Heart Horse (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 27) Read online

  “Things like that don’t happen?” I spluttered. “Of course they do. I found Arion in a storm because he’d been lost for ages. Months. Running wild in the woods by the racetrack where no one could catch him. Surviving on grain and hay left at the edge of the tree line because a few of the grooms believed he was still alive. But the others gave up hope.” I sat down feeling weak again. “We can’t give up hope.”

  “No one is giving up hope,” Cat said. “But we can't keep looking in the dark. We’ll go back out first thing tomorrow.”

  “It’s just he’s probably so scared and hungry,” I said. “He’s all alone.”

  “Jordan’s been out looking too,” Cat said. “He thinks maybe the horse is trying to make his way back home.”

  “He was here,” I said fuzzily. “At least I think he was. Or maybe it was a dream.”

  I remembered Jordan with his arms around me, holding me tight and thought that it was far more likely to be a dream than reality and besides, why would I have let him hold me if it wasn’t a dream?

  “He did say he stopped by,” Cat said.

  “Really?” I started to cough again.

  “You need to go back in the house,” Dad said, looking concerned. “It’s getting cold. We’ll finish up here.”

  “I did everything,” I said looking around. “At least I think I did.”

  The fever was turning my brain to mush. I wondered if I really had done everything I was supposed to.

  “You’d better check,” I said vaguely. “That I did do everything right.”

  “Cat, take her inside and see that she gets back into bed,” Dad said.

  “I think I know the way to my own room,” I replied.

  But it turned out that I was grateful to have Cat to lean on as she helped me up the stairs, clutching onto her so that my legs didn’t give out altogether. I caught a glimpse of my mother in the kitchen watching us but when she saw me looking at her, she turned away. She didn’t ask if I was okay or if I needed any help.

  “I think my mother hates me,” I mumbled as Cat plonked me down on the bed.

  “My mother hates me too,” Cat said, pulling off my boots and tossing them in the corner.

  “Why do you think I’m living here with you guys and not with her?”

  “But why does she hate me?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Cat said. “I’m sorry but I just don’t know.”

  But I knew. She hated me because of the horses and there was nothing I could do about it because I was never going to give them up. Not in a million years.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next day Cat and Dad went out with the trailer again after doing all the chores. I was forbidden from leaving my room. I stood by the window and watched them feed and muck out. Dad patched up the paddock so that the mare and foal and Bandit could go back out. Phoenix pranced his way across to freedom and when he was let loose he kicked up his spindly long legs and then took off, galloping round and round in the small enclosed space. Chantilly just ignored him and rolled before making her way to the hay pile. Bandit was already there, stuffing his little chubby face.

  It was almost like the storm never happened except for the fact that more of the fencing needed to be fixed before the other horses could go out. Molly would complain that her horses needed space and freedom while Cora would worry that Oscar was spending too much time outside and might hurt himself. Everything would go back to normal and I didn’t really care about any of it. All I could think about was Wizard and how the longer he was gone, the harder it was going to be to get him back.

  By the time Dad and Cat finally got in the truck and pulled away with the trailer in tow, I already had my breeches on and a thick sweater. It was cold out, the world coated with a white blanket of frost. The storm had brought the promised cold front and with it the coolest temperatures of the season. I grabbed my gloves and a scarf. I was still sick but I didn’t care. They were out looking and I couldn’t just stay in bed, wasting time. I had to get out there and do the same.

  I crept through the house, hoping that I wouldn’t run into my mother but I didn’t see her and besides, if I had, I don’t think she would have cared enough to stop me anyway.

  Outside the cold air hit my lungs like a fist and I coughed for about five minutes before I could catch my breath. Then I went to fetch my pony. His coat was starting to grow back and it was fluffy in the cold air. His blanket had half slipped off and was dragging in the mud. I wasn’t sure how I was going to sneak it into the house later to wash it without my mother finding out but I was going to have to try.

  “I need you,” I told him and he nuzzled my pocket for a treat, his payment for a morning of work.

  It was like putting coins in a slot machine. He gobbled it up and then let me put his halter on. I tacked him up quickly in case Dad and Cat came back for some reason and once in the saddle, trotted quickly away from the barn.

  We rode up the hill, following the fence line that bordered Jess’s property. Dad was right. It was broken in a couple of places, the old boards and rusty nails not standing a chance in the bad weather and strong winds. The open field was one that Jess and her family didn’t use, probably deeming it unsatisfactory since it was next to our farm now. They had their own fancy white fencing but it was off across the field enclosing one that they actually did use. This was just an overgrown tangled mess that I think they liked to forget existed.

  I scanned the field for tracks, any trace that Wizard might have come this way. I liked to think that if he had then Jess would have returned him to us already but I knew that probably wouldn’t be the case. I’d disgraced her at the last show. Embarrassed her. If she found Wizard, she’d know that he came from our farm and she’d probably keep him for ransom or worse, send him to animal control or slaughter. I knew Jess. She was cruel, even if she sometimes put on a nice act. It was all a fake. She was not a nice person. I didn’t think she ever would be. Amber, her twin sister had been nice. Once we had almost been friends but I hadn’t seen her in months, almost a year. She’d probably been shipped off to some expensive boarding school because she didn’t have the will to win at all costs like Jess did and was therefore probably a disgrace to the family.

