Jump Off (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 22) Read online

“I have to warm up. Thanks for your help.”

  I trotted Four away from Mousse and Andy. My horse didn’t like that very much. He wanted to stay with his new friend but I forced him to work in a circle, concentrating on making sure he kept all four feet on the ground and the next time I looked up, Andy had gone.

  I asked Four to halt and he did sort of half-heartedly.

  “Well you wouldn’t win a hunter class,” I said. “Or a dressage test so let’s see if you can figure out how to go over a few jumps. Okay?”

  Smart me would have called it a day and taken my horse back to the barn. I would have been happy that he didn’t dump me off or run away with me or rear up and smash me in the face. I would have been glad that my green horse had a somewhat positive experience and I would have patted him on the neck and given him a carrot and got off before I really regretted it. But dumb me didn’t do any of that. Dumb me walked my horse off in the direction of the warm up ring with a lump in my throat and sweaty palms.

  I knew what I was doing was silly and dangerous and if my father was there he would have had a heart attack but he wasn’t. He was back home with my mother and Missy and Cat. One big unhappy family. Besides, I wasn’t doing anything that other people didn’t do. They took green horses to shows and rode them. After all how else were they supposed to get experience? Four had to start somewhere and he was here so it might as well be right now at this show.

  “Sink or swim?” I asked my horse as we got to the warm up ring and he started to jog again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Henry held Four for me as I walked the course. Luckily it was pretty simple. No tricky lines. Nothing complicated. My horse stood there dancing about on the end of his reins but Henry was a rock. He just ignored him until he almost stepped on his foot and then he let out a low growl and gave the reins a sharp tug, which encouraged Four to stand for at least two minutes before getting all distracted and stupid again.

  But there were a lot of hyped up horses waiting for the class. Jumpers were a hot blooded segment of the horse population, only surpassed by eventers and barrel racers and sometimes not even then. Back when all the jumpers had been Thoroughbreds I was sure that the classes had been a lot crazier than they were now but of course everyone wanted to ride Warmbloods these days and they were decidedly more laid back than their Thoroughbred counterparts.

  My show jumping books were all old, scrounged from flea markets and garage sales. The books I’d read under the covers at night with my flashlight so that my mother wouldn’t see still showed horses like Arion soaring over the triple bars. I still had dreams that one day my off the track Thoroughbred and my pony would make it to the Olympics, no matter how dumb it sounded. After all you had to believe in something. But first I had to get through this class.

  “You sure about this?” Henry asked as I came back to where he was standing under a tree.

  “Piece of cake,” I said, taking the reins back from him.

  Henry just made a sort of huffing noise. He was a man of few words and the fact that he had questioned me at all meant that he thought I was making a huge mistake but I knew he’d never push it and tell me that I was an idiot.

  “Can you give me a leg up?” I asked as I hopped about on one foot.

  Four swung away from me, smashing into the tree and then bouncing off into a large lady and her tiny dog.

  “Watch it,” she said, glaring at us.

  “Sorry,” I replied with a gulp.

  But once I was back in the saddle, gathering up the reins again, I knew I was making the right choice because there was Frankie walking towards me with her helmet in one hand and a crop in the other. I was going to have to tell her that she wouldn’t need it.

  “You’re here,” I said.

  I’d never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life but Frankie looked like she’d been made to go to the dentist or somewhere equally horrible. Her pale face was set in a scowl. Her black hair pulled back into a braid making her features sharp and hard. She glared at me and Four with steel eyes.

  “That’s not him, is it?” she said.

  “Yes, this is Four,” I replied.

  In my mind Frankie would take one look at Four and throw her arms around his neck. She’d declare her love for him with tears in her eyes and thank me for bringing them together. It would have been all wonderful and magical and I would have accomplished the very difficult task of bringing a girl and a horse together and having them hit it off instantly.

  Instead Frankie looked at Four like he was the most awful horse on the entire planet and I knew that he was green and fresh and kind of unruly but he wasn’t that bad. He was still a good looking horse with a sweet if over eager personality and even though he did like to rear, Frankie didn’t know that. Not yet anyway.

  “Are you showing him?” she asked.

  “Do you want to?” I said. “It’s an optimal time class. Super easy. You don’t even have to go fast.”

  “No, I don’t think I should,” she said. “I didn’t bring my coat with me.”

  “You could wear mine,” I said, jumping out of the saddle and holding the reins out to her.

  She backed away a couple of steps and bumped into the tree like the reins were toxic waste.

  “Or not,” I said slowly.

  This wasn’t turning out the way I’d hoped it would. Frankie was obviously still far too upset about losing Quantum to even think about getting another horse. She didn’t even want to ride Four. I was starting to realize that I’d made a mistake in pushing her to come to the show.

  “You could just watch if you like,” I said.

  “Yes.” She nodded, sounding relieved. “I’ll just watch.”

  “Good,” Henry said. “Then you can call the ambulance when that crazy horse bashes her face in.”

