Beach Ride (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 9)

  BEACH RIDE

  BY

  CLAIRE SVENDSEN

  Copyright © 2014 Claire Svendsen

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, places or events is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It had been like a nightmare, finding my stepsister Cat right there in the middle of my horse show. Bluebird and I won the pony jumpers and I had a check for seven thousand dollars tucked in my pocket when I saw her in the crowd. She’d run away from home but instead of going back up north to her mother, she somehow managed to ruin one of the best days of my life. It was completely unfair, not to mention ridiculous. Cat didn’t like horses. In fact, she hated them and yet there she’d been, draped on the arm of some handsome Grand Prix rider like it was the most normal thing in the world. It wasn’t. It was disgusting.

  They were downstairs now, all yelling at each other. I’d taken a picture of Cat with my cell phone and texted it to my mom. At first she thought it was a joke but there was nothing funny about it.

  My giant blue ribbon was hanging on my bedpost. The silver cup we’d won was on the nightstand. It had been the best day of my life and Cat had ruined it. I hoped they grounded her forever.

  “You ever run away from home like that again and I’ll kill you,” Derek shouted at the top of his lungs.

  “Oh well that’s a great incentive to stay then, isn’t it? Why would I want to live with someone who has threatened to kill me?” Cat shouted back.

  She hadn’t been impressed when Derek eventually showed up and peeled her off the guy’s arm like she was some kind of leech. She screamed her way back to the car and people actually thought she was being abducted until Derek showed them his driver’s license and some old family photos he had in his wallet.

  The trailer had left and we were following behind in Frank’s truck when we passed her, sitting in the car with her red, teary face pressed against the glass like a goldfish. I sunk down in my seat, hoping she wouldn’t see me but it didn’t really matter. It was a horse show. She’d know that I was the only one who could have turned her in.

  No one even asked me how my show went. All they cared about was first crying and hugging Cat and telling her that they were glad she wasn’t dead and now all they wanted to do was yell about killing her. Parents were so weird.

  “I’m old enough to do what I want, when I want,” Cat screamed.

  “No, you’re not,” Derek yelled. “You’re only sixteen. That means you can’t just go off without telling us where you are and letting us know if you are okay or not.”

  “I don’t see why not,” she cried. “Emily does it all the time.”

  “She goes to the barn,” my mother said. “We know where she is.”

  “Well maybe I’ll start going to the barn then,” Cat said. “Humberto said he’s going to teach me to ride. Maybe then you’ll leave me alone.”

  She stomped up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door but I couldn’t breathe. What did she mean she was going to learn how to ride? Humberto the Grand Prix rider was going to teach her? What was she talking about? My world was turning upside down and all I could think was that I wished I hadn’t eaten so much ice cream because I was going to throw up.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I didn’t sleep at all. I just lay there long after everyone had gone to bed, listening to the clock down the hall ticking away the minutes. Was I in some kind of alternate universe? Had I fallen off and hit my head at the show? Maybe that was what this was. Some dream that I was trapped in, only it was more like a nightmare. The only thing worse than having a stepsister I didn’t want was having one who was going to stomp all over the only thing that made me happy. It was bad enough that she ruined my home life, coming here and messing everything up with all her stupid drama. Now she was going to do that at the barn too. And what if she asked Derek to make me share Bluebird with her? Well, she could just forget it because that was never going to happen.

  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was probably just Cat’s way of getting back at me. After all, she didn’t like dirt and if there was one thing horses were, it was dirty. She also didn’t like spiders. Last time she found one in the bathtub she screamed at the top of her lungs until Derek went in and wacked it with a shoe. The barn was full of spiders, they were everywhere. Crawling out of feed buckets and hanging their webs from the ceiling. The very first time one plopped down on her head, she’d probably run away and never go back.

  Plus there was the fact that riding was really hard and Cat didn’t exactly like to extend herself very much. She probably thought it was all about just sitting up there looking pretty. She’d never manage to post at the trot or get through that horrible phase when you think your legs are going to fall off because they hurt so badly. Riding forced you to use muscles you didn’t even know you had. No, Cat was never going to make it. I finally drifted off to sleep, satisfied that if Cat ever did get up in the saddle, she wouldn’t last long.

  Only when I woke up a few hours later, the sick feeling was back. What if she made it through all the pain, dirt and spiders just to spite me? I wouldn’t put it past her. I got dressed and slipped quietly through the sleeping house. I wasn’t going to stick around and get roped into phase two of the fight that would no doubt get underway when they all got up.

  The birds were singing loudly and everything seemed too bright as I rode my bike to the barn. My arms and legs felt heavy. I should have tried to get some more sleep but I wanted to see Bluebird. He’d jumped his heart out for me at the show and I needed to make sure that he was okay.

