Ambition: (The Eventing Series Book 1)

by Natalie Keller Reinert

  “Jules,” I corrected him automatically. “Juliet is a ridiculous name.”

  “It’s pretty,” Peter said softly. “It’s romantic.”

  The perfect response, that smooth bastard. Dr. Em had been right about him. “I’m not, unfortunately,” I replied, although the flush on my cheeks probably told him otherwise. “Thanks for the advice. Good… good luck out there.” I nearly choked on the words. “I’ll see ya.”

  And before he could say another word, or brush my arm with his hand again, or do anything else to make me regret my prohibition on all men and him in particular, I turned on my heel and started back for the stabling. The only male that mattered in my life was nibbling at his hay-net back in the barn, and we had some communing to do before tomorrow’s dressage and cross-country.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In the sport of eventing, the first phase of competition is the dressage test, in which a rider is expected to perform the nearly impossible trick of asking an incredibly fit and ebullient horse to put his head down and behave himself like a gentleman (or lady) through a flatwork course of circles, transitions, and changes of pace, while a judge marks each movement on its quality and the horse’s obedience. Dressage done right can be a joy to behold and an ecstatic experience to ride, but in all truthfulness, for most eventers it is also just an experience to get through in order to enjoy the next two phases, the cross-country course and the stadium-jumping course.

  Riders (and their horses) are not in eventing for the dressage. They are in it for the galloping, the jumping, and the thrill.

  Otherwise, of course, we’d just be doing dressage. And spending a lot less time worrying about whether or not that left-hand option at the water complex was going to land us in the drink or not.

  The Advanced riders were riding their tests first thing this morning. One might think that being at the top of the game could get you a nice late spot, so you could sleep in, have a cup of coffee, watch the news, mentally relax. But no, the big riders had to get up bright and early for their eight a.m. ride times. So much for the privilege of being the best.

  It was a little after eight and I had been at the horse park since six thirty, unable to sleep, nervous as a novice before her first Pony Club rally, but anxious as always to look the part of calm, cool, put-together professional. I took care of Dynamo myself, leaving Becky to deal with the farm, and then went to watch the dressage in my breeches and argyle knee socks, ratty running shoes on my feet in place of my polished dress boots.

  A noble bay horse was trotting around the ring looking like the very picture of patience. It was obvious that he didn’t want to be there, but he, like his top-hatted rider, knew it was the price of admission for the fun to come. The same went for the handful of horsemen standing around, arms folded or sipping at paper cups of coffee, watching the rounds. The spectators were other riders like me, trying to fill the hours until their own ride times. There was a fence to lean on, and a few trees, but no seating or little grandstand like the show-jumping arena had. No one came for the dressage.

  Later, of course, everyone would show up for the cross-country course. The public areas would be crowded with 4-H kids and Pony Clubbers and Western riders in cowboy hats and boots who just wanted to see what the crazies were up to with their nutty eventing game. The huge log fences. The hair-raising twists and turns into dark paths in the woods. The drops into pools of water. The sheer speed on the long galloping lanes, where we would urge our horses into racing speed to make the optimum time. A true spectacle, the cross-country rounds on Sunshine State’s challenging course drew a crowd from around Florida.

  But all that was later on, waiting for us this afternoon. During these Advanced level dressage tests, the real excitement was just beyond the quiet tension of the show-ring. The shenanigans were on in the nearby warm-up arena.

  Riders there were putting their excited horses through their paces and dealing with all kinds of hijinks — bucking and sunfishing and rearing and bolting — all the good rodeo stunts. The merely-nervous horses fed off of the energy of the mostly-naughty horses and behaved badly. The naughty horses fed off the energy of the nervous horses and become utter miscreants. It was one of the most dangerous places on earth, a warm-up arena full of fit, excited horses going every which way.

