“Do you think you’ll be okay if I’m gone for a month? I promise that I’ll get Jordan to feed you every day because I know that Dad won’t bother. He thinks you can live on rats alone and I know that’s just not true.”
I was going to ask Jordan to take care of Patrick too. In fact, I already had a list of favors that I meant to ask him. It felt like I was taking advantage of his kind nature but he was always saying that he was there to help so I figured I might as well take him up on the offer. Of course so far he didn’t even know I was leaving.
Meatball heard something rustling in the hay and wiggled to get out of my arms.
“You kill it,” I called after him as he ran over to the hay and crouched down in stealth mode, wiggling his fluffy butt.
I grabbed my helmet and took Bluebird out of the barn before anything happened. I liked the idea of Meatball keeping our rat population in check but I didn’t actually like seeing him do it. Not that rats were cute or anything but still, it was kind of gross when he killed them and then played with their corpse for an hour.
As we rode up the hill I let Bluebird wander lazily along. He was going to have a tough a month as it was. We had a long road ahead of us, literally. I didn’t know where we would be going or how many shows we’d hit in a month but it was going to be long and tiring but also totally amazing. If I couldn’t go to Europe, then training with someone who had just come back from there was the next best thing.
As we reached the top of the hill, I looked down on Jess’s farm. There were no horses in the fields but I could see a groom with a wheelbarrow dumping manure. Jess had broken her leg just before the last show. I knew she’d be laid up for at least six weeks. Maybe even longer. And even though she’d done so many horrible things, I felt kind of bad for her. But at the same time I was glad that while she was out of action, her horses were at least getting a little bit of a reprieve.
“Come on boy,” I told Bluebird as we slipped through the fence. “Let’s go and tell Esther the good news. She is going to be so surprised.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Esther wasn’t around but I found Hanna in the barn. She was rummaging around in the tack room looking for something. She’d obviously been looking for a while because the place looked like a bomb had gone off. There were bridles and halters strewn all over the floor along with unrolled wraps, bits and boots.
“Hey,” I said.
Hanna screamed and spun around.
“Sorry.” I laughed. “I didn’t mean to make you jump.”
“You just about gave me a heart attack,” she said, clutching her chest. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“Is it okay that I’m here?” I said.
Even though Esther had told me to come over whenever I felt like it, I still felt weird about just showing up, which was strange considering I used to ride my bike there almost every day and never even questioned whether Esther wanted me around or not. I guess I was a pushy kid when it came to getting my own way.
“Of course it's okay,” Hanna said, trying to tuck her wayward hair back into her braids and failing. “I just can’t find this spare bit that I need for Hemi.”
“What’s wrong with his current one?” I asked her.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just sometimes he can get a bit strong and I might need it.”
“Might need it for what?” I said. “A show?”
But the realization was slowly dawning on me that maybe my big news wasn’t all that big at all. That perhaps I wasn’t the only one who’d been invited to go on the road with Rae Willingham.
“I’m going to be showing for a whole month,” she cried. “Isn’t that amazing? It’s going to be awesome. We’ll be on the road travelling to all these shows. It’s going to be so cool.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “With Rae Willingham?”
“Yes,” she said. “No, wait, you’re not going too are you?”
I nodded and before I could say anything, Hanna had bolted out of the tack room and was hugging me. Bluebird flew backwards, slipping on the concrete.
“It’s okay,” I told him as I sort of pushed Hanna off me.
The last thing I needed was for him to get hurt before we even left.
“This is going to be so cool,” Hanna said again. “You and me together. I was worried that I wouldn’t know anyone and that it would be all scary and now I know that you’ll be there I feel so much better.”
“You looked like you felt pretty great about it before,” I told her skeptically.
“I know,” she said. “I just didn’t want to seem ungrateful to be given such an amazing opportunity.”
And as I listened to Hanna, I realized that it was exactly what I had been. Ungrateful. And I silently vowed to be more appreciative of all the opportunities that were coming my way.
“Are you taking Bluebird?” Hanna asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “I was going to ask you if you wouldn’t mind working my other horses while I was gone but I guess now I’ll have to think of someone else.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I would have done it you know.”
“That’s okay,” I said.
“You could always ask Esther,” she told me.
“I’ll figure something out,” I said.
Having Esther over at our farm while I was gone wasn’t exactly a very good idea. My dad could say something dumb and make us look bad or she could see that we barely had enough money to keep going. I didn’t want her to know how bad things really were so even though I pretended that maybe I would ask Esther, I knew that I wouldn’t.
Hanna and I spent the rest of the evening talking about what the next four weeks of our lives would be like. I imagined all these things, fancy shows and horses and money everywhere. I knew that we wouldn’t exactly fit in but that didn’t matter because we weren’t there as riders, we were there as working students and I knew that working students got worked to death. But if we learned some things along the way then it would be totally worth it.
