Another Chance (2 page)

As she watched
the huge, red, Rhodesian Ridgeback dog move across the yard toward the barn, in
the glow of the security light she couldn’t help smiling.  The house, the
barn and the horses housed there, the quiet of the countryside, all combined to
make up her life now.  It was a good life.  It wasn’t the one she had
imagined when she and David had married, but now all the plans they had made
together had become a fading dream.  She had been happy then, and it had
taken time and hard work, but she was happy now, too.  As Bhrandii,
disappeared behind the barn, she stretched her arms above her head and yawned
and then she went back inside the house.

It had been
several months since she’d dreamed of the night David died.  She’d hoped
she would never dream of it again.  It usually took several days to get
over it.  Even now, the coppery smell of blood and the dank odor of
masculine sweat were still locked in her nostrils.  It would take hours,
maybe days for the smell to go away completely.

Five years
didn’t sound like a long time to most people, but for her, it had been a
lifetime.

Jordan grew up
in the house she was living in now.  Back then it had been a lively
place.  She’d been an outgoing child and always had lots of friends and
her parents made them welcome in their home.

Jordan didn’t
remember a time when there wasn’t a horse or two living in the small barn she
had had remodeled to make the barn she used today.  Her father enjoyed
roping and her mother was a barrel racer until the death of Jordan’s ancient
pony.  By then Jordan was riding her mother’s horse occasionally and as
the pair improved, her mother competed less and just let her daughter take over
her horse.  It was easy to see the nine year old girl and the
well-schooled paint gelding made a dynamic pair of competitors.  Then her
mother had hauled them all over Florida and Georgia to barrel races.  When
she was twelve, her parents had given her a horse of her own, then her mother
once again became the sole rider of the gentle paint gelding they had shared
for so long.

Her birthday
horse was a five year old registered American Quarter Horse.  It was
Tempest Tide and he let her know right away that he wasn’t and didn’t intend to
become a barrel horse.

Jordan had
become friends with a girl at school who rode hunter/jumpers so she and Tempest
went to school to learn all they could about English horsemanship. 
Tempest was honest and when they started jumping, he gave it his best. 
His best was just okay, so Jordan concentrated on equitation and began to show
him in Hunt Seat and English Pleasure classes when they went to shows. 
However, she had grown up riding western and although Tempest refused to put
any effort in running barrels, he was calm and steady and whenever she entered
him in western equitation classes, he was a star.  He loved the challenges
in Trail classes and she never entered him in one that he didn’t place in the
top five, not matter how many other horses competed.  Jordan appreciated
the quiet attention her horse used in negotiating each obstacle the coarse
managers set up.  He approached each test with his ears flickering back
and forth, to hear Jordan and to study the barrier before them.  His
obvious pleasure at successfully overcoming each obstacle showed Jordan how
honest he was and she knew that the trail class was always their favorite
class.

Tempest taught
her more than any human instructor ever could and her parents beamed with pride
when they watched the two of them compete.  To begin with, they were
surprised that she no longer had the desire to fly around the barrels with as
much speed as a horse could produce, but had learned to appreciate the more
intricate side of horsemanship.  She spent hours poring over books and
videos showing dressage riders in English saddles putting their horses through
their paces.  She spoke with pride when she said that whatever they did in
the English style could also be accomplished in the Western saddle without a
double bit or a tight rein.  She and Tempest worked at collection, counter
canters, easy transitions and diagonals.  He broke at the poll, worked off
his rear end or his front end and always gave her what she asked for.

By the time
she was sixteen, she was riding colts for a friend of her father.  Mac was
a farrier and he had forgotten more about training horses than most people
would ever learn.  He was also of the opinion that dressage was a level of
training that all horses benefited from. He had hoped to one day help his own
children learn about training, but none of the three ever wanted to
train.  In fact, they showed little interest in horses at all.

Knowing that you
can’t give a person what they don’t want, he wisely allowed his children to
pursue their own interests and looked around for a young rider who wanted his
gift.  When he saw Jordan and Tempest improving from horse show to horse
show, he talked to her father about letting her ride for him.  Jordan’s
parents agreed and happily watched as their daughter absorbed the skills that
Mac shared with her.  When Jordan graduated from high school, her parents
gave her a car.  Mac and his wife, Mary gave her a new saddle.  It
was a show saddle with silver trim, a matching headstall and breast
collar.  Tempest wore it a lot that summer as the two of them competed all
over the south east.  Then fall came.

As much as she
hated it, when Jordan went off to college, she knew she had to leave Tempest
behind.  She would be carrying a full load academically and wouldn’t have
time for him.  She gave her new saddle a good cleaning and set it up on a
rack her father made for her in her bedroom.  Her life as a horsewoman was
put on hold, but she knew she could never give it up completely.  It was
part of her and always would be.

The two years
she spent at college were the best and worst she could imagine at that
time.  She hated living away from home and the family and friends she had
grown up with.  She hated not having a horse to ride, but she met David
Larson and fell head over heels in love.

David was a
senior and Jordan was a sophomore when they started dating and by the end of
the year, he had been offered a job as an assistant football coach in his
hometown.  Jordan knew he would be leaving after graduation, so when he
asked her to marry him and go with him, she was overjoyed.

Her parents
wanted her to stay in school, but Jordan was in love.  Their wedding
wasn’t big, but by then it didn’t matter.  Her parents had met David and
accepted him and that made Jordan happier than anything.

When they
first moved to Poplar Bluff, they lived in a small apartment, but as a wedding
gift, David’s parents were having a small block house built for them on five
acres of land in the country.

