I patted Hashtag and praised him and he just turned his head to take the sugar lump from my outstretched hand and looked at me as if to say ‘what is the big deal anyway?’ and I just laughed. It was a relief to think that maybe I’d figured something out and we spent the next twenty minutes cantering freely around the field and hopping over all the small jumps. I didn’t make out like it was a course or try to package him up or anything like that. It was like we were just out in the woods having a fun time and hopping over some fallen logs as we went.
When we were done I walked him on a loose rein around the loop that went around the farm as a reward and Mickey, who had finished with her lesson, joined us.
“He’s jumping,” she said. “That’s awesome.”
“I know,” I replied. “And you are doing flawless half passes and four tempis.” There was an awkward pause. “Why didn’t you tell me you trained when you were in Europe?” I finally said.
“Why didn’t you tell me your mother was back?” she replied.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
We’d both called each other out on our respective secrets and then we both rode along in silence. I didn’t know what to say and apparently neither did Mickey but my secret was complicated. Hers wasn’t.
“I just didn’t want to fall behind,” she finally said. “And I didn’t want you to be mad at me.”
“Why would I be mad at you?” I said. “I’m happy for you. Why wouldn’t I want you to do well?”
“It’s just training in Europe has always been your dream, not mine.”
She had that right and part of me was jealous. I did want to be the one to go to Europe and train with the best and now both my best friend and my worst enemy had beaten me to it.
“But you look amazing now. Who did you train with? What horses did you ride? You have to tell me everything.”
My jealousy was overridden by the fact that I wanted to know what it had been like and I wanted all the juicy details too. I didn’t want the cliff notes version.
“Wait,” she said. “First tell me about your mom.”
“There is nothing to tell,” I said sullenly.
“She’s back. That’s huge. What do you mean there is nothing to tell?”
“Well I haven’t really spoken to her because both of them have taken over my room and I’m not speaking to her anyway.”
“Both of them?” Mickey asked.
“Cat is here too.”
“But why? Why are they here?”
“Derek hit my mom. He always had a temper. You know what he was like and I guess my mom fell down the stairs or he pushed her. I’m not even sure. But Dad must have felt sorry for her or worried about her and then they just showed up here at my house like we are all going to live together or something.”
“Well that’s not going to work,” Mickey said.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying. It’s crazy. We’ll kill each other and besides, I need my room back. Last night I had to sleep in the laundry room on the most uncomfortable chair in the whole world and Meatball seemed to think was his and kept trying to push me out of it.”
“Well if you’d told me then you could have come and slept over at my house,” Mickey said.
“I know,” I replied sheepishly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but I can’t leave anyway. I have to make sure that Bluebird gets his medicine and I have all these horses to ride. If I stayed at your house then I’d be stuck there and I can’t keep asking your mom to drive me back and forth. Besides, I’d rather know what was going on than be somewhere else, imagining the worst.”
“Well now that she is back, do you think that maybe you’ll be able to patch things up with her?” Mickey asked.
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
By the time we’d discussed the merits of talking or not talking to my mom for what seemed like five hours, Mickey’s mom showed up, honking her car horn and showing her obvious disapproval that Mickey was still riding around and hadn’t even put her horse away yet.
“Uh oh,” she said. “Mom is going to be so mad. She has her fish keepers meeting tonight.”
“Is that like fishaholics anonymous?” I asked as we trotted our horses back to the barn and Mickey waved and held up her hand showing her mom that she’d be five minutes. Her mom replied by tapping her watch and scowling.
“No,” Mickey said. “It’s worse. It’s a bunch of people who love fish so much that they talk about them all the time and they bring bags of their baby fish so that they can trade them with people.”
“Gross,” I said.
“I know. Like she even has any more room for more fish. She actually had the nerve to ask me if she could put one of her tanks in my bedroom. As if I want to listen to all that flopping and splashing all night long. You know, maybe you are onto something with this whole not talking to your mom thing.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “Look, I can take care of Hampton if you have to go.”
“No.” Mickey shook her head. “She can wait.”
But Mickey’s mom wasn’t a fan of waiting. She honked the horn five times before Missy came out of the house to see what all the fuss was about. She walked over to the car and started talking to Mickey’s mom.
“Do you think she is yelling at her?” Mickey asked, pulling her saddle off and putting it on the rack. “I hope she is yelling at her.”
“Probably not,” I said. “She only yells at my dad and even then she has to be really mad at him but I bet she is telling her that honking scares the horses.”
“Mom doesn’t care,” Mickey said.
“She’ll care if her honking makes some little kid fall off and then she gets sued,” I replied.
“Doubtful,” Mickey said. “She has a good lawyer.”
