Penalty Points

by Bonnie Bryant

  “I wish you weren’t going,” Alex said frankly. He ran one hand through his short-cropped brown hair and sighed. “But I guess what’s done is done, right?”

  “I guess so.” Lisa opened her mouth to tell him what she knew he wanted to hear: that she wished she weren’t going, either. But then she stopped herself. She didn’t want to lie to him. She had to trust their relationship to be strong enough to handle the truth, no matter how messy or confusing it was. “I’ll miss you, you know that. But I think it might be good for me to go out there for a little while. I miss Dad and Lily a lot.” She smiled slightly as she thought about her baby half sister, who had just begun crawling when she’d left at the end of the summer. “And it will give me some time to think about things.”

  Alex bit his lip. “Like about whether you still want to be with me?” he asked quietly.

  “Of course not!” Lisa reached over and grabbed both his hands in her own. “I already know the answer to that. I love you, remember? No matter what happened, or what happens from now on.”

  “I love you, too.” Alex squeezed her hands, but his eyes still looked anxious. “I just wish you could stay here with me, instead of running off to California all the time.”

  Lisa did her best not to feel annoyed at the comment. Try to see his point of view. He’s just feeling insecure, that’s all, she told herself. He wants to spend as much time with me as possible. That’s a good thing, right? Besides, he’s probably not thinking about how much I miss my family out there. He’s probably just thinking about Skye …

  She couldn’t help resenting that, just a little. After all that had happened, hadn’t she managed to convince Alex yet that he was the only one she loved? What more did she have to do to prove it to him?

  “Anyway,” she said, “I hope you can understand how I feel. It isn’t easy for me having my family split in two like this.”

  “I know.” Alex gazed at her somberly. “It isn’t easy for me, either. I want to be with you all the time, but it feels as though something is always trying to keep us apart. Or someone.”

  Lisa sighed, saved from responding because the waitress came over to deposit the check for their ice cream. Lisa was glad that she and Alex were talking again. But was having an honest, open relationship supposed to be so hard?

  At that moment, Callie Forester was sitting in her living room, frowning over her chemistry notebook and trying to figure out why she couldn’t seem to come up with the right answer to the problem she was working on, no matter how many times she went through it. As she erased yet another set of incorrect calculations, she heard the front door swing open and glanced up automatically.

  “Hey, Callie,” her brother, Scott, greeted her cheerfully, bounding into the room without bothering to remove his windbreaker. “Guess what?”

  “Hmmm, let me think,” Callie said, more sarcastically than she’d meant to, still irritated by her own inability to comprehend chemistry. “Did your little meeting with the principals go well?”

  Scott ignored her sharp tone. “It sure did,” he said, rubbing his hands together. His blue eyes were bright with excitement and his broad, handsome face was slightly flushed. “Mr. Price—he’s the principal over at Willow Creek High—absolutely loved the idea of putting the schools together. Miss Fenton was a little more cautious at first—you know, because of the timing—but as soon as we managed to convince her we could really make it happen, she jumped on board. She’ll be making an announcement tomorrow morning inviting everyone at Fenton who wants to go to the dance to buy their tickets immediately.”

  Callie couldn’t help smiling at her older brother’s enthusiasm. She knew there was nothing Scott loved more than a successful campaign—it was a trait he had inherited from their father, a congressman. “Congrats,” she told him.

  “I know it’s pretty short notice, but I think we’ll still get a good turnout.” Scott shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over a chair, then perched on the end of the couch where Callie was sitting. “Veronica and her friends have been talking up the possibility of the dance all week, so I doubt anyone will be totally surprised.”

  “It doesn’t leave people much time to go dress shopping, though,” Callie pointed out.

  Scott grinned. “I thought of that, too,” he said. “But Ronnie has been asked to the Willow Creek homecoming dance every year since she was in eighth grade. She says it’s always pretty informal—not like at our old school, where people treated it almost like the prom.”

  “That’s good.” Callie felt a pang as she remembered the prom she’d attended the previous spring in their old hometown on the West Coast, just a couple of months before the family had moved to Willow Creek to be closer to Congressman Forester’s office in nearby Washington, D.C. One of the coolest seniors in school had asked her, even though she’d only been a sophomore at the time—being the daughter of an influential politician could do that—and she’d had a fantastic time, dressing to the nines, dancing until her feet hurt, then going to a party on the beach after the dance and staying out until dawn.…

  But she pushed aside the memory. Scott’s mention of Veronica had reminded her of something that had been bothering her for the past few days. “Listen, Scott,” she said. “I don’t want to be a downer on your big triumphant day or whatever. But I was just wondering if you’d noticed that Veronica is totally into you. She wants you in a big way, and she doesn’t care who knows it.”

  Scott laughed self-consciously. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.…”

  Callie snorted. She had never lacked for male attention—her good looks, as well as her last name, had ensured that—but Scott had always had an almost preternatural ability to make girls swoon wherever he went. He had broken more than a few hearts back in their old hometown, mostly through sheer ignorance of his own charisma.

