The A Circuit 04- Rein It In

by Georgina Bloomberg

“Want me to grab your books?” Zara offered. “I’ve got to go get mine anyway.”

  Kate gulped, remembering the schoolbooks she’d abandoned in the stands. And all the untouched homework contained within them. When was she ever going to finish it all?

  “Thanks, that would be great,” she told Zara. Trying to push her worries about school out of her mind, she hurried toward the stabling area.

  “So if I make it to New York one of these days, will you give me a private guided tour?” Scott leaned across the table, the glow from the restaurant’s kitschy glass-shaded overhead light bringing out reddish highlights in his dark hair.

  “Maybe if you ask nicely.” Tommi stirred another sugar into her iced tea, then took a sip. It was almost eleven, and she knew she needed to get to bed soon if she didn’t want to be dead on her feet the next day. Not that it mattered that much—her divisions were over, and she didn’t have to do anything more strenuous than pack up her hotel room and then spend the day cheering on the children’s hunters from her barn.

  Since neither Tommi nor Scott had a car at the show, they’d been stuck hanging out at the restaurant in Tommi’s hotel. After a dinner of mediocre pasta, they’d lingered at the table so long their waiter had started giving them dirty looks. Scott had taken care of that by slipping the man some cash, and from then on the waiter seemed happy enough to keep bringing them as many more drinks and nachos as they wanted.

  Scott licked his finger and used it to snag the last few nacho crumbs off the plate sitting between them. “If you ever come west, I’ll show you around out there,” he said. “You can even come to my barn and hop on my horse to find out what a real hunter feels like.” He grinned.

  “Oh, I know what one feels like,” Tommi countered with a smirk. “I just hope someday you get someone to take pity on you and put you on a real eq horse. I mean, my horse tripped—can happen to anyone. What’s your excuse for not pinning?”

  “Ouch.” Scott collapsed back into his chair as if he’d just been shot. “I can’t believe you’d go there after I poured my heart out about that.”

  Tommi just smiled and took another sip of her drink. True, Scott had spent a while complaining that his eq horse hadn’t turned out to be nearly as experienced as its seller had assured him it was. Somehow, though, Tommi didn’t think teasing Scott about it was going to wound him all that much. In fact, she’d be surprised if he didn’t turn up on a reliable world-beater next year. Like her, he had one more season as a junior, and she suspected he’d make the most of it—just like she was planning to do.

  Then again, maybe a professional eq horse would be too boring for him. That was another thing the two of them seemed to have in common. Like Tommi, Scott wasn’t afraid of a challenge.

  Just then the waiter approached. “What else can I get for you two?” he asked, whisking the empty nacho plate out from in front of them.

  “More nachos?” Scott asked Tommi. “Or some dessert, maybe?”

  Tommi shook her head. “I’d better call it a night. I’m supposed to be back at the show early tomorrow, and if I show up looking like a zombie I’ll scare the horses.”

  Scott grinned, but he looked disappointed. “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” Tommi stood up. “It’s been fun, though. Or at least as much fun as you can have in suburban Maryland. Maybe we can do it again in Harrisburg.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Scott pulled out his wallet, selected a credit card, and handed it to the waiter. “I’ll be back to sign for that in a sec,” he told the man. “Gotta walk the lady to the elevator.” He hesitated, raising an eyebrow at Tommi. “Unless you want to wait for me to settle up, and I can walk you to your room?”

  “Elevator’s fine,” Tommi said.

  Scott shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying, right?” he told the waiter with a wink. “Be right back.”

  They headed out of the restaurant, which was empty except for a couple of businessmen sitting at the bar. “Thanks for coming,” the bored-looking hostess said in a bored-sounding voice as they passed her station.

  “Thanks,” Tommi said.

  Scott opened the door for her. The lobby was just as deserted as the restaurant. A single employee was bent over a computer behind the desk and barely looked up as they passed.

  When they reached the elevators, Tommi stopped and turned to face Scott. “So …,” she said as she hit the button to summon an elevator. “Give me a call when you hit Harrisburg.”

  “Don’t worry, I will.” Scott took a step closer. “Good night, Tommi.”

