Dream On (Dare to Dream Book 2), page 14
Five strides away, Maggie made her decision, and although Marley urged her on, the pony slammed on the brakes yet again. Marley gripped tight, grabbing a fistful of mane to prevent herself being flung over Maggie’s head.
“Come on pony,” she said quietly. “I know you can do this.” She ran a hand down Maggie’s sweaty neck, speaking quietly to her. “Nothing bad is going to happen, I promise.”
Maggie didn’t believe her. She spooked at the wall and startled at a horse cantering past in the next ring, and Marley knew that she wasn’t going to make it around the whole course with Maggie in this mood. What’s more, she wasn’t sure that she should even be asking for it.
“Okay, let’s go back to baby steps. Jump this fence once and we’ll call it a day. Just one jump, that’s all I need,” she promised the mare.
Cantering back towards the jump, Marley committed absolute focus to the obstacle in front of her. She refused to think about the rest of the course, pushing everything else to the back of her mind. She closed her legs and clicked her tongue, and Maggie had a sudden change of heart. She cleared the jump by miles, leaving the ground half a stride early and kicking up her heels so high that Marley lost a stirrup on landing. She managed to sit up and steady the hot mare, directing her past fence two and bringing her back to a slow canter and then to a trot. Patting the pony as she passed the judge’s truck, she nodded to them, touching the peak of her helmet to indicate that she was retiring from the class.
Kris met her at the gate with a curious expression. “Had enough?”
“I promised her that if she jumped the first jump, I wouldn’t ask her to keep going,” Marley explained. “And she did, so I didn’t.” She dismounted and ran up the stirrups, giving Maggie a firm rub on the neck.
“Hmm. Do you think she learned anything from that?” Kris asked.
“I don’t know,” Marley said honestly. “But it felt like the right thing to do. She jumps from fear, Kris, not from joy. I guess I just want her to realise that she’s not going to be brutalised or blamed if she doesn’t want to do it, and then maybe she will start to want to.” The logic sounded fuzzy, even to her own ears, so Marley offered up the best explanation she could give. “It just felt right, that’s all.”
Kris shrugged. “Well, it’s done now. I guess you’ll find out next time you take her into the ring if it worked. You’d better hurry up and get on Gigi, she’s only eight away.”
Van was leaning on the white rail fence, watching as Lynda cantered Normandy down to the first fence in the 1.45m class, when someone stopped next to her.
“Not riding in this one?”
The American accent was unmistakeable, and Van turned her head to look at him. Leopold was resting one hand on the rail and looking at her intently.
“My horses aren’t really up to this height,” she admitted.
He raised an eyebrow. “Your black horse didn’t seem to have too many problems yesterday,” he pointed out.
“That was a fluke,” she told him. “And it was an effort for him. He’s not really built to jump courses as big and technical as this.”
He nodded, a trace of a smile showing on his face. “Fair enough. Leo Valdes,” he introduced himself, holding out a hand to her.
She shook it firmly. “Van Carmichael.”
They stood watching Lynda as she cantered down to a big oxer, found a long spot, and grabbed a fistful of mane as Normandy cleared it anyway.
“That’s a good horse,” Leo commented. “Lynda tells me she bought her from you.” Van nodded, and he gave her an appraising look. “Should’ve kept her, sold the black one.”
“I wish,” Van replied. “We didn’t sell Normandy by choice. It was one of those head over heart decisions,” she explained, wondering if he had the slightest idea what it was like to have to sell the things you love in order to survive. Probably not. He was probably born into money, with a silver knife in his mouth or however the saying went.
“Well, it’s a shame. I see it a lot back home as well. Talented riders without enough horsepower, and average riders with more horsepower than they know what to do with.”
“Story of my life.”
“Excuse me, Van?”
They both turned to see a teenage girl with a tear-stained face standing behind her, holding the reins of a pretty dappled grey mare as her mother hovered nearby.
“Hi Molly. Has she been playing up again?”
