Gift Horse (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 14)

by Claire Svendsen

  We were in the office the next day, making a list of things to buy at the tack store when Jess came storming in. She stood there with her arms crossed. There might as well have been steam coming out of her ears, she looked so mad. I didn't know why. She didn’t have a video of herself falling off that now had well over five million views.

  “Can I help you?” Dad said.

  “She gets private lessons but I don’t?” Jess pointed at me. “You told my father that you were too busy to give me privates and yet there you were last night, giving them to her.”

  I looked around, feeling uneasy. How did Jess know that I had a private lesson? Had she installed cameras when we weren’t looking? No one had been there except us and the grooms.

  “That’s right,” Dad said calmly. “I don’t have time to teach you privately right now but you get plenty of instruction in the group.”

  “It’s not the same,” Jess said.

  I looked at her standing there in her expensive breeches and suddenly I just felt sorry for her. She was a horrible human being and she was never going to change. No matter how much money or how many horses she had, she’d never be happy. She’d probably end up marrying some rich guy that her father picked out for her to help further his business relationship with some other company and she’d spend her days doing whatever she wanted and being completely miserable about it.

  “I don’t have time for this Jess.” Dad waved her away with a flick of his hand.

  “But you’re here to teach me,” she said.

  “And I do, in the group.”

  “It’s not the same,” she said, crossing her arms. “I deserve better.”

  “Maybe you should have thought of what your new horse deserves,” Dad said. “Because I’m pretty sure she doesn’t deserve to be ridden around with her head cranked down to her chest.”

  Jess’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times. She glared at me.

  “So you are a tattle tale as well, are you?” she said.

  “I saw you myself,” Dad said. “Emily had nothing to do with it. Now get out of here before I decide that I don’t want to train you at all.”

  Jess stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

  “You know I appreciate you sticking up for me,” I said. “But that really isn’t helping any. You do know that it is her mission in life to ruin mine.”

  “She’s just a spoiled brat,” Dad said. “She’ll get over it.”

  But I didn’t think that Dad knew how bad Jess really was. She didn’t get over anything. All she did was exact revenge and ruin lives.

  “Ready to go and buy some stuff for Arion?” Dad asked.

  “Yes,” I said, the lure of going to the tack store enough to make me temporarily forget about Jess.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Next to riding, going to the tack store was pretty much one of the best things in the whole world. It was filled with bright and shiny new things that promised to make your horse better if you just bought them. Of course I knew that wasn’t strictly true but it didn’t stop me from lusting over new tack like it was the last doughnut on earth.

  We only had one store in town, Taylor's Tack Emporium. It was where I won my Rodriguez saddle and Jess had called me a cheat, although technically she’d been right only I wasn’t the one who cheated, Mickey was.

  It was sandwiched in between a nail salon and a Chinese restaurant and the smell of the noodles and fried rice made me think of our old home and even though I had so many horrible memories of living there with Derek and Cat, I still had the ones of just me and my mom before they came into our lives.

  “I hope they have extra-large bell boots,” Dad said, slamming the door of the truck. “Canterbury just wrecked his last pair.”

  “If they don’t, I bet Taylor could order you some,” I said. “She’s really nice. She sort of sponsored me last year.”

  “She did, did she?” Dad said.

  “I think she was hoping that I’d bring some more customers to the store but it didn’t really work out that way so don’t give her a hard time that she’s not sponsoring me now, okay?”

  “Why would I give her a hard time?” Dad said.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “But just don’t. Please?”

  Dad didn’t say anything but he had that little smirk he got when he was up to no good and I suddenly felt like I was four, not fourteen, going to the tack store with my father and hoping he wouldn’t say anything stupid and embarrass me.

  We stepped into the tack store, a little bell on the door announcing our arrival with a little chime, and were immediately engulfed in the scent of new leather. I breathed it in deeply but Dad didn’t seem to care about things like smells or the fact that we were surrounded by a million wonderful things. He just forged ahead with his list of things.

  “Where is this Taylor guy then?” he said.

  “Dad, Taylor is a woman,” I whispered urgently.

  But Dad didn’t seem to hear me or if he did, he didn’t care. He got to the counter and stood there impatiently. Then he rang the bell that sat next to the register.

  “Dad,” I said. “Can't we just look around? I’m sure I can find your bell boots and besides, it’s half the fun to look and see what they have on the shelves.”

  “We don’t have time for browsing. I have lessons to teach,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  I felt a little deflated. Mickey and I had spent hours wandering up and down the aisles and taking in everything that the store had to offer. And our reward for that was usually finding some bargain tucked away on a sale shelf and the high we got from snagging something we otherwise would have missed. But Dad wasn’t Mickey or a girl and he obviously didn’t understand things like shopping.

  He rang the bell again and this time Taylor came out from the back room. Her hair was longer than the last time I saw her but she still looked the same, small, fierce and kind of mad that someone had the audacity to ring her bell that many times. That was until she saw my father.