  I watched the show for a few minutes, my eyes drawn away from the obedient bay gelding in the arena by all that frenzied activity. A dappled gray startled at a butterfly, like Twin One would, which in turn spooked a wide-eyed chestnut, who spun around on his hind legs, reared, and leapt forward, his rider clinging to the sparse tendrils of his braided mane like a burr. I smothered a laugh and looked back towards the competition arena. I wondered how long the bay gelding, who was standing stock-still for his rider’s final salute, had been worked that morning. And if it would affect his energy and stamina this afternoon on the cross-country course.

  Then I noticed a lone rider near the in-gate, reins slack on her horse’s lathered neck, gazing at her smartphone with a look of deep concentration. In all likelihood, studying the moves of her dressage test one last time. The quiet pair were utterly still, in stark contrast to the pandemonium in the warm-up arena.

  Slyly, I cast my gaze just beyond the rider and nodded to myself when I saw the photographer lurking behind a tree nearby, surreptitiously snapping shots of the quiet rider’s idle. She’d probably be on the cover of a magazine next month. The classic candid shot of twenty-first century horsemanship. I fingered the obsolete phone in my pocket. I needed an upgrade. I could use a magazine cover.

  I tore my eyes away from the rider and watched a few tests from alongside the arena railing. Nearby, a knot of grooms, girls mostly of my own age, had clustered. Identically accessorized with halters over their shoulders, carrots in their back pockets, and bottled water in hand, they whispered nervously during rounds, all the while keeping one eye on the current competitor and one on their own riders in the warm-up arena, waiting for commands like crouching sheepdogs.

  From time to time one caught an imperious signal from their rider or heard a barking command and dashed over to the warm-up arena or the in-gate, pulling a flash noseband or a washcloth from a hip pocket. The riders paused before they rode into the arena, kicking their feet free from their stirrups, waiting for the groom to run the cloth over dusty riding boots, sweat-foamed reins, saliva-stained mouths.

  A few pulled wet sponges out of buckets and rinsed the horse’s mouth out, racetrack-style. Whenever I saw a groom use this move, I watched their rider more carefully, suspecting they had learned to ride Thoroughbreds at the racetrack and brought this trick back to eventing with them. Thoroughbreds were my business, and anything I could pick up about the way older Thoroughbred pros handled their mounts would be of use to me in the future. I often suspected I should have spent some time at the racetrack before I set up my own business, but I was too impatient for that. Life was now. Eventing was now. I’d learn as I went.

  When a groom was summoned, she did not return to the group; she stood nervously by the in-gate, watching her rider’s test. A bad ride would mean a very long weekend for her. A good ride might mean a nice dinner tonight. Maybe the Cracker Barrel, out by the interstate, before they drove back to their farm, or settled in at the Ramada. It was a tough life waiting on a trainer. I didn’t wish for a second that I could trade places with these girls and go back to that lady-in-waiting status, even if I was jealous of their camaraderie.

  Why should I miss it? Now I was the trainer. I had the working student, I had the groom. I wasn’t giving that up for all the laughter and friendship in the world. Let these girls spend their days waiting hand-and-foot on a big name trainer. I’d be busy becoming the big name trainer, thanks.

  It had been impossible to understand when Laurie told me that joining those girls as a groom was the next step. She offered to help me get a groom position with a trainer. “I can’t guarantee it will be in Florida,” she’d said. “But if you’re bound and determined t
o be an event trainer, being a working student and grooming for a big name trainer is the way to go.”

  I was furious at her for insinuating — hell, for flat-out saying — that I wasn’t good for anything but slaving for another trainer. I’d just spent the past decade as her working student and groom. Now she was telling me to go do it somewhere else? Intolerable. She had a lot of nerve, I’d thought. Especially when she was sitting on the back of an auction horse that had barely been saddle-broke when she brought it home three months ago. Now she was taking a break between jumping gymnastics — thanks to me for putting all the basic training in.

  “What am I going to do with another trainer that I haven’t already done with you?” I’d asked indignantly. “I’ve trained dozens of horses, that you’ve sold on for a profit. I’ve taught some of your advanced students. I’ve gotten Dynamo all the way from racetrack-broke to competing Prelim — alone, after you’ve gone home for the night, after every other horse has been taken care of. I can do this on my own. I already have.”

