Along with being physically unable to sit and overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a new mom, I also stepped back from writing because I thought I’d peaked out.

When I started writing a new manuscript last year, I read my opening of Chase the Dream and wondered if I’d ever be able to write like that again. After finishing the manuscript this summer, I edited Chase in preparation for posting.

Here’s the second part of the beginning I wrote when my managing editor asked me to bulk up Chase to launch an upcoming line. I don’t plan to post as far as the ending I added then, but if interest warrants, I may post Chase’s unpublished sequel.

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Swirling color, music and movement surrounded Alison. As the nine-year-old leaned over the bleacher to enter into the pageant more deeply, a rough, restraining hand on her arm gently pulled her back.

“Not so close,” Harvey Austin told his daughter, the merriment in his hazel eyes negating the warning in his voice. “You’re apt to fall out of your seat and land smack in front of some cowboy’s horse.”

“No.” Alison flipped her streaked curls aside to watch the racing riders now forming two companies to approach an invisible obstacle course from opposite directions. Carrying brilliant flags, they wove back and forth in a string of figure eights that barely missed each other at each apex. “These are cowgirls, Dad, not cowboys. They’d catch me. They’d put me on their saddle, right up in front of them, and I’d tell them to ride like the wind!”

“Sounds like she’s coming down with rodeo fever, Harvey,” said a woman on Alison’s other side, “just like my Jenny. It’s too bad Eileen couldn’t get off work to be here. I’m sure it would bring back memories.”

“Yep. It’s too bad, Virginia,” Alison’s father answered, but when Alison glanced at him, worry dulled his expression.

“Dad?” Alison forced herself to concentrate on him, even though tantalizing new sounds from the loudspeakers signaled some shift, some change. Alison longed to see the sight it heralded but kept her attention on her father. “I’m sorry.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I won’t lean anymore.”

“Thanks.” He smiled slightly, and Alison’s gray eyes swiftly focused back on the dirt arena, skimming over the puzzled look on her aunt Virginia’s face.

Instead of the graceful flow of women on horseback, only one flag-bearing rider remained. The woman’s horse stood in the arena’s center, an enormous flag lapping its flanks.

Disappointment hit Alison. Where were the speed, the snap of the flags, the hooves stirring melodic sprays of gravel against the metal fencing?

“Stand up, Al.” Her father tapped her back. “Didn’t you hear your uncle Barney? Put your hand on your heart and face the flag.”

Alison surveyed the rising crowd around her. “Are we all going to say the pledge?”

“No, honey,” her aunt replied. “We’re going to sing.”

“What song—” Alison began, but a multitude of voices drowned her out. She peered at a raised announcer’s box in the arena’s corner, where several figures looked down upon the crowd. “Is Uncle Barney crying up there? He sounds just like Mom. When she cries, her words get all stuck, too,” she said, but in the crescendo of “the rocket’s red glare,” no one answered her.

“When’s Jenny racing, Aunt Virginia?” Alison demanded as soon as the anthem’s strains ebbed.

“First Uncle Barney’s going to introduce everyone who works hard to make the rodeo run: the judges, the pickup men, the clowns who protect cowboys from the bulls—”

“Will Jenny race after Uncle Barney quits talking?” Alison noticed that Aunt Virginia’s green eyes turned even prettier when she smiled. “Jenny’s lucky to have her own horse. Someday I’m going to have a whole ranch of ‘em. I’ve been saving up since I was little. I’ve got four hundred dollars in the bank now. How much did Jenny’s horse cost? Is it a long time until she races? Does she have to wait for more kids to get here first? Is she fast?”

“Jenny will race when the other barrel races do. She won’t go as fast as the adults. She’s practicing, getting used to riding in front of people and doing what she’s learned in rodeo school. She’ll get faster in time.”

Alison puckered one side of her lips. “If I was Jenny, I’d go fast right away. With the adults. No one would beat me.”

Aunt Virginia looked ahead of her as more men walked and rode into the arena. They wore bright western clothing and waved their hats at the crowd but seemed nothing like the women who had ridden with the flags, women almost as beautiful as those in Alison’s dreams, on horses nearly as fast. More than anything, Alison wanted to be like them: a beautiful woman on a fast horse.

“Aunt Virginia, if I don’t like racing, I’m going to help carry the flags. That way I can race and get a flag, and I still get a horse.”

The redheaded woman beside Alison opened her mouth as if to laugh but then nodded. “You’ve always loved horses, haven’t you, Alison?”

“Always.”

“And you really have four hundred dollars in the bank that you’ve saved up to buy a horse?”

Alison poked her father’s arm. “Tell her.”

A noncommittal stretch tightened his lips, and he scratched the lower fringe of his right sideburn. “Four hundred dollars in Madison Municipal Bank, every penny she’s ever gotten.” He pointed at the nearest end of the arena. “Look, Al. They’re going to ride the bucking stock now.”

Alison whooped. “More horses!” She lowered her voice. “I don’t think it’ll be as good as racing, Aunt Virginia. But some horses like to buck, even more than they like to race. I’m glad they can do what they want. I’m glad no one hurts them to make them buck.”

“I thought this was your first rodeo, Alison. You sound like you know all about it.” Aunt Virginia arched her brow and glanced at Alison’s father, but the man made no response and the child only gripped the program in her fist tighter.