“I studied ballet for four years,” Alice said. “Our ballet instructors only let us eat salads and we had to weigh in once a week in front of everyone to make sure we weren’t too fat.”
“You don’t think Hunter is going to make us get on a scale in front of everyone, do you?” Tara asked, looking horrified. “I mean isn’t that against some sort of privacy laws or something?”
“I think if Hunter wants us to do something, then he’s going to expect us to do it,” Andy said.
And the thought of getting on a scale in front of everyone made me wish that I hadn’t eaten that sandwich after all, even though deep down I knew that it wasn’t right to make us paranoid about food.
CHAPTER TWENTY
That afternoon Hunter had us all back out in the ring. Our horses were tired. We were tired. Hunter was not. At least this time we were allowed to keep our stirrups. He hounded us on contact. How much was too much. When you should give a little and the times when it was okay to let your horse go on a loose rein.
This time it was Becka who got the full brunt of Hunter’s disapproval. Twizzle wasn’t easily adjustable and seemed to think that a loose rein was an invitation to take off instead of to relax. It made me think of Arion and I listened carefully to his corrections so that I could apply them to my own horse when I got home. Encore was on his best behavior as usual. He did everything I asked and more. I was starting to think that bringing him to the clinic was the best thing that could have ever happened when Hunter called me over.
“This horse,” he said. “Where did he come from?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling my face flush red.
I never got an answer out of my father and had been far too embarrassed to snoop around again after being caught the first time.
“He’s not yours then?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He’s at our barn on consignment but I’ve been riding him since he arrived.”
Hunter nodded. “He’s a nice match for you but there is something about him that looks familiar. Has he been in Europe?”
“I couldn’t say,” I said. “I could ask my father.”
He stood there looking at Encore, who all of a sudden had wide eyes. He snorted at Hunter and backed up a few paces even though he usually stood quietly. I didn’t know what was wrong with him. I’d never seen him act like that before.
“Never mind,” he said, waving me back to the group with a flick of his hand that Encore shied away from. “It doesn’t matter.”
But now it seemed like the only thing that mattered. Where Encore had come from hadn’t seemed so important lately. Dad said that he took him on consignment as a favor to a friend but he never said which friend. The horse had come to us looking disheveled and neglected. I didn’t know why. Encore would jump anything and he was level headed and so ridable that I had a feeling a beginner could sit on his back and he’d still jump a really difficult, technical course clean. It was why I’d been so curious about him in the first place and now it seemed that Hunter was curious about him too.
“What was that about?” Andy asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
I didn’t want the others to know. Not about Encore or my father or any of it. I just wanted to get through the clinic the best way I could.
“He was probably telling you how fabulous you are,” Tara snapped. “We already know you’re his favorite.”
“I don’t think I am,” I said.
“No, you are,” Becka agreed.
They spent the rest of the session glaring at me, convinced that Hunter had imparted some kind of secret wisdom to me that I refused to share with the group.
“You should just tell them what he said,” Andy told me as we cooled our horses out afterwards.
“I can’t.” I shook my head.
We had taken the horses out of the ring and into one of the empty fields. My reins were lose and my feet out of the stirrups. My thighs still burned from the morning ride without stirrups. At this rate I wasn’t going to be able to walk by the time the clinic was over.
“Why?” Andy said. “It’s not like it is some big secret, is it?”
“Kind of,” I said. “It’s something I think they could use against me.”
Andy looked thoughtful for a minute. “Then you should definitely keep it to yourself,” he finally said.
We walked in silence for a while and I was glad to have Andy on my side. I could tell the other girls already had it in for me. Even Becka had sided with Tara and Alice. Of course they weren’t going to mess with Andy. He was a boy. He was immune to their bitchiness. But I was the outcast. The one who came from nothing. They had money. More of it than they even knew what to do with. Tara’s father was a rock star. Alice was the daughter of a novelist whose latest book had just been turned into a movie. Becka’s family came from old money. What did I come from? A broken home and a trainer who may or may not have had his reputation tarnished by the time I got home.
“Don’t worry,” Andy said. “I’ve got your back.”
“Thanks.” I smiled.
But I didn’t know why he was being nice to me and I wasn’t sure what he would want in return but for now it was just nice to not feel completely alone. And when the sweat had dried on our horse’s necks, we took them back to the barn and rinsed them off in the fancy wash rack where there were gilded taps and you could set the temperature of the water to whatever you wanted on an electronic touch pad on the wall.
“I feel like I’ve stepped into another world,” I told Andy as I took a pristine white towel off the shelf to dry Encore’s legs with.
“That’s because you have.” He grinned back. “This is Hunter Preston’s world and we’re all just passing through it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
That evening we sat around the kidney shaped pool, dangling our feet in the water. It was just starting to be warm enough to swim but the water was cold. Andy had already been in but we hadn’t been brave enough even though we’d come back from the barn hot and sweaty.
