Stable Vices (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 21)

by Claire Svendsen

  “You’re tough,” he said, looking me over. “I can tell that now. You are not going to let this go, are you?”

  “Not if I can help it,” I said with a smile.

  “And to be honest I don’t like the idea of euthanizing perfectly healthy horses any more than you do, it’s just we are filled to capacity right now.”

  “So maybe we could take the mare on loan and see how it works out?” I said with a wink.

  He looked at me and shook his head. “Fine, take the mare. But if she won’t nurse your foal then you have to send her back here. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” I said as I shook his outstretched hand but it was a lie.

  Even if the mare refused to nurse our foal, I was still never going to send her back to be slaughtered for educational purposes no matter what anyone said. And then of course I was going to have to talk my father into taking another horse back to Fox Run as well.

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  “No, absolutely not,” Dad said.

  We were standing outside the mare’s stall. Her name was Chantilly. It said so on her white board. I hadn’t wanted to get attached to her but I already was. She even looked like our foal. She was the perfect surrogate mother.

  “But we need her,” I said, starting to sound more desperate than I meant to. “The foal needs her.”

  “The foal is managing quite fine. You should see how well he is doing.” Dad crossed his arms.

  “But think of all the extra care he needs, the man hours that the grooms spend watching him and feeding him and how we have to get up in the middle of the night to make sure he gets his formula. If this mare accepts him then we won’t have to do any of that.”

  “Or we could just get rid of both him and that awful Arab mare that were dumped at our farm and abandoned. They don’t belong to us. They’re not our problem. Why on earth would I want to take on yet another horse that can’t do anything?”

  “She can do something,” I whispered. “She can be a mother. She lost her foal. Our foal was abandoned by his mother. It’s a perfect match.”

  “Emily you are not going to change my mind on this so go and get your pony ready. We’re going home.”

  He’d already started to walk away. The man I knew as my father who at times could be so tough that I hardly knew him and then there were those brief moments when he could completely surprise me. I thought I knew him but I didn’t really. A year was not long enough to get to know the man who fathered you. Not long enough at all.

  “Dad,” I said, my voice small. “Please. They’re going to kill her.”

  Dad stopped for a moment, his shoulders hunched over. I knew I was putting more pressure on him, asking him to take in yet another horse that we didn’t need. A mouth to feed that wouldn’t be able to do lessons or take students to shows or any of the things that brought money into Fox Run and kept the farm afloat. He turned around and came back to the stall then looked at the mare.

  “If the Fox Run owners knew the kind of home for wayward strays the place had turned into, we’d all be out on our rears,” he said.

  “What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” I said. “We never see them. They don’t even care.”

  “One day they’ll care,” Dad said.

  He looked the mare over again and sighed.

  “She can stay as long as the foal is nursing,” he said. “Once he has been weaned she’ll be gone and so will he for that matter. We don’t need a stud colt running all over the place causing a ruckus. Got it?”

  “Yes Dad,” I said, grinning. “I knew he said that the foal would have to go eventually but that was ages away. I still had plenty of time to talk him out of that one.

  “You know, you used to manage to wrap me around your little finger when you were five. I don’t know how you’ve still managed to keep hold of that skill after all these years.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “It’s better than me hating you.”

  “I’m not so sure,” he said but he was smiling.

  “Come on boy,” I told Bluebird as I put his shipping boots on. “You’re going home.”

  We had bottles of pills to take with us, medications that my pony would have to stay on for the next three weeks. That meant the last Talent Scout show was out of the question but I didn’t even care. As long as my pony was better, that was all that mattered. Plus we’d found a mare for our foal, one who was sad because she’d lost her own and now would be able to put her grief aside and nurse a new one, even though it wouldn’t be the same.

  “Please let her accept the foal,” I whispered as we loaded the horses into the trailer.

  I left the vet clinic feeling happier than I had in a long time, except that Frankie lingered in the back of my mind like a shadow. She hadn’t left happy at all and I needed to do something to make her feel better. I just wasn’t sure what.

  CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

  By the time we got back to the barn with the two horses, all I wanted to do was unload them, shower and sleep for days. Knowing that Bluebird was on the mend was like this heavy black cloud that was over my head had been blown away and the fact that I’d managed to score our foal a new mother in the process? That was just icing on the cake.

  “There are a lot of people here for a weekday,” I said as we pulled into the parking lot.

  “Guess they just wanted to ride today,” Dad said but his voice sounded funny, like he was trying not to laugh.

  “What?” I said.

  “Nothing,” he replied, then added, “You’ll see.”

  “Oh no.” I groaned.

  I hated surprises more than anything in the world. Well maybe not more than my pony being sick but I hated them a lot. At least I was too tired to put up much of a fight and so happy that Bluebird was getting better that I really couldn’t have cared if a bunch of people jumped out and yelled surprise while letting off streamers and balloons, as long as a clown wasn’t involved.