Molly sniffled and nodded. “She jumped fine yesterday, but today she won’t even go in the warm-up arena.”
Van raised her eyebrows, remembering that the mare had finished with sixteen faults yesterday, but she didn’t bother to argue with her owner’s interpretation of that as ‘fine’. By her standards, that probably was fine - at least she’d gone over the jumps instead of through them.
Molly’s mother had bustled up behind them, and took over the explanation. “She’s entered in the metre-ten, and Molly wondered if you’d take Destiny round for her. Just to make sure she gets her head back in the game, and we know you’re always up for a challenge.”
Twenty minutes later, Van trotted the grey mare into the ring and waited for her bell. Destiny’s neck was arched and her tail kinked up as she trotted across the raked surface, spooked at the volunteer that was replacing a fallen rail, then before Van was quite ready for it, rocked back onto her hind legs and reared. Van clung tightly, determined not to fall off, and waited for her to come back down onto all fours. Once she did, Van immediately turned the horse so that she was too unbalanced to rear again, and set her off at a canter as the bell rang to start her round.
Despite her bad behaviour, Destiny was a clever jumper and took the fences in her stride. Cantering back past the in-gate took all of Van’s concentration, as the horse wanted to nap and rear again, but Van drove her forward firmly, and although she took a rail at the triple bar, she completed the course with no further faults.
Leo was standing by the rail, watching her as she rode the mare back to her owners and dismounted. Molly flung her arms around Destiny’s neck and praised her for her excellent jumping, then led her away as Van removed her helmet and wiped her sweaty forehead.
“Thank you so much for that,” her mother gushed. “It gives Molly such confidence to see her horse going well, it’s what keeps her persevering when things go wrong. Maybe we could send the horse to you for a few weeks, and you could get her going?” She sounded hopeful, and Van hesitated for a moment, thinking of the money that would surely bring in, but her better judgement overtook her.
“I could, but I don’t think I can fix her. Not the way you want her fixed. She’s learned to rear and she’s good at it, and I couldn’t let you pay me money to try and school it out of her because I don’t think I could.”
Molly’s mother looked shocked. “But she goes so well for you. She looked wonderful out there, once you got her going. Molly just needs to get her confidence back.” She sounded so determined to convince herself that Van felt sorry for her, but it didn’t stop her from saying what needed to be said.
“Molly needs to stop before she gets hurt. I’ve ridden a lot of problem horses, so I know how to stop Destiny before she gets started, most of the time. And I’m not scared of her. I would be if I had any sense, because she goes high enough to topple over on me if she misjudges it even slightly, but I’m too stupid to be scared of horses. Sensible people wouldn’t get back on that. If you keep bringing her to shows, I’ll keep jumping her for you, but I wouldn’t feel right about taking your money on the basis that I could train her out of it completely. You’d be better off retiring her to the broodmare paddock and buying something that’s safe for Molly to ride.”
The woman looked anxiously after her daughter, started to say something, then pursed her lips and glared at Van before scurrying away. With a sigh, Van turned around to see Leo walking up to her.
“I hope you got a good tip for that,” he said. Van held out her empty hands, palms up, and he shook his head in disgust. “You’d make money hand over fist in the States, catch-riding like that.”
“Sign me up!” she grinned, and he quirked an eyebrow thoughtfully.
“I could, if you wanted. I’ve got a big batch of youngsters coming over from Europe at the end of April, and I’m always looking for good riders to help with breaking and schooling. We’re based in Florida but we travel around the country to the top shows, chasing the big money classes. It’s long hours and hard work, but I’d take a chance on you. You don’t look to me like you’re afraid of hard work.”
“Hard work and I go way back,” Van assured him as he dug a business card out of his pocket and gave it to her.
“Give me a call in the new year and let me know what you decide.”
Van nodded, taking the small slip of card from him and holding it disbelievingly between finger and thumb. As Leo turned to walk away, a question suddenly occurred to her.
“How long would it be for?”
