CHAPTER EIGHT
“My stepsister is the spawn of the devil,” I said.
“All sisters are like that,” Chloe replied.
I’d gone to the barn to say goodbye, which wasn’t making me feel any better. Especially since Faith and Mackenzie were huddled in a corner, whispering to each other and crying. I wasn’t the only one who was going to be sad to see them go.
“You know she’s just doing this to annoy you. You have to ignore it, and then maybe she’ll stop.”
“I don’t think she’ll ever stop annoying me.” I leaned against the stall door and sighed. “Do you guys really have to go?”
“We have to do what Frank says so I guess we don’t really have a choice.”
“But I’m going to miss you so much.”
Chloe had become my riding friend. She was the one I’d been able to talk to about everything horsey now that Mickey was more interested in hanging at the beach and talking about boys.
“Do you think maybe you’ll come back next summer?” I asked hopefully.
“That would be cool,” she said.
“Then we’ll just pretend that it’s already planned and you are definitely coming.” I grinned.
But deep down I didn’t even know if there was going to be a Sand Hill Stables by next summer.
Melanie had piled all the tack trunks up in the aisle. We sat on them while we waited for the shipping van to come, watching the storm clouds billow up on the horizon.
“I won’t miss the thunder,” Chloe said. “It still scares me.”
“I bet you won’t miss the mosquitos either.” I scratched a bite on my arm that had left an itchy, red welt.
“There are lots of things I won’t miss.” She paused. “But I will miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
“You have to promise to stay in touch. I post everything on my Facebook page so you’ll get to see if Winter is behaving and if Freddy is freaking out.”
“And you’ll get to see that Bluebird still likes rolling in wet sand every chance he gets,” I said. “But it won’t be the same.”
The shipping van finally rumbled down the drive and the horses were loaded up. I wasn’t sad to see the black mare, Viper, go. She’d caused me a lot of problems thanks to the fact that I had been able to ride her better than her owner, Jake. But fat little Cupcake and cheeky Rolf and Chloe’s horses Winter and Freddy? I blinked back tears as they disappeared one by one.
The tack trunks were loaded along with hay and grain for the journey and then they were gone. I stood at the end of the barn waving as Chloe and Mackenzie got into Melanie’s truck. Frank had already flown up north to take back the reins of his farm. I wondered if I would ever get to ride with him again.
“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” Esther said.
She’d come to stand beside me, comforting Faith who was a complete mess now that her best friend had been taken away.
“And now what happens?” I looked around at the half empty barn.
“That is a good question,” Esther said. Then she just walked off into the office without giving an answer.
I felt bad for Faith, who was still sobbing.
“Come on,” I said. “Want to go for a ride? You still have Princess for the rest of the summer.”
“Okay,” she said, wiping her eyes.
Neither of us felt like riding in the ring so we walked our ponies around the empty fields and then headed for the trail. Bluebird and Princess walked side by side. They were happy even if we weren’t and though the storm hadn’t materialized, there was at least a breeze.
“Where is your brother?” I asked Faith. “He hasn’t been around much lately.”
“I don’t think he likes riding very much anymore,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. He’s dumb.”
I thought about how Ethan had threatened to give up hunters and jumpers for eventing. I thought that was bad enough but now he didn’t want to ride at all? What was wrong with people? He had a gorgeous chestnut Warmblood standing in the barn just waiting to be ridden.
“I guess he’s been surfing a lot,” I said, knowing how much Ethan loved the water.
“He surfs all the time and I think my parents are kind of glad. It’s less expensive than horses. I heard them say so.”
“Do you think they’ll sell Wendell?” I asked, feeling panicked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. I wish I was big enough to ride him. I want a horse of my own and my stupid brother doesn’t even want his anymore. It’s not fair.”
“I know,” I said. “Don’t worry. I have a stupid stepsister who now says she wants to ride because she knows it’s going to drive me up the wall. She doesn’t even like horses.”
“That stinks.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It does.”
We reached the top of the rise and look down at the farm below. There was a girl on a black horse and one on a bay who was jumping while the other watched. It was Amber on Belle and Jess on Hashtag.
“Who is that?” Faith stood in her stirrups to get a better look.
“That’s Jess’s new horse, Hashtag,” I said.
“He’s pretty cool. Look at him go,” Faith said. “Hashtag awesome jumper.”
“Don’t,” I groaned. “Do you know how annoying that is going to be at the next show?”
Hashtag leapt over a towering oxer and then rolled back neatly to a skinny vertical. Amber clapped as her sister let the horse walk. In all the failures that her father had brought home, the horses who were too much for her to ride, he’d finally found a horse she could actually win on. And part of me realized that she could now accomplish much more than I could with my pony. She could enter really big classes. People would notice her and it wouldn’t be because she was a pony rider, it would be because she was on the back of a horse that was competitive with the real pros.
