CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Dad may have thought that I had done a good job with Wizard but he didn’t think that I was doing a very good job with Arion and to be honest neither did I.
I knew that I was distracted and all I wanted was to run back to the house and spend the afternoon looking at the photo albums that I hadn’t known existed. I knew that Missy had plenty of them. All her previous horses and her competition wins and a big leather bound one devoted to her whole Olympic experience. Every now and then she’d take them out and talk about one of the horses she used to ride like her career was already in its twilight hours. Maybe it was. She’d kind of bombed at the show and since getting back had thrown herself into teaching full time. Owen seemed to be her number one priority now instead of showing and she’d stopped trying to tell me that I should only ride in the pony classes because obviously that was a lost cause.
My father knew that I couldn’t stay in pony land forever. I had to start winning big classes and Bluebird was good but he wasn’t a pogo stick. I was starting to realize there was a chance that maybe he would never be the one to take me to the Olympics and neither would Arion at this rate.
“Half halt, circle and then try again,” Dad said, using his I’m really trying not to lose patience with you voice.
But Arion was like a little kid on a sugar high. He trotted eagerly towards the gymnastic exercise that had now been lowered to a series of cross rails and bounced down them like a bunny on steroids. When he got to the last two fences instead of bouncing he just stretched out and jumped them as though they were an oxer. I couldn’t help laughing however Dad was not amused.
“I’m glad he likes his new job,” Dad said. “But you have got to find a way to keep him focused.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve been trying to work on his flatwork but he just gets so bored.”
“His flatwork isn’t the problem,” Dad said.
“Maybe if we raised the fences then he’d have more to worry about than just being silly?” I suggested.
“Or maybe he’ll crash and burn,” Dad said, shaking his head.
“Either way it will be a wakeup call for him.” I shrugged.
So Dad raised the fences and we trotted down the line again and despite my best intentions, Arion still jumped the last two fences as one big one.
“Well at least we know he’s got scope,” Dad said as Arion trotted back to him looking like the happiest horse in the whole world. “And he’s not afraid to show it.”
It was the first time that my father had given Arion a compliment and I was so proud of my ex-racehorse that I gave him some extra treats when I took him back to the barn and spent a long time giving him a big bath. Gray horses were much harder to keep clean than any other color and there was nothing that my father hated more than manure stains on horses that were stabled in his barn whether they belonged to him or not.
“I’m very proud of you,” I whispered as I put him back in his stall. “And now that Dad has seen your potential, maybe he’ll start giving us more lessons and just think, if you win your class at the schooling show then he will be really impressed. Maybe even impressed enough to take us to more shows and give you proper schooling sessions and everything.”
Arion went over to his hay and started eating and I slid the door closed feeling like Arion and I had survived our first test, even though there would be many more to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
It used to be that it was hard to get alone time in my house. Missy was always there with the baby or my father was talking on the phone with his lawyer but those days were over. Now Missy spent all her time down in the ring teaching and my father’s lawyer was almost certain that the charges would be dropped any day now. His suspension would be lifted and life would go back to normal.
The house was dark, our blinds shut tight to keep out the building heat and to help keep the air conditioning costs down, which was pretty much futile in Florida. We may not have had giant electric and gas bills during the winter like everyone up north but we sure made up for it in the summer when our air conditioning units ran full blast. A cold rush of air hit me as I opened the door and I quickly slipped inside and shut it before too much escaped.
Meatball dashed past me into the cold house.
“You want to cool off too?” I asked him.
He looked up at me with his amber eyes and cried. Then he ran into the kitchen with his tail up, clawing at my leg and begging pitifully until I finally opened his bag of treats and gave him one.
“If Esther could see you now.” I shook my head. “She’d never believe how completely spoiled you are.”
Meatball didn’t seem to care. He rolled over so that I could pet his belly, which he let me do for about five seconds before he decided that he’d had enough and dug all his claws into my hand.
“Ouch,” I shrieked, pulling my hand away, which only made him dig in his claws more.
I was still licking my wounds as I went over to the bookshelves. All my father’s books were there, the classics he loved so much and had read to us when we were kids even though we had no idea what they were talking about. Next to them were Missy’s photo albums, all labeled with the year and the names of the horses she rode. My fathers were far less organized. There were no dates. No names. Only random photos shoved into albums that were already bursting at the seams. I gathered them up in my arms and took them to the couch, depositing them on the cushions.
“This calls for snacks,” I told Meatball as he rubbed against my legs. “And not for you either, fat cat.”
I made a mug of coffee and tipped out a bowl of potato chips. I wasn’t supposed to be eating junk food. Hunter Preston’s cruel words still rung around in my head every time I reached for a cookie or a French fry. He’d told us that we were supposed to respect our bodies and that meant only putting in things that were healthy and would make us stronger. We were athletes and we were apparently letting our horses down if we ate whatever we wanted whenever we wanted but we were also growing teenagers. Were we supposed to starve ourselves like ballerinas and faint dead off the back of our horses in the middle of a jumper round? I didn’t think so.
