Hunter Pace (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 7) Page 8

  “Maybe they went further downstream and crossed there?” I said.

  But the ground was too churned up to see which way people had ridden and Ethan was right, everyone else had got over it somehow, including Jess and Hampton. Although now I suspected I knew where the scream had come from.

  “Let’s go this way and see if it’s not as wide,” I said.

  We trotted down the river bank and the whole time all I could think about was that precious minutes were ticking away. My optimum time being flushed down the toilet thanks to the stupid river.

  “It’s not good,” Ethan said. “It’s even worse this way. We’ll just have to go through it.”

  “And how exactly is your sister going to get Princess to the other side?” I whispered through gritted teeth.

  I’d been the one who encouraged Faith. Who told her that she could ride with us and believed that it would be good for her. But getting dumped off into a raging river would certainly not be good for her and trying to catch Princess as she frolicked about the fields with ribbons in her hair wasn’t exactly going to be good either.

  “I told you not to let her come,” Ethan shrugged.

  “What are we going to do?” Mickey asked as if I had all the answers.

  We weren’t cross country riders who leapt into rivers like it was a walk in the park. We were hunters and jumpers and equitation riders. We stayed in the ring where the jumps fell down when you touched them and there was nowhere for your horse to go if it took off on you. We didn’t have nerves of steel. They were more like nerves of plastic that might bend a little under pressure but would eventually snap.

  “We go through it,” I said. “Just like everyone else did. Now come on, we’re wasting time.”

  “Are we really going through?” Faith asked.

  She had a grim look of determination on her face, like she didn’t want to let me down or something. I wanted nothing more than to stick her behind me on Bluebird and lead Princess through but I knew she’d never stand for it.

  “Yes,” I told her. “We are going through. Do you think you can do it?”

  “Yes,” she said solemnly.

  “Good,” I said. “Now you know what to do. Don’t let Princess do what she wants. You make her do what you want. Use your crop if you have to. Okay?”

  “Emily?” she said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  Which was sweet but I knew I’d be worrying about her from now until we got back to the barn and I was pretty sure I’d never organize another hunter pace in my whole life.

  “I’ll take Wendell through first,” Ethan said. “He doesn’t even care about water.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  Wendell took one look at the water rushing by, shook his head and then trudged through with a look of determination on his face.

  “See?” Ethan said as he turned him around on the opposite bank. “I told you he’d make a good event horse.”

  Great. This was supposed the change Ethan’s mind about leaving, not make him want to go off and ride cross country even more.

  “It didn’t look so bad,” Mickey said. “It’s not even that deep.”

  She encouraged Willow with her voice and reins, not using her crop on the delicate mare but instead giving her positive reinforcement. Willow high stepped her way through the water, snorting as she went.

  “Your turn,” I told Faith. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  And I said a little prayer that the black pony would behave because if she didn’t, I was never going to hear the end of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  “Come on,” I told Faith. “We’ll do this together.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  She put on a brave face but I knew that deep down she was a little scared. Heck even I was a little scared. Not for myself but for Bluebird. He was my show jumper. My champion. What if he tripped and fell in the river, hurting himself? Or dumped me off and galloped away never to be seen again? But I knew I couldn’t let fear rule me like that. I had to believe that everything would be fine and so did Faith.

  “Heels down,” I said. “Sit back. Eyes up. Don’t let Princess doubt for a second that she is going to do anything but walk through the water. Got it?”

  “Got it.” She slammed her helmet further down on her head and gathered up the reins.

  “Let’s show them how it’s done,” I told Bluebird.

  I closed my legs around him and he stepped into the swirling water. Princess balked but Faith tapped her with the crop and her eyes got all big when she realized that Faith was going to make her do this. She scuttled alongside Bluebird like a crab and before we knew it, we were on the other side.

  “That was awesome,” Faith cried. “Oh good girl Princess, I knew you could do it!”

  She collapsed on the pony’s neck, hugging her tight. All the pink ribbons were soggy and wet but neither of them seemed to care. Both girl and pony had taken on something they were scared of and conquered it and I was proud of them both.

  “Good job,” I said. “Now are you okay to gallop? We’ve got a lot of time to make up.”

  She nodded and so the four of us took off along the path at a pretty good clip. The adrenaline surge was intoxicating and I now knew why Ethan wanted to event. But I felt that same adrenaline when faced with a jump off. Racing against the clock as I soared over impossible heights and found the inside line. I knew I could never give that up.

  The course from the creek to the halfway point was mostly flat. We galloped on and jumped some of the marked logs in stride. I didn’t hear anymore screaming. At least that was something to be thankful for. When we reached the halfway point, I slithered to the ground on legs that felt like jelly.

  “You made it then,” Esther said.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling relieved. “Did everyone else?”

  “They did,” she nodded. “But some are wetter than others.”

  “Oh no,” I sighed. “The creek? It was bad. I didn’t think we’d make it but we assumed everyone else had since no one was left standing there.”

