Stable Groom (2 page)

Denise smiled invitingly at the group. “It might take me a few days to learn all of your names, so please bear with me. Let’s see … as Max said, I do have my ‘A.’ I grew up in the Midwest, and my home club is Ridgeway Pony Club, outside of Indianapolis, Indiana. Right now I’m in college in Virginia, though, so that’s why I’m here. I’m on a scholarship to major in equine studies. I met Max when he was giving a lecture to us about owning and operating a farm like Pine Hollow. So, I guess that’s about it. We can start the discussion.”

Stevie elbowed Carole and Lisa, whom she was standing between, and gave them the thumbs-up sign.
“She seems neat, huh?” she whispered. Carole and Lisa nodded eagerly.

Denise proved herself to be both knowledgeable and fun. She was petite with dark brown eyes and dark brown hair that she kept in a long braid down her back. Her tanned face and sunburnt nose showed how much time she spent outdoors. She smiled a lot, and when she spoke she sounded confident yet modest. Everyone looked impressed, listening intently. After a few minutes Denise paused to pose a question to the group. “Can anyone tell me what ‘roughage’ is?” she asked.

Stevie spoke up. “Yeah, it’s when my brothers and I get in a fight and beat each other up,” she joked. Then she bit her tongue. She always forgot that newcomers who weren’t used to her sense of humor might not find her jokes funny. She grimaced as Max frowned at her, shaking his head. But to her relief, Denise started to laugh.

“That’s one of the best wrong answers I’ve heard,” she said. “And as the only girl in a family of five children, I know all about that kind of roughage. But seriously, any other guesses?”

Carole’s hand went up. “Roughage is the bulk of a horse’s diet, usually grass and hay.” Carole could almost always be counted on to know the right answer
when it came to horse care. She had been riding since she was very little and loved every aspect of the sport. Her only dilemma was what kind of a horsey job she would have when she grew up—trainer, professional rider, or vet. Once in a while she even thought about being a blacksmith!

“Exactly,” said Denise. “I like to think of roughage as the equine equivalent of salad.” Her eyes twinkled as she added, “Only horses seem to be much better about eating hay than we are about eating salad. Now, who can tell me some kinds of hay and how to best store and feed it?”

The discussion went on for almost a half hour, with Max and Denise alternating who spoke and asked questions. Stevie tried to concentrate, but she could hardly pay attention, she was so excited about her find in Max’s office. She kept staring at Max to see if she could notice a difference in him now that he knew the actual date of his wedding. Luckily, a lot of other people volunteered to answer questions, so she wasn’t caught off guard. After what seemed like an interminable period of time, Max wrapped up the talk, reminding everyone to study the sections on feeding in the Pony Club manual before the next unmounted meeting.

As soon as Max dismissed them, a number of Pony
Clubbers, including Lisa and Carole, swarmed around Denise. Stevie sighed; the news would have to wait still longer. Denise happily answered questions about getting her “A” and majoring in equine studies. Finally, she told everyone that human nutrition was just as important as equine, and if she didn’t eat lunch soon, she was going to faint from hunger. Everyone scattered to get their brown bags. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole agreed to meet outside on the knoll overlooking Pine Hollow, their traditional lunch spot.

Practically bursting with her discovery, Stevie charged out, telling her friends to hurry and join her. When they were all sitting down, Lisa told Stevie that
she
had just one question.

“What’s that?” Stevie asked, impatient to share her news.

“Where’s your lunch?” Lisa inquired.

Stevie looked around distractedly. In all her excitement she had forgotten to bring it out. Come to think of it, she had no idea where she had put it.

Carole and Lisa began to giggle. “You look like a dog who’s lost its bone,” Carole said.

“This must be pretty important if
you’re
forgetting about eating,” said Lisa. Usually Stevie took great enjoyment in the lunch break.

