The Last Train Home

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"This is a terrible idea and I can't believe I let you talk me into this," I said to Alec, shaking my head.

"Relax, nothing's going to happen. If you want to go out on your own in the woods, you need to learn how to jump fallen trees, otherwise, you'll be confined to the same area," he said.

"Maybe I want to stay in the same area!" I gripped onto the reins. "I just don't like the idea of being flung into the air on the back of a horse."

"This coming from the girl who climbed on top of a stable to repair the roof."

"Touché," I mumbled.

Alec laughed and I watched him move another plank of wood to add to the ever-growing pile of wood he wanted me to jump over. He had this great idea that I needed to learn how to jump potential obstacles that I might come across when out on Jigsaw. I didn't understand why I needed to learn how to jump them when I could just go around it wouldn't be a problem. Although I felt comfortable climbing on roofs, being flung around on the back of a horse didn't sound very fun.

Jonathan stood nearby just in case anything happened, which certainly didn't help to ease my anxiety, and I wanted to be anywhere but on the back of that horse. I tried to loosen my grip on the reins, but it didn't help me relax and only made my anxiety rise that little bit more. How anyone could think that jumping obstacles could be a fun experience, I didn't know. Even Alec seemed happy when he presented the idea to me but I think he's more excited about trying to humiliate me.

We had been working on my riding skills for a few weeks now, and I liked to think that I improved a lot. I had moved on from walking and trotting with Alec helping me come to grips to cantering. I had found all of that to be simple since there wasn't too big of a difference between them, but jumping was a whole other kettle of fish.

"Alright, that's about as high as a tree trunk is likely to be when one falls down. You're not going to jump over it just yet because that would be mean and I'm not a mean person. So, I'm going to set up some smaller obstacles that you can learn to walk over first. Jigsaw should do most of the work when it comes to jumping, but you want to go into a jump as straight as possible and that takes practice," Alec said.

"How do you know so much about jumping?"

"I've had a few accidents. Mainly when I was younger. I had taken Duchess out on my own and came across a fallen tree, I tried to jump it on my own and fell off. Took me a while to want to try it again so I built up to it using various different methods. This one worked out best."

"If farming doesn't work out, you could always teach children to ride, Alec," Jonathan said from the side of the paddock."

"It's been mentioned before Mr Goodwin, Dad thought it might be a good idea."

"So that makes me your first student. I feel honoured."

Alec laughed and ducked his head, but even that couldn't hide the blush rising in his cheeks at the compliment. Instead, he busied himself with moving some more planks of wood around the paddock so I could at least get used to going over objects. We had managed to avoid any obstacles when Alec took me to the clearing and the creak, but I knew that wouldn't last forever. Still, I preferred the idea of going around the obstacles rather than over them.

I watched Alec move the planks into place and chewed on the inside of my cheek. Even though two months had passed since Christmas, I had yet to thank him for not only coming up with the idea for the sign but also for the Christmas present. He appeared to want to talk about everything but the Christmas period which might explain why he had been so subtle with giving me the gift. He could have just handed it to me but instead decided to be all secretive about it.