Stable Groom (11 page)

“Today? Nobody’s getting married
today
,” said Stevie. “Max and Deborah are getting married on the twenty-seventh!”

“We are?” Deborah asked, surprised.

Stevie suddenly got a sinking feeling in her stomach. “You’re not?”

“No, we’re getting married today,” Max said, looking slightly alarmed.

“Then who is marrying Redford O’Malley?” the judge demanded.

“Redford?” Red said.

“If you mean Red,” Denise spoke up, “then that would be me, I think, but probably not for a couple of years and certainly not until Red gets up the guts to ask me.” She slipped her arm through the stable hand’s while Red blushed the color of his name.

This was too much for Stevie. She had thought that
she
knew all the secrets while everyone else was in the dark. Now it turned out that she had the date wrong for Max and Deborah’s wedding
and
she had completely missed a blossoming Pine Hollow romance. It really wasn’t fair.

“But you don’t even know each other!” Stevie blurted out.

“Yes, we do,” Denise said calmly. “Red and I met this spring at the university. Red’s been taking equine studies classes there. Didn’t you know?”

“And you really might marry each other?” Lisa asked, awestruck.

“Well …,” Deborah started to say, taking a sidelong glance at Red.

“But he’s about three-quarters married already,” Judge Stilwell protested.

“To
my
fiancée,” Max retorted.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” the judge asked.

“Have you ever heard of The Saddle Club, Your Honor?” Max began.

“… 
SO NATURALLY
,
WHEN
we saw the Indiana plates on your car—” Stevie said, finally reaching the end of a long explanation. The group had moved from the schooling ring to the yard in front of the Regnerys’ house, where they could sit down.

“My sister-in-law is visiting me, and my car’s in the shop,” Judge Stilwell explained.

“She is?” Stevie asked. “I mean, it is?”

“I’m afraid so,” the judge said sympathetically. “But I’m flattered that you thought I knew enough about horses to examine a riding instructor. I’ve never actually set foot on a horse farm before.”

At that moment, Mrs. Reg swung open the door of
the house. She was wearing a huge apron over a matching peach-colored blouse and skirt. Her hair was swept into an attractive bun. “It looks like you’re having an important conversation,” she called, “but the frosting on the cake is beginning to slip, and if we’re going to have a wedding, we’d best have it now!”

Max, Deborah, and the judge stood up to go into the house. Stevie cleared her throat. Max stopped. He tried to look severe but ended up grinning from ear to ear. “You know, I thought I was going to have a chance to do something in my life without having The Saddle Club in my hair,” he said. “But it looks like that won’t happen. If I don’t let you girls witness the wedding, you’ll probably find a way to try to marry my wife off to someone else! So you’d better come on in. Red, you and Denise should join us, too. Mom? Is there enough cake for a few more guests?”

“Plenty,” said Mrs. Reg. “Somehow I always knew that threesome would find a way to be at the wedding!”

With that, everyone streamed into the house. Deborah dashed upstairs while Max fled to a back room. In the kitchen, Carole, Lisa, and Stevie hugged one another with joy. Despite all the mishaps and all their mistaken assumptions, they were going to see Max get married after all.

“I guess we’ll have to wear our riding clothes,” Lisa said. “They’re all we’ve got.”

Mrs. Reg surveyed the three of them critically. “Go into my room upstairs, wash up, and wait for me.”

The girls did as they were told, happily splashing water on their faces and redoing their hair. In a few minutes, Mrs. Reg appeared, carrying a pile of clothes. “If you’re going to wear riding clothes, you might as well wear coats and stock ties,” she said. “See if any of these fit. Some are Max’s old stuff; some were left here after shows.”

The girls eagerly scrambled to try on the coats. Soon Stevie had found a dark gray, Lisa a black, and Carole a slightly too small hunter green. They lined up for Mrs. Reg to tie their ties.

