The Trail Home

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Callie, are you there? Carole and Stevie told me you’re working hard with PC. How’s your ankle?”

  “It’s a lot better,” Callie said.

  “And by the way, Stevie, Alex tells me that you and he have a new car. I hope you’re letting him drive it sometimes.”

  “I am,” Stevie said.

  Stevie and Carole exchanged looks. This phone call wasn’t turning out the way they would have hoped. It felt as if Lisa, the usual voice of reason, was much further than three thousand miles away—in a land where the earth shook and nothing made sense.

  “Hey, Lis’, are you going to be home tomorrow?” Carole asked.

  “I’ll be home in the morning. Then in the afternoon, Skye and some of the other people from the cast are having a picnic on the beach.”

  “A beach picnic with the Hollywood brat pack?” Scott asked. “And you expect us to believe you’re not having fun out there?”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t having fun,” said Lisa. “But I did say I miss you guys. It’s hard being so far away from my friends. So much is begun and so little is finished.”

  “I’ll call you in the morning,” Carole said.

  First thing, thought Stevie. There was a lot Lisa had to catch up with.

  “Okay, good night,” Lisa told everyone.

  “Good night,” they chorused back. Stevie reached for the Off button on the speaker phone. That was definitely enough of that phone call.

  “Do you think Lisa was calling from another planet?” Stevie asked later that night when she and Carole were alone at her house.

  “It sure seemed that way, didn’t it?” Carole said. “She’s been gone, what, six weeks? And we’ve spoken with her and she’s talked to us, but it’s like we’re in different worlds. And she doesn’t have a clue.”

  “Neither do we,” Stevie said. “Earthquakes—”

  “Tremors.”

  “Whatever. Tremors, beach parties with Hollywood stars. What kind of life is that?” Stevie asked.

  “A nice one,” said Carole. “But we’re her friends, and when she was talking, she kept putting her foot in it.”

  “There’s no way she could have known about Fez,” Stevie said.

  “I know, I know. It’s just that I’m used to Lisa being the one who always knows what’s going on and always knows the sensible way to solve problems,” Carole said. “It felt very strange to have her be so out of it.”

  “Maybe we’re the ones who are out of it,” Stevie said.

  “What do you mean?” asked Carole.

  “Remember what she said about so much begun, so little finished? That’s what it is, you know. It’s like we’re in the middle of everything. All this stuff is up in the air and it’s hard to live with things up in the air even if you know that eventually you’ll have all the answers.”

  “And what if you don’t like the answers?” Carole asked, wondering what answers would be in store for Ben.

  “Like if Callie doesn’t get better? Or if Lisa decides to stay in California?” Stevie suggested.

  “Okay, those things, too,” Carole said, trusting Stevie to know what else was on her mind.

  “Then maybe we’ll just have to pretend to like them. I remember a time in our lives when we thought we could change everything that wasn’t right, when we could right the wrongs and set the world straight.”

  “The world’s a little bigger now,” Carole agreed.

  “So maybe we have to work a little harder.”

  Carole wondered if Stevie was pretending now, or if she was finally starting to believe that everything really would be all right again.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Pine Hollow series

  ONE

  “Could you pass the coffee, please, Lisa?”

  Yawning, Lisa Atwood reached for the white ceramic coffeepot and handed it across the table to her father, who had just taken his usual seat between his wife, Evelyn, and the high chair where Lisa’s half sister, Lily, was cooing over a handful of cornflakes. Mr. Atwood reached to take the pot from Lisa, his fingers accidentally brushing the back of her hand.

  “Thanks, honey.”

  Something in his voice made Lisa look up. Squinting sleepily across the small round table, she saw that his eyes looked misty. “Dad?” she said. “What’s the matter?”

  Mr. Atwood laughed softly and shook his head. He glanced down and busily tightened the belt on his blue terry-cloth bathrobe, though Lisa suspected he was just using that as an excuse to pull himself together. Like Lisa, Mr. Atwood didn’t want to let his emotions get the best of him when other people were watching—even his own family.

