High Hurdles Collection Two

by Lauraine Snelling

  Major nickered as soon as she turned the corner to the outside stalls. While this area had a roof, poles held it up instead of walls, and aluminum rails separated the stalls. Ranger had the stall next to Major’s, so it made cleaning them and caring for the horses easier. Joe took care of them in the morning, and DJ usually did the evening shift.

  When she didn’t answer, Major cranked up the volume.

  Laughing, DJ clamped her hands over her ears. “Hey, I heard you the first time.” She held out both closed fists, and when he nosed one, she showed an empty palm. “Ha. Fooled you.” He nosed the other and took his carrot piece off her palm with an extra whiskery twitch. Munching that, he rubbed his forehead on the front of her T-shirt and leaned into her to get a good ear rubbing. When she stopped, he nosed her cheek and blew in her face.

  “Ah yes, carrot breath. Just what I wanted.” DJ turned so he could drape his head over her shoulder, the better for her to stroke his face and forelock. When he sighed in contentment, she giggled. “You big sweetie, I must be the luckiest girl in the whole wide world to have a horse like you.” The thought of what those two men had said the day before flitted through her mind. “They just don’t understand how much I love you, that’s all.”

  “Who doesn’t understand?” Joe set a grooming bucket down at her feet.

  “Two guys above us on the bleachers yesterday. They said it was a shame Brad didn’t give me one of his horses so I’d have a decent horse to ride.” Saying the words again made a red haze pass in front of her eyes.

  “Don’t let it get to you, kid. If that’s the worst thing you hear, you’ll be fortunate.”

  “I know, but the nerve! They don’t know me and Major.”

  “In a way, they gave you a compliment.”

  “How so?”

  “They must have thought you were a good enough rider to need a bet—” He cut off the word. “A … ah …” He winked at her. “A blooded horse, that’s it.”

  “Good thing you didn’t say ‘better.’ ” DJ gave Major one last nose pat and opened the stall door. Slipping into the stall, she took a brush in each hand and, starting on one side, brushed down her horse’s neck and shoulders.

  “I gave him a good brushing this morning.” Joe took the hoof-pick and set to work on his own mount.

  “That’s okay. I think I do this as much for me as for him. There’s something about grooming a horse that settles me, gets me ready for my class or something. I don’t know, maybe I just love the feel and smell and sound of horses.”

  “You forgot sight.” Joe straightened and slapped Ranger on the shoulder. “Stop that.”

  Continuing the rhythm of brushing, DJ looked over the barrier. “What’d he do?”

  “Tried to take a chunk out of my rear, not that I don’t have extra, but …”

  “So cross-tie him.” DJ hid her grin by leaning closer to Major. Crosstying was good sense, but she didn’t usually do it with Major, either. At least not in the stall here in their home barn. He loved grooming so much he stood like a rock. “After all, Ranger’s just a kid.”

  “Yeah, and a smart aleck one at that.”

  “You about done with that pick?” she asked after a couple of quiet minutes. She took a cloth out of her back pocket and wiped down Major’s face.

  “Yep. Here.” Joe passed the pick between the rails. He crossed his arms on the top bar. “You are going to have to have another horse, you know, and if you want to progress as fast as you can, it’ll have to be soon.”

  DJ raised up from picking Major’s off front hoof. “Don’t say things like that in front of my friend here. You might hurt his feelings.” But DJ knew it was her feelings she was more concerned about. How could she stand showing without Major?

  Chapter • 4

  “How’d your lesson go?” Lindy turned from checking a pot on the stove.

  “No lesson, just riding. We had a day off. Bridget asked if I’d like to jump Megs tomorrow. Said she needs some exercise and I need more experience on other horses.” Megs was Bridget’s retired competition horse that had earned her place of honor at the Academy. “Can Amy come for dinner so we can work on our cards tonight?”

  “Sure. How’s your homework?”

  “I got eight out of ten in the algebra quiz.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Where are the boys?” The house seemed almost eerily quiet, except for Queenie, who leaped and licked and glued herself to DJ’s leg as soon as she walked in the door.

