CHAPTER FIFTY SIX
It was Christmas Eve and the sun was shining bright when a car came down the drive.
“Do you think it's her?” I asked, bouncing on my heels.
“Who else would it be?” Cat asked. “You practically begged her to come.”
“I know,” I said. “I never thought I’d see the day that I actually had to bribe Faith to come out to the barn.”
It had been a week since I’d seen her. Macaroni had his stitches out and the vet said that the wound was actually never that deep to start with and so I’d prepared a Christmas surprise for Faith.
“Please come out,” I’d begged on the phone the night before.
“Why?” she said, her voice flat and cold. “Macaroni hates me.”
“He does not,” I said. “He got his stitches out and he’s all happy now and if you come out and see him, you’ll be happy too.”
“No I won’t,” she said.
But I’d managed to convince her mom to drop her daughter off and since Faith had slumped into a depression and done nothing but mope around the house in her pajamas all week, she was apparently happy to offload her for a couple of hours. She pushed Faith out of the car and drove away.
“Now what?” Cat asked as Faith just stood there.
“Go and get her,” I said. “And don’t forget the blindfold.”
Cat herded Faith into the barn. She was protesting loudly and Cat had to keep nudging her along.
“This is stupid,” she said. “I want to go home.”
“Okay then,” I said. “But you won’t get your Christmas surprise.”
“There is a surprise?” she said, trying to hide the interest in her voice.
“Of course there is a surprise you silly,” I said.
I grabbed her hand and dragged her in front of Macaroni’s stall and then pulled off her blindfold.
“Tada,” I said proudly.
It had taken ages to track down a pony sized western saddle and bridle and they weren’t brand new but I’d done it and there stood Macaroni with a pink saddle pad and a red bow around his neck.
“What is that,” Faith said.
“That is your ticket to ride,” I said. “Look, you only need one hand.”
I showed her the reins, how they were knotted together and how she could hold them in her good hand. For a moment her face lit up but then it fell again.
“My mom will never go for it,” she said.
“What happened to the girl who didn’t care what her parents thought? Who lay down in front of a moving truck so that she could get here? The girl who was going to run away if she couldn’t see her pony?” I said.
“She died,” Faith said morosely.
“Not on my watch,” I said, shoving her helmet into her hands.
“But I can’t jump in that saddle,” she moaned.
“This is better than not being able to ride at all,” I told her.
And I made that kid get in the western saddle and I tacked up Bluebird and we headed out on the trail.
“We’re going to get in trouble,” Faith said.
“Since when do you care about things like that?” I said.
“Since this,” she pointed to her arm.
“If you are going to ride, you are going to get hurt. You know that,” I told her. “It’s a part of the life. Do you want this life or don’t you?”
And before she could answer I kicked Bluebird and we were cantering across the field. I looked behind to see Macaroni following, his ears pricked and watched as a grin spread across Faith’s face. She still loved it. She was just as stubborn as I was.
We rode around the field for a while and then crossed to the woods.
“They don’t look as scary today,” Faith said.
“Should we go in?” I asked.
I didn’t want to push her but it was kind of like Bluebird, how I had to make him jump the purple jump. If I didn’t make Faith go back in the woods then maybe she never would again.
“Come on,” I said.
We walked through the trees and our ponies picked their way over roots and vines. The leaves were thick and damp beneath our pony’s feet, muffling the sound of their hoof beats. We went slow and took our time but today the sun was bright and some of it even made its way through the canopy of trees, making the woods seem not as dark and scary after all.
“There,” Faith finally said. “That was where I fell off.”
She pointed to a log that had fallen across a part of the trail. There was a stream on one side and a tree on the other. There was room to squeeze by but I knew she hadn’t done that.
“I tried to jump it,” Faith said with a strangled sob. “I tried to make Macaroni jump the log and he fell. We both fell.”
She burst into tears and I let her cry it out. She had guilt that she needed to get rid of or it would haunt all her riding days. When her tears finally started to slow, I reached over and patted her good arm.
“We all make mistakes,” I said. “What counts is that you learn from them. Right?”
“Right,” she said. “I’m sorry Macaroni.”
And she hugged her pony and he pinned his ears and all was forgiven because it wasn’t like Macaroni was a sappy pony that was going to get all cute about it.
“Nice job,” Dad said later when Faith’s mom came to pick her up and her daughter ran out of the barn with a great big smile on her face. “Nice job indeed.”
“Thanks,” I said.
CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN
And so Christmas day was spent sitting by our sad looking tree which had dropped most of its needles by now. They lay on the floor like a carpet of pine and every now and then Meatball would run through them and they would swirl up into the air and stick to his fluffy orange coat. But he was happy. I got him a toy mouse that had catnip in it and he seemed to think that was much better than the real mice that still lurked in the corners of the house. He rolled around on the floor with it all sappy and fluffy and totally embarrassed himself.
