WINTER WONDERLAND: CHAPTER ONE
“You forgot to put his bell boots on. Again,” Jess snapped.
“I’m sorry,” I said as she snatched Hashtag’s lead rope out of my hands. “I could have sworn that I put them on him.”
“That’s what you said last time,” she said.
“And I did, remember? We found them in the mud. He’s really good at taking things off.”
“Well he’s certainly a lot better at it than you are at putting things on.”
She stormed off down the aisle, dragging her horse behind her. I bit back the anger I felt welling up inside me and tried to forget it. Lately everything had been making me mad and I didn’t know why. I did know that when I agreed to move to Fox Run to live with my father, I hadn’t expected to become the barns general dog body and the person who had to do everything that no one else wanted to do.
“You don’t mind, do you?” my father said as I stood there with my suitcases and several cardboard boxes that contained all my belongings. “If you help out around the barn then it means that Bluebird can stay here for free, just like you did at Sand Hill.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
My father was the top trainer. I’d sort of assumed that he would get free stalls or at least a discount on one and that he would pay the rest. After all, he hadn’t paid towards anything for the last nine years of my life. I was sort of hoping that he’d make up for lost time. And Bluebird wasn’t even being treated like the rest of the Fox Run horses. He was living in a sand lot behind our tiny cottage with only a lean to for shelter and once a week, when the barn was closed, I was allowed to put him out in one of the grass fields.
“I don’t own the barn,” my father had shrugged when I questioned him about it. “I don’t make the rules.”
But I didn’t have a choice because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. My parents spent the week after Thanksgiving yelling at one another. It was so bad that I thought someone would call the cops but they never showed up and in the end I was the one who was allowed to decide. I chose my father, not because I loved him more, since I wasn’t even sure if I loved him at all but because it would be better for my career. I tried to explain that to my mother but she wouldn’t listen. She spent days locked in her room crying and then she came out and started packing like nothing had ever happened. Only she refused to talk to me. She didn’t even say goodbye. I had betrayed her in the worst way and I knew that but I didn’t want to move to Wisconsin any more than she wanted to stay in Florida. It was an impossible situation.
“Hey!” Mickey hung in the doorway while I was in the feed room filling the grain bins. “Want to go for a ride?”
“I can’t,” I said. “I have a million things to do.”
“You’re no fun,” she said, looking sulky. “I thought you came here to ride?”
“So did I.” I threw the plastic scoop into the bin and missed. It skittered across the floor.
“So forget about all these stupid chores. They’ll still be here when you get back.”
“But I could get in trouble.”
“Since when did you get so worried about obeying the rules?”
“Since my pony and I could get kicked out into the street if I don’t.”
“This is so dumb,” Mickey said. “Why doesn’t your father just pay for a stall and then you could be a boarder like everyone else? What is the point of being the daughter of the top trainer if there aren’t any perks?”
“I don’t know and keep your voice down.”
No one at Fox Run knew that Rob was my father and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as I could. I didn’t need the stares or awkward questions that I would be inundated with if people knew. Everyone thought it was kind of weird that I’d moved in with Dad and Missy but they just thought that they’d taken me in as a favor or something. They had no idea what was really going on, until now.
I heard a snicker and dashed out into the barn aisle to see Jess running off, laughing.
“Thanks a lot,” I told Mickey. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve ruined everything.”
Claire Svendsen fell in love with horses at age two when she got her first pony. The only trouble was that it wasn’t a real horse, it was a rocking horse. From that day on she begged, pleaded and bribed for lessons, riding clothes and a horse of her own. She had to wait and work really hard to finally get her first real horse but when she did, it was a dream come true. Over the years she has trained horses, given lessons and even run her own stable.
No longer able to ride due to injury, Claire lives vicariously through the characters in her books. When she’s not busy writing, you’ll find her hanging out at the barn with her retired Thoroughbred Merlin who loves carrots, apples and bowing on command.
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Other books in the Show Jumping Series by Claire Svendsen
#1 Secret Rider
#2 Pony Jumpers
#3 Winter Blues
#4 Star Pupil
#5 Sale Horse
#6 Last Chance
#7 Hunter Pace
#8 Turf Wars
#9 Beach Ride
#10 White Horses
#11 Trick Pony
#12 Off Course
(COMING SOON) #13 Winter Wonderland
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
COMING SOON:
WINTER WONDERLAND: CHAPTER ONE
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