Barn Sour (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 26) Read online

  “He’s still out looking,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I heard from him about an hour ago and he still hadn’t found the horse.”

  I sat down on a bale of hay feeling like I was going to puke. Cat came out of the pen and sat down next to me.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll find him. Wizard will be okay.”

  “I don’t think he will be,” I said and burst into tears.

  Cat sat there with her arm around me. It was like the old Cat all over again. She’d left mean, cool Cat whose friends nearly killed me and Rose behind at school and now she was the Cat I knew and was starting to love like a sister. The one who helped out around the farm and liked playing with the foal and might even start to ride if we could find the right horse for her. I knew that she was battling her own demons just like I was, trying to decide whether to grow up cool and hip or stay a nerdy outcast. I knew that she still hadn’t made up her mind but for now I didn’t care because for now she was here with me and that meant a lot. I didn’t have many people in my life but Cat was becoming an important one.

  We sat there for a while until I stopped crying and started shivering again. Cat touched my forehead like my father had done.

  “You have a fever,” she said, shaking her head. “You should go back to bed. I can make you some soup if you like. I can’t make it from scratch but I know how to use a microwave.” She grinned at me.

  I was about to say that some chicken soup didn’t sound so bad after all when there was a crunch of tires outside and the rumble of a truck and trailer.

  “It’s Dad,” I cried. “He must have found him otherwise he wouldn’t be back so soon.”

  I ran outside, Cat following close behind me.

  The truck was splashed with mud and it was streaked all down the sides of the trailer. I don’t know where Dad had been but obviously he’d been looking in places where trucks and trailers weren’t meant to go. He got out of the truck looking weary.

  “You found him, right?” I said, bouncing on my heels and trying to see into the trailer. “Is he okay?”

  Dad shook his head. “I didn’t find him,” he said.

  “That’s a joke,” I said. “You’re just messing with me, aren't you? You found him down the lane or out on the fields by the trail. He was probably just grazing on a lush patch of grass. Right?” My voice wobbled and I suddenly realized that Cat was holding my hand, a gesture so sweet and touching that I wanted to cry again.

  “I’m sorry Emily,” he said. “But I haven’t given up. I’m going back out again and I won’t stop until we find him but I really think you need to let Jordan know.”

  “I can’t,” I whispered. “He’ll hate me forever.”

  “He has a right to know that his horse is missing,” Dad said. “And he can help us look. It’s only fair. You’d want to know if your horse was missing, wouldn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “And the longer we don’t tell him, the more guilty we look,” Dad said.

  “But we didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “It was the storm.”

  “I know,” Dad said. “But I don’t think Taylor will see it that way.”

  “We’ll find him,” Cat said. “I’ll help look too.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  But I felt defeated. Looking for a loose horse on your property was one thing. Looking for a horse that had escaped and was loose out in the big wide world was something else entirely. I felt a black wave of hopelessness wash over me and I started to cough. It caught in my throat and I couldn’t catch any air. Dad rushed to my side, patting me on the back but I wasn’t choking on food or water. It was the feeling of guilt, lodged in my throat and the fact that I was sick. Really sick.

  “We should get her inside,” I heard Cat say and then everything went black.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Claire Svendsen fell in love with horses at age two when she got her first pony. The only trouble was that it wasn’t a real horse, it was a rocking horse. From that day on she begged, pleaded and bribed for lessons, riding clothes and a horse of her own. She had to wait and work really hard to finally get her first real horse but when she did, it was a dream come true. Over the years she has trained horses, given lessons and even run her own stable.

  No longer able to ride due to injury, Claire lives vicariously through the characters in her books. When she’s not busy writing, you’ll find her hanging out at the barn with her retired Thoroughbred Merlin who loves carrots, apples and bowing on command.

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  COLLECT THEM ALL

  Other books in the Show Jumping Dreams series by Claire Svendsen

  #1 Secret Rider

  #2 Pony Jumpers

  #3 Winter Blues

  #4 Star Pupil

  #5 Sale Horse

  #6 Last Chance

  #7 Hunter Pace

  #8 Turf Wars

  #9 Beach Ride

  #10 White Horses

  #11 Trick Pony

  #12 Off Course

  #13 Winter Wonderland

  #14 Gift Horse

  #15 Half Halt

  #16 Young Riders

  #17 Show Time

  #18 Beginner’s Luck

  #19 Chasing Ribbons

  #20 Double Standards

  #21 Stable Vices

  #22 Jump Off

  # 23 Dark Horse

  #24 Boot Camp

  #25 Second Chances

  #26 Barn Sour

  (COMING SOON) #27 Heart Horse