Show Time (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 17) Read online

  SHOW TIME

  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.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Where is my horse?” I screamed.

  I’d just come back from the Young Riders clinic to find Arion gone. He wasn’t in his stall and he wasn’t in the paddocks. The fields were empty. The horse that I’d rescued, nursed back to health and finally got to love me had disappeared.

  Henry put Encore in his stall and took off his shipping boots and halter. He wouldn’t look at me.

  “Please,” I begged him. “Tell me where he is.”

  I was biting back tears now, too afraid to even mouth the words because there was only one reason that Arion would be gone and that was because he was dead.

  “You should talk to your father,” Henry said.

  I ran down the barn aisle to the office but it was empty. Looked out in the ring but no one was riding or giving lessons. I sprinted down the path to the house, my heart hammering a million miles a minute. This was why my father wouldn’t return my texts. Not because his hearing had gone badly but because my beloved Arion was dead and he didn’t want to tell me while I was away. He was waiting for me to get back so that he could break the news to me gently. I stopped at the door, hand on the handle. If I went inside I’d know the truth. If I stood out there in the morning sun then I could imagine for a little while longer that he wasn’t dead at all.

  I backed away from the door, the house and the people inside. I couldn’t go in there. I just couldn’t. I knew I was imagining the worst but I couldn’t help it. What other explanation could there be? I’d left him with his ulcers and now they had killed him. I knew I should have paid for the scope and the expensive treatment. Arion was worth it. He was going to be a great show jumper and now he would never have that chance.

  I ran to the tack room and grabbed Bluebird’s bridle. His legs looked fine. He’d never actually been lame. And I needed him. I needed him more than anything else. No one could help me cope better than Bluebird.

  I put his bridle on and used his feed tub to propel myself onto his back. Riding was forbidden in the barn. It was against the rules. I didn’t even have my helmet but I didn’t care. I closed my legs around my pony’s sides and rode him out of the stall and down the aisle, past Henry, who had his mouth open and a girl I didn’t know who looked positively horrified but I couldn’t have cared less.

  Out on the grass we trotted. Bluebird tossed his head. He was fresh and most definitely not lame and riding him bareback like this after a week of hand grazing was probably the dumbest thing I could have done and I knew that but I didn’t care.

  We reached the fields and I pressed him into a canter. He threw out a couple of bucks and I grabbed a handful of mane but I didn’t need it. My legs were stronger than ever after a week of riding with Hunter Preston, his fondness for making us ride without stirrups helping instead of hurting my riding.

  We headed across the field with the cross country jumps and into the woods, through the trees and out the other side. Tears were streaming down my face now. I didn’t bother and stop them. I let the wind whip them away as my heart broke into a million pieces. Arion wasn’t Bluebird. He wasn’t my heart pony but there was a place in my heart for him and I’d loved him just as much and now he was gone forever and I never even got to say goodbye.

  Bluebird tried to surge forward into a gallop but I slowed him to a walk. As much as I wanted to ride like a demon, my pony had just come off stall rest. A quick trot and canter was one thing. A blazing gallop was something else entirely and I wasn’t that stupid.

  I leaned forward on his neck as I let him pick his own way across the leaves and twigs. They snapped beneath his feet and I watched the world upside down and backwards and just as confusing as it was inside my head. Then Bluebird stopped and let out a soft nicker and I heard one in reply. I snapped back upright to see a gray horse standing in a tiny makeshift paddock in the shade of the trees.

  “Arion!” I cried. “What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I practically fell off Bluebird’s back and dragged him over to Arion. He was standing there at the gate with his ears pricked like nothing was out of the ordinary, then he reached over the gate and rubbed his dirty face on me as I checked him over. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him that a good groom wouldn’t fix. He was shedding like crazy and tufts of hair floated away on the breeze as I stroked his neck.

  “I thought you were dead,” I told him. “Why are you out here? What happened to you?”

  I took the halter off the gate and he shoved his head eagerly into it.

  “Come on,” I told my two horses. “We’re going back home.”

  We left the little paddock behind, grazed down to weeds and sand. A half squashed bucket had been hung in the corner next to an old water trough and a pile of hay. Arion hadn’t just wandered out into the woods and put himself in the paddock, someone had put him there and I knew exactly who had done it but why? Why would she do such a thing to my lovely horse?

  I walked my horses back to the barn with feet like lead and a heart that felt the same. Up until now everything had been great. We’d all been getting along so well. I should have known it was too good to last.

  Back at the barn I put Bluebird in his stall and then walked Arion to his. The shavings had been pushed to the sides like the grooms did when a horse left to let the mats dry out. I put him in there anyway, grabbing a pitchfork and pulling the bedding back down around Arion’s hooves.

  “What did they think?” I said, the anger boiling up inside me. “That I’d just let you stay out in the woods forever? How could they do this to you?”

