Last Chance (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 6)

by Claire Svendsen

  “I’m sorry girl,” I told Fury. “I don’t want to do this anymore than you do but we have to. You have to jump this. Okay?”

  Everything I’d been working towards. All that time out in the field was about to be ruined but Fury’s education could wait. I just didn’t want to die.

  I gathered up the reins and grabbed a handful of mane, then kicked her on. There wasn’t much room to get a forward motion going and Fury sucked back when she realized I was asking her to jump a tree that was on fire.

  “You can do this,” I shouted. “Come on.”

  I didn’t give her any choice but to jump the tree and she did. Clearing it with feet to spare. She came to a halt, snorting and we turned around to see the whole thing burst into flames.

  “Good girl,” I praised her. “Good girl.”

  She shook her head as if to say of course she was, what did I expect? And really I expected nothing less. I’d gained her trust and it paid off with her saving us both.

  We walked through the wet world and exhaustion washed over me. It felt like we had been lost in the woods for days. I was thirsty and tired and so was Fury. She walked slower now and I laid my head on her neck and let her wander, watching the world upside down.

  Then it started to get dark. I didn’t want to spend the night out there alone. I was cold and wet and I started to shiver. If I lay down in the dirt then I might not get up and we had to keep going. We had to be found.

  I watched the sky turn black and the first star appear on the horizon. The moon was full. At least it would light our way. And there were fireflies, flitting about in the distance. They were beautiful but as we got closer, I realized that they weren’t fireflies at all. They were flashlights, bobbing about in the darkness.

  “Hello?” I called out, my voice hoarse. “We’re over here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  They came to us like a swarm of locusts, bringing blankets and water. I’d never been so happy to see people in all my life. There was Becka, all smiles and tears and Miguel, who just looked relieved.

  “We’re okay,” I said. “We’re okay.”

  “You were gone for seven hours,” Becka said. “We thought you were dead or something.”

  “No,” I said, gulping water from a bottle. “Just lost.”

  They helped me off Fury and took off her tack, throwing a warm cooler over her back.

  “I’ll take her,” I said as a groom tried to lead her away.

  “No you don’t,” Miguel said. “Let someone else take her now.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I mumbled. “There was no signal and then my phone died. I took the wrong fork.”

  He brushed off my apologies as we walked back to the barn. Between jumping out of the arena and getting lost in the woods, I was pretty sure I’d blown any chance I had of getting on the jumper team. But Fury and I had jumped over fire. It had been horrible and scary and yet we’d done it. We’d saved each other and that had to count for something.

  As we walked Becka babbled on about their afternoon lesson and the lightning storm and how she’d realized that I never would have stayed out in the rain on purpose. She was the one who kept demanding that they come out and search for me. I listened to her, too tired to talk and when we finally made it back to civilization I was led one way and Fury another. I wanted to be the one to take care of her but every muscle in my body ached and a fog had descended into my brain. To be honest, I could hardly keep my eyes open.

  “Go and take a shower and I’ll bring you some food.” Becka shoved me in the direction of our room as she saw me trying to follow Fury.

  “Okay,” I said, still shivering.

  Everyone who hadn’t been part of the search party crowded around me, wanting to know what had happened. But I was too tired to relive the whole experience all over again.

  “We got lost,” I kept saying.

  “Did you think you were going to die?” Hadley asked, sounding serious.

  “At one point, yes,” I said.

  “They were only in the woods,” I heard Lindsey say as I closed the bathroom door. “How could they possibly die from being lost in the woods?”

  But they didn’t know what it had been like out there and if things had been different and that flaming tree had fallen on us, we really would have died. It was too awful to think about and no one could ever know.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  This time no one yelled at me about using up all the hot water but I was too tired to stand in there for long anyway. By the time I dried my hair, Becka had appeared with an assortment of leftovers. There was macaroni and cheese, chicken wings, some sort of potato mush and red Jello.

  We sat on the floor in our room while I ate and Becka, Hadley and Lindsey hounded me with questions. I didn’t have the answers to most of them. It was just dumb luck that we got lost in the first place and dumb luck that we were found.

  “Miguel said you could have been out there for days,” Hadley said, sounding horrified. “The property is five hundred acres and backs on to the national forest. He said there are spots where the fences are down and if you’d gone through, we might never have found you.”

  “Well we did,” Becka snapped. “So everything is fine now.”

  But nothing felt okay. I’d made a mess of everything since the moment I got there and really all I wanted now was to go back home to Esther and Bluebird.

  “I’d better go down and check on Fury,” I said when I had finished the food.

  “No, you’d better not,” Becka said. “I heard Miguel saying that he’d better not see you down there tonight.”

  “Is he okay? Was he mad?”

  “Of course he was mad,” Lindsey said, closing her magazine with a sigh. “This isn’t a pre-school camp. Riders shouldn’t go off and get lost like that.”

  “You’d better be quiet,” Becka said. ”Or you’ll be wearing what’s left of this macaroni.”