  “Next door.” Lindy glanced at the clock. “They should be coming home in about ten minutes. Robert will be late—he’s got to finalize some blueprints. The table is all set and …” She covered the pan she’d been stirring and turned to DJ. “Other than that, how’ve you been today?”

  “Okay.” She told about the face-burning session in homeroom.

  Lindy laughed and shook her head. “Boy, does that remind me of me back then. I got yelled at for daydreaming all the time. Mostly it was about boys.”

  DJ leaned her rear against the counter, snagging a carrot off the relish tray. “I wasn’t thinking about boys.”

  “Horses?”

  DJ shook her head. “About you, us, the baby.” She cocked her head. “Are you really pregnant?”

  “Either that or I have some horrific bug that attacks at odd times and makes me toss my cookies. Does it bother you, DJ?”

  DJ shook her head. “I don’t think so. Of course, it isn’t here yet, but …”

  “But?”

  DJ struggled for words to describe her feelings without sounding like a total jerk.

  “Just say it. We’ll make sense of it later.”

  DJ stared at her mother. “That’s what Gran would say.”

  “Oh no, I sound like my mother. After all these years of promising myself I would never, ever sound like my mother.”

  “Why not? Gran’s about the coolest grown-up anywhere. She makes sense all the time.”

  “Not to me when I was growing up. Remember, she’s your grandmother, and the sun rises and sets on her as far as you’re concerned. And vice versa. That’s the way it should be. But I grew up with her, and we had some royal battles.”

  “Like you and me?”

  “Maybe worse.” Lindy grinned and crossed from the center island, where the cook top resided, to DJ. She stroked back a strand of her daughter’s hair. “All this to get around what you were going to say?”

  DJ shrugged. “Maybe. I guess I get jealous sometimes.” There, the words were out, and as she’d suspected, they sounded totally jerky. After all, she was almost fifteen and should be smarter than that.

  “Ah, Darla Jean, you have such a gift for honesty.” Lindy hugged her daughter. “My no-games girl, that’s who you are. Anyone would feel jealous at times. You’ve been through some major stuff in the last year, and you and I were just getting our acts together when Robert and the boys stepped into the picture. Those two guys take up a lot of time and love, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But you …” Lindy laid her hand along her daughter’s cheek. “You’re the child of my heart. You came from me, and even though I forget to always tell you, I love you more every day. I never thought that would be possible. I am so proud of you I could pop, and yes, sometimes I want to smack you upside the head, as Joe would say, but I’ll never stop loving you.”

  DJ rolled her lips together and leaned into her mother’s embrace. Guess that answered that question, the one she hadn’t even thought to ask. Was that what was behind all this? Was she afraid her mother might not love her enough? They sniffed in unison, and Lindy reached for the box of tissues.

  “Adding a baby to this mix isn’t going to be easy. Babies never are. But you watch, you’re going to love that little one like you do the boys. And Robert promised me that God has plenty of love to go around for all of us.”

  “Did Robert and Gran go to the same school?” DJ could feel her smile tremble. “They say the same things.”

  “Them and Joe. You k
now how lucky we are they came into our lives?” Lindy gave DJ another hug and stepped back. “Life sure has been a roller coaster lately. You think it’ll ever settle back down?”

  “According to Gran, I wouldn’t count on it.” DJ sighed. “I’d just like to get caught up once in a while. My fingers are itching for the drawing pencils, but I’ve got another book report due instead. You wouldn’t like to tell me about one of the books you’ve read?” She gave her mother a sideways, extremely hopeful glance.

  “Sure I will. Which do you want? Goodnight Moon, The Little Engine that Could, or, I know, Mamma, Do You Love Me?”

  “M-o-t-h-e-r! I gotta go call Amy. If she rides her bike over, can you take her home?”

  “Sure. Tell her dinner’s ready as soon as she gets here.”

  “Be thinking about a name for our card line,” DJ called over her shoulder as she bounded up the stairs.

