“Your gift got lost in the mail.” I quickly thought up a lie. “I’m really sorry. I’ll have to get you something else.”
“You don’t have to get me anything,” he said. “I know that money is tight.”
My face flushed red. Jordan didn’t seem to think that it was weird to talk openly about money whereas everyone in my family would rather talk about anything else but money. I didn’t even know how much my father had made working at Fox Run or how much he was thinking about selling Canterbury for.
“Well,” Jordan said with a nudge. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Right,” I said.
I was sort of hoping that he would just go away and that I could open it later because I always felt awkward opening gifts in front of people. If it was something awful, like Mickey’s makeup then I’d be left trying to fake looking happy and grateful and if it was something really nice that I loved then I’d just feel even more depressed about not having anything for him.
I tore the paper off slowly, stealing myself for what might be inside.
“Just rip it,” Jordan said, sounding more excited than I was.
I tore a big chunk of the paper off and there in my hands lay a brand new leather halter. It was soft and buttery and as I turned it over in my hands, I saw that it had Arion’s name on it. And I knew how much it cost because I’d seen them in his mother’s tack store, freshly shipped over from Germany all sweet smelling and supple and I knew that they cost more than I’d ever be able to spend on Jordan in return.
“You shouldn’t have,” I said, trying to blink back the tears I felt welling up behind my eyes.
“Well just because Arion isn’t your team horse,” Jordan said. “Doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t have nice stuff too. I’ve seen that chewed up mess he’s been wearing and you can’t go to shows looking like that.”
“Thank you so much,” I whispered.
I couldn’t believe that Jordan had noticed something that Mickey hadn’t. Sure, she wasn’t around as much anymore but whose fault was that? And she knew me. She’d known me my whole life. She would have known that I had no use for makeup and even if she was trying to force me to grow up and be like her, she should have known that was never going to happen.
“Come on,” Jordan said, politely looking away as I wiped a stray tear from my cheek. “Let’s go and see how it looks on him and then I need to ask you a favor.”
“A favor?” I said as we walked towards the field. “What kind of favor.”
“Don’t worry, it’s one I think you’ll like,” he said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The halter fit Arion perfectly, just like I knew it would. After all, my gray horse did have an average sized head and Jordan had grown up in a tack store.
“No chewing this one,” I said as I slipped the halter back off and Arion pranced away from us, happy that all I’d wanted was to put his halter on and off and give him a cookie.
“Maybe he didn’t chew his own halter,” Jordan said. “Maybe that horse did. He looks like a troublemaker for sure.”
“Oscar is not a troublemaker,” I said, looking over to where the bay horse was standing next to the fence looking sappily at Canterbury. “His owner is though.”
“Oscar?” Jordan said. “That name sounds familiar. Is his owner a woman who drives a silver Mercedes?”
“Yes,” I said, taking the halter into the tack room and hanging it up carefully on a hook. “Cora. She’s a troublemaker. Or at least I think she is. Anyway, Molly doesn’t like her and that is bad for us, which is bad for business.”
“Cora, right.” Jordan nodded. “She used to come into our store all the time. She’d buy stuff and take it home and use it and then return it all dirty and stinky, saying that it didn’t work and that she wanted her money back. We eventually had to ban her from the store.”
“You had to ban her from the store?” I said. “That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not,” Jordan replied. “I hope your dad got paid up front. Cora likes to pretend that she has money but to be honest, I don’t think she does. Either that or she just doesn’t like spending it.”
“I’ll mention it to Dad,” I said, feeling a little sick.
If my father hadn’t got a check from Cora before the horse came then we were essentially boarding and training him for free and if Cora decided that she didn’t like it here after all, she could just whisk Oscar away and we’d never see a dime. If she could get him in the trailer, which I doubted since it had taken my father all night just to get him here. It was the only thing that stopped me from blindly running into the house and finding out right that second but there was something else that I needed to find out first.
“So about this favor then?” I said nervously.
“Maybe it would be easier to show you,” he said.
“Show me? Where?” I said. “You don’t expect me to get on that death trap with you, do you?” I pointed to his motorbike, feeling my palms start to sweat.
“I brought you a helmet,” he said with a grin, meaning that he’d meant to whisk me away all along and now that he’d given me a nice shiny halter and a heads up about the trouble that Cora might cause us, I didn’t feel like I could exactly say no. I wasn’t very thrilled about being pressured into it though. Dad wasn’t very impressed either but he didn’t try to stop me.
“You can forbid me from going if you like,” I said, hoping that if he told me I couldn’t go then it would be a valid excuse but Dad wasn’t really paying attention anyway.
He was on the phone, on hold while some cheesy music played through the tiny speakers like people with miniscule instruments were making it and he waved me away with a flick of his hand. Honestly, the one time I actually wanted him to stop me from doing something and he couldn’t even be bothered. Typical.
