Max gave her a dirty look, but he grabbed his coat and raced out of the building without another word.
He had hardly left when the door opened again, letting in another cold blast of wind. Carole and Lisa hurried through the doorway.
“Brrr! It’s cold out there!” Lisa exclaimed.
Carole smiled when she saw Stevie. “There you are,” she said. “I called your house to see if you wanted a ride. Dad drove me here, and he stopped to pick up Lisa on the way. Chad said you’d already left. He sounded pretty happy about it, too.”
Stevie rolled her eyes. “That’s exactly why I was in such a hurry to get out of there,” she said. “But never mind that.” She quickly filled her friends in on her recent encounter with Max.
Lisa turned to Carole. “See? I told you I saw someone running up the hill.”
“I couldn’t tell,” Carole said. “My eyeballs were frozen just walking here from the car.” She looked at her watch. “I want to check on Starlight before we go up to the house, okay?”
“My thoughts exactly,” Stevie agreed.
A few minutes later, satisfied that their horses were warm and comfortable, the girls left the stable, and Lisa and Carole raced across the grassy, tree-dotted lawn that lay between them and the Regnery home. Stevie paused just long enough to attach her note firmly to the latch outside the stable door. She checked to make sure it wouldn’t blow away, then ran after her friends. She caught up just as they jumped the three steps leading to the porch and rang the bell.
The door flew open within seconds. “Come on in,” Deborah greeted them. “You must be frozen.”
The girls obeyed. They set their bags down and stared at Deborah.
“Wow,” Carole said.
“Ditto,” Stevie agreed, and Lisa nodded.
Deborah looked beautiful. She was wearing a silky chocolate brown dress, and her hair was swept up on top of her head. She had applied just enough subtle makeup to flatter her even features and clear, pale skin.
“Thanks,” Deborah said, smiling at them. She looked more relaxed than Carole could remember her looking in months. “Come on in. Maxi is in the living room in her playpen.”
Max came down the stairs as the girls followed Deborah into the living room. His hair was damp and he was still knotting his tie. But he, too, looked more relaxed and festive already.
He smiled at The Saddle Club. “Just in time,” he said. He slipped an arm around Deborah’s waist and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Ready? We’d better get going or we’ll be late.”
Deborah nodded. She went to the playpen, where Maxi was sucking on one of her stuffed horse’s ears. “Good-bye, sweetie,” she crooned. She grabbed the baby and picked her up, hugging her tight. “You’ll be good for the girls, won’t you, Maxi?”
“I’m sure she will,” Lisa said. “Don’t worry about a thing. Just have a good time.” She slipped off her coat and reached for the baby.
Deborah reluctantly handed her over. “Okay,” she said. “But if you have any problems, the number of the restaurant is stuck to the refrigerator. I also wrote it on the pad by the upstairs phone, just in case. The doctor’s number is there, too, and the poison control center’s number, and—”
“We know, we know,” Stevie said, giving Deborah a gentle push.
Carole had just located a long black coat slung across the back of the couch. She held it up so that Deborah could slip her arms into it, while Max grabbed his own coat from a closet. “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” she said.
“All right,” Deborah said with a laugh. “I know you’ll be fine. I just fed her a little while ago, but if she seems hungry later you can give her a bottle. There’s one ready in the fridge. Just heat it up in the microwave and test it on your wrist to make sure it’s not too hot. And by the way, clean diapers are in the closet upstairs.”
“We know,” Stevie said, rolling her eyes. “You told us all this stuff earlier, remember?” The girls had come by the house that morning to receive their instructions. Lisa had even written everything down in a notebook, mostly to make Deborah feel better.
Lisa looked up from her seat on the couch. “I just remembered one more question,” she said, bouncing Maxi gently on her knees. “What time should we put her to bed? You didn’t tell us that.”
Max and Deborah both laughed. “You should try at around seven-thirty, I guess,” Deborah said. “She didn’t have much of a nap today, so you might get lucky.”
“Got it,” Stevie said. “Seven-thirty. Now get going, will you?”
Max and Deborah laughed again. Then, after a few more good-bye kisses for the baby and thanks for her baby-sitters, they were gone.
