Another Chance

This book is a
work of fiction.  Names, characters, and incidents are products of the
author’s imagination.  Lake City, Florida is indeed a real place, as is
the Osceola National Forest, and the American Quarter Horse Association is a
real organization, but other than using the names of these locations and the
organization, any further resemblances is entirely coincidental.  Any
further resemblances to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons,
living or dead, are also purely coincidental.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks
to Red Tree Woman of the Lakota People who very tactfully explained the
importance of making sure that the Death Chant would come from the heart of the
chanter and it not be portrayed as a scripted chant.

On this page
I’d also like to thank the old school horse trainer who trusted me and touched
my life more than any other one person except my husband.
 
Ken Williams gave me a job doing what I’d
only dreamed of as a possibility.
 
He
taught me to ride by putting me on colts he had for training, he taught me
about people by having me run his hack line, and he taught me about myself by
being my friend.
 
Thank you Ken, for
being such a good friend!
 
I’m so glad to
know that God touched your heart and showed you that you needed Him in your
life.
 
The heart He touched might have
been a worldly heart before His touch, but it was always a good heart.
 
See you in Heaven, my friend.

Thanks also to
the many friends and family who over the years have offered encouragement and
constructive criticism, including the wonderful people at the old Suwannee
Elementary West School who read, critiqued and even edited an earlier
manuscript.  I didn’t forget the lessons learned while I was employed
there.

DEDICATION

To Bobbie
Murray, my cousin, who died in the Storm of the Century at Dekel Beach,
Florida, March, 1993.  She read some of my very earliest attempts at
writing and was so steadfast in her encouragement, I never gave up.  Thank
you Bugs.

I must also
include my husband, Sonny, and my girls Kasey and Kendal.  Writing is a
creative process that often makes a person short on patience and gives them
tunnel vision.  Thank you for loving me and putting up with me in spite of
my need to create.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Epilog

ANOTHER CHANCE

by Sandra Cuppett

The shattering
of glass woke her as the softly shaded bedroom window burst into thousands of pieces,
glass flying into the dark room to scatter over the floor and onto the
bed.  A shadowy, hulking figure filled the gloomy opening for a moment,
and then she realized someone had entered the room!  Terrified, her blood
turned to ice as she rolled out of the bed and scrambled for the closed bedroom
door, broken shards of glass cutting into her feet.  She could hear his
hard breathing from the struggle of climbing through the window and the flowery
smell of the jasmine just outside filled her senses.

Desperately
she grasped for the doorknob in the semi darkness of the room.  She could
hear steps clambering across the broken glass on the floor at the same time she
could hear David’s strides rushing down the hall toward the door she was
finally able to pull open and as in every nightmare she’d ever had, everything
seemed to be in slow motion.

She felt a
hand close in the soft, flowing hair on the back of her head and snatch her
backward roughly.  She cried out with pain, then felt the solid, hard body
of the man who had broken into her room, as she was jerked back against
him.  She tried to struggle, but he held her close and her struggles only
caused him to hold her tighter.  Her blood seemed to have melted and she
tried to scream, but terror had closed her throat.

David’s shadow
filled the doorway briefly as he crossed the threshold and dove to her
aid.  She continued to struggle and twisted around to fight back, even
though she felt her hair being pulled out by the handful and the broken glass
on the floor repeatedly grated into her already bloody feet.  The
intruder’s strong arm lifted, releasing a faint odor of dried sweat as he
pushed her to the side and behind him, but as she turned, she was able to see
his face.  Her breath caught in her throat!  The blond unruly hair
was jammed under a sweat stained, baseball cap, but she recognized him! 
It was Lambert!

Her
recognition happened at almost the same time that David slammed into him; both
of them fell back against the side of the bed, and then slid down onto the
floor amid the shards of glass.  Desperately, she looked around in the
dimly lit room for something to use as a weapon.  Knowing there were no
real weapons in the house, she stepped around the struggling men and slapped at
the light switch beside the door causing the room to flood with sudden bright
light.  For a moment her eyes stung with the sudden burst of luminosity
and her vision was blurred from tears that had welled up from the pain in her
bloodied feet and her head where swatches of hair had been jerked out.

When she
turned back to look at them, David was astride Lambert, both his hands locked
around one of Lambert’s forearms.
 
He
struggled to shake a long bladed knife out of that hand.  Her heart froze
in panic!  It was a life or death struggle!  She looked around the
room again and couldn’t spot an effective weapon.  She saw Lambert’s other
hand form into a fist before it sailed up into David’s face and connected with
a sickening sound.  David’s head snapped back.  He absorbed the blow
and continued to hold onto Lambert’s arm, knowing his and Jordan’s lives
depended on him keeping control of that appendage.

