DJ eyed her mother, who still looked pale and upset. “Don’t you worry, either, Mom, okay?”
“Easier said than done,” Lindy muttered. “Night, DJ. If he calls again and you answer the phone, try to get his number.”
It was DJ’s turn to nod. How could she have messed up like that?
When she finally snuggled under her covers to say her prayers, everything was fine—until she tried to say “amen.” The word wouldn’t come. She lay thinking, God, what is it? Often she wished He would talk to her like He had to Moses in the Old Testament. Loud and clear. But, as usual, He was silent. She sighed and flipped over. A thought trickled into her mind. Pray for your father.
DJ shot up so quickly, her covers flew off. “Pray for my father—you have got to be kidding!” She flopped back down and stared at the ceiling. Why would she do a stupid thing like that?
Why not?
She gnawed on her lip. So maybe it wasn’t a big deal. She could just say “bless him” and “take care of him” and—she thought of Gran. Gran would laugh at her right now, that loving laugh that made DJ feel good.
“Godblessmyfather.” It was hard to talk through gritted teeth. She sucked in a breath. “But I want to remind you, God, I really don’t need another father. I’m going to have Robert, remember?” DJ bit her lip again. “Amen.” Why couldn’t she say that before?
She woke up crying in the middle of the night.
CHAPTER • 3
Someone was screaming.
“DJ, what is it?” Lindy entered the room in a rush. “Are you all right?”
“Huh?” DJ pulled herself out of the fog of sleep. Her throat hurt.
“You were screaming. Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
DJ shook her head. “Someone was chasing me—I couldn’t see who. I fell off the road and just kept falling.” She clutched her aching head with both hands. Her heart felt like it would leap out of her chest. She sucked in a deep breath, but it didn’t stop the pounding.
Lindy sat down on the edge of the bed. “Can I get you anything?” With one hand, she stroked DJ’s shoulder.
“My head hurts.” How come she felt like throwing herself into her mother’s arms and bawling like a baby? DJ never did anything like that—crying was for babies.
“Let me get you some pain reliever.” Lindy got up to leave, and just the movement of the bed made DJ feel like heaving. Was this what her mother’s migraines felt like? How did she stand them?
But when she lay down again after her mother’s ministrations, DJ felt herself drifting back into the freaky dream. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. She forced her eyes open and turned on her bedside lamp. The five gold Olympic rings on the poster above her dresser gleamed in the light. That was the dream she lived for. Someday, she, DJ Randall, would jump in the Olympics. She would go for the gold as a member of the U.S. Equestrian Team.
DJ reached over and turned out the light again. This time, horses, horses, and more horses, all with her aboard, mastered the jumps with flying tails and happy grunts.
Rain sheeted her window when she awoke. She slapped off the alarm and sat up, leaning her head first on one shoulder, then the other. She still had the feeling that if she moved too quickly, the headache would return.
“Yuck.” She hauled herself from her bed, feeling sticky and heavy. Once in the bathroom she knew why. Her pajama bottoms wore splotches of dull red. Her heart quit thundering in her ears as she realized she wasn’t bleeding to death. Her first period. One more thing to deal with! She groaned. As if yesterday’s events hadn’t been enough.
She stared at the pale face in the mirror. Her shoulder-length blond hair hung in strings about her face. Someone had painted black circles under her green eyes, and a zit beaconed on her chin.
“I’m going back to bed.” DJ fumbled under the sink for the box of pads her mother had forced on her months ago. If this was growing up, someone sure had screwed up the program. She reached to turn on the shower. If she didn’t go to school, she wouldn’t be going to the Academy, either. That was the rule. Since DJ was almost never sick, that hadn’t been a problem very often. She’d only stayed home when Gran insisted.
Instead of turning off the hot handle, she added the cold and stepped under the needle spray.
It could have been the shortest shower on record. Calling Joe for a ride to school because she’d missed the Yamamoto bus would be embarrassing. She fixed herself up, donned her one pair of black jeans, and grabbing a food bar, headed out the door on the second honk.