“Whew,” Carole said, slumping down on the couch next to Lisa. “I thought they’d be here all night.”
Stevie grinned. “I know.” She grabbed one of Maxi’s feet and tickled it. “Talk about parental jitters. Max asked us to look after the horses tonight, too, and he didn’t give us one extra instruction about that.” Since Max had given Red and the other stable hands the night off, the girls had volunteered to check on the horses once or twice during the evening.
“That’s because he knows we know what we’re doing with them,” Lisa pointed out logically. “I don’t blame him and Deborah for being more nervous about the baby. But they’ll see. We’ll have a great time tonight. Won’t we, Maxi?” She gave the baby a hug, and Maxi squealed with delight, her eyes wide and trusting.
Carole stood up and took off her coat. She picked up Lisa’s and held out her arm for Stevie’s. “Want me to take that to the closet?” she offered.
“Thanks.” Stevie slipped off Phil’s jacket.
“Isn’t that Phil’s?” Lisa asked.
Stevie nodded and explained her reason for wearing it. “So I’ll probably freeze again when we go down to check on the horses,” she said complacently. “But it will be worth it.” She checked her watch. “That reminds me. It’s my turn to call next. Help me keep an eye on the time, okay?”
“Sure.” Carole looked at her own watch. “It’s only twenty of seven now. What do you want to do first?”
Lisa smiled. “That’s easy,” she said. “Let’s play with the baby!”
The others were happy to comply. They crawled around on the carpet with Maxi and played with the toys that were scattered everywhere. Then Carole picked up the baby. “I have an idea,” she said. “Let’s play horsie.”
She set Maxi astride her knee. Holding her hands so that the baby wouldn’t fall, Carole bounced her leg up and down, pretending it was a horse.
Maxi giggled as she rode.
“Giddyup!” Carole cried.
After a few minutes, her leg got tired. She handed the baby to Lisa, who lay down on the couch on her back. Holding Maxi firmly by the tummy, Lisa raised her overhead, moving her back and forth. “Look,” she said. “It’s Maxi the jet plane. She’s flying!”
“You call that flying? I’ll show you flying.” Stevie reached for the baby. She held her firmly by one leg, just below her diaper. With the other hand she supported the top half of Maxi’s body. Then she walked around the room, making the baby swoop and dive through the air. “What’s that in the sky?” she cried. “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a flying horse? No! It’s Superbaby!”
Her friends laughed and clapped. “Save us, Superbaby,” Carole called.
After a few more minutes of fun, Lisa checked her watch. “Hey, Stevie,” she said. “It’s time for your call.”
“Oh!” Stevie handed Superbaby to Carole. “Thanks, Lisa,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
She took the stairs two at a time and grabbed the phone in the upstairs hall. That would be more private than using the phone in the kitchen. Digging in her jeans pocket, she soon located the scrap of paper on which she had written down the direct phone number of Phil’s hotel room. She dialed quickly and tapped her foot, waiting for someone to pick up.
Nobody did. Stevie tried again. Still no answer.<
br />
Phil had also given Stevie the number at the front desk. Stevie tried that next. The receptionist was very sympathetic, but she didn’t get an answer when she tried the Marstens’ room, either.
“Should I try again?” the receptionist asked.
Stevie sighed. “No, that’s okay,” she said. “Thanks anyway. I guess he’s still at dinner.” Phil had mentioned during the previous call that the family was getting ready to head for one of the resort’s restaurants. He had thought he could be back in the room for Stevie’s next call, but he must have gotten held up. Maybe they had had to wait for a table, or the service had been slow, or Phil had missed the monorail.
In any case, Stevie decided, she would just have to wait for eight o’clock to talk to him. It was no big deal. It was only an hour.
THE DOORBELL RANG at seven-thirty.
“Who could that be?” Lisa asked. She was struggling to fit one of Maxi’s plump arms through the sleeves of her tiny nightgown. The baby was in a fresh diaper and almost ready for bed.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Stevie said, for once sounding almost as logical as Lisa. She walked out to the hall and peeked out one of the narrow windows that flanked the front door. Ms. Lynn was standing on the porch, looking very cold in a short wool coat and no hat.