She took her time taking care of Hampton while I gave Hashtag a good rub down. He hadn’t really broken much of a sweat and I didn’t feel like hosing him off and getting all wet in the process. I thanked him for being good and promised that I would take it slow with him and not make him do anything that he didn’t want to do. His ears flicked back and forth as he listened to me and when I put him away I gave him one of the carrots that I was saving for Bluebird.
“Your Mom says that if you don’t come out right now she is going to leave you here all night,” Missy told Mickey as she came into the barn. “And while we’d love to have you sleep over, Emily doesn’t even have a room right now so there is no room at all for you I’m afraid.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” Mickey said, kissing Hampton on the nose and then sliding his stall door shut. “Call me later.” She looked at me and frowned. “To let me know you are okay.”
“I will,” I said but I knew that I wouldn’t.
I didn’t know what to say and I was glad that Mickey’s mom had pulled her daughter away before she had a chance to grill me anymore about my own situation with my mom.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
“They are not really still here, are they?” I asked Missy as we walked up to the house. “Because I don’t think I can take another night of sleeping in the laundry room.”
“I am so sorry about that,” she said, putting her arm around me.
“It’s not your fault,” I replied.
I was so glad that Missy was there. It was like she was this big sister who could boss my dad around and stand up for me. I didn’t know what I would have done without her.
“No,” she said. “You get to sleep in your own bed tonight.”
“They’ve gone?” I said, my spirits lifting just a little.
“For now,” she said. “Your dad dropped them off at the motel in town but I don’t know how long they are going to be able to stay there since they don’t have any money. I told your father he is not paying their way when we have all this debt of our own piling up.”
“They’ll have to get jobs and sort themselves out,” I said. “That is their problem.”
“For some reason yo
ur father seems to think it is his,” Missy said with a sigh.
“I don’t know why,” I said. “He never cared before.”
“Well he seems to care now,” she said.
“Maybe it’s just a phase.” I shrugged.
“It had better be,” Missy said darkly.
I spent the evening washing my sheets. There was no way I was sleeping in a bed that my mother and Cat had slept in the night before. While I waited for them to dry I did my schoolwork at my desk in my room, all alone. My mother didn’t understand. I needed my space if I was going to keep my life in order. I had projects to do and reports to turn in and I couldn’t do that anywhere. Well, technically I could but it still helped to have a desk and a quiet space to call my own.
Meatball jumped up on the desk and walked across the laptop keys.
“Hey,” I said, scooping him up. “You might accidently delete all my work.”
He purred and I hugged him close, glad that there was at least someone in the house who was happy to see me. Dad had come back from the motel and had almost immediately got into another huge fight with Missy. She didn’t think he should be going out of his way to help an ex-wife who had cut him off from his only child for years and basically been awful to him. I had to agree with her but Dad just kept saying that she’d changed and that he had to do the right thing. I was pretty sure that Dad would be sleeping on the couch again tonight.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
I didn’t see my mother or Cat over the next few days and Missy and Dad seemed to alternate between yelling at each other and not talking at all. I wished they’d just figure things out but apparently they were incapable of having a civil conversation. I wanted to suggest that they try marriage counselling but considering that they weren’t even married in the first place, I wasn’t sure if they’d even be allowed to go or not but something needed to happen. They couldn’t carry on like this. It wasn’t good for them or me or Owen. The stress was getting to be too much.
I threw myself into my school work, completing all my assignments ahead of time and I worked my horses every day. I got the all clear to start riding Bluebird again and had taken him for a few short hacks around the property doing nothing more than a little trot. I was afraid to break him. I was also afraid that if I didn’t start building up his muscles and his stamina, he wouldn’t be fit enough for the winter show circuit.
Hashtag had been doing really well out in the field and I’d been working Arion in the ring but Four had been my companion on the trail. He loved it so much that I figured I might as well give him what he wanted and so we galloped through the woods and out into the clearing everyday where I worked on getting him to respond to me instead of doing whatever he wanted and out in the wilderness he seemed happier to listen than he did in the ring.
We saw snakes and turtles and a red fox slinking through the bushes. We even rode all the way to the pond where I let him splash in the shallow water, all the while keeping an eye out for the gator that I knew was out there. Dakota came with me a couple of times but then a trailer came and took Lucy away. Dakota stood there sobbing and I stood there next to her, not knowing what to say. And Frankie still hadn’t shown up at all. I was beginning to think I’d seen the last of my vet clinic friend. I still wanted to help her and I was willing to give Four to someone who needed him but I wanted them to need him too.
“Want to go for a ride?” I asked Dakota as she blew her nose.
“No, I just want to go home,” she said.
“Well don’t stay away too long. I put you down for a lesson with Missy tomorrow. You can ride whoever you want. Okay?”
“Alright,” she said, walking out to her grandmother’s car still sobbing gently.
