I spent the rest of the day helping Missy and my father with their lessons. Fixing tack, moving jump poles, it was hot, sweaty work but I didn’t mind. It helped to take my mind off the show but it kept popping back into my head.
The way the Talent Scout series was going to be set up was that the qualifiers would have their own class but there would be other classes open to everyone else just like a normal show. Faith was going. So was Ethan. I’d been surprised to see his name on the show list that we kept in the office and when I saw him walking down the barn aisle that afternoon, I ran after him.
Ethan was Mickey’s on again off again boyfriend. She liked him but she was too fickle to stay tied down to one guy, which was lucky for Ethan as we all knew that Mickey could be exhausting.
“Hello stranger,” I said, falling into step with him.
“Hello,” he replied with a sly smile. His hair was extra blond from all the time he spent at the beach surfing and he had a golden tan.
“So,” I said. “Given up eventing already? Couldn’t hack it? Burned out?” I nudged him in the ribs.
“Nah,” he replied. “Mr. Rivers said that my show jumping had gotten sloppy and lazy and he figured I needed a dose of reality to snap me back into shape.”
“I see,” I said. “And what does your sister have to say about that?”
“She doesn’t like it one bit,” he said with a sigh. “But I don’t know why. It’s not like we are competing in the same classes or anything.”
“Don’t you know your sister at all?” I shook my head. “Faith has claimed show jumping as her thing and she’s not about to share it with you again.”
“Tough luck,” he said. “She doesn’t have a choice.”
“Want to bet?” I whispered as Faith came stomping down the aisle.
“Hello Emily,” she said, then sent a steely glare in Ethan’s direction. “Hello devil’s spawn.”
I tried to hold in the laughter until she’d gone into the tack room and then it all came bursting out of me. I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle it in case she heard.
“Told you,” I said.
“Yup,” Ethan replied. “But she hated me before this anyway so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Why else does she hate you?” I said.
“Because I’m the oldest and she says that she wanted to be the oldest because I get to do all the cool stuff first and it’s not fair.”
“So basically she blames you for being born?” I said, still trying not to laugh.
“Pretty much.”
I couldn’t help wondering if I would feel the same way about Summer if she was still alive. Would I have resented her for being older than me? For getting to ride longer and jump higher and win shows that I wasn’t even allowed to go to yet? Would she have made it to the Olympics before me? Won a gold medal first? Would I always have been fighting to claw my way out of her shadow?
I thought the whole Faith and Ethan feud was hilarious but I could also kind of see Faith’s point and I wasn’t sure I would have been acting any different if I was her.
Ethan had a private lesson with my father, who yelled at him the whole time because Mr. Rivers was right, he had suddenly become terrible at jumping in the ring. And Missy yelled at Faith the whole time in her group lesson because she kept whining about how she wanted private lessons and how come Ethan got all the attention and no one cared about her at all. In the end I couldn’t stand it anymore. Even school work was better than listening to them complaining the whole time so that was what I did. I went up to the house and did my work and then fell asleep in my clothes because I was really tired.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I woke up to my phone buzzing. I thought it was my alarm and sat up in the dark, wondering why I still smelled of horse, which was when I realized that I was still wearing my breeches. I picked up my phone and looked at it only to see that it wasn’t my alarm at all. It was Mickey.
“What is it?” I said as I answered it. “What’s wrong?”
A bunch of horrible things ran through my head. Her family had been run over by one of those crazy French cab drivers. They’d fallen off the Eiffel Tower. They’d been robbed and someone had stolen their passports and tickets and now they were stuck in some seedy French police station trying to explain that they weren’t illegal immigrants.
“Why would anything be wrong?” she said, her voice happier than I’d ever heard her before.
“Because it’s three o’clock in the morning,” I said, lying back down. “And you woke me up. I thought you were dead.”
“I wouldn’t be calling you if I was dead, would I?” Mickey said.
“You’d find a way,” I groaned. “So I take it you’re having a good time?”
“I’m having the best time of my life,” she blurted out. “France is amazing and the food is so great. I’m eating everything in sight. And Paris, you should see it.” She sighed happily.
“I can imagine,” I said but really I couldn’t. I’d never left the country and the rest of the world sounded exotic and foreign and sort of like a mystery to me. “So tell me about the boy.”
“How did you know there was a boy?” she said.
“Because you wouldn’t be calling me in the middle of the night if there wasn’t.”
“His name is Jean-Paul,” she said dreamily. “He was painting tourists portraits on the banks of the river Seine and he painted mine. He made me look so beautiful. We just sort of connected. He doesn’t speak much English but that is okay.”
“Because you both speak the language of love,” I said, shaking my head.
“Exactly.” She sighed.