“Gross,” Amy said with a wrinkled nose when DJ filled her in on the morning’s happenings. The two sat in the second seat of the station wagon since Amy’s brother, John, said the front seat was for those about to learn to drive. They didn’t mind—that way, if they talked low, they could catch up on all that happened without the others hearing.
“Yeah, and that’s not the half of it.” DJ filled her friend in on the cataclysmic call of the night before. By the time she’d finished, they were at Acalanese High School, where they were both freshmen.
“Thanks, Dad.” DJ waved as she slammed the door. Mr. Yamamoto, head of the volunteer parents for the Academy, told all the kids to call him Dad. Insisted it was easier that way.
DJ pulled her jacket over her head to keep dry and dashed after Amy. It looked like it would rain forever.
The day didn’t improve much. Her history teacher finished the far from perfect morning by calling a pop quiz.
“Think I’ll go eat worms,” she muttered when she met Amy at their locker at lunchtime.
“Now what?”
“No lunch money.”
“So share mine. I’ll grab an extra salad.”
“I’m starved.”
“Ask if you can charge.”
“I’d rather eat worms.”
“Fine, be a grouch, but that’s not like you.”
“Maybe it’s my turn.” DJ dumped her books on the bottom of the locker and slung her backpack in on top. She felt like slamming the metal door and banging her fists on it. Instead she let Amy shut it and followed her friend into the lunchroom.
Thanks to Amy sharing her food, DJ’s stomach quit growling. By the end of classes, she felt almost human again. Of course, the thought of Major and the Academy had nothing to do with that. Even if it was pouring, they could ride under cover.
“What are you going to do?” Amy asked as they waited outside under the overhang for Joe to arrive.
“About what?”
“Your father, silly.”
“Got me. I don’t have to do anything till he calls, and maybe he won’t.” She waved at the man driving the hunter green Explorer. “I hope he doesn’t.”
She answered Joe’s questioning look with a shake of her head. But while it was easy to pretend to shrug the whole mess off on the outside, inside the questions raged. What kind of man is my father? What does he do? Is he married? Do I have half brothers and sisters?
She changed clothes in record time and hopped back into the car to go to the Academy. All the way there, the temptation to chew on her fingernails burned like a hot curling iron. To keep from giving in, she sat on her hands. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can do all things. Gran had given her the verse to help her overcome chewing her fingernails. They’d made a pact that if Gran could find a verse that could apply to chewing fingernails, DJ would try to stop. So far it was working. DJ even had to file her nails once in a while.
At the Academy, she checked the white erasable duty board and saw that the outside rings were unusable—too wet. That was no surprise, the way the rain had been coming down. Since the outside work was curtailed, the Academy employees had cleaned stalls and groomed the boarded horses.
“Yes!” She pumped her right arm. That meant more time to work with Major. But first she had to spend her hour working Patches, the green broke gelding she’d been training for Mrs. Johnson.
“I should put you on the hot walker,” she tol
d the fractious gelding. He rubbed his forehead against her shoulder, leaving white hairs on her black sweat shirt. “I know, you’re just trying to soften me up.” But she couldn’t resist his pleading and gave him an extra carrot chunk from the stash she kept in the tack room refrigerator. Patches lipped the carrot from her palm, munched, and blew carrot breath in her face.
DJ attacked his heavier winter coat with brushes in both hands. By the time she had combed the tangles out of his tail and picked his hooves, she’d been over the questions in her mind for the umpteenth time. She tacked him up and led him to the wide open front door of the barn. The rain blew in sheets across the parking area.
“You sure you want to go out in that?” David Martinez, one of the older student workers, asked from the tack room. “You’ll get soaked just crossing to the covered arena.”
“I know.” DJ led her mount to the door of the tack room. “Hand me that slicker up on the nail, would you please?”
David did as asked, shaking his head. “I skipped my workout, put my horse on the hot walker, and called it good.”
