High Hurdles Collection Two (29 page)

That evening after the dinner table was cleared and devotions finished, Robert leaned back in his chair. “I've got good news for us.”

The boys stopped poking each other and giggling. “What news?”

“We are moving into the new house on Thursday.”

“Yay! New house, new house.” The boys high-fived each other and jumped down to run around the table and hug their father.

“Isn't that wonderful?” Lindy leaned over and pecked Robert on the cheek. The boys immediately wormed their way into her arms, and she smiled down at them. “You get your new playroom. How about that?”

“DJ?” Robert looked over at her, one eyebrow quirked in question.

“I … I won't be here. Brad's picking me up tomorrow.”

“Oh, that's right.” Robert smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I forgot. Sorry. Well, no problem. The movers are going to take care of everything anyway. They'll be here on Wednesday to pack and move things over on Thursday. If there's anything you don't want packed, make sure you get rid of it before you leave.”

“What about my posters and pictures and stuff?”

“They'll do a better job than any of us. They're trained to do it all.”

“I can't believe it. I don't have to pack the kitchen.” Lindy tickled one of the boys on the nose.

DJ looked at her. She'd lived in this house all her life, and Gran said they'd moved into this house when Lindy was a teenager. She'd never moved anything. So why the big deal?

Why was DJ being so critical? She kept her mouth shut by clamping her teeth together. No smart remarks.

“Do you have a problem with that?” Robert asked softly, letting Lindy play with the boys.

“N-no, I guess not. Just took me by surprise.”

“But we've been counting the days.”

“I know.” DJ shrugged. “But it's different thinking about it, and then all of a sudden the movers are coming and I'm going to be gone.”

“I wish I were going to be gone.” Robert rolled his eyes. “Moving is a pain no matter how many movers there are. You can come home to it all finished. Lucky girl.”

DJ spent the evening sorting things out of her closet. She put all the clothes that were too small for her in a garbage bag to donate to charity, along with some stuffed animals she no longer wanted. She sorted through a box of old school papers and tossed all but the drawings and special projects. Down on the bottom of her bookshelf, she found a scrapbook Gran had given her and taped all her artwork on to the heavy pages. By the time she was done, the scrapbook lay wider than her hand's width. Gran had done the same with her things from early grade school.

She pulled that book off the shelf and flipped through the pages. Some of the drawings made her grin. But Gran said to keep them. They all showed her promise as an artist. One of stick figures beside a house made her shake her head. If
that
was the beginning of great art, she'd eat the book.

With her sorting finished, she went back to the picture she'd started of Patches. She'd drawn him while he played on the hot walker, half rearing with one front foot slashing the air and his mane flying as he tossed his head.

She cleaned up some lines and worked on the shading, trying to get his muscles just right, all the while humming under her breath.

“You sound happy,” her mother said from the doorway. “What are you working on?”

DJ propped the bottom of the pad on her knee and stared at it with her eyes half closed. “A picture of Patches. Mrs. Johnson asked me to do one.”

“May I see?”

“Sure, come on in.”

“Oh, DJ, that's beautiful.” Lindy stood behind her daughter so she could look over her shoulder. “Wait until Gran sees this.”

“It's not done yet.” DJ brushed some bits of eraser off the page. She cocked her head. “Something about his ears and that off back foot isn't right yet.”

“Maybe so, but you sure got the devil dancing in his eyes.”

“He's not mean—intentionally, that is.” DJ studied the drawing some more. “I'm sure going to miss him.”

“Miss him?”

“Mrs. Johnson is selling him. Bridget and I talked her into it so she can buy a horse she can enjoy. Bridget found her another horse if she likes it.”

“When did all this come about?” Lindy sat down on the end of the bed.

“Last couple of days.” DJ erased one ear and started again. This time the angle worked right. “Ah good.”

“Robert says you're catching on to the algebra.”

“Umm.” She drew the line of the leg, erased it, and drew it again.

“We talked it over and decided that you are indeed trying your best and that your grade will change soon, so you can consider yourself off restrictions.”

“Umm.” DJ nodded and mumbled at the same time. She redrew the hoof and a couple of lines under it to show motion. “There.”

She blinked and turned to her mother, who leaned back on the bed, hands clasped around one raised knee. “What did you say?”

Lindy repeated herself.

DJ let out a whoop and leaped to her feet, her pencils and eraser flying every which way. “Thank you, oh thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“I take it you told her,” Robert said from the doorway.

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

DJ had a hard time settling back down to work on the drawing after Robert and Lindy left the room. Finally,
finally
she could ride Major again.

She stopped. And now she was going to be gone. She raised her hands and let them fall. “Fiddle. Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle.”

Chapter • 6

“Joe! Joe, he's limping.”

Joe came out of Ranger's stall just as DJ walked Major into his. “So the old injury is kicking up, eh?” Joe ran his hand down Major's front leg, feeling for any heat or swelling. “I don't feel anything. When did it start?”

“I warmed him up real slow like I always do, then we did a lot of flatwork, reviewing the drills we'd been working on. And then I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to try just one jump.” She stroked Major's nose and rubbed his ears while she talked. “He was doing great. Then something happened. I could feel it, like he almost stumbled but not quite—really weird. He ticked the jump and started limping.”

Joe squatted beside Major and examined both front legs again. “Nothing. It must be in his shoulder. Trot him down the aisle and back.”

DJ trotted him away, stopped, and returned. “See, I told you. First time I have him out. What could have happened? He wasn't that bad out of shape, was he?”

