LEAD CHANGE
BY
CLAIRE SVENDSEN
Copyright © 2016 Claire Svendsen
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, places or events is purely coincidental.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE
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TWO STRIDES: CHAPTER ONE
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CHAPTER ONE
“Go away,” I said.
The knock came again, this time louder. Luckily I’d locked my door. The handle jiggled but they couldn’t get in. Patrick sat up and growled, showing the whites of his teeth. I put my hand on his warm, black fur and his tail thumped against the bed a couple of times.
“Aren’t you going to come down and help us with the horses?” Cat said, her voice muffled from behind the door.
“No,” I replied.
“Please?” she said.
She’d been trying to get me to go down for hours but I wasn’t budging. It was almost lunchtime and I was still in bed. There hadn’t seemed much point in getting up. I knew the others could feed and muck stalls. They didn’t need me for that. Besides, I was waiting for Judy to call me back. She was going out to Walter’s barn and soon I’d learn what had happened to Grace, the horse I’d ridden at the show. The horse that had fallen and broken her leg. The mare had spent the night at the vet clinic where they kept her sedated and drugged up on pain meds while they evaluated her. The owners were supposed to show up this morning to make a decision. Judy had told me that it didn’t look good.
“Please don’t let her be put to sleep,” I’d whispered over and over again before I fell asleep.
Rationally I knew that putting the mare out of her misery was going to be the kindest thing to do, kinder than hours of surgery and months of recovery for a life as a lame pasture pet. But if they put her down then it would be my fault. Her death would be on my hands. Her blood. At least if she was alive then I’d know that I hadn’t killed her.
I stared out the window as Bluebird wandered over to a sandy patch in the field and his legs buckled beneath him, then he rolled, scrubbing the dirt into his chestnut coat. I closed my eyes and could see Grace crumpling beneath me, legs and broken poles flying everywhere. Sand in my face as I scrambled away from her thrashing hooves.
She could have killed me. I could have broken a leg or something worse like my back. But she’d thrown me forward, off and away from her. She hadn’t hurt me at all. All I had were a few bruises and a lifetime of haunting nightmares to look forward to. If it had been Bluebird, I would have died. There would have been no decision to make, he would have gone straight into surgery and that would have been that. But to have him limping around the field for the rest of his life would still have been a cruel reminder that I had broken him.
The thought crossed my mind again, the one that had floated through last night when I’d been tired and emotionally beaten. That maybe I should just give up riding. But if I wasn’t a rider, if I didn’t compete then what was I? Just another girl with a pony. I was no one. But maybe I deserved to be no one if I was responsible for the death of a horse.
My phone rung, vibrating on the bed next to me. It was Judy. I wanted to hear what she had to say but I also didn’t. I was sure that whatever she told me would change my life forever. I clutched Patrick closer and the strand of chestnut hair that I’d pulled from one of the broken jump poles and took a deep breath.
“Hello?” I said.
CHAPTER TWO
I listened to Judy speak, heart pounding so loud in my ears that I could hardly hear her. I clutched Patrick like he was my lifeline, the black dog not minding that I was probably squeezing him half to death. His body was warm and soft, his tail thumping gently on the bed. If they decided to put Grace to sleep, then I didn’t know what I was going to do. It wasn’t like I could stop them. I didn’t even know who her owners were.
“Are you there?” Judy said. “Did you hear what I said?”
“No, I didn’t,” I replied weakly.
“They’ve decided to operate,” she said. “They’re going to try and save her. Isn’t that great news?”
Of course the practical side of me knew that just because they were going to try and save her, didn’t mean that they’d actually succeed. Surgery was hard on horses. Their big bodies didn’t take well to lying down for extended periods of time and when they came out of the anesthesia they tended to thrash around, causing more injuries than they went into surgery for in the first place. I’d read an article about some state of the art facilities that were starting to wake the horses up from surgery in water so that they couldn’t hurt themselves but I wasn’t sure there was one in Florida.
“I said isn’t that great news?” Judy said again. She sounded like she was starting to get annoyed with me.
“Yes,” I said. It’s great,”
“Well you don’t sound like you think it's great,” she said. “I thought you’d be happy.”
Happy that the reason the mare was going into surgery was because of me in the first place? No I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy at all.
“Do you think they’ll let me see her?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Judy said. “You’d have to talk to Walter.”