Not able to watch anymore, I turned Bluebird away. “Let’s go back to the barn.”
CHAPTER NINE
Back at the barn I cleaned the vacated stalls, tossing the good bedding up into banks to let the mats dry. Sand Hill had never been this empty before. There were always lesson horses and boarders and waifs and strays that Esther sometimes took in from time to time. I wondered if maybe she’d find someone else to rent half the barn to. Someone who, like Frank, would take me to shows with them but most people didn’t just want half a barn. They wanted a whole barn all to themselves. At least that’s what I’d want.
“The stalls are done,” I told Esther. “Do you need me to do anything else?”
She was standing next to her Paint mare, Saffron, stroking her black and white neck.
“No, that’s everything,” she said. “You can go if you like.”
“Are you going to ride?” I asked hopefully.
It had been a while since I’d seen Esther in the saddle and Saffron had been the jumper prospect she bought to replace Harlow, the gray Thoroughbred who’d been retired due to lameness issues. Only she never rode anymore.
“No, I’m not going to ride. In fact, I’m thinking of selling her.”
“What?” I cried. “But you can’t. It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair is that I have this perfectly good horse that needs riding and training and no time to do it. If she sits here for much longer, she won’t be worth anything at all. No one wants an untrained horse.”
“But don’t you want to ride her?” I said.
Esther looked wistfully at the mare. “I thought I did but now, I don’t know.”
I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. When Frank had first come, I knew she’d been jealous. She looked wistfully at the blue ribbons she had won back in her riding days and talked of the students that came to train with her after she won at Devon. Eventually all that had faded away but I thought that having a competing trainer right here in her own barn might have lit a fire under her. Apparently I was wrong.
; “You’ll get more for her if she’s trained,” I said. “You should ride her and take her to some shows. We could go together. It will be fun.”
I gave Esther an encouraging smile, knowing full well that once she got back into riding and showing again, she wouldn’t want to sell the mare.
“She really does need some work if people are going to come and try her out. I can’t have potential new owners bucked off.”
“See, it will be awesome,” I said.
I was already planning out the rest of the summer, full of Esther and me riding together and going to local shows. So what if I’d won at a rated show? That didn’t mean we couldn’t clean up locally as well. Every win counted for something and now that Bluebird and I were official USEF members, we could accumulate points for year-end shows and awards.
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to put her into a training schedule,” Esther said. “How would you like to do it?”
“What? No, I want you to ride her. I want to ride with you.”
Esther looked at the floor and kicked some of the bedding about with the toe of her boot.
“It would really help me out if you did this, Emily,” she said. “I’ll pay you to ride her or you could get a percent of the sale price when she sells.”
The money sounded nice but that wasn’t the point. I felt all sulky and sullen again.
“I’d rather ride with you.”
“I know,” Esther said. “But I have so much to do. I’d really like you to ride her for me.”
I looked around the half empty barn. “How can you have so much to do? There are hardly any horses here?”
“The barn isn’t my whole life.” She shook her head.
“Well it’s mine,” I mumbled.
“And that’s why it would be perfect for you to train Saffron. Think of it as a learning experience. In fact, why don’t you start right now? Take her out to the ring and get her on the lunge line. See what she’s like.”
I hadn’t even really agreed to Esther’s terms and she was already grabbing the mare’s bridle from the tack room. Saffron was about as amused as I was, which was to say not at all. She took one look at the jangling bridle and bit and backed into the corner, her eyes wide.
“When was the last time you even worked her?” I asked Esther.
“Oh it wasn’t that long ago,” she said, flipping the reins over the mare’s neck and reaching up to pull her head down.
Saffron might as well have been a giraffe. Even backed into the corner with nowhere to go, she was still able to stick her head so high that putting the bridle on was practically impossible.
It took ten minutes to get the bridle on, including coaxing her to get her head down with treats and then convincing her to open her mouth.
“That isn’t going to impress those future buyers you were talking about,” I said.
Esther rubbed her slobbery hands on her jeans. “I’m afraid she may need more work than I originally thought.”
“No kidding,” I said.
She handed me the reins, the lunge line and the long lunging whip.
“Good luck.” She smiled as we headed out to the ring.
When Saffron realized where we were going, she dug her hooves into the sand and refused to move.
“I’m going to need more than luck,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m going to need a miracle.”
CHAPTER TEN
I knew that Saffron had been lunged before and she knew that she had been lunged before but that didn’t stop her from acting like a three year old. First she backed up. Then she tried to spin around and gallop to the gate, trying to pull the lunge line out of my hands. Thank goodness I’d worn gloves otherwise I would have had the worst rope burn ever. Esther was probably in her office laughing at me as I trailed after the mare, begging her to do as I asked. I didn’t know why she couldn’t lunge her own horse. I knew that I worked for her but even so, I thought this was a little above my pay grade.
