The Long Ride (10 page)

“Morning, Stevie,” Callie Forester said.

“Oh, hi, Callie. I want you to meet Lisa Atwood, one of my best friends. Lisa, I didn't have a chance to tell you yet, but I invited Callie to come along on our trail ride. She's new to Willow Creek as well as to Pine Hollow, so I thought this would be a good chance to show off the place.” She quickly explained how she'd met Callie when she'd delivered pizza to her house.

Lisa smiled warmly at Callie, but the glance she gave Stevie was quizzical. Stevie knew she deserved it. This was supposed to be a trail ride for three old friends, not for newcomers, even nice newcomers.

“Welcome to Pine Hollow, Callie,” Lisa said. “Is that pretty Arab down the hallway yours?”

“Yep, that's right. And this will be the first chance I've had to ride him here. I'm really looking forward to it.”

“Callie does endurance riding,” Stevie said. “I mean, she's really good. She's won all sorts of junior competitions.”

“Not here,” Callie said. “Back home.”

“Where's home?” Lisa asked.

“Out on the West Coast. We just moved here. Well, my dad's been here since January. He's a congressman, and he just got elected. So we'll be here at least two years—just long enough to get me and my brother through high school. He'll be a senior, and I'm going into my junior year. It was really tough moving.”

“I can relate to that,” said Lisa. “Not that I've moved, exactly, but my parents got a divorce and my dad's remarried and he's living in California—”

“Where?”

“Near Los Angeles. And I'm going there for the summer—”

“It's so hard!” said Callie. “Maybe even harder for you because it's not permanent. It's just for a couple of months, and without going to school, it's almost impossible to get to know people.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Lisa said sardonically.

“I'm sorry. I just meant I understand.”

Lisa smiled. “I know that's what you meant. Did you live near Los Angeles?”

“No, we were up north, in a little town. I could do a lot of riding there.”

“That's one thing your little town and Willow Creek have in common. You can do a lot of riding here. The school is close enough that you can actually come over every day after school if you want. Before, too.”

“You can count on me being here,” said Callie. “Even though the stable said they'd exercise Fez for me, I'd like to do it myself most of the time.”

“Max'll ride him for you?” Lisa asked. That didn't sound like Max at all. In the first place, he didn't have time, and in the second place, he thought it was really important for the owners to ride their horses. Otherwise, why did they have them?

“No, it wasn't Max. It was that girl—I keep forgetting her name. She said she'd take care of it, so how could I refuse? Oh, that's her,” she said, nodding at Carole, who was walking toward them.

“Hi, Carole,” Lisa greeted her friend. “Did you meet Callie yet? Yeah, I guess you did. Anyway, she's coming along on our trail ride. Stevie met her the other night when she was delivering pizza to her house. Small world, huh? And, wait until you see her horse. Oh. You probably did see her horse, didn't you?”

“Callie and I have met,” Carole said.

“Right after Fez arrived,” Callie added.

Lisa knew an undercurrent when she was standing in the middle of one. What she didn't know was where this one had come from. Carole was upset about something, and it seemed as if it had to do with Callie, but maybe it was something that had happened in the office. “Stevie said things were wild in the office. The phone wouldn't stop ringing and the kids kept barging in. You must be glad to have an excuse to escape for a while. Is Emily here?”

“Yes, she's here,” Carole said. She glanced back and forth between Stevie and Callie, recalling how Stevie seemed to have been in a rush to tell her something when everything was going crazy in the office. Of course, now she realized it was about Callie. Carole hadn't known they'd already met. And she certainly hadn't known that Callie was coming along on their special farewell ride. What could Stevie have been thinking?

Then she figured it out. Stevie had invited Callie to ride with them so that Carole wouldn't have to exercise Fez that afternoon. She was probably just trying to do the right thing, so it was hard for Carole to be angry with her, but that didn't mean Carole wanted to spend a couple of hours riding with Callie. Maybe Carole hadn't made it clear to Stevie that the human VIP was as difficult as the horse one. But that didn't make it okay, and it didn't make Carole want to be a part of it.

