Two Strides (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 30)

by Claire Svendsen

  This subtle boost to my dad’s ego was the push he needed to go back into the house and change into something a little more professional looking than his sweatpants. When he finally came out of the house I noticed that he was wearing the same cologne that Jordan had been, which sort of wierded me out. But I didn’t have time to wonder why two men would manage to pick the same scent out of all the scents that were out there in the world because as usual we were now late.

  “Say goodbye to your friends,” I told Hashtag as I led him to the trailer.

  The other horses were off grazing. I wasn’t entirely sure they cared that Hashtag was leaving. I wanted them to run up to the fence and call out to him like they were saying goodbye and in my imagination, he would turn and let out one mournful whinny before walking up the ramp and into the trailer. Instead they ignored him and he decided that he didn’t want to load and it took a bucket of grain and handful of carrots to get him up in there but not before he had almost smacked his head on the roof of the trailer and had half stepped on my foot. So much for his story book ending.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Fox Run was just as I remembered it. Glamorous. Pristine. The sort of place that you’d be afraid to step on the grass for fear of breaking one of the hundred and fifty rules. I kind of liked that our barn wasn’t like that. No one freaked out if a horse pooped in the wrong place or chewed on a piece of wood. It didn’t matter. They were animals and like children you couldn’t box them in all the time. So our pastures weren’t flat and as green as a golf course and our fences were patched more than new. At least our horses were happy.

  A couple of lanky looking Thoroughbreds were grazing in one of the front fields and a stocky Warmblood wearing a matching fly sheet, mask and boots was standing at the gate to one of the paddocks looking totally miserable, probably because he just wanted all that junk off him so that he could have a good roll and scrub some real dirt into his coat.

  We pulled around the barn and I realized that I was nervous too. What if Missy yelled at us? Or worse, what if she didn’t even care? But I was hoping that maybe Mickey would be around or Ethan. Someone that I knew so that the tension wouldn’t be so bad. And I was really looking forward to seeing Four. My big silly gray horse had been out on a free lease to Dakota, the Western rider who had lost her horses when her father got cancer and I hadn’t heard anything from her in a while. I hadn’t wanted to pester her in case her father had taken a turn for the worse but I was really eager to see how Four was doing.

  Dad dropped the ramp on the trailer and I jumped in to untie Hashtag before he flipped out. All of a sudden he was like this bundle of nerves, his head high and ears pricked as he scuttled backwards out of the trailer and stood there looking around. He let out a high pitched whinny and a horse in the barn answered.

  “Do you remember this place?” I asked him. “I bet you do and I bet some of your old friends are still here. You’ll feel right at home.”

  “Let’s get this over with then,” Dad said.

  I walked Hashtag into the barn, Dad at my side. It was like walking into a dream. I’d spent so many hours in that barn after it became my home and I never really thought I’d leave but after we got kicked out, I tried to forget about how perfect it had all been. Now I could see it clearly again. The brass nameplates on the stalls. The fluffy shavings piled up high in the corners. The ceiling fans whirring softly and the smell of horse and fly spray and shavings all mixed together.

  “I miss this place,” I whispered.

  “There is nothing wrong with our farm,” Dad said, sounding annoyed again.

  “I know,” I said. “I didn’t say there was.”

  But it was like comparing a trailer park to a sprawling mansion. There was no comparison.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Shonda rushed out of the tack room, throwing her arms around Hashtag. He looked a little startled. I don’t think anyone had ever quite greeted him that way before.

  “You’re here,” she said. “I didn’t know if he preferred carrots, apples or cookies, so I brought them all.”

  She had the bags in her hands, pulling out carrots and offering them to Hashtag.

  “He likes anything,” I told her.

  “But which is his favorite?” She pressed me for answers.

  I just sort of shrugged, kind of embarrassed that I didn’t know. Maybe I hadn’t given Hashtag all the love and attention that he deserved but he’d seemed perfectly happy. Except now Shonda was making me feel a little like maybe I’d failed the horse.

  “Perhaps we’d better put him in his stall?” I asked her as a groom came down the aisle towards us with another horse.

  She half glared at me as Hashtag swung his butt in her way. I didn’t recognize her but she seemed to know who we were. Perhaps she’d heard rumors or maybe Missy had told her. I wasn’t sure but it was clear that she thought we were in the way.

  “Okay,” Shonda said. “Down here.”

  The stall wasn’t the same one that Hashtag used to have. That one was occupied by a delicate looking Arabian with a dished face and long eyelashes. This one was on the other side of the barn, furthest away from the tack room and the wash rack. The end where they used to put people who couldn’t pay as much before we took over.

  “I can do it,” Shonda said as I started to pull off the shipping boots.

  “Alright,” I said.

  I stood awkwardly in the doorway as Shonda fussed over Hashtag. To start with he didn’t know what to make of all the attention but after a few carrots, some cookies and an apple, he was eating out of Shonda’s hand, literally. I don’t think he could have cared less if I was there or not.