“I thought about it but . . .” She finished buttoning the yellow slicker and placed her foot in the stirrup. “Okay, fella,” she said, swinging into the Western saddle. “Let’s do it.”
Patches balked at the gate. “You sure aren’t Major,” DJ muttered as she dismounted to open and close it when he finally consented to go through. Mounting into a wet saddle seat did nothing to improve her humor. “You know, Patches, if I didn’t like you, I’d have left you in the barn.” The gelding’s ears flicked back and forth as he listened to her and checked out the arena. The rain had brought on an early dusk, so the overhead lights cast deep shadows in the corners.
DJ kept a firm grip on the reins and paid close attention to her horse. He felt like a coiled spring. She walked him around the ring, letting him get used to the arena. At last, he let out a breath and played with the bit, a sure sign he’d settled down. DJ could feel her shoulders and spine relax along with him. They settled into a jog, and for a change, Patches minded, keeping the even pace he usually fought so hard.
“What’s with you today? You finally decide to be a trained mount instead of an ornery one?” Patches snorted and kept the pace. DJ nudged him into a lope, and after a few pounding steps, he settled into the rocking-chair rhythm that was such a pleasure to sit. When she pulled him back down and turned him counterclockwise, he tried to move to the center of the ring, but at DJ’s insistence he went back to the rail.
So what if Brad never calls? The questions started again. DJ laid the reins over, shifted her weight, and Patches danced up the ring, changing leads like a ballroom dancer.
“DJ?”
Without warning, Patches exploded beneath her. One stiff-legged jump, as if the horse was starring in a rodeo, and DJ catapulted right over his head.
CHAPTER • 4
Thought one: Patches, you’re dead meat.
Thought two: When I can breathe again, that is. If I can ever breathe again.
“DJ, are you all right?” Krissie, one of her beginning students, knelt in the dirt beside her.
DJ spit out a chunk of dirt and rolled to a sitting position. One knee burned, and her chest hurt—getting the breath knocked out of you did that. Most of all, though, her pride felt like she’d landed squarely on it.
“I’ll be fine.” She leaned her head from side to side and sucked in a deep breath through her mouth. She gagged and choked on another chunk of dirt—at least, she hoped it was only dirt. Pulling a tissue from her pocket, she blew her nose, smearing more dirt in the process. The mess showed on the soggy tissue.
Krissie let out a wail. “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t called to you . . .”
DJ shook her head. “I know better than to take my mind off Patches. He was just waiting for a chance to—that no-good, rotten hunk of horse meat. Where is he?”
“Running around the arena like he lost his mind.” Krissie put a hand under DJ’s arm to help her up.
Keep cool, DJ ordered herself. How could I let that fool horse dump me? This has got to be the worst day of my life.
DJ brushed the dirt off her jeans and turned to look for Patches. Good thing the gates had been closed, or he’d be out loose in Briones State Park or on the road by now. She gingerly took off her helmet and glanced at Krissie. Fat tears welled in her eyes, and her chin quivered.
“Hey, forget it. Remember the day you took a header?” The girl nodded. “Did you get really hurt?” Krissie shook her head. “It can happen to any rider, no matter how long you’ve been working with horses. You have to be careful all the time.” DJ tried to keep the grumble out of her voice, but she wanted to scream and pound the fence. Or Patches.
“Go get ready for your lesson. I’ll get that crazy horse.”
Krissie hesitated as though she had more to say, but at DJ’s frown, she trotted off.
DJ strode across the arena. When she got close, Patches threw up his head and charged past her. She tried to grab his reins but missed. Calling him every name she could think of and a few she invented, she stomped across the parking lot, the rain dripping down the neck of her slicker.
In the tack room, she found a can and scooped some grain, then rushed back across the lot to the arena, her jeans sticking to her legs. By now, Patches was having a grand time evading David.
“Patches!” DJ rattled the feed can.
The horse skidded to a halt, ears pricked. She walked toward him as he tentatively moved toward her, nose extended so he could sniff to check that she wasn’t tricking him. DJ knew better than to scold him before she had a hand on his reins, so she called him names in a gentle, wheedling tone. “You stupid beast. I could brain you, you know. If I have to get someone else to help me, you are going to be very, very sorry.”
