White Horses (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 10)

by Claire Svendsen

  “I don’t even care.” Mickey did a cartwheel and landed on her butt. “All I care about is the fact that I’m getting my horse back.”

  “And you’re going to ride him, right?” Esther came and stood behind us.

  “Of course,” Mickey said. “I’ll ride him every day.”

  “No you won’t.” I laughed. “When have you ever ridden every day?”

  “I will ride him every day, you watch and see,” she said.

  We stood there waiting. It seemed to be taking forever.

  “What’s taking so long?” Mickey groaned.

  “Maybe we should have just gone over there to get him ourselves,” I said.

  “As if Jess would let us anywhere near her barn,” Mickey replied.

  “True.” I nodded.

  Bluebird was out in his favorite field and he came to the gate and nickered. I went over and fed him a carrot, sitting on the fence as he rubbed his face on my leg.

  “Your old friend is coming back,” I told him. “Won’t it be nice to ride with Hampton and Mickey again?”

  I reached over and scratched his withers and he stuck his neck out like it felt really good, which it probably did. It must have sucked having itches in places that you couldn’t really reach.

  Mickey was sitting on the ground looking a little forlorn like she’d already used up all her excitement when I heard a horse whinny from the trail.

  “I think he’s coming,” I said.

  Mickey jumped to her feet, straining to see and eventually Hampton came into view. Jess was riding him bareback with a halter but he didn’t look much like the Hampton we all knew and loved at all.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “What have you done to my horse?”

  Mickey was screaming at Jess as she slithered to the ground and handed her the lead rope. Jess had on cutoff shorts and a crop top paired with a really nice tan, not the farmer’s kind that I had to hide because it was so embarrassing. She didn’t look at all concerned with Hampton’s condition. In fact she looked like she didn’t even know what Mickey was talking about.

  “What’s the problem?” she asked.

  “What’s the problem?” Mickey repeated. “Hello. Look at him.”

  Jess stood back and looked at poor Hampton. When he’d gone over there he had been in peak condition, all tight muscles and shining coat. Now he was shaggy and scruffy and though he wasn’t exactly what I would call starving, you could see his ribs through the bare patches in his coat where he seemed to have some kind of fungus situation going on.

  “Well I haven’t really had much time to do anything with him.” Jess waved her arm at Hampton like she was brushing off a fly.

  “Oh so you mean you didn’t have time to feed him or groom him then?”

  Mickey was standing with her hands on her hips. I’d never seen her so mad. Well, maybe that one time when she ordered a bunch of makeup online. It got lost in the mail and by the time the package came the lip gloss and eye shadow were a big puddle of red and pink all melted together but that was different. That was just stuff. It didn’t involve a living breathing creature who had obviously been neglected for the last few months.

  “I don’t know why you’re so mad,” Jess said. “And I don’t do any of that stuff anyway. I have a groom, you know, and she does all those dull, boring things.”

  It was typical of Jess to think of a horse’s daily care as dull and boring. I wondered if she even knew what she was missing out on. The gentle nicker of a horse who was happy to see you at breakfast time. The gleam of a shiny coat that was only that way because you put hours of elbow grease into currying and brushing. In a way I felt kind of sorry for her but I felt worse for Hampton, who’d obviously been forgotten about.

  Mickey’s face was beet red. I half expected steam to start coming out of her ears. The more Jess didn’t seem to care, the madder she got.

  “Well aren’t you even going to say you are sorry?” she spat.

  Jess sighed. “Fine. Sorry. Whatever. But you have him back now so you should be happy and you can make him all shiny and new again so I don’t get what the big deal is.”

  “I’ll tell you what the big deal is.”

  Mickey lunged forward like she was going to tackle Jess to the ground. I grabbed her arm to stop her. Jess took a few steps back looking a little surprised that Mickey actually had all that fight in her. Hampton just stood there with his eyes half closed, which was really unlike him. The old Hampton would have at least done a little spook.

  “Let’s just take care of your horse,” I told her. “That’s the most important thing right now.” I pushed her towards the barn. “Thanks for bringing him back Jess,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Whatever.” She shrugged. “You guys are crazy.”

  “Why did you stop me?” Mickey sobbed. “Look at what she’s done to my horse.”

  “Because you getting into a fight with Jess is only going to get you grounded and your horse sold out from under you. Now Hampton needs you, come on. Besides, I think he looks worse than he actually is.”

  “But she’s ruined him,” Mickey said, tears streaming down her face.

  “Of course she hasn’t,” I said. “Just be thankful that she didn’t have much time to ride him. Then he’d really be ruined.”

  “You’re right,” she gulped, wiping away the tears. “I’m sorry Hampton.” She threw her arms around his thick neck and Hampton closed his eyes and sighed.

  It was a perfect moment in time and I took out my phone and silently snapped a picture, vowing to show it to Mickey any time she talked about giving up riding again because selling and leasing horses was serious business. You never really knew what you were going to get back or even if you would get your horse back. I was going to need a hundred acre farm because I wasn’t going to want to ever sell any of my horses. I’d be perfectly content to be the crazy old horse lady, surrounded by fat happy horses grazing in lush fields of grass as I wandered around in my rubber boots and dressing gown.

