by Ward, J. R.
A.J. looked down at her own clothes. Scruffy but clean blue jeans, a polo shirt and barn jacket, leather boots. She had on a Sutherland Stables baseball cap, which was controlling the top half of her mane of auburn curls. The bottom half was reeled in by a tie at the base of her neck. Practical, comfortable. Unremarkable.
“Going three times.”
“You will regret this,” Peter announced.
It was a promise A.J. had heard before from him. What it meant was, if something bad didn’t flow naturally from her impulse, he’d make sure he took up the slack.
“I’d only regret it if I didn’t get him,” she murmured.
“Sold,” the auctioneer called out. “Lot number 421, a four-year-old Thoroughbred stallion, Sabbath, to Sutherland Stables.”
Peter’s frustration came back as the gavel hit wood. “When the hell is this going to stop! When are you going to grow up and stop behaving so rashly?”
A.J. watched his face grow tight with rage as he went into a full snit.
It went further than the partial snit, she reflected, which merely involved foot stamping and huffing, or the half snit, which was the partial with verbal backup. She saw that beads of sweat, highly characteristic of the full snit, had formed at his temples and across his forehead. With a detachment she found amusing, she noted that forehead seemed to be getting more pronounced every year, courtesy of his receding hairline.
“Peter, take a breath, will you,” she said in a calm voice. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Fine! You just paid thirty thousand dollars for a horse no one can ride!”
“He’s magnificent. Even you should be able to see that. And his bloodlines are impeccable.”
“Being distantly related to nobility hasn’t made him a gentleman.”
“He can clear any jump you put in front of him.”
“And usually without his rider! That personality of his is better suited for the rodeo than show jumping. Even better, put him in a ring with a red cape and he’d give any matador a run for his money.”
People were starting to gather around them, fascinated by her outrageous bid and the ensuing argument. A.J. didn’t care but it irked her to watch Peter get more flamboyant as their audience grew. He loved attention, and seeing him bloom under the eyes of strangers made her remember the one toothpaste commercial he’d been in as a child. He’d paraded around for months afterward like he’d won an Oscar, and the thirty-second spot had led him to believe he was destined for stardom. The afterglow of speaking the words Minty-fresh, Mommy! into a camera had lasted twenty years.
“You’re overreacting,” she told him, trying to get one more look at the stallion as the stable hands began to lead the horse away.
“And you’re out of control! I run a stable of winners. Some of the best bloodlines in the country are under our roof and I won’t let you bring a beast like that into their midst.”
“He’s not a beast—”
“That thing tossed his rider, ran out of the ring and trampled half the crowd at the Oak Bluff Jumper Classic.”
“That’s in the past.”
“That was last week.”
“He’s going to be a champion. You’ll see.”
“The stallion’s dangerous and unpredictable. What makes you think he’s suddenly going to turn into a winner?”
“Because I’m going to be riding him.”
Peter snorted. “I doubt you could hang on to him long enough to get both feet into the stirrups.”
A mix of bravado and frustration made A.J.’s voice louder than she’d meant it to be when she replied, “You’ll see. I’m going to take him into the Qualifier two months from now.”
People around them gasped.
At that moment, a shout of alarm rang out from up front. When she turned around, she saw several stable hands bolting in different directions, diving for cover. Then, just as suddenly, everyone in the crowd was scrambling for safety. The stallion had broken free from his handlers, leapt into the cordoned-off area where the crowd had watched the auction and burst into the throng of people, scattering them like marbles across a floor.
Not again, A.J. thought, sparing Peter a glance as they both ran for it. His face was vacillating between a self-satisfied I-told-you-so look and one of naked fear as the horse charged toward them with thundering hooves.
Most people, being of sound mind, ran out of the ring, but a few brave souls rushed forward, spreading their arms wide in a semicircle around the animal. They were going to try to corral the horse through an open gate that led into an unoccupied paddock, but the stallion seemed to know what they were after. The horse made a beeline at the men instead of falling for their ploy, and they fell aside, trying not to get trampled.
Mission accomplished, the stallion raced on, ready for more action, his lead line streaming behind him like a banner. Chaos reigned as people shouted and cursed and it dawned on A.J. that the horse looked delighted at all the trouble he was causing. He’d broken free of his captors, terrified the crowd and was enjoying himself thoroughly by chasing after stragglers.
If he were human, he’d be laughing, she thought.
Peter’s voice was furious in her ear. “I can’t believe you want to bring this demon home!”
She smiled as the stallion galloped by, a black blur. He was limber and graceful, with the strength of steel in his muscles. “Look at him go.”
“Straight to hell if I get to pick where to send him.”
After another ten minutes of people trying to get control of the horse and failing, A.J. tugged her baseball cap down tight and stepped into the ring. She caught the stallion’s eye immediately. Pegging her with a dark look, he rushed at her, only to come to a screeching halt a few yards away when she refused to move. Dirt kicked up around him in a cloud and he pawed the ground in warning, throwing his head up and down.
