Pony Jumpers 9- Nine Lives Read online

  Okay, yes, he was adorable, but I wasn’t going to let him know that. His ego had to be kept in check somehow. “You keep telling yourself that, buddy.”

  Then Harry frowned. “Hey, what happened to your face?”

  “Nothing. What happened to yours?”

  “I’m being serious.” He tilted my head and brushed a thumb over my cheek, which stung under the light caress.

  “Oh, that. Tori and I just had a disagreement, that’s all.”

  He sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t ride that horse.”

  “Well it’s a bummer for you that it’s not your decision,” I told him.

  “I could tell Katy to make you stop.”

  “You could tell her, but she wouldn’t listen,” I said. “You’re not the boss of us.”

  “More’s the pity.” He touched my cheek lightly. “Want me to kiss it better for you?” He didn’t wait for a response before leaning in and kissing my cheek softly, his light stubble brushing against my abraded skin. “Is it working?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Kinda?” He seemed offended, and shifted his focus from my cheek to my mouth, determined to make me appreciate him.

  We stayed there for a couple more minutes, leaning up against the saddle racks, my hands sliding underneath his t-shirt and up across his back, trying to ignore the metal digging into my shoulders, just concentrating on the warmth of him, the sensation of his body against mine, the smell of horse sweat and hay and whatever spray-on deodorant he’d applied that day. Then Tori started kicking her stable wall impatiently, and I broke away.

  “I should go take care of her.”

  Harry drew in a deep breath, then exhaled. “I’m always going to come second to the horses in your life, aren’t I?”

  I smiled at him. “Are you only just figuring that out?” I reached up and ruffled his hair like a puppy. “That’s cute.”

  “Enough.” But he was smiling as he followed me back out into the sunlight. “By the way, you still haven’t told me what you think.”

  “Of what?”

  Harry heaved a dramatic sigh. “It’s right in front of you, AJ. My new ride.”

  I stared across at the green ute, sparkling in the sun. “That’s yours?”

  He beamed at me proudly. “Sure is. All mine, baby.”

  “What’d you do, hack into your dad’s bank account?”

  “A-ha-ha-ha,” he said sarcastically. “Dad wishes he could afford a ute like this. This right here is the fruits of my epic saving. Well, the down payment was, anyway. And Dad’s stoked because now I’m so skint that I’ll need to work for him to earn the repayments on it, so we all win.”

  “All except the poor horses you’ll be shoeing,” I teased lightly, brushing aside the disappointing thought that Harry was now another person I couldn’t ask for a loan to buy Squib’s saddle. I wouldn’t have asked him anyway. Probably.

  “Always with a smart remark,” he sighed, shaking his head at me. “So d’you like it?” He strolled over to the ute and put a hand on the tailgate, grinning at me like a proud father.

  “It’s really nice,” I told him. He was giving me this expectant look, like I needed to say something more, so I came up with something. “It’s very…green.”

  Harry frowned at me. “That’s it?”

  I shrugged. “It’s a car, Harry. What am I supposed to say?”

  “You could say ‘wow that’s awesome, let’s take it for a test drive!’”

  “Wow, that’s awesome, let’s take it for a test drive!” I repeated, in a fake excited voice. Harry just glared at me, and I smiled. “But really, we should. You can give me a lift home when I finish up here.”

  “Please tell me that’s soon.”

  “Half an hour?” He groaned, and I shrugged. “I have to feed out tonight. Everything’s been worked though, so it shouldn’t take too long.” I smiled at him. “You can do the hay, if you want.”

  “Can I? Can I really?” he asked, overdoing it with false enthusiasm.

  “Yep. It’s your lucky day.”

  Harry’s eyes glinted. “Not quite the kind of lucky that I came here to get,” he teased incorrigibly. “But I’ll take it.”

  He was actually pretty helpful, all things considered. He knew how to handle horses, and he was a hard worker. He fed out all of the hay to the paddocked ponies and put their covers on, while I gave out the feeds, skipped out the boxes and swept the yard.