  We didn’t ride over their field. I figured it would just be an excuse for Mr. Eastford to get out his gun and try to shoot me again and I wasn’t in the mood to get into an argument with them but I’d talk to my father about it later. Maybe he could go over there and talk to Mr. Eastford. Try and find out if they’d seen Wizard blaze across their property in the dark and if maybe they’d had the sense to catch him and keep him safe.

  We turned away from the fence line and rode further up the hill towards the trees. I could still make out the hoof prints under the trees where I’d found Chantilly, Phoenix and Bandit but the tracks were a muddy mess all swirled together so I couldn’t tell if Wizard had been there or not.

  Turning Bluebird away we trotted the rest of the way up the hill. I figured it would be good exercise for him but by the time we got to the top I was winded and couldn’t breathe, coughing into my gloved hand while Bluebird turned to look at me like I was crazy.

  “Sorry boy,” I said through a cough that I couldn’t shake. “I’m sick. You have to take care of me. Okay?”

  At the top of the hill the fence board that led through to Sand Hill had fallen down. Maybe Wizard had gone that way. On horseback it was easier to look in places that the truck and trailer couldn’t go and at least I felt useful, even if I couldn’t stop shivering despite my bulky sweater and the jacket that I’d pulled over it in case it started to rain again.

  Picking our way through the overgrown Sand Hill trail it was clear that a horse hadn’t been this way. There were no hoof prints except for our own and several of the tree limbs had snapped off and blocked the way. I let Bluebird jump them and that seemed to perk him up a bit and by the time we got to the Sand Hill barn my blood was pumping and I felt a little warmer, even though I still couldn't
breathe.

  But the farm wasn’t empty like last time. This time there was a black truck parked outside and I suddenly felt terribly alone. I was trespassing and even though I wasn’t on Jess’s property with Mr. Eastford and his gun, there was no guarantee that these people would be any more gracious to find someone riding all over their land without permission and really I couldn’t blame them. I was in the wrong but I had to find out if they’d seen Wizard.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Hello?” I called out.

  I figured it was safer to announce my arrival instead of being stumbled on by someone surprised to find another person on their property and besides, if I stayed on Bluebird then I could make a quick getaway if the person turned out to be some kind of psycho.

  Nobody came out of the barn but I could hear noises in there, things being moved around and a dull sort of banging sound. Perhaps someone was cleaning it up, getting ready to move in. My mind swirled with the possibility that it was a nice young up and coming trainer who would let me come over and use the ring whenever I wanted because it was bigger than ours and that maybe we would become great friends and she would take me to shows when Dad couldn’t. But it wasn’t a nice young trainer who came out of the barn, it was an old man with a white beard and steel gray eyes. I backed Bluebird up a few paces just in case there was going to be trouble.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  His voice was cracked and broken, probably from years of smoking. He sounded hard and cold and didn’t look like he was too happy to find me riding around.

  “I used to ride here,” I said. “I live over the hill.” I pointed behind me.

  “That doesn’t give you the right to trespass,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’m looking for one of our horses. He got out in the storm. I wondered if he might have come this way. He’s black, big, almost seventeen hands.”

  The guy pulled at his beard. “I’ve not seen any horses like that around here,” he said.

  “Oh,” I replied, getting a bad feeling about the guy. “Well if you do, could you let us know? We’re just over the hill.”

  “So you said.” He glared at me.

  “Are you moving in?” I asked. “Fixing the place up?”

  “I’m just doing some work around here,” he said vaguely. “Now clear off. I don’t need you messing things up.”

  “Okay.” I backed Bluebird further away from him. “Sorry for disturbing you.”

  I’d turned Bluebird around and was trotting away when he called out, “And don’t come back here again.”

  My heart was racing all the way to the end of the trail. I put the board back where it should have been, glad to be on the other side but also sad. I’d hoped that someone nice would buy Sand Hill Stables and turn it into a thriving farm again and although they would be competition for us, we could have shared in things together. Maybe there even would have been another girl my age who competed on the jumper circuit. One I could become friends with because Mickey was slipping further and further away from me. I could feel it. Soon we wouldn’t even be friends at all. We’d just be two girls who knew each other and sometimes said hello. At least I still had Rose and she lived close by. Maybe Wizard had made it over to their farm. It was worth a shot.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I rode back down the hill and across our farm. Cat and Dad still weren’t back and I couldn’t see my mother. She wasn’t hovering by the back door or lurking behind the kitchen window. It was just as well. I didn’t need her interfering right now.

  We trotted quickly and efficiently down the drive and out onto the road, turning left and keeping to the grass verge until we reached the dead end where we picked our way through the pine trees, droplets of water falling on us from the branches above until we got to the grass trail. I let Bluebird canter, glad to be free of the moldy smell of the small wood which made my throat close and my cough worse. Here it was easy to gulp in big mouthfuls of fresh air as Bluebird raced along.