  She’d shaken her head, and she’d sighed gustily, and she’d said it was my choice in the end. “I’ll send you clients if I think you can handle the horse,” she said when I told her I was using my college fund to buy a little parcel called Green Winter Farm, and that I was moving to Ocala to start my own business. “I’ll try to help, but you’re a kid, Jules. Be careful out there on your own.”

  The horse in the ring swished his tail and kicked out his left hind leg when the rider’s left spur touched him, asking for a flying lead change. The closest groom, a girl with dirt on the seat of her jeans and a big green mark on her sleeve which indicated the horse also bit and knocked people down, in addition to bucking in the dressage ring, put her face in her hands and moaned a little. No dinner out for her, then.

  I’d come over hoping to engage in conversation with a big name trainer or two, maybe be seen by a gossiping blogger from one of the eventing websites as I threw my head back in laughter at something that one of last year’s Olympic squad had just whispered in my ear. But there were no other trainers with whom I wanted to be seen, just the grooms and a few other lower-level riders, mostly teens, that had come over to gawk at the famous. I didn’t know anyone here, and being the only person alone, without a little cluster of horse show friends, felt weird and conspicuous. Events were when old friends got back together, after months back at the farm, or on the road, and hugged each other and asked about each other’s horses and exclaimed over their new riding boots.

  I didn’t have any old friends to hug.

  And I was no good at starting conversations, anyway. I’d be better off messing around with Dynamo, keeping him happy in anticipation of our own test.

  I set off back for the stabling, anticipating a quiet hugging session with my favorite horse. But when I got back, the stables were anything but quiet.

  I could hear the shouting from a distance, two girls shrieking at one another. Horses were peering from their stalls, ears pricked, looking for the source of the sound. It wasn’t the sort of thing they often heard at home, since most of the fights between horse-girls are too passive-aggressive for full-on shouting matches. Besides, shouting might spook the horses.

  But horse shows can spark a long-dormant fuse. Adolescent girls, lots of money, clothes- and horse-proud, the pressure from Mummy at an all-time high — the claws come out, the sparks fly. I congratulated myself once more on my good sense in avoiding the tension and general insanity of teaching lessons and allowing competitive teenagers anywhere near my farm, and then I turned the corner and saw them.

  The first thing I realized was that Dynamo’s stable-row seemed to be party central, the center of everyone’s focus. People were standing all around the entrance to his aisle, knotted together in little farm-centric groups of two or three or four, looking excited and disapproving and titillated all at once. In fact, I thought, my heart racing, the horse standing in front of the barn was Dynamo. Why would everyone be staring at Dynamo? Who was fighting? Had he kicked someone? Had Becky done something stupid, let him get too close to another horse? Oh God, oh God, if he had kicked some big name trainer’s horse and done damage I was going to be sued out of business. I was going to be sued right back to my parent’s house.

  Then a groom in the crowd shifted to the left and I saw that they weren’t looking at Dynamo. They were looking at Becky and Lacey, who were facing off, fists clenched, in front of my superstar’s astonished face.

  I could hear the gossip already, whispers now, but shouts across the hospitality tent at tonight’s competitors’ party. And I couldn’t blame any of them, the wide-eyed, fascinated, horrified spectators, because I would have loved to have stumbled upon a public spectacle like this. A regular old event turned into a drama-fest. It would give me an edge at the receptions and parties for the rest of the season. “You mean you missed it when those two grooms went at each other? With their rider’s horse in the middle of it all? Oh my God. It was amazing.”

  The social event of the event — it was turning out to be me. The only thing I could do to save face now was win the goddamn division.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Cheeks burning, I set off to tear the two cats apart. The ranks were drawing closed as more and more horrified/delighted competitors and crew were stepping up to see the show, but with a little shoving, I started making my way towards them. There they were: the two girls screaming at each other, and in between the two of them, standing alert, eyes warily on the loud humans, my horse stood. My delicate, nervous, pride-and-joy hope-and-dreams horse. He was all I had until I landed Mickey as my trainee, but he was more than that. He was my heart. And his lead shank was gripped tightly in Lacey’s hand.

