High Hurdles Collection Two

by Lauraine Snelling

  Still shaking, DJ got up and went to the bathroom for a glass of water. She chugged one full glass and refilled it, taking the glass with her back to bed. She sat on the edge of the bed, shivering and sipping. Thoughts of Major looking so sad wouldn’t leave her alone. Major needed someone to fuss over him. But who?

  The alarm went off an hour later. This time there was no dream, only heavy eyelids that didn’t want to open until the sun came up. But juniors were up first this morning, and she had three classes, two of them jumping.

  While her eyes didn’t want to work, her butterflies didn’t suffer that way at all. They were already fluttering up into her throat.

  While Joe and Bunny carried on a lively conversation all the way to the show, DJ went back to sleep. Her apology when she woke up made them both laugh.

  “I just figured you needed some extra sleep,” Bunny said as she climbed out of the cab.

  “You all right?” Joe asked.

  “Sure. Thanks for letting me snooze.”

  While her butterflies kicked into full performance in the warm-up ring, DJ approached the entrance to the outdoor ring with a calm spirit—at least on the outside. If Herndon misbehaved, she’d try to figure out what she did wrong and not do it again. …

  Nothing. If DJ didn’t know better, she’d have thought she was riding a different horse. Herndon showed off like he’d been born for the ring. They’d taken a third in Open Equitation and a first in Hunter Seat. Now for the jumping.

  “That should make you feel better,” Joe said, smiling up at her and stroking Herndon’s neck.

  “It does, but we only got that because he’s so showy.”

  “Not true. It takes two, and you did a good job out there.”

  “Thanks.” She sucked in a deep breath. Junior Hunter Over Fences was next. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” She repeated the verse again and took in a deep breath. No fear. She thought of the verse Joe had given her earlier in the week. Something about God not giving a spirit of fear but of … She thought hard. Why had she had such a hard time memorizing it?

  “Joe, what was that verse?” At his blank look, she began, “Not a spirit of fear but …”

  Joe finished it for her. “But a spirit of power and love and self-control.”

  “Good.”

  “They’re calling your number.”

  “I know.” She took in another breath, smiled down at Joe, patted Herndon’s neck, and trotted into the ring. She picked up a canter and circled toward the first jump. A simple post and rail, three feet high. Come on, we can do this. She could feel the power beneath her, indeed strength under control.

  But what if I don’t do it right?

  Herndon’s forward surge of power dropped, like someone had cut it right in half.

  Like the shutter of a camera, she saw the click in her head. That’s it.

  Hands, legs, seat, mind.

  DJ saw her stride. She squeezed her legs and felt her own strength return. Hands, legs, seat, mind. Herndon’s power returned, just like throwing a light switch. Three, two, one. Lift off. Her arms followed up his neck. She could feel the surge of power as Herndon used himself to the fullest, his back rounded, DJ up over his withers where she belonged.

  I’m with him! She wanted to shout it for all the world to hear. All other jumps had been only preparation for this. She could hardly keep from laughing out loud in sheer ecstasy.

  Thank you, God!

  She looked to the next jump, turning her head slightly to the right.

  Herndon touched down on the right lead just like he needed to take the right turn and stride to the in and out. Three, two, one. And over. The other seven fences rolled under them as if Herndon could jump the moon.

  The final jump looked huge, like a concrete wall three stories tall.

  Herndon’s ears pricked forward. He snorted. Three, two, one, and they sailed again. Higher he flew, clearing the four-foot jump by another foot.

  They could have cleared a barn.

  DJ couldn’t quit laughing.

  “The click, it happened! Did you see it? I can’t believe it. That was the most awesome thing I’ve ever done.” Words poured out of her, punctuated by bursts of laughter. “We did it!”

  They took second place after two jump-offs, but DJ didn’t care that they didn’t get first. The sensation of control, of using her hands and feet the way she now knew she needed to. To ride this horse of hers like he deserved to be ridden.

