I stood in front of my closet the next morning, wondering what to wear. I wanted to put on my best breeches and the Equine Divine polo shirt that Mickey got me for my birthday but I wasn’t going to ride. Would that make it look like I was trying too hard to shove my horsiness in his face? I should just wear clean jeans and a shirt. But I was a horse person and I was going to a barn. You never knew when someone might ask you to hop up on a horse. What if Faith needed me to ride Macaroni for her? Or Missy had a horse that needed exercising? I didn’t want to blow an opportunity like that and besides, if I went to Sand Hill to ride Bluebird after then I would be totally justified in wearing my riding clothes. So I did.
I rode my bike all the way to Fox Run with butterflies in my stomach. It was twice as far as Sand Hill but it was worth it to arrive on my own terms and not to have to rely on anyone to give me a ride or ask awkward questions and it also meant that I could bolt whenever I wanted or needed to.
But as I rode my bike down the tree lined drive, past the pristine paddocks, I realized that Saturday morning was probably not the best time to try and look for my father, let alone try and talk to him. At least not if I wanted any privacy when I did so. It seemed like everyone who was anyone was riding in the ring or taking a lesson. I’d never seen so many people on horseback other than at a show. It made me feel kind of sad because once upon a time Sand Hill had been bustling on a Saturday with kids taking lessons and Esther teaching. Now it was like a ghost barn.
Seeing all the people riding made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It would be nice to have people to ride with and compare yourself to. If you didn’t have any competition then how did you know to push yourself and make yourself better? I rode my bike past a group of blonde girls on big stocky horses with dressage saddles and those sparkly browbands that Mickey kept drooling over. She was going to fit right in. It wasn’t fair.
Faith had her dun pony, Macaroni, in the cross ties but as soon as she saw me she ran right over and enveloped me in a hug. I had to literally push her off.
“I’m so glad you came,” she gushed, her face bright. “Are you going to bring Bluebird here soon? I heard Mickey is coming so you have to come too, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure where I am going to end up,” I told her. “If my mom has anything to do with it, I’ll be moving to Wisconsin.”
“Wisconsin?” She shriveled up her nose. “But you can’t move there.”
“I might have to,” I said, not mentioning the fact that if I hit things off with my dad then maybe I wouldn’t have to.
“Come and look at Macaroni.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me down the barn aisle. “I helped to body clip him and look what we did to his butt.”
The pony had a show grade body clip job with only a few tiny trace marks on his legs, which I had to assume were the parts that Faith helped with. He also had a giant heart on his rump.
“Isn’t it great?” She sighed. “All the other ponies are jealous.”
“I bet they are,” I said, patting poor Macaroni.
“So are you going to watch my lesson? I get to ride in the group now and it’s not the beginner group either. You should see what I’m doing. I’m getting really good.”
“Of course I’ll watch you,” I said. “That’s why I’m here. And besides, you were already good.”
“But now I’m better,” she said. “Riding with the other girls really helps,” she added, confirming what I had already suspected, that riding with others was not only good but actually really helpful.
I stood back out of the way as Faith finished tacking up her pony. I was proud of her for doing it herself. I could already see other ponies being tacked up by the Fox Run grooms so that they’d be all ready for their riders to just show up at the last minute and take them out to the ring without doing any of the hard work. I looked past the grooms and the kids for any sign of my father but I couldn’t see him anywhere. I wondered if he was the one giving the lessons. Maybe he was even the one that Faith had been riding with. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, a nervous habit that I hadn’t had since I was a little girl and wished that I’d brought Mickey along with me for moral support.
“You ready?” Faith asked, unclipping the cross ties.
“I guess,” I said.
CHAPTER NINE
Faith was in a group lesson with three other girls who were all as pretty and perfect as their ponies. One of the little girls was riding Sundance, the Welsh pony that Faith had rejected in favor of Macaroni but she didn’t seem to mind that the other kid had the pony that was pretty much grand champion of everything. Instead she was all smiles and grins as she tightened Macaroni’s girth and adjusted her stirrups.
I found a chair and sat by the rail in a corner by a large, fluffy palm where I hoped I would be able to see everything but no one would be able to see me. I waited for my father to appear, the butterflies in my stomach now turned into bees but he never came. Instead Missy Ellison waddled out to teach the girls, so pregnant that she looked like she was ready to pop at any moment. I couldn’t believe she was still out there teaching. She should have been lying in bed with her feet propped up on a pillow, not out in the ring teaching little girls how to ride.
“Come on girls, get it together now,” she called out at the group who were standing around giggling. “You know I like it better when you start warming up before I even get out here.”
“Yes Miss. Ellison,” Faith called out.
“Sorry,” another said.
They walked their ponies on the rail and I watched as Missy took them through a basic warm-up until their ponies were all loose and supple. Then she directed them over some small jumps. Faith was practically beaming the whole time. Macaroni wasn’t the prettiest pony and he didn’t have the best form over fences. In fact he was like a jigsaw puzzle, a pony pieced together from the leftovers of better ponies but that didn’t stop him from jumping everything with ease. He never even rubbed a rail while the other girls not only had rubs but rails that fell and refusals.
