Winter Blues (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 3)

by Claire Svendsen

  “Sorry,” she called out. “She’s a little excited.”

  “What a witch,” Ethan said when I got back to them. “Trying to steal the show like that.”

  “All she did was make herself and her trainer look foolish,” Esther said. “Now come on, let’s pack up and go home.”

  Jess stomped by, dragging Stardust behind her. I was pretty sure she’d heard what Esther had said. There was a look of thunder on her face.

  “This isn’t over,” she snapped.

  Somehow I didn’t think it ever would be.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “What do you want for Christmas?” Mom asked.

  “A horse blanket,” I said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous Emily, I told you that I’m not getting you any horse things.”

  “But I need it, Bluebird needs it. Why not?”

  My mother was sitting on the couch surrounded by samples of fabric. Tiny squares than fluttered around her like snow every time she moved. She was trying to decide on the color scheme for her wedding. I had suggested black. She hadn’t been amused.

  “No horse things for Christmas, that is final.”

  “Well I don’t want anything then,” I said.

  Derek was sitting at the table doing something that looked suspiciously like accounting. He was probably trying to steal all my mother’s money. If that was why he was marrying her then he was in for a surprise because she didn’t have any. But there had to be some reason why he was pushing this marriage thing. I knew it wasn’t love because they had nothing in common. He had some kind of angle, I just didn’t know what it was yet. But I was going to find out.

  “Why would you want a stinky old horse blanket when you could have some makeup or a nice dress or something?” Derek asked.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I said. “So butt out.”

  “Emily, how dare you speak to Derek like that? Come back and apologize right this instant,” Mom shouted.

  But I was already out the door.

  “I’m going to the barn,” I said. “Where all the stinky horse things are. Leave me alone.”

  “You said what?” Mickey asked.

  We were hanging out in the barn cleaning tack while Esther gave Ethan a private lesson.

  “I didn’t think it was mean,” I said, scrubbing a particularly bad sweat stain. “He doesn’t know me and he shouldn’t stick his nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

  “Maybe if you just gave him a chance?” Mickey said.

  “No,” I snapped. “And you shouldn’t be telling me that. You should be helping me come up with plans to split them up for good.”

  “You’re right,” Mickey sighed. “But how?”

  “I don’t know but I’m going to find some dirt on Derek eventually, I just know I am.”

  Ethan came into the barn looking slightly winded. He pulled his helmet off and his hair was stuck to his head.

  “Helmet hair,” Mickey pointed and laughed.

  “Thanks,” he groaned. “I thought Andre was a task master but Esther is even worse.”

  “Told you,” I said.

  Since Ethan moved Wendell over here, I’d become a lot better a talking to him like a normal person instead of freezing up and bumbling like a blathering idiot. Mickey used to tell me all the time that he liked me and Jess swore up and down that I stole him from her, even though he swore he was never hers to begin with. But it hadn’t gone any further than the three of us goofing around at the barn and the beach, which was just as well. I would probably go back to sounding pathetic if I was alone with him for more than five minutes and besides, boys just got in the way of horses and I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the Snowball Cup.

  “I’d better go,” Mickey pulled the halter off that she had put over Hampton’s bridle. “It’s my turn to be tortured.”

  “You guys are such babies,” I said. “It takes hard work to become a champion.”

  “I don’t want to be a champion,” Mickey groaned as she led a lethargic Hampton by us. “I just want to have fun.”

  But the shows that were part of the Blizzard Challenge had plenty of hunter classes where Esther expected Mickey and Hampton to shine and Ethan was doing some of the other jumper classes as well. She wanted us to be in top form and she was going to work us to death to make sure she got us there.

  “Gymnastics again?” I asked when it was my turn to go out to the ring.

  “Your pony knows how to run and jump,” Esther said. “I can’t teach him anything he doesn’t already know. You, on the other hand, were all over the place at the last show. You gave him his head, then you took it back. You couldn’t make up your mind what you were doing. If this pony wasn’t a seasoned pro, you would have been in big trouble.”

  “It’s when he tosses his head in the air,” I said. “It throws me off.”

  “Confusion does not a champion make,” Esther said, striding to the end of the ring.

  Mickey and Ethan were right. Esther had it in for us big time. The only difference was that I didn’t mind. I wanted to learn. I wanted to be a better rider, the best rider. At night when I lay in bed and listened to my mother and that awful Derek plan their wedding, I blocked my ears and imagined myself on the podium at the Olympics, accepting my gold medal. My dreams were the only thing that kept me sane and I was going to do everything in my power to make sure they came true. Only there were obstacles in my way that were proving very hard to overcome.

  “Thanksgiving is in two weeks,” Mom said the next morning. “And I thought it would be nice to have a family meal.”

  “A what?” I choked on my cereal.

  “You heard. You, me, Derek and a turkey. Oh and I thought it would be nice to invite Uncle Carl for a change.”

  “But you don’t cook,” I spluttered. “And you haven’t spoken to Uncle Carl in years.”

  “I don’t know why you have to be so difficult about everything Emily. Don’t you want a nice family Thanksgiving?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m going to the barn.”