We stayed in our pajamas and ate far too much candy. Dad loved the gloves I got him and Mom liked the little locket I’d found at the second hand store, tucked away in a hidden corner. It had someone else's photographs in it but I’d taken them out and secretly hoped that she’d put pictures of me and Summer in there. Cat loved the shirt that I got her, mostly because she’d asked for it anyway and she got me an ugly Christmas sweater with a horse on it which we all laughed about but that I secretly didn’t really think was ugly at all. In fact I couldn't wait for it to be cold enough to wear it.
Later we played board games and laughed until we had tears running down our cheeks as we caught Dad trying to cheat and then Meatball ran across the board with his toy in his mouth, scattering all the pieces so it didn’t really matter anyway.
We ate until we were stuffed and then everyone fell asleep on the couch, everyone except me. I crept into the kitchen and grabbed a bag of carrots and then took it down to the barn.
“Merry Christmas guys,” I said.
The horses in the stalls nickered and stuck their heads out. They all got Christmas carrots, even Socks whose sheath was slowly starting to go back to a more normal size and was definitely less itchy.
Outside Bluebird came to the fence. I leaned over and hugged him.
“Merry Christmas my best boy,” I told him.
I breathed in the sweet smell of his mane and thought about how different this Christmas was than the last when I’d just arrived at Fox Run and Dad gave me Arion.
The gray horse came over and pushed his way into the hug and I gave him his carrot. Hashtag stood off behind the other two until I called him over and then he took his carrot gently.
“I may have found you a new home,” I told him. “I hope that is okay.”
He looked at me with his soft brown eyes and I wondered if he’d be upset to leave us again. Maybe Rose’s sister could come and ride him over here first and then perhaps take him on a lease.
T
here were so many things to look forward to in the New Year. Being a member of the Junior Olympic team. Competing both Bluebird and Arion. Hopefully making it to the finals in Paris and even if we didn't there was still my European training adventure to look forward to.
We had the new horse that was coming in for training and my parents were together again under the same roof. I wasn’t sure how long any of that would last but I vowed that I would enjoy the moment for as long as I could and look forward to all the things that were coming because I knew that it wouldn't all be sunshine and roses. They'd be speed bumps along the way. That was life. But you had to take the good with the bad. The joy with the sadness. Life wasn't about one emotion all the time it was about all the emotions mixed up and messy.
“It’s been one heck of a year,” I told my herd. “Let’s see if we can make the next one even better.”
THE END
COMING SOON
SHOW JUMPING DREAMS #26: BARN SOUR
It is January in Florida and the weather has settled into a pattern of cold and wet. At Second Chance Farm that means lots of muddy horses and ponies and tons more work. Emily is feeling confident that this is the year her luck will change. She is back riding her pony, her spot on the Junior Olympic team is secure and she has a year of team shows and riding in Europe to look forward to.
But not everyone is feeling that way and when their prize boarder Molly butts heads with a new client, things take a bad turn for the worse. The two women can’t get along at all and with limited riding space on the farm, things get frosty fast. One of them is going to have to go but neither wants to leave.
And the new training horse has a troubling problem. He won’t leave the barn or his new friends without flipping out. If Emily and her father want to successfully launch their training business, they have to prove that they can rehabilitate the new horse and fast. But the more Emily tries to force the horse and everyone else in her life into the slots she thinks they should be in, the more everyone resists. And with horses and people going completely off the rails, Emily might finally learn that she can’t control everything and sometimes you just have to let things go.
BARN SOUR: CHAPTER ONE
“It’s too cold,” Cat groaned. “Go away.”
“You promised you’d help me feed this morning,” I said, nudging Cat with my foot.
She was a lump under the covers. I couldn’t even see her head, probably because winter had finally come to Florida and it was now freezing. And our house didn’t have heat. Well technically it did but of course it didn’t work. Nothing worked. Last night I wore two sweaters and a wooly hat to bed and I’d still woken up shivering.
“Come on,” I begged. “Please. Dad went to pick up that new horse and you promised you’d help me.”
“No I didn’t,” Cat said, her voice all muffled.
“Yes, you did.” I nudged her again, this time harder.
“Stop it,” she yelled at me.
I didn’t blame her. Cat wasn’t exactly a horse person. She was starting to show an interest but she wasn’t like me and all my friends. She didn’t eat, sleep and breathe horses.
“Fine,” I said, turning to leave. “I’ll just tell Phoenix that you don’t care about him anymore.”
“Don’t you dare,” Cat cried, throwing the covers off. “I’ll be down in five minutes.”
I left the room grinning as Cat scurried to throw on warm clothes. Phoenix was our foal and Cat had sort of fallen in love with him. She may not have been as obsessed with horses as I was but somehow Phoenix was different. I think it was partly because he was all small and cute. Being abandoned by his mother, we’d found him a nurse mare but he wasn’t growing as much as I’d hoped. He probably wasn’t going to turn out to be a very big horse after all, which meant my future dreams of turning him into my very own home grown jumper had been smashed.