  The barn was quiet. Frank and his students were taking the day off but Melanie and Esther were there doing chores. I ran past them with a wave, desperate to get to my pony. I’d put him in one of the empty stalls as I wanted to keep his standing wraps on overnight. I knew his legs had to be tired, just like mine were. I ran to the bars and there he was, shavings covering his back and sprinkled in his mane and tail like fresh snow.

  “Bluebird! Did you have a good night’s sleep?”

  I opened the door and gave him a carrot, then wrapped my arms around his neck. He’d made me so proud, out jumping all those other fancy ponies that competed on the A circuit. I was just an ordinary kid with an ordinary pony but we’d done an extraordinary thing and even if it didn’t happen again for a really long time, I held on tight to the memory of the moment when they pinned the blue ribbon on his bridle and he tried to eat the sponsor’s hat.

  I unwrapped his legs and checked them over for heat or swelling but I didn’t feel anything.

  “Is he okay?” Melanie asked as she walked past and stopped to see what I was doing.

  “Seems to be.” I stood up and brushed the shavings off my knees. “Your guys okay too?”

  “Everyone is fine,” she said. “Tired though.”

  “Me too.” I sighed. “Where is everyone?”

  “Everyone gets the day after the show off,” she said. “I think they are going to the beach.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying not to feel bad that I hadn’t been invited.

  “By the way,” Melanie said as she turned to walk away. “Frank was really impressed with you yesterday.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, my cheeks turni
ng red.

  Now that I was sure Bluebird was fine, I went back to the office to tell Esther all about how we’d won but she wasn’t in there. I looked up and down the barn but I couldn’t see her anywhere, not even out by the shavings pile or in the hay shed.

  “Have you seen Esther?” I asked Melanie.

  “I think she said she had some errands to run. She said she’d be back in a little while.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling disappointed.

  Maybe Esther hadn’t been alright with me going off to my first rated show with Frank Coppell after all. Then again, she was the one who had pushed me into it. I told myself I was over reacting. That errands were just errands and probably had nothing to do with me but I couldn’t shake the feeling that things between Esther and I were changing more than I wanted them to. First riding with Miguel and now with Frank. It was kind of like I was telling her that she wasn’t any good.

  I wandered back to Bluebird’s stall.

  “What do you think? Want to go out and stretch your legs?”

  But instead of reaching for his halter, I grabbed his bridle instead.

  CHAPTER THREE

  All the horse books said that you were supposed to give your pony the day off after a big show but I didn’t think it would hurt Bluebird if I just rode him bareback. Besides, there weren’t any trainers around to yell at me anyway.

  I took him out into the bright sunshine, grabbed a handful of mane and sprung up onto his back.

  “It’s a good job you’re not very tall,” I told him.

  His chestnut ears flicked back and forth as we passed the ring and headed out for the trail. My legs hung loose around his sides and his back was warm and soft. I could feel his ribs moving gently in and out with each breath and I left the reins slack, letting him pick his own path across the uneven ground.

  We were halfway up the trail when he stopped, his body rigid and head high. I picked up the reins, ready to take back control if he took off.

  “What is it boy?” I whispered.

  I scoured the brush looking for something. There was the odd rustle in the bushes and some birds hopping about but I hadn’t seen what Bluebird had until a flash of red darted across our path. It was a fox with a shiny red coat and gleaming eyes. Bluebird jumped backwards and the fox paused for a moment to look at us before disappearing again.

  “Good boy.” I patted his neck. “That was a close one.”

  Even though I didn’t think riding your pony bareback after a show day was the worst thing in the world, having that pony dump you in the woods and then run off back to the barn probably wouldn’t have been the best.

  Bluebird skittered past the spot where the fox had been and spent the rest of the way up the trail dancing back and forth and spooking at nothing.

  “He’s gone now, you silly,” I said but Bluebird wasn’t convinced.

  When we reached the top I saw someone riding at Jess’s farm. It had been quiet over there lately. They had probably been away on vacation, no doubt someplace exotic and expensive where drinks were served out of coconuts.

  The girl was riding a big bay horse, cantering over a course of jumps set up in their arena. It had to be Jess. Her twin sister, Amber, would never have been jumping so high. I thought about turning around and going back to the barn but the last I heard, Jess was supposed to be getting a great jumper from New York and that bay looked like it was probably it. I wanted to know more about the new horse and anyway, maybe Jess would be in a good mood today.

  We wandered down the fence line and as I got closer, I could see that the horse was amazing. He had scope and power and since Jess wasn’t over riding like she usually did, he was doing a great job of clearing the fences. When he saw us, he pricked his ears and whinnied loudly. Jess looked up and then walked him over to the fence.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  I never knew where I stood with Jess. Some days she hated me. Other days she just tolerated me and there were a couple of times when I’d thought that just maybe we’d be friends. But Jess was the sort of person that you couldn’t let your guard down around, like a snake in the grass just waiting to sink its fangs into your leg.

  “Nice horse,” I said. “Is that the one from New York?”

  “Yes.” She patted his neck. “Hashtag.”

