Pleasure Horse Read Online Free PDF

fun games or activities planned; apparently everyone was going to stand around and eat and listen to the band the whole time. Even that could be tolerable if the people were nice, but Stevie was betting that her cousin’s friends would be as boring as Angie seemed to have become. They probably wouldn’t know how to have fun. They sounded like the kind of friends that Veronica diAngelo would have. As for the other relatives who would be coming, Angie had barely mentioned them.
    At least Chad, Alex, and Michael will be there
, Stevie thought. Then she laughed out loud. Lisa and Carole would never let her forget it if she told them that she was
glad
that her brothers would be at a party because she wanted to hang out with them more than anyone else.
    Beside her, Angie picked up a trot, motioning for Stevie to follow. “I can finish telling you later,” Angie called.
    “Great,” Stevie muttered, wondering if her cousin would catch the sarcasm that she was finding hard to keep out of her voice. Wistfully she thought of Lisa and Carole back at Pine Hollow, training Samson. If only she could be there, too. Even the stirrup problemcouldn’t be harder than putting up with Angie and her never-ending party talk for three days.
    S HAKING HER HEAD despondently, Lisa reached up and unbuckled Samson’s girth. Once again, she and Carole were taking the saddle off the colt, hoping he would relax and forget about the stirrups. It was the second time that morning that they’d saddled him up only to untack him ten minutes later. They had tried putting only one stirrup on the saddle and having Lisa, then Carole, hold it in place while Samson walked. But the strange positioning of the person helping seemed to excite him even more. The worst part was that they always started out trying to encourage the colt but ended up trying to discipline him. Then they were back at square one, but with a sweaty horse who needed to be cooled off. All of the optimism of the morning had faded.
    It was rare for two members of The Saddle Club to be too dejected to talk to one another, but as the girls walked Samson, each of them was lost in her own thoughts about what they should do.
    After a lap or two around the ring, a familiar face appeared at the door. “Hi, girls, how’s it going?” Mrs. Reg inquired.
    Lisa and Carole exchanged glances. Mrs. Reg wasMax’s mother, so anything they said would probably get straight back to Max. Reluctantly they led Samson over to the older woman.
    Trying to sound normal, Carole spoke up. “He’s not perfect yet, but he’s getting there,” she said.
    “A little more work and he’ll be just fine,” Lisa said to back her up.
    Mrs. Reg smiled benevolently. “Good, I’m glad to hear it. You know, I was thinking about something today, and I wanted to tell you girls.”
    This time, instead of looking at one another, Lisa elbowed Carole. Mrs. Reg was famous around the stables for her long, drawn-out, confusing stories. Whenever she told one, she got a faraway look in her eye—like the one she had right now. Sure enough, she launched in.
    “When my husband Max was young—you know, Max’s father, Max the Second—he wanted to be an architect. As much as he loved horses and riding, he didn’t think running a stable would be a very exciting career. His father, the one you call Max the First, wanted him to take over Pine Hollow one day—naturally—and they had plenty of arguments about it. But finally Max the First agreed to send his son to college to study architecture.” With that, Mrs. Reg stopped to give Samson a pat. “All right, girls, I’ll catch up with you later.”
    “Wait!” Lisa and Carole wailed in unison. Mrs. Reg looked surprised.
    “You haven’t finished telling us the story,” Carole said.
    “Oh, I suppose you’re right. But there isn’t really any more to tell,” replied Mrs. Reg.
    “But what happened? Did Max the Second become an architect?” Lisa asked.
    “An architect?” said