  Dad stopped the truck and we got out.

  “I’ll get Bluebird,” I said.

  “Alright,” he replied.

  “You sure you don’t want to tell me what is going on?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said with a grin.

  I went into the trailer where Bluebird and Chantilly were standing quietly. Luckily despite the fact that the mare wasn’t trained under saddle, she seemed to be pretty proficient at everything else. She had loaded like she’d done it a million times and had tied and stood quietly with no trouble at all. Just as well because if she’d put one hoof out of place it would have just given my father an excuse to say that we couldn’t take her with us.

  “We’re home boy, you made it,” I said, throwing my arms around Bluebird’s neck.

  He’d only been gone one night but it had seemed like forever and I was glad that Dr. Brown had decided to let him out early instead of making him stay, although that may have had something to do with the shade of green my father’s face went when the vet told him how much it was going to cost for another night.

  I backed my pony out of the trailer. His head was up and he nickered excitedly, his ears pricked. He was a far cry from the sick pony I’d loaded up whose eyes were dull and lifeless and who refused to eat. Dr. Brown wouldn’t confirm that my pony had been poisoned, in fact he said he couldn’t but I knew deep in my heart that Jess had done something to him and next time I saw her, I was going to kill her.

  We walked into the barn and I was already prepared, my hands tightly clutching my pony’s lead rope in case everyone jumped out and yelled surprise, effectively scaring my still healing pony half to death but it wasn’t like that at all. There was a banner strung up in the aisle that said ‘Welcome Home Bluebird’ and a table with a white cloth that fluttered in the breeze. There were get well cards next to a big plate of cupcakes and a bowl of carrots for the horses.

  Everyone I knew was there to welcome my pony home, even though he hadn’t even been sick that long or gone very long either. Tears streamed down my face as e
veryone rushed forward to hug me and pat Bluebird, I couldn’t hold them in any longer but it didn’t matter because this time they weren’t tears of sadness, they were happiness and gladness all rolled into one. And maybe a bit of exhaustion too.

  CHAPTER FORTY NINE

  “Do you like the party? Were you surprised? It was my idea.”

  Faith tripped over her words and her feet as she followed me to Bluebird’s stall. I wanted to put my pony away first before I dived into cupcakes and carefree chit chat.

  “It’s perfect,” I said.

  “I knew it would make you happy,” she smiled. “I remember how sad I was when Macaroni was sick. And now that Bluebird is better, you can be happy again too.”

  “Well he’s almost better,” I said, putting him back in his old stall and slipping his halter off. “But he has to take it easy for a few weeks.”

  “Just like Macaroni does,” she said, hanging on the front of the stall. “Oh if the cooler weather doesn’t get here soon, I’m just going to die. I can’t wait to show again.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  But Bluebird would miss the next show and my father hadn’t heard anything about the possibility of me riding Socks instead. At least if he had, he hadn’t told me.

  “Do you want to eat some of the cupcakes I made?” Faith said as we went back to the party. “They have special sprinkles on them.”

  “Well then if they have special sprinkles on them I definitely want to eat them,” I replied.

  But Dad was standing there with Chantilly, probably wondering what he was supposed to do with the mare I’d talked him into bringing home.

  “You got another new horse?” Faith asked.

  “A mother for the foal,” I said.

  “No way! He’s going to be so happy,” she said.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  Because I knew that if things didn’t work out the way I hoped they were going to then I was going to be the one who got the blame and no one was going to be happy that we were stuck with another horse that didn’t have a job.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  We put the mare in one of the fields so that she could settle in and we could eat the food that had been laid out but all anyone really cared about was seeing if Chantilly would let our foal become her foal.

  “Come on,” Mickey said, stuffing a handful of potato chips into her mouth. “Eat faster. This is better than reality TV.”

  “The fate of one little foal and the possibility of him being kicked in the head by yet another mare who doesn’t want him is not for your entertainment,” I said.

  “Sounds like entertainment to me,” Ethan agreed.

  It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I wanted to introduce them when everything was quiet so there would be nothing to distract the two from having a chance to bond because they’d only get one chance and if it got ruined by someone making a noise or scaring Chantilly off then we’d never get that chance back again and she’d have to go back to the vet school where she’d get all dissected for nothing.

  “Can’t we just wait for everyone to go home?” I said as Dad came over and told me that we should put the two of them together before it got dark.

  “You think these guys are going to go home any time soon?” Dad said looking around. “They’re more excited than we are.”

  “I’m not excited,” I said. “I’m scared.”

  “Look,” Dad said. “It will either work or it won’t and if it doesn’t then we’ll just go back to the way things were before.”

  “I need my sleep,” I said. “I can’t take months of midnight feedings. This has to work.”

  “I know,” he replied.

  CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

  We led the foal out to the field. He was getting better at leading and someone had brought him a foal halter so that helped but he didn’t want to leave Bandit behind. Obviously sharing a stall had made him very attached to the little miniature horse and he squealed in his high pitched foal voice. Bandit answered, sounding almost like a foal himself.

