So I've had this chapter written up for a while, but I just didn't like it. I finally figured out how to fix it and toke a whole chunk out so the end might be a tad confusing, it will be explained next chapter. I've just started high school as to why I also haven't updated, sorry. FIY: I'm calling Sam's mum Jill in this story. Hope you like :) J
He was almost there, and I could feel it. Two more steps and he'd be pushing my door open. He was going to find me, and what could I do? What did he want? Maybe if I helped him find it he'd just leave me alone…
Sam woke as she usually did, covered in a damp sweat from her nightmare. The sweat was made worse by her knee high uniform stockings and button up shirt. She rolled over to glance at the clock next to her bed…
I glanced around the room. This wasn't my room, and it hadn't all been a dream. I really was at the Ely's house, and Jake was across the room stretched out across his bed, sleeping. I could hear a loud, gravely, noise. What was that? The noise was replaced by a beep, beep, bleeep of an alarm clock. I looked over to Jake. He opened his eyes and the gravely noise stopped. I suddenly realized what the noise was.
"Jake, you snore like a bear!" I said. He looked over at me.
"Maybe you should sleep on the coach." He said.
"Maybe I'll tell your mom you just told me that."
He sighed, Jake's equivalent to an eye roll. "You aren't going to if you want me to let you ride today." I forget everything but his last two words.
"I can ride today?" I asked, thrilled. I had only ridden a few times since I had left the ranch to live with my dad in an apartment outside of Las Vegas. " Oh my god, do you still have my horses?" When my dad and me had left we'd sold all the horses. The Ely's had bought a few, I couldn't remember which.
"We have Ace still, but Jeep was sold last spring." He answered me. I squealed.
"Can I ride Ace? Can I go see him? Right now?"
"Well, you might want to get dressed, and my moms probably got some big breakfast planned- " I interrupted him.
"But can I just go see him? Please?" I begged. Jake smiled.
"Okay." I grinned and ran for the door. He grabbed my arm before I could leave.
"We have to be quiet." He pointed to his alarm clock. The numbers read 4:15. "I get up early to go for a run."
"Oh." I whispered. "Let's go." We sneaked quietly down the stairs. I had gotten good at sneaking around. We had had a curfew of 8:30 that Christy and I weren't always willing to follow. When we got to the bottom of the first set of stairs I toke a right. I heard him chuckle as he pulled me to the left. I didn't remember walking up these stairs. I had fallen asleep on the coach. Hadn't I?
"Didn't I fall asleep on the coach?" I whispered.
"Yeah."
"So how did I get upstairs?"
"Shhh," he hushed me. At the front door he pulled on sneakers and handed me a pair of cowboy boots. I slipped them on, and my feet swam in his boots. Once we got outside I gazed around the still dark yard. The sun was rising over the edge of the mountains and the sky was filled with strips of pastels. I turned in a circle until my eyes fell on the large pasture. I scanned it for my little bay pony, but he wasn't in sight. I looked at the barn and then at Jake.
"Is he in there?" Jake nodded, and I ran for the barn. I could hear his footsteps behind me and I walked down the isle, checking each stall. I heard a nicker from the next stall, and a bay head was thrown over the door. He shook his head, exposing a star beneath his thick forelock.
"Ace!" I squealed. Jake was by my side with a scoop of grain. He handed it to me and I rushed into Ace's stall. After I had dumped the grain into his bucket I looked at him. His coat was shiny and dapples shown across his flanks. Black mane hung to mid-neck and a full tail swished at flies.
"When can I ride him?" I said, looking for Jake. I saw him at the front of the isle, passing out scoops of grain and flakes of hay to all the horses.
"You can come with me when we ride out, if you're up to a little work." He passed an empty stall across from Ace's.
"Okay." I replied. "Whose stall was that?" He looked up at me, and I read sorrow in his eyes.
"You remember Sweetheart?"
"My moms horse?"
"Yes."
I nodded.
"She was older when we bought her, sixteen or seventeen. We got her for my mom to ride, cause she's kind of scared around horses. Sweetheart died last winter." He said, regretfully. His words sounded carefully chosen and worried.
"Oh," My voice dropped. "So she's gone?" I meant Sweetheart, but I realized I was talking about my mom too. I didn't have anything left from my mother, except the memories in my head. Jake nodded. I turned around and carefully locked Ace's stall door. We walked to the front of the barn together. He kept glancing at me from the corner of his eye; I think he thought I was going to cry.
"Are you going to go for your run?" I asked.
"I wasn't going to leave you here, my mom might freak out when she wakes up. She doesn't even know I run in the mornings." He told me.
"I'll come." I didn't want them to change everything just because I was here.
"I don't know Sam. Can you even run?"
"No…but can I ride?" I asked, hopeful.
"You couldn't ride Ace, you'd have to ride one of the ponies that doesn't get grain," he gestured to the pasture. I smiled,
"Okay, I'll ride whoever." Jake realized what he'd gotten himself into.
"Maybe a different day…" He said.
"No. You said I could ride one of the ponies who don't get grain." He shook his head, remembering how stubborn I could be.
"Okay. One condition though, you go write my mom a note, and I'll get a pony."
"All right!" I ran for the house. I found a notepad next to the phone a quickly scrawled a note-
Maxine, Jake and I woke up early so we went for a quick ride. Be back for breakfast.
Sam
Then I ran for the barn. Jake was just throwing a tiny saddle over the back of a chestnut Shetland pony. The pony's mane was wild and his stomach puffed out as Jake tightened the girth. I caught Jake's eye and raised my eyebrows.
"This is Snickers. And we don't have a western saddle small enough for him." He handed me the reins, and I realized what I was wearing. My knee length skirt was hardly acceptable for my first ride in years. I glanced to see what Jake was wearing. A white undershirt and shorts seemed like the proper attire for running. I sighed; Jake always had been better prepared.
"Ready?" He asked as he stretched out. I nodded. Snickers snorted and pushed me from behind. I giggled. Once we were outside I awkwardly pulled down my stirrups and tightened the girth.
"Need a leg?" He was joking, but I found I really did need one.
"Unless you want me flashing the world, then yes." He chuckled at me again. Snickers stood patiently as Jake boosted me up onto his barely twelve hand back. I closed my eyes for a second to relish the feeling of being on horseback again…Snickers yanked the reins through my hands as his head stretched down to find grass.
"Hey, Snickers, knock it off." He continued to ignore me. I glanced at Jake who was staring at the ground.
"What?" I asked.
"You skirt…" He gestured toward the seat of the saddle. My skirt was bunched up around my waist.
"Grow up Jake. How else am I supposed to ride?"
"Snickers!"
"Shh," Jake laughed, "Give him a little kick." I did and his head came up. I gave him another and we started walking forward and out of Jake's yard.
Forty-five minutes later Snickers, riderless, came trotting into Three Ponies Ranch, heading straight for the grass outside the pasture.
"What the hell did you do that for?" I asked Jake from my seat out on the desert floor.
"You were going to get hurt," Jake answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.