  He walked off in the direction of the food stands, his shoulders rounded and back hunched. Frankie looked pale.

  “He’s kidding,” I said. “He’s totally kidding.” Like saying it twice would make it sound more believable. “It’s Four’s first show.”

  “Really,” she said, eyeing my gray horse warily. “I’d never have been able to tell if you hadn’t told me.”

  “Can you give me a leg up?” I asked, ignoring her sarcasm.

  “I guess.”

  She grabbed my leg and pushed me skyward just as Four spooked at a dog in a tutu that was strolling by on the end of a hot pink leash. I face palmed into the saddle flap and nearly broke my nose.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, backing away again.

  “It’s okay,” I told her, tears streaming down my face from the fact that my nose had almost been pushed through my skull. “Let’s just try again.”

  But she wasn’t there.

  “Frankie?” I called out but all I could see was a sea of horses and people. Frankie had disappeared.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the end someone else’s mother took pity on me and gave me a proper leg up. She was the real show mom kind who had dirty hands and a bucket with a sponge, fly spray and carrots. Not the kind that carried the folding chair and had the floppy hat that was three sizes too large.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Good luck in your class honey,” she replied, already scurrying after a bay pony and a small girl with pigtails and ribbons.

  That could have been my mother if she hadn’t been so ridiculous all the time. So my sister had died. So what? That didn’t mean she had to ruin my life in the process and take away everything I’d ever loved. Before I’d at least felt some sort of compassion for her but I saw how my father was. He didn’t hate horses. He got on with his job and his life and had welcomed me back into his without questioning why I still wanted to ride. Maybe if Mom hadn’t taken all that away from me I wouldn’t have been so mad at her but I was. I couldn’t help it and I didn’t know how to make those feelings go away but Four did. He decided that maybe he didn’t want to go in the ring when it was his turn. He balked at the gate and then sta
rted backing up.

  “Oh no you don’t,” I said, closing my legs around him.

  He tipped up on his hind feet and a woman in the crowd screamed. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that Frankie had disappeared. After all, did I really want her seeing that Four was a spoiled, unruly brat who pretty much did whatever he wanted? He’d come so far at home but it was like the show had taken everything I’d ever taught him and smashed it to smithereens.

  After a few minutes of fighting with him and getting nowhere, one of the ground crew grabbed his reins and led me in like a five year old. My face was red as I mumbled my thanks. It was so embarrassing that I wanted the ground to swallow me and my horse up whole. The only thing we could do to redeem ourselves was have a good ride and show everyone who was watching that my horse was not completely insane.

  Of course the crowd that had been dwindling as people wandered off in search of food and cold drinks was now three deep on the rail as word had spread of the crazy girl who was going to ride a psycho horse around some jumps for fun. It was like the people who went to the track to watch car racing. I mean sure they liked watching the cars go round and round for hours but it only really got exciting when they all smashed together and got in a big wreck and that was what these people were hoping to see. They wanted me to crash and burn. I could feel it. And Four and I had to prove them wrong.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was weird. I expected Four to freak out and give everyone a good show. Be the bucking bronco and crazy horse that everyone was waiting to see but it was like once we got in the ring and we were alone, he totally chilled out. As though the major part of his anxiety was the fact that there were a lot of horses around crowding him and I didn’t know why I hadn’t seen it before. Back home I always tried to work him when it was quiet. Early mornings and late nights in the ring or the jump field. In fact I wasn’t sure that I’d ever really ridden him in the ring when there were a lot of other horses around. No wonder the poor guy had freaked out.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, patting his neck as we circled at the trot.

  His head was high and his ears were pricked but he didn’t feel like a crazy horse anymore and as I asked him to canter and he did so without galloping away with me, I hoped that just maybe we’d make it round in one piece after all.

  The course was made up of simple, straight lines. Four to the yellow vertical. Five to the black and white oxer. The jumps weren’t big. They were barely two feet. But I thought about nothing but staying quiet, keeping out of my horse’s face and supporting him when he needed it. We didn’t need a clear round. None of that mattered but I had to admit that as we cleared each fence, part of me was hoping that we would. I could come out of the ring with my head held high and show Henry, Frankie and my father that I knew what I was doing. Of course as soon as I thought that I felt Four get quick beneath me and we got to the last fence in a sloppy four and a half strides which left Four scrambling to get over it without demolishing the whole thing. We pulled the top rail and it landed with a thud behind us in the footing.

  But it was okay. We hadn’t crashed and burned and we still got a tepid round of applause, though I thought I saw some disappointed faces in the crowd as people walked away. I wasn’t going to be that sort of entertainment today.

  “Good boy,” I said.

  I patted Four on the neck with both hands as I let the reins drop. He sauntered out of the ring like a rock star, a swagger in his step that hadn’t been there before like he’d just completed a Grand Prix course. But I was proud of him. He’d done his job. That was all I could ask.

