Show Barn Blues Read online

  “That’s for sure.” I sighed. “Niches aren’t doing it anymore. I have to try to appeal to everyone now.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Anna said reassuringly. She smiled and cocked her head a little, like a mother with a frustrated child. “You run the perfect barn.”

  I nodded slowly. I did run the perfect barn… for my preferred group of well-heeled adult amateurs. Could I keep it perfect for everyone? Might as well give it a try. “Anything else you want to talk about?”

  “Oh, nothing.” She stood up. “I should get to bed, like you said. It’s getting late.”

  I watched her pull her damp hair back into a pony-tail. “Are you sure? You said you had a few things. I’m here to listen.”

  “It’s just…” she paused. “It was about the trail thing, with the boarder’s horses, not the trail horses. I was wondering why you were so against trail-riding, if something had happened. But I see now, it’s just logic.”

  “It’s mostly logic.” I pointed to the bookshelf beside the door. “But how I got the knowledge to make that call, well… you see that little picture there?”

  Anna picked up a little brass frame from the shelf, where it leaned against several veterinary manuals. She studied the faded picture behind the glass. “Is this you?” she asked finally.

  “That’s me,” I said. “And my pony.”

  “He’s cute. You are, too.” She put the photo down. “What happened to him?”

  I shook my head. “I took him out of his comfort zone.”

  Anna bit her lip, eyes still on the pony in the photo, the girl in pigtails on his back. I was wearing buff jodhpurs, a navy-blue jacket, a thin velvet hunt cap that would have broken right along with my head if I’d gotten dumped. “He got hurt?”

  “He was put down,” I said woodenly, as if the words didn’t still hurt, decades later. “So yes, something did happen. And that’s where the logic came from. That’s how it usually happens, with horses.”

  Anna nodded. “I’m really sorry. I lost my first pony, too… colic. It was a long time ago, but… you know… I loved him. I know where you’re coming from.”

  “It was a long time ago.” I got up from my chair, pushing it back. “Like the alarm clock this morning. Let’s go to bed.”

  We walked through the barn for one final night-check together, quiet, thinking of all the horses we’d ever known. “Goodnight, kids,” I called as I flipped out the light, as I did every night, as I had since I was a little girl, and I let darkness fall on the quiet, content barn.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  No one minds their own business in a boarding stable.

  Colleen was the first to ask. “Are you going to tell Kennedy to leave?” she asked one afternoon a few days after the Maxine incident, slamming into my office without warning.

  I’d been filling out show entries, and forms were scattered across the desk. I dropped the ballpoint pen and massaged my aching right hand. Arthritis made every equestrian’s life so much harder. “Hello, Colleen,” I said pointedly.

  “Hi,” she replied breezily, unrepentant. “So are you?”

  I hadn’t decided yet, but whether or not I kicked out a boarder was certainly none of Colleen’s business. “There’s nothing in the boarding contract saying the trails are off-limits, or that boarders have to take lessons and join the show team,” I said carefully. Yet. “She’s caused some ruckus, but technically, she hasn’t broken any rules.” The truth was, I couldn’t decide if I was going to kick out Kennedy or not. Between needing her money, a lack of legal high ground, and my half-hatched group trail riding idea, I might have to let her transgressions slide. I wasn’t about to tell Colleen all that, though.

  Colleen flung herself into the extra chair and heaved a huffy, privileged-girl sigh. I reflected for the tenth time or so how Colleen looked much better in Pikeur breeches than a woman with three children in private school had any right to look. She wasn’t the sort to worry about having more than her fair share of anything, though, looks included. Colleen was entitled, to put it nicely, and more outspoken than my other clients. She was definitely of the opinion that where her money went, her mouth was free to sound off. “So she’s just getting away with this? She nearly got Gayle and Maxine killed. Gayle’s husband is furious, did you know that? I was out with them last night for drinks, and he was all for suing Kennedy for Maxine’s vet bills.”

