Leaping Hearts(20)
Author: J.R. Ward

They just seemed to fit.

He thought of Mercy and, to avoid his feelings, he began calling out gait and directional changes. A.J. and the stallion spent the next hour going through a gradually escalating workout. When he was satisfied with their efforts, Devlin called them to the center of the ring.

A.J.’s smile was as blinding as the afternoon sun. “Isn’t he wonderful!”

“He has his good moments but there’s a lot of work ahead of us. That horse has his own ideas of how things should go and he’s got to learn to be more disciplined.”

“On the bright side, he hasn’t tried to ditch me for over an hour.”

“He puts up quite a fight, doesn’t he?”

She nodded.

“How’s he feel?”

“Smooth as water,” A.J. said, taking her helmet off and brushing some hair from her face. “It’s like swimming. As long as he isn’t fighting with me.”

As he looked at her, Devlin realized he loved watching her move. There was something innately fluid about her strength, something womanly and totally appealing. She might be lean but she was tough and resilient and yet still very feminine.

He smiled. “When he hits his stride, he’s quite a looker from ringside.”

And the horse wasn’t the only appealing thing to look at, he thought.

A.J. grinned down at him as she replaced the velvet helmet. “Maybe he just gets bored easily.”

“Then let’s give him something to think about.”

Devlin held up his clipboard and described a course of jumps. His sequence started with some straightforward uprights of low height and increased in difficulty. The most challenging of the group was an oxer combination. Each single oxer was made up of three upright rail fences that gradually got higher and tested height as well as distance. A combination meant that there were two or more of the same jumps separated by a single stride between them.

“I would have you try the water jump but I didn’t have time to fill it,” he said. “If Chester comes, he’ll get it set up.”

“Chester?”

“An old friend,” Devlin replied, and changed the subject.

A.J. shrugged off her curiosity and asked for some clarification on distance and strides. He answered her questions and told her what he was looking for. Each jump was a test of a particular skill, either for her or the horse, and she was impressed with his thinking.

Harebrained scheming aside, one thing was clearly in her favor, she thought, turning the horse around. Her trainer sure as hell knew what he was doing.

A.J. set Sabbath into a light canter at the rail and they approached the first fence tensely, both battling over the reins. Sabbath won and took his head, galloping over the simple upright with a huge leap and clearing it with far too much room to spare. They landed like a sack of oranges hitting the floor. Charging around the ring, the round went from bad to worse, and by the time they cleared the final oxer, A.J. felt like she’d been in a paint mixer.

When she directed the stallion over to Devlin, she felt defeated, ready for his criticism. “So much for smooth as water. I think my molars are loose. That was a travesty.”

A.J. frowned as she saw his expression. “Why on God’s green earth are you smiling?”

“He’s a temperamental giant. And he’s rough around the edges but he’s got a great stride and he’s fast as a hot rod. He could be one of the great ones.”

“Are you out of your mind?” she said, her arms feeling like noodles from fighting the stallion’s mouth. “I might as well have been on the ground doing commands in semaphore for all he listened to me.”

“We can teach him to pay attention to you.” Devlin’s hazel eyes were rapt. “What we can’t do is motivate him. This horse is thirsty to feel air under his hooves and he’s taking these fences like they’re flat as mud puddles.”

“I think it’s a case of too much air between the ears,” she muttered. “He takes his head all the time. I’m just luggage on his back.”

“That’s what training’s for.” Devlin nodded to the jumps. “Now do it again.”

It was growing dim by the time A.J. put her saddle away in the tack room and paused to watch Sabbath munch on some hay in his stall. Her arms were numb, her hands were throbbing and she felt the beginnings of a headache. It was as though she’d been on a speeding train all afternoon and, even though her feet were now on solid ground, she still thought she was moving.

So much for a strong start, she thought, arching her back and feeling nothing but aches and stiffness.

The rest of the jumping hadn’t gone much better than the first round and the afternoon had been a blur of wild leaping and hard landings. As she lamented the session, she decided there was nothing like reality to get in the way of a fantasy. It looked as if a good round in the training ring was what she should be shooting for, to hell with winning a championship.

A.J. sensed Devlin’s approach.

“You did good work today,” he said, standing in the stable’s doorway.

She turned, not bothering to hide her disappointment, and found some relief. Beyond his wide shoulders, the sun was settling over undulating green hills. Its liquid gold light spilled across the grass and drifted into the stable’s interior like honey. She could smell the sweet perfume of fresh hay and hear the reassuring grinding of Sabbath’s teeth. But more than all that, there was a tenderness in Devlin’s eyes that went further to replenish her spirit than any words he could have offered.

As she faced him, Devlin knew he was looking at someone whose energy was spent. There was a pall of fragility hanging from her, as if she were on the verge of shattering. Not that he blamed her. He knew only a handful of riders who would have been up to the task of tackling that black beast’s headstrong ways all afternoon.

He was totally impressed. She’d muscled Sabbath around those jumps countless times, reeling the stallion in before each fence, pulling him through the corners, fighting to make sure his strides were right. It’d been exhausting just to watch but she’d kept at it. Every time Devlin had commanded her to run through that course, she’d done it, over and over, without a word of complaint. To say he’d been surprised at her grit was an understatement. Spoiled little rich girls didn’t behave like that. Hell, a lot of professional riders wouldn’t have put up with the demands he’d laid on her or the bad behavior of that stallion.