Page 8 of Run for the Money

“She’s in,” I say, grinning.

Edwin whoops, which sets off a flurry of snorts from the horses nearest him.

“So you really think it’s going to work? Are we going to save this place?” he asks.

I shrug. “I hope so. There’s always a chance it goes sideways and we lose it all, anyway.”

“Nah, think big picture,” he says, unflappable as always. “Once word gets out that she’s competing again and training here, we’ll be booked out for months. People still talk about her and Diana. It’d be nice to hang up a sign on the gate proclaiming that we’re the training grounds for a gold medalist, but all we really need is a little boost.”

“It’ll be a bigger boost if she qualifies for the Olympics,” I point out. Edwin’s right, but I’d rather trade on her talent than an old scandal. I’ll take the scandal in a pinch, though.

“Guess you’d better figure out how to coach her without pissing her off, then,” Edwinsays. “I really thought you’d blown it when she called you Nicholas.”

“I thought so, too,” I admit. “Trust me, I know how delicate the situation is. I’m as shocked as you are that the plan’s working so far. But we’ve wasted enough time this morning—let’s finish up in here so we don’t lose the students we’ve already got.”

“You got it, boss,” he says.

When it comes right down to it, I’m not surprised Melanie agreed. This life is an addiction. Even with everything she’s seen, the magnetic pull of getting back in the saddle is too much to resist. The second she looked at GT, I knew she wouldn’t be able to walk away from him. For real horse people, no amount of pain is enough to kill the habit. Melanie saw Diana Walters’ career-ending accident up close and personal, and she’s still willing to hop back in a saddle for a horse like GT.

I’m no stranger to accidents, either. I was at the Del Mar racetrack when Mi Rey broke his foreleg mid-race on opening day. The image of thousands of people decked out in their finery and elaborate hats, shouting and cheering as Mi Rey galloped along the track, one hoof dangling by nothing but a tendon, isn’t an easy one to forget. It opened a pit in my stomach. When the white curtains went up in the center of the track and the ambulance pulled in, the pit got wider and deeper. They didn’t have to shoot the horse on the field for me to know what was going to happen to the gorgeous bay gelding.What a waste, I thought, over and over. What a shame that all that youth and vigor and potential was snuffed out so fast, so needlessly.

Yet I didn’t walk away. Twelve horses died on the track that season, but I kept coming back for another three years. Then I made the pivot to show jumping, and as luck would have it, my second season on the circuit was Melanie’s last. I saw Diana Walters’ accident. But I also saw a grim-faced teenage Melanie approach the judges to turn in her coach for sabotaging her rival and withdraw herself from the competition.

What a waste, I thought again. But that time, for the first time, I wasn’t thinking about the horses.

Chapter 3

Melanie

My inner thighs scream as GT soars over a cross rail. I tighten my core to distract myself from how tired my legs are, but my abs are just as wrecked. It’s a minor miracle GT clears the jump without knocking either rail, because I’m too focused on my own body. We’re a team; I need to think more about connecting with him, and less about how badly I need an ice bath and a deep-tissue massage. And a nice, long cry.

Why did I think I could do this? When I’m not thinking about how much my body hurts, there’s one insistent thought in my head:What are you doing?

Ten seconds with a pretty horse, and I convinced myself this was a good idea. Daydreams about trophies and cheering crowds, proud parents, and—privately, sheepishly—an adoring ex-boyfriend wishing he could have me back blinded me to reality. Now I’m signed up for five competitions I have no business being in. I’m learning the hard way that wanting something doesn’t automatically make you capable of getting it.

“Pick up the pace! You’re going to get a time penalty,” Nick hollers from the edge of the course.

I don’t need to look over to know he’s got his infernal stopwatch in one hand and his evil clipboard in the other. We’ve been training together for a week, and already I want to break the clipboard over my knee and shove the stopwatch into Nick’s loud, unpleasant mouth to stop all the shouting.

There’s one more obstacle on this course, a plank jump Nick constructed out of old fencing materials in the largest corral on his property. It’s not a particularly high jump for GT, but the horse is as tired as I am. This is our fifth run on this course today—in a row. Nick’s focused on our stamina. According to the stats he’s been tracking on his Hadean clipboard, that’s the area where I need the most improvement. According to my internal calculations, the improvement I need is in my coach’s attitude.

I block out Nick and his barked orders, and zero in on the jump. The ground is muddy in front of it, so GT needs to push harder off his back hooves to account for slipping. As soon as I think it, I know I’ve thought it too late. I signal GT for the jump with a shift of my weight and a squeeze of my thighs, six inches closer than I want to be. His back hooves are going to clip the jump, and probably knock the top plank down. Sure enough, I push GT past the finish line to the distinct clatter of the top plank smacking into the other two on its way to the ground.

“You took off late!” Nick hollers at me, as if I didn’t know. “You have to adjust your commands to the environment, or you’re going to keep making simple, easily avoided mistakes. Where is your head today?”

I should dismount so I can storm off the property, but I’m not sure my legs can hold me up at the moment. If I get off this horse and immediately collapse in the mud, I will have no choice but to stay in the mud forever. Becoming a bog body is more appealing than facing yet another Nicholas Korbel lecture about how pathetic and out of shape I am. I choose to stay on the horse and avoid both scenarios.

“That wasn’t a rhetorical question, Miss Manners. When I ask you something, I expect a response,” Nick says, approaching me.

The other advantage of staying on the horse is that he has to crane his neck to look up at me. When we’re both on even ground, he’s at least a head taller than me, so I’m always the one with my head tilted skyward, the obedient student at his feet. From here, I’ve got the upper hand. Barely.

“I know it was late,” I say through gritted teeth.

“That’s not what I asked you. I asked you where your head is. You’re not focused,” he snaps.

“The first run was clean. No mistakes, no time penalty. The problem isn’t my focus, it’s you making us run the course a zillion times in a row for no reason.”

“No reason? Get off the horse,” he challenges.

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