Riding on Air Read Online Free

right, Miss Showjumper. I hear you didn’t exactly cover yourself in glory on the cross country course yesterday morning,” I said, a grin creeping onto my face.
    Tash shrugged and smiled, swinging away from the railing. “Nah, I leave that up to Eleni. She’s our eventing expert.”
    Eleni scowled. She can never take a compliment. It’s like she’s embarrassed to be so good at three-day eventing. She works so hard and she’s so talented, it’s a shame that any praise just makes her squirm. If you compliment her horse, though, she glows. I get that; love me, love my horse.
    â€œIf you did more dressage, Tash, your horse would jump a lot better,” Eleni said. We shared a conspirator’s grin, while Tash just predictably rolled her eyes.
    â€œDressage is for pansies and eventers, no offence. We showjumpers are free spirits, you can’t contain us behind little white fences.”
    â€œNo, it’s over, under or crash right through for you lot,” Eleni said.
    I’d just ducked down to begin my careful hand-protecting wriggle through the rails and had to stop for a minute while I finished laughing. I wish I could think of smart things to say as quickly as Eleni does. I never think of anything till hours later, if ever.
    â€œThere’s nothing small about the fences I jump over,” Tash declared. She reached out a long arm, curling her fingers around my bicep to steady me as I slid cautiously between the rails.
    â€œTouché,” Eleni acknowledged. She stepped up and wrapped a hand around my other arm as I emerged from Jinx’s yard. As soon as I was upright they let go. They know just how much help to offer; just how much I can accept without feeling stupid. Again, gratitude rolled over me, making my chest tighten. I blinked, ambushed by the emotional rush and determined not to get soppy. If I got teary my well-meaning friends would have me back at the St John’s Ambulance before you could say JRA to have me checked for a brain injury.
    â€œCome on then, let’s go. I’m starving,” Tash said, jerking her head in the direction of the lunch tent.
    As I fell into step between them on our way to eat and they started arguing about the merits of dressage for jumping horses— “the German showjumping team does dressage and they’ve won a gazillion gold medals” from Eleni, countered by a darkly muttered “not lately” from Tash—my headache returned with a vengeance, pounding behind my eyes. I flexed my fingers experimentally, just reassuring myself.
    Whenever it was this bad, when my joints grew hot and sluggish, I was always afraid. What if this time the pain didn’t ever let go?

Chapter 3
    It was lucky I’d pocketed that pill. It had been an impulse at the time, a tiny white circle of insurance because I was feeling pretty sore and I knew from experience that if I’m hurting right after a fall it’s going to be 10 times worse the next day. When I edged my aching body out of bed the following morning, with more of those pain-bombs going off in my bones and joints, I didn’t muck about. I downed the pill with the contents of the water bottle I always keep beside my bed. Then I slowly gathered my shower things and shuffled out to apply hot water to the outside of my body while the drugs got to work on the inside.
    By the time Stacey appeared with her trusty little bum-bag, I’d loosened up enough to pass her inspection. But I was still bad enough for her to offer me another pill. I repeated my magician’s trick, knowing I was going to be in a state by the end of the morning’s dressage session and afraid I would be too sore to get any sleep that night. The pill I could ask for the following morning wasn’t going to be much help to me during a long and potentially miserable night of aching joints.
    As I wiped my mouth, Stacey frowned, her eyes following my hand. I froze, a horrible