Falling In Love With My Guardian Angel

Chapter 1 Quick Horse-Quick Thinking

Melody raced through the stalls of the stables she was riding at. The competition started in five minutes and she had lost her bridle. She grabbed her friend Orion and ran to the main office. The man behind the desk raised a brow and smiled,

"What's the rush?"

"Lost bridle...need one to fit...15.3 hand mare..." Melody said between breaths.

The man stood up and looked at the rack of bridles for a moment before pulling one off, "it may need adjusting but this should do."

"Thanks..." Melody breathed snatching the bridle and running back to her horse's stall.

Orion grabbed the bridle from her and opened the stall, his grayish colored hair sticking to his face with sweat from the humidity, "Get your show coat and helmet on, I will finish checking your horse's tack."

Melody raced into the trailer and grabbed the black riding coat her brother had gotten her for her birthday and put the velvet helmet neatly on her head to where it covered the netted bun her hair was in. She looked down and wiped a small spot of dirt off of her white breeches and pulled on her gloves, racing out of the trailer to meet Orion and Chelsea, her brother's girlfriend.

"Mel," Orion said quickly, "the bridle is still a little bit too big, you will have to keep your reins right for this, your brother has gone back to the barn to get your spare bridle."

"Okay, I'll be fine don't worry. This is just a warm up class. My real classes aren't until tomorrow." Melody said, "Now give me a leg up."

Chelsea held Reine while Orion helped Melody into her saddle, the metal stirrups were peacock style, so they had rubber bands on the outside of them so that if she fell, her foot wouldn't get caught. He said a silent prayer and put the reins over the horses head. He waited for Melody to gather them in her hands properly before holding the side of the d-ring bit, leading her to the arena where Chandler, her trainer, was waiting.

"You're late," the young woman said.

"I know, my bridle was stolen so I had to borrow one."

Melody shifted uncomfortably as Orion checked-and rechecked-all of her equipment. He nodded to her and she waited at the opening of the arena for it to be her turn to ride.

As she entered the ring, the crowd went quiet. Everyone recognized the pitchblack horse with the white saddle pad initialed MRO. the announcer was silent for a moment before pipping up,

"Now entering the ring is number 210-Melody O'Connor-riding Reine Noir. She will also be riding in tomorrow's 3'6 class and the 4' class."

Melody sighed and kicked her horse up into a canter, the course was easy enough. The only problem was that her reins slightly slipped making it harder for her to slow down Reine. Over the last jump, her reins slipped from her hands and Reine bolted.

Slow your heart rate. She will respond to your leg, Melody. Chandler had told her.

Melody slammed all of her weight into her heels and leaned back, putting pressure on her right leg so that it pressed into the horse's side. Reine slowed but didn't stop, something had spooked her and unless she could gather her reins, Melody couldn't stop her horse. Only then did she realized what had really happened, her reins had snapped.

Suddenly something that had seemed ridiculous before was perfectly clear, and she had five seconds before she hit the arena fence, "Orion call her!" she yelled.

Immediately, Orion let out a high pitched whistle and Reine stopped mid-stride to trot over to him. He ducked under the wooden rail and lead the horse and rider out of the arena accompanied by a chorus of claps and cheers.

When Melody was safely on the ground again, she held up her hand and let out a shaky laugh, "Scared me half to death, I thought I was going over the rail for a moment."

"I think everyone did." Orion said bluntly, patting Reine on the nose.

It bothered her how blunt he always seemed. She considered him her friend, but she could never tell what he was thinking or if he even liked her, he was the stable hand, it was his job to help out-not necessarily to like her.

Her thoughts were interrupted by someone yelling, "Do you realize what could have happened if my student wasn't able to find a way to stop the horse?" Chandler yelled at a photographer.

"Ma'am I'm sorry, didn't realize that the horse would spook that easily." The photographer said calmly.

"No, can you not read? there are signs everywhere saying to turn off the flash on cameras because it could spook the horses. You caused my student to lose control of her horse because you decided that the rules didn't apply to you."

By the way people were nodding and mumbling it was obvious that they were agreeing with Chandler.

Orion sighed and examined the broken reins, not paying attention to the dispute. Melody thought that he looked kind of cute when he pursed his lips slightly and barely scrunched up his nose like he did when he was thinking.

"We will have to pay to get it fixed."

"Should I tell Chan?"

"No, I'll take it to the office when we untack and explain what happened. you need to sit down and let the adrenaline drain out of your system before you explode like Chandler did."