Hunter Derby: (Show Circuit Series -- Book 3) (2 page)

As much as Zoe liked Linda and didn’t want her to be in pain, if Linda’s back improved and she could ride again, Zoe would be out of a job. Maybe by then she’d be done with her community service and would have found a job riding and showing again for a big barn.

But for now, the few hundred dollars she made just barely paid the rent on her shitty furnished studio apartment, her gas, and her meals. Plus, riding at Morada Bay was the only thing that still connected her to the show circuit.

“I saw this guy riding today at the farm across from Narrow Lane,” Zoe said to Linda.

“John Bradstreet.”

“I guess.” Zoe felt a wave of disappointment at not even vaguely recognizing the name. “Who is he?”

“Has a small sales business. Importing horses and making them up. He takes them to some of the shows around here.”

“Hunters or jumpers?”

“A little bit of both. He rides well but he’s never really done anything big, you know? He rode around here as a junior.”

The automatic fly spray system went on overhead, releasing a fine mist of organic repellent.

“I’m surprised I’ve never heard of him,” Zoe said.

Linda gave a moderated shrug—a result of her injury. She also sported a back brace. “Kind of keeps a low profile.”

Zoe turned from the whiteboard. “Gay?” It was the next obligatory question when talking about a rider with XY chromosomes.

“No.”

“With someone?”

“No, single, as far as I know. Kinda cute too.”

Usually Zoe would have been excited that he was cute but right now she cared more about what his horses were like.

“Nice guy,” Linda continued. “Too young for me. He’s probably about your age . . . maybe a few years older.”

“What do you need a guy for?” Zoe said. “You’ve got Eamon.”

Right before she had injured her back, actually the night Hannah had gone crazy and messed around with McNair Sutter, torching her relationship with Chris Kern possibly forever, Linda had hooked up with an Irish guy. Eamon was one of the nice ones. A one-night stand between Linda and Eamon had surprisingly turned into a relationship. Eamon worked for a grand prix rider in New Jersey, and so far things between him and Linda were going well.

“I know, I keep forgetting I’m actually in a functioning relationship.” Linda gave a wry shake of her head. “It’s nearly amazing.”

“You deserve it,” Zoe said.

Linda smiled. “I know. I actually do. After all the losers I dated over the years, I deserve to date the nice guy.”

“Don’t even talk to me about dating losers,” Zoe said. “My list is long and I’m younger than you.”

“If it can happen for me, it can happen for you,” Linda said.

“I don’t even care about guys right now. I just need to put my head down and get my life back on track.”

“You’ll get there,” Linda said. “I know you will.”

Linda went into the office to place orders for grain and schedule the farrier and Zoe got on her first horse. She knew Hannah loved Midway—that second to Logan he had been her favorite and she could see why. He was the horse equivalent of that nice guy Zoe should be dating and Linda was.

Midway framed up naturally. He went in a simple loose ring and Zoe always had a perfect light connection between her hands and his mouth. He never pulled or lugged. He was supple in both directions and responsive to her leg. He was so easy that the problem was Zoe would ride him for ten minutes and then feel like there was nothing left to do.

With a harder horse, Zoe would get lost in trying to fix a shoulder that was popping out or a stiff side, and the time would fly by. Forty minutes later, she’d finally come to a walk, both she and the horse huffing but having accomplished some improvement. There was nothing to improve on Midway. But he needed to stay fit so to keep things from getting boring she counter-cantered him in both directions and cantered over rails on the ground.

After she was done with Midway, she traded him to a groom for Logan. Logan wasn’t as easy as Midway but he was a hundred million times better than he used to be. It was really a miracle how far he’d come from the horse he’d been when Hannah had first gotten him. He still needed a reminder to listen to her aids so Zoe spent her time lengthening and shortening his stride. When she got off, she snapped a picture of Logan and snapchatted it to Hannah. He was reaching out to touch her phone with his nose so it was a pretty funny shot.

When you miss your first mom
, she wrote.