  I was leaning on her stable door, watching Tori eat, when Harry bounded up to stand beside me. “Okay, I’m done.”

  “Awesome, thanks.” I turned and smiled at him, and he smiled back. “Just gotta wait for Tori to finish eating, then we can go.”

  “Why don’t you chuck her in the paddock to eat?”

  “Because she likes to eat in the stables,” I told him. “She gets all antsy while she’s eating if there’s other horses around. Besides, I still need to rug her up for the night. She can’t go out in a cooler, and she doesn’t like being touched while she’s eating. So, we wait.”

  Harry groaned, then leaned forward and rested his forehead on the partition. “I’m starving,” he told me in a muffled voice. “I need sustenance.”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Fine, I’ll rug her up now. But if I get my head kicked in, it’s your fault.”

  “I’ll never admit to it in court, but I will call the ambulance before I go to Burger King. You have my word on that,” Harry said solemnly.

  “And they say chivalry’s dead,” I replied, stepping into Tori’s box, picking up her paddock rug and carrying it over to her.

  The mare pulled faces at me as I tossed it onto her back, but made a minimum of fuss while I straightened it. Deb had cut the belly straps off, deciding that it was too dangerous to reach under her stomach and try to do them up, so I went straight to the back straps, working carefully around Tori’s hindquarters and avoiding her stamping hooves.

  “She’s still pretty twitchy, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, my dad is this close to telling Katy to find a new farrier for her,” Harry said, holding up a thumb and forefinger. “She nearly killed him last time.”

  “Tell your dad to harden up,” I said. “Besides, she’ll be better next time.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Of course. She’s a good girl now. Aren’t you Tor?” I buckled the front strap, ignoring the faces that Tori was pulling at me. “All done.” I peeked into her feed bin. “And she’s nearly finished. Five more minutes, and we can go.”

  I walked to the back of the stable, running my hand along Tori’s back as I went. Harry watched me intently as I came back over to him.

  “You’re a brave woman, you know that?”

  “Why, because I’m going out with you?” I teased.

  “Ha ha. No. Because you just walked right around behind that mankiller without even flinching.”

  I rolled my eyes. “She’s not that bad. You know, only weak men are intimidated by strong women.”

  “If they’re strong enough to shatter my kneecap with one kick, then I don’t think that makes me weak. It makes me sane.”

  Harry leaned against his ute and watched as I led Tori out to the paddock and let her go. She trotted off with her tail in the air, snaking her head and neck around playfully, but I didn’t linger to watch. I clipped her halter onto the gate, then walked back over to my impatient boyfriend.

  “Just let me grab my stuff, and you can take me home,” I told him.

  Harry grinned. “Ah, but that’s not where I’m gonna be taking you.”

  I stopped and looked at him. “Okay, now I’m curious. Where do you think we’re going?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Well I hope it’s not somewhere flash,” I grinned, looking down at myself. I was covered in dirt and horse hair, and my jeans were sweated to my legs underneath the knee-high chaps.

  He shook his head. “You look fine. C’mon, we’re already late.”

>   “For what?”

  “The time of your life, of course.”

  12

  YOU THINK YOU KNOW SOMEBODY

  We left Katy’s and headed south, away from Havelock North. I sent Dad a text to tell him where I was, then leaned back against the seat and watched the scenery whiz by. We’d had a few downpours of rain lately, and the water was slowly soaking into the parched earth and turning the dry gold of the grass back to green.

  We crossed the Tukituki, and drove on towards the coast. I wound the window down and let the warm air fill the car.

  “I’ve got air conditioning,” Harry said, punching some buttons on the dashboard.

  “Why would you want aircon, when you have fresh air?” I asked him. I took a deep breath, to prove a point. “I can smell the sea.”

  “From here?” he asked sceptically.

  “Yes,” I told him firmly, even though it was probably my imagination.

