Ambition: (The Eventing Series Book 1)

by Natalie Keller Reinert

  He felt exactly as he should.

  And yet I was confused about what had just happened. Whips and forcing a horse to back (something that was very hard both on their bodies and their minds) were not in my play-book. I carried a dressage whip for flatwork training and a jumping whip for fences, but that was just for asking a horse’s body to move in a certain way, whether it was to flick the hindquarters over in a shoulder-in, or get a bigger jump over a particularly wide oxer. It was never, ever for physical punishment.

  Although a good whack for refusing a fence wasn’t out of the question, Laurie had always taught me that it was more important to convince a horse he couldn’t refuse a fence, rather than punishing him after the fact. Once a horse knew he didn’t have to jump, she’d explained, there was always the possibility that he’d add up the action and the punishment in his mind, and decide he didn’t really mind the punishment. (This was especially true of ponies, of course.)

  When I combined the perplexing training technique of threatening Mickey with a whip to back up, alongside the visual of Pete doing it, I was utterly confused.

  Had he revealed himself, completely out of the blue, to be a horse abuser? Had he abused my horse? He’d taken it upon himself to teach my horse a lesson without my permission, which in and of itself was a high crime I couldn’t even begin to address. But he’d done it in such a way that I was wondering if I even knew him at all.

  These were my thoughts as I rode back to the barn on a high-stepping, bright-eyed Mickey, who seemed to be completely over the entire event, as if none of the drama, from his arrival this morning to his leaping stunt and subsequent punishment this afternoon, had ever happened at all.

  Becky and Lacey were already back at the barn, having taken the golf cart that Pete brought to shows in the back of his truck. They peeked out of the stable aisle, whispering to each other, as I rode up, and I blinked to see them in cahoots. I hadn’t seen them working together since the fight here at Sunshine State over the summer. Months ago. A lifetime ago.

  Lacey came out of the barn and took Mickey’s reins as I pulled up. “He looks much better,” she offered, patting the horse’s wet neck. “Did you work him?”

  “I just walked him,” I replied shortly, slipping out of the saddle. “He’ll be sore behind from all that backing. Can you give him a liniment bath?”

  “Sure.” Lacey rubbed Mickey between the eyes while I pulled the saddle and pad off his back. The horse closed his eyes and appeared to enjoy the attention. I just shook my head. I didn’t know what to think. About any of it.

  I took the bridle when Lacey had put the halter around his neck and lingered for a moment to make sure she didn’t have any trouble getting it over his nose. “Is Peter back yet?” I asked after a moment, trying to keep my voice casual.

  She shook her head, not meeting my eyes. “He didn’t want to ride back with us. He said he’d walk. Haven’t seen him.”

  “Probably just out on the cross-country course,” I said with a shrug, and carried the tack into the stables to be wiped down and returned to its trunk for the night. I thought about going to look for him, but I couldn’t figure out what I’d say to him when I found him. Bitch him out? Ask him what the hell he’d been thinking? Thank him?

  He’d proven my cardinal rule was utterly correct today — never date a horse trainer. I’d given him my trust and he’d returned it by deciding he was the one to train my horse, and by completely unorthodox methods, to boot. I couldn’t even imagine what might have happened if someone had seen that go down. Nothing good, that was for sure.

  I decided to beat it back to the farm, and hole up in the guest suite before he got home. I definitely wasn’t ready to see him yet.

  He knocked that night around seven. Not late, but I was in my pajamas, curled up on the couch with a pillow in my arms, watching a video of dressage tests from last years’ Rolex Kentucky Three-Day-Event. Other riders could afford to ride with Rolex riders as their coaches. I had to content myself with watching the masters on my television.

  Lacey, reading at the kitchen table, looked up. “Pete’s at the door,” she observed.

  “Yup.” I didn’t move.

  “You aren’t going to let him in?”

  “Nope.”

  Lacey got up with a huff. “You can’t lock out your landlord, Jules,” she said, exasperated, as she went past me and unlocked the door. “Jules is being a baby,” she told Pete.

