Back in the Saddle

by Bonnie Bryant

  Carole took a few pieces of popcorn and tossed them into her mouth, chewing busily to keep herself from having to answer for a moment. She wasn’t sure how to feel about what her father was saying. On the one hand, she was always happy when he was pleased with her. However, it almost sounded like he was saying she was better off focusing on stuff outside the stable, which didn’t make sense to her at all.

  He knows how much horses mean to me, she thought, feeling a little confused. He knows I want to spend my life working with them. How are the SATs going to affect that, really? All I need to do is score well enough to get into a decent school with a good equine studies program, not win a Rhodes scholarship or something.

  Still, maybe he just needed a little gentle reminder. “That reminds me, Dad,” she said tentatively. “Um, speaking of the future, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what I want to do when I finish school.”

  “Oh?” Colonel Hanson grabbed the salt shaker and added a few shakes to the bowl. “That’s nice, sweetie. But I don’t think you need to start worrying about it too much just yet. You’ve still got a year and a half of high school to go, and you’ll have plenty of time to figure out what you want to do while you’re in college getting a good, solid liberal arts education to start you off right.”

  This time Carole could hardly believe her ears. What was her father trying to say? She’d never hidden the fact that she wanted to major in equine studies in college, just as Denise McCaskill, the stable manager at Pine Hollow, had done. But her father seemed to have forgotten all about that. Did he really think she was going to spend four years in college just for the sake of studying the same dull stuff she was learning in high school?

  Before she could figure out how to respond, the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” Colonel Hanson said cheerfully, licking his fingers and hopping out of his chair to grab the phone off the counter. “Hello?” he said into the receiver.

  Carole was so bewildered by her father’s comments about her future that she hardly noticed what he was saying into the phone until she heard him mention her name. She glanced up curiously and saw that he was smiling broadly, looking like a cat who had just swallowed a particularly tasty stable rat.

  Who could that be? she wondered distractedly. He wouldn’t be looking so surprised if it was just Stevie or someone. Maybe it’s one of our relatives calling from Minnesota.

  “Of course, she’s right here,” her father was telling the person on the other end of the line. “I’m sure she’d love to talk with you. I’m afraid you’ll have to keep it short, though—she’s supposed to be grounded. Normally she’s not allowed to take phone calls at all, but I’ll make an exception since this is a very special case.”

  “Who is it?” Carole asked as he held out the phone.

  Her father winked. “You’ll just have to wait and find out for yourself.”

  More puzzled than ever, Carole put the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she said uncertainly.

  “Hi, Carole,” the voice on the other end of the line replied. A strangely familiar voice, but one that Carole couldn’t quite place. “Guess who?”

  “Umm …” Carole searched her mind desperately. It was a male voice, young—but who? The answer tugged at the corners of her memory, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.

  The voice laughed. “Guess that isn’t really fair, but I couldn’t resist putting you on the spot. It’s Cam.”

  “Cam?” Carole repeated blankly. Suddenly she gasped. “Cam! Is that really you?”

  More laughter bubbled through the phone. “It’s me,” Cam said, sounding amused and delighted. “Surprised?”

  “Totally!” Carole couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t heard from Cam Nelson for years. Way back in junior high, the two of them had met at a horse show and become good friends, and maybe even a little more—Carole had invited Cam to a few dances and parties and other events at Pine Hollow, and he had even become an honorary member of a group that Carole and her best friends had formed, which they’d called The Saddle Club. Carole had often wondered what might have happened if Cam’s family hadn’t moved to Los Angeles a few years earlier. Maybe if he’d been around for the past few years, Carole wouldn’t have been the only one of her friends who had never had a serious boyfriend. Maybe she wouldn’t have felt so left out when Stevie and Lisa talked about relationship problems or where their boyfriends would be taking them on Saturday night. Maybe she wouldn’t have had to wonder what a real romance was like.…

  “Carole?” Cam said, interrupting her thoughts. “Are you still there? You didn’t faint or anything, did your?”

  “I’m here,” Carole replied quickly, realizing that she had been silent for several seconds. “Conscious and everything. I’m just kind of stunned, I guess.”

  “In a good way, I hope,” Cam said lightly. “This is supposed to be a good surprise.”

  “Oh, it is!” Carole assured him hastily. “Really. I—I just can’t believe it’s you. Where are you calling from?”

  “That’s the best part,” Cam replied. “I’m calling from right here in Virginia. Fifteen Strawberry Hill Lane, to be exact.”

  Carole wrinkled her forehead, confused. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Isn’t that your old address over in Arden Hills? Are you visiting your old house?”

  Cam laughed. “Nope. We moved back! My dad got transferred back to D.C., and when my folks called the real estate agent, they found out our old place was up for sale. It was fate!” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Just like I think it may be fate that I’m moving back here, close to you.”

  Carole wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Oh,” she said lamely. “Um, this is such a surprise! I can’t believe you really moved back.”

  “Me either. The best part is, you’re still here, too. I can’t wait to see you again. So when can we get together?”