Dakota arrived at the barn, ferried by her newest nanny, Angelique. Zoe rode her last horse at the same time as Dakota rode Dudley. Dakota seemed to have sprouted up a few inches since Florida, if that was even possible. It was hard to believe that not that long ago she’d been riding ponies. Now, she was fully a junior rider. Whereas at first she’d looked slightly small on Dudley, she fit all 16.2 hands of him perfectly now. If she grew much more, she might have to get a bigger eq horse. Her blonde hair was in a thick braid down her back, sticking out of her Samshield helmet.

It was fun to have someone else in the ring. When they were both done flatting, Zoe came to walk next to her so they could chit-chat. As she asked Dakota about school and life, Zoe’s phone buzzed. It was a reply coming in from Hannah.

Was in class,
Hannah wrote back.
I miss that sweet boy too.

Dakota’s here,
Zoe replied with one hand and the other on the buckle of the reins.

Tell her I say hi.

“Hannah says hi,” Zoe said.

“Tell her to come back to work for us,” Dakota said. Then she shook her head. “No, don’t say that. I don’t want her to feel bad. She should be at school, don’t you think?”

Zoe stuck her phone back in her pocket. “Yeah, she should. It’s what she needs to do.”

Zoe liked thinking of Hannah at school. Even though Zoe missed her, it was nice to know that other people had to do things they didn’t exactly want to do. Hannah wanted to be with Chris but for right now that wasn’t possible. She needed to be a normal college girl and figure out her life without him. She and Zoe had talked about how they both could use a break from guys.

Zoe definitely needed a break from guys—she’d been involved on some level pretty much straight since she was fourteen. The last guy she’d slept with was Morgan Cleary and that was a few weeks ago, which was pretty epic in terms of a hiatus for her. But she wondered if what Hannah actually needed was to be with
other
guys, not to take a break from guys completely. Chris had been her first boyfriend, her first time.

“Do you think she and Chris will ever get back together?” Dakota asked.

“I don’t know. But if they ever do, I don’t think it’ll be for a while. She hurt him pretty badly.”

“I liked them together,” Dakota said.

“Me too.”

They headed out the gate of the ring and back to the barn. Two grooms stood ready. One to take Dudley and the other had Sonny ready for Dakota. It was unspoken that Zoe would put Plato in his stall herself.

Linda shuffled out of the barn, looking nearly geriatric. She pulled her sunglasses off her head down onto her face. “Can you come back into the ring after you get him put away?” she asked Zoe. “I can’t really move the jumps.”

“I’ll be your jump crew,” Zoe said happily. She’d do anything to pitch in at Morada Bay. Zoe had taken to hanging around on the days that she didn’t have to call her counselor. She was a horse person through and through—the place she felt most comfortable was the barn. She loved the way she felt at Morada Bay, the person she was there, and would stay as long each day as Linda wanted.

CHAPTER THREE

“Me?” Zoe said, although there was no one else around and it was clear that Kirsten was talking to her. “You want me to get on him?”

“Yes, that’s what I said.” Kirsten scratched the side of her head. She wore her hair in a French braid, and had on baggy cargo shorts and hiking boots. She didn’t look like the horse people Zoe was used to. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

There had been no actual job description that came along with her agreement to volunteer at Narrow Lane. Maybe riding was an improvement over doing stalls but it didn’t quite feel like it given the quality of the horses.

“No, I guess not,” Zoe said. What choice did she have? She felt like she understood slightly better what it might be like for inmates forced to make license plates or what have you.

Kirsten pointed to the tack room. “His tack is labeled.”

Each horse had a labeled bridle, saddle, and clean saddle pad. Zoe had to give them points for organization. She grabbed the bridle marked
Pepper
off the hook and went to find the saddle. She saw it and shuddered.

Bucket seat, huge pommel, long dressage-like flaps. Was it even leather?

It didn’t look anything close to the six-thousand-dollar custom calfskin leather of the saddles she was used to. Maybe it was plastic or pleather. She looked closer to see the brand inscribed on the little grommet—Wintec.

She found Kirsten back in the barn. “Um, can I use my saddle? I have it in my car.”

“No, the horses have to go in the saddles they’re ridden in for lessons,” Kirsten said curtly, leaving no room for negotiation.

Zoe slunk back into the tack room and heaved the heavy Wintec monstrosity off the rack. Using this saddle was like an NBA player forced to wear a pair of Payless sneakers for tip-off.