  “A lot of people got off and led their horses through,” Esther said. “And then there was that girl.” She pointed to the girl who was on the Fox Run team. Her clothes were soaked and her hair was plastered to her face in muddy streaks. “Her horse dumped her off in the water and it took them ages to catch it. They only just came in ahead of you guys.”

  “So much for Jess winning the cup,” I told Mickey.

  But she wasn’t listening. Instead she was looking at Hampton, standing there with his reins looped through Jess’s arm as she talked to her sister, Amber. Every now and then she would pat his neck softly and then she actually took something out of her pocket and gave it to him. A treat of some sort that he gobbled up with that same goofy look he always seemed to have around Jess.

  “She’s being nice to him on purpose,” Mickey said with tears in her eyes. Then she stormed off.

  I found her at the refreshment table, sobbing into a cookie. I put my arm around her, not sure whether I wanted to shake her or hug her. But I had to be diplomatic if I was going to help her keep it together and get through the rest of this hunter pace.

  “Isn’t it better this way?” I said. “At least for Hampton?”

  “No,” she cried.

  “So you’d rather she was beating on him all the time?”

  “Yes,” she said. “No, oh I don’t know. It’s just not fair.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s not fair. But at least he’s close by so you can keep an eye on him. He hasn’t gone to Texas or California or somewhere that you would never see him. He’s practically in our back yard. And while Jess is being nice to him, you know he is being taken care of well.”

  “And if she starts her usual crap with him?” she gulped.

  “Well then I’d say that was grounds to break the lease and bring him home. Wouldn’t you?”

  She nodded. “I hadn’t thought about it like that,” she said.<
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  “See, everything is okay.”

  “Not really though,” she said, stuffing the whole cookie into her mouth. “Just tell me when they’ve gone.”

  I wandered back to a bedraggled Princess and Faith who was telling everyone about her adventure at the creek.

  “The water was up to her eyeballs,” Faith said, her eyes wide. “And at one point she started to swim.”

  I cleared my throat and crossed my arms. She looked over at me and her face turned red.

  “But really it was Emily who helped us out,” she added.

  “You know, your sister could be an actress,” I told Ethan as he came to stand beside me.

  “Don’t tell her that,” he said. “Her head is already big enough.”

  “Right,” I nodded.

  We were standing close, almost touching. His breeches had mud streaked down them and there was a spot of dirt on his nose. My stomach did a little flip like the one before we went through the creek only this was different. I tried to ignore it. Things were complicated enough as they were and besides, most of the time I didn’t even notice that Ethan was a boy at all. He was more like a brother. Except at times like this when the sun came through the trees and lit up his smiling face.

  “Time to saddle up,” I said. “Where’s Mickey?”

  But as I looked over at the refreshment table, I couldn’t see her anywhere. Mickey had gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  No one had seen Mickey. She wasn’t by the cookies and she wasn’t anywhere else either.

  “Maybe she went into the woods to pee?” said Faith.

  “But then where is Willow?” I asked.

  The crowd had thinned. All the horses had gone. We were the only ones left but I couldn’t see the bay mare with the dished face anywhere.

  Esther was talking to a couple of the moms who were helping out. She was laughing at something one of them was saying but she wouldn’t be laughing when I told her that Mickey had taken off on her own. But she’d notice when we went to leave anyway.

  “Mickey has gone,” I told her.

  “What do you mean gone?” Esther said.

  “Gone. Disappeared. I don’t know. She’s not here. Have you seen her?”

  “No,” she turned to the mothers. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you back at the barn.”

  The mothers started to pack up the refreshment table as Esther walked with me back to our group.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “She was mad about Jess feeding Hampton treats and the fact that he liked her. Plus she was mad that Jess was being nice to him but I told her that at least it was better than watching her beat him.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “I don’t know. I went back to our group and left her drowning her sorrows in the cookies.”

  I scanned the trees, hoping to see Willow appear as though nothing had happened but she didn’t and I knew that Mickey leaving without us could only mean one thing. She was up to no good.

  “You’re going to have to find her,” Esther said. “She’s still all messed up about this Hampton thing. I don’t trust her not to do something stupid.”

  “I know,” I said. “Don’t worry, we’ll catch up to her.”

  “Just make sure that you do,” Esther said.

  But I wasn’t exactly sure what we were supposed to do when we found Mickey or how we would be able to stop her from whatever crazy plan she had hatched.

  “Just make sure she doesn’t do anything dumb with that horse,” Esther called out after us. “Remember, we don’t even own Willow.”

  “She wouldn’t,” I called back.

  But I really wasn’t so sure. She loved Hampton and yet she’d ridden him to the beach alone, crossing a dangerous road and falling off, leaving him to fend for himself in the traffic. If she had that little regard for him then why would she worry about a mare that she’d only been riding a couple of weeks? I knew that Mickey loved horses but sometimes she didn’t think about all the bad things that could happen. Meanwhile they were running through my head on a loop. Willow lying in a ditch with a broken leg. Mickey unconscious and in another coma, one that this time she wouldn’t wake from.