Even before
the house was finished, Sheriff John Davis had called to tell her that both her
parents had been killed in a traffic accident.  Jordan’s world fell
apart.  David drove her home and Mac and his wife insisted that they stay
with them instead the house she grew up in.  She lived for a while in a
fog of heart break and pain.  Her memories of the funeral and the days
that followed had been obscured in a blurry haze.

After the
funeral, David had to return to his job, but Jordan had to stay a while longer
to take care of insurance, funeral expenses, dispose of the livestock and other
things that fall on the shoulders of an only child.  Mac, his wife and
Jordan’s parent’s friend Sheriff John Davis, helped her get through all
that.
 
There were also friends she had
grown up with offering help but after about three weeks; she too was ready to
return to Poplar Bluff.  She wasn’t sure she could ever go back ‘home’ again.

She had
decided to keep the house and land, at least for the present.  Mac would
see that it was looked after.  She had her father’s pick-up truck and the
horse trailer, so she loaded Tempest and all her tack and with Mac going along
to share the driving, drove straight through to Poplar Bluff.

They found a
stable that would board Tempest and allow her a place to park her
trailer.  It wasn’t far from the apartment she and David were still living
in.  She insisted that Mac stay in the spare bedroom for a goodnight’s
sleep, and then the next morning, he caught a bus back to Lake City.

Jordan hated
to see him go.  It was like losing the last connection to her
parents.  She held her tears until the bus pulled out, but then she went
back to the apartment and had a good long cry.  David was at school and it
was really the first time she’d been alone since her parent’s deaths.  She
needed the time to try to accept what had happened.

David’s mother
had wanted Jordan to spend the day with her, but as much as she loved David,
Jordan found his mother stiff and distant so she politely declined the
invitation and remained in the apartment.

David’s father
was friendly, but seldom around because his business kept him busy and when
David was present; his mother seemed to genuinely try being open and accepting
of Jordan, but there just wasn’t any warmth there.  Because they both
loved David, the two women got along, but just barely.  Jordan had hoped
things would change with time.  She truly wanted to have a warm friendship
with her mother-in-law.  She even hoped it would bridge the gap losing her
own mother had left in her life, but it just didn’t work.

She and David
had their first disagreement over her bringing Tempest to Poplar Bluff. 
He knew she owned the horse and loved him, but he just assumed that horses were
a part of her past.  He had thought she would go to all the football games
with the team and be like a team mother, but that didn’t fit in with the person
that Jordan was.  She loved David, but she had no intentions of playing
mother for his football team of high school boys.  They were too close in
age, and where it gave David and the team a sense of camaraderie it made Jordan
uncomfortable.  It took them several weeks to work things out, and by then
they were moving into the new house.  Jordan would go to all the home
games, unless they were on the same night when she was scheduled for a horse
show, and when she was at a show and David was free, he accompanied her to the
show.  To his surprise he discovered he knew a lot of the people she had
met and even though he hated to admit it, he enjoyed watching her in the
ring.  He was impressed with her poise and grace and was astounded by her
knowledge of horses and horsemanship.  His chest puffed with pride when
she placed high in a big class.

Once they were
settled in the new house, Jordan made arrangements for a pasture to be fenced
and a small barn with a tack room and a hay room to be built.  It took
several weeks to get that done, so Tempest stayed at the boarding barn.

It was buying
horse feed at the feed store that Frank Lambert came into her life.  He
was an employee there and loaded her feed.  Jordan had become acquainted
with the store owners at a horse show and spent a few minutes chatting with
them.  When she returned to her vehicle, a man was just dropping the bag
of feed into the back of the truck.  She smiled at him, thanked him,
wished him a good day, then she got in her truck and drove away.

She didn’t
look in her rear view mirror and see the way he stood transfixed and watched
until she turned onto a distant street and disappeared from his view.  In
fact, she didn’t give him a second thought.

When she
stopped by the feed store again the next week to pick up some paste wormer for
her horse, she smiled and spoke to him again when she saw him near her truck as
she was leaving.  That became the norm when she had to go to the feed
store.  Whenever she returned to her truck, Lambert seemed to somehow
always be near-by.  It was a small business so it didn’t seem unusual for
the employees to be solicitous of the customers.  Jordan assumed they were
encouraged to be customer friendly.

She and David
had been in the new house for a few months when his mother began to question
them about when they planned to start a family.  David was an only child
and she wanted a grandbaby to spoil.

Silently
Jordan wondered what her reaction would be when they did have a child and it
started calling her grandma.  In her imagination, she could just see Mrs.
Larson cringing.  Thankfully, David stood up to his mother and affectionately
told her that they would have a baby when they decided it was time and it
wouldn’t happen before he and Jordan made the decision together.

He knew there
was some strain between his wife and mother and had hoped it would change, but
it hadn’t.  He made sure his sometimes over bearing mother did not push
Jordan around, not that Jordan wouldn’t have stood up to her.  David was
thankful they at least managed to be social for his sake.

Jordan had
made a point of having her in-laws over for supper at least once a month. 
She enjoyed cooking a good meal for them and wanted to make sure Mrs. Larson
knew her son was not being neglected.  It was also her chance to show her
gratitude to her in-laws for the wonderful gift of the house.

Mrs. Larson
hadn’t disguised her displeasure when she saw the barn and the horse in the
field behind the house, for the first time.

“I had
imagined this piece of land with a big yard, a pool with landscaping behind the
house and just acres of beautiful lawn.  I don’t understand why anyone
would house a farm animal so close to their home.”  She had daintily
placed a tissue over her nose as she spoke.

Jordan felt
her anger beginning to surface as David took her hand, but they were both
relieved when David senior spoke up.

“Peg, stop acting
like a meddling mother-in-law.  This is David and Jordan’s home and you
don’t tell other people how they should live.  Jordan loves her horse,
just like you do that little piece of fluff of a dog that you call your baby.”