Becka and Alice were talking about their boyfriends but the only boys I was thinking about were my four legged ones. Bluebird and Arion. Had someone changed Bluebird’s wraps and hand grazed him for a little while? Was Arion eating his hay or was he acting all ulcery? I had texted my father again since he never replied and he eventually sent a curt message that said everything was fine, stop worrying. But I couldn’t help it. Worrying seemed to be hard wired into my nature. And I felt self-conscious being around kids that I didn’t know. I wasn’t a social butterfly like Mickey or Becka, who was right now showing Tara her flawless manicure.
“I guess she doesn’t have to clean too many stalls,” Andy said under his breath, getting out of the pool and dripping cold water on me.
“Hey,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said, pulling a towel around himself. “You should just jump in. It might clear your head.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I doubt it.”
“You should just try and go with the flow.” He shrugged. “Life is too short to stress.”
“I can’t help it,” I said. “I stress a lot.”
“I can tell. When was the last time you did something fun?”
“Fun? Like a horse show?”
“Like something that was totally not horse related when you had a good time.”
“Um, never.” I laughed.
But I thought about the Valentine ball that Mickey had dragged me to and how Jordan had pulled me away to the burger joint and cooked me a meal in the kitchen. How we’d shared the big pile of fries and put mayonnaise on our burgers and not thought it gross. That was kind of fun but I wasn’t about to tell Andy that.
“I’d better go do my school work,” I said. “Otherwise I’ll get in trouble.”
“Aren’t you just taking the week off?” he said.
“Kind of,” I said. “But I still have a few assignments to get done.”
“At least you care about stuff like that,�
� he said, laying back and putting his hands behind his head. “I don’t think those girls are used to getting good grades.”
“Not unless they’re getting graded on their nails,” I said, looking at Becka who now had a bottle of pink polish and was painting Tara’s nails with it. “But I don’t really care either. I just want to graduate early so I can spend even more time riding and travel to shows without worrying about my grades.”
“Smart,” he said.
“I try.” I smiled.
But as I went back to the room and pulled out my backpack that I’d slid under the bed, I didn’t feel very smart. If I was smart I would have befriended those girls. I would have let Becka paint my nails and laughed about boys. Then they would have become my friends and they wouldn’t have been jealous of me or begun to hate the attention they thought that Hunter was giving me when all he really cared about was where my horse had come from. But Dad would have said that I wasn’t there to make friends. I was there to get an education and I had to make sure I kept up with the regular boring kind if I was going to be allowed to continue the equestrian kind as well.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
It was late by the time I’d finished my assignment but everyone was still out by the pool. I could hear them laughing and water splashing about. Andy had obviously finally convinced the other girls that the cold water wouldn’t kill them. I suspected that they all wanted to prove to him that they weren’t chickens. He already knew I wasn’t one so I didn’t care. I didn’t follow the sound of their high jinx back out to the pool, instead I pulled on an old pair of jean shorts and flip flops and slipped out the side door.
The path to the barn was lit with little solar lights that looked like a tiny trail of miniature lanterns. The scent of orange blossom hung thick on the air and I inhaled it deeply, then tried not to sneeze.
The lights were on in the barn. I walked past the stalls, looking at the horses. Hunter had several of his own, all big and powerful. I recognized some of their names but none of them were his Olympic horses. They were his second string. The ones he was bringing up through the ranks but that hardly meant they were second rate. They were some of the best horses I’d had the privilege of seeing up close. I stopped in front of one of the stalls and let a dark horse reach out and lick my hand.
“I wouldn’t let Hunter catch you doing that if I were you.”
I jumped back a foot as Gus came out of the feed room.
“I wasn’t giving him anything,” I said defensively.
“It doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “There could be something on your hand. Some lotion or cream that he might lick and then guess what, he’ll fail his next random drug test because of something he licked off you.”
“That couldn’t really happen, could it?” I said.
“I’ve known much stranger things than that happen,” he said with a smile.
But it wasn’t a nice smile, it was a broken one. All twisted and crooked because of his scar and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be helpful or nasty.
“I just came down to check on my horse anyway,” I said, backing away from the stall.
“Your horse, right,” he said as he walked away.
I went into Encore’s stall and slipped my hands around his neck. He let me hug him for about five seconds before he shrugged me off.
“I’m not sure I like it here,” I whispered.
In fact, I wasn’t sure I liked it at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
I left Encore, wishing more than ever that he was my pony instead of a horse on loan and went out to the ring. The lights were on and Hunter was working a bay horse with a blaze. I sat on the grass and watched him.
