Hay Fever Read Free Page A

phone, and thought he had a girlfriend—when in fact he’d been talking about a new mare for Pine Hollow!
    Before she could remind her friends of the last time they’d gotten involved in Max’s love life, Lisa clapped her hands together. “Stevie, that’s probably it!” she said.
    “What’s it?”
    “Maybe Deborah Hale is Max’s new girlfriend! That would explain his acting weird and forgetting stuff. He might have been nervous around her,” Lisa said.
    Stevie and Carole thought over Lisa’s explanation. “I just can’t believe that Max would be interested in someone like her,” Carole finally said. “She doesn’t ride, for one.”
    “So? I like Bob Harris, and he doesn’t ride. He plays soccer,” Lisa replied. Bob Harris was a school friend of Stevie’s whom Lisa had really hit it off with at Carole’s birthday party.
    “That’s true, but I don’t think she’s his type in other ways, too. She seemed nice but too sensitive,” Stevie said. “I’d guess Max would like a woman with a strong personality like his. And I’m beginning to think that he was simply nervous about having a reporter around while he tried to teach a lesson. She’s probably the type who’salways taking mental notes on everything. That can get to you after a while—not knowing if what you say will end up in tomorrow’s front page.” Stevie gave Lisa a significant glance. Once Lisa had tried writing a column for the local newspaper. The only problem had been that it had unknowingly turned her into a snoop and a tattle-tale on her friends.
    “Okay, okay,” Lisa conceded. “I see what you mean.”
    After a minute Carole said thoughtfully, “Still, it does seem kind of sad that Max is thirty and he doesn’t even have a girlfriend, let alone a wife. He’s probably lonely.”
    “Yeah, and if he doesn’t get married soon, there might never be an heir to take over Pine Hollow. And then what would our kids do for a riding instructor?” Stevie asked.
    It was a cherished dream among The Saddle Club that their children—who would naturally be horse-crazy girls, as they were—would learn to ride at Pine Hollow, just as they had. If Max weren’t around to teach them, then it was only fitting that Max the Fourth do the job. The current Max Regnery—
their
Max Regnery—was the third Max to own and operate Pine Hollow. Naturally, the girls wanted to ensure that there would be a Max the Fourth to succeed him at the stable.
    “One thing’s for sure, you can’t have a Max the Fourth without a Mrs. Max,” Lisa said.
    “Don’t forget,” Stevie pointed out, “there’s always the chance that he would only have daughters.”
    “That’s okay,” Lisa replied, smiling. “Maxine the Fourth would be just fine. Maybe even better.”
    They all laughed.
    There was a devious twinkle in Stevie’s eye. “So is everyone thinking what I’m thinking?”
    “You mean about finding Max a wife?” Carole said.
    “And that it’s a perfect job for The Saddle Club?” Lisa chimed in.
    “Exactly,” Stevie replied. “But I’m a step ahead of you guys. I was thinking about a certain annual event at Pine Hollow that would be the perfect opportunity to introduce Max to hundreds of eligible women.”
    Lisa and Carole thought for a minute. Hundreds of eligible women? Stevie obviously knew something they didn’t. The only summer event coming up was the Fourth of July picnic next weekend. Every year all the students, parents, employees, and friends of Pine Hollow gathered at the stables for a day of horses, socializing, and barbecuing. But it wasn’t as if attractive women in their twenties and thirties flocked to the party!
    “I give up,” Lisa said. “All I can think of is the picnic.”
    “Same,” Carole said.
    “That’s it!” Stevie cried. “The Fourth of July picnic.”
    “But it’s not the type of thing that draws singlewomen,” Carole commented drily. “Usually it’s just the riders and some of the