I sat there on the couch, sinking into the soft cushions. The albums sat in front of me like priceless treasures. I wanted to open them but I also didn’t. I couldn’t really remember what Summer looked like. She was a blur of smiles and dimples and blonde hair. What if my memories were wrong? What if she was nothing like that at all? I took a deep breath and opened the first photo album.
The photographs were faded but I could still remember the days they were taken like they were yesterday. Days that I hadn’t thought about for a long time. Some of them days that I couldn’t even remember until I saw the proof that they had indeed happened.
There was my father, younger, leaner and with a lot more hair, smiling as he hoisted a fat tubby child onto the back of a pony. In another he stood with my mother in front of the stall of a horse I didn’t recognize, a big gray with floppy ears. Mom had a tan and red lipstick. I’d never seen her wear red lipstick before, not even once. And she had her hand draped over my father’s shoulders in that lazy, intimate way that meant so much more than what it was. They looked so happy. I felt like crying.
There were pages upon pages of memories. Ponies I didn’t remember at all and horses I’d never known the names of and then I turned the page and there she was. Summer. My big sister. In the photograph she was missing her two front teeth, sitting bare back on a black pony with a blue halter on. Her hair was fanned out in the breeze, that same blonde that I’d remembered. I ran my fingers over the photo.
“Summer,” I whispered. Then I started to cry.
Mom always said that the past was better left there. That remembering bad things only hurt you a second time. It was why we didn’t have any photographs in my old house. Not of my father or of Summer or any of it. But I wanted to remember. I didn’t want to forget my sister. I wanted to honor her.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
I spent longer looking at the photographs than I meant to and I cried a lot more too. I wasn’t sure why. I missed Summer but I hadn’t had a sister for nine years and I couldn’t really remember what life was like with her anyway. What I did know was that I missed the fact that we hadn’t been able to grow up together. That if she’d still been around then maybe my parents would never have got divorced in the first place. We’d have had horses around and I wouldn’t have grown up feeling like part of my life had been ripped away but when I finally closed the album I realized that my mother had been right. The photographs had been great to look at but they’d ripped open old wounds that I didn’t even know I had, pulling the scabs off and leaving them to bleed.
“I have got to get out of here,” I said to Meatball who had been curled up next to me on the couch the whole time. I appreciated the fact that he didn’t want to leave me alone while I was upset but now I really needed my pony.
I ran down to the barn and tacked up Bluebird and before I knew it we were cantering out on the trail. Lately I’d been going with Faith so there hadn’t been much carefree abandon going on. It had mostly been trotting with a few bursts of cantering where I knew that the footing was good and even though Faith had begged me to let her gallop, there was no way I was going to watch her get carted away with or fall off.
Today I needed to clear the cobwebs from my fuzzy brain. It felt like it was stuffed with cotton after all the crying I’d done and my eyes hurt. I also couldn’t get Summer’s face out of my mind. For so long she had been a blurry figure but now she was real and she was stuck inside and although I wanted to remember her, I now felt like she was too close. Too real. As though looking at the photographs had opened the door to another dimension and now her ghost had slipped through.
We cantered under the trees, birds flying out of the bushes with loud squawks and flapping wings. Bluebird didn’t care and neither did I and when we cleared the trees, I pushed him into a gallop. But it wasn’t the same as galloping in the fall or winter when the air was brisk and cleared your head. Today the air was warm and thick and the hot sun beat down on us. By the time I slowed Bluebird he was sweating and so was I. We walked for a while, his sides puffing in and out as he caught his breath.
“Sorry boy,” I said, patting him on the neck. “I forgot it was so hot. Too bad we don’t have a pool.”
Pools were almost kind of like a necessity in Florida but we didn’t have one. We were close enough to the beach that Dad said we didn’t need a pool. Plus they cost a lot of money to put in and we didn’t own the farm anyway. Dad said that maybe he would think about it when he got his own place up and running but since the money had dried up and the construction had halted, thinking about money for a pool felt kind of ridiculous when we didn’t even have money to finish things like fixing the roof and the barn.
“You know, I thought we were supposed to be able to ride to the beach from here,” I said, standing up in my stirrups.
But I couldn’t see the ocean or even hear the waves and all that stretched ahead of us was a sea of green grass that was tinged with brown because we hadn’t had a lot of rain yet. I pulled out my phone to bring up the map but the GPS wouldn’t load. Cell service was spotty out on the trail. I tried a couple more times, even turning my phone off and on again but it didn’t help.
“When we get back I’m going to look at the map and figure out a way to ride to the beach,” I said as we turned for home. “Don’t you think that will be fun? I know you like to splash through the waves.”