“Ready to go?” Jordan asked when I got back outside.
He’d been sitting on his bike and got up, handing me a slightly battered helmet.
“I guess,” I said with a gulp, taking the helmet from him and looking at it. “But why is this thing all scratched up?”
“Because the last girl I took on my bike flew off when I went around a corner too fast,” he said with a wicked grin.
I shoved it back into his hands and took a step backwards.
“I’m kidding.” He laughed. “I’m just kidding. Come on, you’ll be fine. I promise you I’ll drive as slow as an old lady.”
“You’d better,” I told him.
And despite my best judgment I got on the motorbike.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I held on to Jordan for dear life as we sped along the country roads. He said that he wasn’t going to go very fast but it felt like we were speeding along at a hundred miles an hour, even though I knew that it wasn’t true because I could see the speedometer over his left shoulder and we were barely going over forty five.
But the speed made the wind cold. It hit my body like a thousand knives stabbing me and I tucked myself behind Jordan and held him tight. I could only hope that we got to wherever we were going sooner rather than later because my hands were starting to go numb and if I couldn’t hold on to Jordan then I would probably fall off the bike as he sped around a corner, just like the girl who maybe did exist. After all, Jordan had cool friends and a life that didn’t always involve me and I was sure that he’d been on many dates with lots of girls. Makeup wearing girls. Cool makeup wearing girls. In fact one of the girls who had been in his group of friends at the fair had been wearing black lipstick, something I knew I’d never be able to pull off in a million years.
We whipped past fields and trees and I couldn’t help thinking about the time that Jordan spun off his bike and crashed into a tree. I had too much to do to end up in hospital thanks to a stupid motorbike ride and I was starting to wish that I’d told Jordan that my father had forbidden me from going when the bike started to slow down and turned into a narrow drive. We finally pulled to a stop in front of a small barn.
There were two stalls, all tidy and neat with potted plants hanging from swinging baskets. A fat black cat was sleeping in a patch of sun, stretched out in the soft sand and flexing its claws and in the pasture was a black horse, his coat mostly covered by a turnout sheet.
“That’s Wizard, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes,” Jordan replied, getting off the bike and pulling me along with him. “And that is my house.” He pointed to a small house nestled behind the barn.
“Your mother isn’t home, is she?” I asked, looking around nervously.
“Of course not,” Jordan said. “She’s at the store, where she always is.”
“Okay, good,” I said. “So what are we doing here?”
“I want to sell Wizard,” he said. “Since I’m not riding him anymore.”
“But you should ride him more,” I said. “You could come to shows with us. It would be fun.”
“The riding thing has only ever been a hobby for me,” he said with a sigh. “But Wizard is so much more than a trail horse. He is a show horse and he deserves a home where he can do his job.”
“So what do you need me for?” I asked.
“I want you to help me sell him,” he said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Wizard was in the cross ties and Jordan was tacking him up while I was still trying to explain that me helping him sell the horse was a bad idea. A very bad idea. His mother wouldn’t like it at all and besides, he didn’t need my help anyway. Wizard was a nice horse. Probably a little out of shape but nothing that a few weeks of regular work wouldn’t fix and someone would snap him up in a heartbeat because he was safe and well trained and he looked kind of like Black Beauty.
“You know you want to ride him,” Jordan said, handing me a helmet. At least this time it was the sort of helmet that I actually wanted to wear.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you ride him?”
“Because I don’t know what I am doing,” he said.
“I seem to remember that you were a natural,” I told him with a grin.
“I know, a natural who doesn’t even care about their talent. At least that is what my mother tells me but I don’t have time for him. Can’t you help me? Please?”
He made a begging face and clutched his hands together like he was praying. I didn’t want to disappoint him and of course I wanted to ride Wizard. He was a nice horse. We’d had him at Fox Run for a little while and he was sweet and fun to ride. Why wouldn’t I just jump up into the saddle? But all I could think about was Taylor and the look on her face when she saw me riding her son’s horse on her property without her consent when she didn’t even like me anymore and I didn’t know why.
“I’ll ride him if you tell me why your mom doesn’t like me,” I said, checking the girth.
Jordan was silent for a moment then he said, “I don’t know why.”
“I think you do,” I said.
“I don’t,” he replied, his face serious. “Not exactly. All I know is that she liked you just fine before your dad showed up and ever since then she’s been all weird about both him and you and the fact that you and I are hanging out.”
“What on earth could my dad have to do with us?” I said.
“I don’t know?” Jordan shrugged. “Maybe you should ask your father.”
“I can try,” I said. “But he likes to talk about things like that as much as your mom does which is not a lot.”
“Well then I guess we’ll never find out,” he said.
“But we should, don’t you think?” I said. “I mean if we are going to continue hanging out then it's going to get really awkward.”
“Only if I start taking you on actual dates,” Jordan said.