  Arion didn’t seem too bothered. In fact he seemed to think it was all a fun game, snorting at the bag of fresh shavings I added to his stall. He didn’t know that terrible things could have happened to him out there. Things like getting his legs stuck under the gate just like Bluebird had done only no one would have been around to see it and come to his rescue. And there were coyotes in those woods plus wild dogs that roamed in packs and wouldn’t think twice about attacking a horse. The paddock was small. Arion would have had nowhere to run. He would have been cornered. Just thinking about it sent a cold shiver down my spine.

  I was far too mad to go up to the house and have a rational conversation so I fetched my grooming box and stood in his stall, currying Arion’s dapple gray coat until there were mounds of white hair like snow drifts around my feet and my arm felt like it was falling off. He stuck his neck out so that I could scratch the itchy spot on his neck and shook his head up and down when he felt like I was being too rough.

  “There,” I said when he finally resembled a presentable looking horse again. “All better.”

  He snuffled up the treat that I gave him and I hung my arms around his neck.

  “I’m getting you that scope,” I told him. “And the ulcer medication if you need it. I don’t care what you did while I was away. I won’t let them treat you like this.”

  I thought that I had calmed down but by the time I’d walked up to the house, I was all mad again. I burst inside
to find Dad and Missy in the kitchen, cooking a late breakfast.

  “You’re back,” Dad said with a smile.

  “Don’t even,” I replied, holding up my hand. “Will someone please tell me why my horse was shoved out into the woods like some piece of trash?”

  They both looked at me, somewhat shocked and then Missy looked away and I knew that she was the one who was behind it all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You have to understand,” Dad said calmly. “Arion could have killed Missy.”

  Dad was trying to be the voice of reason. It wasn’t working. We were all sitting at the kitchen counter. Missy on one end. Me on the other. And Dad in the middle. So far I didn’t believe a word he said. I’d thought that Missy was my friend but it seemed like in the short time I was away at the clinic, she’d turned into someone else entirely.

  “I left strict instructions that no one was to work him while I was gone. That included idiots trying to take him out and lunge him.”

  I looked past Dad to Missy, who returned my steely glare. She wasn’t even close to admitting that she’d been in the wrong. I could tell.

  “Missy isn’t an idiot,” Dad said. “And horses have to be worked.”

  “But he’s my horse,” I said, my voice rising again. “I have the final say.”

  “He’s dangerous,” Missy said. “And we can’t have dangerous horses here at Fox Run.”

  “Dangerous?” I spluttered. “Any horse can be dangerous. We all know that. You made a mistake and now you’re trying to take it out on me and it’s not fair.”

  “The horse does need more training,” Dad said.

  “What do you think I’m doing with him?” I cried.

  “He might have ulcers,” Dad continued on. “He’ll probably never be a jumper. I know you wanted him because you think you saved him but you have to be practical. Maybe it is time to cut your losses.”

  “I did save him,” I mumbled.

  I was blinking back the tears now, anger turning into something worse. I’d felt so relieved when I found out that Arion was okay but now it turned out that he wasn’t okay at all. His fate hung in the balance all because Missy had tried to work my horse and failed. That wasn’t his fault. It was hers.

  “I don’t tell you guys what to do with your horses,” I said. “Arion is fine. Why can’t you just leave him alone? Why do you have to pick on him the whole time? It’s not like your horses are perfect. Look at Socks. He used to bolt right out of the ring until I started riding him.”

  Missy made a sort of grunting noise which I took to mean that she didn’t appreciate the fact that I was bringing up the way I’d ridden her horse better than she had.

  “He has to go,” she said, standing up. “And he is, to J.R.R. Ranch in Texas. I’ve already made the arrangements. Ninety days training with a cowboy and he’ll come back a different horse.”

  “No,” I screamed, jumping to my feet. “He’ll come back a broken horse. Dad, please, you can’t let her do this.”

  I grabbed my father’s arm but he just sat there staring straight ahead. He didn’t say a word. I ran to my room and slammed the door, throwing myself down on the bed and sobbing into my pillow. Arion wasn’t the sort of horse that could be broken by a cowboy. He’d fight until he was dead. He’d never give up. His spirit was too strong for that. And why was my father letting Missy do whatever she wanted? Arion was my horse and there was no way that I was going to let her send him off to some cowboy to be broken. Maybe hiding him out in the woods wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  My father avoided me for the rest of the day and Missy just kept sending me haughty stares. Somehow, while I was gone, she’d turned into a completely different person. She was riding all these horses now and teaching her old lessons. Owen was shoved in a corner in his stroller or fawned over by the lesson students, who dressed and undressed him like he was a living doll.

  She took Socks out to the jump field and I felt a twinge of satisfaction when he took off with her after the water jump and it took three circles of the field for her to get him under control again. She was out of shape and out of patience, smacking him with her crop. He threw his head up, his eyes wide. He didn’t understand what she was asking of him. It wasn’t his fault. I slunk away feeling horribly sad.

