True Riders Read Online Free

the pony part and the people part. The pony part was just a three-sided area where Foxy could come in out of the weather, and where her feed and water buckets hung. Normally Brooke groomed and tacked in there too, but she’d decided that such close quarters might not be a good idea with her little siblings involved.
    The people part of the barn was where Brooke kept Foxy’s feed, tack, and other equipment. Her two saddles sat on a rack her stepfather had built, with her bridle hanging off the horn of the Western saddle.
    Slinging the bridle over her shoulder, she grabbed the Western saddle and a pad. When she emerged back outside, she was surprised to find that the twins were nowhere in sight. For a second her heart lifted. The two of them had short attention spans. Could they have lost interest and decided they didn’t want to ride after all?
    Then she heard excited voices and looked over to see Ethan and Emma mobbing Adam, who had just pulled into the backyard on his dirt bike.
    â€œYo, twinsies,” he greeted them with a laugh, lifting one arm so that Ethan’s feet dangled several inches off the ground. “What’s up?”
    Now Brooke was even more surprised. What was Adam doing here? She was pretty sure he was supposed to have basketball tryouts all afternoon. A year ago she wouldn’t have hesitated to ask what was going on, but given the way things had been between them lately, she felt a little shy.
    Her mother, however, wasn’t shy at all. “Hello, Adam,” she said. “How are basketball tryouts going?”
    â€œOh. Uh, not so hot, actually.” Adam turned away, fiddling with the kickstand on his bike. “I got cut today,” he mumbled over his shoulder.
    â€œOh dear.” Brooke’s mother clucked sympathetically. “But you’ve always been so athletic!”
    â€œYeah, well . . .” Adam shrugged, then grabbed Emma and spun her around, making her shriek and giggle.
    Brooke could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, and no wonder. He’d been really excited about making the team. She decided she’d better change the subject before her mother started grilling him.
    â€œHey, want to help with Foxy?” Brooke asked him. “The twins want to go for a pony ride.”
    â€œNot a pony ride, a cowboy ride!” Ethan corrected. He immediately started telling Adam all about the movie he’d seen and the mechanical horse at the store.
    Adam wandered over to Foxy as he listened. He gave the pony a pat on the neck, and she nuzzled him, clearly looking for one of the peppermints he sometimes brought her from his dad’s restaurant.
    â€œOkay, pardner,” Adam said at last in a mock Western drawl, interrupting Ethan’s excited description of how hard the mechanical horse had bucked. “Cowboys are all about ridin’, not talkin’. So let’s get this here cow pony saddled up, okay?”
    He reached for the Western saddle, which Brooke had set on the fence. “Do you remember how to do the cinch?” she asked as he swung it onto Foxy’s back.
    â€œCourse I do.” He grinned at her. “I was the one who helped you figure it out, remember?”
    She did remember. She’d found the Western saddle at a garage sale before Foxy had even been old enough for Brooke to ride her. The first time Brooke had tried to put it on the pony, Brooke hadn’t been able to work out how to tie the Western cinch, which was much different from the English girths she’d used up until then. Adam had done a little research on the Internet and had almost immediately been able to catch on to how the cinch knot worked, thanks mostly to learning all kinds of different knots from his grandpa when they took his fishing boat out in the Chesapeake Bay. Brooke had had a little more trouble getting the hang of it, but Adam had demonstrated over and over again until she’d finally mastered it, not