Six to Ride (Pony Jumpers #6)

Chapter 1

The road stretched out ahead of us, glimmering slightly in the heat as we drove further north. I knew from looking at my phone this morning that it was overcast and drizzling back home, and had sent Mum a text to make sure she put the appropriate rugs on all the ponies. I didn't like being away from them, but Dad had insisted on this father-daughter road trip, as he was calling it, and for reasons known only to himself and my mum, they'd joined forces to make me go along.

I half-closed my eyes behind my sunglasses, wondering why he was bothering. I hadn't seen much of my Dad since I was seven years old, until he'd reappeared a couple of months ago and decided he could just waltz back into my life. I had to admit that there were upsides to this. For one, he was loaded from his years of working in Australia - and from shirking on his child support payments – which meant he could afford to buy things that Mum had been telling me for years were too expensive. An iPhone, for one, which was now one of my most prized possessions. And Molly, for the other, who was infinitely more valuable than any piece of technology. He'd saved the day on that one, for sure, buying my superstar lease pony from her owners so I wouldn't lose the ride. So I had to appreciate him for that, and I did.

But there were downsides, too. He seemed to expect me to have utterly forgiven him for years of absence, just because he bought me a pony, and he kept trying to be all fatherly. The attempts to hug me were bad enough, because I've never much liked being hugged anyway, but the attempts at discipline were even worse. I must have inherited my short fuse from him, as well as my tendency to say whatever comes to mind before thinking it through, and it had already made for some hefty arguments.

"Not far now," he said, shooting me a knowing look from the driver's seat of his shiny Range Rover.

"I'd be more excited if you'd tell me where we're going," I replied, my legs already sweating slightly inside my boots and chaps. He'd insisted I pack them and told me to put them on this morning, then had donned jeans and John Bull boots himself, which gave me the suspicious feeling that we were going to go on some kind of horse trekking adventure. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing – it had to beat yesterday's activity in Rotorua, which had involved wandering for hours around stinky thermal mud pools, clutching a map and trying not to get sunstroke while Dad murmured things about geology.

Now we were heading towards Hamilton, and I wondered if he thought taking me riding was going to be the way to my heart. If he did, he was probably wrong. Not that I didn't like riding – I lived for it – but going to some mouldy trekking centre and riding some half-schooled horse with a mouth like iron and no independent spirit while Dad trailed along behind me on something half-dead didn't exactly appeal to me. I was missing my ponies frantically, missing my mum and my bedroom and my little dog Critter. I'd barely slept in the two nights we'd been away, but I couldn't tell him that I was homesick. Not now that I was almost sixteen. It would sound pathetic, and he probably wouldn't believe me anyway.

Dad flicked on his indicator and slowed down to turn. I glanced around us, then sat up straight and stared out of the window.

"Are you serious?"

We were heading up a large, tree-lined driveway. Lush green grass filled the paddocks on either side, bordered by immaculate post and rail fences and containing some of the most stunning horses I'd ever seen. I knew exactly where we were, but I still couldn't believe my eyes.

Little River Farm was one of – probably the – number one sport horse breeding facility in New Zealand. They'd imported a couple of incredible European jumping stallions, and had built up an amazing group of broodmares over the past twenty years. Their horses were the crème de la crème, the ones that always turned heads in the ring and jumped the tops of the stands as though they weren't even trying. They'd won all the biggest breeding championships in the country for the past couple of years, and my heart was pounding as I turned to look at my father's profile. A smile was playing around the corners of his mouth, and he looked at me sideways.