Heart of Flame – Chapter 5
Thanks so much to all of you awesome people who've reviewed again. I'm slightly confused, though – some people have this story on their alerts and/or faves and have never even reviewed! Yes, I DO know who you are and I'm just wondering if you could possibly take the time to review? It only takes a second! Thanks!
Special thanks to (as always): Ledagirl123, AKERS2 (STEPH! LOVE YA! I need to talk to you and that soccer dude Maksym is it? He is not hot! NOT NOT NOT!), HorseAddict16, PitBullLover, ADEN because I HAVE to thank you! (Don't GO! PLEASE! I NEED YOU MORE THAN HAWAII DOES!), ffgirlmoonie and Faithheart (very cool name by the way, would be an awesome name for a horse. Do you mind if a name a horse after you in this story?). I appreciate your reviews so much! Er ... sorry if no ginger muffins arrived … I swear I sent them all … I hope you all liked finding out a BIT more about Jazz in the last chapter and you will find out even more in this one! Oh, and do let me know if you appreciate my wonderful horse-naming skills – my first foal that I breed is destined to be called CRISPY NOODLES!
I just realised that I'm introducing a new character in this chapter called Daniel – and we already have a Daniel who is a good rider in the books! ARGH! I'm sorry, guys, but I REALLY don't want to change it now – I've got his character all in my head already! I'm not going to change it now, but if you're having real problems separating characters then let me know … I repeat, this is NOT Daniel who had Amber.
Heartland, Saturday Morning
Amy made her way to Sundance's stable early on Saturday morning. The buckskin gelding whuffled softly as he caught sight of his owner. Amy flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder as she stroked her pony under his chin. Sundance's head drooped lower and lower. "I'm so sorry, Sunny. I haven't ridden you all week! But don't worry; we'll go out on a trail ride with Ty and one of the other horses this afternoon, okay?" Amy had no clue whether Sunny actually understood what she was saying – but they had a pretty unbreakable bond now, after being together for so long. Sunny was extra special to Amy as he was the first horse she had helped her mother heal.
A loud yell of "Amy, phone!" from the house snapped the girl out of her reverie. Sundance looked disappointed as she gave him one last pat, promising to return later. As Amy walked down the barn aisle, she made a quick note of all the horses, in this part of the barn at least, so she could decide who needed to be worked that day – Katie, definitely, Jake, a horse scared of roads, Sky, who had a complete aversion to a float of any kind, and Whisper, a badly abused and neglected horse, all needed to be worked. For the first time ever – well, in a long time at least – Amy had no assignments or work to catch up on – a whole weekend for riding and working with the horses!
She was relieved that she could finally help Ty out a bit – and maybe the two of them could have a bit of time to themselves as well. They'd had no time to be just Amy and Ty lately – Amy and Ty without a horse or human between them. I can't wait til we finally have some time to ourselves. Amy felt a shiver run down her spine at the thought of finally, finally being alone with Ty again. It seemed as though work and school had been getting in the way all the time lately.
"AMY! Move it!"
Oh, crap! Amy remembered the actual reason why she was heading back to the house. Phone call!
Lou stood on the porch holding the cordless phone and Amy smiled at her sheepishly as she sprinted up to her older sister. Lou's stern face broke into a smile and Amy asked quietly, "Who is it?"
"Another potential customer, I think."
Amy nodded and sat down on the porch stairs, hearing Lou turn to go back inside where she was making breakfast.
"Hello? Amy Fleming speaking."
"Er ... hello. This is Daniel Thomson – you're the woman who heals the horses at Heartland?" Amy nearly dropped the phone in shock as she heard the clear British accent – and what the guy was saying. Daniel. Thomson. One of the most AMAZING eventing riders – ever!
Feeling slightly faint, Amy replied, hoping desperately that she wouldn't embarrass herself. "Yes … I've worked with the horses at Heartland, since my mother's death. My older sister, Lou, who you just spoke to – she does the business side of it."
"You sound very young – not the person I would expect."
Feeling slightly ridiculous and embarrassed, Amy explained. "I'm only sixteen but my mom, Marion – she taught me everything I know. It's not just me, either – Ty, he's eighteen; he's really good with the horses. We have several others who help out as well."
Daniel still sounded slightly skeptical as he went on. "Well, Miss Fleming, I'm sure you know who I am." Amy nodded, then realised that he obviously couldn't see her.
"Of course, Mr Thomson."
