My Favorite Mistake (21 page)

“Then?”

“Duh. Then you sew it all back together again. Just line it up the way you want it, maybe pin it if you can.” There was a loud buzz in the background. “Oops! Dan's here to pick me up. Gotta go. Good luck with the breeches!”

“Wait!” Kate cried.

Too late. Nat had already hung up.

Kate set down her phone and stared at the breeches lying in front of her, trying to psych herself up. Okay, that hadn't been much help. But like Nat said, it wasn't brain surgery. She could do this.

“Here goes nothing,” she whispered, grabbing the breeches.

Her hand shook as she picked up the seam ripper. That made it even harder to get the little pointy part under the tight stitches of the side seam. Kate forced herself to stop and take a deep breath, then try again. This time she managed to rip out one stitch. Then another. The third stitch seemed even tinier and tighter, so she wriggled the seam ripper to try to wedge it in there.

RRRRRRIP!

Kate gasped as her hand slipped, shoving the seam ripper past the thread. “No!” she cried, not wanting to look but unable to turn away. She'd just sliced a big gash in the fabric itself.

She tossed aside the seam ripper and poked at the spot.
Maybe it was only one layer, maybe it wasn't as bad as she thought.

But it was. If anything, it was worse. As if her too-big breeches hadn't been bad enough, now there was a big rip right on the butt, below where the hem of her coat would fall. No way would Jamie let her anywhere near the ring like that!

She glanced at the phone again, tempted to call Nat back. But no. She couldn't help her now—nobody could. With a sick, helpless feeling in the pit of her stomach, Kate picked up the seam ripper again.

By the time she heard Dani's footsteps in the hallway two hours later, Kate was almost in tears. She'd finished ripping out the seam, hoping that by the time she took it in, the rip wouldn't show.

But it did. Plus the new seam she'd tried to sew looked horrible, amateurish and sloppy. She wished she'd just left the breeches the way they were, maybe tried wearing them over her pajama bottoms or something to make them fit better. But it was too late now. Way too late.

She barely had time to hide the ruined breeches, jump into bed, and pretend to be sleeping before Dani came in. An hour later Dani had showered, changed, and fallen asleep herself, but Kate was still lying there wide awake, wondering exactly what in the world she was supposed to do now.

“Nicely done,” Jamie said as Zara rode out of the ring.

Zara grinned. She didn't need anyone to tell her that she and Keeper had just burned up that junior jumper class. Still, it was good to hear. Jamie wasn't exactly loose with the compliments.

“Thanks,” she said, giving Keeper a pat. “That was fun.”

She rode past the gate congestion, then swung down and loosened the horse's girth. Max hurried toward her.

“I'll cool him out for you if you want to watch your friends go,” the young groom offered.

Zara glanced over her shoulder and saw Tommi riding Legs into the ring. “Great, thanks,” she said, handing Max the reins. “Think I will.”

Her friends, huh? So at least one person thought she was fitting in at her new barn. Was she? Zara still wasn't sure, but she wasn't in the mood for philosophizing about it just then.

She hurried back and found a spot at the rail just as Tommi
picked up the canter. Legs looked good. Sharp. His ears were at full alert, flicking back and forth from Tommi to the coming fence.

“Chill, dude,” Zara whispered as Legs spurted forward, almost running past his distance. Tommi steadied him, meeting the fence just right and sailing over with inches to spare.

“Do you know that horse?” someone asked from beside Zara.

It was a fish-faced girl with shiny dark hair. Full makeup, pricey custom chaps, a bracelet that looked like real diamonds.

“You talking to me?” Zara asked, half expecting her to start gushing about how much she loved Zac's music.

But the girl was already looking back at the ring. Zara wasn't even sure she'd actually recognized her. “I'm Vanessa,” she said. “I heard that horse Tommi Aaronson is riding might be for sale. True?”

“Yeah, actually he is.” Zara turned to watch as the pair approached another jump. “Why, you interested?”

“Maybe.” Vanessa watched closely as Legs landed, then made a sharp turn to a big, airy vertical. “Wanted to see him go first. I don't waste my time with average jumpers. Anything I ride has to have serious talent.”

Zara didn't have time to roll her eyes. She held her breath as Legs neared the vertical. It was a tricky one, and it came up really fast after that last jump. Even Keeper had given the thing a hard look, and he was as been-there-done-that as could be in the jumper ring.

Sure enough, Legs raised his head and slowed down a bit. But Tommi was ready, keeping him balanced and in front of
her leg while tactfully pushing him forward. He took off a hair long but had no trouble clearing it.

“Nice,” Zara murmured. It was pretty obvious that Tommi wasn't riding for the time or a ribbon. She was taking it easy, finessing the course, making sure Legs felt confident and had a good experience. Smart.

“He looks pretty scopey, huh? You seen him school much at home? Is he usually a little faster? I almost always make the jump-off, so I need a fast horse.”

Zara had almost forgotten about Vanessa already. She glanced over. “Well, I don't usually waste my time watching other people's horses,” she said with a straight face. “But yeah, I've seen him go a lot.”

“And?”

Was this girl for real? Zara was starting to get annoyed by her attitude. As if the whole world was her own personal Google, and other people existed solely for the purpose of telling her what she needed to know.