  When dinner was over and the boys were parked in front of the TV with a Veggie Tales video, DJ, Amy, and Lindy gathered around the kitchen table. Amy spread out her latest pictures, and DJ pulled out her two latest foal drawings. The spread also included an order for more cards from DJ’s Aunt Julia’s friend on the East Coast and a letter from another card shop owner who’d seen their line in other stores.

  “Looks to me like you two are getting more business than you can handle.” Lindy smiled at one of Amy’s baby pinto pictures. “This sure is a cute one.”

  DJ laid out another letter. “This one asks if we have any T-shirts with our pictures on them. She’s sure she could sell a lot of them in her store. She’s from …” DJ looked at the address again. “Wyoming? How’d she hear of us?”

  “Word of mouth, my dear, the very best kind of advertising.” Lindy flipped the pages of the ledger they’d been forced to start so they could keep track of their sales. “You have cards and frameable pictures in how many stores now?”

  “Six, not including the Briones and Bottomly tack rooms,” Amy replied immediately.

  DJ gave her a look of awe. “How do you keep track of everything?”

  “It’s not like we have a million, you know.” Amy held up a picture of a pinto baby looking head on into the camera. “John said I should put a striped birthday hat on this one and a message inside.”

  “Cool.”

  “You know he’s in that business class? He said we should go talk with Mr. Mann about letting the class help us.”

  “Help us how?”

  “Well, I guess they do projects, and John thought we would be a good one.”

  “John said that? Are we speaking of the same John?”

  Amy punched DJ lightly on the shoulder. “Watch it, that’s my brother you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, I know. The one who said he’d never help us again unless we paid him big bucks—and even then it was a maybe.”

  Lindy chuckled. “That may be, but I think he has a good idea. It looks to me like you are fast approaching the time when you will have to treat this like a real business. I know we’ve talked about this before, and you’ve done some good things like opening a business checking account and the ledger, but …”

  “But now we need a name. And Robert said we should get business cards, too.”

  “I can print those from the computer, in color even. If I had a scanner, I could even print the foal pictures you draw. But when I tried the color printing, it came out shinier than what we have done at the printers.”

  “You might have to begin to think about bigger print runs so you can keep your costs down.”

  “Huh? That would cost tons more.” DJ shook her head. She flipped back to the ledger. “We have a grand total of two hundred and fourteen dollars in our account.”

  “But you have some money still to come in, right?” Lindy checked the figures. “See here, in accounts receivable?”

  “This is getting worse than algebra.” DJ propped her chin up with her hands. “I’d rather draw than all this stuff.”

  “That’s one of the problems of a business of your own. Getting all the busywork done and still having time for the creative part.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?”

  “She got a business degree, Darla Jean Randall.” Amy only used that name when she thought DJ wasn’t thinking straight, or at all in some cases.

  “Oh, I forgot.” DJ shrugged. “So what can we call our company?” She giggled at the word.

  “Foalin’ Around?” Amy tossed into the idea pot.

  “We might not want to use all foals.” DJ tapped her chin with the end of her pencil. “How about DJAM. Say it as D-Jam. For our names.”

  “Cards by DJAM? DJAM Cards? DJAM Greetings? DJAM, Etc.? I think you need to leave it open for other products, not just cards. You already have two—cards and frameable art,” Lindy suggested.

  “Oh wow, frameable art. That sounds much better than pictures of foals.” Amy smiled at DJ’s mother. “You have good ideas.”

  Lindy wrote each of the suggested names on her tablet. “Why not let that percolate for a while. Seems to me you need to decide if you are going to take on any more clients.”

  “Sure we will.” DJ and Amy nodded at each other.

  “But then we have to print more stock.” Amy glanced at her work sheet. “We’re down to a dozen packets of foal pictures and ten of photos. Shipping these orders will clean us out.”

  DJ groaned. “When? Good thing the printer is open twenty-four hours a day. We might have to be.”

  “It’ll be easier when school is out.” Lindy glanced at her watch. “We better wrap this up if you’ve got homework.”