  “Sorry,” he said after a moment. “It’s just that, well, I was thinking about how nice it is to see you sitting there. In case I haven’t said it often enough, it’s been really great having you here with us these last couple of months. Almost like old times. Old good times.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” The truth was, he had said it plenty of times. But it was always nice to hear.

  “That goes double for me, Lisa.” Evelyn reached for the coffeepot, which her husband had set down at her elbow. “We’ve both gotten used to having you around this place. Lily has, too,” she added, shooting a fond glance at the baby. “It won’t be the same when you go back to Virginia next week.”

  “Week after next,” Mr. Atwood corrected. He tossed Lisa a wink, all signs of mistiness gone. “Believe me, I’m counting the days.”

  Evelyn rolled her eyes. “That’s what I get for marrying a pointy-headed number cruncher.”

  Mr. Atwood rubbed his decidedly nonpointy head and pretended to look angry. “Watch it,” he growled.

  Lisa smiled and glanced at her stepmother. Evelyn’s short blond hair was pushed casually off her forehead and her green eyes sparkled as she laughed. The contrast to Lisa’s own mother—with her pallid, unhealthy complexion, the gloomy expression in her eyes, the constant sighs and bitter little remarks—was so strong that it caused an almost physical ache in Lisa’s heart. Even though her parents’ divorce had been finalized some time ago, Lisa’s mother still hadn’t managed to pull her life back on course. The quiet, somber mood of Lisa’s home in Virginia contrasted sharply with the bright, sunny, relaxed feeling she got sitting in her father’s white cottage near the beach in Southern California. When Evelyn noticed Lisa’s gaze and met it with a warm, open smile, the contrast increased. The first Mrs. Atwood had never been particularly open or emotionally warm, even with her daughter. These days it seemed she hardly had time for anything except her group therapy—which Lisa secretly called gripe therapy—and long, depressing talks on the phone with Lisa’s aunt.

  Fortunately Lisa had plenty of other people to lean on for emotional support. There was her father, for one. At the time of the divorce, Lisa had been very angry at him—for leaving them, for moving all the way across the country, for throwing her life into such turmoil. But Mr. Atwood had tried hard to let her know that he still loved her. And finally she had let herself believe him.

  Even before that, though, she hadn’t had to go it alone. As always, her two best friends had been there for her. Lisa had met Stevie Lake and Carole Hanson on her first day at Pine Hollow Stables several years earlier, and the three girls had been inseparable ever since. They shared a common bond: horses. When they were younger, Lisa, Stevie, and Carole had spent hours in the saddle.

  Now that they were in high school they still loved to hang out at Pine Hollow, though somehow they didn’t seem to have as much time for it as they once had—at least Lisa and Stevie didn’t. Carole had always been the most serious of the three about all things equine and equestrian, and, true to form, she still managed to spend most of her time at the stable. Lisa smiled as she imagined her friend bustling around Pine Hollow, busy as ever in her summer job as morning stable manager. The job was perfect for Carole, not only because it allowed her to earn some money before her junior year, but also for the jump start it gave her career, which she alrea
dy knew would have something to do with horses.

  Stevie loved horses as much as ever, too, especially her own horse, Belle. But looking back, Lisa now recognized that her impetuous, outgoing friend had always managed to juggle multiple interests while seeming to focus most of her attention on riding. When the girls had first met, Stevie’s interests had included playing pranks and practical jokes, fighting with her three brothers, and spending time with her boyfriend, Phil Marsten. These days Phil was still very much in the picture, but Stevie had mostly given up her joking ways, somewhere along the road even reaching a truce with her brothers.

  Lisa, for one, was glad about that. Six months earlier, she had suddenly, inexplicably, and undeniably fallen head over heels in love with Stevie’s twin brother, Alex. Lisa knew that her friends still didn’t understand quite how it had happened, and she wasn’t sure she understood it, either. All she knew was that during the dark period following her parents’ divorce, one of the few things that had broken through her pain had been strange, disconcerting moments when she would suddenly notice the way Alex’s hair curled the wrong way on one side of his forehead, or that his voice had deepened into something that insinuated itself into her mind like a line of music playing over and over again. And once in a while, through the fog that had seemed to surround her during that time, Lisa had noticed Alex looking back at her with an odd, unreadable expression on his face.

