Show Jumper Read Online Free

tired—and she hadn’t even started her riding lesson yet. “Mom, this pair is great,” she said impatiently. “Please, please don’t make me try on another pair. I just don’t have time.”
    The tan breeches—the fifteenth pair she had tried on at the shop—had fit her perfectly, but Lisa was past caring about the fit. She put on her clothes and exited the dressing room.
    Holding an armful of clothes, Mrs. Atwood gave Lisa a coaxing smile. “We’re not done yet, darling,” she said. She turned back to the salesperson. “We’ll take the breeches, that new shirt, the new hard hat, and—Lisa,are you sure? You don’t want the custom-made boots?”
    Hearing this last remark, the salesperson smiled at Lisa with a hopeful look. He was a thin young man with slicked-back hair, wearing a formal gray suit and a maroon tie. When Lisa had first seen him, she thought he would have looked more at home in an office than he did in the tack shop. He had not left her or her mother’s side for more than a second, hovering over them and offering lots of unhelpful advice.
    The Saddle Club had often frequented this shop to drool over new tack and clothes, and the group knew and liked the shop’s owner, Ivan Elwood, very much. Ivan wore casual shirts and breeches, and anyone could tell that he himself was a rider and loved horses. He often shared humorous or thrilling riding anecdotes with customers, punctuating his stories by happily pointing to photos on the wall of favorite horses from his past.
    But today Ivan was nowhere to be seen, and this man in the suit had introduced himself as James Reeds, “Ivan’s nephew.” Ivan had been forced to go out of town that day on urgent business, and Mr. Reeds had somehow persuaded his uncle not to close the shop, offering to fill in for him and his other salesperson, who was off competing in a horse show. “I’m trying to learn about sales from the ground up,” he explained eagerlyto Mrs. Atwood and Lisa. “I’m hoping to start working for this big water-heating company this year.”
    Water heating? Tack? The two things were so unrelated that Lisa felt a wave of dread. Who was this man, and what was he thinking, selling riding clothes and tack?
    But wait a second
, Lisa told herself. She wasn’t a novice at riding, after all. She knew what a rider should wear to a big show, right? She could do this by herself, because, certainly, her mother wasn’t being much help. Her mother seemed to care about three things—price (the more expensive, the better), fit, and color—and had no clue what riders should or shouldn’t wear to a show like the Macrae.
    Lisa suddenly remembered her mother’s last question. “No, Mom, I don’t need custom boots,” she said. “I really need to get to my riding lesson. Right now.”
    “But, honey, Mr. Reeds said that Ivan could have them ready in two days, just in time for the Macrae,” pleaded her mother. “Think of how incredible you’ll look wearing those beautifully fitted new boots!”
    Despite her anxiety about the time, Lisa was tempted by the custom-made boots. Wasn’t this part of her dream—a new level of competition with the Macrae and new riding clothes to go with it? Hadn’t she always pictured herself at a big horse show like the Macrae, wearing crisp new clothes and gleaming boots? Unlike the rest of her wardrobe, Lisa tended to wear her ridingclothes until they were completely worn out. She had a secret reason for this: When she had first started riding, she had made the mistake of wearing a brand-new, overly fancy outfit to her first day at Pine Hollow. After some good-natured teasing from Stevie, who always liked to have fun with newcomers to the stable, Lisa had vowed to break her clothes in and earn her riding credentials the hard way—through lots of lessons and practice. She had noticed the same thing in the ballet classes that her mother insisted she still take. The best dancers in her class often wore the rattiest