It was barely starting to get light out when the alarm in the motel room went off. Chase grunted and blindly smacked out at the offending piece of technology, swearing quietly when he only managed to knock it to the ground without shutting it off. He untangled himself from me and clambered out of the bed so he could finally silence the annoying beeping.

            I sat up and watched in amusement as he stumbled into the bathroom. The only other time we’d spent the night together, he hadn’t been so uncoordinated in the morning. When I glanced at the clock, I realized that it might be because it was only five thirty in the morning. I was used to early mornings for horse shows, though it had been a year since I’d been up at this time.

            When Chase came back out of the bathroom, he looked slightly more alert. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me sitting up. “You look more awake than should be possible at this time of the morning.”

            I smiled. “This is nothing. There are some shows that I had to get up at three in the morning for.”

            He shuddered. “That’s still the middle of the night.”

            I laughed as I climbed out of the bed. “I’ll make sure to leave you out of those shows then,” I teased him.

            Before I could walk by him to go to the bathroom, he wrapped his arms around me. “Not a chance. I’ll be with you for every show that you go to.”

            I tilted my head and kissed the tip of his nose. “You might change your mind by the time the day is over.”

            He kissed me lightly and then released me. “We’ll see.”

            That first day went by pretty quickly. I had only entered Justice in one division, which consisted of two classes today, and then the championship round tomorrow. Justice and I did pretty well, only taking down one rail in each class. That allowed us to move onto the next day. Since there were over a hundred people in my division the first day, no one really paid too much attention to us. The number had been diminished to twenty-five for tomorrow though, so I had a feeling it might be a little different.

            When Chase and I got back to the motel room that night, I was more tired than I had been in a long time, and my leg was pretty sore. Chase ran a bath for me, and then massaged my leg before we went to bed.

            The next morning we arrived at the show grounds and went immediately to where Justice was stabled. I touched up his braids, since he’d rubbed some of them out overnight. Chase helped me by handing me the yarn when I needed it, and keeping Justice entertained so he didn’t move too much.

            My class wasn’t until the afternoon, so once Justice was braided perfectly again, Chase and I found some seats so we could watch the main event of the show, which was just below the grand prix level. I noticed that a girl sitting near us kept glancing over at me, and she looked vaguely familiar, but she didn’t approach us. It was almost as if she was waiting for something, but nothing happened and eventually she frowned a little and walked away.

            My stomach was in knots by the time my class was ready to start. Chase boosted me up onto Justice’s back, then stepped back as I went to the warm-up ring. I put Justice through his paces and hopped him over a couple of practice jumps, before bringing him back over to Chase. We watched the first few competitors go through the course, and none of them went clear. I was ninth to go in, and when I was on deck, I took a deep breath and looked down at Chase. “This is it.”

            He squeezed my leg reassuringly. “You can do this.”

            “I hope so,” I muttered.

            “Hey, you know you can. Luke is watching you right now and telling you to believe in the power of the pin.”

            My lips tugged up into a reluctant smile. “You’re probably right.” I leaned down and kissed him gently. “See you in a few minutes.”

            My number was called, and I gathered my reins up and urged Justice into the ring. I rode him to the middle of the ring and halted him, causing a few people in the crowd to murmur questioningly. The PA system crackled once and then the announcer’s voice flowed out of the speakers.

            “This is number two forty-seven, Dana Webster riding Luke’s Justice. Dana is dedicating this ride to her brother, Luke, who was killed in a car accident one year ago. Many people at this show will remember that both Luke and Dana rode in this show last year. On their way home, their car was struck by a drunk driver. Dana is now riding Luke’s horse in his memory. Before she begins, she’s asked that everyone take a moment of silence to remember Luke.”

            The crowd was completely silent, and I reached up to rub the pin that was attached to my collar. A feeling of peace rushed through me, and I suddenly knew with certainty that Luke really was watching over me. The speakers crackled once more, and then the song “I believe I can Fly” by R Kelly came on.

            I inhaled deeply once more and then squeezed Justice into a canter. I looked for my first jump, and turned him towards it. The course consisted of fifteen obstacles, scattered over a complex pattern. We cantered up to the first one, a deceptively simple vertical, and hopped over it neatly. We turned left and headed for an oxer next, which he also cleared easily. The next jump was a liverpool, which meant there was a blue tarp underneath it to simulate water. Justice didn’t even bat an eye as he leapt nimbly over it.

