Riding on Air (7 page)

I aim to always take very good care of Jinx and I watched him with that same care now as he trotted sweetly around, making sure the chambon didn't need adjusting. Everything looked good, so I took Jinx through a few rapid walk-trot transitions, with a brief stint in canter, before a glance at my watch told me take him back to walk and finish up.

“And walk,” I said. Jinx walked.

“Good boy,” I said, just as a voice I knew very well said behind me: “Jinx is going well.”.

Oh. My. God. William. Here. He'd snuck up on me yet again. A quick glance over my shoulder proved it was most definitely William, arms draped over the top rail of the round yard, hat pulled down low over his eyes.

My next thought, as, flustered, I turned back to face Jinx, was ‘thank God he didn't show up while I was still in my PJs with my hair snarled worse than a yearling's mane'.

“What are you doing here? Are you looking for the boys?” I forced my legs to move, one after the other, across the round yard to where Jinx waited obediently. I gave him a pat and started undoing the chambon. I was clumsier than usual—something I couldn't entirely blame on my swollen joints. As I fumbled the oversized buckles Brendan had modified my chambon with so I could adjust it without help, I told myself that William was probably just here to see him, or maybe Gary. Not me.

“I came to see you.”

My heart lurched into the back of my throat. I busied myself with buckles and straps, my hands shaking, trying to collect the thoughts that were skittering as nervously around my brain as spring lambs. As usual I couldn't think of anything to say, even as the silence dragged on and on. I don't mean something witty or cute or even half-way normal. Just anything at all.

I glanced over my shoulder again. He was still there. He grinned, the brim of his hat shading his eyes. He was so outrageously good looking I thought my heart was going to stop. A thought finally did occur to me.

“Why aren't you still at camp?”

“No reason to stay,” he said.

I froze with my hand resting cautiously on Jinx's neck and wondered if he really meant what I thought he did.

“Are you coming out now?” he asked me and I finally gathered my scattered wits enough to answer in the affirmative and cluck my tongue at Jinx to let him know to come with me. William unlatched the gate and swung it wide, watching Jinx as he walked beside me out through the gate. When I stopped, Jinx stopped. I didn't have a halter or lead on him; at home I rarely did. Jinx usually went with me willingly wherever I wanted him to go.

“That's a neat trick.”

“Saves my hands,” I said. I had a momentary pang at drawing attention to them, with their wobbly knuckles and puffy sausage fingers, but really, what was the use of trying to hide it? William had known me and my stepbrothers for years and he had been too aware of my hands at camp for me to kid myself that he didn't know anything about them. I may never have really registered on his radar, but it was a safe bet he knew all about me having JRA. Everyone in and around Sutton, where our properly was, knew about it. I was over being annoyed about that. Mostly.

Although, if he did mean what I think he meant, maybe he had noticed something else about me. But I didn't see why or how; it wasn't as if there was anything exciting about me
besides
the JRA. I'm not tall and not short, not fat and not skinny, not blonde or black-haired, not blue eyed or brown. My hair is long and straight and the unremarkable brown of a tree trunk or a mouse. My eyes are hazel. My figure is on the boyish side of average. I don't even have boobs or curls or fancy fingernails or anything to attract the notice of a guy like William. No, much as I wished it was true, it must just be that: wishful thinking.

“Tash fell off yesterday after you'd gone, did you know?”

“Yeah, she texted me.”

“She was pretty much limping instead of dancing last night, but she was still there.”

A pain totally unrelated to JRA stabbed through me at the thought. I'd been looking forward to that dance. Not that I actually dance, but being in different squads meant I hadn't seen as much of Tash and Eleni as I usually did and the dance would have been a good chance to hang out with them.

“Jack Patterson danced with her a lot.”

I stopped outside the tack shed, Jinx stopping almost on my heels.

“Jack Patterson?”

“Yep. Want a hand?”

“Uh. Sure.”

