Winter Wonderland (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 13)

by Claire Svendsen

  He walked off and I rode after him.

  “Dad, wait,” I said.

  I slithered to the ground and flipped the reins over Socks’ head.

  “What is it?”

  He looked distracted now, almost annoyed in fact. I wanted to talk to him about the hurricane horse and convince him that we should buy the horse and that he should come here and live with us at Fox Run but all of a sudden the words in my head sounded stupid and childish. The dreams of a little girl and not that of a student who was serious about her sport and getting to the Olympics.

  “Well?” he said impatiently.

  “Do you think a retired racehorse could be a really good jumper?” I asked, trying to sound casual and make it a general question instead of a specific one.

  “I suppose so.” He shrugged. “It depends on the horse.”

  “Really?” I said, suddenly feeling hopeful.

  “It’s not likely though,” he added. “Those horses are pushed hard at a young age. Their bodies go through enormous stresses when they are still young and growing. And if they are sound, they’re more than likely to be hot headed. Better suited to eventing if you ask me.”

  He walked off before I had a chance to talk to him about it anymore. He’d given me a small sliver of hope and then almost immediately smashed it to smithereens. The only way I could justify buying the hurricane horse would be if he was something that I could show on. There was no room at the inn for horses that couldn’t be worked and ridden.

  “Thanks for not letting me down today,” I told Socks as I untacked him.

  He’d been going really well for me since I arrived at Fox Run. Almost too well. I wanted to win at the Winter Wonderland show but I also really wanted to do it on Bluebird. He was my pony and I was the one who had trained him. If I won on Socks then everyone would say that it was because Missy had trained him. And I wanted another chance to prove that Bluebird was just as good as the big horses were.

  I pulled my pony out of his paddock and gave him a quick once over with the brush before tacking him up. If I hurried, I’d have time to take him out on the trail. I needed to clear my head because Jess’s awful laughter was still echoing around and around in it.

  We rode past the ring where my Dad was back out there giving another lesson. He’d taken over all of the students that Missy had been teaching because at her last doctor’s appointment, she’d been put on bed rest. She wasn’t happy about it and neither was anyone else but all we could do was hope that the baby came soon. I felt kind of sorry for it because if it waited much longer then it was going to be born on Christmas Day and any kid that was born on Christmas knew that you only got half the amount of presents that you would have if you’d been born any other time of year.

  Mickey was out in the dressage ring with Hampton getting a lesson from the evil taskmaster Miss. Fontain. Her clear, crisp voice rang out, telling Mickey that she wasn’t keeping her horse on the bit and if she didn’t use her legs properly then she might as well just go and ride with the lead line kids. I felt sorry for her until I noticed that she was actually smiling because she applied the correction and Hampton flew across the ring at a fantastic collected trot. She was getting better and better. I couldn’t wait until she went to her first dressage show so that I could support her the way that she had supported me.

  Once we reached the back property, the noise of the bustling barn fell away. It was quiet in the trees and we trotted for a while, hopping over the fallen logs that the eventing students had marked out for their cross country course. Bluebird’s ears were pricked. I’d been riding him in the ring a lot and it felt good to just go out and ride for a change and not worry about being perfect all the time.

  Once we got to the clearing I let him gallop, crouched on his neck as the cold wind whipped past us. I thought of the gray horse and how it would be to gallop him. After all, he had been a racehorse. To gallop him across the fields would truly be like galloping with the wind. And as I brought Bluebird back to a walk, I heard a whinny and I knew it was him, even though it couldn’t possibly be. My hurricane horse was out there.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  There weren’t supposed to be any horse farms between here and the beach. This was all Fox Run property. But there was the whinny again and this time I was positive. I’d heard a horse before when I’d been riding with Mickey and that time it was a different horse but I would have known his voice anywhere and this was him. I felt it in my bones.

  I followed the direction that I thought the sound had come from but he didn’t whinny again and I just ended up going round and round in circles. I wanted to call out for him to see if he would reply but I was kind of scared of the woman who had bought him. If he was at her farm, I wasn’t too keen to just go riding up there. She hadn’t seemed like the friendliest person but I so desperately wanted to see him again.

  We rode until it was nearly dark and then Dad called me on my cell phone and told me that I’d better get my butt back to the barn before I got lost out in the woods. He must have known that I had a terrible sense of direction. I hadn’t even told him about the time I got lost out in the woods on Miguel’s farm. There were lots of things I hadn’t told him but most of them were things that were better left unsaid, like the fact that the retired, injured racehorse that I wanted to rescue was possibly out there somewhere because if he knew that then he’d probably stop me from riding on the trail. He wanted me to focus on the show and I knew that’s what I should be doing. I couldn’t help it if I wanted to save all the horses of the world as well.

  “I think I heard him,” I told Mickey when I got back to the barn.

  She was untacking Hampton, who was all sweaty under his saddle pad and across his neck.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mickey said. “You probably just want him so badly that you imagined it.”