  Dad had disappeared to give the paperwork to Miss. Fontain, who had been out in the dressage arena finishing up a lesson and the barn was pretty quiet.

  “Do you know if Missy is around?” I asked Shonda, trying not to sound nervous.

  “I think she was riding a horse in the jump ring,” she said as Hashtag bullied her for more carrots.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You good?”

  “We’re better than good,” Shonda said, laying her head against Hashtag.

  He got this soppy look on his face and I knew that he was more than good too.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I found Missy where Shonda said she would be, out in the jump ring with a big bay horse. I stood in the shadow of a large tree, watching her. She was cantering around a course of giant fences. I hadn’t seen her ride like that before. She was really good.

  Back when I first met Missy, she was pregnant with Owen. And after that she’d sort of lost her nerve when it came to riding. She said that it didn’t matter if she rode competitively again. I guess somewhere along the way she’d changed her mind.

  The horse tossed his head, excited by the big fences. Missy had her hands full with him. I could tell. He looked like he was difficult to ride and didn’t like having his mouth touched, which probably made him difficult to stop or at least slow down. He was going in some sort of complicated half hackamore. It didn’t seem to be helping.

  Eventually he got away from her and plowed through one of the verticals. I was surprised he hadn’t ducked out at the last minute. Missy had buried him at the base of the fence and there was no way he was going to make it. But she didn’t get mad at him. Instead she circled him around and made him jump one of the smaller fences before patting his neck and calling it a day.

  She was letting him walk on a loose rein when she called out my name. I hadn’t thought she’d be able to see me. I was wrong.

  “Nice to see you again, Emily,” she said like I was some person that she was only acquainted with, not someone who had almost been her daughter for a short time.

  “Nice horse,” I said, feeling awkward.

  At least if we talked about horses, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

  “Thanks,” she said. “He’s a handful.”

  “I can see that,” I said. “Is he yours?”

  “Yes,
” she said with a nod. “Though I’m not quite sure what I was thinking when I bought him.”

  “He does have quite the jump,” I said. “I’m not surprised you liked him.”

  “That and he was cheap because he has issues.” She held up her hands and made air quotes when she said the word issues. I assumed that meant he had more than one.

  “We just dropped off Hashtag,” I said, leaning on the fence.

  “That’s great.” Missy nodded. “Shonda is a good kid. She’ll take excellent care of him.”

  “She’s already spoiling him,” I replied. “I don’t think he’ll ever want to come home now.”

  “I hear you have your hands full as it is, what with Faith’s new pony,” Missy said.

  I knew it. Miss. Fontain had been spying on us. She’d probably told Missy all about how we couldn’t keep the pony in his paddock and how our barn wasn’t even finished.

  “He’s enthusiastic,” I said diplomatically. “And Faith loves him.”

  “Faith loves everything with four legs,” Missy said.

  I thought that was a little cold. Faith had given up her first pony for the good of his health. She had to at least give her some credit for that. I stared at my feet as Missy jumped to the ground and ran up her stirrups.

  “I was wondering,” I said, trying to sound all casual. “Would it be okay if I saw Owen now that I’m here?”

  “He’s at daycare,” Missy said. “The nanny doesn’t pick him up until five.”

  I looked at Missy like she was crazy. Daycare? Nanny? This was a woman who’d kept her son in a stroller by the ring while she taught lessons and now she’d just abandoned him to the world of daycare workers and nannies like he didn’t even matter anymore?

  “Fine,” I said. “Then where is Four? I’d like to at least see him before I go.”

  “Four isn’t here either,” Missy said.

  “Four isn’t here either?” I repeated, starting to get worried. “Where is he?”

  “Dakota left. Four left a few days later.” Missy shrugged.

  “Dakota left and then Four left?” I said, my voice all high pitched and angry.

  “Yes, you don’t have to keep repeating everything I say,” Missy said, so calm and together that I just wanted to shake her.

  “How could he have left? Where has he gone?” I cried. “He belongs to me, he’s my horse. He was only on a free lease and that was conditional on him staying here.”

  “Well I didn’t know that.” Missy shrugged. “It’s not my fault you weren’t here.”

  That was it. The lid blew off my emotions like someone had just lit a fuse on a bomb and stepped back to watch it explode.

  “Not your fault?” I screamed at her. “Of course it is. You had us kicked out of here. You made us leave and now you have the nerve to tell me that I can’t see my baby brother and that a horse that belongs to me has just vanished off the face of the earth?”

  People were coming out of the barn to watch. Staring at Missy and me like we were some sort of reality show.

  “I didn’t tell you that he’d vanished,” Missy said, so composed and together that she was annoying me more with her calmness. “I said that Dakota left and then Four left. And please keep your voice down, you’re upsetting the clients. I don’t want to have to ask security to remove you from the property.”

  “What?” I screamed at her. “Security? Do you have a body guard now as well as a nanny? Who are you?”

  But Missy just looked at me and shook her head before walking away, her horse snorting at me like I was some sort of freak which, after the scene I’d just caused, I probably was.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In the end it was Dad who dragged me out to the truck. I think he was afraid that Missy was going to call the cops.