Instead of showing fear, A.J. put her hands into the pockets of her jeans. A silence fell over the crowd.
She could see the horse mulling over his options. Someone standing their ground in front of him was something new and he seemed confused.
“All right, you’ve had your fun,” A.J. said in a low voice. “Now it’s time to behave yourself.”
As if he understood her, he shook his magnificent head and whinnied a loud denial. He was breathing heavily, his nostrils flaring widely, but she knew it was more for drama than from exertion. Even after bolting around the ring like a madman running from sanity, he hadn’t broken a sweat across his gleaming black coat.
While they squared off, A.J. was looking at him with a calm disregard, as if he were a temperamental two-year-old. Inside, however, her instincts were sharp. She tracked every movement he made, noting the subtle twitching in the muscle fibers of his deep barrel chest and the beat of his heart in the veins just under his slick coat. She was searching for any advance warning that he was going to lunge at her, any hint as to what his next move might be.
After all, she might be daring but she wasn’t stupid. It didn’t take her years of experience with horses to know she had to be extremely careful when staring down an animal like Sabbath. A half ton of stallion backed by the personality of a pro wrestler didn’t make for safety. It was a dangerous situation. And a thrilling one.
“You know, you may have missed your calling.” She took a step forward, continuing to talk. “You’d make an excellent steamroller.”
Sabbath snorted and reared up on his haunches for show.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” she said, stopping when she was only a couple of feet from him. “You calm down and come with me and I’ll help you put all that energy to more constructive use.”
She smiled at her own words, thinking it was probably like asking a rugby player to turn in his cleats for a pair of tap shoes.
While the horse seemed to be considering her proposal, A.J. pictured herself saddling him up and mounting him for the first time.
“It’s going to be a long way to the grou
nd if you throw me,” she said softly. “Fortunately, I tend to bounce.”
Sabbath let out another ferocious roar. Her smile deepened.
“So do I take that as a yes? Are you ready to try a little tap dancing?”
Suspiciously, the horse moved his head forward, putting his black muzzle up to her face. He took in a huge lungful of air, drawing her scent through his nose. Then he blew it back at her, sending her baseball cap flying.
A.J. shook her head. “If you want to impress me, you’re going to have to do more than play bowling ball to a crowd of people and knock off my hat.”
Sabbath reared again, his mane streaking through the air, hooves pawing the space between them. Then, looking bored, he abruptly dropped his neck, lowering his head.
After a moment, A.J. cautiously reached forward and took his lead in her slender hand. When the stallion tolerated it with only a flick of his ears, she moved to the side and went forward. Together, they started to walk out of the arena.
One of the stable hands approached tentatively. Without words, he pointed out where the stallion had been housed and then scurried away. Left to handle the horse alone, A.J. led the way into the stable area and approached the stall Sabbath had been in.
“You don’t know this yet,” she whispered, leading him inside, “but you and I are going to make a great team.”
Still watching him closely, she took off his halter and then shut the half door, leaning on it.
As he bent down and nipped at some hay in the corner, A.J. sighed. “We’re just going to have to teach you some manners first.”
From the fringes of the crowd, Devlin McCloud watched the scene unravel with cynical eyes. He’d known exactly when the horse was going to bolt. The stallion’s massive haunches had tensed hard before the animal sprang forward and he picked the perfect time to make his move. At that exact moment, the groom holding the lead had let his attention lapse, looking in the opposite direction and laughing at someone behind him. Like a flash, the horse took off and, courtesy of his distraction, the young hand had been dragged through the dirt and almost trampled. By the time the kid let go of the lead, he looked like a breaded cutlet.
All around, people started scrambling to get out of the way, but Devlin, with his bad leg, wasn’t able to move as fast as the rest of the crowd. Relying on his cane, he made his way to the edge of the ring in the awkward gait he despised, all the while keeping his eye on the horse.
He didn’t stare just because he wanted to avoid getting run over. He was captivated. The stallion moved with a grace and force Devlin hadn’t seen in a long time. It reminded him of—
He blocked the thought of Mercy. It had been almost a year since the accident, nearly a year since he’d had to put her down, but the pain was still unbearable. Once more, he wondered how long it was going to take to get over his grief, and feared the ache in his chest, like the one in his leg, was never going to go away.
When he finally reached the rail, he ducked out of the ring and then watched as order disintegrated. The crowd was still milling about like lemmings looking for water and he watched with amusement as several men tried to corral the horse.
The stallion’s too smart for that trick, he thought, not at all surprised when the animal bolted at the men.
Devlin shook his head.
If someone could get a handle on that horse and channel all that energy, they’d have a hot ticket on their hands, he decided. It’d be like harnessing nuclear fission but the potential locked in the beast might just make the risk of getting burned worth it.
The stallion flashed by him, head held high, tail cocked and billowing in his wake.
Devlin thought about the horse’s new owners. He hoped Sutherland Stables knew what they’d signed on for but doubted they were up to the task. The stable had a lot of money, great-looking tack and a swimming pool to play in, but he knew more about their toys than their feats of training. He had a feeling the stallion was going to put them to the test.