  “Thank you,” I said, not looking away from the TV. A horse performed a jaw-dropping extended trot across the diagonal. I watched the rider’s legs and hands, trying to memorize angles and motion, so that I could replicate it while riding Dynamo tomorrow morning.

  “Solivita is a gorgeous mare,” Pete said, slipping past Lacey and into the living room. “Regina doesn’t like her.”

  “Well, she isn’t here, she’s in Aiken, so Regina is in luck.” I paused the DVD and glared at Pete. “Why are you here?”

  He quirked his eyebrow. That familiar gesture — now I wanted to slap it off his handsome face. “I think we have some things to talk about.”

  I shook my head. “Not tonight. Not before the dressage. I have too much else to think about.”

  Behind him, Lacey disappeared down the hall and into her bedroom. I heard her door click shut. Pete glanced after her and then back at me. “Are you going to refuse to talk to me all weekend?”

  “Probably,” I admitted. “It would make things easier for me.”

  “And what about me?” His voice grew tight. “How do you think it will go for me? Or is icing me out your winning strategy? Think you can come in a few points ahead by making sure I can’t concentrate on my ride, because I’m afraid my girlfriend hates me?”

  I stared at him. His face was dead serious — which meant he really believed I was capable of something so devious. Did he know me at all? Had he been dating some made-up version of me the whole time? “I can’t believe you’d accuse me of that,” I said slowly, feeling my stomach do a leisurely, sickening flip in my abdomen. “I can’t believe you’d think I’d do that you.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” he snapped, his rigid composure breaking. “I made your dangerous horse walk around the show-grounds like a puppy-dog today, and all I get is a door in my face. Who knows what you want out of this relationship? Maybe you just want to get back at me for beating you after all.”

  I jumped up, dropping the pillow to the floor. “How dare you? Who the hell do you think you are? You take my horse from me and beat him in circles, and call that fixing him? Without permission, without invitation? What would his owners say, if they found out? My boyfriend beats my horse at an event and I can’t even stop him? Are you joking?” I choked on the tears thickening my throat. I’d never been so angry and I’d never been so hurt and I’d never been so confused in my entire, grasping, desperate, hard-luck life. I let one person get close to me and this was the misery I got in return?

  He opened his mouth to defend himself and I threw the heart of the matter at him. “You could have gotten me eliminated today. You could have gotten me kicked right off the show-grounds today. I trusted you the way I’ve never trusted anyone and you broke that trust today. You almost ruined everything!”

  Pete’s jaw dropped and he stared at me as if he’d never laid eyes on me before.

  “What?” I asked suspiciously.

  He cocked his head a little, still behaving as if I was some sort of alien in the room. “Is that what this is about?” he asked finally. “Getting caught?”

  “It’s about the event,” I snapped. “If we’d been seen — if anyone reported us — they would have asked us to leave so fast. I thought you needed this event. You certainly said you did. You know that I do. Unless —” I paused as a hideous new thought entered my mind. “You wanted to have me ruled off the grounds.”

  Pete looked at me as if I had kicked his dog, and my stomach lurched. His face told me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he had never tried to sabota
ge my chances at the event. I’d gone too far. I held up a hand, trying to wrap my tongue around an apology, but it was already far too late to atone for the accusation I had flung at him.

  Pete spun on his heel and went out the door, slamming it behind him.

  I sank back down onto the couch, trembling, and picked up the pillow from the floor. I squeezed it against my chest, hard, and willed myself not to cry. Big girls don’t cry. Boys don’t cry. All the old lines from all the old songs that said to suck it up. I wasn’t in this game to find love. I was in this game to find success. And I was right to be angry, when the person that I loved endangered my shot at success. Maybe not on purpose, but still…

  I was so busy trying not to cry, I didn’t notice that the word love had entered my ever-chattering internal monologue. I didn’t notice until Lacey came into the living room, an hour or a lifetime later, and sat down on the couch next to me and ran her hands down my tangled hair, over and over, like a mother soothing her child, or a woman soothing her horse. I didn’t notice until she said “He’s in love with you.” And then I started to sob, because it was all going so, so wrong.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  My dressage ride on Dynamo was at 8:40 a.m., which was ungodly early, if you asked me.