  “Oh,” Carole said again. “Um, like my dad said, I’m sort of grounded right now. I don’t think I—” Noticing that her father was waving for her attention from his seat at the kitchen table, Carole cut herself off. “Could you hold on a sec?”.

  “As long as you need,” Cam replied promptly.

  Carole covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “What is it, Dad?”

  “Pardon me for eavesdropping, sweetie,” Colonel Hanson said with a smile. “But can I deduce that young Cam wants to see you?”

  Carole nodded. “Don’t worry. I was just about to tell him it’ll have to wait until after New Year’s.” That was when her grounding ended.

  “Well, I think we might be able to make an exception,” her father said, still smiling. “After all, this is a special case. Go ahead and tell Cam you can meet him tomorrow afternoon if he likes—after you finish your work with Hometown Hope.”

  Carole couldn’t believe her ears. Her father had been a member of the Marine Corps for many years before his recent retirement, and even though he was an easygoing person most of the time, he did believe in discipline. Carole couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone back on a punishment, and now he had done it twice—first letting her ride again because of her PSAT scores, and now this. “Really?” she asked, just to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood. “I can see Cam tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” Colonel Hanson said. “I always liked Cam. I’m glad that he’s moved back to the area.” He winked. “And I think it would be cruel and unusual punishment to make you wait weeks to see him. So go ahead, have fun.”

  “Thanks, Dad!” Carole uncovered the phone. “Cam? Dad just said it’s okay for us to get together. How about tomorrow? I’m volunteering over at CARL—that’s the animal shelter here in Willow Creek, remember?—but I’ll be finished around six.”

  “Perfect,” Cam said immediately. “How about if I pick you up there? Maybe we can grab something to eat and catch up.”

  “Okay. I can’t wait to see you again.”

  “That goes triple for me,” Cam replied. “I always thou
ght you were the cutest girl in Virginia, you know. I can’t wait to see how much cuter you must be now that you’re all grown up.”

  Carole gulped. Cam had always been nice and polite, but he’d never said things like that to her before. “Okay,” she said after a brief pause. “Um, I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  She hung up the phone. Noticing that her father was gazing at her expectantly, she smiled weakly. “I, uh, just remembered a footnote I forgot to add to my paper. I’d better go do it while I’m thinking about it.”

  She raced out of the kitchen and up the stairs, wondering why the thought of seeing Cam again after all this time made her feel so nervous and flustered. She was still stunned at the comment he’d made about thinking she was cute. It wasn’t the kind of thing she was used to hearing from guys, and she wasn’t quite sure how to take it. Especially from Cam.

  I guess people change as they grow up, she told herself as she walked into her room and shut the door. I’m not the same person I was back when Cam knew me. And I guess he’s not quite the same person I knew then, either.

  She didn’t know if she liked that thought or not. But there wasn’t much she could do about it, except hope that she would like the new Cam just as much as she’d liked the old one.

  TWO

  “Hi, Stevie. What are you up to?”

  Stevie glanced up from prying a clod of dirt out of the heel of one of her good riding boots and saw Callie Forester smiling at her from the doorway of Pine Hollow’s student locker room. “Hey, Callie,” she said, letting the boot fall into her lap and pushing a wavy strand of dark blond hair out of her eyes. “Just puttering around, I guess. Belle’s having her dinner, and Phil’s picking me up here in a little while.” She rolled her eyes. “Good thing, too. My darling brother disappeared with the car hours ago without bothering to let anyone know where he was going or when he’d be back. So I’m stuck with my own two feet.” She snorted. “Brothers. You can’t live with ’em, and you can’t conk ’em on the head and toss ’em in the river. Not if anyone’s watching, anyway.”

  Callie chuckled. “Hey, I’ve been there,” she said. “Scott’s not bad as brothers go, but he can still be a major pain sometimes.”

  “You’re lucky you have only one, instead of three like I do.” Stevie stood and tossed her boots in the general direction of her cubby. One landed inside, while the other bounced off the edge and ended up on the floor. With a loud groan, she hopped over the bench and leaned down to pick it up. She wasn’t actually as annoyed with Alex as she was letting on to Callie. Normally she would have been downright irate if her twin had taken off that way with the car the two of them shared, but these days she was trying to cut him some slack. He wasn’t saying much about the situation between him and Lisa, but she knew it had to be tearing him up to be separated from her, even if it was only temporary. “What about you?” she asked Callie, noticing as she straightened up again that her friend was dressed in breeches and boots. “Have you been training? I didn’t even realize you were here.”

  “I wasn’t.” Callie’s smile faded slightly. “Actually, I just got back from looking at a horse.”

  “Really?” Stevie leaned forward, interested. Now that she was finally recovered from the accident, Callie was shopping for a new competition horse so that she could get back into endurance riding in a serious way. Judging from the expression on Callie’s face, however, the horse she’d just seen wasn’t going to be the one. “A dud?”

  “Sort of.” Callie sighed and stepped farther into the room, tugging distractedly on her long, pale blond ponytail. “This one sounded so perfect on paper, too. Arabian gelding, eight years old, sound and willing. What they didn’t tell me over the phone is that he’s about as balanced as a car with a flat tire.”

