“That sounds more like Stevie than like Max,” Carole commented.
“Well, he did need a little convincing.”
“And you were just the person to do it for him, weren’t you?”
Stevie smiled proudly. She knew there was nobody in the world better than she at talking Max into things—unless it was Max himself. Stevie remembered his wonderful mistake at the horrible error she’d made with the young kids. She gulped. She had to forget that episode, permanently, now that her friends were home. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was important. She patted Topside and began walking him around the ring slowly to warm him up while she waited for her friends. It did feel awfully good to be back in the saddle—legally.
Carole practically flew into the stable. Starlight was there, almost as if he’d been waiting for her. He greeted her warmly, especially when she gave him two carrots and a sugar lump.
“I don’t usually spoil you with sugar, you little sweet tooth, but I missed you so much I can’t even tell you!”
She was amused by her own words and then she felt an uncomfortable pang of guilt. There were things she couldn’t tell Starlight, just like there were things she couldn’t tell Stevie and Lisa. Starlight wouldn’t really understand about Southwood. Stevie and Lisa definitely wouldn’t understand. A promise was a promise and that blue ribbon was a secret. She hadn’t even wanted to tell her father because he and Stevie were such good friends that he might make a mistake and blurt out something about the ribbon to Stevie one day. Dorothy had let the cat out of the bag when he’d arrived the next morning to pick her up and take her back to New York for the rest of their trip. Carole was glad about that, actually. It was a wonderful secret and she was relieved to be able to share it with someone. Now she might tell Starlight because she was quite confident he wouldn’t tell anybody else, but that was it. Nobody else would ever know.
It took her only a few minutes to tack him up and take him by the good-luck horseshoe, where they ran into Lisa and Stevie.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Lisa asked excitedly as she climbed into Barq’s saddle and brushed the horseshoe herself. “I’ve missed this terribly!”
“Even when you were far from Pine Hollow?” Stevie asked, touching the horseshoe for herself. One of Pine Hollow’s many traditions was that all riders were supposed to touch the horseshoe before embarking on a ride. No one who had ever done it had been seriously hurt. The riders were never quite sure whether it was the magical power of the horseshoe or the fact that just touching it reminded them to ride carefully.
Lisa felt a little uncomfortable answering Stevie’s question because she had a secret about being on a horse that she couldn’t share with Stevie and Carole. Still, she’d made up her mind that she wasn’t going to be completely truthful, so she might as well get on with it now.
“Of course we missed riding when we were away from Pine Hollow,” Lisa said. “It was probably harder for you because you were here, around all this gorgeous temptation, but don’t forget you couldn’t ride. It would have hurt too much. Carole and I could ride. We just didn’t.” Lisa looked at her friends nervously, afraid they might be able to tell, just by looking at her. Neither seemed to notice anything.
“Well, welcome home!” said a familiar, unwelcoming voice. It was Veronica diAngelo. She was on her Arabian mare, Garnet, ready to go to class. “And Stevie! You’re riding again. All better?”
Stevie smiled sweetly. “Yes, Veronica. I am riding again.”
“It must have been hard on you to watch your friends ride without you while you were recuperating.” “Where have you been, Veronica?” Stevie asked.
“Paris,” she answered simply.
“Well, if you’d been around, you would have known that my friends are very good friends and they felt so bad about the fact that I couldn’t ride that they decided not to ride, either, until I could ride again.”
“Oh,” Veronica said. It was all the comment she was going to make. She reached across the threesome, barely coming in contact with the horseshoe and without another word directed her horse toward the flat class Max was conducting in the outdoor ring.
“I hope she didn’t touch the horseshoe and she breaks her neck in class,” Stevie sneered.
Lisa and Carole were thinking something along the same lines, but were too polite to say it.
“Let’s go,” said Lisa. “I can’t wait to get my toes into good old Willow Creek!”
