Thanks to the moon, I didn’t have to use my flashlight as I walked quickly across the grass to the fence line. It had been fixed now so I climbed over and made my way through the tall dead grass in the abandoned field. So much good grazing that had gone to waste because it was too close to our undesirable farm.
The lights were still on at Jess’s house, shining out into the darkness like rays from a lighthouse. I crouched down in the tall weeds, my heart pounding. If they hadn’t gone to sleep then it was too risky. I couldn’t let myself be caught. But the house was big. More bedrooms and bathrooms than any normal family could ever need. The windows that were dark were probably the ones where Jess and her family were sleeping and the lit ones were most likely empty, awaiting the fancy guests who arrived when they threw lavish parties.
I waited for a while, watching for any movement or noise. The flash of a shadow past a lit window that would let me know that people were still awake or a splash in the pool as they all went for a midnight swim. But after a while all I could hear was my own breathing and a rustling in the grass behind me that could very well have been something worse than Jess like a coyote or a snake. I stood up, wincing as I got a cramp in my calf, rubbing it for a few minutes before moving on.
The manicured fields up by the barn were empty. Jess would never let her horses out at night. There was a gush of water as the sprinklers were working overtime in one corner of the field, keeping the grass unnaturally green for this time of year like a golf course. I ran across this field where there was no tall grass to hide me and then crouched by the gate.
The barn was dark except for the large light over the entrance. It lit up a circle of ground beneath it. If I got caught in that light, if someone happened to look down to the barn at that exact moment, I’d be spotted. Instead I ran around the back, heart in my throat.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Inside the barn the darkness was softer. There were dim security lights that lit up the aisle and the horses shifted quietly in their stalls. The scent of shavings was thick in the air, the stalls filled with far more than we could ever afford. I walked down the aisle, looking in on the horses, feeling like a criminal. I didn’t want to be doing this. I wanted to trust Jess but I couldn’t.
The stalls were filled with the same horses they had been before. They were all sleeping, standing with their heads down or laying in the shavings. The pregnant mares were flat out, the growing foals in their bellies making them tired and they probably felt safe in the barn. Why shouldn’t they? The only one that was unsettled was the new horse, the big black stallion. His head was up as he watched me warily. It kind of freaked me out. He seemed to know that I wasn’t supposed to be there and if he’d been a watchdog, he probably would have torn my leg off by now. As it was he was content to snort at me and stomp his hoof. I couldn’t help wondering if he was the horse that Jess would be taking to the show and whether or not he would kill her in the process.
On the other side of the aisle was a pretty chestnut mare, the horse that Jess had trailered to her lesson and in the stall next to her was a horse in the back, standing in the dark shadows. I knew it. I knew that the stall hadn’t just been used temporarily. It had been dirty because it belonged to another horse. Sam had lied. And the only reason she would have done that was because Jess had Wizard. I stood there fuming, hand already on my cell phone ready to call the police and my father and everyone I knew to tell them that Jess was a thief and a liar but something stopped me.
“Wizard?” I whispered.
The horse didn’t move.
“Wizard?”
This time I stepped closer. It had to be Wizard. It was the only explanation. But the horse in the stall was smaller than Wizard and his coat wasn’t black. As he shifted a hind leg I saw gray in the darkness. I pressed my face against the cold bars, blinking back tears. I’d been so sure. I thought I had it all figured out but Jess didn’t have Wizard at all. But as the horse stepped forward I felt something familiar. The old memory of a soft gray nose and the dapples of a coat I once knew. A horse I’d loved long before Bluebird.
“Harlow?” I whispered. “Is that really you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
I stood there in the dark, fuming. At first I thought I’d made a mistake. It couldn’t be Harlow standing there in Jess’s barn. Esther had given him away to a good home where he was going to be an equine massage demo horse. He was retired. He’d been lame. There was no reason for Jess to want him and besides, the woman who had taken him had been under contract to give him back to Esther if she didn’t want him anymore or if she couldn’t take care of him for some reason. But I realized that Esther was gone. Sand Hill was empty. Liesl couldn’t contact Esther even if she’d wanted to and somehow Jess had got hold of the big, sweet gelding but why? What could she possibly want with him?
The lights flicked on and my heart jumped into my throat. I’d been caught red handed, standing there in the barn. A trespasser. Now I would be the one they called the cops on. I turned slowly, expecting to see Mr. Eastford standing there with his shotgun or Sam but instead it was Jess, a long dark coat over her pajamas and a scowl on her face.
“What are you doing in my barn?” she said.
“What are you doing with my horse?” I replied, holding onto the bars of Harlow’s stall.
“He’s not your horse,” she replied. “But then again he never really was, was he? And besides, you guys just gave him away anyway.”
“Esther didn’t give him away,” I said. “She retired him. He’s lame.”
“He’s not lame anymore,” Jess said.
“But you have all these other horses,” I spluttered. “Imported horses, talented jumpers. What on earth could you possibly want with an old, retired school horse that I’m sure is still mostly lame unless you’ve got him drugged up to his eyeballs.”
