“Now?” Lisa smiled. “But it’s raining outside, silly. And Callie’s in the indoor ring.”
Maxi shrugged again. “The indoor ring’s big,” she said. “And Krona’s little. We could ride there, too, and not bother anyone at all.” She blinked at Lisa and smiled brightly. “All I need is someone to ride with me.”
Carole had to stop herself from laughing. Maxi was awfully sly for a five-year-old.
“Sorry,” Lisa said, patting Samson on the neck. “Carole and I have to finish up with good old Samson here. Maybe your dad will take you for a ride later.”
“I don’t think so.” Maxi scowled unhappily. “Daddy said he’s very busy today. He said he didn’t have time to take me riding.”
“Your daddy’s not the only one who’s busy. There’s a big horse show next weekend, remember? So none of us will have a whole lot of spare time this week.” Carole tried to stay patient with the little girl. She could still remember what it was like to be five years old and crazy about horses. “Maybe next week, after the show’s over, we can go for a nice long ride together. How does that sound?”
“Okay,” Maxi said, though she didn’t seem too convinced. “What are you doing to Samson’s mane?”
“I’m pulling it.” Carole returned her attention to her task, separating out another cluster of coarse black hairs and wrapping them around the comb. “I need to thin it out so that it will lie flat and I can make it look nice for the horse show. I’m almost finished. See? Next I’m going to do his tail.”
Maxi took a step closer and stared at Samson’s mane for a moment. “It doesn’t look any different to me,” she announced solemnly at last.
Carole didn’t bother to answer. She knew that Maxi was still too young to appreciate the subtle difference between a natural mane and a pulled one. But the judges at Saturday’s show would notice every little detail, and even though the show jumping class she and Samson were entering would be judged on performance rather than appearance, Carole wanted the gelding to look his best. “Hey, Maxi, why don’t you run up to the house now and find your mommy?” she suggested. “I’m sure she’s wondering where you are.”
Maxi shook her head until her reddish pigtails bounced. “She sent me here,” she announced. “She’s working.”
“Well, watching us isn’t going to be very interesting,” Lisa said, leaning over long enough to tug gently on one of Maxi’s pigtails. “So why don’t you go watch Callie for a while? She’s probably still riding in the indoor ring.”
Maxi sighed sadly. “Okay,” she muttered. “Bye.”
“See you later,” Lisa called after the little girl as she wandered off down the aisle. Then she turned to check on Carole’s progress. “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” Carole reported. “I think I’m just about done with the mane.” She stepped back and cocked a critical eye at her handiwork. “Ready to tackle the tail?”
Lisa nodded. “Against the door?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
Carole walked along the horse’s side, keeping a hand on his back so that he could keep track of where she was. She opened the stall door and, once she was on the other side, closed it again between herself and the horse. Lisa positioned him so that his hindquarters were resting against the half door. Reaching over and giving him a quick pat on the rump, Carole grabbed his tail and slung it over the door so that it hung down over the other side. That way she could pull the tail with confidence, knowing she would be safe from Samson’s hooves if he decided he wasn’t enjoying her grooming efforts. The gelding cocked a suspicious ear back toward her, but as soon as Carole called out a few words of reassurance, he relaxed again.
“Wow,” Lisa said, watching the horse. “He really trusts you.”
“He knows I’d never hurt him,” Carole said, patting the horse once more before brushing down the tail with her hand. She had hardly separated out the first few strands of long, coarse black hair when she and Lisa heard footsteps approaching. Carole glanced down the aisle, expecting to see Max searching for Maxi. Instead she spotted Ben Marlow walking toward them.
Ben was Pine Hollow’s youngest full-time stable hand. Carole hadn’t seen him yet that day, but she wasn’t particularly surprised to see him now, even though Sunday was technically his day off. Like her, he tended to show up at the stable every day whether he needed to be there or not. The two of them shared a deep passion for horses that meant they could only be truly content when they were taking care of their favorite creatures.