Stevie looked at her two friends disparagingly.
“Sometimes there are more important things to think about than eating,” she said. Then it hit her where she must have left her lunch bag. The only place she had stopped had been Max’s office. She had to go rescue it before it got eaten or thrown out. The news would have to wait still longer. “Don’t move,” she told Lisa and Carole, tearing off to the office.

“Where else would we go?” Carole called after her, shaking her head. They were used to Stevie’s temporary periods of insanity, but enduring them could still be rather trying.

When Stevie got to the office, she could hear Max speaking on the telephone. The door was open, and she went in to grab her lunch off the desk, where it was sitting. Max nodded at her but kept talking. As Stevie left, his words floated up to her ears. “Right. So I’d like to go ahead and book the cruise,” he said.

Stevie paused for a millisecond, grinning wildly to herself. Then she sprinted back, elated. Talk about hearing it from the horse’s mouth!

S
ETTLING HERSELF ON
the knoll between her two friends, Stevie poured out the news. “Max and Deborah are probably definitely getting married on the twenty-seventh because their cruise leaves Miami on the twenty-eighth,” she explained breathlessly. “I saw the brochure on Max’s desk—all the other ones were gone. And then just now I heard him say he wanted to book the cruise. Just think: In less than a month there will be a Mrs. Max Regnery III!”

The announcement had the effect on Lisa and Carole that Stevie had suspected it would. They clapped their hands together excitedly.

“That’s fantastic. I’m so happy for Max—and Deborah,”
Carole said. “It seems like they’ve been engaged forever. And don’t forget, we had a material part in getting them together,” she added dreamily.

“Yeah, right after we had a material part in nearly breaking them up,” Lisa remarked dryly.

Stevie jumped in hastily. “But let’s not spend too much time remembering that part. The important thing is that they’re ending up husband and wife.”

“You know, that probably explains why Denise is here. If Max is going to be busy planning his wedding, he’s going to need more help than just Red can give him,” Carole pointed out.

“You’re right,” Lisa said. “And isn’t Denise great?”

The three of them talked at length about how much they had liked Denise, even after just one meeting. They all thought they could learn a lot from her and have a great time with her, too.

“How old do you think she is?” Carole asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably around eighteen or twenty if she’s in college,” Lisa guessed.

“Yeah, she looks about Red’s age. Why?” Stevie asked.

Carole sighed. “I was just trying to figure out how many years it would be before I could be an A-Pony Clubber, majoring in equine studies. That is, if I ever get my ‘A,’ ” she added modestly.

“ ‘If’ isn’t a word you have to use in that context, Carole Hanson,” Lisa told her. She and Stevie were fully confident that when the time came, Carole would pass her “A” with flying colors.

When they had finished eating, the three of them lay back, basking in the afternoon summer sun. “I wonder how many years it will be before we get married,” Lisa murmured sleepily.

“Married?” Stevie scoffed. “Are you kidding?” Even though Stevie had a steady boyfriend, Phil Marsten, marriage was a lifetime away.

“If the groom were someone like Max, getting married would be great,” Lisa insisted. “And weddings are always so much fun.”

“That I’ll admit. Remember Dorothy and Nigel’s?” Stevie asked.

Together they reminisced about the wedding on horseback between former horse-show star Dorothy DeSoto and British Equestrian Team member Nigel Hawthorne. The Saddle Club had planned and taken part in the ceremony, which had been a horse lover’s dream.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Carole said, sitting up suddenly. “If Max hasn’t told us when he’s going to get married—even though it’s a month away—that means we aren’t going to be in the wedding.”

Lisa and Stevie sat up more slowly, beginning to look worried. “It means we probably aren’t even invited. You’re supposed to send the invitations out six weeks ahead of time,” Lisa said. Because of her socially conscious mother, Lisa knew all sorts of rules of etiquette.

“I never thought of that,” Stevie said.

The three girls stared glumly at the remains of their lunches. They knew that Max and Deborah would probably want to invite lots of people their own age, but they had sort of assumed they would be included in the celebration, too. After all that had gone on, they had grown close to Deborah and felt that she was genuinely fond of them. And they had thought that Max would naturally want to invite some of his students, namely, The Saddle Club.