“Is he mad at me?” I asked.
“He didn’t seem to be,” she said and I could imagine her shrugging like she didn’t even know why he would be.
&nb
sp; She was probably right. Horses got hurt. That was life. The fact that Walter had been using drugs to manipulate the system and his clients didn’t seem to matter. Maybe that was because they all did it. I’d been exposed to a side of the sport I knew existed but never really thought I’d see and now that I had, I couldn’t get it out of my head.
“He did say that you should get back up here and ride some more horses for him though,” Judy said. “You don’t want to lose your nerve.”
“I have lots of horses that need riding here,” I said, looking out the window. “Will you let me know when she gets out of surgery?”
“If they tell me,” Judy said. “People are busy getting on with their own lives and their own horses you know and I have to go and ride Beth. We’ve got a lesson in half an hour. Walter says he’ll get her to like water if it kills him.”
“Good luck,” I said.
What I really wanted to say was that I was sure Walter had a drug in his secret arsenal that would make her mare forget all about her fear of water but also make her so drowsy that she’d probably trip over her own legs and fall. But I made sure that they hadn’t drugged Grace. I’d been with her the whole time and she hadn’t shown any signs of being sedated. Then again, she’d been pretty pumped up. What if they’d given her something else? Something to make her fast and hyper. Something that had caused her to be careless? I pulled the covers over my head and waited.
CHAPTER THREE
In the end it was Patrick who forced me out of hiding. He had to go to the bathroom and he refused to leave my room without me. Since the prospect of dog poop on my bed sounded less appealing than going outside, I got dressed and let the dog out. He padded through the house beside me like a shadow. My wolf. My protector.
Outside I was hit by the blinding sun and put my hand up to shield my eyes from it as Patrick ran off a few feet to find a suitable spot to do his business. Bluebird nickered when he saw me and I went over to see him, reaching over the fence to stroke his face. He pushed my hand away, looking for a carrot or a treat.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything for you,” I told him.
He nudged me a few times before wandering off, a look of disappointment on his face. The other horses were off grazing. We’d had some rain overnight and the grass had perked up a little bit. Soon it would be growing like crazy and mowing would become a full time job. Jordan’s full time job. I could see him now, over in the back corner, putting up more fencing. I didn’t know what we would do without him. His help was turning out to be invaluable.
Patrick finished up and came over to me, sitting next to my leg. I looked around the farm at our happy, healthy horses and just felt sad. I didn’t want to expose them to the show life that so many accepted as normal, where drugging horses was okay and if they got injured then you just replaced them. My horses weren’t replaceable.
I was walking back towards the house, heading for my sanctuary in my room when Dad saw me. He waved and beckoned me over to the barn. I pretended to ignore him.
“Emily,” he yelled out. “I know you can see me. Get over here.”
I thought about ignoring him but I knew he’d only come after me anyway so I turned with a sigh and headed to the barn.
“What?” I said. I knew I was being rude but I couldn’t help it.
“We need to talk,” he said, motioning to a hay bale.
There was a time, at Fox Run, when we would have had this conversation in the office, sitting on leather chairs with framed photos of champions on the walls next to cork boards full of blue ribbons and championship sashes. Oh how the mighty had fallen. Now we sat on prickly hay bales in a barn that wasn’t finished, where our blue ribbons were few and far between and the life of a horse hung in the balance because of me.
“I really don’t want to talk,” I said as Patrick lay down and put his head on my feet.
“I know you don’t,” Dad said gently. “But I can’t let you pine away up in your room forever.”
“Forever?” I said. “It just happened yesterday.”
“I know,” he replied. “And that is why you really need to ride today.”
“I don’t want to,” I said. “I just need time. When I know that Grace is okay, then I’ll ride.”
“And if she’s not?” he said. “What then? You’ll give it up for good?”
“Maybe,” I said stubbornly.
“I know you won’t,” Dad said. “It’s in your blood. I know because it's in mine and every time I think I’ll just throw in the towel, I’m drawn back to these magnificent creatures who trust us with their lives and give us everything in return.”
“That’s just it,” I said. “Grace trusted me and I let her down. Now she is going to die because of me. I can’t live with that guilt and what if it happened to Bluebird or Arion or any of our horses? I’d just die. I can’t do this.”