  I already had a memory of the perfect family Thanksgiving. It was back when my sister was still alive and my father hadn’t left yet. That year my dad deep fried a giant turkey outside on the deck and it was so warm that we ate wearing our shorts. Afterwards we took slices of apple pie down to the ponies and fell into giggles as Dad jumped on the back of his old retired jumper. He made funny faces and slopped about on the old mare’s back and then fell off into a pile of leaves. I remember jumping on him and the way he tickled us until we cried from laughing so hard.

  “Emily? Are you even listening to me?” Mom said.

  “No,” I got up and walked away.

  “Now the first show of the Blizzard Challenge is in two weeks,” Esther said.

  She was standing in the ring with the three of us around her. We’d just jumped a small course and she seemed relatively pleased with us.

  “I know we all want to win and I want you to win too but I want you to give these guys a bit of a break. You’re going to have a grueling show schedule over the next month and a half and I don’t need horses who have lost their brains from all this ring work. Got it?”

  Ethan, Mickey and I looked at each other. We didn’t get it at all.

  “That means,” Esther continued, shaking her head at our confused faces. “That I want you to go out on the trail. Work in the field. Anything to break up the monotony of ring work.”

  “But I like working in the ring,” Mickey moaned as we walked the horses out to the field. “Hampton does better in there. He doesn’t like grass.”

  “He sure likes to eat it,” I laughed as Hampton ripped the reins out of Mickey’s hands and snatched a bite.

  “Exactly, it’s too distracting.”

  We rode around the fields, feet hanging out of the stirrups and reins loose. Despite the recent cool snap, the weather was warm again. That was how it was in Florida. Wear a coat one day. Go to the beach in your shorts the next. The warm breez
e lifted the ends of my hair that I hadn’t bothered to tie back under my helmet. I stretched my legs out, a little dismayed at how far they hung below Bluebird’s belly.

  “Do you think I’m taller?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Mickey shrugged but Ethan nodded his head.

  “You’d better stop growing if you want to keep riding in the pony divisions,” he said.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  I tried to hide the disappointment I felt. I loved riding Bluebird. He was a great jumper and he took competitions in his stride. It wasn’t the same as riding Harlow, the big gray Thoroughbred I first fell in love with but he was still recovering from a suspensory injury. The only thing he was currently allowed to do was walk for ten minutes on hard ground. If we were lucky, in a few weeks he’d get to trot. It was going to be a long, slow road to recovery and even then the vet didn’t know if he would ever jump again.

  I’d seen Esther staring at him when the feed was delivered and she was handed the giant bill and I knew she was thinking that he was still taking up space that a paying boarder could use. The only reason she kept him around was because he had once been her champion but lame champions weren’t any use to anyone and she wasn’t running a retirement home. It was another thing I tried hard not to think about.

  So if I outgrew Bluebird, I’d have two horses I loved but couldn’t ride and deep down I knew that eventually it was inevitable.

  “Are you guys doing anything fun for Thanksgiving?” Ethan asked.

  “Fun?” Mickey groaned. “My whole family comes over and spends the whole day arguing about everything. It’s not exactly what I’d call fun.”

  “What about you?” Ethan looked at me.

  “Oh I’ll be spending the day locked in my room avoiding my mother who is planning to cook a whole Thanksgiving feast when she usually burns microwave meals.”

  “Your mom is cooking?” Mickey raised an eyebrow.

  “I know, right? It’s crazy. And she’s inviting my uncle.”

  “What’s so bad about that?” Ethan asked.

  “Well my mom hasn’t spoken to him in five years so I expect that’s going to make things pretty awkward.”

  “Why is she even inviting him then?” Ethan pulled Wendell to a stop.

  “She wants to show off her new fiancé,” I said, the word churning my stomach.

  “She’s really going through with it?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I pulled Bluebird away and closed my legs around his sides. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Of course the first show of the Blizzard Challenge was Thanksgiving weekend so while normal people where off battling the sales, we’d be battling each other in the ring at a place called Harmony Horse Park. I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be anything harmonious about it.

  “What is wrong with these people?” Mom asked.

  She was flipping through her recipe books, trying to figure out how long it took to defrost a turkey. I’d already googled it but I wasn’t about to tell her that. Let the stupid turkey be all frozen and gross. Maybe Derek wouldn’t want to marry someone who couldn’t cook.

  “Horse people don’t care about sales Mom,” I said. “Unless it’s a sale on blankets.”

  “But I wanted to take you to look at dresses,” she said.

  “Dresses?” I choked. “What do I need a dress for?”

  She put the book down slowly. “The wedding?” she said. “Emily, look, I know you’re trying to pretend that this isn’t happening but it is. You’re going to have to deal with it sooner or later.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said. “The only thing I have to deal with is winning the Snowball Cup because my pony needs a blanket and you’re too cheap to buy him one.”

