A Time to Surrender by Sally John Page A

belonged to the footsteps now approaching from behind her.
    Skylar threw a scowl over her shoulder, but he missed it. A moment later he hoisted himself up beside her.
    He remained quiet for all of three seconds. “Do you ride?”
    “Do you play ‘Twenty Questions’ with everyone or is it just me?”
    He chuckled. “Mom says I bug you too much.”
    “Your mother is a wise woman.”
    “I guess that means you agree. Okay, I admit I probably do bug you and interfere with your work. I apologize.”
    She squinted at him sideways. “Why?”
    “Why apologize?” He shrugged. “Forgiveness is in the air today. I’m hoping to grab some for myself.”
    “You say it’s in the air because of all that going on in the house?”
    “Mm-hmm. Do you know the story? About Uncle BJ and Beth? About Tuyen?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sticky wicket, as Erik calls it. My grandfather has not been able to accept that Uncle BJ would do such a thing. Stay in Vietnam and have a child? No way.”
    “Holy cow! BJ was in a war. How could Ben judge—” Too late she heard the barrage and stopped herself.
    “Exactly.”
    They exchanged a glance.
    Of connection?
    He said, “And now, lo and behold, Beth believes BJ probably did exactly that. She totally accepts Tuyen. Totally forgives BJ.”
    “Forgives BJ? How can it be his fault? I mean the guy didn’t try to get shot down and survive in some foreign jungle he couldn’t possibly escape without being killed or captured.”
    “I totally agree. But people were hurt. Call it forgiving him or the Viet Cong or our government. Whoever or whatever. The choice to forgive simply releases a stranglehold on someone’s heart. My grandfather’s, in this case.”
    Oh, man. “I suppose you’re one of those, you know, vocal Christians.”
    He laughed. “I suppose I’m still bugging you.”
    “You suppose correctly.”
    “So do you.”
    “Easy call. It was either that type of Christian or you’re part bulldog, and since you don’t walk on four legs . . .”
    “I’ve been tagged worse names.”
    She gave him a mean smirk. “You have no idea how much I hold back.”
    “I might.” He looked at the horses. “So do you ride?”
    Skylar felt like she’d been thrown off a horse and had the wind knocked from her. His swing of mood and topic was going to give her whiplash.
    She blurted, “Yeah. I love riding.”
    Uh-oh.
    She’d already decided fatherless kids from Ohio with drug-addicted moms did not ride horses. It was a rich person’s hobby, not even a remote possibility under the scenario she’d presented.
    “I mean,” she said, “I got to go. A few times. As a kid. Big-sister program or something.” Shut up, Skylar. Shut up. “Your grandfather said he’d take me sometime.”
    “Or I will. Moses and Reuben here are the best choice. The others are unpredictable. I think they’re still spooked from the fire.”
    A wave of homesickness nearly bowled her off the fence.
    It wasn’t an ache for home . It was an ache for moments, for the freedom of those moments.
    She did ride. She loved to ride. She loved the wind in her hair. The keen sense that the powerful animal could whisk her to the ends of the earth at her command.
    Skylar stepped down from the fence. “I have work to do.”
    Without a backward glance, she hurried away.
    Danny Beaumont was not a nuisance. He was a danger, the hound that would sniff and sniff until he caught scent of her true identity. He would make it impossible for her to remain in the Kansas, the home she’d just found.
    L ocating a pay phone was a major hassle. Skylar spent most of the drive down from the hacienda cursing cellular technology. It pigeonholed Americans, forcing them to carry phones on their hips, thereby eliminating convenient public phones for all those people who could not afford or simply did not want to carry phones on their hips.
    She stood now at a pay phone in a bus station and placed a collect call. As she listened to the ring on the other end,