Dark Horse (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 23) Read online

  DARK HORSE

  BY

  CLAIRE SVENDSEN

  Copyright © 2015 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.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

  COMING SOON

  BOOT CAMP: CHAPTER ONE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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  CHAPTER ONE

  “You can’t leave,” I said.

  Everyone had left. The foal naming picnic was over and everyone had gone home. Phoenix was back in his paddock with Chantilly and Bandit and we were sitting out under the trees at the picnic tables. Leftover food was littered all over and Mickey was picking up trash but she was out of earshot. Dad had gone into the office. I wasn’t sure if he knew what was happening or not.

  “I have to,” Missy said. “I can’t stay. I’m sorry.”

  “But I don’t want you to go. I need you.” I was begging now and starting to cry and I didn’t even care. I loved Missy. She was part of our family. She couldn’t just leave.

  “Things will get better,” I said. “I know that they will.”

  “Maybe they will,” Missy said. “And then maybe I’ll come back but I can’t stay right now.”

  “If you leave then I’m coming with you,” I said.

  “And what about Bluebird and your other horses?” Missy said. “Owen and I are going to be staying with a friend. She barely has room for us let alone all those horses and you.”

  “What about Socks?” I asked, my voice wobbling. He belonged to Missy and she had every right to take him away too.

  “He’s going to stay here for now, with you,” she said, grabbing my hand. “You’ll take care of him for me, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” I sobbed.

  She pulled me into a hug. “Maybe it will just be for a little while. Perhaps I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “You’d better be,” I said.

  We sat there as the sun set. I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want things to change. But the truth was that things always changed. Sometimes they were small changes, things you hardly noticed and other times they were great big changes that ripped your world apart and you knew that no matter what you did, you could never make things go back to the way they were before.

  We cleared up the mess and took care of the horses just like nothing was wrong. Mickey’s parents came to pick her up and she left, waving goodbye. I didn’t tell her what was happening. I couldn’t find the words.

  I lingered down at the barn longer than I should have. I didn’t want to go back up to the house. I didn’t want to see. If I stayed with the horses I could pretend that Missy hadn’t told me anything. But when I eventually went back and opened up the door, Missy was standing there with Owen on her hip and three suitcases at her feet.

  “You’re leaving now?” I said.

  “She’s leaving now,” Dad said.

  He was sitting on the couch, his arms crossed.

  “Well stop her, say something, anything. Tell her you’re sorry,” I told him.

  He just sat there shaking his head.

  “I hate you,” I screamed. “I hate you all.” And I ran to my room and slammed the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Missy left just like she said that she would and I stopped talking to my father, which was kind of hard considering he was the only trainer I had left. But I fixed that by avoiding him and working my horses on my own, only I knew that I couldn’t avoid him forever and I did need his help. I may have won the jump off and got my ticket to Europe but that didn’t mean I could stop training until then. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures.

  “I was wondering if you could give me a lesson later?” I asked Miss. Fontain.

  She was out in the dressage ring, moving the letters around and shaking her head. She got mad when any of the grooms other than Henry dragged her precious ring and messed it up. She looked up at me with a frown.

  “My schedule is full today,” she said. “And you don’t really want a dressage lesson, do you?”

  “Sure,” I replied, trying to look all eager like dressage was the best sport in the whole world.

  “No, you don’t,” she said, wiping her hands on her tan breeches. “If you really did, I’d squeeze you in but this has nothing to do with dressage and everything to do with you and your father. Now I don’t know what is going on between you two but I suggest you figure it out.”

  I scrunched my face up into a frown. Miss. Fontain was a single woman in her fifties. She had no boyfriend and no children and she lived for her sport. She was probably the person I’d turn into later in life if I wasn’t careful, moving jumps around in my ring and swearing under my breath at the grooms. But she knew dressage like the back of her hand. She lived and breathed it. That I admired about her. However, she certainly wasn’t qualified to give me advice on how to deal with my family, considering she didn’t really have one.

  “Just figure it out,” she called after me as I walked away. “And come back and ask me for a lesson when things are going well in your life because then I’ll know you really want it.”

  “But by then I won’t,” I grumbled under my breath.

  My next victim was Mr. Rivers, our eventing coach. He was in the field marking out a course over some of the fallen logs.

  “Need some help?” I asked him, thinking maybe it would be best not to jump into the whole lesson thing right away.