  Falling in love with Alex had been just the thing Lisa had needed to banish the fog, regain her balance, and return to life. She wished her mother could find a similar lifeline of her own. But she was too sensible to hold out much hope, at least for the foreseeable future.

  Mr. Atwood and Evelyn had ended their playful sparring with a quick kiss, and once again peace reigned in the sunny kitchen. Evelyn turned to Lisa with a smile. “Anyway, Lisa, you know what we mean. We’ll miss you.” She stood and stepped over to Lily’s high chair. As soon as she unlatched the spring on the white plastic tray, the baby cooed and held out her arms. Evelyn picked her up and returned to her seat, settling Lily comfortably on her lap. “This visit has been too short.”

  “The summer has really flown by, hasn’t it?” Lisa mused, gazing at Lily. The baby had grown and changed so much even in the short time Lisa had been there. Soon the changes would go on without her there to observe them. “I can’t believe it’s almost over. I’m not sure I’m ready to leave yet.”

  “Really?” Mr. Atwood’s eyes lit up. “You know, Lisa, if you ever decide—”

  “Wait.” Lisa held up one hand to silence her father. “Don’t start calling in the moving vans yet. It was just an innocent comment. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  So why did you say it? a little voice in her head asked. Since when do you say things you don’t mean?

  Lisa didn’t know the answer to those questions, so she decided to shove the pesky little voice out of her mind. She could think about it later—like when she was fully awake, for instance. She reached for her coffee cup and took a big swallow.

  Mr. Atwood was grinning sheepishly. “Sorry. But you can’t blame me for hoping, right? And if you change your mind and decide to leave those cold winters and gray skies for good, you know there are people here in sunny California who miss you like crazy every minute you’re gone.”

  “Right,” Lisa replied slowly, thinking of Alex, Stevie, and Carole. “But don’t forget, there are lots of people back in Virginia who are missing me right now. And I’m missing them a whole lot, too.”

  “We know,” Evelyn said softly. She rested her chin on Lily’s round head. “We never forget you have a mother back East who’s counting the seconds until you get home.”

  Lisa felt a pang of guilt. She hadn’t been thinking about her mother at all, just her friends and her boyfriend. Still, as her mother’s face floated into her mind, a wave of homesickness swept over her, stronger than any she had felt since arriving in California almost two months earlier.

  I guess I miss my mommy, Lisa thought wryly. That wasn’t so strange. What was odd was that, try as she might to suppress the thought, Lisa knew she had meant what she’d said: She really wasn’t ready to end this California summer. Not yet.

  Or maybe that wasn’t so strange, since the past two months had been among the most interesting of her life—not to mention being right up there on her personal top ten list of fun times. After all, how many seventeen-year-old girls could say they had worked on the set of a hot new TV show? Lisa knew the job would look very impressive on her college applications next year—almost as impressive as the straight As and other academic honors she had earned over the years.

  Then there was all the stuff that wouldn’t show up in any college essay, like getting to spend the summer around horses even though she was three thousand miles from Pine Hollow, and working with Skye Ransom, a gorgeous, talented actor just a few years older than Lisa. She had known Skye for years—ever since she and her friends had helped teach him to ride—but it was still a treat to see him. And while Skye was the star of the show, he wasn’t the only heartthrob on the set. It seemed that every hot young actor in Hollywood wanted the chance to be a guest star on the show, and Lisa had met them all.

  Yes, that sort of thing did a lot to keep her mind off how much she missed her friends back home.

  Lisa realized she was thinking so hard that she had missed something her stepmother had just said. “Sorry?” she said. “What was that?”

  “I just asked when Paradise Ranch debuts,” Evelyn said. “You’ve been slaving away on the set all summer, and the thing hasn’t even been on TV yet.”