“Why are you letting her get away with that?” Missy cried as the girl riding Sundance dropped her reins before a vertical and let the pony run out. “She never used to do that before.”
“I’m sorry,” the girl said, her face red.
“Sorry doesn’t keep the fences up and sorry won’t fix a pony that you’ve ruined by letting her get away with things like that. Now come back and do it again and this time don’t just drop her in front of the fence. I know you have a million things to concentrate on but leaving your pony hanging is not the solution.”
I watched the girl gather up the reins with a look of determination and this time, even though her position was worse than before, she didn’t let the pony run out.
“Good,” Missy cried, clapping her hands. “Well done.”
And the girl beamed because she’d been praised. I tried to remember the last time Esther had praised me for doing something right and I couldn’t think of one. It was more like your reward was her not yelling at you again. Maybe it was a Swedish thing. Perhaps praise wasn’t something to be given out so freely in her home country but as was evident with Missy’s students, a little praise went a long way. Sundance’s rider didn’t let her run out again and every time the others did something wrong, they were corrected and then rewarded when they did it better the next time.
“That’s great girls, you all did a good job,” Missy told them, signaling that the lesson was over.
“Are you sure we can’t go to the show next week?” Faith asked.
“Sorry,” Missy said. “There aren’t any classes for you guys. It’s mostly just for the older riders.”
“That sucks,” Faith said.
“Language,” Missy scolded her.
“Sorry,” Faith said sheepishly.
But my ears pricked up. There was a show? Bluebird and I could use another show to redeem ourselves from our second place finish. I had to talk to Faith and find out where it was. I was about to get up and f
ollow them back to the barn as they left the ring when I heard Jess’s shrill voice ring out.
“I don’t get what the big deal is,” she said. “Besides, it’s not like anyone cares about her and her stupid little pony anyway. What does she think? She’s going to make it all the way to the top on the dumb little thing? If she really believes that, then she is even more delusional than I thought.”
I sunk back down into my chair in my hidden spot in the corner. Jess was talking about me, I just knew she was. But what I didn’t get was why she even cared what I did and didn’t do. But if she could talk about me behind my back then I could spy on her. I watched as she dragged a reluctant Hashtag out to the ring, shoving her cell phone into her pocket as he slammed on the brakes at the gate, pulling back on the reins like a stubborn donkey.
“What is wrong with you,” she snapped at him, raising her crop. “Do you want me to hit you with this?”
“You’d better not.”
The voice came from the barn, a man’s voice I only really remembered in my dreams. Then there he was striding out like he owned the place in tan breeches and a navy polo shirt, that same baseball cap perched on his head. I literally couldn’t breathe. I was right. My father was teaching Jess to ride. How could he do this to me? She was my enemy. My rival. The person who would be happy to see me give up my dreams once and for all and yet here he was, helping her to realize hers. I felt sick.
“He doesn’t want to go into the ring because you never give him a good experience in there. It wouldn’t hurt for you to make it fun for him you know,” Dad told Jess.
“Fun for him?” she said. “Why should it be fun for him?”
My dad and I both shook our heads at the same time. At least it seemed that we both agreed on the fact that Jess was an idiot.
CHAPTER TEN
I watched Jess’s lesson even though I didn’t want to. It was like watching some horror movie that you couldn’t switch off because you had to know how it turned out in the end. Not that there was much to see, just Jess fighting with Hashtag every step of the way. They’d been such a great team before. I didn’t know what had happened. He evaded the bit and balked in the corners and he had rail after rail down until even my father, who had once had the patience of a saint, was pulling his hair out.
“What is wrong with you today?” he asked as Hashtag sent another pole flying.
“I don’t know,” she cried. “It’s like someone is jinxing me.”
I wondered what she would think if she knew that I was the one sitting there secretly watching her. Would she think that I was the one who was making her mess up? If only I had that kind of power but I was pretty sure I didn’t.
“You pulled him up at the show,” Dad said. “In the open jumper class. You’ve confused him.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Jess said.
“Of course you did,” Dad told her. “You really think sticking it to your old man like that hurt him?”
Jess looked down at her reins and shrugged.
“Of course it didn’t. The only one you hurt was yourself. Holding a grudge against your father, whatever the reason, is not going to help you or him.”
My face flushed red and I slumped further down in my seat. It felt like the speech was not for Jess at all. It felt like he was talking directly to me, even though he was looking at her. Was he right? Was hating him just spiting myself? Probably but I couldn’t help the way I felt.
“Why don’t you take him for a trail ride?” Dad patted Hashtag’s neck. “Clear his head and yours.”
“He doesn’t like trail rides,” Jess said sounding mopey. “And neither do I.”