“Do you think Rae will let us exercise some of her horses?” Hanna said.
“I hope so.” I nodded.
We’d put the tack room back together again after I’d found the spare bit that Hanna was looking for hanging on a hook on the back of the door. I knew that Esther wouldn’t be amused to find such a mess but Hanna said she’d gone and wouldn’t be back until later. I hadn’t realized until now but part of the work they’d done on the barn was adding an apartment in the attic space so now Esther and Hanna lived there full time and they’d never have to worry about someone sneaking onto the farm and letting the horses out like we’d done back when I took lessons there.
Of course that hadn’t turned out to be Jess like we’d all thought it had been. It was naughty Macaroni, letting himself and then all the other horses out of their stalls when no one was around. It was times like that I missed. Times spent with Mickey and Esther and Ethan. But now I’d make new memories with Hanna and she was right, it would be awesome, except Dad’s words kept ringing in my head. How he’d said that Hanna was my competition. What if Rae thought she was a better rider than I was? What if she was the one who was chosen to ride the horses and I was left cleaning stalls and doing all the barn chores? Someone would be the favorite and I just knew that it would probably be the pretty blonde haired, blue eyed girl who spoke with a mysterious accent and had the perfect rider’s body.
“Well, I’d better get back,” I said. “It’s getting late and I have my own things to find and pack.”
“Do you want me to come and help you?” she asked.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’ve got this.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Two hours later, I knew that I didn't have it together at all. I was missing more stuff than I’d packed. I thought Hanna was totally unorganized because she couldn’t find a bit but I was missing Bluebird’s spare boots, his fly sheet, his extra halter and a million and one other little things. I didn’t know where they all co
uld have gone. I was in the tack room losing it big time when Jordan walked in.
“What happened here?” he asked. “Are you trying to murder your tack trunk?”
“Something like that,” I mumbled.
“Well do you need any help?” he asked.
“No,” I snapped, then felt bad and added, “Well maybe, yes.”
“So what is it then, no? Maybe? Or yes?”
“Fine, yes please,” I said.
“You know,” Jordan said as he started picking up stuff. “You don’t have to go away if you don’t want to.”
I hadn’t told him yet but of course my father had. My father told Jordan everything. It was impossible to keep anything a secret anymore.
“I do want to go,” I said, sitting on the floor with a huff. “But I thought it was just me. I thought Rae had chosen me because I was special and talented but I just found out that Hanna is going too.”
“So you think because she is going, you’re not special anymore?” Jordan said.
“Exactly.” I frowned.
“Maybe you’re both special,” Jordan said like he was talking to a toddler.
“That’s not funny,” I told him. “And she’s a great rider. What if Rae likes her better than me?”
“Nobody could like anyone as much as they like you,” Jordan said, coming to sit next to me. “Especially with your winning personality.”
“Hey,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” he told me. “You’re prickly.”
“Like a cactus?” I said.
“Yes, you are a cactus in human form. You prick people before you even give them a chance. You have to give this Rae woman a chance and be nice to her.”
“Then she’ll like me?” I said.
“You really have no idea how any of this works, do you?” he said with a laugh.
“I told you, I suck at making friends,” I said. “Mickey was my only friend in school and that was only because we rode together.”
“Well Hanna seems to like you just fine,” Jordan said. “Don’t you think it will be good to have someone on the road with you that you can talk to so you don’t feel so alone?”
“I like being alone,” I said stubbornly.
“You think you like being alone,” he said. “But then you resent it.”
I put my head on his shoulder with a sigh. It was weird. Jordan knew me better than I knew myself.
“Of course I’m perfectly fine if you decide to stay,” he said. “What am I supposed to do for a whole month while you are gone?”
“Work my horses for me?” I said.
“Sure,” he replied. “If you want them in worse shape when you get back than when you left. And don’t forget, it's just going to be me and your dad here all alone.”
“So?” I said.
“I don’t know. I keep getting the feeling he wants to talk to me about something and I’m not sure I’m going to like what it is.”
“Probably that he wants you to stay away from me,” I said. “He thinks we should just be friends.”
“We are friends,” he said, tilting my head up so that I was looking him straight in the eyes.
I could see little gold flecks in the irises and I focused on those because I couldn’t think about what was going to happen next or I knew that I’d mess it up.
“I’m really going to miss you,” he said, his voice all deep and throaty.
Then he was leaning in and kissing me, his lips against mine all soft and warm. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never kissed a boy before. I just sort of froze and waited for it to be over only I didn’t want it to be over. I wanted it to last forever. And afterwards, neither of us said anything. We just sat in the messy tack room holding hands until my father came looking for me and I scuttled away from Jordan before he could see us together.
“There you are,” he said, coming into the tack room. “What is all this mess?”
“I was looking for something,” I said. “And Jordan was helping me.”
“I see that,” he said, sounding a little annoyed. “Did you have to destroy everything in the process?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll clean it up,” Jordan said.
