by Kate Lattey
Copper pranced out of the box and Jonty handed the reins over to Hayley as though he was her groom. Mum had turned up to supervise, despite Hayley’s snarky insistence that she was fine, and I watched as she swung up into the saddle and immediately started complaining that the stirrups were the wrong length. Copper shifted uneasily sideways as she tried to adjust them, and she snapped at him too.
“Stand still, you stupid animal! Mum, can you hold him?”
Mum leapt to attention, glad to have something to do, and she gave Copper’s reins a couple of hard yanks as he tried to run her over. Hayley kept up her grumbling about her horse being “ruined” as she fussed with her stirrup leathers. I felt bad for Jonty, who was leaning against the wall and watching with his hands in his pockets. Hayley had never even thanked him for riding Copper this whole time. I think she saw it as her doing Jonty a favour, not the other way around. Eventually she was satisfied with her stirrups, and headed towards the paddock to school him.
“He’s going to need it, after being bashed around the farm for the past couple weeks,” she told Mum loudly. “He’s probably going to be horrible to ride for a while.”
“Sorry,” I told Jonty as I unbuckled Misty’s halter and prepared to bridle him. Misty was watching Copper leave, and let out a deafening whinny as the horse vanished behind the barn, then spun around and almost crushed me against the wall, his shod hooves only millimetres from my toes. “Jeez Misty, would you knock it off?”
Jonty was behind me in a second, his arm outstretched to fend Misty off, and he jabbed him in the side with his knuckle, right where a spur would apply pressure. Misty yielded almost without thinking, swinging his quarters away from us, his metal shoes sparking on the concrete as he spun.
I looked over my shoulder at Jonty. “Thanks.”
There was that crooked half-smile again. “No worries.”
He was so close behind me that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck. We weren’t physically touching, but it almost felt like we were. Some kind of strange electricity was running between us, and I suddenly wanted to step backwards against him, or for him to take that slight step forward and wrap his arms around my waist, holding me tight...
Misty whinnied again, and the spell was broken. I jumped forward, breaking that thread of connection between us, and Jonty backed away. But as I put the reins over Misty’s head and coerced the bit into his mouth, I could still feel a tingling sensation throughout my arms and legs, and a strange swirling in my stomach.
This was not supposed to happen. This was what I’d told Hayley, and my parents, and Evelyn was not happening, and it was what Bayard clearly suspected, but Jonty and I were friends. That was all, and frankly, I didn’t need a boyfriend right now as much as I needed a friend. Boyfriends just made things complicated – I’d seen enough of Hayley’s relationships to know that. The thought of having to keep someone else happy was never an appealing one – I was already exhausted from trying to keep my family and friends happy. The last thing I needed was a boyfriend. Even one I liked as much as Jonty.
I turned towards him and he held my helmet out to me, the harness dangling from his fingertips. I reached out and took it, letting my fingers brush against his, wanting that sensation of skin-to-skin contact even though I knew this whole thing was a bad idea, and that it would never work out anyway. But it was hard to deny that little jolt that I got when my hand touched his, and when I looked at his face, I knew that he felt it too. I wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse, but all I knew for certain was that it was not going to go away any time soon.
So when he offered me a leg-up, I accepted. He rubbed Misty’s broad forehead as I tightened my girth, then looked up at me as I gathered up the reins.
“Where’re you gonna ride to?”
I bit my lip, thinking. I still wasn’t sure about taking Misty out on his own, but I didn’t want to ride in the paddock under Hayley’s critical eye either.
“Um, down the road I guess.” I still felt safest on the road, because Misty wasn’t yet cured of his habit of trying to gallop down hills, and the road at least was flat. I looked at Jonty as he scratched Misty’s mane. “We’ll walk you home.”
He grinned. “Sounds good.”
We started down the driveway, but we didn’t get far. Hayley was trotting Copper around in the paddock, and she looked over as we passed.
“Tess, you need to get your butt in here and school that pony.”
I ignored her, but Hayley was never any good at being ignored. She rode over to the fence and pulled Copper to a sharp halt. “I just talked Mum into taking us to Foxton this weekend. You promised to ride Misty and that includes competing him, so you’re coming. No excuses. Don’t worry, you can do the baby classes if you really want to, but it’ll be your funeral.”
I could feel my stomach clenching up tight at the very thought of riding Misty at a show in two days’ time, but I didn’t have a leg to stand on, and I knew it. Hayley’s eyes had shifted to Jonty, and she trained her mega-watt grin on him.
“Hey Jonty, d’you wanna come with us? Mum’s going to be helping with set-up and stuff because she’s on the committee, and I could use a hand getting Copper ready for his classes.” She was utilising every ounce of charm she possessed, and I could see Jonty getting dazzled by it as he nodded eagerly.
“Sure, I can do that.”
Hayley gave a self-satisfied grin and turned Copper away, picking up a fast trot and heading him towards Mum to tell her the good news. Jonty walked over to the gate and unlatched it, then looked back at me.
“Coming?”
“I…” Suddenly, I was mad. He knew how I felt about Misty, and competing, and Hayley pressuring me into things. All this time, I’d thought he was on my side, but I was wrong. Hayley said jump, and he said how high? It was just like everyone else, and I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. I’d thought Jonty was different.