            A wall, two oxers and three verticals followed the liverpool, and then we reached the triple combination. This was one of the biggest trouble spots on the course, because the three jumps were only separated by two strides each. You had to hit it perfectly to get the right striding, or else you would knock one of the jumps down.

            We came into the first one and cleared it without a problem. We took two strides, and Justice gathered himself to leap. He took off and fumbled slightly when he realized the jump was an oxer instead of a vertical. He managed to clear it, but we landed further out than we should have. He took one stride and launched into the air half a stride away from the final jump of the combination.

            I clutched his mane and held my breath as we hung in the air. The jump was an oxer, making it wide on its own. With the distance we had added with the takeoff, I was expecting to crash through the jump.

            When we hit the ground, I looked back briefly in complete surprise. The back pole wobbled once, but then settled back into its cups. I turned my head back to face forward, not entirely sure how we had cleared that. I concentrated on the next four jumps, and we cleared all of them. We crossed the finish line, and I brought him to a halt, sitting in stunned silence as the crowd erupted into cheers.

            We had gone clear. There were still sixteen more competitors to go, so there was a high chance someone else would do that as well, but we were the first ones to do so. A feeling of elation settled over me and I leaned down to hug Justice around the neck before sitting up again and leaving the ring.

            I slid off of Justice and into Chase’s arms. He lifted me up in a power hug and then kissed me enthusiastically. “You did it!”

            I laughed as he set me back onto my feet. “I thought for sure that the final part of that combination was going to come down.”

            “It was close,” Chase admitted. “But Justice came through. Now what happens?”

            “I’ll be in a jump-off with whoever else goes clear,” I told him. “It’ll be a shorter time limit and not as many jumps. We just have to wait and see who else is in it.”

            As it turned out, no one else went clear. The liverpool and triple combination claimed most of the horses, but one rider did manage to get through without hitting anything. Unfortunately for them, they were a little too slow and came in over the time allowed. Since I was the only one who went clear under the time allowed, I won the class.

            Chase hugged me tightly again and boosted me back onto Justice so I could claim my ribbon. The crowd gave me a standing ovation and I felt tears fill my eyes, since I knew they were cheering for Luke as well as for me. I accepted my ribbon and allowed the photographer from the local paper to take a picture of us.

            Once that was done, Chase and I brought Justice back to his stall. My parents and Cindy were there to congratulate me, along with Blake and Hailey. Blake shocked me by hugging me, and even Hailey seemed surprised by it. Blake must have felt us staring at him in surprise, because he shrugged as he stepped back. “What? She did really well.”

            Hailey shook her head. “Never thought I’d see the day where he wasn’t an ass to someone besides me.”

            Blake grinned charmingly at her. “Just trying to keep you on your toes, dear.”

            I laughed and laced my fingers with Chase’s. “You guys are meeting us for dinner after the show is over, right?” We were planning on staying one more night and then leaving in the morning.

            “Yeah, we’ll meet you at the restaurant around seven. We’ll be leaving to go home after that,” Hailey replied.

            We all chatted for a few more minutes, and then everyone aside from Chase left and we worked together to unbraid and untack Justice. I made him a bran mash afterwards and made sure he was comfortable. Then I just leaned on the stall door and looked in at him. Chase joined me and put his arm around my shoulders. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

            “Happy,” I replied. “And lighter than I’ve felt in a long time.”

            He kissed my temple. “Good, I’m glad.”

            We watched Justice in silence for a few minutes before we were interrupted. “Dana?” a voice asked uncertainly.

            I turned and saw the girl that had been looking at us earlier standing a few feet away. “Yes?” I noticed that she looked a little paler now than she had earlier, and I was a little concerned that she was going to pass out.

            “My name is Cara. We met briefly last year at this show.”

            I frowned and thought back to that last show. It suddenly dawned on me where I’d seen her. “Oh! You were hanging out with Luke that weekend.”

            She blushed slightly. “Yeah. I was here to watch my cousin ride, even though I’ve never really had an interest in horses. Luke kept me company and made it more bearable.”

            I vaguely remembered Luke telling me about her. “That sounds like something he’d be good at.”

            “I- I didn’t know anything had happened to him,” she said quietly. “I came here this year to find him.”

            “Oh,” I responded. I didn’t know what else to say to her.

            She hesitated for a minute. “When he never called me, I was so mad at him. I never imagined that he had been in an accident.”

            “He would’ve called you,” I said awkwardly. “Luke was a good guy.”

            She blew out a breath. “This is a lot harder than I knew it was going to be,” she muttered, almost to herself. Then she squared her shoulders. “You and him were twins, right? I remember him telling me how close the two of you were.”