  Tommi leaned forward as he bent to kiss her. His lips touched hers softly at first, then pressed more insistently, making her heart thump. The ding-and-whoosh of the elevator arriving interrupted the moment, making them both pull away.

  “Good night,” Tommi said, feeling a little breathless as she stepped into the elevator. Scott smiled and raised one hand, his eyes locked on hers until the doors slid shut to separate them.

  Chapter Seven

  “Rise and shine, my love!”

  Zara groaned, trying to convince herself that her mother’s overly peppy voice was part of the dream she’d been having—something about her algebra teacher chasing her up the New Jersey Turnpike on a fire-breathing horse …

  Then she felt a sharp poke on her shoulder. “Ow!” she blurted out, her eyes flying open.

  Her mother’s face was peering down at her, already powdered and plucked and ready to face a movie star’s day of getting ogled and photographed everywhere she went. “Time to get up,” Gina said. “Mickey’s waiting to drive you to school.”

  “School?” Zara shoved herself into a semiupright position and rubbed her eyes. “Actually, I was thinking I might skip it today.”

  “Think again,” her mother said briskly, yanking back the covers. “We already told you—if you’re expecting to attend all these horse shows during the school year, you’ll have to prove you can keep up with your work.”

  Zara waited until her mother turned away, then rolled her eyes. Since when had Gina Girard, famous for playing all sorts of characters from carefree party girls to gorgeous but dedicated career women, decided to audition for the one role nobody would ever believe her in—superresponsible soccer mom?

  “Fine,” Zara muttered, climbing out of bed and fumbling for her slippers. “I’m going.”

  When she got downstairs, showered and dressed for school, someone had set out bagels with all the fixings on the sleek modern dining table. Mickey, her favorite member of her father’s entourage, was lounging in one of the chairs, a half-full cup of coffee in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other. He never seemed to eat much, which was probably how he pulled off that gaunt seventies-era punk-throwback look he had going.

  “Morning, Z-Girl,” he said in his raspy voice. “Better eat fast if you want to be on time.”

  “Oh, she does,” Gina called out from across the room, where she was scribbling a note on the whiteboard near the phone. “She definitely wants to be on time.”

  “It’s okay. I’m not that hungry.” Zara grabbed an empty mug and poured herself a cup of coffee from the De’Longhi on the sideboard. She glanced around the main room, surprised to see that she, Mickey, and Gina were the only ones there. It was unusual to see the place without at least three or four of her father’s lackeys hanging out doing whatever they did. Which, as far as Zara could tell, was pretty much nothing. “Where is everyone?” she asked, dumping a couple of sugars into her mug. “Where’s Zac?”

  “Still asleep.” Mickey took a sip of his coffee. “He was up late last night.”

  “That makes two of us.” Zara shot her mother an annoyed look. It had taken forever to get things packed up at the show the day before. On top of that, they’d run into a serious delay on the turnpike on the way home—some kind of tractor-trailer jackknife or something that had backed up traffic for miles. They hadn’t arrived back at Pelham Lane until almost midnight, and Tommi had insisted on helping unload the horses bef
ore driving herself, Fitz, Summer, and Zara back into Manhattan.

  Not that Gina cared about any of that. If Zara started complaining, it would just set her mother off on one of her boring stories about various all-nighters and other feats of human endurance she’d experienced on movie sets through the years. Even first-period history class had to be better than that.

  Zara drained her coffee in about three gulps, ignoring the burn in her throat. “Okay, let’s go,” she told Mickey. “I’m ready.”

  She actually woke up a little during the drive to school. Mickey was good for that. For one thing, he drove like a maniac, cutting off other vehicles left and right and endangering pedestrians at every turn. That would get the adrenaline pumping if anything could. Besides that, his stories were actually interesting, unlike her mother’s—mostly because he left in all the gory details.

  By the time she walked into Drummond’s echoing, stone-floored lobby, Zara was feeling almost awake. She stopped at her locker to dump most of her books, then went to look for Tommi.

  She found her at her own locker. “You made it,” Tommi said with a yawn. She bent closer to the little mirror stuck inside the locker door, slicking on some lip gloss. “I thought you might come in late.”