  “Robert?” she cried, flying around the counter and throwing herself into my father’s arms.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  My dad and Taylor stood there hugging for much longer than seemed necessary while I just stood there awkwardly, fiddling with the snaffle key chains on the counter so that I didn’t have to look at them. My dad didn’t hug people. He was the sort of guy who slapped you on the back or shook your hand. My family wasn’t big on physical contact or huge displays of affection and yet here he was with Taylor from the Tack Emporium in his arms. Eventually they let each other go.

  “I heard you were in town,” Taylor said. “Why haven’t you been in to see me before?”

  “I didn’t know this was your store, Tay,” he said.

  “Excuses, excuses.”

  “So what's the deal with you not sponsoring my daughter anymore?” he said.

  “Dad,” I said through gritted teeth. “I told you not to mention that.”

  “Who says I’m not sponsoring her?” Taylor said, looking at me and raising an eyebrow.

  “You are?” I said.

  “Of course she is,” Dad said. “Oh, do you remember the time you sponsored that skinny girl, what was her name? The one who had that imported horse with the wall eye.”

  “You mean the one who stole a bunch of stuff from me and was never heard from again?” Taylor said.

  “But not before getting drunk at the awards party and vomiting all over the ribbon table,” Dad added.

  They had this whole back and forth thing between them like they were the oldest of friends. He called her Tay. She looked at him with a special sort of smile. And I felt bad for poor Missy who was stuck at home with my father’s baby while he was here in the tack store, flirting with Taylor.

  “I’m going to go and look around,” I said.

  They didn’t even notice that I had slipped away. They were too busy reminiscing about the old days. I didn’t even know my dad had old days t
hat didn’t involve me and my mom. I knew he’d been in Europe for a while but I never even thought that he had ties to the community here. That he knew the same people I knew and better than I did. It was weird. And creepy. And suddenly the tack store had lost its luster and I didn’t want to be looking at bridles for Arion. I wanted to be back by the check-out counter listening to my dad and Taylor talk about the old days.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  I actually found some great stuff for Arion. A pretty fancy stitched bridle with a figure eight noseband in a light colored leather that would totally compliment his gray coat. I also managed to find all the other things on our list, including the extra-large bell boots that Dad wanted for Canterbury.

  When I took everything back to the counter, they were still standing there talking and laughing. Taylor had her hand on my dad's arm and he didn't seem to mind. I slammed all the stuff on the counter, making them both jump in the process.

  "Don't mind me," I said. "I found everything by the way."

  "Well you said you knew your way around the store." Dad shrugged.

  "Including your extra-large bell boots and the liniment the Missy wanted me to start using on Socks."

  "Missy, right," Dad said like he only just remembered that he had a live in girlfriend with a baby at home.

  Guys could be so dumb sometimes.

  "Right," Taylor said like she suddenly put two and two together and made five. "I'll ring this stuff up."

  She went behind the counter and started sorting through the pile of things I had picked out.

  "Is this bridle okay?" I asked Dad, showing him the one I had picked out for Arion.

  I always felt guilty about people buying me things and much preferred it when I just bought the stuff with my own money but Dad had offered. So I picked out a bridle that wasn’t so cheap it would fall apart but wasn’t the top of the line model.

  “Yes, it is fine,” he said absentmindedly.

  He wouldn’t have noticed if I had picked out the expensive bridle and I suddenly wished that I had. At least maybe then I would have got his attention but as it was all he seemed to be able to focus on was the way that Taylor’s hair fell across her face and how she chewed her bottom lip while she rung up our stuff. I didn’t know what had gone on between them before but right now they were flirting with each other and I didn’t know how to make it stop.

  “Didn’t Missy say that we needed to get diapers on the way home Dad?” I said.

  He looked at me and frowned. “Yes, I think so.”

  “We have a new baby at home,” I told Taylor. “His name is Owen.”

  She looked at my dad and then back at the things she was stuffing into bags.

  “That’s nice,” she said. “So you have a brother?”

  “Yes and he’s adorable,” I said, even though I didn’t really think he was.

  That was what people expected you to say and I wanted Taylor to know that my father had responsibilities. It wasn’t that I liked Missy any more than I liked Taylor but she had been nice to me and she did have a child with my father now. I’d always excused the fact that he left us, maybe even thinking that it was my mother who drove him away. I didn’t want to think that maybe he was a cheater and that he’d left her and me for another woman, just like I could imagine him doing with Taylor if this awful flirting carried on.

  “Well we have to go,” I said, scooping up all the bags. “See you later Taylor. Come on Dad.”

  He followed me out of the store into the bright sunshine and I wanted to ask him what on earth he was thinking but part of me hoped that maybe I was wrong. That he wasn’t flirting with Taylor at all and that he was just being nice to an old friend.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Dad was quiet in the car on the way home and I thought it was because he was thinking about Taylor, which made me mad. I was about to say something when he finally cleared his throat.