Stevie reached over and used her riding crop to unlatch the gate that opened onto the fields. It was a neat way to open the gate, but it didn’t work well for closing it. She was going to have to dismount and do it by hand. Before she was out of the saddle, though, Mrs. Reg appeared and did the job for her. The girls thanked her.
“You’re very welcome and I’m glad to have you back here. Isn’t it great that Stevie’s riding again?” They all agreed on that. Then Mrs. Reg turned to Lisa. “Lisa, I hope you had a wonderful time in Los Angeles. Was it great? Did you see that nice young man—what’s his name?”
“Skye Ransom. I sure did. He wanted to say hello to everyone here—including you.”
“Well, good. And Carole, I know you had a good time up there in New York because I read all about you at that horse show. What was the horse’s name?”
Carole’s heart dropped about six feet. It hadn’t occurred to her that there would have been anything written and published about the horse show.
“Horse show?” she said, stalling for time.
“Yes. Wasn’t it a hunter class?”
“Hunter class?” Carole knew she was sounding stupid, but it was better than revealing the truth. “This is news to me.”
“I’m sure it said ‘C. Hanson.’ Maybe there’s another C. Hanson who’s been training with Dorothy DeSoto?”
Carole gulped. It was a stretch, but maybe she could get away with it. “Must be the case. Funny she didn’t mention it to me when I saw her.”
“Yes, funny,” said Mrs. Reg.
Carole put on her brightest smile and turned to her friends. “Shall we head for the woods?”
“I guess so,” said Stevie. There was a tone to her voice that struck Carole as odd. It had to be a reaction to the very strange conversation Stevie had just overheard.
THE GIRLS BEGAN at a walk and soon picked up a trot. It had been a very long time since they’d had a chance to ride together and Carole felt that no matter what secret might be hanging over her head, nothing was going to take away from her enjoyment of this day in the field and forest by Pine Hollow.
The rich spicy scent of pine struck Stevie’s nose as soon as she and her friends entered the forest. She hadn’t been in the woods since the day … She didn’t even want to think about it. To think about it was to come too close to nearly revealing and she couldn’t do that. No way.
“Let’s canter!” Lisa called from behind. That seemed a very good way to shake the cobwebs of guilt. Stevie signaled Topside to canter and the three of them followed the flat open trail that led to the creek.
In a matter of minutes, the girls slowed their horses to a walk. They’d reached the quarry. Stevie shivered, remembering how frightened she’d been the last time she’d ridden here and how her worst nightmares had come true, but how it had come out all right. Incredible and, worst of all, untellable. This wasn’t fun.
“I’m not sure we should be here, you know,” Lisa said, drawing Barq to a stop.
“Why not?” Carole asked, stopping and looking back.
Stevie looked around. “I heard one of the kids say something about a coyote being spotted near the quarry.”
“That was just a rumor,” Stevie said. “Max had Red check it out and he didn’t see anything. I didn’t see anything, either. No sign at all.”
“You?” Carole asked. “This is a very long walk from Pine Hollow.”
Stevie gulped. There was no accusation in Carole’s voice, but it was a pointed remark.
“When were you here?” Lisa asked.
“I wasn’t here,” Stevie said. “It’s too far to walk. I never came during the summer. I just mean the whole time I was hanging around Pine Hollow there weren’t any signs of coyotes. Nobody said anything about seeing one anywhere in the woods—here by the quarry or anywhere else. I’m sure it’s perfectly safe for us, Lisa.”
“Oh,” Lisa said. “Well, I’m relieved to hear that.”
“We should get going,” said Stevie. “Topside is just dying for a drink from the creek.”
“Okay,” Lisa agreed. They continued their journey.
The rest of the trail to the creek was very hilly. There were points where the trees opened up and Lisa enjoyed looking across the rolling Virginia countryside. It was pretty, all right, but it wasn’t as dramatic as the ride she and Skye had taken through the mountains in California where they could see the Pacific Ocean and the rough countryside that nature alternately pummeled with wildfires and mud slides. Virginia was nice, but it wasn’t California. And she couldn’t say a word to her friends. She’d been tempted; she genuinely had been. But one minute with the totally despicable Veronica diAngelo by the good-luck horseshoe demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that the price wouldn’t be worth paying. She couldn’t tell. She never would. It would be her secret forever and ever.
