True Colors

“Vivi Ann? Are you paying attention?”

She looked up from her notes.

Ten eager faces stared back at her. The girls of the Bits and Spurs 4-H group were seated around the living room—on the blue and yellow plaid sofa, beside the wagon wheel coffee table, in clusters on the worn oak flooring. Their ages ranged from nine to sixteen, and they had a singular passion in common: horses.

For the next hour, the girls talked about their horses and the fair and the barrel-racing clinic Vivi Ann was teaching next week. They were still talking and laughing and battering her with questions when Vivi Ann heard the first car drive up. Headlights flashed through the kitchen window and snapped off.

“Oh, no,” someone whined when the doorbell rang. “Our moms are here to pick us up. Tell ’em we’re still working, Vivi Ann.”

She went to the door and opened it, surprised to find a stranger standing on her front porch. He was tall and lean, with a shock of precisely combed brown hair. He was good-looking in a starched, buttoned-down way; or maybe that was the impression she got from his yellow polo shirt and pleated khaki Dockers. “May I help you?” she said, struggling to be heard over the magpie din in the living room.

He swept her into his arms and gave her a bear hug that was as tight as it was surprising. When he said, “You don’t remember me, do you?” it all clicked into place.

“Luke Connelly,” she said when he put her down. “Back from the wilds of Montana.”

He smiled. “I knew you’d figure it out if I picked you up.”

She didn’t quite know what to say to that. Did he have a memory of them that she’d misplaced? “It’s good to see you again.”

“You, too.” He glanced past her to the houseful of giggling girls. “Why do I think your dad isn’t home?”

“Sadly for you, you’ve missed him, but my Bits and Spurs 4-H Club would love to hear a real live veterinarian talk to them.” She turned. “Wouldn’t you, girls?”

A chorus of approval greeted her question.

Luke moved into the group easily, charming the girls as he talked to them about conformation and its importance in choosing a horse. He patiently answered questions until the girls’ mothers began to show up.

At nine o’clock, when the house was quiet again, Vivi Ann grabbed two beers from the fridge and handed him one, saying, “You were a good sport about that.”

“They treat you like a rock star.”

“I know. Isn’t it great?”

They sat down on the sofa and put their feet up on the coffee table. A log crackled in the fireplace and thudded off the grate, sending a shower of sparks flying.

“You don’t really remember me, do you?” he said. “I waved at you at the gas station last week and you didn’t wave back.”

“I remember you, of course, but I don’t remember you. You were the boy who lived next door, my mom’s best friend’s son. I was too busy with horses to spend any time with you. You moved when I was, what, fourteen?”

“About that. All I really remember about you is every time I saw you, you were on that little Welsh pony of yours, running like the wind. And later . . . it was your mom’s quarter horse.”

“I still spend most of my time on Clem, trying to reach Mach 1.”

“How come you never went away to school like your sisters?”

She laughed. “Oh, I went away. I just came right back. Too much beer and too many boys and too few books. Besides, my dad needed me.”

He took a sip of his beer. “My mom figured you’d be here; she even guessed you’d be the 4-H leader.”

“How could she know that?”

“She said you were just like Donna. All heart.”

“That’s nice to hear. I don’t remember Mom as much as I wish I did. What did you need to talk to my dad about?”

“Henry left a message that he wanted to talk to me about using my field. Do you know what that’s about?”

Vivi Ann launched into her idea about the future of Water’s Edge, from the first barrel-racing series to her hopes for team-roping jackpots, then she waited for his response.