“Probably a good idea to get some practice in,” he said idly, half-watching Hayley as she picked up a canter and circled Copper around the stack of oil drums in the middle of the paddock.
“Hmm.” Misty was eyeing the open gate and he started towards it, but I stopped him. I didn’t want to go in there and be yelled at and belittled. I was finally starting to feel more confident on Misty, but he always behaved the worst when I tried to school him. I didn’t want him to plunge and buck and throw me off. I didn’t want Jonty to see that.
He caught my hesitation, and came back over to me, leaving the gate ajar. His scarred hand rested on my knee, and he looked up at me.
“You’ll be okay.”
It wasn’t what I’d expected him to say, and the gentle tone of his voice made a lump rise in my throat. “She…” I swallowed hard, looked into Jonty’s brown eyes and forced myself to speak. “She scares me. I mean, she makes me be scared.”
Jonty just smiled. “Scares me too. She’s a bit of an ogre. Don’t worry.” His fingers closed around my knee in a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll stick around and fend her off.”
I was nodding before I even realised I was doing it. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart.” He made a motion over his heart, looking so sincere about the childish gesture that I laughed, and he broke into his trademark crooked grin.
“That’s the spirit. C’mon, ignore Hayley. Just go in there and do your own thing. Pretend she’s not even there.”
“Easier said than done,” I muttered, but I let Misty follow him through the gate and into the paddock.
It started out okay, but it wasn’t long before Misty’s strides turned choppy, and his neck turned back into concrete, inflexible and solid. Despite his promises, Jonty had been coerced into helping set up some jumps for Hayley, and he was too polite to refuse, so I was on my own. I circled Misty in the far corner, trying to keep my distance from Hayley, but she was quite willing to ride right through the middle of my schooling circle. When I objected, she just laughed and told me to stop making her pony dizzy
by spinning him around in such tiny circles.
She left me alone once the jumps were set though, and I walked Misty on as loose of a rein as I dared while I waited for Jonty to come back. He did, keeping an eye on Copper as he walked over to us. The chestnut horse was lathered in sweat, and he rolled the first three rails to the ground. Hayley was swearing and yanking at Copper’s mouth as she cantered past, and I felt sorry for the horse. He’d seemed so much more relaxed and happy with Jonty in the saddle, and I knew from the look on Jonty’s face that he felt the pain nearly as much as the horse did.
“She’s the worst,” I told him unequivocally.
He looked up at me with that slightly amused expression that he used to try and cover up how he was really feeling. “She’s just doing what she thinks works. How’s Misty going?”
I rolled my eyes. “Terrible.”
“Aww.” Jonty rubbed the pony’s forehead, then leaned back against a spare jump stand sitting in the corner of the paddock. “Show me.”
Groaning, I rode Misty back out onto the circle. Hayley was right that it wasn’t a generous size, but if I made it any bigger I could feel Misty trying to run away on me. Jonty watched Misty get stronger and stronger, then burst into a canter without me asking for one. I tried to bring him back to a trot, and he threw a big buck and kept cantering.
“You see?” I cried to Jonty as I spun Misty into the middle of the circle and pulled his head up so he couldn’t try and buck me off, then managed to bring him back down to an excitable jog, which was the closest I could get to a walk. “He just goes mental.”
“He looks bored to me,” Jonty said with a shrug.
“Well I’m not jumping him when he’s like this, if that’s what you’re about to suggest,” I snapped.
Jonty shook his head. “Wasn’t going to suggest that. He’d probably fire you off over his head and jump you as an extra obstacle.” I grinned, despite everything. “But you’re just doing the same thing over and over. Going round and round and round. Looks boring to me, so it probably feels boring to him.”
“I’m trying to get him to bend his body around the circle and flex at the poll,” I told Jonty. “It’s called proper flatwork, and it’s actually necessary for good jumping.” I thought about how Hayley had always just done the bare minimum of flatwork, none of which could be called proper, and Misty had been successful for her despite that, then dismissed that thought as unhelpful at the present moment.
“Try changing it up a bit,” Jonty suggested. “Trot half a circle then change the rein, then canter half a circle, then trot and change the rein and walk and then canter again. Keep him guessing what’s going to happen next, see if you can keep his attention that way.”
I stared down at him, feeling stupid. It was blindingly obvious now that he’d said it, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of that before. I’d been so fixated on trying to get Misty to bend and soften that I hadn’t paid any attention to what I was actually doing with him. When I stopped and thought about it from Misty’s perspective, I realised that Jonty was right. Misty was probably bored stiff, trotting circle after circle with no variation.
“Worth a shot,” I said, picking my reins up again and sending Misty straight into a trot. He grabbed at the bit and ran through the bridle, setting my teeth on edge and making my whole body tense up nervously.
“Change the rein,” Jonty called, and I pulled Misty around to the inside of the circle, sitting for two beats of the trot to change my diagonal, and then going the other way. Misty steadied slightly, then as soon as he realised he was back on the circle he got strong and fast again.
“Again.”