  But no one did, of course.

  It would have been hard for anyone to have gotten my opinion, anyway, because I wasn’t talking to anyone. No one who spoke English, that is. I talked to Dynamo and Mickey nonstop.

  “Mickey, darling boy, I need you to be lovely for me this afternoon,” I told Mickey at four o’clock in the morning, when I gave up trying to sleep and drove to the show-grounds. Mickey dug his nose into his timothy and ignored me. Just as well — I didn’t need to bother him for his dressage test until after ten… that was six hours away. I turned instead to Dynamo, who was watching me with bright eyes.

  “You will be lovely for me, I know that much,” I told him, and he nickered. I was exhausted and emotional, but I knew a feed-me nicker when I heard one. I gave him a flake of alfalfa and watched him dig into the leafy greens, utterly content to be near him.

  The barn started to wake up around five, when other trainers with early rides started showing up — or their working students and grooms, in most cases — to get horses fed and cleaned up. There was plenty to be done between breakfast and show-time. Braids had to be fixed, socks had to be scrubbed. Before too long the breakfast nickers had been replaced with the sounds of electric clippers and swearing grooms. “Stand up! Be still! Knock it off! OUCH!”

  Dynamo was chestnut, with only white on his face; I got lucky there. All he needed was a grooming and a polish with Show Sheen. Mickey was another story, but since I had Lacey coming later, I wasn’t concerned about all the greenish manure stains that would need to be scrubbed out with alcohol and a washcloth before our dressage ride. We didn’t go out for the Novice round until after eleven, anyway. We had ages.

  “We have ages,” I told him, and he shoved his nose against my chest and asked for more timothy. So I gave him some. Might as well keep him happy.

  Becky was there by six thirty, eyeing me while I combed out Dynamo’s tail. “You fed Regina and Vanellope?” she asked, gesturing to Pete’s horses, who were suspiciously quiet for two horses at breakfast-time.

  “I had to,” I said apologetically. “I haven’t done anything else with them. I just didn’t want to upset them when I fed my guys.”

  She nodded. “Thanks. That will let me get rolling on Regina’s white, then.” Regina had three white stockings, flashy and beautiful and filthy every morning. “These early dressage times can suck it,” she said, pulling a bucket and washcloth from a tack trunk in front of Regina’s stall. “Enough to make me go back to school full-time.”

  I was so astonished that Becky was making conversation, I almost didn’t answer her. “Are you going to finish your degree?” I asked finally.

  “I am,” she said, rummaging for the rubbing alcohol. “But I might change it to Equine Business Management. Stick to running barns, ride one or two of my own horses on my own dime. I want to compete, but I don’t know that I want to train.” She turned to face me through the bars of the stall, and smiled. I stopped brushing Dynamo’s tail, astonished. “You work so hard,” she went on. “And so does Pete. And for no thanks at all. Your horse could be taken away at any moment. I’ve learned a lot from both of you, but I think what I’ve learned most of all is to appreciate how hard trainers work, and for how little thanks, most of the time.” She turned back to her search for rubbing alcohol, and I went back to pulling the comb through Dynamo’s luxurious red tail, utterly lost for words.

  I couldn’t get out of the barn before Pete arrived, as much as I would have liked to. Around seven, when I figured he’d be rolling in, I started to throw tack on Dynamo. I knew it was too early to get on him, but I thought we could just hack out, take a look at the warm-up ring and the dressage arenas, and generally relax. He preferred to be out of his stall, after all, and it would do him good to have some time to chill out while other horses were warming up for their tests.

  When he was saddled and bridled, I put his halter back on, tied him to a stall bar, and asked Becky to keep an eye on him while I went to change into my good clothes. She nodded, a little smile playing on her lips as if she knew exactly what I was trying to do, and I took off down the stable aisle.