  We drove uphill through rolling hill country, then dropped down into the shade of tall willow trees leaning across the road. A few minutes later, we reached the turn off to Ocean Beach, but Harry stayed the course, driving on towards Waimarama. No need to guess where we were gong now – this road only led to one place.

  Harry took a corner at speed, and I gripped the handle above the door. “Hey, slow down.”

  “I’m not speeding,” he told me. “This is all open road.”

  “And that sign said sixty-five,” I told him.

  “That’s just a suggested speed,” he replied lightly.

  “So I’m suggesting that you slow down.” Instead, he sped up slightly on the straight downhill stretch, and I reached over and slapped his arm. “Seriously! Slow down!”

  “Jeez, calm down,” Harry grumbled, but he braked before the next corner.

  “Excuse me if I don’t want to be in another car accident,” I reminded him, and he had the grace to look guilty.

  “Oh, right. I forgot about that.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Sorry.” He slowed down even more, and took the next corner with exaggerated care. “Better?”

  “Yeah.”

  Harry drove carefully along the winding road, and moments later I finally caught a glimpse of the glittering blue of the ocean.

  “So pretty,” I said admiringly.

  Harry looked over at me and smiled. “Just what I was thinking.”

  I slapped his shoulder playfully. “Yeah okay, Mr Compliment. Don’t think that’s getting you off the hook.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “I have the memory of an elephant,” I told him.

  We drove down into the sleepy seaside village of Waimarama, and parked up in front of the general store, which sold some of the best fish and chips in Hawke’s Bay. Soon I had a tightly wrapped packet of fish and chips on my lap, filling the ute with delicious smells. Harry drove his ute right down onto the sand, then parked up near a couple of other 4WD vehicles.

  I looked over at Harry, shifting the thin paper packet of food that was scorching my legs. “I didn’t realise we were going to a party.”

  “It’s just some of the boys.” He looked at me, his brow furrowed. “We could go somewhere else, if you want.”

  But I could tell that he didn’t want to, and since a lot of his friends were Anders’s mates too, it wasn’t like I wouldn’t know anyone.

  “Nah, it’s all good.” I opened the door and jumped out as the guys started crowding around, admiring Harry’s new ride and saying much more complimentary things than ‘it’s really green’, which made him happy.

  We ate the fish and chips as the sun sank lower in the sky, and I got into a long conversation with Tamati and Jesse, two of Anders’s old school friends who were still in the First XV. Thinking back, I can’t even recall what we talked about, but it didn’t seem to matter, at the time. Harry sat with us for a while, then went off to drive around the beach in his car with some of his mates. I was paying very little attention to what they were getting up to until the shadows deepened around us and the light started to properly fade.

  Jesse stood up and stretched.

  “Leaving so soon?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. I’m on babysitting duties tonight,” he said, giving Tamati a farewell fist bump.

  I was surprised. “Jasper’s gotta be, what, fourteen by now? Does he really need a babysitter?”

  Jesse looked slightly embarrassed as he shook his head. “Nah, but my, uh, daughter does.”

  I blinked at him in astonishment. “You have a kid?” He nodded, and my mouth literally fell open. “No way! How old?”

  “Uh, nearly six months.”

  “Wow.” I stared at him, my mind whirling. Jesse had been Anders’s best friend when they were younger, and he’d been around so often that my parents used to call him their third son. The two boys had slowly grown apart over the years, but it hadn’t occurred to me until now that Anders hadn’t so much as mentioned him in ages.

  “Anders never said anything,” I told Jesse, trying to excuse my ignorance. “But hey, congratulations!”

  A smile flickered onto his face. “Thanks.” He leaned down and picked up his sweatshirt, swinging it loosely from one hand. “Good to see you, AJ. Try keep Scud in line for us, eh?”

  I laughed. “I’ll do my best,” I promised him, and he grinned. “You should come by some time, see if you can cheer my brother up a bit,” I suggested.

  Jesse nodded, but his smile faded slightly. “Yeah, I should. I’ll try.”

  “You do that.”