  “Emily,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me about the video?”

  My blood ran cold. I actually broke out in a sweat. There was a lump in my throat and I couldn’t talk. I wanted to run away but I was trapped in the truck. There was nowhere to go. No place to hide. All I could do was sit there and stare at a dirty mark on the floor mat. I didn’t want to talk about this with him. Couldn’t he see that?

  “How did you find out?” I finally said.

  “Taylor told me.”

  “She saw it?” I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.

  “According to her, everyone has seen it.”

  I bit back the tears, not wanting to cry in front of my father like a little baby.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.

  “What could you have done about it?” I replied. “It was already out there. People have seen it and they can’t unsee it, can they?”

  “It was Jess, wasn’t it?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “I’m going to kill that stupid girl,” he said.

  “No Dad, please. Just forget about it. That’s what I’ve done. I’m rising above it. If I ignore it then it will just go away.”

  “That’s what you think, is it?” he said. “Who told you that? Because whoever they are, they’re an idiot.”

  “Mom,” I said softly.

  She was the one who told me to ignore the bullies at school and I had done exactly that but it hadn’t really worked. She said that once they realized they couldn't get a rise out of me then they would stop but instead it just seemed to make them more determined.

  “Well your mother was wrong,” he said. “You can’t let people walk all over you. Do you want to be bullied your whole life?”

  “No,” I said. “But what am I supposed to do?”

  “You’re supposed to stick up for yourself.”

  “And do what? Talk to Jess about it? I’ve tried that, it doesn’t work. Threaten her with putting up my own video of her stupid riding? Then I become just as bad as she is.”

  “You tell me about it,” he said. “That’s what you do. You get help. You don’t just try and deal with it yourself. I wondered why you’d been so down lately. How long has this been going on?”

  “For a long time,” I said, my voice small. “Jess has hated me from the moment I bought Bluebird but it’s just been worse lately. She’ll stop eventually though,” I said. “She has to, right?”

  “She’ll stop right now,” Dad said. “When I talk to her father.”

  “But he doesn’t care,” I said. “He won’t make her stop and if you push it then they’ll leave Fox Run. You said they were one of the barns biggest clients. If they leave because of something you say then maybe you’ll get fired.”

  Now I really was fighting back the tears but they felt like tears of anger. I was mad that Taylor had told my father and that Jess had put me in this position in the first place and I was mad at all the people who didn’t even know me who had said mean things.

  “I won’t get fired,” Dad said. “But even if I did, do you think I would let someone treat my daughter this way?”

  I shrugged because I didn’t really know. The truth was that I was only just really figuring out what kind of a father he was. I’d never had anyone ready to defend me the way he was about to and it felt good.

  “Do you think maybe you could talk to them about it after the show?” I said.

  “And let Jess just ride and win her place in the clinic? You think she deserves that?”

  “No,” I said. “But if you deal with it before the show then it will just make everyone all upset and Jess may try and do something even more stupid. I can’t ride and keep my eyes open for her dumb acts of sabotage. And I know I already have my spot in the clinic but I really want a chance to show everyone that I can ride well and that I won’t fall off.”

  “No one can guarantee that,” Dad said with a smile.

  “I know,” I said. “But I’d like to try.”

  I thought that my father finding out about the video would have been the worst t
hing in the world but in fact it turned out to be the best. He understood why I was mad and hurt and now he was going to help me deal with it. I wasn’t stuck coping alone anymore and I got a warm fuzzy feeling inside when I thought about my father standing up to Mr. Eastford and telling him what his daughter was really like, even though part of me knew that it wouldn’t make one bit of difference. Mr. Eastford wasn’t going to stop his daughter from behaving badly. If he’d wanted to, he would have done it long ago. The best I could hope for was that their new barn would be done soon and they would leave Fox Run and finally give me some room to breathe. But I knew that it didn’t matter. There would always be another Jess out there, waiting to put me down and I wasn’t always going to have my father around to defend me so even though this time he was, I was still going to have to figure out how to deal with Jess on my own.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  The week before the Sandman show sped by and I was so busy that I had little time to think much about Jess or my ankle. Both were a sort of dull ache in the back of my mind and they only really pushed their way to the front late at night when I was trying to go to sleep.

  I tried my new tack on Arion and even I had to admit that he looked every bit the part with the crochet ear net that I had picked out for him. I began taking him for walks on the lunge line and making him go in circles without even realizing it. I took a long dressage whip with me and taught him to move away from it like he would from my leg. He was smart, much smarter than I’d even given him credit for and he was eager to learn. I started using the liniment on his legs after I’d worked him, the one that was supposed to be for Socks. There was still some scar tissue on his tendons but I’d sat out on the fence and watched him gallop around the field and he certainly wasn’t lame. I just hoped that maybe one day his legs would be able to stand up to jumping fences, otherwise I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay with me. But we’d reached a sort of understanding and he pricked his ears now when he heard me coming instead of pinning them.