  “Watch out,” Hadley told Lindsey. “She means it. Last time she practically punched Jess in the face.”

  “Whatever,” Lindsey sighed. “I just think it’s unprofessional, that’s all. I mean, she hasn’t even been riding with us anyway. You think your pony is a special snowflake or something? Well she’s not. We all sucked it up and got our horses to do what they were supposed to. Why couldn’t you?”

  “Why you horrible little sneak,” Becka launched at Lindsey.

  Hadley and I managed to grab hold of her arms before anything really bad happened but Lindsey was scared, I could tell from the look on her face.

  “Stop it,” I told Becka. “Please, I don’t need any more trouble.”

  It took ages before everyone calmed down enough to go to sleep and Lindsey still threatened to tell Miguel what had happened.

  “Don’t worry,” Becka said, glaring at her. “She wouldn’t dare.”

  But I wasn’t so sure. I lay there worrying about getting into more trouble while they all drifted off to sleep. I was over tired, my mind still racing with everything that had happened. When I was sure that everyone was really asleep and not faking, I pulled a sweater over my pajamas and went down to the barn. I didn’t care what anyone said. I had to check on Fury.

  The horses were all dozing in their stalls, lit only by the moon and the security lights at the end of the barn. Some of them raised their heads as I passed but most of them ignored me. When I got to Fury’s stall, it was empty.

  Fear ran through my veins like the fire we had faced earlier. They had lied to me. She wasn’t fine at all. Something had happened to her. Something bad.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  I stood there with tears in my eyes. Was she lame? Had she become sick? We’d been out there for hours without food and water, sopping wet and cold. It was stupid to think that she would have come out of that unscathed. I mean we jumped over fire for goodness sake. Maybe she’d been burned and I hadn’t even realized. The tears fell down my cheeks as I stood there in the moonlight.

  Then I heard a noise
. Soft breathing. I rushed forward and peered into the stall where Fury was lying flat out, asleep with her mouth open and snoring. Relief washed over me. I opened the stall door and fell down next to her on the clean shavings. She didn’t even stir.

  I stroked her neck and told her she was a good girl. I thanked her for saving me. And then, without meaning to, I fell asleep.

  I woke to the sunlight streaming in on me, Fury standing over me like a mare keeping her foal safe and Miguel shaking his head.

  “Dickenson,” he said. “You are a piece of work, you know that right?”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, jumping to my feet and shaking the shavings out of my hair.

  “Save it,” he put his hand up. “You have got to stop apologizing and start owning it.”

  “Owning it?” I said.

  “Take responsibility. Accept it. You made a choice, you took the left fork. Shit happened and you dealt with it. The end. These things could have happened to any of us. They don’t make you any more special or stupid than the rest of us.”

  I nodded, wondering how Miguel got to be so smart.

  “Is she really okay?” I asked, stroking Fury’s neck. She nudged me back.

  “Fine,” he said. “A few scratches but she’ll live. She’s getting the rest of the week off though.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Should I pack my bag then?”

  After all, without a horse to ride, there didn’t seem much point in sticking around.

  “Going to give up just like that?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “But…”

  “No buts. Report to the ring like everyone else. A walk in the woods might get Fury a few days off but that doesn’t apply to you. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I nodded.

  But I still had no idea what I was supposed to do when I got out to the ring. Watch everyone else ride? That sounded more like a punishment than being sent home.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  “He really told you to come out to the ring, even though you don’t have anything to ride?” Becka asked.

  I’d dashed back up to the room to change and she’d been yelling at me for five minutes for going to check on Fury in the first place, especially after Miguel had told her not to let me.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re not in trouble. Besides, I expect he’ll just make me watch and then fix all the jumps or something. You know, like punishment.”

  “You deserve it,” Lindsey huffed as she left the room.

  “That girl had better not make the team,” Becka said. “Because if she does, I’ll kill her with my bare hands.”

  “You know I probably won’t make the team either, right?” I told her.

  “Why wouldn’t you make the team? You’ve been riding a crazy pony that no one else can get to do anything. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?”

  “But I also broke the rules and caused a lot of trouble by getting lost,” I said. “And Miguel still hasn’t seen me jump.”

  “He saw you jump the arena fence,” she grinned.

  “Somehow I don’t think that counts,” I sighed.

  I shuffled through my clothes, trying to find something to wear that would impress Miguel and make me look like I was serious about being here. The green breeches were my favorite, maybe they would bring me luck and I knew I had a yellow polo shirt that would look really cute with them. I was digging it out of my bag when the horse shoe bracelet that Jordan had given me fell out. He said it was for luck too. I put it on. I needed all the luck I could get.

  I checked on Fury before breakfast and found her eating hers. She came to the bars when she saw me and let me scratch behind her ear before going back to her hay. As I went to get my own food, I couldn’t stop grinning. She had come to see me and I didn’t even have any treats for her. She finally liked me.

  I loaded my plate up with muffins and fresh fruit in the lounge.