            My heart clenched. “Yeah, we were twins. When he died, I lost part of myself.”

            She nodded. “Well, the reason I wanted to find Luke was to tell him that I became pregnant that weekend last year.”

            My jaw dropped and I stared at her for a full minute before I was able to say anything. “What?”

            She blushed again. “I’m not normally the kind of girl that will sleep with a guy she just met, but there was something different about Luke. I went to his motel room with him and well… I ended up getting pregnant.”

            My mind was whirling as I processed this. “Luke… Luke has a kid?”

            Cara took out her phone and fiddled with it for a few minutes before turning it to show me a picture. “His name is Matthew. He’s three months old.”

            I stared at the picture of the smiling baby and it felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. The baby looked like a miniature Luke. “Oh my God.”

            Chase stepped forward and wrapped his arm around my waist. “Breathe Dana,” he murmured in my ear.

            I inhaled shakily, only now realizing that I’d stopped breathing momentarily. “He looks just like him,” I said, still staring at the photo.

            Chase looked down at the picture. “He does,” he agreed.

            I tore my eyes away from the photo and looked back at Cara. “Where is he?”

            “With my parents right now. I was planning on giving him up for adoption, but the further I got into the pregnancy the more I realized I couldn’t do that. My mom helps me with him a lot. They weren’t happy with me when they found out I was pregnant, but they supported everything I decided.”

            “Do they know who the father is?”

            She shook her head. “I wanted to tell Luke first. When he didn’t call, I finally decided to just call him. But his phone was disconnected, and I was so mad at him that I wouldn’t tell anyone who he was. I did put his name on the birth certificate though. I was planning on confronting him today. When I saw you, I kept looking for him but never found him. It wasn’t until I heard what the announcer said that I realized something had happened.”

            “He would’ve been there for you and Matthew,” I told her with utmost sincerity. “He was the kind of guy who would’ve taken responsibility.”

            Cara sighed and put her phone away. “I got that feeling when I was with him, which is why I was so mad when I couldn’t get in touch with him.”

            “I can’t believe he has a kid,” I said. “It’s surreal.”

            Cara hesitated for a moment. “Would you like to meet him sometime?”

            I hesitated for only a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I’d very much like that.”

            She gave me her number and we set up a time to meet next weekend. When she left, I sat down on a chair that was set up outside Justice’s stall and put my head in my heads. “Wow.”

            Chase crouched in front of me and moved my hands. “That’s one way to put it.”

            “I’m an auntie,” I stated. “That is so weird.”

            “Look at it this way; now you’ll always have a little piece of Luke.”

            “I didn’t really think of it like that,” I admitted. Then I grinned. “I always told him that this was going to happen one day.” I shook my head. “I wonder what he’s thinking up in heaven right now.”

            “He’s probably panicking like any new dad would do,” Chase replied dryly. “At least he doesn’t have to worry about child support.”

            I snorted. “That’s true. Fate works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it?”

            “It really does,” he agreed. He kissed me lightly and then straightened up, pulling me to my feet. “What do you think your parents are going to say?”

            I groaned. “Damn it, I have to be the one to tell them, don’t I?”

            He grinned. “Oh yeah.”

            I sighed and started to walk away from the stall. “Let’s go tell them then. I’m glad I’m sharing a room at the motel with you; they are going to be pissed.”

            He chuckled and took my hand. “I love you,” he stated.

            I looked up at him as we walked. “I know. But if you get me pregnant, I’m going to have to kill you.”

            He laughed out loud at that and stopped so he could pick me up and spin me around. “I’ll do my best not to do that then,” he promised.

            I grinned down at him. “Then I guess I love you too.”

            The sun shone down brightly on us as we headed over to his car, and a small breeze ruffled my hair. I smiled and looked up at the sky. “Don’t worry little brother; I’ll always love you as well and I’ll watch over your little boy.”

The End

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Here's the last chapter. I got the idea for the baby from a friend whose husband just passed away. They have a son who is just over a year old, and I know it helps her get through the days knowing that her husband is living on through him. It gave me the idea to have Luke be a father.

I was planning on writing an epilogue that would have Blake and Hailey's wedding in it, but I haven't been getting the response in comments that I've been wanting, so I don't know if I'll write it. If I get a much better repsonse to this chapter, then I'll write and post the epilogue within the next two days. Otherwise, this will be the last thing I write for this story. To help once again, here is a chapter question: If you could travel to any part of the world, where would you go?

Vote and COMMENT to let me know what you think :-)