“Don’t be silly,” he replied. “Everyone likes trail rides. How about if I tack up Canterbury and go with you?”
“Really?” Jess said brightly.
“Sure,” Dad said.
I couldn’t believe what was happening. Was I stuck in some alternate universe? My Dad was teaching Jess and going on trail rides with her? How was this even happening? I watched him go back to the barn with tears in my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t.
Jess walked Hashtag around, her reins loose. She wasn’t even paying attention to what she was doing. She’d pulled out her phone and was texting or something. I longed to jump up and yell out so that Hashtag would spook and she would fall off but I didn’t dare. After all, what if my father sided with Jess instead of me? I waited until she was walking in the opposite direction and slunk back to the barn, my proverbial tail between my legs.
“Where have you been?” Faith said, running over when she saw me. Macaroni was untacked and back in his palatial stall and she’d been standing around talking with her friends. “Were you spying on Jess?” She raised an eyebrow.
“No,” I said. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“It’s okay.” She winked at me. “If I was you, I’d be spying on her too.”
“I wasn’t spying,” I told her. “But listen. Do you know if there is a horse here called Canterbury?”
“Of course,” Faith said. “Everyone knows Canterbury. He’s like this really great jumper that just came over from England.”
“Where is his stall?” I asked, trying to sound like it was a casual question when it clearly wasn’t.
“In the trainer’s barn, over there.” She pointed to the next aisle over. “But we’re not supposed to go over there,” she called out after me.
I waved her words away. Nothing was going to stop me from seeing my father now. After all, I had a few choice words for him. He may have been a top trainer but that didn’t stop him from being a lousy father and I was going to tell him so.
Only when I got to the end of the aisle, I froze. Whatever happened after I rounded the corner would change my world as I knew it forever. If my father wanted to build our relationship back up then my life might possibly change for the better. But there was also the very real possibility that he didn’t really want anything to do with me and the fact that we’d run into each other was just a huge coincidence.
My heart was pounding in my throat as I rounded the corner. Unlike the speech I had rehearsed for my mother, the one I ended up not even using, this time I didn’t know what I was going to say. I figured I’d wing it. At least then my words would be true and from the heart. He’d know how I really felt, even if that was hurt and confused. But it would be out in the open. We wouldn’t have any secrets from each other anymore and after all, wasn’t that the best way to heal our broken relationship?
As I looked down the aisle where the trainers kept their horses I saw a big, strappy chestnut standing in the crossties. It had to be Canterbury, the horse my father was going to ride. The horse that he had probably brought with him when he came back from Europe. I could see his muscles from here and the power in his hind end and could tell that he was probably a really great jumper. And for a moment I got this warm fuzzy feeling when I imagined that maybe my father would let me ride him. Maybe even show him.
Then I saw Missy. I backed against the wall, partially hidden by a rack of blankets, hoping she would just go away. I didn’t need her around eavesdropping while I was trying to talk to my dad.
“Darling?” she called out.
Darling? Who was she talking to? It couldn’t be. But it was. My blood ran cold as I watched my father come out of the tack room with a bridle slung over his shoulder and sweep Missy up into his arms. Then he kissed her. My own father kissed Missy Ellison, who was kind of young enough to be my older sister.
“I hope you are taking care of our little guy,” he said, putting his hand on her fat belly.
And I let out a shriek and ran away because it was literally the only thing I was capable of doing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
This time my father did run after me but I didn’t stop. I guess me finding out about his and Missy’s love child wasn’t exactly the way he wanted to start our relationship but what did he expect? That I would never figure it out?
T
ears pricked in the back of my eyes but I refused to let them fall. After all, I’d always suspected that he had another family full of shiny new daughters that were better than me and that was why he had never bothered to write or call but Missy? She was about the same age that Summer would have been if she was still alive. It was awful and sick and I refused to be upset about it because I was too mad.
I ran past all the rich girls with their hundred thousand dollar horses and the grooms who were being paid to tack them up so their owners wouldn’t get their hands dirty. Past the group of little girls and Faith who called out after me, wondering what was wrong. Then I was out in the bright, cool sunshine, grabbing my bike from where I’d left it propped against a big old oak tree.
“Emily, wait. Please.”
He was there beside me, able to run much faster than I was because he had longer legs so it wasn’t really fair.
“Leave me alone,” I said.
I couldn’t even look at him. I stared at my bike and the scratches in the paint because my mom hadn’t been able to afford a new one and we’d got this one at a garage sale where it had previously been used and abused.
“I didn’t want you to find out like this,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you but your mother wouldn’t let me.”
“Don’t blame her,” I snapped, looking up at him for the first time. “None of this is her fault.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “And that’s okay. Just give me a chance to explain.”
“Okay.” I crossed my arms. “Explain why you never sent me a birthday card or a Christmas present. Explain why you left us with no money and we had to live on macaroni and cheese for a whole year. Go on. Tell me because I’d love to know.”
Off Course (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 12) Page 3