  “What is all the commotion about?” Esther appeared looking stern but as she took in Hampton and Mickey, her face softened. “Oh my.”

  “He’ll be okay though, right?” I said. “You can fix him?”

  Esther ran her hands over Hampton’s rough coat. “Fungus,” she said.

  “But he’s never had fungus before,” Mickey said, her arm still around Hampton’s neck.

  “Don’t worry,” Esther said. “I have a special shampoo for that.”

  “But what about how skinny he is?” she said.

  Esther put her hand on Mickey’s arm. “Do you trust me to make him right?”

  “I guess so.” Mickey nodded reluctantly.

  “Good. Then let’s get to work.”

  We put Hampton in the wash rack and slathered him with Esther’s special shampoo. It had been a while since she pulled out any of her home made concoctions and soon the scents of spices and herbs were wafting over us as we worked. Well, Esther and I worked. Mickey just mostly stood there and shoveled carrots into Hampton’s mouth. I had to hand it to him. He sure knew how to look pathetic and by the time we were done, it was clear that he wasn’t really in as bad shape as we’d originally thought.

  “I’ll never let anyone take you away from me again,” Mickey whispered as she settled him into a freshly bedded stall.

  And I wished that I could believe it was true but a little part of me always knew that Mickey wasn’t as dedicated as I was but for now that didn’t matter. For now we were just happy to have our horse family back together again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Esther said it would be a little while before Mickey could ride Hampton. He had a few nasty raw spots in his girth area that she was treating with her blue salve and they looked better already but weren’t quite healed enough to be rubbed by the leather of a girth. Of course that didn’t stop Mickey from riding him around bareback.

  Hampton seemed relieved to be back in his old stall and spent the first night sleepi
ng flat out on his side. Esther stayed late to keep an eye on him and she texted Mickey pictures that she forwarded on to me. In one of them he had his eyes closed and mouth open. You could almost hear him snoring.

  While we watched Hampton closely for signs that anything was wrong with him, everyone else was watching the gulf and Hurricane Joyce, which was swirling out there and getting bigger by the day. It was supposed to make landfall in a week, which was a week later than they had originally predicted but Joyce thought it would be fun to sit out there and waver about for a bit, soaking up all the heat from the ocean and swelling to a gigantic size. They said that if it made landfall, it would be the biggest hurricane to ever hit Florida. I was just trying to pretend that it would go away.

  “Do you think we’ll have to evacuate?” Mickey asked.

  She was sitting on Hampton and I was on Bluebird. We were both bareback and neither of us felt like doing any work. Hampton was still sidelined and I was giving Bluebird time off thanks to his escapades on the beach.

  “Don’t even say that,” I told her. “You’ll jinx it.”

  “But what happens if we have to?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Then I guess we’d have to.”

  “Either way I’m staying with Hampton.” She patted his neck. “I’m not ever letting him out of my sight again.”

  “Well I’m not letting Bluebird out of my sight either.”

  “Maybe it will be fun,” she said.

  “Fun? When has a hurricane ever been fun?”

  “I don’t know.” She pulled Hampton’s face out of a big patch of grass that he wasn’t supposed to be eating because he had his bridle on. “It could be though.”

  “Let’s just pretend like it’s going to turn and go in the opposite direction like they usually do,” I said.

  “Alright,” she said. “But you’re no fun.”

  “Of course I am,” I said. “Try and catch me.”

  I kicked Bluebird into a canter and laughed as Hampton, who’d become extremely attached to Bluebird since his return, realized we’d left him behind and took off. Mickey squealed with surprise and I looked back to see her slip off to the side, grab a handful of mane at the last minute and manage to wiggle back into place. I slowed Bluebird so that they could catch up and we cantered side by side across the field and back to the barn.

  I grinned at Mickey and she smiled back. Everything was so perfect now. I didn’t need a hurricane coming along and messing things up.

  But at home Hurricane Joyce had become Derek’s new favorite past time. Gone were the football games, the car racing and the tennis matches. He had the weather channel playing twenty four hours a day now, blasting us with hourly updates and tracking co-ordinates.

  “It’s not going to come.” I threw my bag down in the kitchen.

  “Oh it’s going to come,” Derek said seriously. “And I’m going to make sure we are ready for it.”

  “Mom, tell him it’s not going to come. Tell him that this happens a million times and they never hit us.”

  Mom was stirring something in a pot on the stove that smelt like old socks. She looked at me and grinned.

  “Let him have his fun,” she said. “It’s his first hurricane.”

  “But it’s a waste of time,” I groaned.

  “Being prepared is never a waste of time,” Derek snapped.

  So he made lists of stuff that my mom had to get from the grocery store, tins of beans, packs of batteries and bottles of water. Then he went out and bought a generator. I didn’t get it. We lived in a beach town. If the hurricane came towards us there was no way we’d be able to stay. We’d have to evacuate and leave our home and everything behind and just hope that it was all still standing by the time we got back.