  “I did not,” I said. “Remember we heard a horse when we were out there before? Well it came from the same direction. There must be a farm out there and that’s where he is. I just couldn’t find it. That’s all.”

  “You couldn’t find it even if you had directions.” Mickey joked.

  “Very funny.”

  She left, making me promise that I wouldn’t go out there looking for him alone, which I did with my fingers crossed behind my back. I put Bluebird in his paddock and then ran through the barn putting sheets on the horses that needed them. It was one of my jobs but it was also my favorite time of day. The barn was quiet and the boarders had gone home. The horses were all tucked in their clean stalls with piles of hay, softly munching in the twinkling lights. I stood there looking proudly around at the freshly swept aisle. Everything was finally so perfect. I knew I shouldn’t have been messing it up by wanting more. I should have been happy with everything that I had right now.

  I went back to the cottage feeling pretty proud of myself. I wasn’t exactly a neat person but it felt good to have things organized for a change. Only inside our tiny home it looked like a tornado had swept through. There was stuff everywhere, like the contents of every drawer had exploded and Missy was sitting in the middle of it all, crying.

  “What is it?” I dashed to her side. “Is the baby coming?”

  “No,” she wailed. “And I need it out of me. I want it out of me now.”

  She hadn’t gone into labor but she was having a meltdown anyway and I didn’t know how you were supposed to deal with a really pregnant woman who was finally at the end of her rope.

  “Well can I at least help you to the couch?” I asked. “You’re supposed to be in bed you know.”

  “I can’t stay in bed.” She sobbed. “I have to find my picture of Pumpkin.”

  “Just come and sit down on the couch and I’ll find you a picture of a pumpkin,” I said in the sort of soothing voice that you would talk to a frightened horse in.

  “Not a Pumpkin,” she said. “Pumpkin, my pony. The pony I had when I was a little girl. I need his picture to take with me to the hospital.”

/>   “Alright,” I said. “I’ll find the picture but let’s just get you to a comfortable chair first.”

  “Okay,” she said, wiping the tears on her sleeve.

  I was helping her up to her feet, which wasn’t an easy task since she was the size of a baby whale, when she froze.

  “What is it?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Either I peed myself or my water just broke.”

  I didn’t know how to answer her. I looked at the floor where a tiny puddle was forming on the tile.

  “I think I should call Dad,” I said.

  “No,” she screamed. “I need my picture and I’m not going anywhere without it.”

  I sat her on the couch and rummaged through the mess, desperately looking for a photograph of a chestnut pony called Pumpkin that Missy had when she was a kid. For a little while it was okay. Missy was calm and I was looking as fast as I could but then she clutched her belly and started to scream.

  “I think the baby is coming,” I said. “You’re having contractions. You have to get to the hospital.”

  She clutched my arm in a death grip. “Not. Without. My. Picture.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I called my dad and told him to get back home right away. I wasn’t equipped to deal with a woman who looked like she was about to give birth at any second. Sure, I’d seen the movies and TV shows where people dashed about boiling water and fetching towels but I didn’t think that was going to help any. And of course Dad had chosen this exact moment to go out. He’d run to the grocery store to pick up pickles and ice cream because despite Missy’s protests, she did in fact have totally gross cravings and now he was stuck in traffic because there was an accident on the only road in and out of town.

  “I think I should call 911,” I said.

  I was trying to sound all calm and composed when inside all I wanted to do was scream but Missy was already screaming and having two screaming people was not going to help matters at all.

  “Just get your father here,” she sobbed.

  “I did. I tried. He’s stuck in traffic. I don’t know what to do. But you wanted the baby out, right? This is a good thing.”

  “I did,” Missy said, her breath sounding fast and shallow. “But now I think I’ve changed my mind. It can just stay in there.”

  “I don’t think you have much of a choice,” I said.

  Despite Missy’s protests, I did call 911. I wasn’t about to deliver a baby on the living room floor and I was pretty sure she didn’t want me doing that either. I held her hand while we waited for them and when the contractions came, she squeezed it so hard that I thought my fingers would break off.

  “I am never having children,” I muttered to myself through her screams.

  For a moment it was touch and go. The paramedics got stuck in the same traffic jam that my dad did and I was actually considering fetching those towels and bowls of boiling water when they all arrived at the same time in a flash of lights and sirens.

  “In here,” I called from the front door, beckoning them in. “She’s in the living room.”

  Dad ran past and rushed to Missy’s side.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

  “I hate you,” she wailed. “Why did you do this to me?”

  “I thought births were supposed to be all magical and special, you know, the miracle of life and all that?” I said to the paramedic as he wheeled the stretcher into our house.

  “It will be,” he said. “After the baby is out.”

  But I didn’t care if it was all special and magical after. There was no way I was putting myself through so much agony unless it was a result of accidently flying over my horses head in the name of show jumping. And Missy’s screams still echoed around the empty house long after they’d taken her to the hospital.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  They said that Missy must have been in labor for a long time because she practically had the baby in the ambulance, a bouncing boy who weighed in at a huge nine pounds seven ounces. Missy was small and thin. I had no idea how she’d managed to produce such a large baby, let alone push one out but Dad called to say that both mother and child were doing well and that they would be staying overnight for observation.

