Riding on Air (8 page)

I took a carrot with me when I went out to get Jinx, who'd been eating down the grass in the Jenny Craig paddock beside the shearing shed. Not that Jinx needed to lose weight; we put him in there whenever the pasture was getting too lush. As Brendan said, not much point having a starvation paddock for the fat horses if it was full of grass. Jinx was definitely not one of the fatties. He was more like the Posh Spice of the horse world.

As I slipped his halter on—Jinx had a hatred of the alpacas we kept to protect the sheep at lambing time and we had to pass them from this paddock, so the halter and lead was a reminder not to indulge his urges to shy and snort at them—I thought with satisfaction that he was looking very well at the moment. Grudgingly, I had to admit that Dad had been right and Jinx had come home from camp a little light-on in condition. The break had done him good.

He'd had a couple of sessions in the round yard since we came home, but that wasn't much work, really. I was always careful not to over-stress his joints (I'm perhaps a bit paranoid where joints are concerned) and the round yard was only small—about 15 metres across. Too much work on a tight circle was asking for trouble and as Jinx had raced for a couple of years, his legs probably weren't in the best shape to begin with.

I gave Jinx a quick brush and then saddled him, grateful as always for the modified system of straps that gave me greater leverage than on a standard saddle's girth and allowed me to saddle him myself, except for the times my hands were really, really bad. It struck me then that William had never commented on my odd girthing system, even though he'd unsaddled Jinx after I fell off at camp. Maybe one of my stepbrothers had mentioned it to him; after all, Brendan and Gary had come up with the design for me.

I put Jinx's bridle on, picked up my helmet and decided I better give Jinx a few circuits around the round yard before I hopped on. After basically a week off and all that sweet grass he could be feeling a bit full of himself.

Going into the round yard made me think again of William and I could feel a stupid grin turning my mouth up. Last week, by the time we put Jinx away, it had been too late to catch the movie he'd wanted to see and William was leaving the next day for a week rouseabouting. But he'd asked me for my mobile number and said he'd call later after he looked up the times for the following Tuesday when movies were half price. I'd given him the number and watched his ute disappear into the shadows as dusk fell and kind of expected that to be the end of it.

But he had called. He actually wanted to go out with me. Me. We were going to the movies tonight; the 6 o'clock session, seeing as it was a school night (and you bet I was amazed that Jennie had given it the OK, but not enough to push my luck and ask why) so I couldn't muck around getting Jinx worked or I'd run out of time.

As I looped Jinx's reins out of the way around his neck and sent him out to start circling around me, I wondered for about the thousandth time if William really liked me. Obviously he didn't hate me or anything. I wasn't a moron (well, not all the time) and even I couldn't believe he'd spend time with me or help me with Jinx if he thought I totally sucked. But I couldn't help wondering. I couldn't help coming up with all sorts of crazy theories. Like maybe Jennie had asked him to be nice to me, or Gary had put him up to it; he'd certainly acted a bit weird when William told him he wanted to ask me out. Or maybe it was even worse—maybe William just felt sorry for me.

I swallowed a sigh and stepped forward to stop Jinx and turn him around in the other direction. Maybe I should just stick to riding. It was about the only thing I had any clue about.

Twenty minutes later, I wasn't even sure about that anymore. Jinx was fresh and silly, despite the lunging, and he wanted to jog and go faster, faster, faster. I kept trying to put him on my aids, get him between my leg and hand and he kept sort of oozing out.

I circled him in walk, changing to the right rein where things were usually a bit easier for us. I took a light hold of the outside rein with my left hand, wrapped my right leg a little more firmly around his ribs, then gave him a squeeze with both legs, on-off, to tell him to go into trot.

Jinx obeyed with way too much enthusiasm, bouncing into trot, poking his neck forward and grabbing at the bit, leaning on my hands. Wincing at the strain this put on my swollen joints, I clamped my aching fingers around the reins and braced my back in a firm half-halt, before releasing the tension I'd created in my spine and moving with him to encourage him forwards. But Jinx didn't take the cue and shift his weight to his hindquarters to move forward in trot with energy and lightness. Instead he just sort of sucked back into himself even as his legs moved faster, a bad old habit from the early days, where he dropped his back and ducked his head behind the bit, tucking his nose towards his chest.