"I have a young up and coming eventer – lovely gelding, about 17hh, Thoroughbred-Warmblood cross. We're about to start competing him – he's only six, you see."
"He sounds nice." Amy replied, still feeling flustered.
"We've got one problem. You see, before he came to us – Gordon, that is – we're pretty sure he was badly abused by a previous owner when he was very little. He's a lovely horse, very affectionate – but when he gets scared, there is absolutely nothing you can do to change his mind and make him see that you're trying to help him. And he is terrified of water. Terrified of water jumps, puddles – you name it."
"And to be a top eventer, he obviously has to take water jumps in his stride – and those jumps can be pretty huge."
"Exactly, Miss Fleming. And that's where you come in – I'm desperately hoping that you'll be able to help me."
"Well … I've never worked with a horse like this before, but I'll try to help you – and Gordon – any way I can. Only – we don't have a cross country course, or any sort of water really, at Heartland. There's not an awful lot that I can do with him here."
"Would it be better if you treated him at my barn, then? It's only half an hours drive from yours, and we have a full cross country course, water complex and everything."
"That would be great, Mr Thomson! When would you like me to start?"
"As soon as possible. Is there any chance you'd be able to come over to meet him – and me – today?"
Amy checked her watch. It was only eight o'clock – the stables were all already done and horses brushed, if she went to see Gordon now she'd be back in plenty of time for a ride with Ty and some work on the other horses.
"Sure! That'll be fine – I should be able to be there in about three-quarters of an hour. Could I have some directions, Mr Thomson?"
"Please, call me Daniel." He proceeded to give Amy directions to his barn, Mystery Creek Stable.
She bounced into the kitchen a moment later, thrilled with the prospect of meeting – and working – with a top class, British eventer. Picking up a stray Horse & Pony magazine, Amy flipped to the eventing section – sure enough, there was a picture of Daniel Thomson, Advanced (CCI ) Champion at a local three day event.
"Lou!" She called excitedly. Her sister came to peer over her shoulder, her soft blonde curls brushing Amy's shoulder.
"THIS is who was on the phone! THIS is who I am going to be working with!" Even Lou knew who Daniel Thomson was.
"Daniel Thomson? That's amazing, that he knows who we are! And little old Heartland! Imagine what great publicity it will be for us!" Lou's jubilant face grew serious. "Amy … are you sure? Sure you have time for another horse? We just don't have the inside room at the moment!"
"That's the best part – he doesn't want Gordon here. We just don't have the facilities to help him – he wants me to work with him at HIS place – Mystery Creek Stable! I'm going to go over there after breakfast – if Ty can give me a ride."
"Give you a ride where?" Amy looked up to see Ty enter the kitchen, tousled chestnut hair flopping over his bright green eyes. She smiled as she saw him, realising just how much she was looking forward to their trail ride that afternoon. Ty's mouth curved into a grin as he caught Amy's eye, guessing what she was thinking about.
"I – I mean, both of us – we've been asked to work for Daniel Thomson."
Ty's mouth literally dropped open. "Daniel Thomson? Are you serious?"
"I know – hard to believe. But he's got this great young eventing horse …"
Lou interrupted the two of them by placing a stack of plates down on the worn wooden kitchen table. "Talk over breakfast, guys." They both began eating and Amy explained all about Gordon and his fear of water.
"So will you be able to come down with me to Mystery Creek in a few minutes?" Amy asked.
"I'm sorry, Ames, but I really wanted to work with Whisper this morning – so we've got plenty of time to ride this afternoon."
"But – I don't want you to miss out on working with such a great horse. Both of us should work with him."
Ty smiled at Amy softly. "It's okay – really. I'll come with you next time, definitely. I can still take you down there though."
After saying goodbye to Lou, Ty grabbed his jacket and they both headed out the door. As soon as Lou was out of sight, Ty curved his arm around Amy's waist and she leaned into him, so happy to be close to him again.
"I feel like we haven't had enough time to just be with each other lately," she said softly.
"You're right. This afternoon – let's make that ride really long, okay?"
Ty leaned down and kissed her softly as they neared the car, before making his way around to the driver's door. Amy touched her lips softly as she stared after him. I'm so, so lucky to have Ty.
He held her hand the whole way to Mystery Creek.