  “Why?” he said.

  Mr. Rivers was tall and thin and I didn’t
know much about him. No one did. Not even Ethan and he’d been taking lessons with him ever since he moved to Fox Run.

  “Just trying to be nice,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked again.

  “Can I not just offer to help out of the goodness of my heart?” I said, starting to feel exasperated.

  “No, you want something,” Mr. Rivers replied but at least he was smiling.

  “Fine, a lesson. Please,” I added.

  He looked at his watch. “I have a group at four. You can join in if you like. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I ran off.

  “Hey, I thought you were going to help,” he shouted after me.

  But I didn’t stop running. I had to figure out which horse I was going to ride in Mr. Rivers’ group lesson and I had to figure out how to work all my other horses while avoiding my father.

  It turned out that it wasn’t that hard. With Missy gone he was left scrambling to teach her lessons just like she had been after he broke his ankle. He was in the ring teaching a young girl on one of our hunter ponies but they didn’t seem to be hitting it off very well. Missy was a kinder, gentler teacher than my father was and the girls she taught were used to riding over nice straight lines because they rode in the hunters. Dad usually taught our jumper students and had them tackling bending lines and crazy courses. He’d toned that down for this girl but she still looked all flustered and upset.

  Dad saw me and beckoned me over with his hand but I just tucked my head and kept running, pretending that I didn’t see him. No matter what he wanted, I wasn’t about to help him. Not when he’d scared Missy and Owen away. They were my family and now they’d gone, thanks to him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I worked my horses far away from the ring on little corners of the farm out of the way or on the trail but I knew I couldn’t avoid my father forever. Eventually I’d have to go back to the house and we’d eat an awkward meal in silence in our own rooms with the doors closed. It was going to suck.

  “Can’t you just talk to him about it?” Mickey said. “Tell him how you feel?”

  I was out on the trail with Bluebird when she’d called me and now I had my feet out of the stirrups, letting my pony wander pretty much wherever he wanted as my best friend tried to talk some sense into me through the phone.

  “What is there to talk about?” I said. “She’s not coming back, at least not anytime soon and Dad can’t seem to understand that he did anything wrong.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Mickey said. “I know it sucks. But things will work out, you’ll see.”

  “How?” I said. “How are they going to work out? Even if my mother goes away there is no guarantee that Missy will come back. Dad broke her heart and you can’t just forget something like that.”

  “I know,” Mickey said. “Love is complicated.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” I said. “You either love someone or you don’t.”

  “Maybe your dad loves them both?” Mickey said gently.

  “How can he love my mom? They hate each other. They’ve hated each other for years. How can that have suddenly changed?”

  “Because she is vulnerable and needs your dad to protect her. Guys dig that sort of thing.”

  “Well he didn’t care about protecting her when he left us both,” I said. “So I don’t know why he cares now.”

  “Do you want me to come out after school?” Mickey asked. “We could go for a gallop? Clear your head?”

  “I can’t,” I said, not telling her that I’d already galloped two of my horses and it hadn’t made me feel any better. “I talked my way into Mr. Rivers’ four o’clock group so that I would get a lesson today and after that I’ll probably be dead.”

  “That’s Ethan’s group, isn’t it?” she said. “The advanced one? They are all crazy. Mr. Rivers has them jumping houses and stuff. Why would you want to ride with them?”

  “Because of all those reasons,” I replied. “Because when I’m galloping or jumping and trying to keep my horse and myself out of danger, I forget everything else.”

  “I get it,” Mickey said. “But you can’t run away from your problems forever.”

  “I know,” I said.

  I pulled Bluebird away from the patch of grass that he was heading towards. After his illness, I hadn’t let him eat anything out on the trail even though Jess had admitted to poisoning him. There was some weird plant that was creeping across Florida and several horses had died from eating it. The last thing my pony needed was to eat anything else toxic.

  “I have to go,” Mickey said as I heard a bell ring at her end. “It’s time for my English Lit class, plus someone has been waiting outside this stall for ten minutes. I think they actually need to pee, not just hide like me.”

  “You’re so mean,” I said.