“David!” she
screamed.  “Be careful!”  Even as she said it, she thought it sounded
stupid.

“Get out of
here!” he growled.  “Run!”

She started
for the door but hesitated as she saw Lambert’s body jerk suddenly to the side,
throwing David off balance.  As he fell, he lost his grip on Lambert’s arm
and the knife quickly closed the distance and slipped deep into David’s
side.  She screamed again and turned back toward the melee.

Snatching up
the only thing that might have any weight, one of David’s cowboy boots, she
slammed it against Lambert’s head with all her strength, once, then again as he
turned his head up to glare at her, momentarily stunned.  He slumped over
David’s prone body.   She desperately shoved their attacker to the
side and began to pull on David’s arm.  “Come on, David!”  She
pleaded, tears streaming down her face.  With her help, he struggled up into
a dazed stance.  Desperately she continued to pull on his arms and blindly
he followed her down the narrow hall.  They bumped from side to side,
David’s uneven steps causing her to stagger along with him.  They crossed
the neatly furnished living room and she fumbled desperately for a moment
unlocking the dead bolt and the lock on the knob before she was able to pull
the door open.  Then they stepped out onto the porch and into the sweet
scented darkness of the night.  She heard Lambert coming down the hallway,
rushing after them with long strides. 

“Hurry!” she
pleaded, but by then, it was too late.  With quick strides, Lambert
crossed the living room, and then he hit them both with a full body slam that
carried them all three tumbling down the half circle, cinderblock steps and
onto the front lawn.  They landed hard, the propulsion of his lunge
carrying Lambert a little past them onto the grass, only briefly stunning him
again.

David struggled to his feet, ignoring the pain
tearing through his stomach and the blood that practically poured from the stab
wound.  He threw himself onto Lambert before the other man had totally
regained his footing, both of them once again falling to the ground. 
Jordan was horrified by the blood streaming off her husband and onto Lambert
and the ground.

“Run, Jordan!”
she heard him groan.  “Get help!”  He was barely able to grapple with
Lambert, using his weight to restrain the attacker, both sets of hands slick
with wet blood.  He knew his strength was draining along with his blood,
but more than life, he wanted Jordan away from the man he was trying to pin
down.

She didn’t
look back, but fled like a wild deer toward the neighbor’s house, screaming as
she ran, but her screams felt as if they were muffled and her steps seemed
stuck in cement.

The screams
came out as soft whimpers and the big red dog on the floor beside the bed
jumped to his feet.  This was nothing new to him.  He lifted his big
front feet onto the bed and leaned his wide head across to lick her cheek
gently with a warm wet tongue.  Her whimpering stopped and her eyes
opened.  For a moment the terror of the dream was reflected in the depths
of her amber eyes, then they softened and she turned her head to look at the
dog.  Recognition and gratitude were her first calming emotions.

Very slowly,
she stretched one hand out to stroke his strong jaw and a smile spread across
her lips.  “Thanks, fella.”  She lay like that for a long minute,
deliberately pushing her nightmare into the past where it belonged.  It
wasn’t easy to do.  The pain in her feet and throughout her body was real
and in spite of the years, the smell of Lambert’s sweat and David’s blood still
filled her nostrils during the dream and for some hours after.  Then she
shoved away the sheet that covered her slim body and shifted her feet onto the
floor.  Sitting up, she leaned over and hugged the dog’s big head against
her chest.  “If you’d been there that night, things would have been
different, wouldn’t they?”

The dog waved
his whip like tail in circles of agreement.  He might not have understood
her question, but he knew her fear was gone now and all he ever wanted from
life was for her to be happy and near him.  She brushed the top of his
head with an affectionate kiss.  The big animal sighed deeply, his
happiness complete.

“It may not be
time to get up yet, but I won’t sleep anymore.
 
How about you?”  The dog was used to her talking to him.  His
tail wagged an agreement with whatever she said.  He sat quietly on his
bedside rug and let his eyes follow her around the room as she went about her
early morning routine.  His entire life was wrapped around this woman and
this home.  He had no memories of any life before this.  No memories
of his mother or the six littermates he had competed with for food.  Just
Jordan, and to him it was more than enough.  He was, by nature, focused on
her and her emotions and as she had raised him, she had learned to accurately
read his body language.  They read each other like most people read a good
book.  She glanced at him and couldn’t help smiling.  More than once,
she had wondered what he thought about her nightmares.

Once she was
dressed, they went into the kitchen where she opened the back door and let him
out for his brief early morning patrol.  He loped off down to the barn,
made a quick trip through it, his nose telling him all was well, then he headed
off to his marking spots to lift his leg and mark his boundaries.