  “She said Four has gone,” I told him. “And Owen is at daycare. I don’t even know who she is anymore.”

  “Get. In. The. Truck.” Dad said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as he shoved me in and slammed the door, continuing on when he got in himself. “But you should have seen what she was like. She didn’t even care.”

  “Of course she doesn’t care,” Dad said, as the truck rumbled to life. “What did you expect?”

  “But we all lived together as a family,” I said. “I thought she’d be nice to me.”

  “Well you thought wrong,” Dad said.

  On the way home I called Dakota about fifty million times but she didn’t answer and eventually it stopped ringing and started going straight to voicemail. I left her an angry message.

  “Dakota, its Emily. I just found out that you took Four away from Fox Run. That wasn’t part of our agreement. I need you to call me back so that I know he is okay and you have to tell me where he is so that we can come and pick him up. I’m worried about him.”

  “Aren’t you worried about her?” Dad asked as I tossed the phone on the dashboard.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not. She should have told me she was leaving. What if something bad has happened to Four? What if she’s sold him?”

  “What if she has?” Dad said. “We don’t need another horse right now. We can’t even afford the ones we have.”

  I didn’t bother and argue with him because I knew that he was right. But Dakota was wrong. She could have called me to tell me what was going on. I was so mad at her. But I was also mad at myself. I’d never called to check up on Four. Not once. I’d assumed that he was safe because he was at Fox Run but that wasn’t true. All that time I’d thought that Missy had been looking out for him but it turned out that she didn’t care about my horse or me or Dad. She didn’t care about any of us.

  “Missy is like a different person now,” I said sadly.

  “I know,” Dad said. He sounded sad too.

  And the truth was that Missy was a different person because of what my father had done to her and the only reason he’d done any of that stuff was because of my mother.

  “If Mom comes back here again, I want you to tell her to get lost,” I said, a lump in my throat. “I don’t want anything to do with her ever again.”

  Dad didn’t say anything but the way he was gripping the steering wheel, I was pretty sure he felt the same way.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Dakota didn’t call me back, which meant that in the end I had to call Mickey to find out what was going on.

  “I don’t know what is going on,” was the first thing she said.

  “Of course you do,” I said, flopping back on the bed in frustration.

  Patrick was sleeping at the bottom and let out a little growl as my flop disturbed him.

  “I don’t,” she said. “We were away on vacation and when I came back, Four had gone.”

  “And you didn’t think that maybe it was important that you tell me this?” I said, imagining Mickey standing there all proper in her riding clothes, waiting impatiently to go and do dressage things while I moaned at her.

  “We just got back,” she said. “He was there when I left and he was gone when I got back. What do you want me to do about it? Besides, I thought Missy was watching over him.”

  “Yeah I did too,” I said.

  “I heard about your little outburst at the barn today,” she said.

  “Great.” I kicked the wall with my foot but only ended up hurting my toe. “So now everyone thinks I’m psycho?”

  “I think everyone already knew,” Mickey said.

  “Thanks a lot,” I told her.

  “No, listen. Missy’s been weird lately. It’s like she’s on autopilot or something.” For a moment Mickey sounded like the old Mickey, the one who was my friend.

  “So it’s not just me then?” I said, sitting up again. “She is being weird, right?”

  “Totally weird,” Mickey said. “Sometimes it’s like she’s not even there. Like she just stands there staring off into space.”

  “I’m kind of sorry I yelled at her,” I said. “Now she’s just going to hate m
e even more.”

  “She doesn’t hate you,” Mickey said.

  “Yes she does,” I told her.

  There was a pause and then I said, “Are you sure you don’t know anything about where Dakota might have gone?”

  “She didn’t say anything,” Mickey said softly. “But I think her dad died. He had cancer, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “So maybe she went back to Texas?”

  “Great,” I said. “How am I ever going to get Four back if he’s in Texas? And besides, that would mean that she basically stole him.”

  “I know,” Mickey said. “It sucks.” There was muffled talking in the background and then she added, “Listen, I’m sorry but I have to go. I’m late for my lesson as it is.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But if you hear anything about Four can you let me know? And please keep an eye on Hashtag. Shonda seems nice but so did Dakota. I can’t risk losing another horse that is out on lease.”

  “Yeah, thanks for that,” Mickey said. “Shonda beats me enough already and you go and give her an even better horse?”

  “Hampton is good,” I told her.

  “Not good enough.” She sighed.

  “You are an amazing rider,” I told her. “You just get into these doubt spirals. Now go out there and knock them dead.”

  “It’s only a lesson.” She laughed.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I told her.

  After we’d finished talking I lay there staring at the ceiling for a while, then I opened up my laptop and Googled how to get to Texas. It was over a thousand miles and would take about eighteen hours to get there and that was if you drove straight through. How was I ever going to get my horse back if he was all the way in Texas?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “We have to go to Texas,” I told Dad the next morning.

  “Forget about it,” he said.