“Shit,” I ground out, my hands killing me. The frustration boiling up inside was almost worse than the ache in my knuckles and wrists. I clamped my legs around him, pressing my weight down through my knees, into my lower legs and to the stirrups, as I set the reins and pulled Jinx back to walk.

Sweat itched down my face from beneath my helmet and I tilted my head to wipe my face on my arm, breathing hard, my mind racing, going back over what I'd just done. I didn't think I'd made a mistake with my aids, so I gathered myself, set Jinx into a small circle to get his attention and then asked again.

And again, he took off like a steam train, yanking on my arms, sending scalding red-hot daggers of pain shooting though my hands and wrists. I drove him forward, circling again, inside leg on the girth, outside hand holding as tight as I could, but I couldn't close the door, the pain bringing involuntary tears to my eyes and sucking all the strength out of my hand. Jinx tugged at the contact and because he didn't meet the check he needed to tell him to slow down and gather himself, he set his neck against the bit and pulled, taking the left rein straight through the weak grip of my left hand.

I bit my lip against the shriek of pain and frustration that wanted to burst out of my mouth and let Jinx spiral in to the centre of the circle in response to the hold I still had on the other rein, cradling my abused hand to my stomach. Jinx, unsettled, threw his head up, banging me sharply in the face. As I finally dragged him to a crooked halt I could only pray the rush of wetness down over my lip was tears or sweat, not blood.

I pressed the back of my forearm gingerly to my nose, then looked at it and grimaced. Blood.
Bugger
. I checked again with a clean patch of skin, but when I looked a big splotch of glistening dark red was sliding across my arm. Yuck.

I didn't have a tissue in the pocket of my jods. I'd have to ride back to the tack room and find something. Letting the reins fall slack on Jinx's sweat-darkened neck, I guided him towards the gate with my knees, putting my arm back to my nose. I was hot and sweaty and hurting and way too close to a crying fit. I knew by the time I got my nose or lip or whatever it was cleaned up it'd be time to put Jinx away. I hated finishing a training session on a bad note and today was not only bad, but barely started in the first place. We hadn't achieved anything and the days left until Goulburn were racing by.

As I rode Jinx out of the paddock where I had my dressage arena marked out and turned back up the lane towards the sheds, I hoped for once that William would be late, rather than early. The way my luck was going lately his ute would turn into our driveway just in time to see me ride past with blood all over my face. The thought had me nudging Jinx's side to get him to walk faster. I had enough going against me in the sex-appeal stakes without that.

“I loved that movie, I'm stoked I finally saw it. Did you like it? I hope you weren't bored.”

“It was great,” I answered, my brain still trying to process a guy—William—admitting they loved anything, let alone a movie. We were coming down the escalator from the cinema into the main food court of the mall in search of a coffee or ice-cream. We hadn't got as far as deciding exactly what, yet. I was tending towards ice-cream in the hope that the cold might be soothing to my sore face. Luckily I'd had time to get inside after I put Jinx away and get ice on my nose and lip without anyone catching me. As a result, there was hardly any swelling at all and it was barely noticeable from the outside, although that didn't stop it hurting on the inside. If William had noticed anything, he hadn't said so.

“You can choose the movie next time. A chick flick, whatever. I don't mind those.”

“Uh,” I said, brain totally bogging down at his casual way of saying ‘next time'. That meant there would be a next time, didn't it? God. I stepped carefully off the moving belt onto solid ground and then sidled quickly away from the bottom, making sure I didn't get knocked into by the other people around me. William stretched his long legs, following me.

“No, really, I don't mind girlie movies. There was one I saw a while ago that was really good. Mum has it on DVD. It's set in the old days. Pride and Practice or something.”

“Pride and Prejudice?” I grinned at the thought of swapping Miss Elizabeth Bennett with Doctor Addison Montgomery. Yes, I watch a lot of TV.