Jess came closer. She smelled of roses and arrogance. I wanted to yell at her but I was trying to stay calm. If I stayed calm then she would and maybe I wouldn’t end up being arrested after all.
“I want him here because then it means that you can’t have him,” she said, her voice cold. “And now you know how it feels.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “Is it Wizard? Do you have him? Because if you do, please give him back to Jordan. It’s not fair to make him suffer just because of me.”
“No,” Jess said like I was some kind of idiot. “I don’t know anything about that stupid missing horse. I’m talking about Hashtag.”
I stood there in disbelief. I always knew that Jess had formed a bond with Hashtag. He was the horse that she’d ridden better than all the others. I hadn’t wanted to believe it but she’d had a connection with him that she’d never had with any other horse and I knew that the only reason he’d been sold was because her father knew that. He was getting back at her for not winning enough or not being good enough and I’d known it but had still allowed my father to let us keep him, knowing deep down that it would hurt Jess. Well it had hurt her, more than I’d realized and now she was making me pay for it.
“If you want him so bad, why don’t you get your father to buy him back then?” I said. “We don’t have the space for him anyway.”
“You mean you can’t get him to be a jumper anymore, right?” Jess said.
I guess she had spies everywhere. She probably knew more about us than we knew about ourselves. I wondered if she’d snuck into our barn at night as well or hidden in the tall weeds, watching me ride, watching me fail at getting Hashtag to be a jumper again.
“Or we could trade,” I said eagerly. “Hashtag for Harlow.”
“You really think your father would let you trade a perfectly decent Warmblood for some old lame school horse,” Jess said with a cold laugh.
“You said he wasn’t lame,” I replied.
“He’s not,” she said. “A fact you’ll get to see for yourself tomorrow.”
“You’re taking him to the show?” I said.
“It was mea
nt to be a surprise, your surprise and now you’ve gone and ruined it,” she said with an over exaggerated sigh.
“But you’ve got that new horse.” I pointed to the black stallion. “And this one.” I motioned to the chestnut mare. “They all have to be better than Harlow is.”
“That’s not the point, is it,” she said.
She was closer to me now. I could see a vein sticking out on her forehead. I knew that she loved every minute of this. She’d probably replayed it over and over in her mind, the moment when I found out that she had a horse I’d once ridden and loved. She knew it would destroy me and it was. She might as well have taken Bluebird because that was how badly it hurt.
“Please don’t do this Jess,” I begged. “I’ll do anything. Give you anything. Just let me have Harlow.”
Jess laughed. The sound rang out in the barn, all hollow and distorted, just like her soul. I had to wonder if she even had a heart and if she did, why she was so intent on breaking mine.
“There is nothing you have that I want,” she said. “Not anymore. Now get out of my barn.”
I stood my ground for a moment, wondering if perhaps I could open the stall door and leap on Harlow bareback, gallop him away from Jess to safety. But where could we go that she wouldn’t find us? Nowhere. I took one last longing look at Harlow and then I ran before Jess changed her mind and called the cops on me after all. I ran with tears in my eyes because I knew that Jess would break Harlow and when she was done with him he wouldn’t even be sound enough to be retired. He’d have to be put down. She’d end his life just to get back at me and there was nothing I could do about it.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
“You’re up early,” Dad said the next morning.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said.
I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t been asleep at all. I didn’t think he’d be amused since I was still technically recovering from walking pneumonia. Instead I braided my horse and my pony in the middle of the night while they glared at me because I wasn’t letting them sleep. Then I cleaned all my tack again, scrubbing the leather with fury. I’d gone over to Jess’s barn expecting to find a missing horse and instead I’d found a completely different one. One that I hadn’t even been looking for, one I hadn’t thought about in a long time and that made me feel horrible and guilty.
I should have checked in on him. Called Liesl. Made sure that Harlow was doing okay. Instead I’d just assumed that he was. That he had a forever home with her and I’d been wrong. He’d needed me and I let him down just like I let Wizard down. Just another thing to feel guilty about.
“Are you okay?” Dad asked, squinting at me in the pre-dawn darkness.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s load up the horses.”
I sat in the truck trying to come up with a plan to get Harlow back but I couldn’t think of one. Jess would hold onto him until the day he died because she knew I wanted him. Even offering Hashtag up on a platter hadn’t been enough. She didn’t want her heart horse back now. Instead she just wanted revenge. And Harlow had been my heart horse once upon a time even though he’d never belonged to me and couldn’t jump anymore. Or so we’d thought. What drugs did Jess have him on to make him sound enough to jump? At least if he showed even the slightest hint of lameness, I knew that Duncan wouldn’t let her compete on him. But what if he wasn't going to be her team horse? What if she was competing him in the other classes like I was going to do with Arion? Then no one would be able to stop her. Maybe the judges would if Harlow was really obviously lame but I suspected that he wouldn’t be. Jess wouldn’t bring him to the show unless she was sure she’d be able to compete him and this wasn’t a rated show. It wasn’t like they’d be drug testing the horses.
