Lucky Horse (2 page)

The bus soon came, and after a twenty-minute jaunt across the little town of Willow Creek, Carole stood at her front door.

I’d better hurry
, she thought, turning her key in the lock.
It’s my turn to start dinner, and Dad will be home soon
. She pushed open the door. The house seemed emptier than it ever had before. Since Carole’s mother had died some time ago, her father had always done his best to be home when she got back from the stable. Lately, though, he’d been busy with a new satellite communications project for the Marines, and the job had required extra hours at work. Carole knew it was necessary, but she still missed hearing him clattering around in the kitchen when she returned home.

“Oh, well,” she said to herself as she took off her boots and padded sock-footed into the kitchen. “Thank goodness these special projects don’t last forever.”

She opened the refrigerator and looked inside, wondering what they could have for dinner. There was some leftover pot roast, some uncooked hamburger, plus a big bowl of macaroni and cheese.

Maybe I’ll reheat the roast
, Carole thought.
And then
cook some extra vegetables to go along with it
. She put the meat in the oven to heat, then looked in the crisper to see what vegetables they had. Broccoli, lettuce, and carrots. She pulled out the carrots. They were exactly the same color as the sprinkles Stevie had just eaten on her ice cream.

“At least they’ll be better for us.” She laughed aloud as she closed the refrigerator door. She had just begun to peel the carrots over the sink when she heard a car pull into their driveway. Her father, Colonel Mitch Hanson, was home.

“Hi, sugar,” he called, grinning as he peeked into the kitchen. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Hi, Dad. How are you?” Carole smiled back at him over her shoulder.

“Other than being late, I’m great. How are you?” He threw a Marine Corps duffel bag on one kitchen chair and strode over to the sink, planting a kiss on the top of her head.

“Fine. Just peeling some carrots for dinner.”

“How about if I help?” He opened a drawer and pulled out another vegetable peeler, then stood beside Carole at the sink. “In fact, how about we make a deal? If I help you peel all these carrots, then will you promise not to cook them?”

“Not cook them?” Carole looked up at her dad.

“Right.” He held up one carrot. “I mean, wouldn’t it be a shame to put this little defenseless carrot into a
big pot of boiling water?” He put the carrot close to his ear. “I can even hear it calling—‘Please don’t cook me, Carole.’ ”

“Okay, Dad,” Carole laughed. “I get the point. You prefer carrots raw.”

“Absolutely.” Colonel Hanson grinned and took a bite of crunchy carrot. “I mean, why try to improve upon perfection?”

“Okay. I guess that means we’ll have pot roast and macaroni and cheese and raw carrots tonight.”

“Sounds great to me.” Colonel Hanson took another bite of carrot. “Hey, guess what?”

“What?

“You know how much I’ve had to work these last few weeks, ever since the Link Life project started? Coming home late and going in to work early?”

Carole nodded. She knew how much she’d missed spending time with her father and how much he’d hated to be away.

“Well, Link Life is almost finished. As of sixteen hundred hours tomorrow, your old dad will be back.”

“That’s wonderful, Dad!” Carole turned to her father and gave him a hug. “I’ve really missed having you here when I get back from the stable.”

“And guess what else?”

Carole blinked. It seemed like her dad was getting as bad as Stevie in the “guess what” department. “What?”

“General Williams was so pleased with all we’ve accomplished that he gave me a four-day weekend off, beginning Friday.”

“Super!” Carole hugged her father harder.

“And guess what else else?”

Carole couldn’t help laughing. “What now, Dad?”

“I’ve arranged for just the two of us to go up to one of the national wilderness areas in the Blue Ridge Mountains. My old buddy Colonel Cheatham is going to lend us his tent and all his new solar camping equipment.”

Carole frowned. “His solar camping equipment?”

“Yeah. It’s great. We won’t have to stay in any cabins or motels. We can rough it just like the pioneers, but we’ll be comfortable and we’ll be in one of America’s most beautiful forests. Doesn’t that sound great?”

