Leaping Hearts(94)

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Wait. I—”

“You want to be a champion, don’t you?” He looked past her, at the competitors and trainers who were heading toward the jumps. “If you do, we’ve got to get moving.”

But A.J. held them in place, standing still. She was searching for words of reconciliation and reassurance, desperate for some magical combination of syllables that would put his fears to rest, and reunite them.

There were none, she realized. As long as she was going into that ring. She flexed her arm, unconsciously.

“Will you be there after this is over?” she asked. “After the round?”

He sounded exhausted. “Of course.”

“I mean, will you really be there,” she said, meeting his eyes pointedly. “Will you be with me, not just around me?”

In the long silence that followed, her heart thumped wildly in her chest.

“Yes, I will.”

Only then did she take a step forward. Devlin followed.

As soon as they got inside the ring, her feet slowed of their own volition. She’d seen the kind of courses that were set up at the Qualifier, just never from the perspective of an entrant.

“The view is a lot more attractive from above,” she said, nodding at the stands.

Devlin waited for her to get her bearings, remembering when he’d first looked at a Qualifier course from the ground. It took a little getting used to and she wasn’t the only one who was wearing a shell-shocked expression. Only two out of four entrants actually competed. In spite of a hefty registration fee, every year there was a high dropout rate after the jumps were opened for inspection.

A.J. tried to breathe. She’d seen fences of the same height and turns as tight, just not so many packed into one course. There were fourteen jumps in all, including one with water, and they were menacing-looking, done in the club’s black and green colors.

The course started tough with three oxers in a row, a brutal combination that would shake up the field from the get-go. A hard turn to the left would be needed to make the next jump, a long, low wall, which was followed by a towering upright and two more oxers. A wrenching turn to the right would have the field coming into a combination of uprights, a vast wall of bushes and then the water jump. Directly thereafter, the competitors would have to double back in order to confront a mound obstacle that the horse and rider would have to leap up onto, then launch off of, to clear a rail fence at its far edge. The last two jumps were separated by a hairpin turn.

The course lived up to the event’s reputation.

Maybe even pushed the damn envelope, A.J. thought, staring ahead.

She and Devlin walked the course twice, discussing the strides and the angles, where the dangerous spots were. The water jump wasn’t her biggest concern, oddly enough. By dumb luck, it was configured in a way they’d been practicing recently. Sabbath would be familiar with the straight-on approach and the tight turn that immediately followed it. What she was worried about was how the stallion would handle the demands of the course’s turns in the midst of the spectators.

By the time she and Devlin returned to the trailer, the crowd had grown to its full size and A.J. saw the first of the socialites. The sight of haute couture made her think about her stepmother and she wondered where her family was. Scanning the grounds, she located the Sutherland trailer easily. She could see people milling around its exterior, unloading horses she knew well. Out of a field of some thirty registered competitors, three, including Philippe Marceau, were from the Sutherland Stables, a good showing by anyone’s estimation. Squinting against the direct sunlight, she could see Marceau’s roan mare being groomed by one of the staff.

Shifting her gaze to Sabbath, she was thinking their time had finally come. Chester was winding wraps around the stallion’s legs and she assessed the horse’s mood. He seemed upbeat and not particularly aggressive. She hoped it would last.

Going over to the trailer’s cab, A.J. grabbed her bag and her show clothes and went to the back, changing in the unused stall as she’d done before. When she emerged, Devlin was leaning against the back door.

“You all set?” he asked tightly, watching as her hand went to her throat and then fell back down to her side.

“I am.”

“How’re the nerves?”

“Calmer now that I’m in my show clothes.”

“Anything you need?”

She asked him a few questions about course strategy and then they reflected on the field of competitors and Sabbath’s good behavior thus far. As he spoke with her, Devlin thought once more that she would always be the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and likely the only one he would ever truly love. As they stood in the sunshine, beneath a crystal blue sky that once again reminded him of the color of her eyes, he wished things were different between them. That the distance wasn’t there.

When they heard over the loudspeaker that the practice ring was open for competitors, A.J. gathered up her hat and crop. “Let’s see if his mood holds.”

“Wait,” Devlin said. “I have something for you, for luck.”

He buried a hand into the pocket of his coat and took out a small velvet bag. “Close your eyes.”

When she did, he emptied the satchel and then reached behind her neck.

“You shouldn’t have to open them to know what it is,” he said, next to her ear.