“All right, everybody find a place in the living room now. They should be starting any minute,” the older woman urged. She hurried down the stairs to the kitchen to oversee the final preparations.

Stevie and Carole followed her, but Lisa had another idea. “Back in a minute,” she yelled, banging through the door. She ran to the locker room of the stable area, where she had her camera and a couple of rolls of film, then ran back.

“Thank goodness someone remembered to take pictures,” said Mrs. Reg. “Thank you so much, Lisa.”

Lisa went into the living room and stationed herself to get a good picture of the bride descending the stairs. Thanks to Mrs. Reg, the room looked perfect for a wedding. A number of vases held bouquets of pink roses mixed with baby’s breath. Sunlight streamed in through the open windows. Quickly, Lisa snapped a shot of Stevie, Carole, Red, Denise, and Mrs. Reg. She snapped another of Max, standing alone, waiting for his bride. Then all eyes turned to the staircase. Deborah came down slowly, beautifully dressed in a simple beige silk suit. Max took her hands, and the small private ceremony began.

A few minutes later, Judge Emily Stilwell pronounced Maximillian Regnery III and Deborah Halby Hale husband and wife. After the applause died down, the judge turned to the group. “Now, you’re sure I’ve married the right bride to the right groom?” she joked.

“Absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure!” Max exclaimed, planting a kiss on Deborah’s lips.

“Then on to the cake!” Mrs. Reg announced. She brought out the dessert, a two-tiered white cake with white icing and pink flowers. Red helped to carry out a bottle of chilled champagne and some ginger ale for the girls. First Mrs. Reg made a toast to Max’s and Deborah’s health. Immediately after that, everyone had a toast. Max toasted his wife’s riding career; Deborah
toasted Mrs. Reg’s cake; Red toasted Denise, and she toasted him back; and The Saddle Club toasted themselves, since no one else had.

“I just wish my parents could have been here,” Deborah murmured wistfully. “I know they couldn’t leave London, but still …”

Max gave her hand a squeeze. “I know, but we’ll see them soon,” he answered.

When everyone was sitting down, happily munching cake, Stevie spoke up. “We’re still curious about a couple of things.”

“Better clear them up now,” Max said with the air of someone about to tackle a huge project.

“Why did you get married today, when you don’t leave for your honeymoon until the twenty-seventh?” Stevie asked.

“That’s not true—we leave for our honeymoon tonight,” Max said.

“But the cruise isn’t until the twenty-eighth,” Carole countered.

“The cruise? Oh, the cruise!” Max exclaimed. “Are you by any chance referring to the
Ocean Pearl
?”

The three girls nodded.

“
We’re
not taking that cruise—my mother is,” Max said. “She hasn’t had a proper vacation in years, so
Deborah and I decided to give
her
a present. We’re sending her on a Caribbean cruise.”

Mrs. Reg nodded. “That’s the truth, girls.”

“Although how you would know about the cruise is beyond me,” Max continued, grinning wickedly.

Stevie smiled wanly. “Let’s just say I happened to find out about it.”

“Right. And you happened to be snooping around my desk. And you happened to read, in detail, the cruise brochures on my desk.”

“That’s the way it happened,” Stevie said. She elbowed Lisa, who was sitting beside her, and muttered, “Help me out here.”

“So, Max,” Lisa said promptly, “ah … let’s see … oh, yeah, where are you and Deborah going on your honeymoon if you’re not going on the cruise?”

“We’re flying to London,” Deborah answered. “My father is the chief of
The Washington Times
bureau in London, and so we’ll get to see my parents as well as take a vacation. Of course, Max has to be back in time for camp, so we’ll be gone only a week.”

“Back for camp? Then that means you’ll also be back in time for your Bath!” Carole cheered.

Deborah looked a little worried. “I expect Max will actually bathe before then.”

Lisa glared at Carole. “You didn’t have to give it away,” she said.

“But since you have,” Stevie continued, “we might as well tell Max that we’ve planned a wedding party for him.”