  “What vet bills? The fifty-dollar trip fee and the twenty-dollar exam? I don’t think that requires small claims court.” Maxine had come back from her adventure in the Florida wilderness without a scratch. The vet exam had taken ten minutes, including flexions. “Let’s not blow this out of proportion, Colleen —”

  “Look, I went out riding with her, I admit it.” Colleen flipped her hair, eighteen-year-old model style. “And look what happened!” She held out her wrist, which was still bound up with an ace bandage. “This could have been much worse. Same thing goes for Bailey. And yes, I should have listened to you in the first place — but don’t you think the problem is her? She lied to us, after all. She told us it was perfectly safe to go trail riding.”

  “Well,” I hedged, trying to think how to reply. I wasn’t going to deny I liked Colleen’s train of thought. I just wasn’t sure it was fair, or true, for that matter. “Nothing in riding is perfectly safe, to be absolutely correct.”

  “Obviously, but —”

  “And like I said, there’s nothing in the contract that prevents any of you from riding anywhere you choose.”

  “So you’re saying you’re letting this go?”

  “I’m saying I don’t have any legal grounds to kick her out,” I admitted. “And even if I didn’t like her taking horses out on the trails, she’s stopped doing it.” No one had gone out on trails in the past three days, Kennedy included. She had shown up within the barn’s official hours, not arriving early or staying late. She was behaving herself, and had once again offered to do anything she could to help me around the farm.

  With Kennedy behaving herself, and the little matter of keeping my stalls filled with paying boarders, what choice did I have but to let her stay? Yesterday, Angelica Martin had announced, through tears, her job transfer to Chicago next month. Now I’d have one more empty stall. “She has every right to contest if I say she has to go,” I told Colleen, thinking of the eighth stall that wasn’t going to bring in a dime next month.

  Colleen shook her head vehemently. “I think you should do it anyway. What’s she going to do, sue you for making her find a new barn? You’d be saving her money. This is the most expensive barn in the county.”

  I grinned. “Are you complaining?”

  Colleen smiled back. “Not a chance. We like it exclusive, Grace. Don’t forget that — we don’t want just anyone here. Keep it classy, okay?”

  I nodded. Quarter Horses probably didn’t fall under Colleen’s definition of classy. “I understand.”

  She pushed off from the chair, sending it sliding back towards the bookshelf. It bumped the fixture gently and I watched the picture of Sailor wobble. “Easy there,” I said gently. “Don’t knock my pony down.”

  Colleen picked up the framed photo and studied it. “He was adorable,” she said approvingly. “You know, I’m thinking of getting a pony for Maddy.”

  “Oh?” Oh?

  “We don’t really have any kids around here, though.”

  “We really don’t. Is that a problem?”

  “I’m on the PTA now,” Colleen said, making the words oh-so-seductive. “A few of the other moms are pretty interested in a riding stable so close to the school. All the other ones are way out in the countryside. No one has time for that kind of commute. Like, Oak Ridge? It’s gorgeous but it’s in the middle of nowhere. This place on the other hand… if you don’t have anything against kids, well then…”

  “How many are we talking here?” My mind was racing ahead, building empires, buying horses, selling them to doting children who needed riding lessons and coachin
g and… Would Rodney’s lesson horses work for this? Or would I need classy Welsh ponies? How big? Maddy was in what… first grade? Second? All I knew was, she was short. I wasn’t very knowledgable about children, but that could change. I was willing to learn, if it meant some cash flow.

  “Maybe five or six? I don’t know… some parents are all talk. But at least three of them are definitely interested. Can you help them out?” Colleen put the photo back down. “And maybe give me a break on a second stall when we find a pony?”

  I nodded. In exchange for three potential students from Citrus Prep? I saw the answers dancing before my eyes. Eight empty stalls — it was suddenly a boon. I could make this work in my favor. I’d accept the six trail horses; some would surely be talented enough to pull double-duty as school horses. I’d find two ponies to get started. This was it. This was the sign I’d been waiting for, telling me to move forward. It was time to pull the trigger and tell Rodney to send me his horses. “I think we could arrange that. You have a pony in mind?”

