Jump Off (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 22)

by Claire Svendsen

  “You should have seen Socks at the show,” I told Missy, trying to change the subject. “He was a super star.”

  “I saw your blue ribbon,” she said. “I’m glad he went well for you.”

  “I bet he’d go well for you too,” I said. “Owen is getting bigger now. You could start competing again if you wanted to. Get your career back on track. Give you something else to focus on.”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “I like teaching lessons. Taking the girls to shows and watching them grow as riders. It makes me happy.”

  “As happy as competing in front of a large crowd? Winning the jump off? Going to the Olympics?”

  “Not everything is about winning, Emily” she said.

  “I know but don’t you miss it at all?” I said.

  “Sometimes,” she said. “But then I think about Owen and I don’t regret a thing.”

  We ate the rest of our lunch in silence. I kept thinking about how having kids changed people and how much I didn’t want them. But then that made me feel weird because everyone else wanted babies, even Mickey. Maybe I just didn’t have any mothering instinct in me at all or if I did it only worked on horses.

  I watched Chantilly, Bandit and the foal who were out in the big field. Every now and then Bandit would round them up and move them to a better patch of grass like a sheep dog.

  “Do you really think Sandy has gone for good?” I asked Missy, finishing the last bite of my sandwich.

  “I hope so,” she said. “That was a big mistake, inviting her here. I’m sorry that I put you through that.”

  “I mean, you don’t think she’ll come back for the foal, do you?”

  “I think she probably thinks that he is dead and if she ever asks, that is what I am going to say.”

  “You’d lie?” I said, acting all fake surprised. “But you don’t lie about anything, ever. It’s like your moral code or something.”

  “Sometimes you have to make an exception to the rule,” Missy said.

  Which made me wonder what other things she had lied about and hadn’t told me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  After lunch Dakota arrived. I waved and she waved back but she had a miserable look on her face. It reminded me of the kind of face that Frankie made at the show.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as she came into the barn.

  “Lucy has to go back home now that the summer is over,” she said and then she burst into tears.

  I stood there letting her cry on my shoulder for what seemed like forever. Lucy was the Paint mare that Dakota’s grandparents had leased her for the summer but only for the summer and we all knew that this day was going to come. I was just sort of hoping that when it did they’d have saved up enough money to lease the horse for the rest of the year or even buy her but apparently not.

  “Is there really not any way they can lease her for longer?” I asked as Dakota finally pulled away and blew her nose on a big wad of toilet paper that had been stuffed in her pocket.

  “No,” she said with a strangled sob. “It turns out that Grandpa traded an engine for some vintage truck in order to lease her in the first place. I knew they didn’t have the money and now she has to go away and I’ll never see her again and I love her so much. I’m just going to die.”

  She threw herself down on a hay bale that had been left in the aisle.

  “Come on,” I said, sitting down next to her. “It’s not that bad. You can still come here and take lessons and you can ride Four if you like.”

  “Isn’t he the crazy one?” she said, wiping her eyes.

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?” I asked. “He’s a nice horse. There is nothing wrong with him.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sure there isn’t. It’s just that I’m going to miss Lucy so much.”

  The tears started streaming down her face again and I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t good with crying people. They made me all nervous and testy.

  “How about we saddle up and go for one last ride then?” I said. “A gallop through the woods. That would cheer you up, wouldn’t it?”

  “I guess so,” she said, gulping.

  “Good, come on then. Let’s tack up.”

  To prove to Dakota and everyone else that Four wasn’t nuts, I got him ready to take out on the trail. He hadn’t really had that hard of a show the day before since he was only in the one class and I knew it would be good for him to get out and stretch his legs. And I felt guilty because the truth was that I would have rather taken out any of my other horses and I didn’t want Four to be the forgotten one. Besides, if I could prove that he was good out on the trail then maybe Dakota might want him if Frankie didn’t. There had to be someone out there who would be glad to own my horse.

  Four didn’t seem impressed that I was asking him to leave his field and his friends. He planted his feet and pinned his ears.

  “See?” I said. “This is why people don’t like you.”

  Somehow between bringing him home and today he’d managed to turn from a show ready clean horse into a disgustingly dirty one and he’d also rolled in a muddy puddle so I couldn’t even brush him without spreading it all around. I just did my best on the saddle area and then called it a day.

  “You are a disgusting, dirty boy,” I told him.

  He didn’t seem to care. We’d been right about the hackamore though. He’d gone better at the show with it and I was hoping that the same would be true out on the trail. Dakota had Lucy all tacked up in her western gear, her eyes still all misty. She threw her arms around the mare’s neck and started to sob again.

  “Come on,” I told her. “You don’t want to upset Lucy like that.”

  “She’s already upset,” she sobbed.