She told me how Jean-Paul took her on a river boat tour. How he bought her a single red rose. How they ate a picnic of baguettes and cheese on the river bank and when it started to rain, they covered their heads with the picnic blanket and ran to take shelter under the bridge. And then he kissed her. On the lips. It sounded like one of the romantic movies that my mother was always watching. I half expected her to say that then all the townspeople burst into song and hoisted them up on their shoulders as a parade was held in their honor and fireworks were let off and the day declared a national holiday. It was like no girl had ever been on a date before. I’d been on a date too. I wanted to tell her but I couldn’t get a word in and besides, she’d only ask if Jordan had kissed me and I’d have to tell her that actually no, he hadn’t, even though he may have wanted to.
“Well, I’d better go,” she finally said.
“I’m happy you’re having a good time,” I replied and I was. I didn’t begrudge my best friend a romance just because I seemed to be incapable of one.
“And don’t forget to give Hampton a kiss and a carrot from me,” she said before she hung up.
“I won’t,” I said but she’d already gone.
I lay there for ages, staring up at the dark ceiling. Everything seemed to come easy for Mickey. She had parents who loved each other and her, who supported her and nurtured her and paid for her riding lessons and her shows so that she could just enjoy them instead of wondering where her next entry fee was going to come from. She could switch riding disciplines with the snap of her fingers, smoothly transitioning from the hunters to dressage. And now she was off having a real adventure and I was stuck here working my butt off just like always. But Mickey hadn’t qualified for the Talent Scout series. Mickey wasn’t hoping to one day get chosen for the Olympic team. You couldn’t just expect that sort of stuff to happen if you were off prancing around France with a cute boy. Top athletes were dedicated. Focused. Obsessed. And I was all of those things.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I hadn’t heard from Jordan since the fair and really part of me was hoping that I never would again. I was kind of embarrassed about the way I’d acted and the way his friends had treated me. Maybe if I’d been cooler, they would have liked me better. And if I hadn’t worn that stupid purple shirt. I vowed to never again let Missy dress me but there prob
ably wouldn’t be a next time anyway.
Luckily I didn’t have much time to think about Jordan because after I fell back to sleep, we’d had a massive thunderstorm with torrential rain and the lesson ponies had all come in looking like little mud pies. They had found the biggest, muddiest patch to roll in and done so with glee. Ponies that were gray looked like bays. In fact they all did. The only way you could tell what color they really were was by looking at their tails and the color of the hair around their eyes.
“What are we going to do?” Missy said, standing there with a horrified look. “I have a group lesson at nine.”
“I guess we’d better get to work then,” I said.
We made a production line for bathing the ponies. Missy did the pre-rinse, I soaped and then Henry, our head groom, pitched in to wash the suds off. The ponies weren’t amused. They knew that when they came in they got their breakfast. They expected it. Demanded it. And they weren’t impressed to be shuffled into the wash rack to get beautified before eating.
“I’m sorry,” I told Ballycat as he stomped his little hoof angrily. “But the quicker I can get this done, the sooner you’ll be back in your stall.”
“That was a close one,” Missy said once all the ponies were clean. “Thanks guys.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said.
Henry just grunted. He was a man of few words, especially before he’d had his first cup of coffee.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Missy said as we flopped down on the couch in the office. “But I think you were talking in your sleep last night.”
“Unfortunately I was awake,” I said.
“Did Jordan call for a late night chat?” she asked. “That’s so sweet.”
“What? No. Gross,” I said. Any boy who interrupted my sleep in the middle of the night would get an earful. “No, it was worse. Mickey called to tell me about a French boy she’s been dating. I guess she forgot about the time difference. The only thing in her head at the moment is love.”
“Mickey is in love?” Ethan said.
I looked up to see him standing in the office door with a pale face. I’d just put my foot in my mouth once again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I wasn’t sure if Ethan would feel worse if he thought Mickey was in love with him or with someone else. I didn’t know much about boys but I knew that they didn’t like love. Or to think that girls were in love with them.
“Yeah,” I said, thinking on my feet for a change. “With Hampton. She called me last night to tell me how much she missed him and to make sure that I was giving him a million carrots a day.”
“Really?” he said, looking relieved.
“She loves that horse,” Missy said, nodding.
“Yeah, she does,” he said before walking off.
“That was a close one,” I whispered to Missy. “Thanks.”
“Just trying to keep the peace,” she replied. “I already have enough on my plate keeping Ethan and Faith from killing each other before the show. I don’t need any extra drama.”
But drama must have been in the air because it was exactly what we seemed to be getting a more than healthy dose of. The next day Dakota turned up to ride and so did a trailer to take Wizard home. Dakota stood there blinking back tears while Taylor loaded Wizard up. I guess Jordan had got his cast off and was cleared to ride. I stood there wondering why he hadn’t come too. He must have still been mad at me after our failed date.
“Thanks for taking such great care of him,” Taylor said.
She didn’t know about Dakota’s joy ride to the beach. Jordan did but he’d said that it would be better for everyone if his mother never found out.
“Goodbye boy,” Dakota said, her voice all wobbly. “Thanks for letting me ride you.”
I dragged Dakota into the barn before she actually did burst into tears or blurted out something she shouldn’t about stealing Wizard.
“Now,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “Who do you want to ride instead of Wizard today?”