  Colleen smiled broadly. “You can handle that side of things, can’t you? Nothing over fifteen thousand, though, okay?”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Fifteen thousand?” For a pony, for a kid who had never taken riding lessons? This wasn’t one of the cute mutts from Rodney’s barn, then. This was the real deal.

  “My husband got a promotion and a bonus.” Colleen smiled contentedly, showing off her perfectly bleached white teeth. “He’s getting a new convertible. The boys are getting flying lessons. I’ve decided that Maddy’s getting a pony.”

  “What are you getting?”

  “New Dehners.” Colleen frowned at her perfectly acceptable riding boots, gleaming in the sunlight from the open door. “These are getting so beat up.”

  “Very nice,” I said approvingly. “You can’t go wrong with custom boots.” Not quite so expensive as a car or a pony, but probably the same thing I would have gone for, if a benevolent husband had granted me a wish or two.

  “So a pony, a break on board, and…” Colleen paused in the doorway. “Three strikes and she’s out. I don’t want Kennedy getting any kids into trouble. The PTA isn’t something I take lightly.”

  I nodded. From what I had heard, no one should ever take the PTA of an exclusive private school lightly. “I’ll talk to her.”

  In the few days since the incident with Gayle and Maxine, Kennedy had taken it upon herself to end the trail guide shtick she’d been using on the boarders. She had been showing up late, after the last riding lessons were wrapping up, but not so late as to hit my strict curfew. She rode alone, occasionally dropping her reins and tilting her face skyward as Sailor cantered gently around the arena.

  My six o’clock lesson canceled shortly after Colleen’s impromptu meeting, and I decided to take Hope out for a little hack with the sudden free time. He had sorted out his flying lead changes again, thank goodness, and I was hoping for big things from him at the next jumper show in two weeks. I wanted to get him used to the on-again, off-again nature of a horse show, where he could find himself pulled from the comforts of his stall two or three or four times in a single day, so even though I had already given him a very thorough workout early in the morning, I had Anna pull him out and get him tacked up again.

  I noticed his pissed-off expression while I was leading him out to the mounting block. Ah, I thought, this was evidently going to be a much-needed lesson in tractability and lowered expectations. I mounted up with my fingers tight on the reins, and was ready for him when he tried to put his head down and buck. “Little punk,” I muttered, giving him a solid boot in the ribs. He snorted and leapt forward when the twin pricks of my Prince of Wales spurs caught him in the belly, but his head was up and any thought of bucking was out the window.

  “That’s what I thought,” I told him, and he snorted again and settled down to a prancing walk, looking around at the darkness outside the arena. Fall had settled upon central Florida in earnest, and the sun was gone before dinner-time. I found it rather depressing, but one couldn’t complain about the cooler temperatures accompanying the shorter days. It was only in the sixties tonight, and I had my trusty hoodie on, zipped up to my chin.

  I leaned forward and gave Hope a pat, to let him know there were no hard feelings, and so I nearly tumbled right over his shoulder when he stopped dead, snorting at the horse who had emerged from the shadows at the end of the outdoor arena.

  “For God’s sake…” I righted myself and kicked him forward again. The young horse took a few stiff-legged steps forward, his head high and his ears pricked, staring at the apparition in the little-used arena. “Who’s out there?” I called when we reached the white railing of the ring, but I thought I knew. There was really only one person it could be.

  “It’s me, Kennedy.”

  “Of course it is,” I snapped without thinking. I softened my tone. “Sorry. But hardly anyone ever goes over there, and certainly not at night. Why don’t you turn on the lights?”

  “They use so much energy, and I don’t need them.” Kennedy brought Sailor over to the wooden fencing of the outdoor arena. She was only about twenty feet away, separated from us by two rails and a sweep of groomed St. Augustine sod, but Hope acted as if she was riding the Loch Ness Monster. I sighed.

  “Hang on, I’m going to ride this ninny over to you so that he can see what a fool he is.”

  I maneuvered the snorting, spooking warmblood over to the gate near the barn and walked him through the grass to the outdoor arena. A few nudges with the spurs had him rethinking any decisions to nap back towards the barn door. “You’re a big fat baby,” I told him. “Shame on you.” I heard Kennedy giggle in the shadows.