  Stevie nodded. She didn’t know nearly as much about endurance riding as Callie did, but she knew enough to know that balance was very important. “Is it something you could work on?”

  Callie shrugged. “Probably,” she said with a frown. “But it would mean serious remedial training. I would have to teach him a whole new way to move, work on getting a rounded outline, the whole nine yards. It hardly seems like a worthwhile use of my time, since I’m sure there must be plenty of horses out there that already have that training, or at least have more natural balance.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Stevie agreed as Max Regnery hustled into the room. He was carrying a small poster, which he hurriedly began tacking to the bulletin board across from the wall of cubbies.

  Callie blew out a long, frustrated sigh. “So why do all my prospects seem to have serious flaws?”

  Stevie wasn’t always the most patient person in the world, but she couldn’t help thinking that Callie sounded awfully pessimistic for someone who had only been seriously shopping for a horse for a few days. Before she could say so, though, Max glanced over at them.

  “I know what you mean,” he said to Callie abruptly. “I’m having the same problem looking for a new stable hand.”

  Stevie blinked at Max in surprise. She’d known that the stable owner was looking for someone to join Pine Hollow’s small full-time staff. She had also noticed that he’d seemed even gruffer and more overworked than usual lately. But until that moment, she hadn’t really connected the two facts. “Really, Max?” she asked. “That’s weird. I would think that all kinds of people would be dying to work here.”

  “Uh-huh,” Max replied grimly. “All kinds. Like a couple of college students looking for beer money who’ve never been inside a stable, and an eighty-two-year-old grandmother who says she loves animals and can handle anything that doesn’t involve too much lifting or walking, and even one young man who admitted—after I wasted ten minutes talking to him, mind you—that he’s ‘sort of’ allergic to horses. Talk about a major flaw!” Max sighed. “Trust me, Callie, you have it easy. I’m starting to think you’d have a better chance of winning the Tevis Cup on a Shetland pony than I do of finding a decent stable worker.”

  Callie smiled uncertainly. “Wow,” she said. “It’s really that bad?”

  “Just about.” Max sighed and ran one callused hand over his short-cropped hair. “It’s just about the worst time of year to be short-staffed, too.”

  “Wait a second.” Stevie was sympathetic to Max’s problems, but that last part sounded kind of odd to her. “What’s the big deal about this time of year? I would think it would be easier to do without someone now than most other times.”

  Max glared at her. “Oh, really, Stevie?” he said sternly. “When was the last time you managed a stable?”

  Stevie shrugged. “Come on, Max,” she said appeasingly. “I’m just saying, it’s not like it would be in spring or summer or even earlier in the fall when there are horse shows and rallies and riding camp and stuff. Even Pony Club doesn’t usually meet after about the first week of December. I mean, a lot of students don’t even ride at all over the holidays.”

  “Exactly.” Max crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her evenly. “And each student that doesn’t bother to ride is one more student who isn’t here exercising horses, grooming them, cleaning tack, mixing grain, bringing down hay, and mucking stalls.”

  Stevie winced, finally getting the point. For as long as she had been riding at Pine Hollow, Max had insisted that all his riders pitch in and help with stable chores, as well as help to care for the horses they rode. It was a good way to teach important skills and responsibilities, but it was also the most effective way of keeping costs down. Stevie knew there were plenty of other riding stables in the area with larger staffs and less grunt work for the riders, but most of them charged almost double the price that Max did for lessons and boarding. “Okay, okay,” she said, holding up both hands and glancing at Callie for help. “I see what you’re saying. But still—”

  “Still,” Max interrupted, “the horses have to eat on Christmas and New Year’s and Thanksgiving, just like every other day of the year. Plus it’s just getting cold, which
means keeping track of turnout rugs and deciding who gets clipped and when. Besides, even though Pony Club is suspended, there are still adult lessons to keep track of and boarders’ schedules to deal with. And then of course …” Instead of continuing, Max just waved one hand at the poster he’d just hung on the bulletin board.

  For the first time, Stevie glanced at it. The poster was handwritten in large block letters, which read:

  ALL PERMISSION SLIPS FOR THE STARLIGHT RIDE MUST BE IN BY DEC. 22. NO EXCEPTIONS!

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “The Starlight Ride.” She couldn’t help smiling at the thought of one of her all-time favorite Pine Hollow traditions. Every year on Christmas Eve, a large group of riders set out, guided by torches, for a nighttime trail ride through the woods, culminating in a festive bonfire in the Willow Creek town square, where much of the community turned out to greet the riders. The Starlight Ride was mostly for the younger students at the stable, and Stevie hadn’t gone for the past several years. But she still carried fond memories of trotting through the woods by the soft, flickering light of torches; enjoying the crisp, cool air; singing Christmas carols; and looking forward to having hot chocolate and cookies in front of the roaring bonfire.

  “The Starlight Ride,” Max repeated. He didn’t sound nearly as pleased at the idea. “Yes, it’s a nice tradition, but it’s a lot of work, too.”