“Listen, something's come up.”

“With that Mr. Burns?” asked Stevie.

“That and about fourteen other things. You know how crazy it can get on summer mornings. It was probably a mistake to think I could go riding in the first place, but I definitely can't go with you guys now. I've got to stay here. Starlight needs a little workout, for sure, but I'm going to have to do it in the ring so that people can hassle me about pony assignments, grain orders, and manure disposal while I ride. You all go on ahead.”

“But Carole—” Lisa protested.

“Don't worry. We'll have some time together later. You'll be back about noon, and I'll meet you guys at the usual place.”

Without offering further explanation or waiting for protests, Carole spun around to leave her friends alone. She was angry. Very angry. And hurt. Their final trail ride of the summer was being interrupted by Callie Forester. If the girl loved “back home” so much, Carole wished she'd just go there—go anyplace, in fact, other than Pine Hollow.

What was done was done. Carole couldn't change it. She just didn't want to upset her friends, and she wasn't going to let Callie see her cry.

Stevie felt terrible. She knew she'd made a mistake. In fact, it seemed as if she was doing nothing but making mistakes these days. She'd hurt Carole's feelings and that bothered her, but it bothered her even more that she had messed up this trail ride. It was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be great. When she'd invited Callie along, she'd been sure that both Lisa and Carole would like Callie as much as she did. How could she have known that wouldn't be so? And what had Callie done to make Carole think she was difficult? She seemed perfectly nice to Stevie.

Time would tell. And time was passing.

“Boy, it's too bad Carole can't come along,” said Lisa.

“Yes,” Callie agreed. “I wanted a chance to get to know her better. It was sort of rushed before.”

Stevie wondered what that meant.

“Come on, let's get going,” Lisa said. “If we stand still for a minute longer, Max will try to con us into helping tack up the ponies for the beginners.”

“Okay,” Stevie said, mounting Belle. “We're off, and Lisa and I promise to give you the grand tour of Pine Hollow. First stop, the good-luck horseshoe.”

Stevie led the way out of the stable, through the paddocks, and into the woods behind Pine Hollow. Although it wasn't yet ten o'clock, the summer sun was already hot. The sweet scent of fresh field grass combined with the ever wonderful smells of horses and leather. It was a combination that never failed to make her feel better. The sun sparkled through the leaves, dappling the bridle trail. Beneath her, Stevie felt the wonderful warm power of her beloved Belle. She could feel her own worry and distress practically melt in the warm June day.

Behind her, Lisa and Callie were chatting easily.

“… Well, the worst part of the election was when the whole family got interviewed by this local television station. Do you know how hard it is to smile for two hours? And out of that, they only ran about three minutes of the interview. Just two and a half seconds of that was about me.”

“Were you smiling?”

“You bet I was!” Callie said, laughing. “I wasn't going to ruin Dad's future with a single grimace.”

“It must be awful being on display all the time.”

“Well, it really isn't all the time. In a way, too, it was harder out there where there's only one congressman in the district and it's Dad. Here, near Washington, there are loads of them. It seems like nobody gives it a second thought.”

“People aren't impressed here until you get to be a senator,” said Lisa, smiling.

“Unless you're indicted,” Stevie said. “I mean, if you can rustle up a good scandal, everybody will be wowed!”

“I think we'll try to avoid that,” said Callie. “My dad's not the love nest type.”

“So, you've got a great set of parents and a funny, flirty brother—wait'll you meet Scott, Lisa. It's a perfect life,” said Stevie.

“Not totally,” said Callie. “I mean, I don't have a car to drive because I'm still grounded for something I did back home. If I want to go anywhere I'm at the mercy of my flirty brother, who, as you may have noticed, is interested in chatting with almost anybody but me. Most of the time I'm stuck with a bicycle, and I feel like I'm too old for a bike. I envy you your car.”

“It's just part-time,” said Stevie. “I share it with my twin brother. Sharing has not always been our strongest quality, but we do okay on that because we agreed to a schedule. So far, it's worked out. But that may not mean much. We just got our licenses this week.”