“How’s it going, Ben?” Lisa said politely. “Are you ready for the show on Saturday?”
Ben answered with a shrug and an utterance that might have passed for an assent, though Carole couldn’t help thinking that it sounded a lot more like a grunt.
Lisa nodded as if he’d actually responded. “You’re entered in Open Jumping with Carole, right?”
“Yeah.” Ben didn’t even pretend to be interested in making small talk. His dark, deep-set eyes barely flickered over Lisa before transferring to Samson. He stepped over to shoo a fly from the gelding’s withers, turning his back on Lisa.
Even the years of etiquette training Lisa had received from her mother couldn’t stand up under Ben’s brusque behavior. She rolled her eyes behind his back and poked one finger toward her throat, pretending to gag.
Carole blushed, wishing as she often did that her friends could look past Ben’s reserved, suspicious, often downright hostile outer layer and catch a glimpse of what she sometimes saw underneath. He might not have perfect manners or even be particularly likable much of the time, but he had a way with horses that Carole had never seen in anyone else, and that was enough to make her overlook any other faults. Besides, she was starting to suspect that Ben wasn’t as completely indifferent to the people around him as he appeared. He had been the first to recognize that she was neglecting her own horse, Starlight, in favor of Samson, and he had helped her reach the difficult decision to try to sell Starlight and buy Samson from Max. She knew that hadn’t been easy for him. He valued his own privacy so much that he was reluctant to get involved in anyone else’s life. But he’d made the effort for her. Not only that, but he had also gone out of his way to help Carole keep her plan to sell Starlight a secret from everyone at Pine Hollow, including Max. He and Stevie and Lisa were still the only people who knew about her decision.
“Um, were you looking for me?” she asked Ben tentatively. Despite the recent advances in their friendship, she still was never quite sure how to act with him. She couldn’t help remembering the awkward, humiliating moment when she had started to think that Ben might be interested in her as more than a friend. It had been at the party at Stevie’s house a few weeks earlier.
Carole had asked Ben to dance, and he had responded by shooting her a look of stunned disbelief from beneath lowered brows, then stalking out of the room without a word or a backward glance.
“Max wants us to bring down some hay from the loft,” he said gruffly, addressing his words to Carole and continuing to ignore Lisa completely.
“Okay. I’ll come help as soon as I’m finished here, okay?” Carole shot Ben a rather anxious half smile, hoping he didn’t turn around too quickly and catch Lisa, who was still making faces behind his back.
She found herself wishing once more that the other Ben—the kind, concerned Ben who made an effort to express himself, even if he wasn’t very good at it—would appear more often. Maybe then she could figure out exactly how she was supposed to feel about him.
Two
Stevie Lake glanced out the living room window. The rain was coming down in sheets, and she could barely see the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
“Ugh,” she muttered under her breath. “There’s nothing worse than a rainy Sunday. Unless it’s a rainy Sunday when you’ve been grounded.” She paused to consider her own statement for a moment. “Okay, except maybe a rainy Sunday when you’re grounded and stuck doing stupid chores like dusting a bunch of furniture that is
n’t even dusty to begin with, and nobody else is even home to talk to.” The family’s dog, a lazy golden retriever named Bear, wandered into the room at that moment and gave Stevie a quizzical look. “You don’t count,” Stevie told him. “I can talk to you, but you don’t talk back.”
As Bear lowered himself to the rug with an exhausted sigh, Stevie pushed her dark blond hair behind one ear and gave a halfhearted swipe at a small round table with the rag she was holding. Her gaze wandered to the rain-streaked window once again. Her only escape from her latest round of chores would be her trip to Pine Hollow to practice for the horse show. Her parents had allowed that one exception to her grounding. Stevie doubted the exception had anything to do with the fact that Colesford was by far the most competitive and prestigious show she’d ever entered, or that it was a huge honor—practically a miracle, really—that Max had asked her to join the elite group representing Pine Hollow. It probably had a lot more to do with the fact that Max had already paid the steep fee and sent in the paperwork necessary to enter Stevie and Belle in the show.