Joe shook his head. “I've been riding him, you know. Not like you do but enough to keep him limber, and you've been lunging him. That's not the problem.” Joe stroked down Major's shoulder. “Let's get the liniment and start an ice pack. He'll be right as rain in a day or two.”

“But I'm leaving this afternoon.” She put her arms around Major's neck and leaned against him. The big horse whuffled down her back and nosed her ponytail. When he blew on her neck, she giggled. “That tickles, you big silly.”

She pulled back and looked at Joe. “Maybe I better stay home. I can call Brad and tell him I can't come.”

“All because of a little limp?” Joe shook his head. “I don't think so. I'll take care of him. It isn't the first time and surely won't be the last.”

“But that's not fair—to you, I mean. He's my horse and my responsibility.”

“You have an even more important responsibility—to your dad. Now, let's get this old son taken care of.”

After they'd rubbed in the liniment, DJ watched Major pull hay out of the sling and chew. “He doesn't seem to be in pain.”

“It would have to be mighty bad before he'd let on. This guy's got a heart as big as California. Even when he was shot in the shoulder, he kept on going until he collapsed. Saved my life, he did.”

DJ loved hearing stories from Joe's days in the mounted police. She traced the scar where the bullet had hit Major instead of Joe. “You suppose that old injury could be causing problems now? It is the same shoulder.”

“Nope. Now, if the bullet had hit bone, it might be different, but it was all soft tissue. I don't know; he could be developing some arthritis or some such, but I think he just stepped wrong and got a bit of a sprain. You watch—he'll be fine by the time you get home.”

Later, when he came to pick up DJ, Brad stopped by the Academy and checked the shoulder, saying the same things as Joe. “Rest and then gentle exercise are what he needs.”

DJ felt like screaming,
But he's been resting. And now I can finally ride again. We have shows coming up, and I thought I had him in top condition. Why would stepping wrong cause this?

In the Land Rover on the way to Santa Rosa, Brad reached over and patted DJ's hand. “You're worried about Major, aren't you?”

“Trying not to. I just can't understand why this happened.”

“DJ, horses are like people. They get injured and they get well. Sometimes you can get whiplash stepping wrong off a step. Being in good condition helps, but accidents still happen.”

“You really don't think this is going to be an ongoing problem?”

“Well, I can't say for sure. Sometimes an injury, an old one—”

“Like that mud slide in Briones. I knew it. …”

“As I was saying, sometimes an injury leaves a weakness that flares up again. Like a person who repeatedly sprains the same ankle. The ankle is weak—they say it takes two years for a sprained ankle to really heal and be as strong as it was before.”

“Yuck. Remind me not to sprain my ankle.”

“Listen, if this does become a recurring problem, you always have Herndon to fall back on.”

“But he's a dressage horse—”

“Who loves to jump.” Brad checked over his shoulder to change lanes. “He would have made a much better jumper than a dressage horse. That's why Jackie changed mounts. He just didn't have what it takes to go Grand Prix, and that's what she wants to do.”

DJ watched his face in the light from the dashboard. Man, her father was one handsome dude. She rolled her lips together to keep the grin from showing. Funny, it seemed like she'd known him much longer than the few months since he'd called to say he was her biological father and wanted to meet her. Her love of horses came from him for sure.

“So what's gone on since I was up here last?”

“It seems like a year ago. Let's see, we have four new babies, two more mares to foal. Mares are coming in to breed to Matadorian, and this will be our first year to use Sheik, our younger stallion. We went to the show in Phoenix and bought two more mares there. Wait till you see the one called Sea Gypsy. I think she'll match well with Matadorian and throw colts like you wouldn't believe.” He turned to look at her. “Sure do wish you wanted to show Arabs.”

“I'll learn to show them, but jumping in the Olympics is more important to me.”

“Yeah, I know, and there's only so much time.”

They talked horses all the way to the turn-in to the farm. Old-fashioned light posts with two globes lined the way from the road up to the house, crowning the top of a rounded hill.

Brad checked his watch. “We've got a few minutes until Jackie has dinner ready. You want to go see your baby first?”

“Need you ask?” DJ sighed. “She's probably forgotten all about me.”

“Most likely, but it won't take long to refresh her memory. I've been showing her a picture of you every day so she wouldn't forget.”

“Right.”

They stopped in front of a long white barn lined with horse stalls on either side of the wide aisle. To the front were the foaling stalls, with only one occupied.

“She should foal while you are here, but that's the man talking, not the mare.”

“Dad, is it true that mares in the wild can start and stop the birthing at will if something frightens them?” Calling him Dad surprised her almost as much as it did him.

He smiled at her. “I've heard that, too. Up to a point, I'm sure. But once that foal's feet show, running would kill it.” Together they leaned over the half wall of the foaling stall. The mare dozed in the back corner after checking them out with one open eye.

“She sure doesn't seem worried.”

“No. Veda, there, is an old hand. This will be her tenth foal.”

“Wow. She's getting kind of old.”

“Be careful what you say. You don't want to hurt her feelings. Come on, your child awaits.”

They could hear horses scrambling to their feet as they approached the stall. The mare came right up to Brad, nosing him for the treats he always carried in his pockets. The filly peeked out from behind her dam, only now she was tall enough that her mother's tail no longer feathered over her face but just draped over her back. She hesitated barely a moment or two before coming forward for her share of the goodies. But she went to Brad, giving DJ a wide berth.