But Cat loved him and that was all that really mattered. Of course all that was going to go to hell the day Dad decided to get rid of him because my father was adamant that we only kept horses we could compete on. So far he wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping me in line because we already had Phoenix, the nurse mare Chantilly and Bandit, my miniature horse.
As I sat in the kitchen eating cold toast and waiting for Cat, I thought of Bandit and how Jordan had given him to me for my birthday. It had been an amazing gift and I’d hoped to repay him by getting him something equally amazing for Christmas. The only problem was that I couldn’t think of anything and then it turned out that he’d gone away for Christmas anyway so I’d been let off the hook.
But he was coming back in two days and I still hadn’t thought of anything. Maybe if people were gone over Christmas that meant you didn’t have to buy them a gift? I thought of how empty the money tin under my bed was and how I really needed to start making more money. But then I thought of how Jordan was nice and sweet and how Mickey said that he was practically my boyfriend. What would it say if you didn’t get your almost boyfriend a gift for Christmas? I let out a sigh. Boys and dating were dumb. At least the only thing I had to get Bluebird for Christmas was a carrot. My pony was easy to please. Except at breakfast.
By the time we got outside, Bluebird was standing by his bucket with an angry look on his face, pinning his ears and kicking out with a back leg if any of the other horses came near him. The whole feeding situation was getting a bit out of hand. Bluebird had figured out that if he scoffed his food really fast then he could chase the other horses away from their buckets and eat their food too. I’d started holding him while he ate but it was only a short term solution and not really practical at all.
“I’ll be one second,” I told him as I ran into the barn.
He nickered desperately like he was starving, his blankets all lopsided. He’d already wrecked one and it looked like the new one wasn’t lasting either. He was harder on his clothes than I was.
The horses in the barn nickered and banged their buckets, including Phoenix who was now spending nights inside. We had a foal blanket but it just didn’t seem warm enough and so he and Chantilly got one of our coveted stalls. We didn’t have that many and with the new horse coming in we’d be down one more. Dad said with the training job we’d have enough money to finish adding more stalls but I wasn’t sure I believed him. I knew that he’d been lying to me lately. I could see it on his face. Saying he was fine when I knew he wasn’t. I just hadn’t figured out how to make him tell me what was wrong.
“You do in here and I’ll do outside,” I told Cat.
“Fine by me,” she said, rubbing her gloved hands together. “At least it is warmer in here.”
“Yeah by like five degrees,” I said as we scooped grain into buckets.
“I’ll take any degrees I can get,” she replied.
I ran outside and dumped grain for our starving horses, slipping Bluebird’s halter on before he could shove his face in his bucket. Then I sat on the fence and watched them eat. The sky was cold and gray. We hadn’t seen the sun in days and it kept raining. Last month I’d thought that we’d never even get a winter at all and now that it was here, I couldn’t wait for it to end.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said, tugging on the rope as Bluebird finished his food and tried to make a beeline for Arion’s bucket.
He pulled against me and I had to snap the rope a couple of times before he stopped fighting me and gave up, coming back to eat the grain off the ground that he’d spilled in his haste to finish first.
“You are so silly,” I told him but I loved him so much that I didn’t care.
Cat and I were in the barn cleaning stalls later when I heard the trailer pull in.
“He’s here,” I said, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice.
“Great,” Cat said. “Another stall to clean.”
But I didn’t think of it like that. Each new horse was like a puzzle waiting to be solved. A book that you hadn’t read yet. You didn’t know what wonders you were going to find until you started ridin
g it and Dad had said that this was a tune up job so I could handle most of it myself.
“I thought you were never going to get here,” I told Dad.
He jumped out of the truck looking tired and grumpy. He was supposed to have been back last night but he said there were complications. Then his phone died and I hadn’t been able to find out what the complications were.
“The horse wouldn’t leave the barn,” Dad said.
“Well he probably just didn’t want to leave his friends,” I said. “That is kind of sad and sweet.”
“It wasn’t sad or sweet,” Dad said. “He reared up and nearly hit me in the head. Twice.”
“He can’t be that bad,” I said.
“However bad you think he is,” Dad said. “He’s a hundred times worse and you have one month to fix him.”
“One month?” I said, feeling my palms start to sweat.
“You wanted this job, didn’t you?” Dad said, slamming down the trailer ramp.
“Yes,” I said with a gulp.
I just hadn’t expected my training career to rest on one unruly horse that I only had a month to train.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claire Svendsen fell in love with horses at age two when she got her first pony. The only trouble was that it wasn’t a real horse, it was a rocking horse. From that day on she begged, pleaded and bribed for lessons, riding clothes and a horse of her own. She had to wait and work really hard to finally get her first real horse but when she did, it was a dream come true. Over the years she has trained horses, given lessons and even run her own stable.
No longer able to ride due to injury, Claire lives vicariously through the characters in her books. When she’s not busy writing, you’ll find her hanging out at the barn with her retired Thoroughbred Merlin who loves carrots, apples and bowing on command.
Second Chances (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 25) Page 11