  “Look,” she said bluntly. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not especially worried about Veronica’s feelings—she strikes me as the type who can take care of herself, you know? And I know you’ve been so wrapped up in this campaign that you probably haven’t stopped to think about any of this. But you should be careful. If you aren’t interested in her and you end up blowing her off after the election, well, some people might think you’re only using her for her connections.” She paused to let her words sink in, knowing there weren’t many things more important to Scott than his reputation. “That’s not going to make you any friends, no matter how people feel about Veronica herself.”

  Scott frowned. “Hmmm,” he said. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that. I mean, I sort of like Ronnie. She’s sorta cool. But I’m really not looking for anything serious right now.…”

  “That’s what I thought,” Callie said, secretly relieved that he didn’t return Veronica’s feelings. She hadn’t relished even the slight possibility of having to spend time with the other girl if Scott started dating her seriously. “So maybe you’d better let her in on the secret soon, okay?”

  “I don’t know about that.” Scott looked reluctant. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve actually been out or anything.”

  Callie rolled her eyes, amazed as always at her brother’s ability to sidestep thorny situations. “Get real,” she told him sharply. “As far as most people are concerned, you two are already a couple. If you don’t want them to think you’re using her, you’d better either sit her down for a little talk right away or just bite the bullet and ask her to the dance.”

  “Well …,” Scott said slowly, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re—”

  The phone cut him off, ringing shrilly from its position on an end table. Callie leaned over to answer it. “Hello, Forester residence,” she said automatically.

  “Callie?” a tentative male voice replied from the other end of the line. “Um, hi. It’s George. George Wheeler.”

  Callie gulped. “Oh, hi, George,” she replied as her brother winked and headed out of the room. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine,” George said.
“Um, so, Callie, about this weekend. Can you—I mean, have you made up your mind yet about Saturday? I don’t want to bother you, but, well …”

  Callie winced, realizing she’d put off this conversation far too long. George had a serious crush on her, and the past Saturday night he had made that quite obvious. He’d followed her around the party at the Lakes’ house all night, and she had finally ended up dancing with him and then spending almost an hour talking to him—mostly about horses, since they were both serious competitive riders, George in three-day eventing and Callie in endurance riding. When they had finally parted ways, he’d asked her out for the next Saturday. She had put him off without giving him an answer, telling him she had to think about it.

  What am I supposed to do about this? she wondered, feeling uncharacteristically helpless. She pictured George walking down the hall at school—his wispy blond hair sticking up at odd angles, his round face pink and earnest, his clothes always seeming not to hang quite right on his short, pudgy body … Then she imagined him the way she’d seen him the last time they’d been at Pine Hollow together. When he climbed into a saddle, George seemed to transform into a different person entirely. He was one of the most talented riders Callie had ever met, which was probably why he was asked to be one of the five riders representing the stable at the Colesford Horse Show in a couple of weeks.

  It was hard to reconcile the image of George the spectacular rider with George the sweet but dorky guy. But why should either of those images make the slightest bit of difference to how I feel about him? Callie wondered, a bit annoyed with herself. Since when do I care so much about images?

  She gripped the phone tighter, thinking back to the party, when she had found George’s attention irritating and sweet by turns. True, he was the polar opposite of the kind of guys she usually liked. And yes, he had followed her around the party like a pathetic puppy dog. But once she’d started dancing with him, she hadn’t been able to ignore how considerate he was. Thanks to a serious automobile accident over the summer, Callie had spent the past few months learning to walk again, and she still relied on crutches to get around. But dancing with George, she’d almost been able to forget that—he had carefully supported her as they’d danced so that her weakened right leg hardly slowed her down at all.

  Realizing that she’d been silent for several long seconds, she cleared her throat, still not certain what to say. “Um, Saturday …,” she said. “Actually, Scott just came in and told me some news about Saturday night—we’re invited to the Willow Creek homecoming dance.”

  “What?” George sounded confused. “You and Scott are going to the homecoming dance?”

  Callie quickly guessed that George hadn’t heard about Veronica’s weeklong homecoming campaign. That figured. He was the kind of peripheral guy whom Veronica and her clique ignored as instinctively as they breathed. “Not just me and Scott,” she explained patiently. “All of us. Fenton Hall in general.” She quickly filled him in on the details.

  “Oh,” George said when she finished. “Um, well, we could go to that together if you want. Unless you already have other plans, I mean,” he added quickly.

  Callie bit her lip, still trying to decide what to do. At that moment, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Scott strolling past on his way to the stairs.

  I can tell my brother what to do about his love life, but I can’t figure out how to deal with my own, she thought. Still, maybe this dance is a perfect opportunity for me to decide whether I could ever have any romantic interest in George. We won’t have to be alone much, we both like dancing … and if sparks are ever going to fly, it’s bound to happen at a romantic event like that, right?

  She nodded, feeling satisfied with her own logic. “I don’t have any other plans,” she told George. “I’d love to go to the dance with you.”

  “Really?” George’s voice was so eager that Callie winced. “That’s great! Just great! Um, I mean, thanks, Callie. I’m sure we’ll have fun.”

