Half Halt (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 15)

by Claire Svendsen

  “I know you can hear me,” the girl cried.

  I halted Bluebird and looked behind me to see Fern trotting her horse Excalibur towards us. She rode at Fox Run but spent more time away travelling with her mother, who was a singer, than at the barn. I hadn’t seen her in ages and when she wasn’t around, Miss. Fontain schooled her big gray horse for her. He was fancy and full of himself, tossing his thick mane and sliding to a stop when they got to us.

  “Are you going out on the trail?” she asked.

  “I was,” I said.

  “Do you mind if we ride with you? Scally is full of himself and we really need to blow off some steam.”

  “Alright,” I said.

  I didn’t really have much choice. As an employee of Fox Run it was my job to keep the boarders happy and that meant letting them ride on the trail with me. And Fern wasn’t a bad person, it was just that I really wanted to be alone.

  “So, how have you been?” she asked as we rode side by side.

  “Fine,” I said. “You?”

  “Oh you know, the same.” She shrugged. “Miss. Fontain is making us go to the dressage show.”

  “Not you as well?” I said.

  Was the whole barn going to this thing? Poor Mickey and Hampton weren’t going to stand a chance no matter how badly I rode.

  “We’re not even halfway ready,” she said. “It’s going to be a disaster.”

  “Well I’m taking my half trained, green off the track Thoroughbred so I wouldn't worry,” I replied.

  “What on earth for?” she said.

  “Apparently experience and I don’t seem to have a say in the matter.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The trail ride didn’t clear my head and not just because Fern didn’t want to gallop. Instead she talked the whole time. Going on about her latest trip to England where she got to go fox hunting, which sounded okay since they didn’t hunt real foxes anymore, that was if you liked things like galloping across fields and leaping over ditches. I thought it sounded fantastic. Fern said she’d been half scared to death, even though her horse was completely broke and going on autopilot. Then she started talking about the Valentine ball. Was I going? Who was I going with? What was I going to wear? I avoided her questions with nonchalant shrugs and mumbles, hoping that she would give up interrogating me but she never did.

  “Well, I should get back,” she finally said, looking at her watch.

  The sun was starting to sink low in the sky and the wind had a chill that wasn’t there before. I knew I should go back too but the trail stretched ahead of me, beckoning me onwards. Daring me to gallop even though I knew I shouldn’t.

  “I think I’m going to stay out a little while longer,” I said.

  “Really?” Fern looked disappointed. “You won’t ride back with us?”

  “We just need to blow off some steam,” I said, nudging Bluebird with my heel so that he danced about and looked generally edgy.

  Excalibur looked at my pony and snorted, looking slightly startled through his long, flowing forelock. He backed away from us and Fern looked worried. I wondered if she’d ever even cantered him on the trail, let alone galloped. She looked half scared to death.

  “I’ll see you later then," she said, turning away. “Have fun.”

  I trotted Bluebird for a little bit, letting him loosen up. All we’d pretty much done was walk and I was cold and I knew he was too. The trotting warmed us both and then I let him canter. Soon we were galloping, all thoughts of boys and shows forgotten. Trees and bushes sped past. We galloped through a shallow puddle of water and I thought about how Arion would have freaked out if I even dared to ask him such a thing. Bluebird didn’t care. We were one spirit, united.

  Eventually I brought him back to a trot and then a walk. He tossed his mane and pranced a little without my encouragement this time. He’d enjoyed the run as much as I had and I was glad that we had somewhere to go when we wanted to be free. Riding in the ring was great but it wasn’t the same and I saw the appeal that Ethan had found in eventing.

  We trotted back to the barn, the air now icy in my lungs. The sun was setting and it wouldn’t be long before it was dark and really cold. We went past the rings where one of the groups was finishing up their lesson and then we were back at the barn.

  “Did you have a good ride?” Dad asked as he came in, rubbing his hands.

  “Yes,” I said, jumping to the ground and running up my stirrups. “We really needed that.”

