Two Strides (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 30)

by Claire Svendsen

  “She has, has she?” I asked.

  I was suspicious of the girl and jealous too. I’d wanted to have Esther all to myself like the old days but I guess the old days were over and they weren’t coming back.

  “Of course,” the girl said. “I’m her niece. She tells me everything.”

  She tightened the girth on the bay horse and then we stood there awkwardly. I didn’t know what to say. Hanna seemed like a nice enough girl, maybe a year or two older than me. She had the same straw blonde hair that Esther did and brilliant blue eyes. I checked her out when I thought she wasn’t looking but I guess she was because she turned and grinned at me.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not your competition or anything like that. I suck at jumping. I just like to ride, that’s all.”

  “I’m not worried,” I said, feeling the nervous tension between us start to dissolve.

  Hanna had been right. I was worried that she was some sort of jumping prodigy that Esther had brought back with her from Sweden.

  “I see you two have met,” Esther said as she came out of the barn and took the Paint’s reins from her niece.

  “Yes,” Hanna said. “I was just telling Emily that she didn’t have to worry about me stealing her thunder because I suck at jumping.”

  “Of course you do,” Esther said with a wink. “That’s why you were the Junior Jumper champion three years in a row.”

  I looked from Esther to Hanna, trying to tell which one was telling the truth and which one was lying but they were both giggling now like it was some kind of inside joke. We rode off the farm with them still laughing. I trailed behind, wondering whether, if I turned for home and went back, they would even notice.

  Bluebird didn’t mind keeping up the rear and so we walked along the trail while I listened to them talk. Mostly it was about horses that they’d left behind, the new horses that were coming and how hot it was already.

  “Don’t you think its hot Emily?” Esther said, finally trying to include me in the conversation as she swiveled round in the saddle.

  “No hotter than usual,” I said.

  But I did feel hot, grumpy and mad. I’d planned to tell Esther about the crash. To come clean with her about what had happened to me and hope that she’d have some much needed words of wisdom to add to the ones that Duncan had already given me but she was too busy laughing and having a good time, which I would have been doing too if Hanna hadn’t been there or if at least I knew half of what they were talking about. It was like being back at school where the girls all talked about their weekends spent at the mall and hanging out with their boyfriends and I would just nod and smile and not have one clue what on earth to say.

  At least when we got to the road, I got a little bit of satisfaction because Bluebird put his head down and trudged across it with a sigh while their two horses fussed and danced about as they tried to coax them across the tarmac.

  “Bluebird is such a solid citizen,” Esther said when she finally got her Paint to cross.

  I bit my tongue. I’m sure she meant it in a nice way but it just came across as patronizing, like Bluebird was some old school pony that was for beginners. So instead I smiled and turned him towards the sounds of the ocean. At least I’d be able to get a good gallop out of the whole thing and then I was never going riding with them again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  The beach was pretty empty. There were a couple of people walking their dogs and a few families had set up camp for the day with their towels and bags, their kids building sand castles and playing in the surf. The tide was out and there was a wide swath of wet sand to ride on. The warm, salty breeze cooled my flushed skin and I let Bluebird trot towards the water.

  He may have been as bored as I was on the ride over but now he was excited, his ears pricked and body alert as we started to canter. I didn’t wait for Esther to tell me where I could or couldn’t ride or what I should or shouldn’t do. She wasn’t my instructor anymore and I knew what I was doing.

  The sound of the waves and the beat of my pony’s hooves blocked out everything else. We cantered in circles for a little while and then I asked him to gallop. We flew along the sand, my body close to his neck, his mane whipping up into my face and my hair flying loose from under my helmet. We were free. We were one. A girl and her pony and nothing else. When we finally reached the rocks I asked him to walk and he tossed his neck like he could still gallop for miles.

  “I know boy.” I patted his neck as he snorted and shook his head. “But the rocks are in the way and they are too big to jump.”

  I let him sniff the big gray boulders that blocked our way and stopped the sand from eroding too much and then laughed as he stuck his tongue out and licked one of them, then curled his lip up.

  We stayed down by the rocks for a while. There was a shallow pool of water that had formed in a hollow and I let Bluebird stand in it, the salty water soothing his legs.

  “I guess we should go back now,” I finally told him.

  I could see Esther and Hanna, two dots further up the beach. Their horses were being naughty. The Paint wouldn’t do anything except jig in a jagged circle and the bay was going backwards and trying to rear. And now I just felt guilty. I should have stayed to help them, not just ridden off. What if one of them got hurt? I didn’t need any more guilt to add to the piles of the stuff I already had. I gathered my reins and trotted my pony back towards my riding partners, planning to make amends, if it wasn’t already too late.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  I could see something bad was about to happen before it even did and I knew I was too far away to do anything about it. A couple of little kids came running down the beach with a kite. Esther’s Paint mare freaked out and spooked, bumping into the bay gelding who flew backwards, reared and then lost his footing in the slippery sand. I watched as they fell in slow motion, both Hanna and the horse. And then they were down. All I could see were thrashing legs as the horse tried to right himself and I couldn’t see Hanna at all. Then the horse was on his feet and galloping towards me and Bluebird.

