Dark Sunshine by Terri Farley Page B

murmured.
    Even though Sam beat her to the door, she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d given Rachel Slocum one more bit of ammunition to use against her.
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    Looking like he’d been to town on ranch business, Dad picked Sam up from the bus stop. By the time they reached home, Mikki was already there.
    Gram told her Mikki had not only decided to go along with the guidelines for the HARP program, which meant, among other things, keeping a journal about her experiences with the mustangs, but she’d finagled an extension to the time she could spend at River Bend each day.
    â€œWhy, she just gobbled up the chocolate chip cookies I gave her, and as soon as Jake arrived, she followed him into the pen,” Gram said. “She couldn’t wait to see Popcorn.”
    Sam let her backpack fall to the floor and sat at the kitchen table to devour her own cookies and milk.
    â€œThat’s great,” Sam said, but she didn’t exactly mean it. What was wrong with her? Just yesterday, she’d been telling Jake she liked Mikki.
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    Whatever it was, Popcorn felt it, too.
    Out of her school clothes and in riding gear, Sam peered through the slats of the round pen. Yesterday, though he’d stayed far away from Mikki, Popcorn had kept his side turned to her. Today, he was showing her his tail.
    You couldn’t fool horses , Sam thought. Mikki would have to learn that.
    Sam wanted to ride Ace. They both needed the exercise. But how could she get Ace out of the barn pen without giving Dark Sunshine a chance to bolt? She’d need to ask Dad for help.
    That settled, she left the barn. Blaze met her with a wagging tail. Even he was keeping his distance from Dark Sunshine.
    â€œWhat’s going on with Mikki, huh, Blaze?” Sam rumpled the dog’s ears and he whined with pleasure.
    Had Mikki made gentling Popcorn a contest against Jake? Had she taken his standards as a challenge? Maybe she was trying to prove something to herself. Or, maybe she thought that if she did a quick job of riding Popcorn, she could take on Dark Sunshine.
    â€œThat’s not going to happen,” Sam muttered to Blaze as the dog walked along with her. “No way.”
    Blaze wagged his tail and looked up at Sam with openmouthed adoration, believing every word.

Chapter Nine
    I N S AN F RANCISCO , Sam had gone riding twice on rented horses. After the second time, she hadn’t wanted to go again. Aunt Sue had worried that Sam was afraid of horses after the accident. Aunt Sue always worried, but she wasn’t pushy about it.
    â€œTell me what you don’t like about it,” Aunt Sue had said as they drove away from the San Francisco stable for the last time.
    Sam had tried. Although she was still a little afraid of falling, Sam could push the fear aside and she told Aunt Sue so. The other part was harder to explain.
    Her heart always sank at the end of a ride. Sam hated giving the horse back. She couldn’t think of a word to describe the feeling.
    â€œGreed?” Aunt Sue suggested, joking. “Disappointment?”
    Together they’d tried, but couldn’t come up with it.
    Now, Sam didn’t have to worry about that feeling.
    She rode at a rocking chair lope across the range. With mustang sureness, Ace threaded between clumps of sagebrush. Over his hoofbeats, songbirds sang to the fading afternoon and Sam rode with a joy she’d longed for during those two long years in San Francisco.
    To her right lay War Drum Flats and Lost Canyon. To her left, three miles past the blackberry bushes hedging the river, she’d find Three Ponies Ranch, home to Jake’s family. Dead ahead, but hours away, the Calico Mountains soared purple against the blue Nevada sky.
    Sam knew just where she was, and it was exactly where she wanted to be. She’d do whatever it took to keep the River Bend Ranch. If that meant working with Mikki and doing a good job so they’d win the contract for HARP,