  “I don’t know why you like it out there so much,” he said.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I just do.”

  I didn’t add that it was the one place where I could go to be alone because I knew he wouldn’t understand that either. I was untacking my pony and putting my stuff away when I finally noticed that Excalibur's stall was empty. My heart started to race. Fern should have been back ages ago. Why wasn’t her horse in his stall? I thought for one desperate moment that maybe she’d put him outside in one of the paddocks, even though I knew that Excalibur’s turnout time was in the morning. Maybe, just maybe she’d put him out to roll or graze and was standing there waiting to bring him back in for the night. I ran to the end of the barn and looked out but he wasn’t there. Then I ran to the other end, desperately scanning the fields but they weren’t there. She hadn’t come back. I knew that now and I was the one who had abandoned her. She didn’t want to ride on the trail alone and yet I’d left her to make her own way back to the barn so that I could selfishly gallop my pony alone. I was going to be in so much trouble.

  I clung to the hope that Fern was still somewhere on the property, perhaps working in the ring or riding around the perimeter. I quickly threw Bluebird's tack back on him. He turned his head around and looked at me in disgust as if to say, what on earth do you think you are doing? I knew he was done for the day. Even though he was fit, his gallop had worn him out. Still, I didn’t know what else to do. Leave Fern out on the trail all night? And besides, with a bit of luck she was somewhere on the Fox Run property anyway and I was just freaking out for no reason at all.

  I jumped back onto Bluebird and rode around the farm, looking for the massive gray horse that looked like he belonged in medieval times and the timid girl who rode him. The one who tamed squirrels and hugged trees and didn’t care what people thought of her.

  “Have you seen Fern?” I asked anyone who would listen but no one had.

  I sat there on Bluebird, looking out to the trail and knowing that I would first have to admit that I’d left her out there alone and then I would have to ride out after her to save my own skin and hers.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  My father was nowhere to be found so I quickly trotted Bluebird back across the field and into the woods. With a bit of luck, I’d be able to find Fern before anyone noticed and maybe we could just keep it between the two of us. No one would have to know that I’d let her ride off alone because even though I technically hadn’t done anything wrong, I knew Dad would still say that it was part of my job to take care of the other riders and that meant not letting them go riding off on their own when they didn’t really have the confidence to do so.

  It was cold now, the warmth that Bluebird and I had generated from our gallop long gone. He had dried sweat on his neck and my coat was damp. We’d probably catch a chill and die thanks to Fern. Why couldn’t she have just walked back the way we came? Why did she have to go wandering off and get lost? I thought of what happened to me at Miguel's farm. It was easy to get lost in the woods. Nature turned you around until everything looked the same. Every tree identical. Each bush indistinguishable from the next.

  I called out her name, my voice echoing around me but she didn’t answer. If she was lying in a ditch with a broken leg or something I was going to be in so much trouble. I trotted Bluebird further and then stopped and called again, following the tracks we had made earlier. Still no reply.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw that my father had t
exted me, asking where on earth I had got to. I didn’t reply. What was I supposed to say? First he’d be mad that I’d left Fern alone and then he’d be even more mad that I’d gone off to find her without asking him for help first.

  We trotted past the cross country jumps and the bank that the students were helping Mr. Rivers to build. By the time they were done we would have our very own cross country course which I was actually really excited about. Bluebird may have been a show jumper but he loved galloping and jumping out in the fields just as much as I did.

  There was the stack of logs that were being strung together to make a jump of different heights, a low side for the beginners and a higher side for the more advanced students. Then there was the picnic table that Mr. Rivers had found by the side of the road. The students were painting it a bright blue color and had wedged it in-between two tall trees. And that was where I found Fern and Excalibur but she wasn’t hurt and she wasn’t alone either. She was standing there, leaning against the tree with Excalibur's reins loose in her hand and Ethan’s lips pressed against hers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I froze. They hadn’t seen me and I didn’t know what to do. Fern hadn’t been lying in a ditch somewhere. She wasn’t wandering around all frozen and turned in the wrong direction. She wasn’t lost at all. She was there, kissing Ethan, the boy who was supposed to go to the ball with Mickey. The one who had asked me to go to the ball with him myself. Didn’t he have any loyalty at all? I shook my head, thinking that all boys were the same. Hopeless. And stupid.