He was working on the flat, putting the horse through his paces and working on his flying changes. Crossing the ring again and again until the horse got it right. He was fighting with Hunter, kicking up his heels and resisting his leg each time he asked for the change but Hunter was patient. He didn’t scold him or yell at him like he had done with us. He didn’t use his crop or yank on the horse’s mouth. Instead he just leaned back and used his legs, pushing the horse forward and into the bridle, keeping him straight and not trying to cheat the change out of him by bending his neck or turning him. Eventually the horse got it right and Hunter patted him on the neck and let him walk.
Despite the bumpy start and the fact that my over exuberance had swung back and forth like a stall door since arriving, I knew Hunter was good. Really good. He knew his stuff and if even one ounce of it rubbed off on me then I’d be very grateful.
I slipped away back to the house, not wanting Hunter to think that I’d been spying on him to find a rather angry woman standing in the kitchen.
“Who is that?” I asked Andy with a whisper.
They were all standing around the messy counter top where there was spilled soda and melted ice cubes in puddles across the pretty marble.
“You know how Hunter said he wasn’t our babysitter?” Andy whispered back.
I nodded.
“Well apparently she is. She’s Mrs. Morrison and she’s not very amused that we have made a mess or that we are not in bed yet.”
“Well I didn’t have anything to do with the mess,” I said. “And anyway, I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
But Mrs. Morrison didn’t seem to care who had or hadn’t made the mess. She shoved wet rags into our hands and stood there as we cleaned up the mess that I could only assume the others had made while I had been spying on Hunter. Becka had a pale face and Tara looked really mad. Their hair hung in wet curls around their faces like they’d been dragged out of the pool by it. Maybe they had. I would have liked to have seen that.
“Girls and boys frolicking in the moonlight,” Mrs. Morrison said, shaking her head. She had a German accent and a large mole on her nose.
“You were frolicking?” I asked Andy.
“Boys don’t frolic,” he said with a frown.
“If you say so,” I replied with a smile.
The girls were furious at being made to go to bed by Mrs. Morrison. They complained loudly and forcefully but it was well past my usual bed time and I was tired. What did they think this was anyway, a frat party or something? I grabbed my pajamas and locked myself in the bathroom before anyone else could claim the shower and then got into my bed and pulled the covers over my head.
Alice had already fallen asleep, her arm hanging down from the top bunk above me. I rolled over to face the wall and tried to go to sleep but Becka and Tara kept talking and laughing half the night. Eventually I stuffed the pillow over my head, wishing that I’d brought ear plugs. It wasn’t fair. How was I supposed to ride well tomorrow if I couldn’t get any sleep? At some point I drifted off but not before I heard my name. They thought I was asleep. I hadn’t given them any reason to think otherwise.
“She thinks she’s better than us,” Tara whispered. “But who is she?”
“She’s a nobody, that’s who,” Becka said.
My face flushed red in the dark. Once upon a time it had been Becka and me against Jess at Miguel’s clinic. How could she turn against me so easily? I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d never been mean to her or said anything hurtful and yet instead of defending me, she was agreeing with Tara.
“She’s on a borrowed horse and I heard she gets her stuff for free from the local tack store because they feel sorry for her,” Tara said.
“Hunter seems to like her,” Becka said. “And she can ride.”
“He just feels sorry for her too,” she said. “Because of her father. I heard he drugged a horse and now he’s going to be suspended. That’s going to put an end to her sad career before it even starts.”
They both started to laugh and I had to stuff the sheets into my mouth to stop from screaming out that it was a lie and a mistake. My father hadn’t done any of those things and I was just as good as they were. No, I was better. I didn’t talk about people behind their backs or laugh about their short comings. So I didn’t have a
famous mother or a rock star father. I had something better. A father who could take everything that he knew and teach it to me. Who could help to make me a better rider than they could ever be. And I fell asleep with the salty taste of tears on my pillow and a resolve to try harder than ever to impress Hunter so that he would think I was the best.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
I woke the next morning with a dull ache behind my eyes. It wasn’t the best way to start the day. It felt like I’d only just fallen asleep minutes ago. Maybe I even had. I couldn’t tell. I’d been pretending to be asleep so that I could eavesdrop on Tara and Becka but at some point they had fallen asleep and I was left awake with their words tumbling around in my head.
I grabbed my riding clothes and tiptoed out of the bedroom. It wasn’t my job to wake them up and if they over slept then it would serve them right. After I’d dressed and made myself look as presentable as I could with hair that had suddenly taken on a life of its own, I made my way to the kitchen. Andy was sitting on one of the bar stools at the counter, eating a bowl of cereal.
“You look terrible,” he said.
“Thanks.” I sighed, pouring a bowl for myself and sitting down next to him.
“Rough night?”
“You don’t know how lucky you are,” I said. “I’d do anything to have a room all to myself.”
“Oh trust me,” he said. “I know.”
Young Riders (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 16) Page 6