I stood back as William moved past me and began taking off Jinx's tack. Jinx poked him once with a curious muzzle and William just gave him a pat on the neck and kept about his business, so Jinx lost interest. He stood still while William took off his roller and the chambon and a big chunk of my mind was so proud of him. Jinx, not William. The other part was peering around the edges of the idea of Tash dancing with Jack Patterson. Jack was nearly 18, already an associate pony club member and if there was a Zac Efron of the pony club, he was it. All the girls got stupid over him because he was supposed to be so gorgeous and his horses were always really good. I agreed that Jack had beautiful horses; hardly surprising when he'd bought the current one from Tash's mum who bred phenomenal warmblood performance horses. And I suppose Jack was the best looking guy in our club, but only because William had left to concentrate on polocrosse.

I shot a guilty glance at William, but luckily he didn't seem to have developed any super-secret mind reading abilities. He was frowning a little in concentration as he folded up my gear and slid it off Jinx's back.

I wasn't surprised at Jack dancing with Tash so much as I was surprised I'd never thought about how likely it was. Tash was, after all, the absolute knock-down best-looking girl there. And one of the best riders. And she and Jack had known each other for ages. They were made for each other. Well, if you ignored that fact that Tash had a boyfriend.

“Did she look like she was enjoying herself?” I asked William as I cautiously hooked a body-brush out of my tack-bucket.

“Well, sure.” William got out a dandy brush and started going over Jinx's gleaming red-brown neck, deftly pushing the heavy black curtain of his mane out of the way. I concentrated on applying the softer body brush to smooth the silky hair, polishing the dirt out that William had just disturbed, automatically adjusting my grip and how much pressure I applied with the brush so I didn't tickle Jinx or put strain on my joints. I followed William's progress around my horse, wondering whether there was anything to this thing about Tash dancing with Jack. I didn't really like Tash's boyfriend—he was always complaining that Tash spent too much time with her horse. Jack would be much better. He'd never say something stupid like that. He was talented and ambitious and just as attractive as Tash.

“Like just friends enjoying it or more than that?” I asked.

“I dunno,” William said. “I wasn't paying that much attention.” He swapped the dandy for a metal mane and tail comb and started working on Jinx's tail, gently detangling the strands. Jinx's head drooped, he sighed and shifted his weight, resting one hind hoof on the tip, relaxing.

I watched William's big sun-browned hands as he worked the comb patiently through Jinx's tail and my heart slowly curled in on itself to form a clenched little knot in my chest. My stomach was quivery, almost crampy, as I imagined William using those hands on me, running his long strong straight fingers through my hair, separating the strands, plaiting it into a single braid, his knuckles brushing the back of my neck.

I shivered, swallowed a gasp, and hurried over to the tack bucket to hide my reaction. I didn't know why he affected me so badly. The muscles in my legs felt all weak and shaky, as if I'd just ridden a marathon dressage session in the heat. At that moment I desperately wanted him to go away so I could get myself under control, but just as fervently fantasised that he might come around Jinx's rump and put the fantasy into practice, taking hold of the long plait Gary had woven my hair into that morning.

I was afraid to ask why he wanted to see me. He was probably mad at me for dragging him into my dramas at camp.

“Melissa.”

I jumped, heat flushing my face and looked up. William leant over Jinx's back, brush in hand.

“Yes?”

“Would you go out with me?”

Oh. My. Freakin'. God. “What?”

“I'd like to take you to get a coffee or go to a movie or something. Whatever you want.”

“Really?”

“I was going to ask you to dance with me last night, but, well, you weren't there.”

Embarrassment at the reason I'd gone home and the reminder that he knew the full story mingled with the confusion I was already feeling to turn up the thermostat heating my skin. My cheeks burned.

“Sorry about that. Getting you in trouble, I mean.”

“I didn't get in trouble. Besides, it would have been worth it.”

Oh, where was a bucket of ice cubes when you really needed it? I'd have given anything to be able to dunk my face in something icy cold right then. Something to slow my galloping pulse and force-feed some oxygen into my cramping lungs would be good, too.

“I—”

“William, hey, how long have you been here?”

I closed my eyes briefly. Gary. Oh my god, one look at my face and I'd be hearing about this until I was 90 years old.

“Not long,” William said. He gave Jinx a swipe with the brush and I could swear he looked annoyed at the interruption. I turned my back to my stepbrother and made myself look busy with putting stuff away.

