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he thinks you’re still about seventeen. He’s sure you’re the only one who ever understood about Rancho Verde and he thinks you’ll still want to hang around and listen to all his old stories like you did when you were a kid. He misses you. He thinks you’re the only one who cares.”
    “Maybe he’s right,” Shawnee whispered, knowing that was hardly fair to her sister who had done all the outright caring for five long years, but know ing Lisa had never shared her grandfather’s memories the way she did herself.
    “What?”
    “I’m coming down.”
    “Oh. For a visit?”
    “To stay.” Her mind was made up. She should have done it long ago. When she’d begun working with Miki, she’d begun to dream of what they could accomplish together. Miki was ready, but Shawnee had been putting off making the commitment. Now there was no room left for excuses. It was time to put it to the test.
    “To stay? But…”
    “I’ll stay with Granpa Jim. It’s time I came, don’t you think?”
    And here she was, back home, and with her had come the horse that she hoped would help Granpa Jim win a moral victory over the Santiagos, some thing to return the glow to his face, something to cherish before he died.
    But first she had to find a way to pull herself out of this thoroughly embarrassing situation. She’d been in the water long enough. In fact, her fingers were turning into skinny little prunes. It was high time to make a getaway. If she could only think of a clever way to do it!

CHAPTER TWO
    SHY MAIDENS AND CABALLEROS

    David lay back and let the water rush past him. Funny. That sounded like the story of his life. Lately he felt as though time was a river and he couldn’t seem to launch a boat in it.  
    Maybe things would have felt different if he hadn’t gone away to university in the East. Maybe he would have been satisfied with life here in this backwater part of the state if he hadn’t gone away for so long. Maybe he would have been satisfied with nothing changing, with life on a slow boat to nowhere. Maybe.
    But he had gone back East and he’d found out a lot about himself—that he was damn good at a lot of things. His friends were all on their way to important, exciting careers in engineering or computer science. And here he was, back at the ranch.  
    This was what he’d been born for. That was what his father had always said. But he’d never expected his father would die so soon and leave all the responsibility on his shoulders. He was restless. He couldn’t deny it. He had a vague feeling that something had to give. Glancing over at the beautiful girl who had jumped so providentially into his life, he wondered briefly if she could be the catalyst for something new. Might be. Time would tell.  

    David hadn’t said a word to Shawnee for at least ten minutes, so when he spoke, she turned towards him, surprised to see that he’d pulled himself up out of the water and was sunning on a huge boulder on the far side of the stream.
    Quickly, she turned her gaze away from his shiny flesh.
    “How did you find this place?” he was asking curiously. “I didn’t think anyone else knew it was here.”
    She hesitated, the truth on the tip of her tongue. But no. She didn’t want to tell him who she really was. And she didn’t want to lie. So she evaded the issue.
    “You didn’t really think you could keep a place like this a secret, did you?” Her voice had a low, husky quality and she didn’t know why that was, but it seemed right for the setting, so she didn’t try to change it. “I’ll bet this has been a secret hideaway for lots of people, since the days of the earliest settlers.”
    Now why had she put it that way? He’d think she meant it was a place for lovers to meet, and that wasn’t the point she wanted to make at all.
    “You’re probably right.”  
    She didn’t look fully at him, but she could tell he’d shifted his position. His voice took on a dreamy quality that might have