  “Maybe it was a bad idea to let them get so attached,” I said as the foal stopped and tried to go back to the barn.

  “We made the best of the situation with what we had,” Dad said. “Now hopefully we’ll make it better.”

  He’d made everyone stand back at the entrance to the barn, for which I was thankful but I still didn’t like the fact that everyone was going to be there to see us fail.

  The mare had heard the foal and come galloping to the gate. Her eyes were lit up like she thought it was her own baby for a second but as she saw our own foal coming toward her she backed off a couple of paces and snorted.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “He’s still a nice baby, I promise.”

  The mare tossed her head and stomped a hoof.

  “What are we going to do if she attacks him?” I whispered.

  “Get him out of there as fast as we can,” Dad replied.

  From inside the barn I could still hear Bandit’s cries. He wanted his new friend back. Luckily I’d had enough forethought to close his stall door or else he’d be out there already, trying to take his foal back. If only he’d been a mare maybe it would have worked out a bit better but the foal needed a mother, not a cheeky best friend right now.

  Dad opened the gate and pushed the mare back.

  “Bring him in,” he said.

  The foal was trembling. I knew he was scared. I stroked his neck and told him that it was going to be okay. The mare stretched out her neck to sniff him and then squealed.

  “Maybe we should be doing this in a stall,” I said nervously.

  “So that she can pin him against the wall and pummel him to death?” Dad said. “No way.”

  The mare kept sniffing our foal and then snorting. She knew that he wasn’t hers but she hadn’t tried to attack him yet. He stumbled forward and she shied away from him, leaving him standing there looking confused and forlorn. He didn’t seem to know what he was supposed to do.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Dad said.

  “Give them time,” I begged. “Please.”

  We stood there as the sun sunk low in the sky and the mosquitos came out. The mare and foal locked in some kind of standoff.

  “Show him her teats,” Dad said. “Let’s see if she’ll let him nurse.”

  I shuffled the foal forward and each time the mare swung away but eventually we got them in sort of the right places but the foal didn’t know what to do. He sniffed her belly and nudged his face between her legs but he didn’t know how to get any milk.

  “He can’t figure it out,” I said.

  The mare was being really good. She’d seemed to accept that this was a foal and that even though it wasn’t her foal, it was not going to kill her and eat her alive like his real mother thought. But if the foal couldn’t figure out how to get milk then it was all for nothing.

  “I think we’re past the killing stage,” Dad said, backing away from the mare. “Let’s see if they can figure this out on their own.”

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  I was still afraid that the foal would get hurt but I knew I couldn’t protect him forever.

  “Let’s just see,” he said.

  We backed away a few paces and stood by the fence. At first the foal followed me but the mare let out a soft nicker. He turned and looked at her and then trotted back. They sniffed noses and made little noises. She licked his face and he nuzzled her chest and then she used her nose to push him so that he could reach her teats and she kept nudging him over and over again until suddenly he latched on. He was drinking her milk and she was letting him.

  I stood there with tears streaming down my face. I’d faced so much death in the last few days, so much heartache and ruin. Horses that died and mares that rejected their foals or lost their own and yet here in the dusky light we’d connected one broken soul with another and made them both whole again.

  “You’ve done good kid,” Dad said, putting his arm
around me. “You’ve done good.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

  We watched them for a while, the foal drinking real milk for the first time and when he was done, he followed the mare as she started to graze. A perfect new family unit had been created. Well, almost perfect because the peace was broken by the clatter of tiny hooves as Bandit came bursting out of the barn, scattering the crowd as he went by.

  “I’m sorry,” Faith yelled as she ran after him. “He was upset, I just wanted to comfort him but he got out.”

  “Oh no,” Dad said. “This is all we need.”

  The mare and foal had just bonded. We didn’t need anything like a crazy mini ruining it but Bandit was too quick for all of us. He galloped by and snuck under the fence just like he always did.

  “That brat is going to ruin everything,” Dad said.

  The mare already had her head up, snorting as my funny, tiny horse galloped across the field with his mane flowing to see his best friend. The foal trotted over to him and they sniffed each other and squealed.

  “If that mare rejects him now, I’m going to kill that demon mini,” Dad said.

  “No you won’t,” I said with a laugh. “Look.”

  The foal had trotted back to Chantilly and he took another drink of milk like he was showing Bandit how smart he was that he finally figured it out and Chantilly decided that maybe Bandit was just another foal she was supposed to nurse. She sniffed him and licked him and pushed him towards her teats too. Luckily he was too short to reach or else our nurse mare would never have any milk for the foal that really needed it. Then the three of them settled down to graze.

  “Told you it would work out,” I said as we walked back to the barn.

  “That is one weird threesome,” Dad said, shaking his head.

  “You can’t come between best friends,” I told him. “No matter what shape or size they are.”