  I dismounted and ran up my stirrups, walking beside him as we made our way back to our stalls. It didn’t seem worth the effort to make him ride past all the crazy horses in the warm up ring. Sometimes you had to know when to call it a day. At least that was what my father always said. And when I got back to our stalls there he was, standing with his arms crossed and a furious look on his face like my thinking of him had suddenly made him magically appear out of thin air.

  “Hey Dad,” I said.

  “What on earth do you think you are doing?” he snapped.

  CHAPTER NINE

  My father yelled at me for a good ten minutes. I mostly blocked him out by taking care of Four. We had a hose at the end of our stalls and so I rinsed the sweat off and picked the arena footing out of his feet and did all the things I was supposed to do while Dad yelled that I was irresponsible and reckless and just plain dumb. By the time I put Four back in his stall and closed the door, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “What do you want from me?” I said, turning around to face him. “You weren’t here. I made an executive decision. Four is my horse. I brought him here to get experience and I gave it to him. Nothing bad happened so stop yelling at me.”

  Dad stood there fuming for a few minutes, not saying anything.

  “You’re right,” he finally said. “I guess it was your call.”

  “It was. Thank you.”

  I sat down on weak legs and opened a can of soda from our cooler, the ice cold water dripping down my arm. It felt good. I wanted to dunk my head into the icy water but I thought that Dad might frown on that. After all I’d just convinced him that my dumb act was actually a responsible one. Dunking my head in the cooler like a seven year old would kind of ruin that.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Dad said, sitting down next to me and running his fingers through his hair.

  His bald spot was getting bigger. I didn’t like to tell him that if he carried on like this, he wouldn’t have any hair left at all.

  “Well then you shouldn’t have brought her here,” I said.

  “I am starting to think that I may have made a mistake,” he said.

  “What did you think was going to happen?” I said. “That we’d all live together like one big happy, dysfunctional family?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Maybe.”

  “Then you are crazier than I am. Really Dad, what were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that if I didn’t get your mother back down here then that monster was going to kill her.”

  I sat quietly for a moment, thinking. He kind of had a point.

  “Just don’t ruin everything,” I said.

  “If you’d just talk to her,” he said, his eyes all lit up and hopeful like a four year old asking for a cookie.

  “That’s not going to help you out any,” I said. “In fact I can pretty much guarantee that it will only make things worse.”

  “Are you sure?” he said.

  “Yes and I’m not doing it.”

  “Not even if I tell you that you can ride Canterbury?” he asked.

  “Not even then,” I replied.

  CHAPTER TEN

  We didn’t talk about it again. It was better for the both of us just to concentrate on the show. I couldn’t understand why my father would dangle his highly talented and far too good for me jumper out as bait like a carrot on a stick. Besides, the horse put him in the hospital with a broken ankle. He still walked with a limp. Why would I want to put myself in that sort of situation? Sure I’d ridden Four but that wasn’t quite the same as jumping a much more difficult horse like Canterbury. The mere suggestion of hacking the horse out for my dad when he was laid up practically gave him a heart attack and he was supposed to be selling him anyway.

  I was getting Arion ready for his class when Frankie showed up.

  “I thought you left,” I said, looking out from under my saddle flap.

  “My mom dropped me off, remember?” she replied. “I’m stuck here.”

  “Well you don’t need to sound so happy about it,” I said.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay. I can’t even imagine what you are going through but I just want to help.”

  “That’s what everyone says,” she said with a sigh.

  Frankie was really depressed. I could see that now. And I thought Dakota had been bad when she first
arrived without her horses. But Frankie was a whole new level of doom and gloom. It was like any minute she was about to slit her wrists or something.

  “You’re okay though, aren’t you?” I said. “You are not going to do anything stupid.”

  They were the same words that Missy and my father had asked me when they found out I was being bullied by Jess. It used to be that as teenagers, we could mope around relatively undetected and mostly ignored when our lives sucked but there had been a rash of teen suicides lately and now it was like forty questions every time I wore black. I hated to pigeon hole Frankie by doing the same but I was actually really worried about her.

  “Stupid like what?” she said, poking a spider web with her crop.

  “Never mind,” I said. “And hey, look, Four didn’t kill me. He even got a ribbon.”

  I pointed to the small ribbon fluttering gently on the front of his stall.

  “Purple?” she said. “Is that even a place?”

  “It’s seventh,” I said. “But a ribbon at his first show, that’s pretty cool, don’t you think?”

  “I guess so,” she said.

  I didn’t tell her that there were only seven of us in the class so technically we placed last because well, she didn’t need to know. And she went over to Four’s stall and stroked his nose so I felt like we were making progress and it would be silly to ruin the moment.

  “Want to watch me ride Arion?” I asked.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Frankie seemed far more interested in Arion than she’d been in Four. It was starting to get a bit annoying.

  “Maybe I could ride this one?” she said.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? You wanted me to ride the other crazy horse. Why can’t I ride the one that looks a lot more sane? Plus he likes me, look.”