  Eventually I couldn’t stand it any longer. It was cold and dark and I wanted to go back to the barn. My pony was tired and so was I. I’d made him come back out to look for Fern when all he wanted was to go in his nice cozy stall and all I wanted to do was go inside and curl up on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate and a big pile of junk food. I didn’t want to be out in the woods in the cold, dark night. I cleared my throat.

  Fern jumped back and let out a little scream. Ethan saw me and his face turned red.

  “What is going on?” I said.

  “Nothing.” Ethan shrugged.

  “Nothing?” I replied. “It’s late and dark and I thought you’d got lost Fern.”

  She looked at the ground and mumbled something that I couldn’t make out.

  “I was just putting an extra coat of paint on the table,” Ethan said, motioning to a can of paint. “Fern came by and we started talking. That was all.”

  “It didn’t look like the only thing you were doing was talking,” I said. “Unless you were helping Fern to paint her lips blue?”

  Neither of them said anything.

  “Whatever.” I sighed. “I don’t care what you do but you’d better get your butts back to the barn before my father has a fit. You know you aren’t allowed out here in the dark.”

  Ethan picked up the paint and his brush. Fern led her horse past me, still looking embarrassed.

  “He asked me to the Valentine ball,” she whispered with a smile, as though that made everything okay.

  I debated whether or not to tell her that he’d asked me as well. I didn’t know if she really liked him or not. But she was kissing him. That meant she had to like him, didn’t it? It also meant that Ethan was pretty much playing all the girls at the barn and who knows where else and my poor best friend, the one who really liked him, didn’t stand a chance.

  As we walked back to the barn in the dark, the three of us didn’t talk but deep down I felt happy. Now I wouldn’t have to tell Mickey that Ethan had asked me to the ball because he’d asked Fern and probably a bunch of other girls too. But I would also have to tell her that the boy she thought she was in love with wasn’t worth her time.

  I was glad to get back to the brightly lit barn where my father was standing there with crossed arms and an angry look on his face.

  “Where have you been?” he said. “And why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “I went to get Ethan and Fern,” I said, walking Bluebird past him. “I told them that you don’t like people out on the trail after dark.”

  “That’s right, I don’t.” He looked at Ethan and Fern, who both looked at the floor as they walked past him. “Is there something I should know about?”

  “No,” Ethan said.

  Fern just shook her head, looking at me out of the corner of her eye and probably wondering if I was going to rat them out. I should have done. They didn’t deserve my silence but I kept my mouth shut. If I said something then I knew that the rumors would start swirling around the barn about the two of them and I wanted a chance to talk to Mickey before that happened. I wanted her to hear it from me.

  It was going to be a cold night and Bluebird was tired. I put his blanket on and tucked him into his stall with a pile of hay.

  “You’ll be happier in here tonight boy,” I told him.

  I stood there watching him for a while, leaning on the front of his stall with my face pressed against the cold bars. Watching him toss the stalks of timothy hay out of the way so that he could get to the alfalfa beneath. Eventually my fingers started to go numb. I walked down the aisle, checking on the other horses. Socks was standing in the back of his stall with his head down, already napping. Arion was looking out his back window, snorting at something he could see in the dark and Encore was in the stall next to him, standing there like a statue in the middle of his stall, not doing anything. I opened the door and slipped inside.

  He was a curious horse who kept to himself. A closed book. It was almost as though he was waiting for something or someone. I patted his neck and he just ignored me. Any of the other horses would have been nudging my pockets for treats or begging me to scratch their itchy spots but he didn’t care. He just stood there.

  “I’m going to figure you out,” I told him. “You watch, I will.”