“I’m sure you’ll do well today,” Dad said as we got closer to the show grounds. “The whole team will. Last time was a learning experience. You guys will get better with each show.”
“I know.” I nodded, still lost in a daydream where I stole Harlow away from Jess.
“And I think you were right to bring Arion. His training is important too,” he carried on, giving me some kind of pep talk.
I really just wanted him to stop talking but if I told him that then he’d know that something was really wrong and try to drag it out of me. But I couldn’t tell him. He’d never understand. He didn’t get the whole loving horses thing. He liked them and I think he was even fond of Canterbury and that was the reason that he hadn’t sold him yet but he didn’t get loving a horse no matter if it was old or lame or if it wasn’t the best jumper in the world.
I stared out the window, listening to him talk and wondering if maybe his way wasn’t the better way but when we pulled into the show grounds and I saw all the horses there my heart swelled because I knew I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t love them so much and love the life that they allowed me to lead. Somehow I knew I’d get Harlow back and find Wizard, I just wasn’t sure how.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
It was a relief to find that Jess hadn’t arrived yet. We found the team barn and Dad parked by the stalls and I went to find Duncan, our coach. He was in one of the empty stalls, fluffing the bedding.
“I’m here,” I said.
“Great.” He looked up. “You’re the first to arrive so you get your pick of the stalls.”
“Just make sure I’m stabled next to Jess,” I said.
“Next to her?” He laughed. “You’re kidding, right? Don’t you mean furthest away?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Not this time.”
“Alright.” He shrugged. “If that is what you want.”
“It is,” I replied.
So we got the two stalls on the end and Duncan said he’d put Jess next to us, if he could. There was always the chance that Jess would flip out and refuse to put her horses anywhere near me but I didn’t want to fight her today. I wanted to find out how she’d managed to get her hands on Harlow and how I was going to get him back and I knew that I wouldn't get anywhere by yelling at her. To get somewhere, I’d have to play the game as well as she did and that meant putting on an act, faking nice and I was going to fake nice so much that she’d want to give me Harlow in the end.
“You got everything?” Dad asked. “I have to go back for Macaroni and Faith. Their class isn’t until this afternoon.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t forget your flyers,” he said, handing them to me out of the truck window.
I looked at Wizard’s sweet face staring back up at me. I’d almost forgotten that my mission had been to come to the show and find out if anyone had seen Jordan’s horse because now Harlow was the only thing in my head. One horse missing and one horse found and neither of them in my possession. It was going to be a long day.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
The show grounds were the same. It felt like I’d never left. The same horses and riders. The same smells. I stood there watching grooms leading horses with coolers tossed over their saddles, riders with bleary eyes clutching cups of steaming coffee as they led their horse out to the warm up ring or sat in the saddle talking to friends.
It was like coming home. As though the world between shows was just a waiting room and this was real life. A couple of girls waved at me and I waved back. I was starting to become a part of the group collective. I looked at my pony all braided and wearing his monogrammed sheet. Then I looked at Arion with his fancy halter that Jordan got me for Christmas and I thought back to the flyers and Wizard.
“I’m just going to go and hand some of these out,” I said to Duncan.
He was still shuffling more bedding into the stalls, apparently not just the team trainer but the groom as well.
“What are they?” he said.
“We lost a horse during that bad storm,” I said, feeling sick as I said the words out loud. They made me sound like a failure. “He got off our farm and disappeared.”
“Sounds like foul play to me.” Duncan took one of the fly
ers. “Nice horse. Did you call the police?”
“Yes, of course,” I replied. “But they didn’t really seem interested. I keep calling them to find out if they had any new leads but now I think they just want me to go away. They don’t care.”
“Well we do,” Duncan said. “The horse community won’t stand for something like that. Go plaster them wherever you can and I’ll talk to some of my connections. Someone must know where that horse is.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling relieved.
I’d thought that maybe Duncan would think I was an idiot for losing a horse but he didn’t at all. It wasn’t something that happened all the time but I was sure that we weren’t the first people in the history of the world to have a horse get off their farm.
“Also, I have a class with my other horse at ten thirty,” I said. “That won’t interfere with the training session, will it?”
“I see that,” he said, looking at Arion. “Quarter horse?”
“Thoroughbred,” I said.
“Why didn’t use him to try out for the team?” Duncan took a closer look at my pretty braided gray who was stuffing his face with hay and didn’t even bother to look up.
“He’s still green,” I said. “He doesn’t have the experience that Bluebird does but he’s coming along really well. Actually a lot faster than I thought he would.”
“Well then I look forward to seeing you two go and don’t worry, it won’t mess up the training session. Besides, Jess is entered in that class too.”
“She is?” I said, my heart falling.
“On a gray horse as well, I think,” Duncan said.
“Is she the alternate today again?” I asked, hoping that at least she might be off the team but Duncan shook his head.
Heart Horse (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 27) Page 7