As we rode back to the barn I thought of the night last summer when I’d had to swim Bluebird out to sea to rescue Jess and we’d almost got swept away by the current. Just thinking about it sent shivers down my spine. I wasn’t so keen on swimming horses in the ocean now but that didn’t mean that we couldn’t still splash through the surf. Only Faith would want to come too. I wasn’t sure I was ready to babysit both her and Macaroni alone on their first beach outing. Maybe I’d better keep my beach adventure a secret just in case.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
When I got back to the barn I had every intention of looking at the map and trying to come up with a plan to ride to the beach but I noticed that the horse trailer had gone again. Missy was in the barn aisle tacking up Socks. I was kind of surprised that she was going to work him again so soon, especially since she’d practically given up showing.
“Has Dad gone to pick up another horse?” I asked her.
“Huh?” She appeared from under the saddle flap. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Well who is it he’s gone to get this time?”
“Beats me.” She shrugged. “He didn’t say.”
I hosed Bluebird off and after I’d put him in his stall, I went into the office to look and see if my father had left any kind of clue about where he had gone and which horse he had gone to get. While I was in there I saw Dakota walking down the aisle in new breeches and tall boots, a change from her usual blue jeans. She looked into the office as she walked past and I ducked behind the computer on the desk, hoping that she wouldn’t see me.
“Go away,” I whispered when I heard her stop but it didn’t work. She walked straight into the office like she owned the place.
“Hi.” She came right up to the desk where I still had my head down, hoping that she would think I was busy and go away. “I’m Dakota.”
“I know,” I said, looking up at her and suddenly realizing that she was really tall, like super model tall.
“You’re Emily, aren’t you?” she said.
“Yes,” I replied.
What was this? Forty questions? Couldn’t she just take a hint and leave already?
“I’ve heard so much about you,” she carried on. “Mickey says that you are the best rider here.”
“Did she?” I said, feeling a slight pang of guilt.
“Of course. She said that you are the one to watch if I want to learn everything that I can about jumping. I kind of don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You don’t look like you don’t know what you are doing,” I said, sitting back and crossing my arms. “Are you sure you’ve never jumped before?”
“Positive,” she said. “Well unless you count my mare jumping over the barrels after she knocked them over. She wasn’t very good at barrel racing when I first got her.”
As she spoke about her mare, her face fell and the smile was replaced by a frown and I felt bad for her because I knew that she’d had to sell her horses to pay her parent’s debts. I thought that was just the worst thing that could ever happen and yet still I felt jealous of her. What was wrong with me?
“Well, I’d better go,” she said. “I don’t want to be late for my lesson.”
“Okay, bye,” I said, hating myself for not being nicer.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Dakota seemed nice enough and I didn’t know why I didn’t like her. Maybe it was because everyone else did. Or maybe it was because she’d shown up here and stolen my best friend and my spotlight all at the same time.
I sat there feeling mad both with her and myself and then I went out to apologize because being rude was certainly not going to help out my karma any and I needed all the good karma I could get. Only there she was in the barn aisle, taking Socks by the reins and leading him out to the ring. Socks was the horse that I’d ridden while Missy was pregnant. I’d shown him and loved him and if anyone should have been riding him it was me but after Missy started riding again she took Socks back and I hadn’t ridden him since and now there she was letting Dakota, a new girl ride him? That was definitely not fair.
“Why is she riding Socks?” I asked Missy who was trailing behind Dakota far enough out of earshot that the new girl wouldn’t hear.
“Why not?” Missy shrugged.
“Why not?” I cried. “Because you said he was your horse and that you were the only one who was going to ride him now which was why I had to stop riding him.”
Rag
e flowed through my veins like red hot lava. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
“Don’t you think you have enough horses to ride?” Missy said. “And you have Wizard now too. Would you rather I put her on him?”
“No,” I snapped. “And besides, you can’t. He’s Jordan’s horse.”
“He’s here to work,” Missy said. “I could put Dakota on him if I wanted to.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I said.
“If you keep acting like a spoiled brat I will,” Missy said.
She walked off and left me standing there fuming. I was so mad at her but I was also mad at myself because Missy was right. I didn’t own all the horses in the world and my father had been right when he basically said that I wasn’t the best rider in the world either. I’d been getting a big head lately and was now paying the price by being taken down a notch or two, which really sucked.
I sat out by the ring moping, watching Dakota ride. Up close I could see her flaws, the bad habits she had that were evidence of all the time she’d spent riding western. The way she jammed her feet too far through the stirrups and the way she let her reins get far too long. See? She wasn’t that great after all. But she still managed to get Socks over the small fences and he didn’t take off with her after them either. She got the job done, which was more than I could say for all the other beginners we had that took lessons at Fox Run.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Dakota’s lesson had finished and she was long gone by the time my father came back. I was sulking around the barn trying to look busy when I heard the trailer come rumbling down the drive. I ran out to meet him.
Beginner's Luck (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 18) Page 5