Leo looked over his shoulder with a smile. “If you can ride my horses like you rode that grey, you can stay as long as you want.”
Kris was exhausted as she pulled the truck into their driveway, relieved to finally be home. Immediately her eyes travelled across the yard, scanning for anything untoward or out of place, but all was well. The chickens were penned up, the horses were grazing peacefully in their paddocks, and the dogs bounding out to greet them looked happy and well-fed. Kris switched the engine off and leaned back against the seat as Van jumped out of the cab, greeting the dogs and banging on the side door as she walked past it.
“Marley, wake up! We’re home.”
She was letting the ramp down as Seamus came down from the house to greet them. Marley flung the side door open and almost hit him in the head.
“Watch it now, Marshmallow!” he said with a grin as he grabbed her arm and pulled her to the ground. “You trying to decapitate me?”
“Sorry!” Marley said quickly as she followed Van to the back of the truck. Gigi was already stamping impatiently, ready to go back to her paddock.
“All right all right, keep your hair on,” Marley told the mare as Seamus walked around the other side of the truck, looking for Kris. He saw her slowly climbing out of the cab, and looked concerned.
“You all right?”
Kris looked up and smiled, trying to hide her discomfort as her feet hit the ground and the pain reverberated up her spine. “Fine.”
“Sure you are,” Seamus replied disbelievingly, but he didn’t press the issue. “How was your show?”
“Not bad. How were things here?”
“Oh, grand. All alive and well.” As he spoke, Tucker came bounding around the corner to greet Kris, wagging his thick tail enthusiastically. She leaned down to pat him, wincing slightly as she did, and Tucker decided to help her out by standing on his hind legs and putting his front paws on her shoulder, trying to lick her face.
“Get down, you worthless lump,” Seamus told him as Kris cringed at the dog’s weight. Tucker immediately dropped back onto four paws and came to sit recalcitrantly at Seamus’s feet. Kris looked at him in amusement, pleased to see that he’d accepted Seamus so readily.
“Well, I’ll leave these two to unpack,” she said. “I’m going for a shower, and then I guess I’ll get the dinner started.”
Seamus said nothing, just nodded briefly and went to help Van unload the horses. Kris walked slowly up the path to the house, trying not to let it show how sore her back was. She’d strained it on the first day, carrying heavy water buckets to the yards, and it had been playing her up ever since. The hard mattresses in the truck hadn’t helped, and she’d barely slept all show. She couldn’t wait to get in the shower, turn the water up as hot as it would go and let it scorch her aching muscles for a few minutes – at least until guilt over the incoming power bill would force her to turn it off. And then later, when the dinner had been cooked and cleared away, and the animals had all been fed and the truck was unpacked, she could go to bed, and then she could sleep.
It sounded like bliss, but it was a long way off yet. Kermit greeted her from his self-nominated guard post at the front door, and she gave his head a rub as she walked into the house, then stopped in her tracks. The hallway had been swept, the pile of shoes had been haphazardly shoved into one corner, and most overwhelmingly, the smell of fresh bread and cooked meat filled the house. Kris walked down to the kitchen in a daze, and found a pot of stew simmering contentedly on the stove. A loaf of warm bread sat on the table, and she was still staring at it when she heard footsteps, and turned to see Seamus walking into the room.
“Surprise,” he grinned. “I thought you might be done in after your trip, so I got the meal started. Hopefully it’s not burned to the bottom of the pot,” he added with a frown, and went to stir the stew as Kris sank slowly into a chair. “Ah, it’s fine. Have some bread, it’s best when it’s still warm. Tea?”
The whole situation overwhelmed her, and Kris just nodded mutely. She sat silently as Seamus brewed a mug of tea, chopped the heel off the loaf of bread and slathered butter on it, then handed both to her.
She looked up at him. “Thank you. This is…amazing.”
“Ah, it’s the least I could do. And I haven’t tried the bread yet,” he warned her. “It might be vile.”