  “Hashtag? Hashtag what?”

  “That’s his name.” She gave me a withering look.

  “Oh,” I said, not sure what else to say.

  “So I hear you won some big class at that new show,” she said, sounding bored.

  “Pony jumpers.” I nodded. “It was nothing.”

  “That’s what I heard,” she said. “Not much competition I guess. I only wish we’d been back from Bermuda by then. Hashtag would have cleaned up at that show.”

  “I’m sure he would.” I started to back Bluebird away. Jess was in a prickly mood and I’d had enough of her already. “Well, see you around.”

  “Say,” she called out after me. “When are you going to trade that mutt in for a real horse?”

  I kicked Bluebird into a canter, her words still ringing in my ears and my blood boiling.

  “Don’t you listen to her,” I told him. “You’re not a mutt and you could out jump that stupid Hashtag any day.”

  But the horse was good. Really good. The only consolation was that now she didn’t have a pony so hopefully she’d leave me and Bluebird alone at shows since she wouldn’t be in our classes.

  I called Mickey up and told her when I got back to the barn.

  “Who cares?” she said. “In fact, I’m glad. An awesome jumper will take up all her time and maybe if she starts winning jumper classes then her father will decide she doesn’t need to ride in the hunters anymore and I can have my horse back.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  I’d forgotten about poor Hampton, who’d been leased out to Jess and was now apparently sitting idle in her barn.

  “Two months down.” She sighed. “Four more to go.”

  But as much as Mickey talked about wanting Hampton back, I’d seen her slide slowly out of the riding life and into one where she cared more about clothes and boys than horses. I was desperately hoping that by the time the lease was up, my best friend would still care enough to want her horse back.

  “And you know what he’s called?” I asked Mickey.

  “What?”

  “Hashtag.”

  She burst out laughing. “Hashtag? Hashtag what?”

  “That’s what I said. Hashtag, nothing I guess.”

  “Hashtag, annoying.” She giggled.

  And we spent the next ten minutes making up hilarious hashtag names for Jess’s new horse and laughing so hard that we couldn’t breathe.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  By the time I got home, the fight had reached epic proportions. I could hear the yelling loud and clear as I sat on my bike in the driveway and looked up at the house I’d grown to hate. Not because it was small and old, with its peeling shutters and faded walls but because of the people who had come to live inside. It was pretty sad when you didn’t even want to go inside your own home. It was supposed to be a place of refuge. Somewhere that no one could hurt you but they were wrong. Sometimes home could be just as perilous as the outside world and within its walls were secrets that other people didn’t know about. Unless, of course, you were like Derek who shouted so loud that everyone in the whole street could hear that Cat was being grounded forever.

  I didn’t want to go inside so instead I rode my bike to the beach. People thought it was cool to live in a beach town. Mickey could even see the ocean from her bedroom window. We weren’t that lucky because we lived on the shady side of town where the only view was that of the Chinese restaurant and the dumpster that the alley cats frequented. I didn’t really care about swimming or surfing. I was only really happy at the barn but the ocean had a way of soothing my frayed nerves sometimes. Unless it was full of tourists, which it usually was, es
pecially in the summer.

  I rode past kids screaming for ice-cream, teenagers tanning and buff guys who were running around after a Frisbee. There was a spot I found a long time ago, a little inlet that was surrounded by rocks on all sides. You could only get to it by climbing down and it was dangerous. The rocks were wet and slippery with green scum and sea weed. One wrong foot and you could fall and crack your head open. It was enough to deter most sane people from trying but today I didn’t care. Today I wanted to be alone and to experience that same rush of adrenaline that I got from jumping Bluebird. The one that would push all thoughts of Cat and Derek out of my mind because there wouldn’t be room in there for anything else.

  I tucked my bike out of sight and made my way down. It wasn’t really a very steep descent and the top rocks were flat and warm against my bare legs. It was the lower rocks that you had to watch out for. They had sharp, jagged edges that dug into my thigh when I lost my footing for a second. I rubbed the pain away, knowing it would leave a nasty bruise later.

  By the time I got to the bottom, my heart was pounding in my chest. I brushed the sand off my hands and looked out across the bright, blue sea. From my hiding spot you couldn’t see the tourists at all. There were only one or two people surfing, little blobs in the distance riding the flat waves and a cruise ship leaving the port.

  I lay out on the sand, shaded by the rocks, and closed my eyes. Sea gulls called to one another and the water lapped up on the sand with a scratchy, whooshing sound. The ocean was so vast that it made me feel kind of small and insignificant. My petty problems about my home life and whether or not I was ever going to ride in the Olympics seemed stupid when it came to things like global warming and pollution.

  At school we watched a documentary about this island in the sea made out of plastic. A million bottles and junk that people just tossed away, now floating around like some man made monstrosity, killing fish and whales. I wanted to do something about it. Go out there and scoop it all up but I was only one girl. What could I do to make it better?