Patches stopped just far enough away that she couldn’t reach his reins. Good thing she’d knotted them for Mrs. Johnson, or he’d have stepped on one and broken it. That could have hurt his mouth—and all because she wasn’t paying attention. DJ shifted the name-calling to herself.
“Hey, DJ, having trouble with your horse?” Tony Andrada, his drawl proclaiming his Southern ancestry, leaned crossed arms on his horse’s withers. For a while, she and Tony had really mixed it up over the rotten way he had treated her friend Hilary Jones. But lately things had been at least civil.
Except for now.
The daggers DJ shot him should have knocked him bleeding from his horse. “Why don’t you go find a canyon and fall into it?”
“Whoa.” Tony raised his hands and leaned backward. “S-o-r-r-y.” He turned his horse away. “Just thought I could help.”
DJ stood still and shook the can to rattle the grain. Patches sniffed as she dug out a handful and held it out to him. He snorted, stepped forward, lipped the grain, and reached for the can.
DJ clamped a firm hand on the reins and handed the can to David. “Here, you take this. A hammerhead like him doesn’t deserve a treat.” Without offering pats or soft words, she swung aboard and ordered Patches into a slow jog, the gait he hated the most. Once around the ring and she reversed, made him back up, ran through some figure eights, and headed for the gate. “Good boy.” Her compliment didn’t sound any friendlier than her name-calling had been.
Good thing Bridget Sommersby was gone for the day. Telling her later wouldn’t be nearly as humiliating as having her watch. The owner of Briones Riding Academy had become DJ’s mentor.
DJ’s three girl students—Krissie, Angie, and Samantha—were riding their horses around the arena at a walk when DJ returned after putting Patches away.
DJ was in no mood to give a lesson, but since no one was asking, she gritted her teeth. On top of feeling like she’d been slugged, a case of cramps had hit in full force. Add a headache on top of that, and DJ felt like chewing nails and spitting them out machine-gun style. She rubbed her forehead. Add to the mess a new—or rather old—father, a rambunctious horse, and students who were looking a
t her as though she’d sprouted horns. She felt like she was trapped in the picture book Bobby and Billy, the Double Bs, loved so much—this was truly a terrible, no good, awful, very bad day. Or something like that.
She sucked in a deep breath and winced. Her ribs hurt. “Okay, kids, let’s pick up the pace. Take a lesson from me and keep your concentration on what you’re doing. Let’s see a good ride.” She watched them closely.
“Come on, Angie—back straight, relax your shoulders. Krissie, who’s in control over there?” The criticisms came a little too easily. “Samantha, keep those reins even. You’re confusing your horse.”
By the time the lesson was over, the girls looked like whipped puppies. They quickly filed out of the gate into rain that hadn’t let up an iota.
“Boy, were you hard on them or what?” Amy reined up beside DJ. She’d been circling at the far end of the arena for some time.
“Oh, knock it off. I wasn’t either.”
“Ex-c-u-s-e me.” Amy looked closely at her friend. “You’re a mess.”
“Thanks a big fat lot.” DJ turned and stomped through the puddles to the barn. Maybe riding Major would make her feel better. When she walked by the girls unsaddling their horses, they peeked at her out of the corners of their eyes. No playful chatter, no teasing.
DJ stopped. “Look, I get the feeling I’ve been a grouch. I’m sorry. You all did fine out there.”
It was as if the sun came out right there in the barn.
“Are you feeling all right?” Angie asked, always sensitive to other people’s pain since she managed so much of her own.
DJ shook her head. “But that’s not your problem.”
“Did you get hurt hitting the ground?” Krissie’s blue eyes were still troubled.
“No. Unless you call smacked pride hurt. Come on, kids, your mothers will be here soon and you need to wipe your saddles.” DJ mentally added guilt to the load she was lugging around like a full feed sack.
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