“So this isn’t a date then?” I said, my face flushing red.
“No,” he said. “It is a business arrangement.”
“Oh so I get paid then?” I asked him.
“Well if you are going to sell him for me, then you’ll get a commission,” Jordan said with a wink. “That makes us business partners.”
“I like the sound of that,” I said, rubbing Wizard’s dark face. “But he’s so cute. Are you sure you don’t want to keep him?”
“I’m sure,” Jordan said. “Now get up in that saddle before my mom really does come home.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I rode Wizard on a flat piece of grass where there were a few orange cones and half a dressage arena marked out. There was another horse grazing in the other field, a chestnut with one white sock. Jordan said that was his mother’s horse. I wasn’t sure what he was going to think about being all alone if Wizard was sold. Horses were herd animals. They liked to have other horses around that they could see even if they weren’t in the same field or paddock. But Jordan seemed insistent on selling Wizard and I didn’t know why. I hated the thought of selling horses. What if they eventually ended up in a bad home? You did your best to make sure they were sold to nice owners but you couldn’t always keep track of them forever.
Wizard seemed happy to be working. He wasn’t sour or mad that I was asking him to collect himself and use his muscles. In fact he was just as nice as I remembered and he didn’t seem out of shape at all.
“Are you sure you haven’t been riding him?” I asked Jordan.
“Oh I get on him every once in a while,” he said.
“I think you get on him more than every once in a while,” I said.
“Maybe.” He shrugged.
I got off and Jordan patted the black horse on the neck.
“Get on,” I told him.
“Nah,” he said. “I’m not dressed to ride.”
“Go on,” I said. “I’ll give you a lesson.”
“Next time,” he said.
“Alright,” I said.
We took care of Wizard, rubbing him down with a soft brush. Then we both fed him cookies and carrots before putting his sheet back on.
“Is he going back out or into his stall?” I asked.
“Better put him back out,” Jordan said. “That way Mom will never know we were here.”
“That is what you think.” Jordan and I both jumped, scaring Wizard as Taylor’s voice came from behind us.
“Mom,” Jordan said. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here more like?” Taylor said.
“I do live here,” Jordan said.
“Yes you do,” Taylor said. “For now.”
I wondered what that was supposed to mean. Was she kicking Jordan out because he was still spending time with me?
“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” I said.
“Too late,” Taylor replied, her eyes looking me up and down coldly.
“Jordan brought me here,” I said, feeling defensive. “I didn’t just show up on my own.”
“And I am an adult,” Jordan said. “You can’t tell me who my friends can and can’t be.”
I was starting to feel a little sick. Jordan had brought me into this mess so he’d better jolly well get me out of it.
“I’ll just put Wizard back out,” I said.
I led the horse back to his field and stood there for ages petting him as Jordan and his mother talked. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but I knew that they had to be arguing about me. I just wished I knew why. I’d never done anything to Taylor, except maybe I hadn’t gone to enough shows to make her sponsoring me worthwhile but all that was over now so what did it matter? And what did that have to do with me spending time with Jordan anyway?
“Come on,” Jordan finally came over to get me. “Let’s go.”
“What about your mom?” I said. “Can’t we try and explain things to her? I want her to like me again.”
“I tried,” Jordan said. “She won’t listen and when Wizard has been sold, I’ll be moving out and then she won’t be able to tell me who I can and can’t hang out with.”
The ride home was a blur. I felt numb, both from the cold and the fact that Taylor hated me. I wasn’t the kind of per
son that had to be friends with everybody but it bothered me all the same because no matter what I told myself I did like Jordan and I wanted to continue hanging out with him. My dad liked Jordan too. I didn’t know what Taylor’s problem was but I was going to have to get to the bottom of it.
“Sorry about that,” Jordan said when he dropped me off. “I really did think she would be gone all day.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I told him, handing him back the bike helmet, even though it kind of was. “I probably shouldn’t go over there anymore though.”
“Well maybe I’ll just have to bring Wizard over here then,” he replied with a smile.
“Great,” I said.
But as he sped away and I looked around, I wondered where exactly I was supposed to put the horse. It was winter now. The grass wasn’t growing and the more horses we took in, the more they ate what was left of the grass down to the roots and our pastures were starting to look more like sand pits. How were we going to attract more clients if we didn’t even have any grass?
“Did you have a nice time?” Dad asked me later.
I hadn’t gone into the house, not wanting to see anyone right away. Instead I threw myself into cleaning the stalls and putting in more shavings. At least the work warmed me up.
“No I didn’t really have a very nice time,” I said, leaning on my pitchfork. “And I need to talk to you about Taylor.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
We sat in the barn on the hay bales, me up on the top of the pile and Dad down below. I liked looking down on the top of his head. It made me feel superior even though I knew I wasn’t.
Barn Sour (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 26) Page 4