But Stevie wasn’t the kind of person to worry too much about why they’d made the exception. She was just grateful that they had.
“I was going to wait until the rain let up,” she told Bear thoughtfully, giving the table another careless swipe. “But I’m starting to think that could be, like, forty days and forty nights from now. And I don’t have that much time to spare, you know?”
Just then the phone rang. Stevie turned away from the window and hurried over to the end table by the sofa to grab the receiver.
“Hello, Noah’s Ark,” she said. “Sorry, no vacancy.”
“Not even for me?” a familiar voice replied.
“Phil!” Stevie’s face relaxed into a smile at the sound of her longtime boyfriend’s voice. She and Phil Marsten had met at riding camp when they were both in junior high, and they had been a solid couple ever since, despite the fact that they lived in different towns and attended different schools. Dropping her dust rag on the coffee table, she collapsed onto the sofa. “What’s up?”
“Just calling to say hi and make sure you haven’t floated away,” Phil said cheerfully. “So what are you up to? Are you going to get in trouble for talking?”
“I’m the only one home,” Stevie replied, leaning back against the sofa cushions and propping her feet on the coffee table. “Mom and Dad took Michael to the movies, and Alex is out picking up groceries or something.”
“So poor Cinderella is home all alone,” Phil said. “Discovered any great new ways to get your whites their whitest?”
“Hardy har har.” Stevie snorted. “You’re such a wit. A half-wit, that is.”
“Your bitter, petty words can’t possibly bring me down, my love,” Phil said airily. “In case it’s slipped your mind, today is my last day of solitary confinement.”
That fact had slipped Stevie’s mind. Phil had been drinking at her party, too, and his parents had grounded him for two weeks. “Lucky you,” she said wistfully. “I’ve been grounded for so long that I’ve almost forgotten I ever had a life. What are you going to do to celebrate?”
“Well, my first choice would be to hang out with you,” Phil said. “But I guess that’s probably not going to work out, huh?”
“Not a chance.” Stevie kicked at the dust rag with one foot, a sudden wave of self-pity sweeping over her. “My parents still won’t even discuss when they might let up on us. My bet is sometime around Labor Day. In 2020.”
Phil chuckled sympathetically. “Bummer,” he said. “Just thought I’d ask. But anyway, since my number one choice of celebrating partners is still chained to her mop and broom, I figure I’ll drag A.J. out. He could use a fun night out, too.”
“That’s great.” Stevie couldn’t help feeling a twinge of envy as she thought about Phil and his best friend, A. J. McDonnell, going out and having fun while she was stuck at home doing chores. Still, she tried to push those feelings aside and just be glad that the two friends would have some time to hang out. A.J. really could use some fun time with Phil after what he’d been through lately. “So has he decided what to do yet? About the adoption thing, I mean?”
“Not as far as I know.” Phil’s voice immediately sounded more subdued, as it usually did when discussing A.J.’s situation. “He still won’t talk about it much. Not with me, and not with his folks, either.”
“Too bad.” Stevie shook her head, wondering how an open, friendly person like A.J. could shut out his friends so completely during such a confusing period in his life. She knew it had been a major shock for A.J. to discover that he was adopted. His parents had never said a word about it to him before. Still, wasn’t that what friends were for? To help you through difficult times? “Maybe he’ll loosen up while you’re out tomorrow night. He’s got to talk about this sooner or later, right?”
“I guess.” Phil sighed. “Anyway, we’re probably just going over to that diner in Berryville—you know, grab some food, play a few arcade games. Nothing major.”
“Sounds like fun.” Stevie tried to keep her tone light. It had been so long since she’d been able to hang out with Phil. She hadn’t even seen him since the party, and she really missed him. “Hey, you’re still coming to the horse show on Saturday, aren’t you?”
“Definitely,” Phil replied. “Especially if it could be my only chance to see you before 2020.” His voice softened. “I miss you, you know.”