  But the Paint mare didn’t look upset. To be honest she didn’t look like she could have cared less. She was a tough horse and probably fit happily into whatever barn she found herself in but I knew what Dakota was going through. Her horses had been sold because her parents couldn’t afford them and Lucy had been the one bright spot in the darkness of her new life and now that was being ripped away from her as well. I’d be losing it too but I’d offered her my horses to ride. I couldn’t do any more than that. I couldn’t afford to buy Lucy any more than she could.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  We rode across the fields and into the woods. It had been a while since I’d been out on the trail. I used to go out there all the time but since Bluebird had been sick I hadn’t wanted to stray too far from the barn and schooling in the ring had suddenly seemed so much more important. But as the soft breeze whispered through the trees and lifted our horse’s manes, I couldn’t help smiling. It was fun to be out in the woods. To be free. Four snorted and sniffed at everything we passed but Lucy was an old pro and just trudged forward through the brush leaving Four to scuttle after her so that he wasn’t left behind after getting all distracted by a rustling noise in a bush.

  “You’re so lucky,” Dakota said.

  “How is that?” I asked, thinking that she had no idea how unlucky I was.

  “You get to ride every day and your dad is your trainer and you basically can have any horse you want.”

  “Well I can’t exactly have any horse I want,” I said. “And my life isn’t perfect.”

  “It sure looks perfect,” she said.

  I thought about telling her that my mother and step sister had moved into our house and that everyone was stuck in the middle of this huge fight but I didn’t really know her that well. I hadn’t even told Mickey. I was bad at sharing and talking about my feelings. I just liked to keep it bottled up inside all private and rotting like a festering piece of fruit, which I knew was unhealthy but I couldn’t help it.

  “Trust me, it’s not,” I said. “Shall we trot?”

  And trotting Four out on the trail was so much better than trotting him in the ring. His stride opened up and his ears were pricked as we followed Dakota and Lucy through the trees. It was like he w
as a different horse, all big and proud and not sucked in and scared. I knew that I was making the right decision by not forcing him to be something he wasn’t. He was never meant to be a jumper. He needed someone who wouldn’t force him to be one.

  “Okay to canter?” Dakota asked.

  And before I had a chance to say that maybe it would be best just to trot and not push it because I didn’t want Four to get all excited and run away with me, she kicked Lucy and they were off with Four in quick pursuit. The hackamore was great for stopping Four’s fear of being grabbed in the mouth and the subsequent rearing he always threatened to do but it also meant that my brakes weren’t so good. I was pretty much just along for the ride and I was just hoping that when Dakota eventually stopped Lucy, my horse would decide to stop too and not keep going, carting me away to the ends of the earth never to be seen again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  We thundered out of the woods and across the clearing, Four and Lucy neck and neck. Dakota looked at me and grinned, then she urged Lucy to go faster. Soon we were galloping, the wind whipping hair from beneath my helmet and my hands buried in Four’s mane. I knew I had no control over him. I was only supposed to be taking him for a quiet hack and yet there we were, blazing across the grass like fire. My father would have had a heart attack if he knew. But just for those few fleeting moments it was like being free and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world and as our horses started to tire and Lucy broke into a canter and then a trot, so did Four, my youngster much more tired than I’d thought he’d be.

  “You should have warned me first,” I said as we finally let our horses walk.

  “Sorry,” Dakota said. “It just sort of happened.”

  “Well can it not sort of happen on the way back,” I said. “I don’t want my poor horse to break down and I’m sure Lucy’s owners wouldn’t be very happy if you sent her back with some career ending injury.”

  “I forgot,” she said, her face falling. “For a moment I forgot that I was going to lose her.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  I’d ruined the moment but those thoughts would have crept back into her mind anyway, demons always did. Just like for a brief moment I’d forgotten about my mother and yet there she was back again like a dark spot in the corner of my brain.

  We let our horses walk on loose reins and Dakota talked about school and riding and the horses she used to own. She was able to talk about them now without tears welling up in her eyes because she had Lucy but soon she’d go back to being the girl who hung around the barn all desperate and needy because she didn’t have a horse of her own and I didn’t want that for her. I didn’t want that for anyone.

  “You don’t have to ride Four you know,” I said. “You can ride any of the lesson horses you want. You rode Popcorn before, you liked her, didn’t you?”

  “She was okay,” she said with a sigh. “I mean thanks, that would be great,” she added after looking at my face.

  “I know it sucks,” I told her. “But we’ll find you another horse to call your own. I promise.”

  “Really?” she said, her face lighting up for a minute.

  “Really,” I replied with a nod.

  And now I’d promised two girls that I’d find them horses. I was going to have to stop doing that because I didn’t have that many horses to give away in the first place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Mickey came out that evening after school to ride. I was hoping to get away with not telling her about my mother for a few more days but now that she was here I was going to have to bite the bullet and tell her. Only I couldn’t seem to find the words.

  “Can I play with the foal?” she said as soon as she came into the barn.

  “If you can catch him,” I said.

  “Oh, is he outside?” Her face fell.

  “It’s okay, I’ll help you,” I said. “It’s time for them to come in anyway and it kind of takes two people with all three of them.”