Mystery Creek, Saturday morning
Amy felt her mouth drop open in amazement as they turned into the long, tree lined driveway of Mystery Creek Stable. The place was huge! Paddocks with beautiful, white wooden fencing were full of gorgeous, shiny horses and she could see at least three stable blocks – plus a huge, modern house and swimming pool – from where they were. As they pulled out of the driveway and into the main stable yard, she grew more amazed – if that was possible – as her eyes rested on a full Olympic-size dressage arena, a jumping arena, round pen, horse swimming pool – and what looked like a country course, way in the distance of the surrounding countryside. Ty whistled softly.
"Wow."
Amy agreed. "Wow alright."
"I'm starting to wish I could stay with you!" She turned to look at Ty quickly, but from the grin on his face she could tell he was still light-hearted. He squeezed her hand softly before leaning over the seat to take her face softly in his hands. "Be careful, okay? You don't know this guy … he might try to steal you away from Heartland once he sees what a good rider you are!" She laughed softly, both of them knowing damn well that Amy would never leave Heartland for anything.
Seeing Ty's lips inching closer to hers, Amy lost all coherent thought and instead found herself mesmerised by his emerald eyes. His lips found hers gently, softly. Ty was always so careful with Amy. As if I'm something precious to him.
They broke apart a minute later. "I'd … better get going."
Ty looked at his watch. "I'll come back in a couple of hours?"
"That should be enough time. Thanks, Ty." Amy climbed out of the car and was shutting the door when Ty said something quietly, so softly that she wouldn't have heard it if she'd turned away.
"Love you."
Smoky grey eyes met green ones as she looked up at him in shock. Ty's never said that before!
"Ty … I … I" Amy was, literally, lost for words. She was trying to gather her thoughts when a voice with a strong British accent boomed out behind her. "Miss Fleming! You're here!"
Amy turned and heard Ty accelerate, then leave as she stuttered. "Mr … Mr Thomson. Great to meet you."
The attractive young man walking towards her couldn't have been more than nineteen. He swept his black hair out of his eyes impatiently, removing dark sunglasses to reveal a pair of startlingly blue eyes as he held his arm out to shake her hand. "Please, Miss Fleming. Daniel. I always feel like someone's addressing my father when they call me Mr Thomson."
"I'm Amy, then. I've never been a Miss Fleming!"
Daniel smiled, showing perfectly straight white teeth as he shook her hand with a firm grasp. Amy turned, taking in again the huge setup of Mystery Creek Stable.
"I'm just … amazed. This is a huge place you've got here … um, Daniel."
"This is just my US base! As you can tell, I'm originally from England." Daniel began to show the younger girl around as he told her about himself – and Mystery Creek.
"I was born in England, and lived there for the first ten years of my life – then Mum and Dad decided they needed a change, and we came over here. They live back home now – at our other estate in Derbyshire."
"It must be hard, living away from your family."
Daniel shrugged. "It's what I have to do to further my career – I have both English and American citizenship, so I could get selected for the Olympics for either country. But I think I have a better chance of representing the US – there's just too many experienced Brit eventers at the moment. So that's why I'm based here at the moment. I'm on the finalist squad for 2008."
Amy was astounded. Daniel was only a few years older than her – but had a completely different life to her – in all respects. Obviously wealthy and with a fantastic setup at his house – he had everything he needed to make it to the top of whatever discipline he chose. Amy felt a twinge of jealousy at the way Daniel could talk so nonchalantly about his achievements and wealth – as if they weren't that unusual or important.
They were leaning on the fence, watching a lovely dun horse being schooled in the dressage arena by a young blonde woman. Amy recognised the distinctively coloured horse immediately. "That's – Crispy Noodles? Your advanced champion?" The horse almost answered for himself as the woman turned him across the diagonal and asked him to extend his trot – which he did seemingly effortlessly.
Daniel smiled with obvious affection for the gelding as he answered Amy. "Yep, that's Crisp. First Advanced horse that I've brought on completely by myself. We've definitely learnt a lot together – he's only ten, you know. I'm the only one that usually rides him, but I let Mel ride today since I'm showing you around."
"Very British sounding name!" Amy did a poor imitation of Daniel saying his horse's name, and they both laughed. Amy turned back to watch Crisp as the woman really put him through his paces. Flying changes, extended canter – Crisp did it beautifully, behaving as if he was a dressage schoolmaster – instead of an advanced eventing champion!
After warming Crisp down for ten minutes, the blonde woman – Mel – brought him over to Amy and Daniel. "He was great, Dan. Thanks for letting me ride!" Mel's face was glowing; Amy could clearly see what a pleasure the horse was to ride.
"I might let you more often now!"