“Brendan's up at the house sleeping off his hangover. But come on up, have a beer or something.”

“Actually,” William said slowly, “I came here to see Melissa.”

Well, that stuffed it. William would be hearing about this until he was 90 too. I turned and looked over at Gary, who eyed me with an all too familiar evil glint in his eye, a grin breaking over his face.

“Oh yeah? And what about?”

“I'm asking her out.”

Kill me now. Please. I gave Gary a half-begging, half-sheepish glance, but he ignored me, pushing his hat back on his head and giving William a steady look.

“You do realise that's my little sister you're talking about.”

“Of course.”

“And that if I let you take her out you'd be expected to take exceptionally good care of her.
Exceptionally
good care. As in returning her in
exactly
the same condition you got her.”

Can you actually die of embarrassment? I gazed down at the dusty ground beneath my boots but it stubbornly refused to open up and swallow me. Although a definite thrill curled up through me at the thought of Gary calling me his little sister. I don't think I'd ever heard him lay claim to me like that before.

“Of course I would take
exceptionally
good care of her. But she hasn't answered me yet.”

Gary turned to me. “Well?”

“Uh. Yes?”

“Don't tell me, tell him,” Gary said, jerking his head at William.

Face flaming, I looked at William, almost dying when those lake-blue eyes shifted to meet mine.

“Yes William,” I said.

I saw something flit over William's face then. Something that totally changed the way he looked, as though he'd shifted into a different angle of the sun. But then he ducked his head and the brim of his hat hid his expression.

I looked at Gary. Gary looked at William, at me, at William again and finally back at me. His eyes moved to the brush I still held in my hands and when his gaze flickered back up to my face, he too had a look in his eye I'd never seen before. Here it comes, I thought, trying to brace myself for one of his bulls-eye smart arse remarks, the kind that are funny but painful because they cut right to the heart of something you'd rather not have dragged out into the open.

My stepbrother shoved his hat back down firmly on his head and nodded at William. “I'll leave you to it, then,” he said and disappeared around the corner of the shed, leaving me, William and Jinx standing in the afternoon sun, Jinx dozing as he waited for us to finish fussing and take him back to his grass, William and I looking at each other and wondering something, I just don't know what.

But a scary little flutter in my belly suggested I'd be getting a better idea what he was thinking real soon.

I'd only been back at school after the holidays for two days and it sucked already. Getting home that afternoon was pure relief.

I'm not the freakiest freak at my high school, not by a long shot; JRA doesn't really rate next to a wheelchair, Down Syndrome, CF, a recovering drug addict and a failed suicide attempt. And the legally blind girl in Year 8 with the guide dog is definitely the poster girl for the misfits. Everyone loves that dog, though I don't know why; it's blonde, docile and has all the personality of a sponge. I like kelpies and terriers and other farm or working dogs. Dogs that are brainy and busy.

I don't even mind the classes as I'm pretty good at my schoolwork. One thing JRA does give you is plenty of time to read because often you can't do much else. The main problem with school is the herds of kids on the move throughout the day and the constant worry that someone will bump into me and bang up my hands. By lunchtime every day I'm strung out and exhausted. If I was ever going to be tempted to seek pharmacological relief, it would be during school hours, not my riding time.

Eleni goes to my school, although we're only in the same classes for English and Home Ec, which is lucky as I read out the recipes and do the easy stuff and Eleni does the more delicate or demanding hands-on parts. We eat lunch together, which usually means I watch as Eleni devours her lunch and then helps me with mine because I'm never hungry and she always is. Sadly, Tash goes to a posh private school in town, so we only get to see her on the bus home.

She hadn't been on the bus that afternoon though, because she had to go to the dentist. As I shed my school clothes as quickly as my stupid hands would allow and wriggled into some comfy old jods, I wondered how she'd gone. Tash wasn't daunted by much, but the dentist totally freaked her out. She reckoned it was having their face so close to hers, them peering down at her, that made her claustrophobic. No matter how quick the visit, she'd come home with a screaming tension headache. Lucky she had pretty good teeth; God knows how she'd cope if she had to have a tooth out or something.