  “So when do we talk with Mr. Mann?” Amy asked, gathering up the papers and stacking them.

  “Why not tomorrow, or at least ask him about it? I could do that during study hall.”

  “We should go together,” Amy said with a nod. “That leaves lunchtime or after school.”

  “Or we go in early.”

  “You? Early?”

  “Thanks a big lot. I don’t always oversleep.” DJ rolled her eyes at Amy. Great, now Mom knows I was almost late. She waited for her mother to comment.

  Amy flinched. “Sorry.”

  “So you need to hit the sack early, right?” Lindy said calmly.

  “Uh-huh.” Whew, thought I’d had it there. Mom sure is different lately.

  “Good, then I’ll take Amy home and you get on your homework. The boys can come with me.” Lindy pushed back her chair. “You girls have a really good thing going here. It’s going to be fun to see what all happens.”

  “Thanks for helping us. Oh, and I forgot, Mom said to tell you congratulations.” Amy picked up her things. “You know, I like DJAM, and maybe the Etc. would be a good thing.”

  “Fine with me.” DJ glanced at her mother, who nodded.

  “So we have a company name, then—DJAM, Etc.” DJ looked to her mother and Amy. “Cool, huh?”

  DJ managed to stay awake through her algebra and two chapters of the book due for her report. She almost woke up when her mother turned out the light but not enough to mumble more than “Good night.”

  After the final bell on Tuesday, when DJ and Amy talked with Mr. Mann about their business, he invited them to speak with his class the next day. “Bring samples of all your cards and pictures, your ledger, wrapping supplies, anything you have so we can see how we can help. Mrs. Adams told me about your drawings, DJ. She’s really been impressed. I’m glad you thought to come to me.”

  “My brother John said we should,” Amy said.

  “Good, glad you listened to him.” Mr. Mann wrote himself a note. “I’ll let your third-period teachers know so you are excused. Okay?”

  The two girls high-fived each other as they raced down the concrete walks between classroom buildings. Joe would be waiting.

  Once at home, DJ changed clothes and charged back down the stairs to tell her mother what had happened at the meeting, in between bites of a PB&J and glugging a glass of milk. “Where are the twin
s?” she finally asked.

  “At our house. Mel is giving them an art lesson.” Joe had come in to wait for DJ and munched a carrot in the meantime.

  “You mean they’re smearing paint?”

  He shrugged. “Sounded like they were having fun to me. She’s making lasagna tonight for us all to celebrate finishing her contract.”

  “We should be bringing the dinner.” Lindy shook her head. “Leave it to my mother.”

  “That’s okay. I ordered an ice-cream cake that says ‘Congrats, Mel’ on it.”

  DJ still had a hard time getting used to someone calling her grandmother Mel. She was Gran to most everyone else. Besides, Melanie was much prettier. But if Joe wanted to call his wife Mel, that was up to him.

  “Let’s go, kid, or your students will be there before you are.” Joe heaved himself to his feet. “Thanks for the snack, Lindy. You take it easy, you hear?”

  They left Lindy chuckling in the kitchen and Queenie looking sad as they went out the door.

  “That dog sure took to you,” Joe said as he slammed the truck door.

  “I know, but she plays with the boys all the time I’m not there. I let her sleep in my room a few times, but Mom hit the roof. I think Robert would let her.”

  “Robert has always had dogs in the house. Your mother just needs to get used to pets.”

  “I’ve always wanted a kitten, but she said no. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “DJ, you have about as much time to housebreak a kitten as … well, as nothing. Thought you promised not to take on anything new?”

  “I did. But I can dream, can’t I?”

  Joe groaned. “Sure, but your dreams have a way of coming true.”

  DJ shivered. She hoped the dream she’d had the night before would never come true. There’d been a fire at the barn, but she woke up before she learned if any of the horses were hurt. She rubbed the scar in the palm of her left hand and shivered again. The thought of fire made her feel like an idiot. No one else she knew went into total frozen-statue mode at the sight of flames, even birthday candle flames.