With every step of Barq’s hooves, Lisa’s heart became heavier. She thought she was prepared to keep a secret from her friends, but she wasn’t prepared to handle the awful guilt she felt about doing it. It was like one gigantic dark cloud and it was going to follow her for the rest of her life.
The more she thought about it, the more unbearable it became. It was one thing to make a rational decision about keeping the secret to herself when she was in Los Angeles and her friends were thousands of miles away. Lisa found that it was another thing altogether when they were all right next to one another.
They neared the creek, dismounted, secured their horses to tree limbs, and within minutes each had her boots and socks off and they were dangling their feet in the deliciously cold water.
It seemed to cleanse more than Lisa’s feet. It cleansed her darkened heart, too. Whatever the price, she knew that the one thing in life she could not bear would be lying to her friends. She’d made a promise; she’d broken it. They had to know.
“I have to tell you something,” she said finally. When Stevie and Carole looked at Lisa, they both saw their friend’s eyes welling up with tears.
“What’s the matter, Lisa? Is everyone okay?” Stevie asked, deeply concerned.
Carole’s face was filled with sympathy.
“Not really,” Lisa said, now totally miserable. She was about to admit something awful to her friends and they were being nice to her. She was sure they’d never be nice to her again.
She had to do it, though. She took a deep breath and then she blurted it all out.
“I lied to you! I did ride. I didn’t want to, but Skye invited me and I couldn’t resist. I had to do it for Skye. If it had just been me, I would have said no. I mean it. So we went and it was wonderful—just wonderful. I really enjoyed it, but I feel horrible about it and I can’t keep it a secret from you!”
Then in came a full blast of tears, inconsolable, unstoppable. When Lisa cried, she really cried.
“I don’t believe it!” Carole said.
“I’m only human!” Lisa protested.
“It’s not that,” Carole said. She tried to give Lisa a hug to comfort her.
“So what is it?” Stevie asked, picking up on something in the tone of Carole’s voice.
“I thought I was the only one.”
“Only what?” asked Stevie, now fully suspicious.
“Who’d been on a horse, of course.”
“You were?” Lisa’s tears stopped as suddenly as they’d begun.
“Like Mrs. Reg said. It was a horse show. Dorothy practically begged me.”
“And you got a ribbon?” Lisa asked.
“Blue,” Carole said. “But I didn’t want to do it, Stevie. I promise I tried not to, but it was for the sake of the horse!”
“For the sake of the horse? I did it for the sake of the kids!”
“You did what?” Lisa asked.
“Ride, of course. They’d ridden out by the quarry all alone, see, and I knew they’d be in trouble.”
“You rode?” Carole asked. “How’d you manage it with your backside problem?”
“I rode standing the whole way.”
“Why didn’t we think of that in the first place?” asked Lisa.
“Because it only worked so-so and my bottom was even sorer for a week than it had been before. But I had no choice, really. I thought the kids could be in real danger—and they were.”
“So what happened” Carole asked.
And Stevie told them. She told them everything about the young kids and how much fun she’d been having with them, and the story of Merlin and the witch of Garrett Road.
“I never heard that one,” said Carole.
“I just made it up, Carole,” Stevie said. “And I don’t think I’ll make up any more tall tales again, ever.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Stevie, you’re the best at it!”
“All right, I’ll tell tall tales, but everybody is going to have to sign something before I start saying they understand it’s a tall tale and isn’t true.”
“Trust a lawyer’s daughter to come up with that,” Carole said.
“Two lawyers,” Stevie reminded her. Then she went on to finish the story with her favorite part—what Max never knew.
Carole and Lisa had to admit that it was a great story.
“Is it a tall tale?” Lisa asked suspiciously.
