your shoes need to cover your ankles and have at least a half-inch heel.” Jill looked to Anita Barnes. They’d already been over this.
“She has them.”
“Excellent. And a helmet?”
“A helmet?” The girl’s lip curled up against nostrils flared in disgust. At least the emotion was honest. A lot of girls balked at the helmet at first.
“Yup. Nonnegotiable. One fall is all it takes.”
“We’re getting one tonight,” Anita assured her.
“Excellent.”
“I think they look really cool, Becky,” Jamie said. “Like you’re a professional.”
Jill rested a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, and the girl looked up with an expression as opposite her sister’s as could be imagined.
“You would.”
“You know.” The idea came to Jill from an unknown place. “It wouldn’t hurt you to have a helmet either, Jamie. You’ll be low and close to the horses’ legs—safety first, right?”
“Oh, can I, Mom?” Jamie’s hazel eyes begged.
“I don’t know,” Anita Barnes replied, a little curtly. “You aren’t going to be here all that much. Don’t you think you’d rather get the equipment for your own classes?”
“Sure, but …”
“What else are you doing?” Jill asked, honestly curious.
“Some things at Courage Center.” Jamie gave her first shrug. “They have wheelchair basketball and stuff like that.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Yeah.” She nodded, with only slightly more enthusiasm than her sister showed for the horses.
“You’re welcome here anytime you can come.”
After twenty-five more minutes, Jill had answered a hundred Anita Barnes questions, found nothing to spark interest in one daughter, developed a soft spot for the other, and used up mental reserves she hadn’t wanted to tap. Forget the fact that, after a morning of animal deaths at the clinic, she’d driven her truck into a ditch. Forget she’d risked her life on a motorcycle to get here. She had the student from apathy hell. Most kids at least wanted to take riding lessons. If Rebecca wasn’t here under duress, Jill would eat her riding crop.
She invited Anita and the girls to look around on their own as long as they wished, hoping for the first time in all her years of teaching that a potential student would drop out before she started. Only when she caught the incredible sight of Chase’s motorcycle, still standing where he’d left it, did she stop worrying about the next day’s lesson with Rebecca.
What was he still doing here? Her heart worked itself into an erratic thumping as she searched for Chase on the way to fetch her horse. She scowled at the Connery van, also still in the drive. Annoyance was futile. David was allowed to hire whatever company he chose. This simply rubbed her the wrong way. Connery was about to build a facility that could mar Kennison Falls’s beautiful, natural park forever, and Duncan Connery had shown he didn’t care about repercussions. In her opinion, nobody in town should be giving him work until a whole lot of questions got answered.
She reined in her emotions. The lesson of her lifetime would start in fifteen minutes, and she was by gosh going to make up for her crappy morning, come handsome Triumph driver or traitorous boss.
DRAGON LIFTED HIS fine, black head as she approached him in the pasture and snorted when she put her hand in her pocket to pull out a peppermint. The wonder horse she’d found through a Thoroughbred rescue lipped it from her palm, ducked his head so she could put on his halter, and let her run a hand along his elegant neck. He hadn’t been the most successful racehorse, but he could jump anything she put in front of him, and he had the potential to take her to the pinnacle of three-day eventing. If they proved themselves today, the journey could start. Colin Pitts-Matherson was a po
werful enough man to help her. In many ways, she’d been dreaming about this lesson since she’d mounted her first horse at age seven.
Dragon’s shod feet clopped along the cement aisle in the empty barn. The regular cadence of his hoof falls eased her nervous excitement until Chase Preston wriggled unbidden into her thoughts, throwing her brain off-balance. Like a blue-eyed Merlin, he’d pretty much cast some magic spell over her day. He’d be gone by the time her lesson was done, but remembering their micro-adventure—his long, hard body beneath her, his dexterous, sinewy hands cupping her …
Without warning, Dragon screamed. As if he’d been whipped, he lunged forward and his lead rope seared through Jill’s fist. From the corner of her eye, she saw Jamie Barnes in her wheelchair stopped at the arena doorway ten feet away. Jill turned to calm her spooked horse, and he reared, the knee of his powerful foreleg rising like the piston in a semi-truck. It met with her right shoulder in a sickening thud.