  “Thank you, thank you very much,” she said to the ring steward as she accepted her ribbon. They trotted out the gate to a burst of applause. People on all sides of the arena shouted and clapped. Had their success been that obvious?

  “You big handsome hunk of horseflesh,” she said to his flickering ears and leaned forward to hug him.

  “I hate to say I told you so, but …” Joe sported again.

  “I know, you told me so.” DJ dismounted and led Herndon over to the fence where her family stood, Gran included.

  “DJ, you gots three ribbons today.” Bobby held up two fingers on one hand and one on the other.

  “Looked to me like you were having a good time out there.” Robert, his arm around Lindy’s shoulders, said with a smile.

  “So was he.” Lindy stroked Herndon’s nose. “You are one handsome dude, you know that?”

  DJ and Gran looked at each other, eyebrows disappearing in their hair. Her mother was not only talking to a horse but petting it. Without being coached.

  A man who looked familiar waited just past the exit gate, next to Joe.

  “Young lady, I just wanted to tell you congratulations. I’ve been watching you since your first show this year, and you’ve come a long way. I believe you have a real future in this sport if you keep working like you have been.”

  “Thank you.” Only as he finished speaking did DJ put a face to the memory. The man who’d said she needed a decent horse.

  Joe winked at her.

  “I plan to keep on working hard.” DJ watched him walk away. She sure did plan on continuing to work hard. They’d clicked; she’d gotten it. She finally understood what Bridget and John and Jackie had been talking about.

  Wait until Bridget heard this story. If only she’d been here today. But more of the Academy kids were showing at another show, and she’d felt she needed to be there. Brad had missed it, too. What a story she had to tell.

  “Joe, I’ve been thinking.” They had unloaded the horses back at Briones and finished the evening chores. DJ slammed the truck door behind her. She and Joe ambled up the curved front walk to DJ’s house, where all the others had gathered for a barbecue.

  “Uh-oh, I know that tone of voice. What now?”

  “You know, now that Shawna and her mom and dad are moved in …”

  Shawna was DJ’s nine-year-old cousin, daughter of Joe’s younger son, Andy. They had bought DJ’s old house.

  “What do you think of me giving Major to Shawna? She’s lighter and has no dream of showing and for sure not jumping. She needs a horse and Major needs …”

  “Major needs to be needed. I think that’s a fine idea. You can pasture him either here or at my house so you have him, too.”

  “I thought of that.”

  Joe put an arm around her shoulders. “Darla Jean Randall, you are one amazing kid—er, young woman, and I am proud to know you.”

  “Thanks, same to you.”

  “You’ve been letting go of a lot these last months.”

  “Yeah, right. Letting go of school, letting go of free time …”

  “Smart aleck.” He opened the door and ushered her in. “Hey, everybody, we’re home.”

  “Billy, what happened to you?” DJ gasped at the sight of one of the twins.

  “I let go too soon and fell off General.” He put his hand to the goose egg on his forehead. “Daddy says I gots to hang on better.”

  DJ scooped him up in her arms and kissed his forehead. “So you’ve got to hang on longer, and I�
��ve got to let go sooner. Let’s eat, I’m starved.”

  “And then we have fireworks.” Billy put his palms on either side of DJ’s face.

  “I guess. What’s the Fourth of July without sparklers? But you have to be careful.”

  Billy nodded. “We’s always careful.”

  DJ shook her head and let him slide to the ground. “Yeah, right. And I’m Ronald McDonald.” The three of them laughed their way into the house.

  To Lee Roddy,

  mentor and friend.

  You have influenced so many writers lives

  and thereby untold millions.

  Thanks for the challenge, the push,

  and the encouragement.

  I thank our God that I met you

  when I did—

  in the beginning.

  Chapter • 1

  I hate chewing dirt.

  Darla Jean Randall brushed the dust off her jeans and glared at Herndon, her Thoroughbred/warmblood jumper. The 16.2-hand bay, so dark brown he was nearly black except for the few white hairs that formed a whorl between his eyes, looked down at her as if to shrug. She could read “Not my fault” in every line of his classy body. He reached forward to sniff her shoulder.