  “Easy boy,” I said, thrusting my heels down and grabbing a handful of mane in case my own pony decided to do something stupid.

  Fear bred fear, especially in horses and they fed off one another. Bluebird wouldn’t know why the bay horse was fleeing from danger, he would just know that there was some kind of danger and his instinct would kick in. That adrenaline rush of fight or flight and horses were flight animals through and through. They’d run every time. But my pony trusted me. Instead he went rigid and snorted as the bay horse blasted past us and that was when I asked him to follow. Esther could help her niece. The least we could do was catch the horse.

  The bay was fat and unfit and my pony was faster. We galloped after him but he was already slowing to a canter by the time he approached the rocks that were blocking his path.

  “Easy boy,” I called out to him. “It’s okay. Easy.”

  He trotted around us in uneasy circles, his eyes wide and sides heaving. I kept talking to him and let my pony approach him quietly and calmly. They sniffed noses and snorted and then I was able to reach out and grab his reins. For a moment he started going backwards again and I thought that maybe he would pull me out of my own saddle but then he hit the end of the reins and stopped.

  I walked both horse and pony back to where Esther and Hanna were standing. The girl didn’t look any worse for wear. I think the soft sand had cushioned her fall. She was lucky. An arena wouldn’t have been so forgiving.

  “Is he okay?” she said as she snatched the reins from my grasp.

  “Are you?” I said.

  “Of course.” She checked her horse over for injuries but he seemed okay.

  “Nice save,” Esther told me.

  “I should have stayed with you guys,” I said, feeling guilty even though Hanna hadn’t been hurt. “I shouldn’t have ridden off like that.”

  “If you’d stayed, maybe your pony would have been the o
ne to freak out,” Esther said.

  “Not Bluebird,” I said. “Like you said, he’s dependable and that’s not a bad thing.”

  As we headed back to the barn, I was glad that my pony had miles of experience and I had logged hundreds of hours both in the saddle and bareback. We knew each other. We trusted each other and the fact that he would jump the moon for me? That was just icing on the cake.

  “You should jump when we get back to the barn,” Esther said as we rode back side by side.

  Hanna had decided to lead her horse just in case he was hurt but wasn’t showing it yet due to the adrenaline rush. She was also limping a little but insisted she was fine. Esther kept glancing over her shoulder to make sure her niece was okay but her horse was too tired to do anything else stupid now.

  “I’d better not,” I said. “He had a good gallop. I don’t want to jump him when he’s tired. We have a big show next week. It’s the team semi-finals. I have to make sure he is fit for that.”

  “Well come over tomorrow then,” Esther said. “It will give him a break to jump in a different arena. I could give you a lesson if you like.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I couldn’t exactly say no and I wasn’t ever going to turn down a free lesson. Besides, I wanted Hanna to see how good Bluebird was. I knew that she thought he was just a pony but she didn’t know what he could do. Even Esther hadn’t seen how much better he could jump now. How he competed against the big horses and tackled massive courses with jumps that were almost as big as he was. And part of me really wanted to show him off but the other part of me knew that showing off was a sure way to make things backfire and I didn’t want to be the one left sitting in the dirt like Hanna had been.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I told Hanna as we parted ways when we got back to Sand Hill.

  “Thanks,” she replied but she didn’t say it like she meant it and I wasn’t sure if we were going to end up being friends or not, which was going to make things really awkward between me and Esther.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  That night I was sulking in my room, dwelling on what had happened that day and vowing to be nicer to Hanna when my phone rang. It was Mickey.

  “Hey,” she said when I answered. “I think I may have a lead on Four.”

  “What?” I said, sitting up. “Really?”

  “Yeah, this girl that rides here was good friends with Dakota and she thinks that she may have sent Four to another barn before she left.”

  “But why would she do that? Why wouldn’t she just call me so that I could take him back?”

  “I don’t know,” Mickey said. “But I have the name of the farm. Do you want it?”

  “Of course I do,” I said.

  Mickey gave me the name and the phone number but I wasn’t about to just call them and give them the chance to hide my horse away before I got there. I was going to show up with my dad and the trailer and take back what was mine.

  “Are you okay?” Mickey said after I’d written the information down.

  “Did you know that Esther has a niece?” I asked her, drawing a doodle of a horse jumping as I talked.

  “No,” Mickey said. “Why?”

  “Because she does and she’s here and apparently she is some kind of jumping genius,” I said.

  “Afraid she’s going to steal your thunder?” Mickey said.

  “Yeah like the same way you feel about Shonda,” I told her.

  “Touché,” she said. “Well what is she like then?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think I was kind of mean to her.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Mickey said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I said.

  “You just take a little time to warm up to people, that’s all,” Mickey said.

  “Well I’m not sure that I’m going to warm up to her or not but I did catch her horse when she fell off,” I said, giving the jumping horse a blue ribbon pinned to its bridle.

