WHITE HORSES
BY
CLAIRE SVENDSEN
Copyright © 2014 Claire Svendsen
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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, places or events is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
Esther arrived to pick us up from the beach ride with a pale face. I thought it was because she was worried about the storm but she just brushed off my questions.
“Do you know how many hurricanes have come this way and then turned at the last minute?” she said.
“No, how many?”
“Too many to count. Now get your stuff.”
Esther didn’t say anything about the messages I sent her the night before and I thought it was best to forget it had ever happened. She didn’t need to know that I’d galloped Bluebird in a race on the beach and then swum him out into the ocean to rescue my stupid stepsister who had stolen a horse and tried to ride out to the shipwreck. No one rode out to the wreck and made it back in one piece. We almost didn’t make it back either. Cat thanked me but it was almost like it had been a dream. As if it had happened to someone else and not me at all.
I pulled Bluebird out of his stall, relieved that he didn’t seem sore or stiff or lame in anyway. After all, it wasn’t every day that he swam in the raging waves and then lived to tell about it. Not that we were going to be telling anyone anytime soon.
“It’ll just be our little secret, okay boy?” I whispered as I put on his boots.
He walked into Esther’s trailer with a sigh, glad to be going home. With the hurricane swirling around, it didn’t look like there would be much time to ride anyway. We’d had a couple of close calls the year before when I’d been riding with Esther and I helped her stockpile food and secure the barn area so that nothing would blow around but those storms turned, just like they all usually did, and instead we enjoyed clear skies and a nice breeze. I expected this one to be the same.
We loaded my stuff in the truck and were pulling out when I saw Cat standing there talking to Will. She looked over but didn’t wave. I didn’t wave either. I wasn’t sure how things were going to be between us now. After all, I had saved her life. Did that mean she would be nicer to me?
While Cat didn’t acknowledge me, Will did. He looked over and waved. I looked away. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him now. His sister’s actions could have put me in the hospital. What kind of person went around cutting reins so that they broke while you were riding? I made a mental note to stay well clear of her if I ever ran into her at a show. She was bad news. As for Will? I wasn’t sure if I could trust him either.
“You’re still mad at him then?” Mickey whispered so that Esther couldn’t hear.
“With good reason,” I said.
“He thought you would be. That’s why he wanted me to give you this.”
She gave me a handwritten note. Without a second thought, I tossed it out the window.
CHAPTER TWO
The trailer pulled into Sand Hill and it was like I’d reached my island in a sea of crazy people. I was never taking Bluebird off the farm again unless it was to go to a real show with a real trainer. I still felt sick when I thought of how stupid I’d been but what was I supposed to do? Let my stepsister drown? Part of me wished that I had but I knew that was just a fantasy in my head. I didn’t really want her dead.
“I think I’m going to go home and sleep for a week,” I said as Esther parked the trailer.
“You think so?” She turned around in her seat. “What about Saffron? She needs to be ridden.”
I looked at Mickey and rolled my eyes. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Saffron because I did. It was just that she needed so much work and Esther was going to sell her at the end of it anyway so it kind of felt like I’d be putting in all that effort for nothing.
“I thought you were riding her now,” I said hopefully.
“I didn’t end up having time,” Esther said. “She’s all yours. I’ll get her ready while you put Bluebird away.”
“I can’t believe she’s making me do this,” I told Bluebird as I untied him and backed him out of the trailer.
Mickey’s mom had come to pick her up and she waved as I walked into the barn. I waved back, feeling a little depressed. Mickey didn’t have to do things like ride a million horses so why did I?
It was already boiling hot so I put Bluebird in a stall so that he could stand under the fan. He nudged the pile of hay that I threw in but then turned away from it with a sigh.
“You’re tired too, aren’t you?” I ruffled his forelock. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you coming?” Esther called out.
“Yes, I’m coming,” I yelled back. Then I leant in and whispered to Bluebird, “She’ll be the death of me.”
Saffron was tacked up and standing in the aisle waiting for me.
“Here you go.” Esther handed me the reins.
“What do you want me to do with her?”
“Oh a bit of this and that, whatever you feel like.”
“You’re not coming out to teach me?”
“Not today,” she said before walking into her office and shutting the door.
“She knows,” I told Saffron as I dragged the mare out to the ring. “She knows what I did and she’s punishing me.”
The mare turned her head and looked at me with her blue eye as if to say that she was being punished too. But as soon as I pulled down the stirrups and swung up into the saddle, I knew I was just being grumpy because I was tired. I was riding and not only my pony but other horses too. This was how I was going to make my dream come true. This was what was going to get me to the Olympics one day. Riding different horses, difficult horses, horses that would teach me how to be a better rider.