  “No, it doesn’t hurt—right now, anyway—thank you very much.” DJ, as everyone but her mother and grandmother called her, felt like pushing him away or smacking him, but she knew neither would do any good. The fall was her own fault, plain and simple. Riding Herndon took every ounce of her concentration and then some. She’d been so careful to keep him from running out that when he quit, she catapulted over the jump without him. And here she’d been patting herself on the back for finally working well with him.

  As Gran often quoted, “Pridegoeth before a fall.”

  And, as of right now, her pride was definitely smarting. Her shoulder should have been used to the permanent bruise by now.

  “Whenever you are ready.” Bridget Sommersby, former member of the French Equestrian Team and DJ’s coach, mentor, employer, and friend, called from the center of the jumping ring, where she waited patiently.

  DJ nodded, straightened her helmet, and gathering her reins, mounted again. “Now, get this straight, big horse: We, that is you and me together, we are going to jump this next round with no running out, no halts, and no hesitation. You got that?”

  Herndon shook his head, sending his short mane fluffing in the breeze. Ears pricked, he trotted forward at her signal. As DJ had already learned, Herndon didn’t hold a grudge for her mistakes. But he wasn’t the forgiving horse Major had been, either. Jackie described Major as push-button because he was so willing.

  Herndon was anything but push-button, and Major … well, after that accident in the show-ring, Major would never jump again. Sometimes DJ missed riding her first horse so much she could taste the tears that she refused to let fall. Major was healing faster than the vet had predicted, but his show days were over. DJ’s biological father, Brad Atwood, and his wife, Jackie, had given DJ Herndon in Major’s place.

  DJ signaled a canter and headed straight for the fence she’d just sailed over by herself. Three, two, one, lift-off. The thrill of being airborne for that brief instant never failed her. After a perfect touchdown, they aimed for the in and out. “Look to the base of the next jump, keep him between your hands and legs …” She could hear Bridget as if she said the words right in her ear.

  DJ felt the big horse hesitate at the approach, but she drove him forward. You have to ride him aggressively. When you learn to do that consistently, your jumping career will really be under way. Since DJ planned a long and illustrious jumping career, including becoming a member of the United States Equestrian Team—or USET, as the horse world called the team—she took Bridget’s advice to heart.

  DJ’s hands followed up Herndon’s neck as he thrust off for the brush jump. He cleared it with air to spare and when he landed, snorted as if to say, “See, I knew we could do it.” DJ could feel the grin stretch her cheeks. Man, oh man, flying like this was better than anything else in the entire world.

  “All right, now repeat the round again just like this one, and then you can put him away.”

  DJ nodded to Bridget and did as she was told. Three, two, one, liftoff. Seven times they repeated the sequence, and at the end of the round, DJ patted Herndon’s sweaty neck. “Good job, fella. I get the feeling you thought those weren’t big enough to bother with, but we don’t get the big ones until we get over our mistakes—before they become bad habits.” DJ could feel the sweat trickling down her back and from her armpits. She’d switched her jumping time until after dinner to be out of the heat of the July days. Late July in Pleasant Hill, California, could be hot in the daytime, but it usually cooled off at night. Today, however, she’d gone back to a late-afternoon lesson so she could get home early.

  DJ glanced at her watch. “Thanks, Bridget. I gotta run. We’re having the Double Bs’ birthday tonight. They think turning six is almost as good as ice cream.”

  “How are their riding lessons coming?” Bridget wiped a trickle of moisture from her forehead.

  “ ‘No fear’ is their middle name. They love to ride, and General is one cool pony. He’s their real teacher, not me. I just give instructions.” DJ wished she could deal with her own fear as well as her stepbrothers did with theirs. She and Gran had contracted to pray about DJ’s fear of fire, but so far she hadn’t noticed any change.

  DJ dismounted and walked beside Bridget back to the barn.