I turned him again, changed my diagonal, and Misty burst into a canter, unrequested. When I tried to bring him back down to a trot, he tilted his head and set his jaw against me, and panic rose in my chest.
“Circle him,” Jonty suggested.
“I am!”
“I mean on a smaller circle. Ten or fifteen metres. Put him off balance, do something that surprises him and makes him think.”
I tried, sitting deep and using my seat and leg to turn the bounding pony. At first he refused, but I kept insisting, so he eventually gave up and did what I wanted. As soon as he realised how small the circle was, he had to slow down to avoid tripping over his own feet, and for the first time, I felt as though I had control. I managed to bring him back to a trot and immediately changed direction, swinging him out in a wide arc and then back onto a smaller circle. I started to concentrate more on what I was going to do next than on how Misty was behaving, and slowly we both began to relax.
I brought Misty back to a walk, gave him a brief pat, then summoned my courage and asked him to canter. I’d expected him to charge into the faster pace, to tear the reins out of my hands or set off with a buck or a leap, trying to unseat me. But he did none of those things. Instead, he went smoothly into the most balanced, controlled canter I’d ever experienced from him. And as we rounded the corner and he maintained his steadier pace, I almost wished that there was a jump in front of us. With his power controlled and his hindquarters bunched underneath him, I felt as though we could jump the moon.
It didn’t last long, of course. Misty’s stride lengthened out and he started trying to pull out of the circle towards Hayley and Copper, who had stopped in the middle of the paddock and were watching us. Knowing that their eyes were on me made me tense up again, and Misty sensed it. Playing to his audience, he threw in a buck that I was unprepared for, and I lost a stirrup. I dug my knees into the saddle and prayed, determinedly steering him away from Copper and back towards Jonty.
I fixed my eyes on Jonty, pushing every fibre of my being towards him, and my conviction carried Misty with me. We lurched back in that direction, and I managed to bring the ebullient pony back to a trot, then stopped in front of him.
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to control my racing heart. “Well it was nice for a minute.”
Jonty grinned at me. “Looked pretty good to me, until you got distracted.” My jaw dropped, and he laughed. “You’re such an easy mark.” He patted me on the knee. “You did good.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Me? I just stood here. You did that.” His smile was still there, but his eyes were serious. “You’re a lot better at this than you think you are, Tess. Try taking some credit for yourself once in a while.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I dipped my sponge into the saddle soap and rubbed it into the dark leather of Misty’s saddle. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually looked forward to going to a show, but this time I had my secret weapon, and I hoped it was going to make all the difference.
We were picking Jonty up on the way to Foxton tomorrow morning. Supposedly he would be there to groom for Hayley, but he’d promised to help me with Misty too. To keep me calm and focused, and act as a buffer between me and my sister. I was entered in the metre-ten and metre-fifteen classes, which Hayley considered to be ‘baby’ events beneath Misty’s notice, but which I still considered to be way outside my comfort zone.
But I’d just finished a really good schooling session in the paddock, done surreptitiously after Hayley had finished with Copper. Jonty had patiently coached me through the course, reminding me to sit quiet, keep my hand still and keep my leg on and eyes up, ride from my seat not my hand. They were all things I already knew how to do, and we were both well aware of that. But the voice in my head that usually reminded me of all those things always disappeared when I was on Misty, fading into a fog of panic and nerves. So Jonty said them for me, calling across the paddock to soften my hand when I started dragging on Misty’s face out of the corners, or reminding me to put my leg on when we missed a distance instead of just grabbing his mane and praying. Misty and I had jumped a steady clear round, and although I still wasn’t exactly having fun, I no longer felt as though I was taking my life in my hands every time I got on his back.
Hayley came into the tack room with Copper’s saddle
slung over her arm and dumped it on the rack next to mine.
“Do me a favour and clean this, I’m going to have an early night.”
“No.”
Hayley spun on her heel. She’d been so confident that I wouldn’t challenge her that she’d already started to leave the room. “Excuse me?”
“I said no. Do it yourself.”
“I’ve got a headache that’s splitting my skull open,” she snapped.
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t be riding yet,” I told her firmly.
Hayley’s blue eyes grew wider. My heart was pounding, but I was determined to stand my ground. I drew myself up a little straighter, a little taller. Hello spine. Where’ve you been all my life? It felt good to challenge her.
“When did you become such a snotty little cow?” she asked me nastily. “I’m asking you to do one little thing for me that’ll take you five minutes, and you can’t be bothered?”
“You ask me to do a lot of things for you,” I reminded her. “Including riding your horrible pony who keeps trying to throw me off.” I ignored the smirk on her face at my words. She and Misty deserved each other. “And I always do them. But I’ve had enough, and I’m not cleaning your tack.”
“Fine. I’ll take it to the show dirty then.”
“Fine, go ahead.”
“You suck.” Hayley stood in the doorway staring at me, her eyes fixed on my face as she tried in vain to stare me down. I refused to be quelled. Not this time. Never again. I turned my back on her, rubbing harder at Misty’s gleaming saddle. I knew she was still there, still staring. I could feel her eyes boring into my back, and after a few moments I got up the nerve to challenge her again.