“And I’m going to teach you to be a better horse too,” I told Saffron.
Only she didn’t believe me. When we got to the ring she pretended to rear, her black and white legs coming up off the ground as she tipped and fussed.
“Come on,” I told her. “I’m too tired to fight. Can we just get this over with?”
But Saffron was adamant that she wasn’t going in the ring and in the end I was too tired to make her. As I turned her away, I knew it was wrong and that I’d just let her get away with something naughty but I was too exhausted to do anything else. It wasn’t my fault that Esther hadn’t come out to help. If she had, then she could have grabbed the reins and forced Saffron into the ring but she was holed up in her office doing secret things that she wouldn’t talk to us about.
Once Saffron realized that I wasn’t going to force her in the ring, she relaxed into the bridle. It was too hot to ride in the field so I walked her into the shade of the trees. She seemed happy to be out on the trail, her white ears pricked as we walked through the shade. I asked her to trot and she did so willingly, floating beneath me with her springy stride. I nudged her into a canter, letting her reach out her head as she covered the ground eagerly.
We reached the top of the rise too soon and she came back to a walk sweetly and calmly. I patted her neck.
“See, you can be a good girl when you want to,” I said.
There was a bay horse and a girl down in the ring at Jess’s house. Standing in the middle was a man who was barking out instru
ctions, a crop in his hand that he kept tapping against his leg. His words cut through the summer breeze and I couldn’t tell what he was saying but it didn’t matter. I knew that Jess was being punished just like I was. Her father had been furious that she’d taken Hashtag to the beach ride and he’d shown up and dragged her out of there in front of everyone, much to her embarrassment. Now he was directing her over a course of verticals and screaming at her when she did something wrong.
“That could be us,” I told Saffron. “Maybe it’s just as well that Esther stayed in her office.”
I wasn’t used to being punished. I usually never did anything bad. I was the good girl. I never broke the rules and while saving someone’s life kind of cancelled out how guilty I felt about riding in the beach race, I still knew it was stupid to ever take part in the first place.
“I guess it’s time to go home and face the music.”
I turned the mare away from the fence.
CHAPTER THREE
I wasn’t really sure what I was going to walk into when I got home. After all, Cat hadn’t managed to talk Sasha’s dad into investing in Derek’s Destinations. On top of that she had almost got both herself and me killed, although I was sure it was something that she would never admit. She mouthed her thanks to me but it was almost like it had been a dream. In fact the whole night felt that way. Part of me still wondered if maybe it had all been in my imagination.
I slipped in through the back door, wondering if I could just make a mad dash up to my room without being seen but Mom was standing at the counter in the kitchen, cutting up an orange.
“There you are,” she said. “We were wondering when you were going to get back.”
I waited for it. For her to start yelling at me and telling me how irresponsible I’d been. If Cat needed ammunition, now she had it. She could use the fact that I’d ridden in the beach race to get my mom to take Bluebird away from me. If she ever found out, she’d ban me from riding for the rest of my life, or at least until I was eighteen which would pretty much feel like the rest of my life. And even though I could launch a counterattack with the fact that Cat had ridden too, it didn’t matter. She had nothing to lose while I had everything just poised to slip through my fingers like all that yellow sand we’d galloped through.
“I had to help Esther at the barn,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“That was nice of you dear,” she said. “You must be exhausted.”
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
“Well why don’t you go up and take a nice shower? I’m making a casserole for dinner.”
“A casserole laced with arsenic?” I said slowly.
“What was that?” she said, suddenly distracted by a text message that came through on her phone.
“Nothing.”
I backed out of the kitchen. Maybe I’d got away with it after all but I felt like it would always be hanging over my head.
At the top of the stairs I paused. The door to Cat’s room was open and she was sitting on her bed, painting her nails an electric blue. She looked up and saw me, then beckoned me over. She’d never done that before. I felt like I was a fly being lured into a spider’s web and at any moment she was going to paralyze me with her stinger. I got as far as the doorway and then stopped.
“Come in,” she said. “And close the door.”
“I’d rather not,” I said.
She put the top of the bottle on the polish and blew over her nails.
“I just want you to know,” she said. “That everything that happened is just between us.”
“Okay,” I said, wondering what the catch was.
“I’m serious. You don’t have to worry.”
“I’m not worried.” I felt defensive all of a sudden.
“So we’re cool?” she asked.
“I guess.”
I went to my room, wondering if I’d gone back to the wrong house. The Cat I knew would never have kept things like that a secret. She wouldn’t have cared that she was the one who had been more irresponsible than I had. She would have thrown me right under the bus anyway and watched as I got mangled by the wheels. Part of me wanted to believe that she had changed. That maybe a near death experience was just the thing she needed to turn her life around and become a nicer person. But that wasn’t the sort of thing that happened in real life. That only happened in those feel good movies where characters had horrible things happen to them and yet still managed to smile and say how great everything was. Not that I wasn’t happy that Cat was going to be a little nicer because I totally was, it was just that I wasn’t going to let my guard down because I knew the moment I did, she’d make me regret it.