  I stormed off to my room, leaving her to sit there with all her stupid cook books. They weren’t going to help her any and neither was I. She was on her own.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Thanksgiving. The family holiday. The one where you are supposed to be thankful for everything in your life. But everything I was thankful for was out at the barn where Esther was cleaning stalls because they didn’t have Thanksgiving in her country. She said that the horses couldn’t care less what day it was but they still needed their stalls cleaned and their waterers cleaned. She was right. I didn’t have time for stupid family time with a future stepfather I hated and an uncle I barely knew. I needed to be at the barn, prepping Bluebird for the show on Saturday.

  “Can you help me peel the potatoes?” Mom shouted.

  “I don’t know how,” I yelled back.

  I was on my laptop, looking at the entries for the next show. There were a lot of them. One hundred ponies had qualified, including Jess, me and a bunch of kids I didn’t know who had probably been riding their whole lives on ponies that cost as much as a car or a house. All I knew was that my dog food pony was really going to have to pull out all the stops to get through to the next round.

  Esther said that cost didn’t define a horse’s worth. That there were diamonds in the rough being discovered every day. There was a horse right now, slated for the next Olympics that had been bought for a hundred dollars. But none of that helped when the other people at the show looked down their noses at you.

  “I don’t care that you don’t know how. I don’t know how either. Just get down here,” Mom’s voice was one octave away from hysterical.

  “Coming,” I groaned, slamming the laptop shut.

  The kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off. There was flour coating every surface like winter frost and egg shells littered the floor, crunching under my feet.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  I was still mad at her for bringing Derek into our lives but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a heart. Flour was caked on her face, her lipstick was all smudged and mascara trailed down her cheeks in two rivers. She was crying.

  “I never should have agreed to this,” she sobbed.

  “But I thought all this was your idea?”

  “No,” she wailed. “It was Derek. He said he always has a home cooked turkey every Thanksgiving.”

  “Well why didn’t he go have one with his own family then and leave us alone?” I said.

  “I just wanted everything to be nice for him,” she carried on, ignoring my dig. “And I’ve ruined it all.”

  “It’s not ruined,” I sighed. “There is still plenty of time. I’ll help you.”

  “You will?” she blinked through her tears.

  “Yes,” I said.

  I wanted to add that I’d only agree to help if she bought Bluebird a winter blanket but that seemed kind of heartless. She was already upset enough as it was. I didn’t need her suddenly snapping and forbidding me from riding ever again.

  So instead of going over course layouts, I spent the morning doing things I really hated. Peeling potatoes and mixing stuffing and stirring gravy.

  “I thought you weren’t going to help?” Mickey texted me back when I told her that I was currently busy being a domestic goddess.

  “She was crying,” I texted back. “What choice did I have?”

  “Ugh, the parental tears. Works like a charm every time.”

  “I know. It sucks.”

  “Well at least you’re not stuck here watching two different football games at the same time.”

  “Bummer.”

  “I know. Gotta go. See you tomorrow?”

  “Yup. Bye.”

  The kitchen had been cleaned and the turkey was just starting to get that yummy smell when the doorbell rang.

  “Can you get it?” Mom pulled her apron off and straightened her hair.

  “I guess,” I said.

  I didn’t really have many memories of Uncle Carl but the one thing that had stuck with me through the years was how he held my hand at Summer’s funeral as big fat tears splashed down his face. I was too young to really understand what was going on but I knew everyone was sad and that meant I was sad too and I was also kind of scared becau
se I’d never seen so many adults cry in my whole life and my sister had disappeared.

  The only reference I had for death was Mom flushing my goldfish Tutu down the toilet. After the funeral I spent the rest of the afternoon in the bathroom, looking for Summer in the white porcelain bowl. Uncle Carl was the one who finally came and got me. He was the one who laid out the truth in a way my five year old mind could understand.

  I guess Mom didn’t like that. She wanted me to stay innocent and pure. To somehow shield me from the horrors of life. But for a little girl whose sister had gone, there was no more innocence left. I already knew the harsh realities of life.

  “Emily?”

  The man standing on the other side of the door was nothing like I remembered. He had short graying hair and a round face. A leather jacket hung limp on his arm in the warm breeze and there was a motorcycle parked out in the street behind him.

  “Uncle Carl?”

  He didn’t answer, just pulled me into a giant bear hug. He smelt of cigarettes and beer. No wonder my mom didn’t want him around, she was kind of a stickler about smoking and drinking. I could tell Uncle Carl was going to be a bad influence and I already thought he was kind of awesome.

  “Let me look at you,” he said, stepping back. “You’ve grown so much. I hardly recognize you.”

  “Is that your bike?” I pointed out to the street.

  “Sure is,” he grinned.

  “Cool.”

  “Think your mom will let me take you out for a spin on it later?” he winked.

  “Not in a million years,” I said.

  “She hasn’t changed much then,” he said.

  “Well, I am riding horses again,” I smiled.

  “Impressive. How did you manage that one?”

  “Emily, is it Carl?” Mom called out from the kitchen.

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” I said. “You’d better come and say hello. Did you bring a peace offering? A bar of solid gold or a kidney or something?”

  “I brought chocolate,” he said, producing a slightly crushed box.