  He nodded, then turned and headed towards his car, the setting sun glinting off his red-gold hair, and I sat back down and shook my head at Tamati.

  “I can’t believe Jesse’s got a kid.” I could still remember him with skinned knees and a gap-toothed grin. “It seems like he just was one.”

  “It happens,” Tamati said.

  “Not to me,” I said firmly. “Not for a long time yet, anyway.”

  Harry strode up behind me, and slung his arm around my shoulders. “Where’s Jess going? Back to the old ball and chain?”

  “Hey, be nice,” I told him, elbowing him in the ribs as he sat down next to me.

  “Why? She’s a complete fruit loop.”

  “You’d know,” Tamati said with a glint in his eye. “Went out with her first, didn’t you?”

  “Gave her the flick, too,” Harry said. “Which just goes to prove my superior judgement.”

  He leaned over to kiss me, like he was trying to make some kind of point, but I pushed him off, wrinkling my nose at the alcohol on his breath.

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “Just a couple beers.”

  “Guess that means you’re giving me the keys,” I told him.

  Harry laughed at me. “Dream on. You’ve barely got your learner’s. Think I’m trusting you behind the wheel of my new ride?”

  “Well one of us has to drive home, and it’s not going to be you,” I told him firmly.

  “Not gonna be you either,” Harry replied stubbornly, and I knew there was no winning this argument. But he wasn’t going to change my mind.

  “Fine. I’ll get a ride home with someone else.”

  “AJ, don’t be like that,” Harry said irritably.

  “What, sane?” I turned to Tamati with a questioning look, but he quickly shook his head.

  “I’ve only got my scooter,” he admitted. “No room for passengers. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay.” I looked around at the rest of the boys, and wondered which, if any of them, were sober. I hadn’t been watching them, and had no way of knowing. As I wondered whether I could still catch Jesse before he left, I saw headlights peeling out of the car park, and sighed.

  “I’m fine. It’s not like I’m drunk,” Harry complained, but I ignored him as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tapped in a number. “Who’re you calling?”

  “None of your business.”

  I turned my back on him as the phone start
ed to ring, and walked slowly towards the water. The waves rolled steadily towards shore, and foamy edges of the tide nudged at my boots. The line clicked as the phone was picked up.

  “Yep.”

  “Normal people say ‘hello’,” I told Anders.

  “Don’t call me normal, Poss. What d’you want?”

  “Is Aidan home?”

  “He’s in the shower.” A pause, as neither of us spoke. “Are you waiting for further details on that? Because I’m not giving them to you.”

  “Shuddup,” I told him. Harry was walking towards me, looking worried and more than a little guilty. “I need a ride home.”

  “Why? Where are you?”

  “Waimarama.”

  I heard my brother sigh. “Bloody hell, Poss. What’re you doing out there?”

  “Needing a ride,” I told him stubbornly. Harry was getting closer, so I started walking down the beach with my back to him. “Can you ask Aidan to come get me or not?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Anders replied. “Once he’s out of the shower. I’m not going in there while he’s singing, my eardrums might burst.”

  “You can talk. And thanks. Sooner would be better,” I added, because I knew Harry was within earshot and I wasn’t beyond rubbing it in. “I don’t wanna be stuck here any longer than I have to be.”

  Maybe he heard something in my voice, or maybe he heard Harry’s voice behind me, still arguing, but Anders finally clicked on. “Hey, are you out with Scud?”

  “Yeah.” I turned to face Harry, and looked him in the eye as I spoke. “But he’s been drinking and I don’t want him to drive me home.”

  I knew by Anders’s next words that our parents weren’t home – or if they were, that they weren’t anywhere close by. Nobody got away with using language like that in our house.

  “Whereabouts are you, exactly?” he asked me.

  “On the beach, near the boat ramp.”

  “I know the spot. Sit tight, we’ll be there soon as we can.” I heard him grunt as he presumably got to his feet. “Is there anyone with you, other than that drunk idiot?”