And after Dad left we cleaned the tack room, not saying a word but somehow knowing that everything between us had just changed and I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready for any of it. Suddenly a whole summer away from Jordan sounded like the best thing for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Esther picked me and Bluebird up the next morning. It was five o’clock, still dark and eerie out with a lone owl hooting in the distance. Hemi had his face stuffed in a hay net as we loaded Bluebird in next to him. The horse and the pony sniffed noses and made little squeaky noises but I think they liked each other okay. At least I hoped that they did. They’d be sharing the trailer for the next three hours as we drove to meet Rae and her team at a show that was just winding down. Where we were going from there? I had no idea.
Dad had made me promise to text him every day to let him know where we were and how I was doing. Mom would have made me call and would have called me about ten times a day. Then again, Mom probably wouldn’t have let me go at all.
We’d had a heart to heart in the kitchen last night, Dad and me. He told me all about how things could get crazy on the road. It was like a different world and things you would normally never even think of doing, you found yourself getting pressured into or just going with the flow of the group. He warned me about underage drinking and the fact that there may be drugs around and if I was offered them of course I was to say no thank you.
“You know I’d never do anything like that,” I’d told Dad. “I’m not your typical teenager.”
“Horse show teenagers are no different than regular teenagers,” Dad said. “And you might meet boys on the tour. Cute teenage boys with their tight breeches and million dollar horses.”
“Dad,” I said.
“I mean it. No kissing and certainly no anything else. Girls get pregnant on the road just as easily as they do at home.”
By now I had my hands over my ears and was making singing noises so that I couldn’t hear what my dad was saying. Dad’s weren’t supposed to talk to their daughters about things like kissing and sex and getting pregnant. That was the mother's job. Then again, I didn’t have one of those anymore. And I had to at least appreciate the fact that he cared. I didn’t want to come back pregnant either. I’d only just kissed a boy for the first time in my life and now I was glad to be getting away from him for a few weeks so that I could process. Things didn’t happen that quickly, did they?
Dad pulled my hands away from my ears.
“I know you only care about horses,” he said gently. “And I’m glad but things on the road are different. Everything gets all mixed up. You’re exhausted most of the time and you turn to whoever is near you for comfort when you lose or when you get yelled at. Trust me. I know.”
“It’s okay Dad,” I told him. “You don’t have to worry. Hanna and I will look out for each other.”
But as I looked at Hanna, lazing in the back of Esther’s truck, still wearing her pajamas, I wasn’t so sure that she was going to be the good influence I was hoping for.
“I was too tired to change,” she said with a yawn. “We’ve got plenty of time to get ready.”
I looked down at my clean breeches and unstained shirt. I’d wanted to make a good impression and Hanna was wearing pajamas? Maybe I didn’t have to worry about her being the favorite after all. But I wasn’t so sure that she was going to be the good influence that I was looking for either.
“You all set?” Esther asked as she shoved my tack trunks into the trailer.
“Just a minute,” I said.
I ran over to the fence where Arion was standing by the gate, waiting for his breakfast, which he thought he was going to get early because Bluebird had done. I stood on the gate and wrapped my arms around his neck.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” I
told him, inhaling his sweet scent. “You be good while I'm gone, okay?”
Jordan had reluctantly agreed to at least put my horses on the lunge line a couple of times a week and he was under explicit instructions not to let Dad sell any of them while I was gone and if he even got the faintest idea that Dad might do that, he was to call me right away.
“I’m going to miss you guys so much,” I said as Esther waved and tapped at her watch.
I reluctantly let my gray horse go and walked across the dark grass to the truck and trailer where Bluebird was already stuffing his face just like Hemi was. The house was dark. Dad and I had said our goodbyes the night before. I thought I saw a shadow move up at the top of the house. Jordan’s room was in the attic, no matter how many times I tried to tell him it wasn’t. I gave a quick wave just in case he was watching and then jumped in the truck, glad that I wouldn’t have to deal with that complication for another few weeks.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Esther had developed a newfound love of country and western music and so she drowned us out with songs of lost love crooned by men with croaky voices who strummed on old guitars. Hanna already had her own headphones on, watching a movie on her tablet. I’d forgotten to bring my own headphones and so I was stuck listening to a guy drone on about his rusty truck and his lucky duck while the sun peeked up over the horizon and finally drenched the sky in pink and purple.
I kept thinking about Rae and wondering what she would be like. Was she the sort of rider who would take working students like us under her wing and teach us everything she knew? Or was she one of those who basically ignored the working students and treated them worse than the hired help, leaving them to do all the jobs that no one else wanted to do and not teaching them anything at all. I really hoped she would be like the first one because otherwise I’d be calling Dad to come and get me. I didn’t have the whole summer to waste cleaning stalls for someone who treated me like the poop I was meant to be scooping.
Summer Rider (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 31) Page 5