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taken the combination of winning the Medal class at Madison Square Garden (a stroke of luck Ty more than half believed was caused by Steve Sheppard’s medallion) and her trainer’s cunning diplomacy in winning over her father. Observing her father’s obvious pleasure in having his daughter beat the national competition, Ty had seized what she recognized as a golden opportunity and asked his permission to move on to a greater challenge: the jumper division. Ty’s riding instructor had backed her, stroking her father’s ego further, assuring him that with Ty’s talent and Charisma’s athleticism, they would almost certainly enjoy the same kind of success Ty and her mare had in the equitation classes. That had seemed to clinch it, for there were few things Tyler Stannard relished as much in the world as beating the competition. For herself, Ty was thrilled at the prospect of riding at a higher level. She was having a blast. The jumping events were so exhilarating, the more challenging courses demanding all of Ty’s skill. Still, she wished she might see Steve once again, if only to show him how much she’d matured in the past two years. She was no longer the geeky, ice cream–covered fourteen-year-old she had been. Her braces had come off, and her body had finally gotten some curves. She even had breasts. And while she didn’t truly need to wear the bras she’d bought for herself, at least she no longer was as flat as a basement floor. Ty knew she’d never dazzle the opposite sex effortlessly the way Lizzie could, but

    nonetheless she felt she’d come a long way in the looks department.
    But Steve Sheppard was in Europe now, had been for most of the summer, except for quick trips back across the Atlantic to ride at some of the bigger shows with his other mounts. All the while, Ty had read articles from American and European horse journals, scouring them for news of him. He was competing in the major European shows that the USET entered for the World Cup. He and Jasmine were the top scorers among this year’s American riders. Back home in the United States, Steve was also doing really well with a horse of his own, a younger horse, Fancy Free, that he was “bringing along,” showing at the Preliminary Jumper level.
    Ty was keeping her fingers crossed that he’d be at Devon, a show scheduled later in the show calendar, perhaps riding Fancy Free. From the pictures, the gelding looked like a real beauty. It would be thrilling to see them in the flesh.
    Devon would be Ty’s last show of the season before she had to knuckle down and get back into the routine of school. Not that she really minded school. Academics had always come easily to her; the math that continually stumped Lizzie seemed to her absurdly simple. She often helped Lizzie in the afternoons at the school library during study period. It never bothered Ty that she forfeited the chance to get her own homework finished, for Lizzie was still her closest friend. During the seven years she’d been enrolled there, the other girls at their school had hardly softened toward Ty. She’d learned to block out the cruelty of the ostracism, pretending not to notice the looks they darted at her, the whispers behind cupped hands, as if she were a freak in a side show. At times she could even smile at the irony, the big cosmic joke of it all, that here, in this upper-crust, private school for rich kids where money was revered, the fact that Tyler Stannard had more wealth than the fathers of all other students combined made it so she, his daughter, was stigmatized. It wasn’t necessarily true that you can never have too much money.
    7
    “ H ey, Ty, want to grab a bite at the concession stand after warmup?” Lizzie called out as she trotted up on her gelding, Rushmore, a big bay hunter her parents had bought her in the spring. Unlike Ty, Lizzie had chosen to continue competing in the Hunter division, and she and Rushmore had been doing extremely well.
    For a moment