  “Don’t worry,” Ethan said as we pushed our horses into a trot. “We’ll find her. Everything will be okay.”

  But I knew that his words were as empty as the ones I had spoken to Esther.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  If we were going to catch up to Mickey, we didn’t have time to waste. We galloped up the trail as fast as we could. Mickey wasn’t that fond of galloping. Canter was about her fastest speed and she’d only galloped with us before because we were all together. Alone, I knew she wouldn’t go so fast. But she still had a pretty good head start on us.

  The second half of the course was more winding and complicated. There were many places where we had to slow to a trot and a place where we crossed another lane and had to walk.

  “What happens if we don’t find her?” Ethan said. “What if she didn’t even follow the trail? Maybe she just got mad and went back to the barn.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Only I was pretty sure that Mickey didn’t want to go back to the barn. She wanted Hampton back and she was going to do whatever it took to make sure that happened. I just didn’t know what that was.

  We trotted past a row of houses. A little girl was sitting in the grass, playing with some plastic horses. As we went by she came to the gate and waved. Faith waved back.

  “Your pony is so pretty,” she called out, pointing to Princess.

  “And that’s why I put the ribbons in her hair,” Faith told me, sticking her nose in the air.

  We followed the arrows down a narrow trail that was mostly used by joggers and dog walkers. It was grassy and flat and the horses cantered along it happily. No matter what was happening with Mickey, they were having a good time. Obviously glad to be out of the ring and experiencing the world outside their barn. I patted Bluebird’s neck and felt him kick up his heels in a happy little buck. Everything was turning out so well. I didn’t know why Mickey had to go off and ruin it all.

  At the end of the trail was a large flat field that usually held cows but we’d talked the farmer into letting us ride across it and he agreed to move his cows to another field for the day. It had a shallow dip in the middle where there was a natural pond that we thought would be fun to ride through. Only now the pond had swelled to a small lake and there was the Fox Run team on one side, seemingly in a standoff with Mickey who was standing on the other side, yelling at them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  “What is she doing?” Ethan asked.

  “She’s being an idiot,” I said. “That’s what she’s doing.”

  We walked our horses over to where Mickey stood, her face all red and angry.

  “I want my horse back,” she yelled at Jess.

  “I know you do,” Jess shrugged. “Talk to my father. It’s not my call.”

  “I’m not talking to your father, now just give him back to me,” she cried.

  I stopped Bluebird next to Willow, whose ears were flicking back and forth nervously. She knew her rider was getting upset and she didn’t like it one bit.

  “Mickey,” I said gently. “What are you doing?”

  “She can’t keep him,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “He’s mine.”

  “But I thought we settled this?” I said.

  “Settled?” she glared at me. “Would you be happy to just sit back and watch someone else ride Bluebird for six months? Would you? You didn’t even like it when I rode him for one day so don’t pretend you would because I know it’s a lie.”

  She was right, of course. But then again I wouldn’t have gone around telling everyone that I hated horses and was giving up riding for good. I knew how much it sucked when your parents got to make all the decisions, especially where money was concerned. But I also knew that
Mickey had made it a lot easier for them to just give her horse away.

  “Let’s finish the ride,” I told her. “We can talk about it back at the barn.”

  “No,” she said. “I want to talk about it now.”

  I looked helplessly at Jess on Hampton. He was standing there patiently while the other Fox Run riders looked at Mickey like she was crazy.

  “Just let us pass,” Jess sighed.

  “No,” she yelled.

  It was hopeless and I felt completely helpless. I’d known that things were going to blow up at the hunter pace when Mickey saw Jess on Hampton but I didn’t know things were going to get this bad.

  “What should we do?” Ethan asked as I backed away from Mickey.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But whatever happens, I don’t think Faith should be involved in this.”

  He looked at his little sister, sitting on the black pony with wet pink ribbons in her mane and nodded.

  “Agreed,” he said.

  “Go on and finish the ride,” I told him. “Tell Esther what is happening. She’ll know what to do.”

  “Alright,” he said. “But are you sure you are going to be okay dealing with her yourself?”

  “There is not much to deal with,” I said. “I can’t exactly pull her off her horse and make her stop being an idiot.”

  “Well, do your best,” he shrugged.

  He picked up his reins and beckoned to Faith. She followed him out of the field and away from the train wreck that was going down right in front of me.

  “This is ridiculous,” Jess said. “Let’s just go.”

  She nudged Hampton and he started to wade through the water but Mickey kicked Willow and charged right at her.

  “What are you doing?” I screamed at her. “Stop it.”

  Hampton backed out of the water, his eyes wide and frightened but Mickey didn’t even seem to care that she was scaring the horse she claimed to love so much.

  “Whose side are you on anyway?” she yelled at me.

  “Right now?” I said. “I’m with Jess. She’s right. Talk to her father. He was the one who pushed her into getting Hampton in the first place.”