She brought Pepper in from the paddock and put him on the cross-ties. Of course he was caked in dirt, clumps of it matting his coat, and Narrow Lane didn’t have a vacuum. Zoe did her best, currying and brushing, sending clouds of dust into the air and up her nostrils. By the time she was done, she was coated in a layer of grime. Pepper looked only marginally better. The only thing that could actually get him clean was a bath. Even a vacuum’s power would have had its limits.

She put on the tack, including the saddle. It took extra might to hoist it onto his back and the long flap hit her in the eye. She couldn’t believe she was going to actually put her ass into that thing.

She led the Crappy Appy by the rubber rainbow reins into the indoor. There was no outdoor ring at Narrow Lane. Zoe assumed it was easier for the kids to hang on inside without rustling leaves or birds in the trees spooking the horses.

The only mounting block was the wheelchair ramp. Zoe led Pepper up to it and hopped on. It was amazing what a bad saddle and school-horse-type could do. Just like that she no longer felt like Zoe Tramell, former star junior rider. She felt like a backyard rider who could barely post.

Kirsten appeared. Zoe thought she saw her trying to disguise a small smile. Maybe the horse didn’t even need to be ridden; Kirsten just wanted to see Zoe suffer. Zoe let the stirrups down a few holes, which was a chore since the leathers were stiff. She squeezed Pepper into a walk and headed out to the rail.

“What do you want me to do with him?” she called to Kirsten.

“Just make him go forward and listen to your aids. Lots of transitions. Sometimes he can be a bit of a bully and I like to remind him who’s boss.”

“Do you usually ride him?” She was trying to feel out why she had been granted this opportunity.

“Sometimes,” Kirsten said cryptically.

Zoe had to post enormously high to even get her butt out of the bucket seat of the saddle. Pepper’s stride was short and choppy. After the horses she had spent her whole life riding, he felt like a donkey. Of course he was stiff and didn’t even know what a frame was.

She tried to ignore how awful the whole thing felt and just go about her business. She rode transitions and pushed him forward and kept him straight. At the canter, she felt like she had fallen into a couch—only it was an extremely uncomfortable couch. She tried getting up in half-seat but the pommel kept ramming her in the crotch.

Pepper’s canter was barely a canter; it felt like he was trotting behind but maybe that was a net positive for his job. After a while, it didn’t exactly feel good but it felt better. Zoe got used to having no frame and no suppleness and she actually took a little slice of pleasure in getting Pepper to respond to her aids and demonstrate crisp transitions. Kirsten watched for a while, told her to concentrate on the walk and trot, disappeared again, then returned and told Zoe to take Pepper out on the Sensory Trail.

Zoe swiveled her head to look at her. “The what now?”

“The sensory trail. It’s outside next to the driveway. It’s marked—you’ll see it. Just take her through it once or twice.”

Kirsten opened the sliding door and Zoe rode Pepper out into the bright sunshine. Zoe sat back in the couch of a saddle, feeling like she was riding Western on a trail ride. She found the sign.
Narrow Lane Sensory Trail, donated by the Miller Family Foundation.

It was a wide, groomed path through some trees with various stops along the way for activities, kind of like one of those exercise trails with stations to do pull-ups or sit-ups. Only instead there was a basketball hoop to throw a ball into, a mailbox to open, fake owls perched on trees that Zoe couldn’t figure out what the hell they were there for, and a tree house with laminated photographs of all the horses in the barn. That one stumped her too. She stood for a few moments and looked at the hodge-podge of breeds and sizes.

Zoe wondered what horses like Pepper thought of their jobs. Did they mind carting around these kids? Most of the horses had probably been donated. This was a second chance for them. Maybe Zoe had more in common with horses like Pepper than she wanted to think about. They were all on the second stage of their career, just trying to fit in and make it work. She leaned down and begrudgingly gave the Appy a pat.

She knew some hunters and jumpers that hadn’t made it for whatever reason and their owners had donated them, taking the tax-break as a kind of consolation prize and trying not to cry over the tens of thousands they’d spent going straight down the shitter. But most of those horses were donated to colleges for their riding programs. It took a special kind of attitude to be a therapeutic horse. Pepper might be the worst horse she had ever ridden but in this world he was probably one of a kind.