  I cleaned up the house, which was easy because it was small, although I did spend longer looking at Missy’s pictures than I did actually putting them away. I couldn’t help it. She’d been around horses her whole life. There were photos of her winning the hunter classes when she was a kid, all braids and bows and then riding her jumper pony with Frank Coppell. Then there were the horses she’d competed on and finally I found a whole album of her riding in the Olympics. It was well after midnight by the time I put everything away and I was more determined than ever to follow in Missy’s footsteps and make my dreams of riding in the Olympics come true.

  I knew that I should really go to bed but Dad always did a night check around midnight and I didn’t want to let him down. I pulled on my coat and hat and grabbed the flashlight that we kept by the door. It was cold out, my breath making little clouds of misty air as I breathed in and out. I rubbed my hands together, wishing I could remember where I’d left my gloves.

  I followed the path to the barn in the milky moonlight, thinking how much safer I would feel if I had a big dog. The barn was gated and you had to have a code to get in but that wouldn’t stop someone from jumping over the gate or climbing the fence. A great big German Shepard or Doberman would have made me feel a lot better. Instead all I had was a fat orange cat who had slipped out alongside me and was strutting down to the barn like he owned the place.

  “I guess you like it here after all,” I told Meatball as he pounced on a shadow.

  He rubbed against my legs and then took off after something that made a rustling noise in the bushes.

  “I thought you were here to protect me,” I said. “Fat lot of help you are.”

  I walked through the barn alone, looking in on the sleeping horses. Some of them were lying down, their huge belly’s rising and falling as they snored but most of them were standing up with their heads down and eyes half closed. Horses couldn’t lay down for very long because their bodies were too big so mostly they slept standing up. I thought it was a handy talent to have. It meant you could pretty much take a nap anywhere.

  I stood there for a while in the dark, looking at Jess’s horses, Hashtag, who was standing in the back of his stall and the long forgotten Beauty and Belle. I hadn’t seen Amber, Jess’s sister, around in ages. I wondered if she had finally given up trying to ride in Jess’s shadow. I knew it had to be hard, having someone always outshining you and even though Jess didn’t get on with her dad, he still seemed to lavish all his attention on her. Amber was the forgotten child. It made me think of my own mother and how she was just able to abandon me so easily. It was like Derek and Cat had both taken my place and she didn’t need me anymore. In the light of day I pretended that I didn’t care. That I didn’t need anyone. But standing there in the moonlit barn, I wanted my mother to love me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Now that Missy was in the hospital and my dad was ferrying back and forth between the barn and her bedside, I found myself with a whole bunch of extra responsibilities.

  “You need to teach the little kids,” he said.

  “What?”

  I was eating a bowl of cereal having just helped the grooms turn horses out. It was cold and wet, which meant extra work because all the horses at Fox Run were show horses and that meant they were all clipped. Cold, wet weather meant putting on turnout sheets and blankets and dealing with a muddy mess when the horses came back in. The Fox Run washing machine had been working overtime ever since the weather took a nasty turn for the worse.

  “You heard me,” he said.

  He was looking at his phone. Missy was going stir crazy being stuck in the hospital but she’d had a couple of problems since the birth and they were keeping an eye on her there. Despite all her protests, they weren’
t ready to release her and I hadn’t even got to meet my new baby step brother because there had been so much to do.

  “But I can’t teach,” I said.

  “Of course you can.”

  “But no one is going to listen to me. Why should they?”

  “Those little kids look up to you and adore you. I’ve seen how good you are with Faith. I just need you to take her group and the one before that with the really little kids. Those ones are only just learning how to trot so it shouldn’t be that hard. Besides, you know the drill. Shoulders back, heels down, look up. Just keep saying that and you’ll be fine.”

  “But what if one of them falls off or something?”

  I felt really panicked all of a sudden. It was a big responsibility. Sure I’d given Faith pointers here and there and I’d helped Esther out with the summer camp and stuff like that but there had always been someone around if I got into trouble. Dad was going back to the hospital. I’d be all alone.

  “Miss. Fontain has lessons all day so if you really get stuck, you can ask her but I wouldn’t get stuck if I was you.”

  The only thing worse than being alone was being with Miss. Fontain. Mickey seemed to like her but she just sucked the fun out of everything. It was all rules and discipline and work, work, work. Plus she actually made the kids cry and the last thing I needed was a group of bawling little kids.

  “I’ll manage,” I said.

  “Good. The rider list is in the office. The grooms already know which lesson horses to tack up and those that have their own horses get ready themselves.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Oh and don’t let them talk you into switching,” he said as he walked out the door.

  “Wait, what?” I cried.

  “Don’t let them talk you into switching mounts. They always seem to think that someone else has a better horse than them and therefore a better ride but I’ve placed them on the horses and ponies that are appropriate for their individual skill levels. Switching them up is asking for trouble. Got it?”