She crumpled. Dragon broke away, and someone, human this time, screeched. Through a haze of pain Jill heard her name, and a tall, wide body materialized beside her.
With a huge effort, she staggered to her feet and held her stomach tightly against a flash of nausea. “Jamie, it’s all right,” she called.
“You get down, right now,” Chase commanded at the same moment.
She ignored him and made a successful lunge for Dragon’s flailing lead rope. Automatically, she began a quiet litany, and thirty seconds after it had begun, Dragon’s hissy fit was over. Jill grabbed a cross tie hanging from the wall and clipped it to his halter. Ignoring the stabbing pain in her shoulder, she attached the other cross tie and finally bent forward, gasping for breath.
A pair of strong, firm hands gripped her by the upper arms and all but pushed her to the wall. She let herself slide down a stall door and plop to the floor, mewling softly in pain when her butt hit the cement.
“Here’s a blanket. Lie down.”
At last she looked at him. Chase. He guided her to her back before she could protest, and despite her growing discomfort, a spark from his touch slid over her shoulders and spiraled down her spine. Startled by such powerful attraction, she pushed him away.
“Would you stop telling me to lie down? Someone’s going to get the wrong idea.”
His expression didn’t ease despite her humor. “Don’t tell me this time you aren’t hurt. I saw how hard you got slammed.” He took her arm, gently.
She shrugged him away. “It’s only a bump. He saw Jamie’s wheelchair and spooked. Is Jamie all right?” The Barnes family was no longer in sight.
“I don’t care if he saw the Ghost of Christmas Past. You need to get that shoulder checked.”
“I’m fine. Do you fuss like this all the time?”
His gorgeous face twisted with what looked like embarrassment, but he didn’t back down when she fought to rise again. “I worry when I see accidents, and I’ve seen you have two today. Are you always this disaster prone? Stay down.”
“No.” She glared at him and pushed against the floor.
“Are you always this stubborn?”
“Yes. Give me a hand or get out of the way.”
He helped her up and then raised his palms in surrender. “It looked like a lot more than a bump.”
“It wasn’t.” She hesitated. “But thank you.”
A quiet hiccup pulled her away from his mesmerizing eyes, and Anita Barnes appeared from behind the arena door.
“It’s all right,” Jill called. “He’s settled down, you guys can come out.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to bring the wheelchair near that horse,” Anita said. “I needed to be sure you’re not hurt, but I think we’ll go out through the arena.”
“There’s no need, Mrs. Barnes.” Jill didn’t know whether to appreciate the woman’s concern or be annoyed at the slightly supercilious tone accompanying her that-horse comment. “He’s tied now, and it would be good for him to see Jamie again. Like I told her earlier, she can help get him used to new things.”
“I hardly feel that’s safe.”
“It’s completely up to you, of course,” Jill replied. “But I promise, Jamie doesn’t have to come very close. She’ll be in no danger.”
“How about you?” Chase asked in her ear. “Will you be in no danger?”
“Less danger than you’ll be in if I decide to punch you,” she whispered. “Quit hovering.”
He grinned.
Before Anita could protest further, Jamie rolled back into the aisle. This time Dragon did no more than snort, and Jill gave him a pat. “Hi, kiddo,” she called. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“I didn’t mean to scare him.”
Something strained in the girl’s voice made Jill step toward her. Jamie’s eyes brimmed with tears.
“Jamie, honey, you didn’t do anything wrong. Goodness, I told you to go anywhere you wanted. You didn’t know I was here. You’re fine, the horse is, too, silly boy, and so am I.”
“Really?”
“Stop being such a baby, Jamie. She told you she’s fine.” Rebecca’s sneer showed in her voice and her face, but underlying it all was a slight ashen tinge. What? The girl had worried about something?
“Everything’s fine, I promise,” Jill said. “I didn’t mean to scare you either.” She looked from the girls to Chase and back. He only raised his Elvis lip yet again.
“Come here, Rebecca. You can meet Dragon. Jamie, you can come, too, if your mom’s okay with it.”
“Jamie, I think you’d better stay here.”