But after her own good ride, Zara was in too good a mood to tell her off. Besides, why bother when messing with her was so much more fun?

“And he's probably the most talented jumper I've ever seen,” she said, putting as much sincerity into her voice and face as she could. Gina wasn't the only one in the family who could act. “Seriously. Jamie can't believe he's lucky enough to have this horse in his barn.”

“You mean Jamie Vos? He said that?” The girl actually looked impressed. “Really?”

“Would I lie to you?” Zara fought to keep her smile from
turning into a smirk. “Anyway, Tommi's being superconservative with him—that's the only reason she's bothering with even schooling him in the piddly old juniors.” She glanced around, as if making sure nobody was eavesdropping. “If you ask me, they'll probably be doing a lot more by the time they get to indoors. A
lot
.” She raised her eyebrows, then shot a not-so-subtle glance in the direction of the Grand Prix ring just across the way.

“Interesting.” Vanessa watched as Tommi guided Legs over the final jump on the course, then eased him to a trot and rode toward the gate.

Zara didn't answer. For one thing, she was already getting bored with this girl. Besides, she'd just noticed that Dani's horse was acting up as she tried to ride him through the mess around the gate. Some woman was letting her corgi dash back and forth on his flexi leash, and it was making the always-amped Thoroughbred nervous. Jamie and Miguel saw it, too, and were already hurrying over to help. Glancing around, Zara saw that none of the other grooms were in view. That meant Tommi was on her own. Sure, she could probably handle it. But why not help out if she could?

“Gotta go,” she told Vanessa.

She hurried over to meet Tommi as she came out of the ring. “Thanks,” Tommi said as Zara took Legs's reins and guided him through the chaos to a quieter spot. “How'd we look?”

“Great.” Zara grinned. “And hey, if I help you sell Legs, do I get a commission?”

Tommi dismounted and unhooked her helmet strap. “What are you talking about?”

“Just kidding around. This chick at the rail was asking me all kinds of questions about him being for sale and stuff. Guess she's kind of interested. So I talked him up a little.”

“Really? Who was it?” Tommi craned her head to look back at the ring.

Zara glanced over at where the girl had been standing, but there was no sign of her. “Looks like she took off. Oh well, guess you'll find out if she actually gets in touch.”

“Yeah.” Tommi sounded a little distracted. She smiled as she gave Legs a pat, then fished a treat out of her pocket. “Guess so.”

“Aha! There you are!” Fitz suddenly appeared in the doorway of the feed stall, where Kate was measuring out dry beet pulp shreds. Dinnertime was still several hours away, but more than half of the horses were showing or schooling at the moment, and she wanted to take advantage of the relative quiet.

Fitz swooped in, grabbed her by the hand, and pulled her after him into the aisle. “What are you doing?” Kate protested. “I'm right in the middle of something.”

“I don't care.” He grinned at her. “Jamie just finished telling me how much I suck in pretty much every possible way, and I'm feeling vulnerable and insecure. I need a Kate fix to give me a reason to go on living.”

Yeah, right. Jamie might be angry with Fitz right now, but that wouldn't affect his professional, positive training style. And
vulnerable
and
insecure
weren't the first two words anyone would ever use to describe Fitz. They weren't even on the list.

Still, Kate couldn't resist following along as he led her down the aisle. For one thing, she knew it would be faster to give in than to argue about it. Besides, she could use a little mental break herself. It had been another crazy-busy day so far, and it didn't help that she still had no idea what to do about her ruined breeches. She'd peeked at them again that morning, hanging back after Dani left for breakfast, and they looked even worse in the cold gray light of dawn.

That was a real problem. It wasn't as if she could ride tomorrow's Big Eq class in jeans. Or even in her schooling breeches, a cheap pair of tan Tuff Rider pull-ons that were old and a little faded but relatively clean. They would've fit right in at that Happy Acres show, but they wouldn't fly here. If worse came to worst, she figured she'd have to fake an attack of food poisoning or something to get out of showing entirely. But the thought of doing something like that made her feel sick for real. Jamie had brought Fable to this show mostly for her, and she hated to let him down. Not to mention that he'd have to scramble to find someone else to ride those greenies in the schooling division or else rearrange everyone's schedule and run himself ragged adding them to his own overcrowded list.

She forgot about all that as Fitz pulled her into an unoccupied stall. “That's more like it,” he murmured as he took her gently by the shoulders and planted a soft kiss on her lips. “Maybe I
can
find the strength to go on after all.”

Despite her worries, Kate smiled. She didn't know how Fitz did it. He had such a goofy, relaxed, lighthearted way of looking at things, and it rubbed off on everyone around him. Even her.

“Are you sure?” she said, leaning into him. “You still look kind of depressed to me.”

Fitz laughed. “Come to think of it, better safe than sorry.”

He bent toward her for another kiss. As things quickly got more intense, his hands slid from her shoulders around to her back, then down to her waist. He gave her a little squeeze, then pulled back. There was a slight frown on his face.

“Hey,” he said, running his hands up and down her sides again, pausing at the ribs and hipbones. “Are you okay? You'd tell me if you were sick or something, right?”

Kate pulled back, pushing his hands away. “What are you talking about? I'm fine.” She tugged at the baggy polo shirt she was wearing over a thick ribbed T-shirt.

“Hello?” a voice called in the aisle outside. “Anybody here?”