Amy held her hands out to the horse, oblivious to the conversation. Crisp blew his breath out in a huff, and then sniffed her hand, before snorting loudly and blowing foamy ice cream from his mouth all over her. Amy laughed softly, stroking his golden forehead. "You're a gorgeous boy, aren't you? I've got a little guy who looks just like you at home …" She began unconsciously rubbing her fingers in little circles around Crisp's face – T-touch. The horse's head sunk lower and lower, and he blew out his breath with a sigh, completely relaxed with Amy already.
The sound of a door banging a few minutes later startled both horse and girl and they jumped. Amy soothed Crisp with her voice softly. Then – maybe it was her imagination, but she could feel eyes burning into the back of her neck. Turning around slowly, still holding Crisp, she met the cool, appraising blue eyes of Daniel Thomson.
"I think … Crisp … he seems to like me." She stuttered. Why does Daniel have that effect on me? She thought angrily.
"I think he does indeed. Amy Fleming – I think you have a way with horses. I think – no, I'm sure – that we are going to be friends."
Daniel asked Mel to put Crisp away, and Amy reluctantly parted with the dun horse. Her interest returned, however, when Dan decided that their next stop was going to be the most important one – Gordon, the whole reason Amy was at Mystery Creek. Taking her hand gently, he led her into the smallest of the three stables, calling out greetings to various stable hands along the way.
The stables inside were huge, American-barn style stalls which meant that horses could easily put their head over the wall into the next to say hello to their neighbour.
Daniel stopped in front of a stable where a sleek, shiny bay gelding was happily scratching a delicate grey mare in the next stable. He only expressed a flicker of interest at the two humans, flicking his black-tipped ears in their direction and glancing at them cheekily before returning to the important business of grooming.
Dan laughed softly, remarking to Amy, "He's a mummy's boy, our Gordon. This is Poppy, my old darling. She's Gordon – and Crisp's – mummy. My family actually bred Gordon – but we made the mistake of selling him as a yearling."
It was a touching scene, a young gelding scratching his elderly mother and Amy watched silently for a few minutes, enjoying the way the horses knew exactly where to scratch each other.
"She's getting on a bit now, Poppy – coming up for twenty. But she's the most wonderful mare I've ever had – she's a schoolmistress, took me to Pony Club Champs when I was thirteen. We evented at Open for quite a while before I retired her – but she still gets ridden weekly, and boy, when we take her out for trail rides – she sees those cross country jumps, and she wants to go!"
Poppy seemed to have had enough of a scratch, and she nipped Gordon gently, telling him to go away as she moved over to a full haynet. The gelding almost seemed to pout for a moment before moving over to where the two humans were and practically begging them to continue where his mother had left off.
"He's very friendly."
A look which could have been pain flashed across Daniel's face. "As I said before, I made the mistake of selling him as a yearling. I don't know what exactly happened to him – I was sure the people who got him were good people – but we found him again last year, and it was … horrible."
It was a new experience for Amy, seeing all the horror Daniel had obviously gone through – seeing a horse he had bred badly mistreated. She'd assumed immediately he was like all other top riders – treated his horses like money-making machines.
"I'm just so lucky that he's learnt to trust humans again. I don't want to think about what he'd gone through, the way he acted when he got here. He wouldn't let us near him for the first month – I couldn't ride him for six months after he got here. This horse has been here a year, Amy, and he's only been properly ridden in the last two months. I am so, so lucky that he is this friendly – this is a horse that has so much potential, but could have been ruined because of something stupid that I did five years ago."
Amy touched Daniel's arm – treating him as a fellow rider, not as an eventing champion. As someone who had seen horses go through pain, much as she had. "What are you, Daniel? Nineteen? You would have been fourteen when Gordon was sold … you can't blame yourself in any way."
Daniel looked at her, straight in the eye. "You understand, then? You understand that this horse is worth so much to me – something that can never be put into dollars? I'm trusting you with so much, Amy Fleming."
She stared back at him steadily. "I know you think I'm only sixteen, Daniel. But I can do it – me and Ty, we can. You can trust me."
He stared at her expressionlessly for a moment. Then his face broke into a friendly smile. "I wish we'd known you a year ago, Amy, when Gordon first came here. But all I can say now is – welcome to the team."
Well, I barely got anything actually DONE in that chapter – absolutely nothing about Jazz, I'm sorry – there WAS supposed to be something in there, but I need to get these characters introduced! Sorry for any spelling errors … it's nearly ten at night and I need to go to bed … hope you all love it!
And PLEASE, PLEASE review! Thanks heaps.