“Brrr!” she exclaimed when Stevie opened the door and invited her in. “Thanks, Stevie. Isn’t this supposed to be the American South? Back in Ohio we thought of Virginia as practically tropical. Who would have known?”
Stevie laughed. “It’s a little colder than usual this week,” she admitted. “Did you see my note? Uh, I mean, Max’s note?”
Ms. Lynn stuck her hand into her coat pocket and came up with a folded piece of paper. “Got it,” she said. She paused and stared at Stevie. “By the way, what are you doing here? Are you Max’s daughter or something? I didn’t realize.”
“Nothing like that,” Stevie said. She led the way down the hall toward the living room. “In fact, if Max heard you he’d probably say something like ‘God forbid.’ ” She grinned. “I’m just the baby-sitter for Max’s real daughter, Maxi. You met her the other day.”
As they entered the living room, Ms. Lynn looked around. “Well, hello,” she greeted Carole and Lisa. “I see the whole gang’s here. Are you the backup baby-sitters?”
“You could say that,” Lisa replied, laughing. She held up Maxi, who finally had both arms in her nightgown sleeves. “Look, Maxi. It’s your old pal, Ms. Lynn.”
“Pleased to see you,” the woman said to the baby with a grin, shaking her chubby fist playfully. Ms. Lynn smoothed down Maxi’s hair, which was standing on end from Lisa’s recent efforts to dress her. “I guess this means Max isn’t here, right?”
Stevie confirmed that with a nod. “But he said you could just leave the check with us,” she said. She grinned wickedly. “We promise not to spend it—at least not until after you leave.”
Ms. Lynn laughed. “Funny,” she said. She dug into her purse, located an envelope with Max’s name on it, and handed it to Stevie, who propped it on the fireplace mantel where Max would be sure to see it. “But seriously, please let Max know how sorry I am that I was so late. My job can sometimes be unpredictable.”
“Even on New Year’s Eve?” Carole asked.
“Even on New Year’s Eve,” Ms. Lynn said. “I’m just glad Max wasn’t waiting around for me. I was picturing him pacing up and down in the stable, staring at his watch, while his wife danced the night away at some fancy party.”
The girls giggled. Ms. Lynn’s description sounded awfully close to the truth. “He tried to wait for you,” Lisa admitted with a grin. “Stevie wouldn’t let him.” The girls filled her in on The Saddle Club’s holiday gift to Max and Deborah.
“What a fantastic idea,” Ms. Lynn said when they were finished. She had taken Maxi from Lisa and was sitting on the couch, rocking the baby in her arms. Maxi was yawning, looking sleepy. “I remember when Britt was a baby. I didn’t get much sleep, and I didn’t have much time to do grown-up things. Babies are wonderful, but they can be draining if you don’t get a break once in a while. I’m sure Max and Deborah appreciate this a lot.”
“Speaking of Britt, we already have a few ideas about where to find a horse for her,” Stevie said eagerly.
“That’s great,” Ms. Lynn said, sounding just as eager. “Tell me all about it.” She moved Maxi’s arm a little to get a look at her watch. “But you’d better make it the short version. I’m supposed to meet Britt at a party in a few minutes. She only knows a couple of people there, and I don’t want her to be uncomfortable.”
With a daughter as shy as Britt, Stevie supposed that Ms. Lynn had to think about that sort of thing a lot. She wondered what it would be like to be so shy that you couldn’t have a good time at a party unless your mother was there. Then she decided she’d rather not know. It didn’t sound like a very fun way to live.
“First of all,” Stevie began, “almost all of Max’s horses are for sale if the right buyer comes along. And he’s got some great horses. Maybe Britt will hit it off with one of them.” She shrugged. “But if not, don’t despair. There are lots of other places to look.” She glanced at the others, who nodded.
Carole then quickly described a few other local stables, including Cross County. “And there’s one place that’s even closer than those,” she finished. “Hedgerow Farms.”
“I think you mentioned that one before,” Ms. Lynn said.
“It’s a really great place,” Carole said. “Even though they have had some bad luck lately.”
Ms. Lynn looked interested. “What sort of bad luck?”
