Lead Change (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 29) by Svendsen Claire

Author:Svendsen, Claire [Svendsen, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2016-04-30T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY

In the end it was Jess who forced me up into the saddle. Her glares and the smirk that she had on her face. She thought I was weak. That I was a baby. Well I wasn’t about to let her think that. She could think everything else horrible about me but I couldn’t live with myself if I let her see that I’d lost my nerve, my edge, the only thing I had going for me. I swung up into the saddle and Bluebird gave a soft sigh like he’d been waiting for this moment forever.

“Join the group,” Duncan said with a small smile. “Working walk please.”

I tucked my pony in behind Jess and her chestnut. The mare walked with a sort of swing and Jess sat tall and stiff. I knew that if I could see her face, it wouldn’t be happy. She’d wanted me to fail but that desire was what had helped me in the end. But just because I was up in the saddle, walking my pony around, didn’t mean that I wasn’t trembling with fear inside. And if Duncan asked us to jump? I wasn’t sure I’d be able to.

But Duncan seemed to know that I needed to be treated with kid gloves and the rest of the group were so sloppy on the flat that it almost didn’t even seem like he was doing it for me when he announced that we wouldn’t be jumping that morning.

“This is because of her, isn’t it,” Jess said, glaring at me. “Because she lost her nerve.”

“It’s because none of you can sit the trot for more than two strides,” he said. “And flatwork is the foundation for everything that happens on course. We’ll be jumping this afternoon so you’ll have a chance to fall off then.”

Andy snickered and Jess turned red. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d been the one falling flat on her face at a show. But then again she hadn’t harmed a horse. I was the one who’d done that. I felt my own face grow red and concentrated on the buckle of my reins. I couldn’t look at the others. They probably knew more about the accident than I did.

Duncan had said bad things happened but you just had to pick yourself up and dust yourself off. But I knew that there was another option and it was giving up. Deciding not to ride or compete or have horses in my life and I knew now, as Bluebird turned his head and nudged my boot with his nose, that I could never do that. I’d have to take the heartache with the glory and maybe it would all even out in the end.

“And let's have a working trot now,” Duncan called out. “Sitting please and no bouncing.”

I closed my legs around my pony’s sides and as he started to trot, I couldn’t help but smile.

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