  I walked beside Mickey as we went to get the horses, glancing at my house out of the corner of my eye. I’d managed to stay away all day and my father had gone up there around lunch and then later I’d noticed that his truck had gone. Part of me was really hoping that he’d taken my mother and Cat to a motel but another part of me was hoping that maybe he’d had a change of heart and taken them to the airport. I just wasn’t ready to go up there and find that he hadn’t taken them anywhere and that they were still squatting in my bedroom.

  “You’re quiet,” Mickey said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine,” I said, grabbing the horse’s halters off the gate.

  And the more I didn’t say anything, the harder it got. We brought the horses in. I had Chantilly and I let Mickey lead the foal and Bandit just followed behind us like a puppy.

  “He’s getting so big already,” Mickey said as the foal danced about all fresh and happy.

  “He is now that he’s getting real milk whenever he wants,” I replied.

  It had been nice to see the foal flourish with his new mother. Maybe mine could take some notes from Chantilly.

  “I made some flyers,” she carried on.

  “Flyers?”

  “You know, for the foal naming contest.”

  “Right,” I said.

  But I’d forgotten every word about it and now that we were going to be able to keep the foal, I kind of wanted to name him myself. I didn’t want someone else getting to choose his name. What if it was something horrible and we had to call him that for the rest of his life? Or at least until my father said we had to sell him. Still I didn’t want him stuck with some silly name like Jellyroll or Cupcake. Not that those were bad names, they just didn’t fit our frisky, free spirited foal.

  “I don’t know that a contest is such a good idea,” I said.

  “But you promised. I made flyers. I’m so excited. I already have my name picked out and everything. Please?” Mickey said.

  And I couldn’t stand disappointing her so I just nodded and said okay even though I didn’t want to.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  We played with the foal for a while and then Mickey had to get Hampton ready for his lesson and I still hadn’t told her about my mother. I couldn’t. I knew it would come out all wrong. I should have been happy to see her and I wasn’t. Instead I was mad and resentful. That wasn’t normal, was it? Girls were supposed to love their mothers. I could barely stand to look at mine.

  I slipped into Hashtag’s stall and asked him if he wanted to go for a ride. I was going to try the hackamore that I’d been using on Four on him today. Jumping him in a halter was fine but it wasn’t going to get us to any shows and I knew that I could get him back to where he was before with a little bit of patience and perseverance. And Dad wasn’t around to see us fail, which was a bonus.

  I knew that he knew Hashtag was having problems but I wasn’t sure he was really aware of the full extent of them. Or if he was, he wasn’t ready to admit that he’d bought a horse that was a lemon. Or at least he was a lemon right now anyway. But I wasn’t going to let Jess ruin another horse for good. I was going to bring Hashtag back to the top of his game and then I was going to beat Jess and Valor and enjoy the look on her face when she realized that I’d beaten her on her throwaway horse.

  The sky was gray as we walked out to the grass jump field on a loose rein. Hashtag hadn’t minded me putting the hackamore on instead of his regular bridle and he didn’t have a problem working on the flat with a bit in his mouth anyway. It was just jumping. Jess must have hung on his face one too many times or caught him in the mouth every time he jumped. She’d punished him for doing the very thing he was supposed to with her sloppy riding. At least Valor didn’t have to put up with that now that she’d had her fancy European training and was all good at riding now.

  Mickey was out in the dressage ring doing a rather spectacular half pass across the ring. Jess wasn’t the only one who’d had some fancy European training. I knew that Mickey must have had le
ssons while she was in France but she hadn’t told me and I didn’t know why. Didn’t she think that I would notice that she was suddenly riding a hundred times better than before? I wasn’t that blind. And in a way it made me feel better about the fact that I hadn’t told her my mother was back. We all had secrets we were holding close to our hearts. I just had to wonder if there wouldn’t come a time when they would explode all over us.

  Hashtag was fresh. I hadn’t ridden him in a while and he trotted into the field all puffed up beneath me. He wasn’t as big as my father’s horse Canterbury but he sure was bigger than Bluebird and Arion.

  I worked him on the flat grass, trying to get him to settle down and testing out the hackamore to see if I still had brakes. They were squishy and it took a while for him to accept that pressure meant slow down and more pressure meant stop without the bit in his mouth but he’d always been good in the halter and he’d never run away with me so I was pretty confident that he wasn’t about to start now.

  After we cantered a little and he settled into his stride, I pointed him at the smallest cross rail left over from the beginner’s group lesson. It was the tiniest jump you could get. Hashtag could just canter over it in stride without even having to jump. It was nothing and certainly shouldn’t have been a big deal and I tried to relax so that he didn’t think that I thought it was a big deal either. I looked over the jump and across the grass and imagined us just cantering loosely and freely. I didn’t think about how he might slam on the brakes and stop like he had done so many times before when he first came to Fox Run and I kept the reins loose so that even though he only had the hackamore, I wouldn’t accidentally catch him in the face. In fact as we got up to the jump I planted my hands in his mane to make sure that I wouldn’t and then in one split second we were over the small jump and cantering away like it was no big deal, which it wasn’t. Only it was.