“First and worst of all, they had an outbreak of swamp fever a couple of months ago,” Lisa said. Seeing Ms. Lynn’s perplexed look, she explained. “That’s a really bad disease for horses. The real name is equine infectious anemia. Hedgerow’s breeding stallion died from it. And one of Pine Hollow’s mares who was there to mate with him got it and died, too.” She gulped and glanced at her friends. All three girls were remembering those terrible days, when Delilah, the beautiful palomino mare that had been a favorite Pine Hollow stable horse, had become sick after her return from Hedgerow.
Ms. Lynn didn’t say anything for a moment. When Stevie looked at her, she saw that the woman had tears in her eyes. It made her like Ms. Lynn even more.
“Anyway,” Carole said after a few more seconds of silence, “it could have been much worse, considering. Hedgerow only lost a few horses besides the stallion. And Delilah—the Pine Hollow mare—didn’t pass it on to any other horses here.”
“Still, it must have been terrible,” Ms. Lynn said. “For all of you.”
“It was,” Carole said. “But that wasn’t the end of Hedgerow’s unlucky streak. Elaine, the manager, fell off the roof and broke her leg a week before Christmas.”
“Oh no!” Ms. Lynn exclaimed. She shifted Maxi, who looked drowsier than ever, to her other arm and continued to rock her. “What on earth was she doing on the roof? Chasing a stray horse?”
Stevie giggled. “Not exactly,” she said. “But that would make a good story, wouldn’t it?”
Lisa rolled her eyes and smiled. “Actually, she was checking on a patch some workmen had made,” she said. All three of the girls had heard the whole story from Max. Hedgerow’s horses were housed in a large, old building that was starting to show its age. Not only was it old-fashioned, with unreliable wiring and dingy windows, but the structure itself was starting to get a little ramshackle. For that reason, Elaine had recently hired a construction company to build Hedgerow a new, more modern stable. Carole had seen the men laying the foundation the last time she had visited the farm with Judy, and she had told the others all about it. They couldn’t wait to see it when it was finished.
“Max says Elaine is hobbling around in a cast these days, getting into as much trouble as ever,” Stevie said with a grin.
Carole nodded. “And I know she has some young horses she and her
staff have been training,” she said. “Maybe one of them will be right for Britt.”
“It sounds promising,” Ms. Lynn said. She checked her watch. This time she had to move Maxi’s foot to do it. “Oops, it’s ten to eight already,” she said. She stood up and gently handed the baby to Stevie. “I’d better go. But it’s been great talking to you all.”
“Same here,” Lisa said. She glanced at Maxi worriedly. The baby was staring up at Stevie’s face, blinking heavily. “I guess we lost track of the time. It’s twenty minutes past Maxi’s bedtime already.”
Ms. Lynn chuckled as she buttoned her coat. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that if I were you,” she advised. She winked at the girls. “At that age, bedtimes are usually more of a hopeful guideline than a strict schedule.”
Stevie looked down at Maxi. “Well, I don’t think we have to worry about that,” she said. “She looks pretty tired. We must have worn her out.”
“I hope so … for your sake,” the woman replied with a grin. Then she said good-bye and left, quickly closing the front door behind her to keep out the cold.
“I like her,” Carole declared.
“Me too,” Stevie said. “It’s just too bad some of her personality didn’t rub off on her daughter.”
“Come on, Stevie. Be fair,” Lisa said. “We hardly know Britt yet. I bet we’ll love her once we all get used to each other.” She headed toward the stairs. “Now, come on. Let’s get this baby to bed.”
All three girls went upstairs. They were on their way into the nursery when the phone rang.
Maxi jumped in Stevie’s arms, startled at the sudden, loud sound. “Uh-oh,” Stevie said. She was the closest to the phone, so she grabbed it, tucking it between her chin and her shoulder so that she could keep a good grip on the baby, who had started to wiggle. “Hello? Um, Regnery residence.”
“Stevie?” came a familiar voice over the line.
“Deborah?” Stevie said. She gulped and looked down at Maxi, who was at this point definitely wide awake again. She quickly passed the baby to Carole, putting a shushing finger to her lips.
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