Carole looked up at her father. A wide grin was spreading across his face. “Gosh, Dad, you know I love to camp.”

“
And
I like spending time with my favorite daughter,” he said, squeezing her shoulders. “And what better place to do it than out in nature, surrounded by the latest in camping equipment?”

She smiled. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I guess you’re right.”

“I knew you’d be excited. Let me go change out of this uniform, and then I’ll help you finish dinner.”

Carole turned back to the sink as her father hurried
out of the kitchen. She picked up another carrot and began peeling it, then sighed. Why did all the fun things in life always seem to happen at the same time? When she’d started supper she’d been thrilled about the prospect of spending the weekend with Stevie and Lisa at Pine Hollow. Now her dad had come home and told her that he’d planned a wonderful father-daughter camping trip.

She shrugged. It would be great to spend all weekend at Pine Hollow, but it would also be great to hike through the Virginia mountains with her dad. It seemed like they hadn’t really talked in forever.

No, when she thought about it, the decision wasn’t a hard one at all. Maybe she could sleep over at the stable some other time with Stevie and Lisa. Opportunities to camp with her father didn’t come along every day, and she just couldn’t pass this one up.

“M
AX
,
WE
’
VE GOT
an offer you can’t refuse!” Stevie’s voice echoed down the corridors of Pine Hollow.

Carole hurried through the sweet-smelling barn, a half-eaten bagel in one hand. She’d overslept that morning, and though her father had been kind enough to give her a ride, she was still late. Stuffing the last bite of the bagel in her mouth, she started to run. She turned the final corner on one leg and skidded into Max Regnery’s office. Max, who owned Pine Hollow along with his mother, Mrs. Reg, was sitting behind his big desk just as Stevie was getting wound up to make her final pitch.

“Ah,” said Max, smiling at Carole’s appearance. “The third and final member of The Saddle Club. I guess this makes it official.”

Stevie and Lisa turned and looked at Carole.

“Right.” Carole swallowed her bagel and grinned sheepishly. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Don’t worry.” Max leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m sure we haven’t even come close to the good parts yet.”

Stevie cleared her throat and began. “Max, what we want to propose is this: Since we’ve spent most of our time this summer here at the stable, and since we’ve learned how to do all the chores so much better than we ever did before, and since now all the horses practically regard us as … as blood sisters, we were wondering if we could spend our entire last weekend of freedom here at Pine Hollow.”

“Your last weekend of freedom?” Max frowned. “You’re not going to jail, are you?”

“No, we’re going back to school Wednesday,” Stevie explained. “We’d never do anything that would land us in jail.”

“But it might as well be jail,” Lisa said.

“Yeah, Max.” Stevie took over again. “It might as well be jail. We have to sit still for hours at a time and we have to eat this terrible food in the cafeteria and all these dorky teachers make us do stuff like algebra problems and science projects. In fact, it’s worse than jail. It’s torture.”

“Oh, the horror,” Max replied softly. He didn’t crack a smile, but his blue eyes were twinkling. He
looked at Stevie. “And you want to postpone this prearranged torture somehow?”

Stevie shook her head. “We can’t postpone it. But we want to squeeze every little drop of fun out of our last days of summer vacation. And if you’ll let us stay here for the weekend, we can.”

“But we’d work,” added Lisa. “We wouldn’t just stay up in the hayloft and goof off.”

“Oh?” Max’s mouth curled up with interest.

“Absolutely,” said Stevie. “Lisa would muck out all the stalls every day and I could help Red tack up the horses for the riding lessons and Carole could paint some of the jumps and of course all the horses would be fed and watered and groomed twice a day. And, and …” Stevie desperately looked around Max’s office. “And we’ll sweep out your office and we could even try to shovel up that big pile of manure …”

Max held up one hand. “Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. In exchange for bunking down in the hayloft for three nights, you’d be willing to do all those chores?”

“Oh, yes!” cried Lisa and Stevie together.