  “It debuts in a couple of weeks, and I know exactly what you mean. It’s weird that nobody else has even seen the first episode yet. I mean, I feel as though the characters have always been out there. I even know which character gets trampled by stampeding horses in the big Christmas cliffhanger!”

  Mr. Atwood threw up his hands in protest. “Don’t you dare give it away! We want to enjoy the suspense.”

  “Don’t worry. They swore me to secrecy. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” Lisa glanced at her watch. “Oops. I’d better eat fast if I don’t want to be late.” She started shoveling her cereal into her mouth as her father and Evelyn chatted about Lily’s next doctor’s appointment.

  Lisa’s mind wandered forward. Before long she would be able to watch the premiere of Paradise Ranch on TV with her friends back home. She had already e-mailed Alex about it, ordering him to make sure nobody made any other plans for that evening. She could picture it now: She and Alex would snuggle on the Lakes’ big, comfortable sofa. Stevie and Phil would be sprawled on the floor in front of the TV set, arms around each other even as they squabbled good-naturedly.

  Lisa smiled and sank deeper into the fantasy. Carole would rush in breathless and almost late because she’d waited too long to leave the stable. Phil’s friend A.J. would probably come with his girlfriend. Maybe, just maybe, Carole could convince Ben Marlow to join them, if the handsome young stablehand wasn’t sunk too deeply in one of his gruff, antisocial moods. Stevie’s younger brother, Michael, would probably make fun of the show for days beforehand, but he would be sure to show up just in time to watch it with them.…

  Lisa sighed as she imagined the scene. She could almost feel Alex’s strong arms encircling her, and for a split second she thought she could detect a hint of the aftershave she had bought him.

  Then the imagined scent and the picture were gone. Lisa was back in her father’s kitchen with a soggy bowl of cornflakes in front of her and the hot California sunshine pouring through the windows. Glancing around, Lisa saw that neither her father nor Evelyn had noticed her daydreaming. But baby Lily was staring at her from her mother’s lap, her small, moist mouth hanging open slightly and her blue eyes wide and curious.

  Lisa pushed her cornflakes away. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

  “Evelyn? Could I hold Lily for a minute before I leave?”

  “Definitely.” Evelyn stood and hel
d out the baby. “She gets heavier every day. I’m always thrilled when someone else wants to take a turn.”

  Lisa smiled at her, then hugged Lily tight. “You’re the cutest baby in the whole world, you know,” she murmured, just loudly enough for Lily alone to hear. “You’re not going to forget me when I leave, are you? I promise I’ll come visit you as often as I can, and then next summer …

  Lisa’s voice caught in her throat. Next summer seemed a lifetime away. How could she miss her baby sister so much when she hadn’t even left yet?

  And no matter how great this summer had been, she couldn’t help wondering how she could be so sad that it was ending. After all, Virginia was her home, despite the fact that she fit in a lot better in California than she ever would have expected. Yes, some important parts of her life—her father, her sister, Evelyn, Skye, and other friends—were here. Sometimes those things loomed so large in her mind and heart that it was overwhelming to think of leaving them behind.

  But at other times, Lisa yearned to see Alex’s face light up the way it always did when he saw her coming toward him. She longed to sink into one of their deep, special, timeless kisses, to feel his hands on the small of her back as they danced to their favorite dreamy, romantic song.

  And her friends. She had almost forgotten the precise sound of Carole’s distinctive laugh, which always made her sound delighted and somehow surprised at the same time. And it had been too long since Lisa had felt herself being pulled—half unwilling, half expectant—into one of Stevie’s big ideas for big fun.

  Then there was Pine Hollow. Lisa was sure she had spent as much time on horseback this summer as either of her friends. But she still missed the horse she rode back home, a beautiful Thoroughbred mare named Prancer. She missed the familiar sights and sounds of the stable where she had learned to ride. She even missed hearing Max Regnery, the owner of Pine Hollow, shout corrections at his students.