With an echo of remembered passion for his career, he thought how much he wished he could tackle the beast. As envy burned in his veins, he looked down at his leg with disgust. He was used to being in the ring, not at ringside. The distance between the two was vast and, after a year, he was still an uneasy traveler of the stretch of emptiness that separated where he’d been and where he was.
His gaze shifted back to the chaos and then sharpened as he watched a young woman step into the ring and approach the horse. She was tall and thin but her body was strong and he forgot all about the stallion. He couldn’t see her face so he moved to try to get a better look. He wondered who she was. A groom? One of the auction’s hands? He knew if he’d seen her before, he’d remember. There was something about the way she moved that was unforgettable.
Devlin watched as she walked toward the stallion with confidence, her hips swaying, her long legs carrying her across the ring. He felt like he’d been kneed in the gut as a strange ache settled into his body. He couldn’t look away from the woman and his hand gripped his cane as she stopped in front of the stallion. Unlike the stable hand, her focus on the animal was unwavering and she was calm as she put her hands in her pockets.
Atta girl, Devlin thought with approval. Nice and slow. No big movements.
He watched the horse and the woman size each other up. The contrast between the two was striking. The animal, dark and fierce. The woman, slender and steady. Still, as she talked to the great black beast, it was immediately apparent there was something special happening between them. And then the stallion blew off her hat, clearly fishing for some sort of reaction, and, when he got none, dropped his head. It wasn’t a surrender, more like an accommodation that was freely revocable. The instant her hand took the lead, Devlin, like the rest of the crowd, let out a sigh of relief.
He was really impressed. Like all daredevil feats, it had taken courage and stupidity for her to get that close to the stallion. Granted, she’d been smart in the way she did it, showing the kind of sense a person gets only after they spend a lifetime around unpredictable animals. The danger had been there all along, however, and Devlin was glad she hadn’t been hurt.
And then the real miracle happened.
The stallion let her lead him. Feigning boredom, so he didn’t appear to be giving in, the giant horse had let her take him from the ring. It was a small pledge of trust.
As the crowd dispersed, Devlin limped out to the center of the ring. Bending down, he picked up the woman’s hat. The stately logo of Sutherland Stables, two Ss intertwined with ivy, was embroidered on the front.
He went in search of the woman.
“I’m not going to let you bring him back to the stables,” Peter was saying to A.J. as they stood in front of the stallion’s stall.
While her stepbrother continued yelling at her, she was absorbed by Sabbath, who had his head out in the aisle. The stallion seemed to be regarding Peter with the same level of interest she was. Which wasn’t much.
“For heaven’s sake,” she finally broke in. “Sabbath is coming home and everything is going to be fine as soon as you drop this nonsense and get out of my way.”
“That horse is not boarding at the stables.”
“What are you suggesting—I bring him to the house? Your mother will hate the hoofprints all over those Persian carpets she insisted on buying. And besides, I don’t think they make an equine equivalent of a doggie door.”
She and Peter had been back living at her father’s mansion since they’d both graduated from college. It created an awkward situation because of the strain between them but the location was conveniently close to the stables for her and luxurious enough to satisfy Peter. She knew her father wanted them home but his second wife was less magnanimous. Regina Conrad, Peter’s mother and Garrett Sutherland’s wife for the past eighteen years, always wanted her son close by but was less than enthusiastic about A.J.’s presence in the elegant home.
Peter pushed his chin forward. “I’m not going to arg
ue about this. I warned you not to buy him. I’ve tried to be reasonable with you but, as usual, I’m getting nowhere.”
A.J. was beginning to lose composure as frustration got the better of her. Struggling not to lose her temper, she brought a hand to her throat where a diamond solitaire dangled from a slender chain. It was the one thing she had of her own mother’s, and as she rubbed the glittering stone between her thumb and forefinger, she tried to calm down.
“Peter, trust me. I can turn him around. I’m going to work with him, one-on-one.”
“Not if I refuse to pay for him, you won’t.”
She turned her focus on Peter. “You can’t be serious.”
“One phone call to the office here and you’re off the charge account.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Try me.”
“Well, then I’ll just write a check from my personal account.”
Peter paused, weighing his next move. “Your father isn’t going to let you ride that stallion.”
“He never interferes with my training.”
“I’ll bet that changes when I tell him all about your little friend’s reputation for throwing riders. Not to mention his skills at crowd control.”
“Look, you don’t have to blow this out of proportion.” A.J. let the stone fall back against the skin of her throat. “He’ll be one horse out of fifty at the stables. You’ll barely know he’s there.”
“It’s not the ratio that bothers me. This animal is malevolent and dangerous. I don’t want a mass exodus out of the barns. I have to protect my business.”
“Let me remind you: Sutherland Stables is half mine.”
“You do the riding part. I handle the business. And that’s thirty thousand dollars of money I’m in charge of that you just threw out a window.”
“In stud fees alone, this stallion will make thirty grand look like couch change.”
“For what? The dubious pleasure of his company? I doubt it.”