  “Not a chance, with both my parents home for a change.” Zara leaned against the next locker. “I don’t know why they’re so gung-ho about school, anyway. Zac barely made it through high school, and my mom doesn’t exactly use her college degree in art history on a daily basis.”

  “I know what you mean.” Tommi capped her lip gloss and stuck it on her locker shelf. When she turned around, Zara noticed she had a weird look on her face.

  “What?” Zara peered at her. “You okay?”

  “Sure.” Tommi slammed her locker door shut. “It’s just, you know, I’m kind of sick of talking about college, that’s all.”

  “Okay.” Zara wasn’t sure where that had come from. As far as she was aware, they hadn’t really been talking about college at all.

  Before she could think about that, she heard someone calling Tommi’s name. A moment later, her friend Duckface skidded to a stop in front of them. His strawberry-blond hair was sticking up in a way that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but somehow it almost worked on him. Zara glanced behind him, relieved to see that none of Tommi’s boring female friends seemed to be following in his wake.

  “Hey, ladies,” Duckface said, sweeping into a dramatic bow in front of them. “How was the horse show? I kept checking Facebook for shots of you two in your tight riding pants holding your whips, but alas, I was denied.”

  Tommi rolled her eyes, but Zara laughed. “Perv,” she said.

  “That’s my middle name.” Duckface grinned. “Maybe we could grab a bite after school sometime, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Zara hesitated. Even though Duckface was being goofy as usual, her guy radar—which rarely steered her wrong—was telling her the offer was real. And for once, she wasn’t sure what to say. Okay, so Duckface wasn’t exactly a male model, but Zara didn’t care about that. She’d known too many externally hot guys out in LA who were about as much fun as a shoe full of horse manure. Give her an interesting guy any day. And Duck-face was nothing if not interesting.

  Still …

  “Sorry.” She kept her voice light. “I make it a habit never to be alone with waterfowl.”

  Duckface laughed so hard at the retort that he snorted, not seeming at all insulted or even particularly disappointed. Zara suspected it wasn’t the first time he’d been shot down. Probably not even the first time today. He didn’t seem like a guy who let much bother him.

  So why did she feel bothered by the whole exchange? Maybe because there was no good reason she could pinpoint for turning him down, other than that her heart wasn’t really in it?

  Whatever. Since when did she need a better reason than that? Doing her best to shrug off her uneasy feelings, she told herself she was just too tired to deal right now. No biggie.

  Pelham Lane was usually closed to clients on Mondays, but during Indoors season, the regular schedule went out the window. When Tommi pulled in after school, the parking lot was packed and she could see a few people taking advantage of the last few minutes of daylight in the outdoor rings.

  Pocketing her keys, Tommi hurried inside. Marissa and Summer were sprawled on one of the benches in the entry area, phones in hand.

  “Tommi!” Marissa immediately looked guilty when she raised her eyes. “Um, hi.”

  “What’s going on?” Tommi’s gaze shifted to Marissa’s phone. “Wait, don’t tell me—I’m in today’s blog, right?”

  “Maybe.” Marissa smiled sheepishly and held out her phone. “It’s just something about how you were seen hanging out with that cute Scott kid at Cap Challenge.”

  Summer’s pale blue eyes glittered with interest. “Yeah, did you know his dad’s some kind of computer tycoon? I heard Scott tried to buy some big-time Grand Prix jumper to do the high juniors with, but the owners turned him down even though he offered like a zillion bucks or something.”

  Tommi didn’t bother to respond to that. Summer was always very interested in exactly how much money other people were spending, a habit Tommi found supremely irritating.

  “At least the blog’s somewhat accurate for once.” Tommi handed Marissa’s phone back. “Not that it’s anyone’s business who I hang out with. Least of all the entire Internet.”

  Marissa looked sympathetic. “I know, right?” she said. “I mean, I like a little gossip as much as the next girl …”

  Tommi snorted, and even Summer shot Marissa a disbelieving look. Marissa giggled.

  “Okay,” she amended. “Maybe I like gossip even more than the next girl. My point is, the blogger’s kind of out of control.”