I put my head in my hands and started to cry. Tired and beaten down by the previous day, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I couldn’t pretend I was strong when I wasn’t. Patrick started to whine, sitting up and shoving his head between my hands, licking my tears. When Dad came to sit beside me, he gave out a little growl but let him. Dad put his arm around me.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Dad said. “It was an accident.”
He didn’t know about the drugging. About the suspicious blood I’d found on Lucky’s neck or the fact that Judy had warned me. I’d ridden with Walter anyway, even though I knew something bad was going on. I’d ridden with him because I was selfish and I wanted a chance to ride at a really good show. I wanted to ride with the rich and famous because I thought they were special. Now I knew how special they really were and it wasn’t in any way that I wanted to be.
“I think I want to quit,” I said quietly, wiping my face and getting up.
I walked up to the house and this time my father didn’t stop me.
CHAPTER FOUR
The hours passed slowly and I didn’t hear anything from Judy. I texted her a couple of times but she didn’t reply. She was probably out riding her mare, having a lesson with Walter. I could see them now, schooling over a liverpool but as soon as I imagined it, all I could see were the broken poles again. It was like the image was stuck in my head and I couldn’t get it out. Dad didn’t understand. How could I ride when all I could see was danger, even when I closed my eyes?
Eventually I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up the late afternoon sun was streaming in my bedroom window and I’d heard something. A tapping noise? I wasn’t sure. But Patrick heard it. He was sitting up, his ears pricked and eyes wide. Then I heard it again as a small stone bounced off my window. This time Patrick barked.
“It’s okay,” I told him, putting my hand on him. “It’s probably only Jordan.”
I slid over on the bed and opened the window. Without looking out I yelled, “Go away Jordan. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s not Jordan,” a small voice floated up. “It’s Faith.”
I looked out the window to see Faith standing there in her riding clothes, her helmet in one hand and a bag in the other.
“Can you come down?” she said.
“No,” I told her. “I’m sick.” I fake coughed a couple of times for good measure.
“No you're not,” she said. “I know what happened to you and I’m sorry but I need to talk to you. It’s important. Please.”
Patrick came to the window and barked. I had to hold him back so that he didn’t jump out.
“Hey, did you get a dog?” Faith said.
“No, it’s a wolf and he’s going to bite your leg off,” I said but I couldn’t be mad at Faith. It wasn’t her fault I was all messed up. “We got a new horse too.”
I pointed over to the panels where Sunny was standing in the shade. Cat still hadn’t picked out a new name for the mare. If she didn’t soon then Sunny was going to stick forever since I was already getting used to calling her that.
“I know,” Faith said. “Cat sai
d she’s her horse now.”
“Well then I guess she is,” I said, no longer feeling jealous.
If I wasn’t going to ride anymore, what did it matter if Cat had the new horse. She could have all the horses, except for Bluebird and Arion. Maybe she’d turn out to be the new riding prodigy and I could be her groom.
“Could you please come down,” Faith said again. “Please, pretty please with sprinkles on top? I can’t keep yelling up at your window.”
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll be right down.”
“Yay,” Faith said, throwing her bag and helmet on the ground and flipping into a cartwheel.
I couldn’t help smiling. If anyone could cheer me up, it was Faith.
CHAPTER FIVE
“You’re going to do what?” I said.
Faith was supposed to make me feel better. She was going to cheer me up. Instead there she was giving me the worst news ever, the sort of news that if I was her, I would have been bawling my eyes out by now, not standing calmly in my pony’s stall, tacking him up.
“I told you, I’m going to send Macaroni up to Michigan before it gets too hot down here,” she said like it was a normal thing when instead she was talking about sending the love of her life away.
If I had to send Bluebird away, then I would have moved with him.
“But he’s your pony,” I said weakly.
“He’ll still be my pony,” she said. “I’m not selling him or anything but it's not fair on him to stay in Florida when he doesn’t sweat. What if this summer it's too much for him and he gets sick and dies?” she said, hugging the dun pony’s neck.
I had to hand it to Faith. She was already more mature than I was, putting the needs of her pony above that of her own.
“Besides,” she said. “I’ve grown so much over the winter that I’m really too big for him as well. I knew that I’d never be able to ride him forever. And this way I still get to keep him and get a new pony. Plus, we’ll go up there to visit so I’ll still get to see him anyway.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out,” I said.
Lead Change (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 29) Page 1
