But they hadn’t won. Not even close.
The announcer proclaimed their time and their eight faults. With Philippe’s clean round and the other riders who had only four-faulted, she knew they weren’t going to place.
Devlin was the only person she saw in the crowd.
“How do you feel?” he asked, walking up to them. He took the reins to give her a break.
“Okay, I guess.”
He thought she looked discouraged and he sympathized. It had been an exhausting round for him to watch. He’d tracked every movement of the pair, willing them to clear each of the fences cleanly, his hands clenching and unclenching each time they left the earth and returned to it. He’d been caught up in the drama with the rest of the crowd but the stress had been compounded by a very special concern for her.
“You did a good job.”
A.J. tugged her helmet off. “Considering the potential for complete chaos, I suppose so.”
Devlin knew just what she was feeling. She’d been born with a competitor’s need to win and, like the color of her eyes, it was immutable. Even though she and the stallion weren’t ready to take an event trophy yet, he could feel her disappointment at not winning as if it were his own.
A.J. dismounted and they were walking Sabbath away from the ring when the final competitor finished and his results were read over the loudspeaker. As they headed back to the practice ring to walk the stallion out, the silence between them was filled by the noise of the crowd and then, shortly thereafter, the proclamation that Philippe Marceau had won.
After Sabbath had been cooled down, and Chester went to work grooming him, A.J. took a break and went over to the various booths where tack and riding apparel were being sold. As she meandered through the velvet hats and leather boots, breathing in the smell of fresh leather spiced with a whiff of the barbecue being started for lunch, she ran the round over and over in her head. The stallion’s actions and her responses. The way he’d felt over one jump and another. The battle into that final turn. The stallion’s abrupt choice to take that oxer after she’d given him his head.
A.J. knew Sabbath wanted to jump. That was what she’d learned again when she’d loosened the reins and left the choosing up to him. His abrupt correction, which she couldn’t have pried out of him by fighting in that short amount of space, told her he wanted to feel the clean air over those fences as badly as she did.
The revelation troubled her. It meant he was fighting her for the sake of fighting and that was a bad sign. Locked in a battle for control, he seemed to value the warring over his instincts to fly. And that would put an end to her ambitions for them as sure as more of those rails bouncing off the dirt.
A.J. was about to return to the trailer when she overheard two competitors talking.
“No wonder they call that holy terror Sabbath,” one was saying. “That horse’ll put the fear of God right in you.”
“He fought her tooth and nail,” the man’s companion agreed. “Every single jump. That woman’s got to have arms of steel.”
“At least he didn’t fly off into the crowd. You hear what happened at Oak Bluffs?” Both men laughed.
“I sure did,” the one said. “Even took a few steps back when they came around that last corner. I thought they were bound for the parking lot.”
“Can you believe she left Sutherland’s for that kind of trouble?”
“I don’t think the horse is the only reason.” The voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “McCloud’s no dummy. He may be out of the horse business but he knows a good-looking filly when he sees one. That leg of his is rusty but I’ll bet the rest of him is in working order, if you know what I mean.”
A.J. paled.
“Well, at least she’s out of commission. The woman’s no threat on the circuit as long as she’s on the back of that bad-tempered show-off.”
“Bulls for her. She’d shown some promise.”
As the two left the tent, A.J. stood in stunned disbelief, feeling like she’d had cold water poured over her. She’d felt capable of standing up to curious looks and handling the vague idea that people were talking about her. She’d even resolved to ignore Marceau’s nasty commentary on the basis of his unpleasant disposition. But hearing firsthand such insinuations, from run-of-the-mill competitors, was different.
Walking through the crowd back to the trailer, she couldn’t imagine being in a worse state of mind. She’d set an impossible goal, on a ridiculous timeline, and any progress she’d made could have been measured in inches, not feet. Her name was the favorite bone of the gossip hounds and her own horse was treating her like the enemy in the ring.
To top it all off, she thought she might be falling in love with her trainer.
How could things be worse?
Then she saw Peter and her father standing nose to nose with Devlin. She looked up at the sky in exasperation.
“That was a rhetorical question,” she said out loud. “I wasn’t really looking for a demonstration.”
7
THE THREE men were a tight knot of tension. Devlin, standing head and shoulders above the other two, was grim. Garrett wore the expression of someone in gastric distress. Peter looked offended and irate.
And people think a coven of witches is a sign of trouble, A.J. thought.
As she passed Chester and the stallion, who were standing at the back of the trailer, she raised an eyebrow in inquiry.
“Don’t look at us,” Chester said. “For once, Sabbath’s been behaving in public and I was born in Switzerland.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You’re clearly taking advantage of her,” Peter said in a loud voice.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Devlin retorted. “I’m her trainer, not her lover.”
“Just how stupid do you think I am?”
A.J. interjected, “If you’re wasting time speculating on that, you’re not too bright.”
Her stepbrother wheeled around and she got a full view of the outfit. It was a tailored black suit with a yellow tie and shirt. He looked like a cartoon character, drawn in colors too bold for real life.
“You and McCloud are ruining our reputation,” Peter pronounced. “I won’t stand for it.”
“And how exactly are we doing that?”
“A newspaper reporter just came up to your father and me and demanded to know how long you two have been together.”