Bridle Path (11 page)

S
TEVIE GAVE A
little wave. Just as planned, May Grover pushed the button. There was a brief delay, and then the music started.

Here comes the bride
 …

Stevie hummed and sang to herself. It was wonderful! It was perfect!

Then she gave Topside a little nudge, and he began walking. She adjusted her shiny top hat, setting it at a jaunty angle, and then ducked as Topside entered the grape arbor.

The wedding was beginning.

Lisa rode right next to her and Carole followed them, on Starlight. At the first note of the music,
everybody in the audience stood up, mostly because Mrs. Reg told them to. Stevie could hear her whispering to the kids. But as the processional began, even the reluctant Pony Club members were all standing. Nobody wanted to miss anything.

Stevie, Carole, and Lisa rode slowly and in a dignified manner. Stevie felt as if she were in a parade. She smiled at the people who were watching. They smiled back. Some even waved. She didn’t wave back. That wouldn’t be dignified.

When they reached the front of the makeshift chapel, Stevie, Carole, and Lisa drew their horses to the side. Nigel was there, riding Comanche. Max, the last-minute best man, was next to Nigel. And there, in front of all of them and facing all of them, was none other than Judge Gavin, riding Delilah.

Carole smiled to herself as she watched him. He’d agreed to her favor immediately, as long as he could do it riding Delilah, and as long as he could have some pictures from the wedding. In fact, he’d thought pictures were such a good idea that he’d called the local newspaper, who’d sent a reporter and a photographer immediately. Carole was sure Judge Gavin’s enthusiasm stemmed from his devotion to romance, and his commitment to family values, but she suspected
it also had something to do with a tough reelection campaign that he had coming up in the fall.

Nearby stood Geronimo. He’d come over to the corner of his new paddock nearest to the festivities. It seemed very right that he be involved. It seemed even more right that Delilah was right up at the front where all the action was!

“
Oooooooh!
” That’s what the young riders said when Dorothy emerged from the grape arbor. It had taken a good deal of time and effort and all of Stevie’s skills, but there was no question who the bride was at this wedding.

Dorothy was wearing a pearl-gray sidesaddle riding habit. There hadn’t been anything in white. She was riding Pepper, whose gray coat seemed to go perfectly with her outfit. It looked as if she’d stepped straight out of the nineteenth century, too. She had a white silk blouse with a white stock held in place by Mrs. Reg’s horse pin with a diamond eye that sparkled in the early April sunshine. Her veil had been a real challenge. The outfit had a hat, but it was a riding hat, not the kind of thing you wanted to get married in. There had been a long discussion of just how to handle it. In the end, Stevie had prevailed. The mosquito netting was draped dramatically over her head
and then held in place with a crown of fresh flowers, pinned to her hairdo.

“I don’t think you can do better for a zillion dollars,” Stevie had declared looking at the finished product. Dorothy looked simply beautiful.

It did occur to Lisa that it wasn’t good practice to be on a horse without a hard hat, but she felt that Dorothy’s wedding ought to be a rare exception to that, so she didn’t even raise the issue.

Dorothy drew to a halt in front of Judge Gavin. Nigel moved over toward her so that they stood side by side.

“Dearly beloved,” Judge Gavin began.

Ten minutes later, Nigel leaned over in his saddle and kissed Dorothy. They were married!

With that Dorothy tossed her bouquet up in the air. Much to Judge Gavin’s surprise, it landed in
his
lap, startling him and Delilah.

Stevie, Lisa, and Carole all looked at one another. As far as they were concerned, it wasn’t Judge Gavin who’d caught the bouquet at all. It was Delilah, and that was as it should be. After all, she
was
going to be the next one married!

The bridesmaids couldn’t help themselves. They turned to one another and gave each other high fives.