  “Hey.” She laughed. “It’s not my fault the school has a no phone policy and besides, my best friend needed me.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk,” I said.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She hung up and I turned Bluebird around and trotted back to the barn feeling a little more optimistic about my group lesson. Mickey thought it was a bad idea. That it was probably dangerous. That made me want to do it even more. I was starting to think that there was something wrong with me.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sitting on Arion later, I was beginning to think that I had made a mistake. If I was on Bluebird, I wouldn’t have been so worried. We ran through the woods like wildfire, leaping over logs like our lives depended on it and I knew he would jump anything I pointed him at. But he was still coming back into work and I hadn’t even jumped him yet. I knew that I couldn’t make his first jumping workout one like this. Socks wasn’t into natural obstacles and besides, I had to keep him for the Junior Olympic team now. That left Hashtag, who was still getting over his fear of jumping, Four, who wasn’t afraid to decide that some days he just didn’t want to jump at all and Arion. And it wasn’t that I didn’t have faith in my gray Thoroughbred because I did. He was coming along nicely and actually had quite a bit of scope. I just wasn’t sure he was ready for an advanced cross country group lesson.

  “What are you doing?” Ethan whispered.

  He was sitting on his big chestnut Wendell, looking at me like I was mad, which I probably was.

  “Riding,” I said defiantly.

  “No kidding,” he replied. “But why are you riding with us?”

  “I need at least one ride everyday where someone kicks my butt. Missy has gone, I’m not talking to my dad and Miss. Fontain said no.”

  “That is pathetic.” Ethan shook his head.

  “I know.” I hung mine. “But I have to improve somehow.”

  “Not that,” he replied, laughing. “The fact that you went for a dressage lesson before this. Cross country jumping is the best thrill in the whole wide world. Don’t tell me you’re not up for it.”

  “I am totally up for it,” I said. “I’m just not sure my horse is.”

  Arion was starting to get fussy. He didn’t like to be kept waiting. We’d warmed up on the flat and now he was ready to jump. But Mr. Rivers seemed preoccupied with clearing the weeds in front of a pile of logs.

  “Besides,” I said. “So far it’s all a bit boring.”

  “You won’t be saying that in half an hour,” Ethan said with a smug grin.

  He was right. Once Mr. Rivers was ready, all hell let loose. We didn’t wait for our turn or walk the course or discuss the merits of short versus long strides. We just took off one by one, following each other over the jumps as though our lives depended on it. We got to follow Ethan, Wendell’s chestnut rump bobbing over the logs with a flick of his tail while another girl thundered behind us on her bay horse. It was exhilarating. There wasn’t even time to think. I didn’t have to worry if I was getting to the fence in four or five strides, I just cantered on and hoped that Arion would find a safe spot to take off and he did, my plucky rescue raceho
rse more than living up to the challenge.

  “That was amazing,” I said, trying to catch my breath as we all came back to where Mr. Rivers stood.

  “That was just the warm up,” Ethan replied with a wink.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  We rode into the woods where the most difficult jumps were. There was an upturned canoe, a picnic table and a bank, plus various combinations of fallen logs and wood that had been fashioned into jumps. Whereas we jumpers needed colorful poles and cups and standards, the eventers would pretty much jump anything that had been shoved together and have a wonderful time doing so. I could see why Ethan had defected to the dark side.

  “You all know the drill,” Mr. Rivers said. “Let’s see if any of you can make the bank, log, table line today without any disasters.”

  “What disasters?” I asked Ethan.

  “Someone usually falls off,” he said. “And it usually isn’t me.”

  “But I bet you probably just jinxed yourself now,” I said.

  “Or you did,” he replied.

  “No way am I falling off,” I told him.

  “Want to bet?” he said.

  “Fine. If either of us falls off then they have to clean the others tack for a week.”

  “Make it a month,” Ethan said.

  “Alright,” I replied.

  There was no way I was going to fall off in front of Mr. Rivers and the group of riders who thought I was getting some kind of special privilege as the trainers kid and shouldn’t have even been riding in their group in the first place.

  Ethan went first, probably just to show me that he knew what he was doing and it turned out that he did. Wendell powered up the slope and leapt off the bank like he’d never even been a jumper in a previous life. They cantered over the log that was positioned in a small ditch and then pushed on to the picnic table. It was a broad jump and I could tell that if you didn’t use enough leg you’d run out of steam and your horse would be left trying to decide whether to duck out or scramble over it.

  “Told you I wouldn’t fall off,” Ethan said after he’d trotted back to us, his reins loose and a big grin on his face.