  But when we got to the end, I wasn’t sure which way to go. We’d turned left before and met Rose and Noelle hacking on the road but had never actually made it to their farm. Instead I turned right, letting Bluebird walk and hoping that we didn’t meet any of Cat’s friends, speeding along with no regard for anyone else's safety or their own.

  We started to pass small farms, five or ten acre lots with horses grazing here and there. I kept an eye out for Wizard, hoping that if someone had found him they would keep him on their farm until his rightful owner came to claim him but there were no black horses out on the wet grass, only bays and chestnuts and the occasional gray.

  “I think we’re going the wrong way,” I said.

  Then I saw a gray horse pick up its head and nicker. Bluebird answered. It was Noelle, Rose’s mare. I’d found their farm. We trotted down the drive and there was the tiny paddock I’d put Bluebird in the day when I went out looking for Faith and Macaroni and here I was again, looking for a different horse altogether but just as sick with worry and whatever it was I’d caught in the storm. The farm looked smaller in daylight, three tiny fields and a paddock with a compact barn off to the side of the house and a ring. It was even smaller than ours. I wondered how Rose was able to get in any good practice at all.

  I got off Bluebird and stood there for a moment. The farm seemed empty. I hadn’t stopped to think that maybe Rose was at school. Or perhaps her sister was here. I wasn’t too keen to run into her again. Out in the fields I could see the other horse, the one that Petal had to give up, a flashy chestnut mare with three white socks. Her neck was long and her legs slender but she had a slight sway in her back and when Noelle called to her, she picked her head up and trotted a few paces and I could see that she was slightly lame.

  I felt bad for Petal. Maybe her coldness hadn’t been that at all. Perhaps it was just a deep sadness that her partner could no longer be her partner anymore and the worry over what would happen to her horse. It wasn’t easy to find a home for a lame horse. The rescues were usually full and even then some of them had been known to take in too many horses and then starve them all in the name of saving them.

  I was lost in a world where horses were knee deep in manure and their ribs showed through their rain rotted coats when the front door of the house opened. It was Petal, standing there in jeans and a polo shirt looking rather unamused to see me.

  “If you’ve come to try and talk me into leasing that horse, I told you, I haven’t made my mind up yet,” she said.

  “No, it’s not that.” I shook my head, wishing Petal could just see how good Hashtag would be for her if she just gave him a chance. “We lost a horse during the storm. The fences came down and he got off our property. He’s big, black and probably very scared,” I said.

  Petal’s face softened. “That’s horrible,” she said. “No, we haven’t seen anything. But I’ll find out if any of the neighbors might have heard or seen something.”

  “Thanks,” I said, giving her my number. “I’m really worried about him.”

  I started to cough as I got back in the saddle again.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Well, no. I will be when we find Wizard. And I can see why you can’t really think about Hashtag when you have other things on your mind right now.”

  I pointed to where the lame horse had come to the fence and was looking eagerly at Petal for a treat or possibly wanting to go for a ride, even though those days were over.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  I rode away feeling sorry for the girl who was going to have to give up her lame horse to get another one or be stuck not riding for as long as her mare lived.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  By the time I got returned home, Dad was back and he was livid. I could see him standing at the entrance to the barn with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face.

  “Where have you been?” he snapped. “I told you to stay in bed.”

  “Did you
find Wizard?” I asked, slithering out of the saddle on weak legs.

  They almost gave out on me but I clutched Bluebird’s breastplate at the last minute to stop from falling and hoped that my father didn’t see. I had to look like I was strong even if I wasn’t or else he’d make me stay in bed for a week, or worse, drag me to the doctors.

  “No,” he said. “We didn’t.”

  “Well there you go,” I said. “I have to help look too, don’t I? Otherwise we’ll never find him.”

  I walked my pony into the barn to untack him. Dad just looked at me but didn’t say anything else. A cough was brewing in the back of my throat but I forced it back down, willing it to go away by swallowing until my eyes were watering. Finally Dad went back into the house and I let the cough out, bending over and coughing until it felt like my lungs would come out of my throat.

  “You held that in nicely,” Cat said.

  She came out of Oscar’s stall. I hadn’t even known she was in there.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “Picking the stalls,” she replied. “Your dad said it would be a good idea to keep them extra clean in case the boarders come out. He’s going to work on the fencing this afternoon so that they can all get back outside again but he’s worried that Molly might come out and find her precious horses trapped in their steel prisons.”

  She tapped the bars with her fingers. I looked in on Bourbon and Bailey. They were both eating hay as happy as could be. They couldn’t care less that they’d had to spend some extra time in their stalls. Neither did Oscar or Macaroni or Canterbury. Socks was the only one who seemed to resent being cooped up inside and that was because he was a hot head anyway. By the time he got outside he was going to go ballistic. He’d need boots on all four legs and possibly even bubble wrap. I’d probably need to lunge him first so that he could at least get the bucks out of his system in a controlled environment. But if Dad was fixing the fences, that meant he wouldn’t be looking for Wizard.