Then the newlyweds turned their horses around and walked back out of the chapel. Stevie didn’t even have to give May a signal this time. She knew she was supposed to push the button on the tape deck, and she did. Then, instead of traditional rice, the members of the wedding party began tossing handfuls of oats at Nigel and Dorothy.

“Only you would think of something like this, Stevie! Only you!” Dorothy said. And then, because it was so true, everybody laughed and then clapped while Dorothy and Nigel rode out under the grape arbor.

They didn’t ride far, though. There was still a party to be had. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole took their horses, as well as Nigel’s and Dorothy’s, and put them in their stalls, giving them each a quick grooming and a promise of more to come. Carole offered to stable Delilah, but Judge Gavin said he hadn’t really had his weekly ride yet, so he thought he would pass on the reception and go straight into the woods.

Once again Carole thanked him. He said it had been his pleasure and he really did want a couple of copies of the photographs that the official wedding photographer, Adam Levine, had taken, rather than just the ones the newspaper had snapped. Carole promised to send him a set. Then she gave Delilah a
pat and a hug and wished the judge a very happy trail ride. She also slipped Delilah a piece of carrot and a sugar lump. It seemed to her to be the very least she could do for the “other” bride at the wedding.

Then the party began in earnest. It turned out that when Pony Clubbers put their minds to it, they could assemble a very nice party. They were all delighted that Max’s surprise birthday party turned out to be a horse wedding that turned out to be a people wedding. When Stevie and her friends were involved, switches like that were simply to be expected. A couple of the girls said that they might have dressed up more if they’d known what was going to happen. Two others confessed to Stevie that this was exactly the wedding they’d always dreamed of for themselves.

Stevie was a little surprised at that. She thought she was the only one who had weird dreams!

“Apple? Sugar lump?” she said, offering a tray of hors d’oeuvres to Max.

“Uh, sure,” he said, taking a slice of apple and leaving the sugar lump behind. He also took a glass of ginger ale. “Say, tell me something, Stevie.”

“Anything, Max,” she said.

“What was going on here? I mean, I have the distinct impression that I just served as the best man at the wedding of two people who actually got married,
but I haven’t got the faintest idea of how it happened. The last thing I knew, my mother was telling me to mount up and smile.”

“You did a very good job of it, too,” Stevie said. “You didn’t even lose the ring.”

“Here, Max, try some of these carrot sticks,” Carole said, offering him the bowl.

He took one absentmindedly and bit into it. “Nice,” he said. “But then, everything here is. I mean, look at all these flowers! When did you do all this? How long have you known that Camilla Wentworth was going to dislocate her shoulder?”

“We didn’t,” Stevie said. “It was just that it seemed like a good idea to plan a wedding for today, and we figured a bride and groom would come along, somehow.”

Max regarded her carefully.

“You know,” he said, “from anybody else, I would know that they were joking, but from you, I’m not so sure.”

Stevie smiled beatifically.

“I think that means I should just enjoy myself at the party, right?”

“Right,” Stevie said. “Everybody else is. Why shouldn’t you?”

With that, Max headed for the drink table to pour
himself another glass of ginger ale in a champagne glass.

The whole wedding was so perfect and so much fun that even snobby Veronica diAngelo couldn’t find anything to complain about, except the fact that the cake she’d brought wasn’t getting enough attention. That all changed, however, when Stevie unveiled it in its new and improved format.

She had brought a few of her own model horses to put on top of the cake as the bride and groom, but when it turned out that there were actually going to be people getting married, that wasn’t going to be good enough. She’d gone to May, who happened to have her Ken and Barbie dolls in her backpack. Ken and Barbie were dressed for a camping trip, not a wedding, but they were definitely better than nothing. Stevie seated one on each of the two model horses and, miraculously, it was a perfect wedding cake!

“Have you forgotten anything?” Mrs. Reg asked, amazed at the total party that her young riders had managed to create without her knowing anything about it.

Nigel and Dorothy came over to cut the cake. Dorothy removed one of the model horses from the top of it and even had the good sense to lick the frosting
from the horses’ hooves. Nigel picked up the other and followed suit.