I took a shower and figured I’d lie down on my bed for a few minutes but I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until Mom was calling me down for dinner. Great. Another awkward family meal. I trudged down the stairs to find Cat actually helping Mom and Derek smiling and telling jokes. Now I knew I was in the wrong house.
“I’m so glad you girls had a nice time.” Mom put the casserole dish on the table. “It’s great to see you two finally getting along.”
“Yes and the fact that you both took such an interest in my business, pitching it together,” Derek said. “Great job, girls.”
“Wait, what?” I said.
What was he talking about? We never pitched anything together and I was about to say so when Cat dealt a swift kick to my calf under the table.
“Ouch,” I cried out.
“What on earth?” Mom said.
Cat had a look on her face that I’d never seen before. For one fleeting moment her mask slipped and I saw how she really felt and it was just as scared and confused as I was.
“Nothing,” I mumbled. “It was a cramp.”
“It’s all that riding.” Mom shook her head. “Don’t you think you should take a break?”
“Olympic hopefuls don’t take breaks,” Cat said.
And she didn’t say it in her usual mocking tone. She said it like she was serious. So I ate the rest of the meal in silence, afraid of putting my foot in my mouth again and wondering what was going to happen when Derek finally realized that no one was interested in investing in him or his stupid business.
CHAPTER FOUR
I slipped out of the house early the next day to avoid any more awkward situations. I was riding my bike to the barn, mid-way through navigating all the tourists who didn’t know where they were going and all the old people who had forgotten where they were going, when my phone rung.
Normal people could answer their phone while riding their bike but I was what my mom liked to call, bicycle challenged. I pretty much rode my bike with training wheels until I was six years old, which was kind of dumb considering I’d already been riding a pony since I was about two. Personally I always thought it had more to do with the fact that my dad left than the fact that I actually needed them. I think in my little mind I clung to the fact that he would come back and help me ride without them, only he never did. And as soon as I tried to pull the phone from my pocket, I dropped it in the road.
Cars honked and squealed around me as I dashed to retrieve my phone before someone ran over it. I’d just escaped the wrath of my mother by the skin of my teeth, I wasn’t too keen to provoke her so soon by telling her that my phone had been smashed to smithereens by a bus full of people from the old folks home on their annual trip to the beach.
The phone was still ringing when I fished it out of the gutter. It was Mickey.
“You almost just got me run over,” I said.
But she didn’t hear me. She was too busy squealing on the other end of the line. I knew that this wasn’t going to be a quick conversation so I wheeled my bike into the shade of a tree and waited for her to calm down long enough for me to understand her.
When there was finally a break in the shrieking, I told her that I couldn’t understand a word she was saying.
“I’m getting Hampton back!” she cried.
“For real?” I said.
“Totally for real. Mr. Eastford called my dad up and told him that Jess had to focus on her new jumper and that she wouldn’t be riding in the hunters any time soon so she didn’t need one sitting in her barn that she wasn’t going to ride.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said. “That’s so awesome. When is he coming back?”
“Now.”
“Now?”
“I guess Jess is going to walk him over. I’m on my way.”
“So am I,” I said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“Cool,” she said before hanging up.
I rode the rest of the way to the barn going super-fast, swerving around pedestrians and cars like my life depended on it. My best friend was getting her horse back. I couldn’t believe it. When she tried to ride Hampton to the beach and ended up in the hospital, her parents decided to sell the Warmblood gelding. I’d done everything in my power to stop that from happening but in the end it had almost been worse. Mr. Eastford leased him for his daughter to ride and he’d gone to live with Jess over the hill, just out of sight but never really out of our minds. In fact, we’d hardly seen him at all since he went over there. I couldn’t wait to see his sensible bay face again and watch as he ignored all the love we were about to shower him with.
It couldn’t have come at a better time. I was afraid that Mickey might have lost interest in riding altogether by the time the lease was up but on the phone she sounded just as excited as I always hoped she’d be.
At the barn she was even more excited than she’d been on the phone. She was standing out front, jumping up and down.
“Can you believe it?” she cried. “I totally can’t even believe it.”
“I can believe it,” I said. “Jess’s father was mad that she took Hashtag to the beach ride without his knowledge and I saw him yesterday, making her practice over jumps again and again. He’s not sending Hampton back to be nice to you. He’s sending him back to punish Jess.”
White Horses (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 10) Page 1