Saffron snorted at nothing, her eyes wide. She wasn’t really scared but it was a good act. One that she was pretty sure was going to get her out of working if she kept it up but she didn’t know me. I’d stay out there until it was dark before I let her win and I told her so.
“The longer you mess about, the longer this is going to take,” I said. “Just go around in a circle like you are supposed to and then we can call it a day.”
Saffron skittered sideways and then spun around so that the lunge line was all twisted around her neck. I walked over to her and straightened it out, rubbing her sweaty head.
“I know you don’t want to work but I promise you, it’s not that bad.”
She snuffled in my hands, looking for a treat.
“Nice try,” I said. “You’ll be lucky to get any treats at all after that performance. Now come on, let’s try this again.”
This time I walked beside her, showing her that walking in a circle wasn’t that bad. When she was calm and quiet, I slowly started to let out the lunge line, still walking beside her only not as close. As I started to get further away she suddenly tried to spin around but I snapped the lunge whip and she changed her mind.
“See,” I said. “I told you I’m not going to let you walk all over me.”
After a few more attempts to spin and run, Saffron decided it was much easier for everyone if she just did as she was asked and walked quietly in a circle. In fact she did really well until I asked her to trot and she took off at a mad gallop, practically yanking the lunge line out of my hands, which meant we had to start all over again. But eventually she got the message and by the time I was done she was trotting and cantering in both directions like a normal horse.
“You know, we could have been done ages ago if you just behaved the first time,” I told her. But she seemed to think that it had been worth it to mess with me.
I fed her a crumpled sugar cube out of my pocket and took her back to the barn for a bath. Esther was in the office with the door closed again. I wondered if she’d even seen me work with the mare. I thought she would be pretty proud of me but she couldn’t exactly praise my work if she hadn’t even seen it.
By the time I was finished, I was hot and dirty and all I wanted was to go home and take a nice cool shower but Bluebird needed to be worked too. He was still fit from all the galloping we’d done in May for the hunter pace and I wanted to keep him that way. I gave him a quick brush and tacked him up just as the first fat drops of rain were starting to fall.
Esther stuck her head out of the office as we went past. “Come in if it starts to thunder.” And before I had a chance to answer, she closed the door again.
“What is going on with her?” I asked Bluebird.
Esther had always been a private person, preferring to take care of things herself and not involve other people in her business but this was getting ridiculous. Then again, she had gone off and left us kids in charge of the barn once when she had to go back to Sweden. I wondered if she was planning another trip. If she abandoned us again, I didn’t think I could take it.
“What do you want to do?” I asked Bluebird as we stood there looking at the ring.
I didn’t really feel like going back in after going round and round in circles in there for what had seemed like hours. I knew I should do something productive like flatwork but I just couldn’t be bothered. It was hot and muggy and the rain had stopped again.
“Want to go for a gallop?” I whispered.
We headed out on the trail and slipped through the fence at the top of the ridge. The big field that stretched down to Granny Mae’s old house was still the best place to gallop and for now, no one seemed to care but once the old house sold, someone probably would care very much about ponies tearing up their good grass. But right now it didn’t matter and I desperately needed a gallop to clear my head from the million horrible things that were buzzing around inside it.
I nudged Bluebird into a canter, his ears pricked and happy as I crouched on his neck and urged him to go faster.
The world sped past, all green and blurry as his hooves thundered beneath me. The wind whipped tears from my eyes but I couldn’t tell if they were real or not.
I sat up as we reached the trees and slowed Bluebird so that we could hop over some of the fallen logs. He took them one after the other before circling back and galloping up the hill again.
“Good boy,” I cried, patting his neck as we slowed to a walk.
And I vowed then and there that no matter what happened Cat would never get her hands on my pony, even if it meant taking drastic measures.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“You won’t believe what happened,” Mickey said on the phone that night.
“Stan asked you out?” I said.
“Stan? Who is Stan?” She laughed.
“The surfer guy, the one you told me you liked.”
“That was Sam and no, I don’t like him anymore.”
“Oh, okay. What then?”
Pretty much all Mickey’s good news always revolved around boys so I waited for her to tell me that she had a new crush, doodling on a piece of paper and trying to pretend like I was interested when I was really wondering whether Esther was going to let me jump Saffron or not.
“No, it’s the party.”
“The beach party? It’s been cancelled?”
“Worse.” She sighed. “It’s a horse thing.”
I dropped my pen and it rolled under the bed. “What?”
“You heard me. The girl who is hosting it rides and every year she holds a beach race.”
“But that was my idea,” I cried. “That’s what I said.”
“I know,” she groaned. “I knew you’d be happy.”
I already had visions of riding Bluebird along the wet sand, surf spraying up around our legs as we galloped wild and free. It was going to be awesome.
“Seriously, I don’t think you could have said anything that would have made me any happier. This is exactly what I need right now,” I said. “Something to take my mind off stupid Cat and her dumb ideas about riding.”
Beach Ride (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 9) Page 3