“Yeah, that was it. That hot chick from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies was in it.”

“Keira Knightley,” I said more quietly. I love movies; again, when your hands are crap you have to find things to do that don't involve manual dexterity or fingers and thumbs. There isn't much.

William glanced swiftly at me and to my amazement I could see a blush fanning across his face. “Hey, no, I'm sorry,” he said, putting his hand on my arm and stopping me. “That came out wrong. I didn't mean you weren't as pretty as her. I wasn't thinking that, I was thinking—I mean, you know, I think you're hot, too.” His face was fiery red now, but even that didn't make him look any less gorgeous. Wait, what did he just say? I gawped at him.

“Oh man, just wait while I change feet.” He looked down, abashed, and then back at me. The intense blue of his eyes as he held my gaze made my stomach quiver. The hair stood up on my arms as goose-bumps rippled over my skin.

William put his other hand on my waist and I felt the warmth of his palm through my top as he moved his hand around to my back.

“Actually, I think you're way hotter than Keira Knightley,” he said, looking at me.

I licked my dry lips, utterly spellbound, as my heart leapt like one of Jinx's over-excited upward transitions and hammered painfully against my chest. It was thumping so hard I was afraid William would see it or hear it, but as I gazed back at him I wasn't sure it would matter if he did. I was pretty sure he was sincere. He seemed to actually be serious when he said I was hotter than Keira Knightley. It was all I could do not to float away on his flattery. Superficially at least, I actually do look a bit like her; we're both skinny and big-eyed and brown haired. But where Keira Knightley is ethereal, I'm just angular. She's an effortlessly elegant clothes horse and I'm more like a coat rack.

But maybe, just maybe, William liked coat racks. The way he was looking at me, the way his hands were pulling me towards him, seemed to indicate he liked me, at any rate. I had no idea why, but as he drew me closer I wasn't about to ask any stupid questions. Was I going to look a gift horse in the mouth? I don't think so.

And speaking of mouths, I could hardly believe it but it looked as though William was about to kiss me. My stomach plunged, rolled, bucked and finally bolted. I'd never been kissed by a guy in any way more serious than a peck on the cheek by a male relative at Christmas parties. What was I supposed to do? Should I lean forward to meet him? Should I take my hands out of my pockets and (carefully) put my arms around him? I wasn't sure where I was supposed to touch him; the whole idea of actually being allowed to touch him was too much for my brain anyway. It jibbed like a frightened horse, locking my limbs in paralysis so I just stood there.

William's big hand on my waist, his fingers curling against my side, thrilled me and scared me and I stood there like a dummy, a little unnerved by the intensity in his eyes, as his face dipped down towards mine.

“Melissa?
William
?”

I startled like a spooked horse, flustered heat burning my face as I jerked involuntarily back from William to stare stupidly at Tash. And Eleni, I saw, even though it had been Tash's voice that had brought me back to the real word so rudely.

“Hey,” Eleni said, her face full of curiosity. She looked up. “Hi William.”

“Hey,” William replied, including both of them. He ran his hand through his hair, leaving it spiked up in furrows. I wanted to reach up and smooth it down again, which shocked me and not just because I thought I was over planning to do something that involved the risk of pain to my hands.

“What are you two doing here?” Tash asked pointedly. The gleeful grin tilting up the corners of her wide, glossed lips spelled big trouble for me. She was going to grill me to within an inch of my life for not getting straight on the phone to her about this. How was I supposed to explain that I didn't even know what ‘this' was yet? Could she really blame me for wanting to hold off on telling the world?

No, but she would have expected me to tell
her
. I wasn't even sure why I hadn't. I certainly phoned her with every other important event in my life, like the time Jinx did his first flying change, or the time I first felt him collect. Texting, not so much. Even with the touch screen keypad of an iPhone, texting could be a real hassle with my sausage fingers.

“Catching a movie,” William said. “What about you guys?”

“I had the dentist and Eleni needed an iTunes card so she came in to meet me,” Tash said. “I didn't have to have any fillings or anything, thank God, so we're going to grab some dinner. Want to join us?”