  And even though I wanted to believe that the hurricane would turn and I wasn’t going to give Derek the satisfaction of seeing that I was worried, at night I secretly got together a bag of things I wanted to take with me. The money I won in our jumper classes, Bluebird’s ribbons from all his shows and an old photo of my dad. They were all stuffed into my backpack along with a lifetime supply of mints and my favorite sweatshirt. I didn’t know if the hurricane was really going to come or not but I guessed that Derek was right. It didn’t hurt to be prepared but what about the horses? If we had to evacuate, what was going to happen to them?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Do you have an evacuation plan?” I asked Esther the next day.

  She was in Hampton’s stall, rubbing blue goop on his sores. They already looked a million times better and it seemed as though Mickey would be able to start riding him seriously again in a few days but not if the hurricane hit.

  “We don’t need an evacuation plan,” Esther said. “The storm will turn.”

  “But what if it doesn’t?” I said.

  I didn’t want to admit it but Derek was getting to me and all the weather forecasters on the TV were having a field day since this was their one time to shine. They were pretty much predicting hurricanemagedon and it was doom and gloom on every station you tuned in to. If they were all to be believed, there wouldn’t be a Florida by the time the storm had swept over us.

  “The horses can’t stay here,” I said. “It’s too close to the coast. They are predicting feet of rain. The barn will be flooded out and what if the roof blows off or something?”

  “The roof won’t blow off,” Esther said. “Now why don’t you go and tack up Saffron.”

  She waved me away with a blue hand. I knew she was just trying to keep everything calm and orderly and stop everyone from spiraling into a panic but I wanted to be prepared. Derek was right. What harm was having a backup plan just in case?

  I went into the office to use the restroom. As usual Esther’s desk was covered in papers. I was standing there wondering why she always had to be so disorganized when I saw a map with a red line and a circle drawn on it. I looked around, already feeling guilty for snooping but Esther was still in Hampton’s stall so I took a closer look.

  The papers were from the county’s agricultural department and it was a map of the evacuation route for horses that ended at the Palm City racetrack. It was two hours away from Sand Hill, far enough inland to escape any flooding but not exactly out of the path of the hurricane. I snatched it up off the desk, feeling mad that Esther had lied to me, and marched right back out into the barn aisle with it.

  “We’re not evacuating?” I held up the map. “The storm isn’t coming? Then what is this?”

  Esther sighed. She closed the lid of her salve and came out into the barn aisle, sliding Hampton’s door closed behind her.

  “I didn’t want you to get all bent out of shape about it.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smeared blue across her cheek.

  “But I want to know the plan,” I said. “Is this it? Is this where we’re going?”

  “If it comes down to it, yes.”

  “But it’s not far away enough,” I cried. “We have to go further. Out of state. Somewhere out of the path of the hurricane. This will still hit us here.” I jabbed at the circle on the map that didn’t seem very far away from Sand Hill at all.

  “It’s not practical to go further.” Esther shook her head.

  “Not practical,” I said. “How can it not be practical to get our horses out of the state?”

  “How many horses do we have here?” Esther said.

  I looked around the barn. Some of the boarders had left and a few lesson horses had been sold to make room for Frank Coppell and his students but we still had half a barn full.

  “Twelve,” I said.

  “And what size trailer do I have?”

  I looked at Esther’s truck and the old trailer that had seen better days. She was right. How could you take all the horses out of the state when you couldn’t even fit them all in the same trailer? It would take a whole day to get out of Florida and drive back. There just wasn’t time.

  “We should have left sooner.”

 
I leant against the stall feeling small and scared. I’d lived in Florida for eight years but never actually experienced a real hurricane. They’d always been this mythical thing that stayed out in the ocean and I wasn’t really that keen to stick around and find out what one was like when it made landfall.

  “So we go to Palm City then,” I said. “And hope that the roof doesn’t blow off that barn.”

  “It’s a nice facility.” Esther put her arm around me. “I’ve been there before. It’s well built. It will hold up to whatever the storm throws at us.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “So when do we leave?”

  “We have a few more days to see if the storm is going to turn or not. No point panicking just yet, you know what these things are like. Now why don’t you tack up Saffron and I’ll give you a jumping lesson.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Really.” She grinned.

  I knew she was only trying to take my mind off the storm by saying that I could jump Saffron but it worked. So far I’d only taken the mare over cavalletti but I couldn’t wait to see what she could do over some real jumps.

  “Now be nice,” I told her as she pinned her ears at me when I pulled her out of the stall. “No mare attitude, today we’re going to jump.”

  This time I led her into the ring before I mounted. She balked for a moment but I managed to get her through the gate, which was kind of a relief considering Esther would have been really mad if she ever found out that I’d let the mare win the other day.

  “So how high do you think she can jump?” I asked Esther as I trotted her around on a loose rein.

  “How high is the moon?” she said.

  “No, seriously.”

  “I am serious,” she said. “Her father was a Grand Prix show jumper. He won a medal in the World Equestrian Games.”

  “What?” I pulled Saffron to a halt. “You never told me that. I thought you got her from some cowboy ranch.”

  “Why? Because she’s a flashy paint?” Esther clicked her tongue. “Don’t judge a horse by its color Emily, you should know better than that.”