But the next day came and Dakota never did. And she didn’t show up the day after that either. I was losing friends faster than I could make them and I was about to lose my family too because none of them could seem to figure anything out at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Things were quiet for a few days and everything seemed to almost go back to normal. With Mom and Cat at the motel it was easy to forget that they were in town and Missy and Dad even stopped fighting but then a letter came in the mail.
I was sitting up at the kitchen counter, already horse dirty from taking Bluebird for an early morning ride. Every day he seemed to get better and better and all of his neurological symptoms had gone away but I still wasn’t ready to jump him yet. Instead we just rode around the farm and took in the world.
This morning there had been a touch of dampness in the air and water drops hung on the edges of leaves like crystals. We’d watched the sun rise and I’d leaned over and hugged his neck, telling him that I loved him more than anything in the whole world and he’d nuzzled my boot with his lips, begging for a carrot. So far it had been a great morning and I didn’t want anything to ruin it but the letter looked important and I eyeballed it warily.
Dad slouched through in his bathrobe, his eyes bleary as I shoved a mug of coffee in his direction.
“When are you going to start getting up with the grooms again?” I asked him.
I didn’t think it was fair that Missy was still doing his job when his ankle was almost back to normal. I knew that it was still weak and he wasn’t able to ride yet but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do the rest of his jobs like supervising the grooms and teaching. So far he’d only hand-picked a few lessons here and there and taught me but he wasn’t pulling his weight and we all knew it. In fact we’d been happy to cut him some slack in the beginning but enough was enough and after the stunt he’d pulled bringing my mother and Cat here, it was the least he could do.
Dad didn’t answer my question, he just made a sort of grunting noise and picked up the mail. He ripped open the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper. It had a horse head on it and suddenly I was curious.
“What is it?” I said. “Is it about me?”
“Not everything is about you,” he said but then grinned. “Of course it’s about you. It’s the Talent Scout committee. They’ve decided to let you join their weekend training session along with the other winners.”
“They’ve what?” I shrieked, jumping up and spilling my bowl of cereal.
“You heard,” Dad said. “I guess they liked what they saw at the last show. They want you to bring Socks.”
“Oh,” I said, my excitement falling. “Not Bluebird?”
“Don’t be silly,” Dad said. “It’s this coming weekend. Bluebird isn’t even jumping again. Even if they wanted you to bring him, you wouldn’t have been able to and I’m sure they know that. You are lucky that they are even giving you a chance. This is big. Huge. You could still get selected for the Junior Olympic team after all.”
“But not on Bluebird,” I said.
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. I wanted this more than anything but I wanted to share it with my pony too.
“Now I want you to start working Socks every day. You haven’t ridden him much since the show. You need to go over all his tack and your show clothes and if there is anything that is worn I want you to let me know and I’ll replace it. This is a big deal. Bigger than a show. Everything has to be perfect.”
Dad was practically delirious. I hadn’t seen him that happy since he got a free pizza when the delivery guy got lost. He usually only got that happy about food. I didn’t know why he was making such a big deal out of it. He was making me nervous.
“Shouldn’t we check with Missy first?” I said. “Make sure that it is okay with her? After all, Socks is still her horse.”
“Of course it will be okay with her,” Dad said, dismissing my concerns with a wave of his hand. “Why would she say no?”
I wanted to remind him that she could easily say no to punish him for all the dumb stuff he’d done lately but that would also be punishing me and I hadn’t done anything wrong. I didn’t think that she would do that to me but I was my father’s daughter. Maybe she would.
“I’ll tell h
er that you are taking him and that is final,” Dad said.
“No.” I pulled the letter out of his hands. “I’ll ask her. She’s mad enough at you as it is.”
“It doesn’t matter what she says,” Dad replied, taking a swill of his coffee. “You are taking that horse no matter what.”
“You can’t just rail road people Dad,” I said. “Can’t you at least try and see things from her side?”
“This isn’t about sides,” Dad said. “It’s about doing what is right.”
I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t done what was right when my mother chased him away in the first place. Why he hadn’t stayed and worked through their problems after my sister died and been there for me as a father. He hadn’t stood his ground then so I didn’t know why he was doing it now.
But I knew I’d never get through to him. He’d already grabbed a pen and paper and was working out a whole schedule for me and Socks. Good job I’d finished my school work early. It didn’t look like there was going to be time for anything else in the next week except riding and sleeping.
I went off to find Missy and to try and explain to her that I would be monopolizing her horse again, if it was okay with her.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
I knew that Missy would say that it was okay. She wouldn’t take her anger at my father out on me. I found her in the ring teaching one of her hunter students. The girl was going over a low course of jumps on a pretty chestnut horse that I hadn’t seen before. He had square knees and a flowing jump and the girl was pretty and posed in the saddle. Almost too posed. The horse was push button. As I watched I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if he did something naughty like spooked at a flower pot but he didn’t. He was a professional and he obviously cost a lot of money.
Jump Off (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 22) Page 6