  And all day I tried to get my father alone but it was harder than finding a four leafed clover. He was teaching lessons or helping out students or Missy was there, her arm looped through his as she talked about upcoming shows and training schedules. It was almost as if my week away had shown her how much better things used to be before I showed up and now she wanted them to go back that way again.

  The vet arrived around lunchtime, parking his bright yellow Hummer at the entrance to the barn and blocking all the horses coming in and out until my father made him move it. I thought this might be the perfect time to talk to him because he didn’t really care for Dr. Cunningham and always stuck around to make sure that we didn’t get charged an arm or a leg but after the vet had moved his Hummer, Dad just vanished.

  “So,” Dr. Cunningham said. “How is the pony doing?”

  “He’s fine,” I said. “Good as new. In fact I rode him this morning.”

  I didn’t add that I’d kind of ridden him irresponsibly. The vet went into Bluebird’s stall and looked over his legs.

  “Fine,” he said. “Just fine. He can resume his usual workload.”

  “You mean I can jump him?” I said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  It was a small piece of good news in what had been an otherwise horrible day and I patted Bluebird on the neck.

  “Just keep him away from gates,” Dr. Cunningham said.

  “I will.” I nodded, though I wasn’t entirely sure how I was supposed to do that.

  “Is that all?” he asked as I closed Bluebird’s stall door.

  “No,” I said. “I’d like you to scope my other horse, Arion. I need to know if he has ulcers so that we can treat him if he does.”

  “Very well,” he said. “I’ll get everything ready.”

  And an hour later I found out that my rescue horse did have the ulcers that I was afraid of. I’d stood there patting his neck and keeping him calm, even though he was sedated, and I’d seen them on the screen. Angry looking red welts in his stomach that made mine hurt just looking at them.

  “They’re not the worst I’ve ever seen,” Dr. Cunningham said as he put his equipment away. “But they have to be bothering him.”

  “So can we get him started on the treatment?”

  “Yes,” he said. “He’ll need a full dose every day for a month and then we’ll see.” He stood by the back of his truck, counting out the tubes of ulcer medication. “It’s expensive stuff,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t need to clear this with your father first?”

  “No,” I said, clenching my fist in my pocket. “I’ll be paying for it myself.”

  “Very well.” He nodded.

  And after I’d written out a check for almost all of the money I had left in my bank account, I watched him drive away, clutching the tubes of medication that might as well have been made out of gold for as much as they cost. But Arion was my horse and my responsibility and as long as I paid his way then no one could do anything about it. They couldn’t make me sell him or ship him off to some cowboy ranch. He was going to stay here with me and there was nothing that Missy could do about it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The day dragged on forever and I was bored. I’d already ridden Bluebird. Arion couldn’t be ridden since he’d been sedated for the scope and I didn’t think it was fair to work Encore on the day he got back from the clinic. Hunter Preston had worked us both hard and I knew he had to be tired. I was tired too but I needed things to take my mind off everything else that was going on at Fox Run. And I needed to talk to my father.

  I was in the kitchen making a sandwich when I saw it sitting on the counter, the container of baby formula. M
issy had left the lid off in her haste and I could see that it was almost empty. If it accidentally got knocked over then she’d have to go to the store to get some more. We could go hungry. Owen couldn’t. I checked the cupboard where she usually kept the extra tubs but it was empty too.

  I stood there chewing on my lip and looking at the formula. I knew it was wrong. But what she’d done to Arion was wrong too. I’d never have done that to one of her horses or any horse for that matter. Just thinking about poor Arion standing out there alone in the woods made me mad all over again. Without a second thought I tipped the container over. It fell on its side and the milky white powder floated into the sink. Maybe she’d think my father did it or the cat. Meatball was always getting up on the counter tops when he thought no one was looking. And even if she did suspect me, she’d never be able to prove it. I left the scene of the crime and hurried back to the barn where I ate my sandwich in the tack room, wishing that Mickey would hurry up and come out to the barn.

  She finally arrived well after four.

  “Where have you been?” I cried.

  “Um, school,” she said.

  But she let me bowl her over with a big bear hug anyway.

  “Wow, what’s got into you? You’re never like this,” she said when I finally let her go.

  “Stuff,” I said. “But I can’t talk about it here.”

  I looked around nervously, half expecting Missy to be lurking behind the door or peering through the cracks in the walls.

  “Okay,” Mickey said slowly. “So you want to go for a ride and tell me about it?”

  “Yes,” I cried. “Wait, no. I don’t have a horse to ride.”

  “Well you’d better find one,” Mickey said, pulling her grooming box out of her tack locker. “This is a barn, isn’t it? I’m sure someone needs to be worked.”