“It’s too bad we’re not invited, because we’re good at weddings,” Stevie said finally. “If we hadn’t been there for Dorothy, who knows if she and Nigel would ever have gotten married.”

“And besides, we could have helped Mrs. Reg out with the food or the punch or something,” Carole said. Max’s mother was a favorite among The Saddle Club. The older woman usually lost no time in getting them to help out at special Pine Hollow events.

“But they might not be having the wedding at Pine
Hollow,” Lisa pointed out. “After all, sometimes the bride decides to— Hey, maybe that’s it.”

“What?” Carole and Stevie asked in unison.

“I was just thinking about what the bride and the groom each do at a wedding, and I remember that they usually have separate invitation lists. I’ll bet Deborah’s assuming that Max is inviting us, since we’ve been friends with him longer. But Max can be so absentminded that he’s probably just forgotten to ask us.”

Stevie nodded in agreement. “I’ll bet you’re right. He’s got so much on his mind, with Pine Hollow and the honeymoon arrangements and everything, that I’m sure it just slipped his mind. So that means all we have to do is find some way to remind him.”

They thought for a minute, trying to come up with a solution. “I know—how about a shower?” Lisa suggested.

Stevie gave her a withering glance. “Max seems pretty clean to me. Besides, how would that—”

Lisa cut in, laughing. “Not that kind of a shower. I meant maybe we could give him a kind of bridal shower with food and gifts and stuff.”

“But he’s not the bride,” Stevie said, pointing out the obvious.

Carole grinned. “Then how about a b-r-i-d-l-e shower?” she proposed.

“Ha-ha,” Stevie said.

“All right. We’ll call it a ‘groomal’ shower for the time being,” Lisa decided.

“Huh?” Stevie said.

Ever logical, Lisa explained to Stevie that showers were usually given for the bride, but in this case it seemed fair that they should have a party for the person in the wedding whom they knew best. “We could invite all of Horse Wise plus the younger riders, and Mrs. Reg, Red, Denise—maybe even Deborah.”

“Right. And since it’s a
groomal
shower, everyone will bring gifts of curry combs and body brushes,” Stevie couldn’t resist adding.

Doing her best imitation of Max when he was annoyed, Lisa raised her right eyebrow at Stevie. “Ahem. Can we get on with the planning now, Miss Lake?” she asked. She took up the notebook she always brought to unmounted meetings and began scribbling a list of things to be done. The girls had a million ideas for the shower. They all loved to plan parties, especially a party for someone like Max, who had done so much for them over the years.

At first The Saddle Club had been worried about Max’s future wife, whoever she might be. They had
thought she might distract Max from his horses and want him to stay at home. But they hadn’t counted on a fiery redhead like Deborah Hale coming into his life. Deborah’s own career as a prize-winning Washington, D.C., journalist left her little time for distracting Max. If anything, Max had to distract her. When she came to Pine Hollow, she was eager to learn as much as she could about Max’s business. She threw herself wholeheartedly into life on the farm and, since the beginning of their engagement, had won the respect of everyone there. Now there was no doubt in the minds of The Saddle Club that she was the perfect match for Max.

“We have to decide on a date,” Lisa reminded Carole and Stevie as they got up to go back to the stables. Lunch hour was almost over, and the unmounted meeting would resume in five minutes.

“I was thinking about that, and I think it should be on Saturday, the twentieth,” Carole said. “We have a Horse Wise meeting that day, so we could plan it for right after. That way, a lot of the people we’re planning to invite would be here already.”

“And it’s only a week before the wedding. There would be no chance of Max forgetting to invite us to something that close,” Stevie said.

Lisa agreed that the date was a good one. It also
gave them plenty of time to get organized, which, with The Saddle Club, was always a plus.

On their way back, an inspiration came to Stevie. “Listen, if it’s the custom to give the
bride
a
shower
, then maybe what we’re doing is giving the
groom
a
bath
?”