“Nobody,” she sobbed, sitting down on the floor in the middle of the barn aisle.
I really didn’t need Dakota to have a meltdown in full view of all our other clients but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. She was bigger than I was and I didn’t think I’d get very far by trying to drag her up if she didn’t want to get up. I had to resort to bribery instead.
“You can ride any horse you want,” I said gently, crouching down next to her. “Just name it and I’ll make it happen.”
“But I liked Wizard,” she said. “And now that he’s gone I miss my old horses all over again.”
Dakota’s parents had lost their business when her father got diagnosed with cancer and had to start treatment. She’d been forced to sell her horses and move here from Texas to live with her grandparents while her mother stayed behind to sit by her dying husband’s side. It was awful and it wasn’t fair but it was one of those situations where you couldn’t do anything about it so you just had to make the best of it.
“We could go on a trail ride?” I said. “I bet a good gallop would clear your head.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Well come on then,” I said, standing up and stretching out my hand. “Let’s go before it gets too hot.”
There was no rain forecast and that meant that the temperatures were going to inch closer than ever to a hundred degrees with no relief in sight. It was a tradeoff. Too hot to live or else you had raging storms full of thunder and lightning and torrential rain. I wasn’t sure which was worse but it was getting so that riding in the afternoons was becoming almost impossible.
“Do you think Missy would let me ride Socks?” she said, blinking away her tears. “I rode him before and he was nice.”
“I’ll ask her,” I said, my heart wrenching a little in my chest.
I was hoping that I would get to start riding Socks again, not that I had the time but just for one day I figured it didn’t matter. If it helped to heal Dakota’s broken heart then it was worth it.
“Start getting him ready,” I told her. “I’ll go find Missy and ask her but I’m sure she’ll say yes.”
Missy wasn’t overly thrilled about Dakota taking Socks out on the trail. She was in the kitchen, feeding Owen.
“Please,” I said. “You don’t know what it took to get that girl up off the floor. I’m just trying to prevent another meltdown.”
“What are we?” Missy said with a sigh. “Riding instructors or therapists?”
“A bit of both I guess,” I said.
“Fine,” she said. “Just don’t let her run off with him.”
“I won’t,” I said.
As I ran back to the barn, I wondered why everyone always assumed that Dakota would make the same mistake twice. That she would be stupid enough to do so and I wondered if people thought the same about me. If I would repeat my mistakes? I hoped not.
“He’s all yours,” I told her and seeing her face light up, I knew it had been worth talking Missy into letting her ride him.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
I decided to take Bluebird on the trail. He’d been really good in his last lesson and now I was supposed to be giving him a break before the show. Plus he was a really good babysitter on the trail because I’d taken him out there so many times, which meant that if Socks acted up then I’d be able to concentrate on rescuing Dakota instead of having to worry about my own pony freaking out as well.
“We’ll have to be quick,” I said to Dakota as we both mounted. “It’s already too hot.”
“If you think this is hot, you should come to Texas,” she said.
I’d never been to Texas but if it was any hotter than Florida, I wanted nothing to do with it. My shirt was already stuck to my back, the sweat running down my neck. The show was going to be unbearable. Why couldn’t they have held the Talent Scout series over the winter? It was asking for trouble. Overheated riders and horses. No one was going to be at their best.
For a w
hile it was okay. We rode across the fields and then through the trees where it was shaded and a breeze blew through. Too bad the breeze was hot but at least it was better than no breeze at all. Socks pranced about. He didn’t go out on the trail very often and seemed to think it was the most exciting thing ever in the whole world. His neck was already lathered with sweat and flecked with foam from his mouth.
“Can we gallop now?” Dakota asked.
“I really think it’s too hot,” I said. “It’s not fair on the horses. We have to think of them as well as ourselves.”
“I don’t think it’s too hot,” Dakota said but I could see that her face was bright red under her helmet. “Please.”
I sighed. If I told her no would she start to cry again? But I had to put the horses first. She could cry all she wanted but I wasn’t about to take two horses back to the barn with heat exhaustion, especially when Bluebird had his big show coming up.
“Bluebird and I are going to hang out here in the shade,” I said when we reached the edge of the trees. “You can trot to that tree and canter back if you really want.”
I pointed to a dead tree that was across from us on the other side of the clearing. It wasn’t very far. Not really enough room for Dakota or Socks to get into trouble.
“Just canter though,” I said. “No galloping. Promise me.”
“I promise,” she said.
“I mean it,” I told her.
“I know,” she said.
I knew she thought I was being overly cautious. Maybe she did run barrels and ride in a million degree heat and maybe her horses had been just fine but our horses weren’t used to it and neither were we.
She took off at a trot and I crossed my fingers that she would behave and do as I said. Socks had his ears pricked. The heat rose up in waves from the ground, shimmering like an oasis in a green desert. The air was thick with heat and the faint scent of salt as it blew in from the ocean. I really would have liked to ride the horses to the pond and go swimming but it was too far and besides, I was still kind of worried about the alligator.
Chasing Ribbons (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 19) Page 5