Kris bit into it, crunching through the thick crust and into the warm bread. “It’s good,” she told him, thinking that it was the best bread she’d eaten in years.
“You keep an eye on the stew for us all then, while I go finish feeding out. Just give it a stir every now and again. It should be ready in about a half hour.”
Kris nodded, and he smiled again before leaving the room. After a moment, she got to her feet and walked to the cabinet, where she fished out some painkillers. She swallowed them down with a gulp of hot tea, then looked up at the photo of Dad, smiling approvingly down at her. After a moment, she smiled back.
* * *
Van rested the grey mare’s hoof against her thigh and scrutinised it carefully before beginning to pare away at the bars with her hoof knife. Seamus was leaning on the wall opposite, pretending to be reading text messages on his phone, but watching her like a hawk as she trimmed Effie’s hooves.
“Aye, that’s the way. Just a touch more, then tidy up with the rasp and leave her be.”
Van followed his instructions, then set Effie’s leg down and straightened up. “It’s looking better.”
“Making good progress, to be sure,” Seamus agreed. “The front feet will take a while longer to come right though.” He put his hands in his pockets and watched as Van ran her hand down Effie’s other hind leg, clicking her tongue to encourage the mare to lift her foot. Effie raised it willingly, then as Van settled the hoof against her leg, sighed deeply and leaned her weight onto her.
“Oof,” Van muttered. “Stand on your own legs woman, I’m not here to hold you up.”
Seamus chuckled. “It’s a job for suckers, this,” he told her. “Not the career path to be following if you still want to be able to walk by the time you’re fifty.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Van gave up trying to get Effie to take more of her weight onto her other hind leg, and started working with what she had. “I’m definitely starting to reconsider my options.”
“So I’ve heard,” Seamus said. “Off to Florida, is it?”
“Maybe,” Van said cagily.
Seamus raised an eyebrow. “Maybe? What’d be holding you back? Sounds like a grand offer to me.”
“The airfare, for starters,” Van said as beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. “Then there’s everything here. My horses, my sisters. Mike. It’s a lot to leave behind.”
Seamus said nothing, and Van pocketed the hoof knife and lifted her rasp.
“It’s a lot to give away as well,” Seamus said, and Van glanced at him as she rasped the edges of the outer hoof wall, giving it a slightly bevelled edge. He shrugged, and she refocused her attention on the hoof, finishing it off and giving it back to Effie, who seemed slightly disappointed that her leaning post had deserted her.
Van straightened up, ignoring the ache in her lower back, and leaned an elbow on Effie’s broad rump. “What would you do, in my situation?”
“You’re asking the one that’s currently living on the opposite side of the world from his own family,” Seamus reminded her. “You know what my answer’s going to be. Your horses will be fine, your sisters can take care of each other, and Mike will either wait for you or he won’t. Don’t set limits on yourself where they don’t exist. Where there’s a will, there’s always a way.”
Van nodded, hefting the rasp in her hand. “It would be an amazing opportunity.”
“Is it likely to be offered you again, any time soon?” Seamus asked, and Van barely had to think before shaking her head. “There you go then,” he asserted. “Go. You won’t regret it, even if it’s not as rose-tinted as you hope. You’ll always learn something, in any new situation.”
“Even if it’s how not to do things.”
“Exactly.”
Van untied Effie and led her back to her paddock, her mind swirling with possibilities. She brought Covergirl into the barn and started pulling her worn shoes as Seamus readied a new set on the anvil. When his hammering eased, Van set down Covergirl’s now bare hoof and tossed the old shoe into a bucket.
“Have you ever regretted it?”
Seamus looked up, taking a moment to work out what she meant before responding. “Coming here?”
“Leaving your family behind.”
He shrugged. “My family wasn’t so hard to leave, trust me.”
“Oh.” Van moved on to a hind foot, wondering about that. “They got sick of you, huh?”
“Something like that,” he replied, hammering firmly at the shoe on his anvil. “Let’s just call it a difference of opinion about the way I choose to live my life.”
