The ride to the show went quickly. Kate drove and Jessica sat up front with her, while Skyler stretched her long legs out across the backseat of the truck. They started out talking over the competition, but the conversation between the three quickly turned light as Kate began to recall for Jessica some embarrassing moments from Skyler’s early introduction into the horse world.
“Yeah, young Sky was pretty sure someone was pulling a joke on her when I first showed her that her job would be to muck stalls,” Kate said. “She was such a city kid, she couldn’t believe I wanted her to pick up huge piles of horse poop.”
“Kate,” Skyler warned.
Kate laughed. She’d known Skyler since a teacher-friend of the Parker family brought her and her twin brother to Cherokee Falls. The two ten-year-olds were being abused at home and stayed with the Parkers off and on for many years, arriving whenever their father came home from his construction job building large bridges. Except for near-identical features, the twins were night and day. The self-confident Skyler was aggressive, risk-taking, and volatile. The shy, awkward Douglas had a genius I.Q. and tutored his sister patiently through the more complicated subjects at school. She was his champion, protecting him from the teasing of other children and interceding with their father, taking beatings meant for Douglas.
Kate was in her early thirties then, and Skyler became her constant shadow at the farm. Horses were truly her calling. She was a natural rider and intuitive trainer. She seemed to find animals easier to relate to than people and the horses she schooled responded to her in the same way.
“You’ve got to know by now that Skyler always thinks there must be a better way to do almost everything,” Kate continued with her story. “So, one day, I keep seeing her take the horses out of the barn and walk them around like they are dogs. Then I notice that when they finally poop, she puts them back in their stalls.” Between howls of laughter, she explained, “After a while I realize she’s trying to housebreak…or I guess barn-break them, to go to the bathroom outside.”
Skyler folded her arms over her chest. “Very funny.”
Kate wasn’t done. “So I snuck in the barn and heard her telling this big chestnut mare what a good horse she was for going to the bathroom in the pasture, not her stall. But that mare would pee a bucketful the minute you put her in a stall with fresh, clean bedding. So there’s Sky with a smug look on her face leading her into a clean stall…I can still see it.” Tears began to roll down Kate’s face, she was laughing so hard. “God, I wish I’d had a camera when it sounded like someone had turned on a fire hose behind her.”
Jessica was wiping away her own tears of laughter and holding her sides. Skyler’s embarrassed look, the brown eyes peeking from under the thick blond bangs the wind had whipped around her face, was just too precious. Jessica had never seen this playful side of the all-business trainer. She definitely wanted to see it more often. She could tell that, even being the brunt of the laughter, Skyler was enjoying the easy camaraderie.
“Hey, Kate. I just bet you know a story or two about Jessica, too,” Skyler prompted.
Kate raised her eyebrows. “Hmm. Did I ever tell you what a hard time her mother and I had keeping clothes on her when she was little?”
“Do tell.” Skyler grinned.
“Don’t you dare.” Jessica knew exactly where this was headed. Kate loved telling people about her exploits and Jessica had a feeling she would embellish them for Skyler. To spare herself, she decided to strike first. “Apparently I was an exhibitionist. I removed my clothing in restaurants and anywhere else likely to make Mom and Kate cringe. Enough said.”
“Oh, no. You have to do better than that,” Skyler teased. “I want an example.”
Jessica was tempted to remind her about that morning several weeks ago, when they stood by the hot tub. But she didn’t plan to relive that moment in front of Kate. She preferred to pretend it had never happened and had carefully maintained professional boundaries with Skyler ever since.
“I have a story,” Kate said. “We were on a plane—”
Jessica covered her face with her hands. “No, please. Not the plane story.”
“Turnabout is fair play,” Skyler said.