  “Are you all ready for the USET camp?”

  “I guess.”

  “You do not sound too sure.”

  “I know.” DJ nibbled on her bottom lip. Should she fess up?

  “Something is bothering you?”

  “It’s just that … well, Herndon and I … we …”

  “Are not a team yet?”

  “I guess. I don’t want to look like an idiot, you know? What if he acts crazy or something?”

  “ ‘Something’ meaning running out on you?”

  “Uh-huh.” Now she did feel like an idiot. “Or quitting like he did today.”

  “DJ, jumping horses is not an exact science. That is part of the thrill of it—so many variables. You do your best and keep on learning. That is all anyone can ask of you, including yourself.”

  DJ heard the warning behind the mild words. Learning not to beat up on herself was one of her hardest lessons.

  “You will do fine.” Bridget patted her student’s shoulder. “Remember, you can ride the school horses any time you want. The more horses you ride and the more time you spend in the saddle, the better. That will always sharpen your skills.”

  “Thanks, Bridget.” Such simple words, and yet DJ meant them for much more than the offer of other mounts. No one had to remind her how fortunate she was to have started out with a teacher the quality of Bridget Sommersby.

  DJ brushed Herndon down and led him out to the hot walker to cool down while she forked the fresh manure out of his stall, dumped in another wheelbarrow of clean shavings, and measured his grain.

  On her way out to get her horse, DJ swung by Ranger’s stall to check on him since GJ—short for Grandpa Joe—was at her house helping get ready for the big birthday party. Ranger nickered at DJ’s approach, but the horse in the pen next to him only looked at her with little or no interest. Her heart clenched. The white horse that now occupied Major’s old stall looked totally out of place. Her best friend should be there in the stall where he belonged instead of grazing contentedly in Joe’s pasture.

  DJ stroked Ranger’s sorrel face before getting the fork and tossing out the dirty shavings. When the horses were taken care of, she waved good-bye to several of the riders in the covered arena and picked up her bike from where it leaned against the barn wall. She flung her leg over the seat and pumped up the rise to Reliez Valley Road. She pumped hard, knowing that her mother would be getting impatient. And DJ still had the boys’ presents to wrap.

  DJ could hear the twins shri
eking with laughter in the backyard when she parked her bike in the three-car garage. “I’m home,” she called, taking the stairs to her room three at a time. “Oh, fiddle.” Her room wore the transformed look that said Maria had been busy. While DJ usually kept up her own room, this morning she’d been running behind schedule and was barely ready herself when Gran came to pick her up for summer school. The two of them were taking a ceramics class at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, not far from where they lived. Maria had been the boys’ nanny before DJ’s mother, Lindy, and Robert Crowder were married. Now the young Hispanic woman was their housekeeper, cook, nanny, and whatever-needs-doing person. But cleaning DJ’s room was not on her list of responsibilities.

  DJ and her mother were getting along better than they had in their entire lives, but since Lindy had become pregnant, sometimes things got a little bit tense. Maria doing DJ’s work could cause definite tension.

  DJ showered and dressed in record time, glad to be back in shorts after her hot riding pants. Shorts and tank tops were really her favorite dress. She pulled her straight, shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail and wrapped a black scrunchie around it twice. She’d been called “cat eyes” more than once because of her green eyes, but as far as she could tell, she’d never be teased for being overly endowed in the chest department. She dabbed ointment on a rising zit on the side of her straight nose and made a face at the one in the mirror before switching off the lights and leaving her private bathroom.

  When she came downstairs, Gran was helping Maria in the kitchen. Her being there made even the huge kitchen seem warm and friendly.

  “Hi, darlin’. How’d your lesson go?” Gran brushed a feathery strand of silvering hair back with her wrist. “Whew, it’s warm for sure, even with air-conditioning.”

  “Good. Herndon and I finally got our act together. After I landed on the ground again, though.” DJ took a carrot from the tray. “You’d think I’d figure it out that I’m supposed to ride the horse over the jump.”