  “She fell off?” Mickey laughed. “Well she can’t be that much of a genius then.”

  “It wasn’t exactly her fault. We rode to the beach. There were kids and a kite. Any horse would have freaked out.”

  “I bet Bluebird didn’t,” Mickey said.

  “You’re right,” I said proudly. “He didn’t.”

  “Well I’d better go,” Mickey said. “I have tons of homework. Good luck at your show and I really hope you find Four. He’s a sweet horse. I’d hate it if anything happened to him.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  After I hung up I Googled the barn but they didn’t have a web site. Then I did some school work because I’d been neglecting it lately what with all the drama and I couldn’t afford to fall behind. I needed to graduate early now more than ever. And I wanted to go to the barn the next day to find Four but there were barn chores and show prep and before I knew it we were all being summoned back to Duncan’s farm for a pre-show schooling session.

  “This is ridiculous,” I told Dad. “I don’t have five seconds to myself.”

  “This is the show life,” he said as he loaded the trailer.

  We’d all stay the night at Duncan’s farm and then go on to the show from there the next morning. I’d made Dad promise me that when I got back we’d go and get Four and he’d agreed, though I wasn’t sure he actually believed that we’d find him at the farm Mickey had told me about.

  “Well show life is exhausting,” I said. “I’m so tired that every muscle in my body hurts.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Dad said.

  He should know. He’d been doing this a lot longer than I had.

  “Is it worth it?” I asked him with a yawn.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  And as I looked at my pony, waiting patiently for his bath and thought of the show, I knew that it was. I just wished that Esther and her jumping protégée would be there to see me jump so I could prove to them that I was worthy of being in their presence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  As soon as we got to Duncan’s, it started to rain. Then the thunder and lightning came. We ran into the barn with all our stuff. Bluebird had his ears pinned. He didn’t like the rain when it was lashing sideways into his face. I didn’t like it much either.

  “It’s not supposed to be like this all day, is it?” I asked Andy, who was tipping water out of one of his boots.

  “Pretty much,” he said. “Didn’t you see the weather forecast?”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

  I’d been so busy that I never even looked. We’d had so many hot, dry days that I thought they’d never end and now apparently they had and we were in for the deluge of our lives.

  “But how are we supposed to practice? What about the show?” I said as a particularly loud crack of lightning nearby shook the barn.

  Bluebird jumped sideways, nearly landing on my foot and I quickly put him into the same stall that I had last time so that he wouldn’t do anything stupid and get loose.

  “Well they won’t let us ride if there is lightning but if that stops and it’s just rain then I hope you brought your rain gear,” Andy said.

  “I brought mine,” Rose said cheerfully, holding up a waterproof jacket with a smile.

  “I didn’t bring rain gear because I didn’t know it was going to rain,” I replied feeling sulky. Couldn’t Dad have at least told me?

  “Guess you’re out of luck then,” Jess said as she barreled past with her chestnut mare.

  The mare didn’t seem to like the rain any more than I did, her ears were pinned flat back and her eyes were wild. If the weather continued into tomorrow, then we were never going to win the team event and we could all kiss the finals goodbye.

  “I so wanted us to do well this time,” I said, leaning against the wall with a sigh.

  “Are you kidding? This weather is great.”

  I heard a familiar accent behind me and there was Esther with her niece Hanna and the bay horse who had d
umped her off at the beach.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  “As soon as Duncan heard Hanna was here, he invited her to be your alternate,” Esther said.

  “Great,” Andy said as Jess’s horse refused to go into her stall and gave a little rear. “We may need you tomorrow. I’m Andy.”

  “Hanna,” Esther’s niece said, sticking out her hand to shake Andy’s.

  Andy puffed out his chest, trying to look about fifty pounds heavier than he really was when in reality he wasn’t much bigger than me, although he had developed some muscles that made him look a little more impressive than usual.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked Esther as Hanna put her horse away. “We could have trailered over together.”

  “I didn’t want to step on your toes,” Esther said, looking uncomfortable. “This is your thing and I didn’t want to take it away from you. Besides, I was hoping that you and Hanna might hit it off but that hasn’t been the case so I thought it best not to say anything.”

  “It’s not that we didn’t hit it off,” I said, pulling at the toggle on my jacket. “I just thought it would be the two of us on the trail ride, that was all.”

  “I know,” Esther said. “I’m sorry. I did actually mean for it to be the two of us. You know, catch up on old times and all that stuff but then Hanna showed up and I couldn’t exactly tell her no. She is family you know.”

  “I know,” I said. “She has to come first.”

  Esther looked around the barn and then pulled me outside. We stood against the back wall of the barn, the rain running off the roof in a sheet of water and splashing around our feet.

  “Hanna is not more important than you are,” she said, her face earnest. “I want you to know that. You were one of the main reasons that I came back. I wanted to be here helping you again, if you’ll accept my help that is.”

  “Of course,” I said. “But you have your hands full as it is and besides, every time someone says that they are going to help me, it never works out.”