Callie laughed.

“You'll do fine on the sharing,” Lisa said. “I'll see to it.”

“Maybe,” said Stevie. “Anyway, I love driving, and anytime I actually have the car, I'd be glad to drive you anywhere. No excuse is too slight for a good long ride—whether it's in a car or on horseback.”

“Check,” said Callie. “And I'm glad I've got a witness to what you just said, because I will definitely take you up on that.”

“No problem,” Stevie assured her. “And I already know where you live. And what you like on your pizza.”

“See what happens when you're in the public eye?” Callie said to Lisa. “People keep dossiers on you.
Lifestyles of the Impoverished and Not Very Famous.
Now, where's this famous creek you kept talking about? My feet are getting hot and sweaty. They could use a good cool dunk.”

“Right this way, milady,” Stevie said.

Callie laughed and followed Stevie, happy and relaxed for the first time since she'd arrived in Willow Creek. She liked these girls. Fez was behaving better than he had the last time she'd ridden him, and she suspected it was because he was comfortable being sandwiched between Stevie's Belle and Prancer, the horse Lisa was riding.

Callie just wished everybody at Pine Hollow was as nice as Lisa and Stevie.

TEN

Carole slid the final updated notebook onto the shelf above her desk and stretched. She'd finished the work she'd needed to get done, and she could relax because it was noon. Denise would be at the office in a few minutes to relieve her for the day. That meant Carole could go home—or she could wait for her friends and go over to TD's for something to eat. It wouldn't be as good as a trail ride would have been, but at least it would be just the three of them. She promised herself for the umpteenth time that she wouldn't say anything to Stevie about inviting Callie along. Stevie had her reasons and that was that.

As soon as Denise arrived, Carole walked out to the schooling ring. From there, she'd be able to see her friends when they returned from their ride.

Everything at Pine Hollow seemed wonderfully normal on this hot summer day. Max was finishing up a jump class with the beginning riders. The next class was warming up their horses by walking them around the ring, waiting for Max to come teach them equitation. Nearby, Ben waited to help riders untack their horses and groom them. The riders would do all the work—or at least most of it—because that was the way it was done at Pine Hollow, but Ben would be sure it was done correctly.

“A penny for your thoughts,” said a familiar voice.

Carole turned to see Emily Williams grooming her horse, PC, in the stall closest to the door.

“They're not worth that much,” Carole assured her.

“I'm not so sure about that,” Emily countered. “It takes more than a penny's worth of thinking to figure out why it was that you skipped the trail ride with your friends today. It wasn't because you don't trust me to look after the office.”

“No, of course it wasn't,” Carole said. “It's just that something came up.”

“Okay,” Emily said agreeably. “I don't have to know everything, but that doesn't keep me from
wanting
to know everything.”

“Right,” Carole said. She really didn't want to tell Emily everything that had happened. None of it felt right, and that wasn't something she wanted to share, even with a good friend. “Can I give you a hand with PC?” she offered.

“No thanks. I thought I'd take advantage of the extra free time I have to give him a first-class grooming. What I didn't know was how badly he needed it. His idea of the perfect way to celebrate the beginning of summer is to roll in the mud in the little paddock. So it's been beauty day for Prince Charming.”

Carole peered at her friend. She was wearing a Pine Hollow T-shirt over her riding clothes to keep them clean. Emily supported herself with one crutch while she groomed her horse with one hand. Everything she did took her twice as much effort as it would anybody else, and she still managed to do three times as good a job.

“Pass me the rag, will you?” Emily asked. Carole stepped into the stable and handed her the towel. As Emily rubbed, PC's coat began to shine.

“I'd better go get my sunglasses,” Carole said. “All that glare …”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Emily said. “You're going to have to groom your own horse.”

“I already did that. Now I'm just waiting for Lisa and Stevie to get back.” Carole turned to look outside. Across the field, she could see some riders emerging from the woods. “And I think my wait's over. Listen, thanks for being willing to cover for me this morning, Emily, even if it turned out I didn't need you.”