  “Me too,” Callie lied, already wondering if she’d made a huge mistake. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow at school, okay?”

  She hung up, feeling apprehensive. George had sounded thrilled at the idea of going to the dance with her—so thrilled that it made her perversely certain that there could never be a future for the two of them.

  What’s my problem? she wondered fiercely. It’s a good thing when a guy likes you, remember? I just need to chill and see what happens. And if I decide things aren’t going to work out for us … well, I’ll just have to deal with that when the time comes.

  THREE

  “Juliet!” Carole shouted. “No running in the stable, remember? Max will have a fit if he catches you.”

  Juliet Phillips didn’t seem to hear her. She shrieked loudly and raced out of the indoor ring and down the aisle as a new seventh-grade rider named Brian Chalmers chased her with a handful of whipped cream he’d scooped up from somewhere. Carole sighed and rubbed her head, wondering if she had ever been as giddy and silly as the intermediate riders were acting that day.

  “Relax, Carole,” Denise McCaskill said kindly as she joined Carole near the punch bowl, depositing a plate full of cookies on the long refreshment table Max had set up for the intermediate riding class’s Halloween party. “It’s a party, remember? You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.”

  Carole smiled gratefully at Denise, Pine Hollow’s petite, friendly, twenty-something daytime stable manager. “I know. I’m just afraid they’re going to get too rowdy and scare the horses. Especially Prancer.”

  Denise brushed back her dark brown bangs, then absently patted the thick braid at the nape of her neck as she turned to survey the scene. Carole followed her gaze, noting that Sarah Anne Porter had borrowed several shiny metal stirrups from the tack room to use as bracelets for her genie outfit and that Alexandra Foster and Justine Harrington were enthusiastically chasing one of the stable cats that had made the unfortunate decision to come around begging for treats.

  “Okay, I’ll admit they’re a little rowdy right now,” Denise said calmly, raising her voice as Rachel Hart let out a shriek of laughter from nearby. “But I’m sure they’ll settle down when Max gets back from putting the girls to bed.” She smiled at Carole, making the tanned skin around her dark eyes crinkle slightly. “They may be kind of giddy, but not so much that they’ll forget they’re scared of making him mad.”

  Carole smiled weakly in agreement, but then she sighed. “Still, these parties always seemed to go a lot more smoothly when Mrs. Reg was here,” she said, thinking of Max’s widowed mother, a kind, calm, capable woman who had helped manage the stable before retiring to Florida a couple of months earlier. “I miss her.”

  “Me too,” Denise agreed. Before she could say anything more, her longtime boyfriend, Red O’Malley, Pine Hollow’s head stable hand, waved frantically at her from across the ring, where May Grover had just tripped and fallen into the apple-dunking tub. “Uh-oh,” Denise said. “Looks like Red could use some help. I’d better get over there.”

  “Okay.” Watching her go, Carole decided to take the opportunity to slip away and check on Prancer. Despite Denise’s assurances, Carole was concerned that all the noise might be frightening the pregnant mare. Prancer was carrying twins, which automatically made her pregnancy a high-risk one. Just the week before, Max had been worried that she might have lost one of the foals when he couldn’t find its heartbeat. In the end the vet had pronounced the mare and both her foals alive and healthy, but Carole knew that could change at any moment, which was why she and Denise and Red and Ben and Max had all been keeping a close watch on Prancer in between their other chores.

  She dodged around Alexandra and Justine and made her way out of the indoor ring a few steps behind the terrified stable cat. Ignoring the younger girls as they called for her to stop the cat, Carole rounded the corner into the aisle where Prancer was housed.

  A few minutes later, when she was satisfied that Prancer was resting comfortably in her
stall, seemingly unfazed by the commotion just down the hall, Carole headed reluctantly back toward the party, taking the long way around the U-shaped stable to make sure none of the other horses were upset by the noise.

  “Hey, Topside. How’s it going, Windsor?” she murmured, patting the curious heads that poked out of the stalls as she passed. “Don’t worry, Barq. The party will be over soon. I hope.”

  She paused as she reached the next stall, where a very familiar bay face with a lopsided star was watching her approach.

  “Hi, boy,” she greeted Starlight softly. A weird twinge of discomfort nudged at her as if she’d had a disturbing dream about him that she couldn’t quite remember. But it wasn’t a nightmare that was pulling at her, she realized a half second later. It was Stevie’s comment earlier that day, the one about getting rid of Starlight.…

  Before she could think about that, a loud, piercing shriek erupted from just down the aisle. Startled, Carole dropped her hand from her horse’s neck and turned to see what was going on. She saw that Alexandra and Justine had a different stable cat cornered a few yards down the hall, and they were trying to catch the poor animal. The cat, a big calico, had just jumped onto the narrow top edge of one of the stalls’ half doors. Several of the horses stabled nearby had obviously been frightened by the sudden noise—Carole could hear at least one set of hooves connecting with the stable wall, and even Starlight had let out a surprised snort and rolled his eyes.