  “Maybe.” Summer shrugged. “But Zara says she’s going to find out who’s doing it.”

  Marissa stuck her phone in her pocket. “Do you really think she can figure it out?”

  “Who knows?” Tommi had her doubts—Zara didn’t exactly have the world’s longest attention span—but she was tired of discussing the blog. She glanced at her watch. “Hey, do you know if all the horses are in from turnout? I want to get on Orion, make sure we’re ready to redeem ourselves in Harrisburg.”

  “I’m sure you will, Tommi,” Summer said. “Everyone was totally surprised that you didn’t win the eq at Cap Challenge, especially since Orion is so experienced at finals and all. But no big deal, right? It’s not like anyone cares about that one—it’s not even a real finals.”

  Tommi knew it was usually better to ignore Summer’s more ignorant comments, but sometimes she just couldn’t resist slapping her down. “You might not want to say that in front of the people who pinned,” she told Summer, her voice coming out a little sharper than she meant it to. “They might not see it that way.”

  Summer’s jaw dropped, and Tommi suspected that Marissa was trying not to giggle. “Um, I’m not sure about the horses being in from turnout,” Marissa told Tommi quickly. “I think the guys are still bringing some of them in. Jamie wanted them out as long as possible to stretch their legs.”

  Tommi wasn’t surprised to hear it. It had been a beautiful day, warm and breezy with practically no humidity, and she was sure the horses had enjoyed being out after more than a week in the cramped stalls at the show.

  “Guess I’ll go see,” she said. “Catch you later.”

  She headed for Orion’s stall. He wasn’t there, so she continued out the back of the barn toward his usual turnout. When she reached the gate, he was grazing at the far end of the roomy paddock with his buddy, a placid older short-stirrup hunter named Scooby. At Tommi’s whistle, both horses lifted their heads and started toward the gate—Scooby at a trot, and Orion at a dramatic hobble.

  Tommi gasped. Yanking her phone out of her pocket, she texted Jamie and Joy:

  Orion dead lame. Help!

  “Easy, buddy,” she said, grabbing a lead rope off the
fence and slipping into the paddock as the horses reached the gate. Scooby nosed her, looking for treats, but she pushed his head away and went to Orion. “Let’s see what’s going on, okay?”

  She slipped on his halter and shooed Scooby away. It was obvious that Orion was favoring his left front leg, so she ran her hand down it, feeling for heat or swelling. He lifted the hoof, leaving it hovering off the ground as Tommi squeezed and prodded gently. She was feeling around the hoof when she heard footsteps coming fast.

  “Feel anything?” Joy asked breathlessly.

  Tommi glanced up at the assistant trainer. “Hoof feels warm. He’s not reacting when I poke anywhere else.”

  “Abscess then, probably.” Joy came into the paddock and pushed Scooby away, bending to feel Orion’s bad leg herself.

  Tommi straightened up. “It’s got to be, right?”

  If her hands hadn’t been busy, she would have crossed her fingers. An abscess—a localized infection inside the hoof—wasn’t a good thing, exactly. But when a horse suddenly went lame, it was definitely the best of several possibilities. By far.

  Just as Tommi glanced toward the barn, wondering how hard it was going to be to get Orion to walk there, she saw Jamie hurrying out the back door. “Got your message,” he said when he reached the paddock.

  “Thanks for coming so fast.” Tommi bit her lip, watching as Joy’s slim, tanned fingers continued to poke and prod. “I came out to get Orion, and he was practically three-legged.”

  “Yeah, looks like it’s probably an abscess.” Joy straightened up with a groan.

  For a second, Tommi forgot about her horse. “You okay?” she asked Joy, flashing momentarily to all those rumors on the blog. Joy wasn’t old enough to be groaning and complaining about her creaky old joints like Tommi’s grandmother down in Florida. Tommi wasn’t sure how old Joy was, actually, but it couldn’t be much over thirty, if that.

  “Sure. Just been a long day, that’s all.” Joy flashed her a smile. Was it Tommi’s imagination, or did the woman look pale all of a sudden? “Anyway, let’s get this guy into a stall, and I’ll get the farrier out ASAP.”