“Very good!” he said. “Who did this? Can I have the recipe?”

“I did,” Veronica said, raising her hand. Then noticing a scowl from Stevie, she corrected herself. “Actually our
cook
made it. I’ll have her send Dorothy the recipe.”

“No,” Dorothy said. “Have her send it to Nigel. He’s a much better cook than I am.”

“But you’re better at microwaving than I am,” he teased her.

“Look! Their very first fight!” Stevie exclaimed.

Then everybody laughed.

Before too long, it was time for Dorothy and Nigel to leave. They had to get him to the airport for a six o’clock flight to Italy, and Dorothy had to drive back to Long Island to take care of her horses and explain to her mother why she wasn’t getting married next Saturday.

All the members of Horse Wise pitched in to help with the cleanup, but it didn’t turn out to be much work. Most of the food had been eaten, and with Max’s approval, they decided to leave the flowers on the grape arbor for a day or so until they wilted. There were chairs to be folded, paper cups to be thrown
away, and soda bottles to be recycled. The party goers had been neat, so there wasn’t a lot of garbage.

By the time the last paper cup had been routed out from where it was wedged under the fence, Adam Levine showed up with the pictures from the wedding. He’d taken them to a one-hour photo place, and they were all ready!

“Look! There are the bridesmaids!”

“You look so great!”

“Not as great as the bride!”

“Oh, Adam, you got a picture of Comanche trying to nip at Delilah!” That had been a tense moment in the wedding. Fortunately, Nigel was such a good rider that he’d controlled the horse perfectly. Judge Gavin wouldn’t have known what to do if Delilah had gotten into a battle!

“And look! There they are, kissing!”

They were. It was a sweet photograph of Dorothy and Nigel, taken while the two of them were on horseback, newly wed and kissing.

“But what’s Delilah looking at there?” somebody asked. “While all this kissing is going on, she seems to be staring off into the distance. I wonder what she sees.”

Carole looked at the picture and then showed it to Lisa and Stevie. There wasn’t any question what
Delilah was looking at. Her eyes were glued to Geronimo.

“Ooooooh, I love weddings!” one of the young riders cooed.

Stevie, Lisa, and Carole couldn’t have agreed more. They just weren’t sure that anybody else knew exactly who—or what—had gotten married that day!

T
HE THREE GIRLS
were sprawled around Carole’s living room later that day, too tired to do anything but talk. Stevie had claimed Colonel Hanson’s recliner. Carole lay on the sofa, and Lisa had taken some pillows to make herself a soft spot on the floor. What they were waiting for was eight
P.M
., when Skye Ransom’s television wedding was due to take place. They had some time before then. They had things to say to one another.

“We’re terrific, you know,” Stevie said modestly.

“Yeah,” Lisa agreed.

“Right,” said Carole. “We can accomplish anything. I mean, we did weeks and weeks worth of organizing
work for Max just this last week, and that gave Max enough time to get us tickets to go to the horse show, which was absolutely wonderful.…”

“What did you say?” Colonel Hanson asked, walking into the living room with a very large bowl of popcorn, some glasses, and some soda. The girls abandoned their comfortable spots to be near the popcorn bowl. That allowed the colonel to reclaim his recliner.

“I said we did a lot of work for Max this week so he would have time to get us the tickets to the show.”

“Hmmm. Very interesting.”

“What’s interesting, Dad?” Carole asked.

“It’s interesting that he called me a week ago and said he had the tickets, and would it be all right for you to go with him. He also said he was calling Stevie’s and Lisa’s parents.”

“You mean a week ago like last Saturday?”

“Just like last Saturday,” the colonel confirmed. “In fact, he said that Dorothy and Nigel had gotten him five perfectly wonderful seats, and he felt you three deserved a treat. He didn’t tell you that?”

“He did not,” Carole said.