  “Hungry much?” Justin laughed.

  “Starving,” I said, stuffing a piece of pineapple into my mouth. “Besides, I don’t have anything to be nervous about anymore. Now I can just sit back and watch you guys sweat.”

  “Yeah, because you’re not going to make the team,” Lindsey said.

  “You don’t know that,” Jess piped up from the end of the table. “Besides, you’re the one who keeps falling off all the time.”

  I smiled gratefully at her. Who knew that Jess would turn out to hate someone else at the clinic even more than me?

  Everyone else went to get their horses ready so I grabbed a brush and went to groom Fury. She was still eating so I just stood in her stall and ran the soft brush over her chestnut coat. Then I trudged out to the arena, following everyone and the horses they were going to ride and feeling pretty sorry for myself.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Miguel was already out in the ring, holding the reins of a big chestnut gelding. I guessed he was going to demonstrate something. I lined up next to the others, feeling sadly horseless. But then he beckoned me over.

  “Dickenson, come here,” he said.

  I went to stand beside him, feeling everyone’s eyes boring into me. Becka gave me an encouraging smile.

  “This is Gulliver,” he said, patting the chestnut on the neck. “But around here we just call him Gully. He’s one of my up and coming prospects but he has one problem. He likes to rush his fences and from now until the end of the clinic, you will be riding him.”

  “What?” I said.

  I had to be dreaming. That’s it. I was still asleep in Fury’s stall. I pinched my arm but nothing happened.

  “That’s not fair,” Lindsey said.

  “Excuse me?” Miguel crossed his arms. “You have an objection?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said defiantly. “Why should she get all the special treatment?”

  “Special treatment?” he said. “What exactly do you think is special about being given the most difficult horse to ride? Or being a horsewoman who puts the needs of her pony before that of everything else. Would you have sacrificed riding in the group lessons for the good of your horse?”

  “Yes,” she said sullenly.

  “I think you would not,” he shook his head. “Now that is enough.”

  He threw me up on the back of Gully who was almost seventeen hands and towered above all the other horses and ponies. I felt like I was sitting on a giant.

  “Now we only have three days left,” he said. “On Saturday I will be holding a mock show. You will be expected to act as if it is a real show. There will only be one class. The winner will be guaranteed a spot on the team.”

  Becka gave me a thumbs up but just because I was on one of Miguel’s horses, didn’t mean I was automatically going to win. I had no idea what Gully was like. I had to get used to him first. I’d have preferred to ride Fury. At least I trusted her and knew what she was thinking, even when she was scared. Miguel said that Gully liked to rush too. For all I knew, that meant he was going to slam me into the ground the first time we took a jump.

  We warmed up on the rail. I felt like I was riding a giraffe. Gully’s stride was twice as large as some of the ponies but he was sweet and responsive. I didn’t have any trouble at the trot or canter, which was a relief after the disaster that had been Fury.

  “Gymnastic line down the middle please, one at a time,” Miguel said.

  The line of jumps was four cross rails set up with one stride between them. The other horses had obviously been jumping them all week and bounced down obediently. When it was my turn, I tried to concentrate on everything Fury had taught me. To stay relaxed with my body, to not jump ahead and to not fight about slowing him down.

  But I didn’t have to worry. Gully was a gentleman. Where Fury rushed because she panicked, Gulliver was just super excited. He loved to jump and his brain was nowhere near fried. He bounced down the line with pricked ears and I managed to halt him at the end of the ring without any fear that he was going to go over the rail at the end.

 
“Very good,” Miguel said, which may not have seemed like a lot of praise but coming from him, it totally was.

  “I can’t believe you get to ride one of Miguel’s horses,” Becka gushed as we walked back to the barn.

  “We’re all riding Miguel’s horses,” I said.

  “Yes but this is different. Gulliver is a horse he rides. One that he is bringing up through the ranks to hopefully turn into a Grand Prix horse one day. He must trust you an awful lot.”

  “Or he just ran out of horses and this was all he had left,” I said. “Please don’t make a big deal out of this. I’m already nervous enough as it is. What if I break him or something?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said.

  But everyone else was just as awestruck as Becka was, all crowding around Gulliver and trying to pet him. It was like holding the reins of a superstar.

  “I still don’t think it’s fair,” Lindsey stomped by, dragging her horse behind her.

  “I can’t believe we have to share a room with that girl,” Becka said.

  “Forget her,” I said. “Let’s just concentrate on the show.”

  In the afternoon we went over the jumps in the field. First as individual lines and then as a complete course. Lindsey had trouble and so did Hadley, their horses having rails down all over the place but Gulliver went clean. As long as I stayed quiet and didn’t try to fight with him, he popped over everything I asked and came back to me when we had finished without a fight. I’d never ridden a horse with such strength before. It was a truly amazing feeling.

  “See, she can ride,” I pointed to Jess as she went over the course with Oasis, the gray mare we had once all wanted.

  “Yeah on a push button pony,” Becka said.