“What does that have to do with bathing?” Max asked.

“Well, you see, we couldn’t call it a bridal shower—or even a b-r-i-d-l-e shower, so then we thought, how about a
bath
instead of a
shower
, since it’s for a groom instead of a bride,” Lisa said.

To The Saddle Club’s delight, everybody seemed to love the idea. Stevie was able to refrain—barely—from telling the theme.

Max promised not to miss the Bath. “In fact, it’s all I’m going to think about my entire honeymoon,” he said solemnly.

Deborah elbowed him hard.

“Max,” said Mrs. Reg, “that’s one vow you’d better not keep.”

During the conversation, Red and Denise had slipped away into another room to look at the Regnerys’ hunting prints. Their absence reminded Lisa that they had never asked Max an important question. A little timidly, she inquired, keeping her
voice low, “Did you actually believe some of the stuff Veronica was saying about Red?”

To her relief, Max replied without hesitation. “Of course not. Red is the best stable hand I’ve ever had. And Denise is a great help, too. When I asked her to come teach at Pine Hollow, she wasn’t sure she would. She was considering going back to Indiana for the summer. Then she started dating Red and decided to stay. So I’m thankful to him for that, too.”

“But when did Red find the time to take equine studies classes?” Lisa asked.

“All spring, in the mornings, while you were in school, and now in the evenings after you go home. He also has to leave during the day occasionally for special meetings.”

“We never knew that,” Stevie said.

“Probably because you never asked, which”—Max paused to clear his throat—“you might have done before jumping to conclusions. That’s why Red’s not instructing at camp: He has his final examinations for the summer school session during the second week, and he has to prepare. But Denise and Red will be in charge while we’re in London, and if Veronica doesn’t like it, she can leave.”

“But we thought the diAngelos were threatening you—telling you to fire Red,” Carole said.

Max laughed out loud. “Boy, you must have really thought I was being a wimp! Actually, it’s the opposite. I’ve had them in for a few meetings to discuss Veronica’s behavior around here. If she doesn’t shape up, she’s not going to be allowed to come to camp.”

In one motion, Stevie, Lisa, and Carole sat back on the sofa they were sharing. Their brains had reached information overload, and they couldn’t absorb—or give—one more explanation. Max and Deborah rose and went to get their bags ready. Mrs. Reg began busying herself with the cleanup. Red and Denise reappeared in the doorway.

Lisa, whose logical mind couldn’t rest until she knew every detail, made a superhuman effort to ask one remaining question. “By the way, Red,” she said, “what
is
your real name?”

Red looked surprised. “I thought you knew,” he said. “It’s an old family name: Redford.” He and Deborah clasped hands and headed out to the stable.

The three girls looked at one another and began to howl. They laughed until tears streamed down their faces. And then they laughed some more.

T
HE WEDDING WAS
over, and the girls had helped Mrs. Reg do the few dishes. It was time for Max and Deborah to leave. Max brought their suitcases into the hall.
Deborah, who’d changed into her traveling clothes, joined him. They both embraced Mrs. Reg, whose face was the tiniest bit tearstained. “Max is her only son, and now he’s married. I’m sure mothers think about days like this for years,” Lisa whispered.

Then Stevie had an idea. She dashed out to the grain room. Everybody knew you weren’t supposed to throw rice these days. It was bad for the birds that ate it because the rice expanded in their stomachs. So why not oats instead? She grabbed half a bucketful.

Lisa and Carole met her outside and scooped up handfuls of the grain. They waited, giggling, for the bride and groom. When Max and Deborah emerged from the house, the three girls showered them with handful after handful. Max grabbed Deborah’s arm and they ran to her waiting car. “I knew I could count on you to do just one more ridiculous thing,” Max said happily.

“But it’s perfect, isn’t it?” Stevie asked.

Max looked at the woman standing beside him. “Yes, it is,” he said. They got in, and the car door closed. They were off.