  I pulled a treat out of my pocket and held it out on my flat hand. He ignored it until I put it right under his nose. Then his dark lips fumbled it up. He crunched it thoughtfully and then sighed. I lay my head against his warm neck.

  “Are you homesick?” I asked him. “If I knew where you came from, maybe I could do something to make you feel more at home.”

  I left him standing in his stall and stood in the middle of the barn aisle. It was quiet, except for the munching of happy horses eating their hay or shifting gently in their stalls, the muffled stomp of a hoof in the cold night air. Dad had already gone back to the house. The grooms had all gone home. No one would be there to see me slip into the office and look for Encore’s paperwork. No one would know. My heart started to race as I ran towards the office because if I didn’t do it now I would chicken out and who knows when I’d get another chance to snoop around.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  The office was dark and quiet except for the ticking of the clock on the wall. I didn’t turn the main light on, fearing that it would attract the attention of my father, although the chance of him looking out and seeing it were slim to none. By now he was probably parked on the couch in front of the TV with his feet up on the table and a plate of whatever Missy had cooked tonight on his lap. At the thought of food, my stomach grumbled but I ignored it. Instead I turned on the small lamp on the desk.

  My father kept a neat office. His desk was nothing like Esther’s had been with papers and bills strewn all over. Everything was put neatly in its place. Pens in a cup. Paper clips in a bowl. The drawers full of pads and sticky notes. I opened each one and closed it again. It was weird, like I was learning something new about my father. The way he arranged his desk was the way he approached everything in life. Organized. Prepared. Controlled. The same way he rode horses. When he was on their back there was no way that they were going to question what he was asking of them. He made sure they knew their job and carried it out to the best of their abilities.

  I couldn’t wait to see him in action at a real show. There was one circled on the calendar in a few months’ time. A really big show. His first foray back into the competitive wo
rld of show jumping since he’d moved back to the states. I was hoping he’d let me ride too but that was a long way off and a lot could happen before then. As it was, I was supposed to be focusing on the dressage show and the Young Riders clinic after that. I knew I shouldn’t have been dreaming about far off shows or wasting time trying to figure out where mysterious horses had come from but I couldn’t help myself. I got my nosiness from my mother.

  There was a filing cabinet in the corner. I went over and pulled on the top drawer but it wouldn’t open. My father had locked it. Why would he do that? Horse’s medical records and employee paperwork didn’t really seem like something that needed to be locked up in a barn. I went back to the drawers and rifled through them, looking for a key but I couldn’t find one. Where would he have put it?

  I searched everywhere. In the paper clip bowl and the pen cup. Under the empty folders and in the tiny drawer that seemed to house an assortment of broken pencils and half used erasers. The key wasn’t there. I should have known that my father wouldn’t have made it easy on me but then again I guessed with all the grooms around and people like Jess, who had been known to sneak around, he had to protect things.

  I stood in front of the filing cabinet, willing it to open. I felt like I was getting a headache. I was hungry and tired. This was ridiculous. I should just give up. I rested my forehead against the cold metal and felt its sharp edge dig into my skin and as I did, I heard something. A tiny noise. That little chink of metal against metal. The key.

  I shook the filing cabinet and heard it again. I felt around the back of it with my fingers, fumbling in the darkness for something I couldn’t see. Then they closed around it. There it was.

  “Yes,” I whispered excitedly.

  I used the key to unlock the filing cabinet and the top drawer slid open, full of the usual paperwork you’d find in a barn office. Boarder contracts. Employee forms. Nothing on the horses. I opened the next drawer to find show schedules and bills. It had to be in the bottom one. I crouched down, heart racing. There they were, the folders on the horses. I flipped through the names of horses that had come and gone. Horses that were still here but lots that weren’t. The ones that had been here before my time. Most of them before my father’s time as well when Andre was the head trainer and Jess had the run of the barn. Things were so different now. Better. I couldn’t believe how Fox Run had changed and how in doing so it had changed my life.