“Well, I’ll tell you something. Mom, Deborah, and I were just trying to figure out who we could get to watch the stable if we took a weekend trip up to Dorothy DeSoto’s training farm on Long Island. We’d almost given up on the idea, but if you three are willing to do all that, then this is a deal I can hardly pass up.”

“Oh, Max!” Stevie cried.

“But you won’t have to start moving the manure pile. I’ve hired some guys with backhoes to come and do that next week. Everything else, though, is perfectly acceptable.”

Lisa and Stevie grabbed Carole and began to jump up and down.

“Wait, you guys,” Carole said as her friends bounced in the air beside her. “I’ve got some bad news.”

“Oh no,” said Lisa. “Won’t your father let you come? My mother let me, and she never lets me do anything unless it’s approved by every adult within a ten-mile radius.”

“No, it’s not that. My dad’s big project at work has just ended and he got a four-day weekend as a reward. He’s planned this father-daughter camping trip for the two of us.” She smiled regretfully at her friends. “As much as I’d love to be with you guys, I don’t often get a chance to spend time like this with my dad.”

“That’s okay, Carole,” Stevie said. “We understand.” She turned to Max. “Is it still okay if it’s just Lisa and me?”

“You don’t think just the two of you will get spooked here in the middle of the night? Stables are full of scary noises at two in the morning.”

“Of course not, Max,” Stevie assured him. “That’s kid stuff.”

Max smiled. “Okay, then. It’s fine with me. Just to prove how good a sport I am, you don’t have to paint all the jumps. But everything else on your list remains.”

“Great,” said Stevie, extending her hand. “It’s a deal.”

As Max shook hands with Stevie and Lisa, his phone rang. With a wave he shooed them out of his office and turned to talk to the caller about dressage lessons.

“Oh, wow,” said Stevie as the three girls walked toward their horses’ stalls. “I can’t believe we’re going to do this. A weekend sleepover at Pine Hollow!”

“I’m just sorry you won’t be here, Carole,” Lisa said.

“Right,” grumbled Stevie. “It’ll be fun, but it won’t be perfect.”

Carole sighed. “I know. I really wanted to come, but I haven’t had a chance to be with my dad in a long time, and he’s so excited about this trip.” She looked at her friends. “He’s borrowed some really fancy camping equipment that’s all run by solar energy.”

“Wow,” said Stevie. “That’s really state-of-the-art stuff. I’ve seen my brother Chad drool over that kind of gear in his camping magazines.”

“I can’t wait to see how it all works.” Carole giggled. “I think Dad’s almost as excited about taking all
this equipment up into the wilderness as he is about taking me.”

“It’ll be a great trip for both of you, though,” said Lisa.

“I know.” Carole smiled. “I’ll just miss you guys a lot.”

“Here are some other guys who’ve been missing us a lot,” Stevie said as they turned the corner. All along both sides of the passageway, the horses poked their heads out from their stalls. Their ears stood erect, and their eyes sparkled. Starlight’s and Belle’s stalls were together, and Prancer’s was a little farther down the aisle.

“Looks like some friends of ours want to go for a ride,” Carole laughed as Starlight nickered at her.

“Me too,” said Stevie. “It seems like years since we’ve been on a horse.”

“Stevie, we rode yesterday,” Lisa reminded her.

“I know.” Stevie frowned. “I just keep thinking about school and how much time that’s going to take away from riding.”

“My mother would say you need to get your priorities in order,” Lisa said with a laugh.

“Oh, they’ll be in order by Wednesday. Right now, I just want to have fun. Last one tacked up’s a rotten egg!”

The girls raced to the tack room and got their
equipment. In a few minutes all three riders stood at the entrance to Pine Hollow with their horses brushed and their saddles tight, ready to mount up.

“Whew,” Stevie said as she pulled Belle up last. “I think that was a record!”

“I do, too,” agreed Lisa. “It’s one of the few times you’ve had to be the rotten egg.”

“It’s just my school-a-phobia kicking in,” said Stevie as she touched the good-luck horseshoe tacked to the wall and hopped up on Belle’s back. “And the only cure is a nice long ride in the country.”