“Me too.” Stevie smiled, amazed as always at the way she and Phil often seemed to think the same thing at the same time. She glanced toward the window again. “I’d better go,” she said reluctantly. “I’ve got to start thinking about heading over to Pine Hollow before it gets much later. I just hope it’s not still raining when I get there. I’m sure Belle can swim, but I seriously doubt she can do dressage at the same time.” She almost smiled as she tried to picture it. “Although if any horse could do it …”
Phil chuckled. “I know, I know,” he said. “Belle the Wonder Horse can do anything.”
“Have fun tomorrow night,” Stevie said, trying to sound cheerful.
“I’ll try,” Phil replied. “But it won’t be the same without you.”
“Tell me about it,” Stevie muttered as she hung up the phone. She was glad that Phil had called, but the conversation had left her feeling grumpy. Her grounding already seemed to have gone on forever. And now that Phil was going to be free again, it was going to be even harder to deal with being stuck at home all the time.
She was leaning over to retrieve her dust rag when she heard the front door open. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was too early for her parents and younger brother to be returning from their movie. A moment later her twin brother, Alex, bounded into the room.
“Yo, sis,” he said breathlessly, dropping a wet paper bag full of groceries on the sofa and another on the floor. “What’s happening?”
Stevie grabbed the bag on the sofa. “Don’t put that there!” she snapped. “It’s soaked.”
Alex shrugged. “What do you expect? It’s pouring out there.” He whistled as he slipped off his jacket and dropped that on the sofa, too.
Stevie rolled her eyes. Alex had spent the first week and a half of their grounding moping around constantly, complaining about how he never got to see Lisa. But ever since Lisa had broken the news about her college decision a couple of days earlier, Alex had been acting downright giddy.
“What are you so happy about?” Stevie asked sourly, scooping up his jacket and tossing it over a chair. “Don’t tell me you’re still all goofy because Lisa’s staying local next year.”
Alex dropped his keys and wallet on the coffee table, then flopped onto the sofa and grinned. “Hey, you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty awesome news, right?”
“Awesome for you, maybe,” Stevie muttered. Her brother’s cheerfulness was really starting to wear on her nerves, especially since she wasn’t sure that Lisa had done the right thing by sending in her acceptance to NVU so quic
kly.
Since when is sensible, super-logical Lisa Atwood so impulsive? she thought. I mean, this is her whole future we’re talking about here. She shouldn’t have picked NVU just because it seemed like the easiest way to make everyone happy. And that’s what it sounds like she did.
Stevie hadn’t said anything about her concerns to Lisa. There was really no point. By the time Lisa had told her what she’d decided to do, it was already done. The letter was in the mail, making it official. So why make her feel bad?
Still, she couldn’t help feeling annoyed that Alex was so blindly happy about it. Didn’t he even care that Lisa might be making a huge mistake? “You know,” she told him, “if you really care about Lisa, you should be wondering right now if she’s really doing what’s best for her, not just getting all ecstatic because you got what you want.”
Alex looked surprised. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Lisa’s life,” Stevie replied, putting her hands on her hips and gazing at him evenly. “I mean, you have to know that you’re a big part of the reason she’s so eager to stick around this area next year.”
Alex frowned. “So? We want to be together,” he said defensively, running one hand through his damp brown hair. “What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong is that you’ve been acting totally possessive and obnoxious ever since she went to California last summer,” Stevie said hotly. “You act like you’ll die if she leaves your side for one tiny second. It’s no wonder she’s so worried about going away to school in California or wherever. You’ve made it pretty clear that the only thing you care about is having her here with you. That’s pretty selfish, don’t you think?”
“No,” Alex shot back. But Stevie knew her twin well enough to read the hint of doubt in his hazel eyes.
She shrugged. “Well, I hope you can live with the guilt if she ends up wishing she’d thought about this more,” she said. “Because I’ve known Lisa for a long time, and it’s not like her to be so impulsive. Especially about something so important.”
Riding to Win Page 2