  What the hell? I stopped in confusion and a spectator stepped in front of me, blocking my view again. Someone muttered “I’d hate to be the trainer at this barn,” and someone else tittered.

  “Girls!” I shouted, giving myself away as the unlucky trainer. There were wide eyes, heads turned in my direction, snickers and whispers. I ignored them all. Dynamo was all that mattered. To hell with these gossiping geese, anyway.

  I pushed past spectators, little groups of competitors and grooms carrying brushes in buckets, wearing breeches and knee-high plaid boot socks, the horse show equivalent of showing up backstage for the high school musical performance in pajama pants. Someone tried to move out of my way, tripped on a bucket, and fell back against me. I stumbled, lost my own footing, and lurched hard into a well-dressed man in full-seat breeches and black dressage coat. His arms went around me automatically, propping me up against his chest.

  I glanced up and saw him looking down at me, eyebrows arched, and somewhere in my flustered, horror-struck brain I recognized those familiar blue eyes beneath a thick head of red-brown hair, the foxy color of a liver chestnut horse. I had barely managed to give him the brush-off yesterday, and it really wasn’t so easy now. The sensation of being held against him was like a jolt of electricity right up my spine.

  For the slightest of moments, I was frozen in place. I felt my lips fall open, though I had nothing to say. He tilted his head a little, and offered a tanned hand to help me straighten. I took it without hesitation, feeling as if I needed someone to hold me upright, even him, and then I turned back to the girls and the horse just a few feet away, and I forgot all about Peter Morrison and his stupid blue eyes. I was going to kill those girls. Kill them. I didn’t have time to worry about enemies from the outside, when my own barn was tearing itself apart.

  Lacey and Becky saw me coming for them at the same time. They were a study in opposite reactions. Lacey looked measurably relieved, as if I’d right some awful wrong. Becky, on the other hand, looked dangerously furious, as if I had caused the whole mess in the first place.

  “Take the horse to the barn,” I hissed before either one could say anything. “That’s enough for the peanut gallery, children.”

  Lacey nodded, still looking way too pleased with herself. It was obvi
ous she had been banking on my siding with her, and that I had just confirmed that for her. Becky looked away from me, her eyes dark with rage, and glared at Dynamo’s receding hindquarters for a long time before she followed them into the tent. I put my shoulders back and my chin up, a wall against the fascinated stares of the crowd behind me, and went after them.

  There was virtually nowhere for a private conversation; the end stall I had been so happy to obtain kept us well within earshot of the people outside. So instead I just followed Lacey and Dynamo into his stall, gesturing with a tilted head for Becky to join us. She did so with evident unwillingness, and we stood quietly for a moment in the little ten-by-ten foot stall, while Dynamo picked moodily at the bits of hay left in the corner. I took deep breaths, trying to quell the nearly insatiable urge to scream, waiting for my temper to simmer down to a more rational place.

  Finally, I was able to speak. “Okay girls,” I growled from between gritted teeth. “What the hell?”

  And it all spilled out, first from the outraged Becky, then from the self-righteous Lacey, and finally from the two of them together, cutting each other off, bickering in tense, hissing voices. My own little den of snakes.

  It all turned out to be a power struggle, as best as I could piece the two stories together. Becky had been sitting on the tack trunk in front of the stall, polishing my dress boots, and Lacey had shown up, said hello as she walked past, and taken Dynamo out of his stall without Becky’s permission. Becky recited the chain of events primly, her lips tight and her voice steady with conviction, while I shushed Lacey. Then Lacey went back in on the defense.

  “He’s not your horse,” Lacey whispered at her fiercely. “I don’t need your permission. And anyway, you were busy. He needs to be taken out of his stall, so what do you care if I walk him? It’s good for him!”