  “It’s not quite as dark as I thought,” I said as we rode up to her. The bright lights of the covered arena created a black-and-white pattern of shadows on the sand footing, illuminating half the jumps and leaving the others in pools of darkness. “It’s nice of you to think of my electric bill, though.”

  Kennedy walked Sailor up to meet us, and Hope danced in a nervous circle before he suddenly realized it was just another horse, and one he already knew, at that. Then he ducked his head against the bit and chewed, pretending nothing had ever upset him and he wasn’t actually the silliest horse who had ever been born. “That’s your young horse, right?”

  “He’s six,” I said, giving the nitwit a rub on the neck. “Sometimes he thinks he’s two.”

  “Warmbloods take longer,” Kennedy said. “I’ve always found that.”

  “It’s true. But they sure hold up. At least, they do when you’re careful with them, and spend a fortune on joint supplements. I’ve had better luck with warmbloods than Thoroughbreds, in that regard.”

  “I’ve always liked Quarter Horses,” Kennedy replied. We started walking off together, Hope blowing at the long shadows of the fence line, Sailor watching him with something akin to disgust. “My dad said you couldn’t go wrong with a Quarter Horse. His dad bred them, for cows. My granddad.”

  “You come from a ranching family?” Now I could understand her predilection for wandering in the woods instead of working on jumping courses.

  “Way back,” Kennedy said. “But it skips generations. My dad left the farm before I was born, got a job in a factory, did the blue-collar thing workingman thing, became the plant manager, went white-collar I guess. He wore a tie, anyway, stopped drinking with the guys after work, joined the country club. So I grew up in the suburbs, but he drove me out to Gramp’s place for the summers. My uncle had stayed on the ranch, so I rode with his daughters. My cousins. They all barrel raced and did 4-H and all that. I was so jealous. My dad said I was crazy, but when he made enough money, he said I could have riding lessons. When I picked English over Western, my whole family thought I was crazy.” Kennedy laughed. “You woulda thought I’d joined a cult, the way they carried on. Made fun of me in my boots and breeches. My mom thought it was nice, though. My mom always wanted to be a little more fancy than she was.”

>   “So did you show?” I gave Hope another pat for being brave about a shadow he had been regarding suspiciously. I realized that for all the weeks I’d been thinking about Kennedy Phillips, I’d never once asked her anything about her past.

  “Oh yes, all the time. 4-H and state fair and all that. I wanted to do Pony Club, like the kids in the books I read, but they didn’t have any nearby. My trainer said it was for rich kids.” She laughed. “There weren’t any real fancy barns near us. Nothing like this, for sure.”

  “And then what happened? Between showing and trail riding? You quit riding?”

  “Oh, by accident, I guess. I was riding for a trainer out in Indiana and she broke her ankle, so I took over a bunch of her horses and before I knew it I had rented my own place and had a whole string of hunters and jumpers. Not like this place, now.” Kennedy shook her head. “Just a little twelve-stall barn and a ring and two pastures, one for geldings and one for mares. We were showing all over the Midwest. I knew all the Quarter Horse people still, through my Gramp, and I bought Sailor as a yearling from a dispersal sale. And we worked and we worked and we worked until one day we looked at each other and said ‘why are we working so hard?’ And we stopped.”

  “You just closed up shop?”

  “Slowly.” Kennedy sighed. “One by one. I kept training long enough to finish grad school — oh yeah, I was doing college too, did I mention that?” She laughed. “God. I was so tired. I moved down here and paid for college with a dinner show job. And then I got a real job. I guess. It has a desk. That’s what makes it real, right?”

  I nodded slowly. Kennedy, Kennedy, there is more to you than I realized. “And now you’re the white collar renegade who left the farm.”

  Kennedy pulled up Sailor and Hope stopped of his own accord. We were in a corner of the arena close to the county highway that ran past the farm. “Do you ever sit out here and watch the fireworks down at the parks?”