“Nope, every sorry word of it is true. Worst of all, I broke the pledge. But since I wasn’t alone, I want to hear what happened to each of you.”
Lisa went next. Carole and Stevie both liked Skye every bit as much as Lisa did and they understood completely why Lisa couldn’t say no. Stevie, who really had a crush on Chris Oliver, made Lisa explain a few times just how obnoxious he was to Skye before she’d believe it.
“Oh, all right,” Stevie conceded finally. “So he’s a rotten person, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a crush on the characters he plays, does it?”
“Only if your friend Phil doesn’t mind,” Carole teased.
“Phil has a crush on Mindy Manfred—you know, that gorgeous model? That doesn’t seem to interfere with our relationship, either.”
The girls laughed about that. They decided that fantasy crushes were okay—even when they were on people you’d never meet or know and wouldn’t like if you ever did.
Lisa went on. “But even when I knew I couldn’t keep Kip and when I got Skye to charter the ambulance plane for Aunt Alison and all of that was the right thing to do, I still felt bad about you two. I just can’t lie to you. I mean, I can, but it hurts too much.”
“Did you turn down Kip because of us?” Stevie asked.
“No. Really, I didn’t. I turned him down because I wasn’t sure my parents could really afford a horse right now, and because it was too much of a gift for Skye to give me. Even though he’s got lots of money, it isn’t right.”
“We’re going to have to talk,” Stevie said, putting her arm around Lisa’s shoulder. But she was just teasing and Lisa knew it. Her decision had been the right one.
Then both Stevie and Lisa looked at Carole. It was her turn.
“Well,” she began. “There’s this girl named Bea. No, actually, her name is Beatrice Benner and she’s somebody who makes Veronica diAngelo look like a nice girl next door.”
Carole told the whole story—from the first time she touched Southwood and was told to take her hands off the horse to the victory gallop at the horse show.
Then she began whispering. “He really was a magnificent horse to ride—so easy!”
Her friends leaned forward to listen.
“Why are you whispering?” Stevie asked.
“So Starl
ight won’t hear, silly,” Lisa explained for Carole, who nodded.
Stevie giggled. “Right,” she said. “I get it.”
When Carole finished telling her story, the girls were quiet, each feeling her own special form of relief and pleasure at having been able to talk about an adventure she’d had while away from the others.
Lisa sighed. Carole and Stevie followed suit. It was a good time, but there was trouble ahead and each of them knew it.
Lisa spoke first.
“We made a promise, you know. A pledge to one another.”
“Yeah,” said Stevie.
“And I broke it.”
“So did I.”
“Me, too.”
“We could just forget it,” said Stevie. “Couldn’t we? I mean if we all broke it.”
“Then the next pledge we make to one another won’t mean anything,” Lisa said. “If you don’t keep pledges and promises, it means you don’t respect the people you made them to.”
“What if I just don’t respect you-know-who?” She couldn’t bring herself to say Veronica’s name.
“Stevie!” Carole said.
“I know. I know. I was just trying to make it all go away. But what do we do?”
“We invite Veronica to join The Saddle Club,” Carole said. “We have to.”
“And then can we immediately disband the club and start all over again under an assumed name? Without her, of course.” Stevie asked.
“Stevie!” Carole said. “This isn’t easy on any of us. Don’t make it harder!”
“I know. I’m sorry. I was part of the problem. I can help be part of the solution. Lisa’s right, of course. We made a solemn promise. We broke it. We have to take the consequences. So who’s going to do it? Maybe we should go alphabetically by first name?”
“Or last name?” Carole said.
“Give me a break,” said Lisa. “We do it the democratic way.”
“Vote?”
“No, draw straws. Short straw invites Veronica into The Saddle Club.”
She drew her feet out of the creek and then climbed down from the rock. Just to the left by the bank of the creek there was a small reedy area. Using her pocket knife, Lisa cut three lengths of the narrow reeds. Two were long—about three inches. One was short—about two inches. She mixed them up and held them in her fist, all even at the top.
A Summer Without Horses Page 12