  And nearly ran smack into Pete, strolling in with a box of coffee from Starbucks and a brown paper bag that was greasy with the buttery pastries inside.

  I looked up at him, and he looked down at me, and neither of us said a word for a moment. I saw his jaw set into place, the way that it did when he was angry, and that was all I needed. This wasn’t going away. I ducked under his arm, bumping into the bag of pastry, and took off for the horse trailer to wriggle into my show breeches alone.

  I felt his gaze on my back all the way there — or so I thought. Because when I reached the trailer and turned around to look back, there was no one in the stable aisle at all. He had gone on with his morning.

  “And so will I,” I told myself, and started getting dressed.

  I was struggling with my hair, which did not want to be confined into its hairnet, when there was a rap at the metal door. I whirled around, expecting Pete. “Come in!” I called breathlessly. I just wanted him to apologize for taking my horse without my permission. That was all I wanted. Everything else I could forgive. The weird training. The whip. The accusation that I was trying to sabotage his ride by killing his concentration. I’d forgive him, if he just apologized for trying to fix my horse…

  My heart thudded as the door opened, and seemed to skid to an awkward, off-center halt as Lacey stepped up into the tack room. “You can’t get dressed on your own, silly,” she said affectionately, reaching for my hairnet. “Now turn around and let me fix this mess.”

  I handed over the hairnet and elastics and obediently turned around, letting her experienced fingers loop my masses of hair into something tidy that could be hidden under a riding helmet. Then she turned me back around, maneuvering me by the shoulders as if I were a little girl, and straightened the pin on my stock tie. “Want your jacket on?” she asked finally, once she had stepped back and given me the once-over.

  “Just my sweater right now,” I said, and she nodded.

  “I’ll bring the jacket to the ring along with the bucket and the towel.”

  “And some Gatorade.”

  “And some Gatorade,” she promised. “Do you want to look over the test again?”

  “No, I know it.” I’d read it over and over again, all night long, when it was obvious I was never going to fall asleep. Enter at A, collected trot. At X, halt, salute, proceed at collected trot. At C, track left. H-E, shoulder-in left. At E, circle left 10 meters. I could recite it in my sleep, if I ever slept again. “Come at eight, okay?”

  “I’ll be there.” She hesitated. “Pete’s ride is at 8:30, you know.”

  “I know.”


  “Are you going to talk to him beforehand?”

  I shook my head. “Today I’m just going to compete. When he’s ready to apologize, then we’ll talk.”

  Lacey nodded slowly, which meant that she didn’t agree with my logic, which meant that she didn’t think it was going to happen, which meant that my world slid a little a little further towards the precipice. I swallowed and pulled on my hoodie, zipping it up to keep my white shirt and stock tie spotless. If I could hold it together until I was mounted on Dynamo, I could hold it together through the day.

  Barely.

  “I’ll be at the barn with Dynamo,” Lacey said, heading out of the tack. She paused just outside the door and peeked back in. “Hey Jules?”

  I turned. “Yes?”

  “Are you mad at him for what he did, or are you mad that he could have gotten you in trouble?”

  “Are you serious?”

  Lacey held up her hands. “I don’t know with you anymore.”

  “I didn’t show up to get DQ’d for abusing a horse, Lace.”

  “Do you really think it was that bad?”

  I shrugged. “Does it matter what I think? Everyone thinks I’m insane anyway. They think I don’t know what I’m doing. They look at Mickey and they remember him trying to kill me at Lochloosa. They see someone chasing him backwards with a whip at his next event? Yeah, combine those two things, and it’s that bad.”

  Lacey furrowed her brow. “Okay, public perception — I get that. But you — do you think Pete would abuse your horse? He must have had a reason for what he did, right? Why don’t you just ask him?”

  I sighed. “You ask him, Lacey, if you really want to know. I can’t think about Pete right now.”

  Lacey shook her head at me, clearly disappointed, and walked off. I closed the tack room door behind her and turned back to the flimsy plastic mirror hanging on the wall. I inhaled, filling my lungs with air until there was no more room. When I exhaled, my breath was one word.