“Mo-om.” Jamie rolled her chair slowly but defiantly forward. Rebecca stood still.
“C’mon,” Jill insisted. “Rule number one around horses is that you have to get to know how they act and react. You don’t want to let a little spook become a big fear. Dragon here is really pretty sensible most of the time. Come and find out.”
It took long minutes, but both girls were finally close enough to pet Dragon, Rebecca with a desultory touch, Jamie as if she were stroking an ebony unicorn. Dragon, in turn, sniffed and snorted at the wheelchair, and once he discovered it wouldn’t eat him, switched to nosing its occupant for treats.
Chase watched over the proceedings as if he believed steady, steely eyeballs would keep anything more from happening. Although Jill didn’t know what he was still doing at the barn, his presence, overbearing as it was, comforted, and when the Barnes family finally left in a mishmash of thanks, shrugs, and apologies, Chase remained.
“You’re great with those kids,” he said, surprising her by not mentioning her arm.
“Not a big deal. I did what had to be done to keep them from freaking out around the horses tomorrow.”
She rolled her shoulder, and it responded with a deep shot of pain.
“I saw that grimace.”
“I’ve had worse.” She rubbed the front of the shoulder tentatively and frowned. “If you work with animals, you get stepped on once in a while. Hang on, I have to get my tack.” She headed down the aisle but looked over her shoulder. “What are you still doing here anyhow? Not that I don’t appreciate the rescue. Again.”
“I just finished talking with the guy from Connery Construction. Came in to say good-bye a last time, and all hell broke loose.”
“If this is your idea of hell, you need a life.”
He went strangely quiet. Her motorcycle man was fun and funny, and she’d forgive his overconcern as long as it ended soon, but his reactions to some things seemed odd. Off. She lifted her saddle off its rack. All the breezy thoughts disappeared on the heels of a hot, painful stab through her shoulder. She nearly dropped the saddle on its pommel.
“Shi—” She stopped herself.
She didn’t want him to tell her to lie down again.
With effort she adjusted the saddle over her good arm and reached for her bridle, which hung at eye level. Her arm barely moved. Oh crap, what had she done? This couldn’t happen now. With a deep breath, she straightene
d. Once she got on the horse she’d be fine. Being on a horse always made her fine.
Chase took one skeptical look at her when she returned. “You are not all right,” he said.
“What are you, some sort of whacked-out reverse hypochondriac?” She sighed, and concern finally got the better of her. “I’m perfectly all right,” she lied. “But for the sake of argument, do you know how to saddle a horse?”
Chapter Four
“YOUR TORSO IS caving in again. Keep it bloody well upright, and get those shoulders back.”
Jill squeezed her eyes shut briefly, trying to do as she’d been asked and stop flopping on Dragon’s back like a wrung-out dishrag. She’d had tough riding lessons before. She welcomed them. But Colin Pitts-Matherson was a drill sergeant’s drill sergeant, and she was lucky to be on her horse at all, much less upright.
Pain now radiated up into her skull, crashing into nerve endings with every one of Dragon’s canter strides—three beats at a time, over and over. Only for two blessed seconds of flight over each jump did the pain stop. Then his front legs would drill into the arena footing, collapsing Jill over his neck like a raw beginner.
Despite the painful red haze, she refused to complain.
“Don’t let him pop that outside shoulder this time,” he called. “Sit up, quit mucking with his mouth, and keep your eyes up. David says you rarely miss your spot, but these are instructions I give a novice, Jill.”
The criticism worked like a gauntlet slapped across her cheek. She sent her last reserves of energy to her legs and blocked out the fog of pain from her upper body. Two jumps left on a diagonal line through the arena—a huge oxer to a vertical fence. If she could have one small success on the day, this would be a good time to pull it out of her butt.
Like a miracle, her leg coordinated with her rein, Dragon swept around the corner turn in a collected, graceful bend and locked onto the oxer—two fence rails, one right behind the other. He surged off the ground, and Jill flew with him. This time when she landed she forced herself upright, made herself sit back, and gathered her big black horse. The next jump, a single vertical fence, was harder because she couldn’t let Dragon spread out over it. He had to collect himself in just two strides. One … two …
Rescued by a Stranger Page 4