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didn’t wish to raise the subject with Sharon because she knew what a long and painful process it had been getting over that unrequited crush.
    “After he left this afternoon, Mom,” Sharon spoke softly into the silence, “I had the strange feeling that I don’t know him at all. I built up sucha dream around him that I never saw him—just my dream.”
    “That’s usually the way it is,” her mother nodded.
    “Around me, Ridge is always laughing and joking—or that’s the way he’s seemed.” She frowned and dipped another glass into the sudsy water.
    “Perhaps that’s the only level of communication he’s had with you,” her mother suggested.
    “What do you mean?” Sharon’s frown deepened as she turned her curious gaze toward her mother.
    “‘When I was a child, I spake as a child,’” she murmured the Biblical quote, becoming vaguely thoughtful. “You were young and carefree, always so quick to laugh and have fun. Whenever the conversation became serious at the table, you used to complain it was boring.”
    “Well, I’m a woman now,” Sharon said with the full-blown confidence she’d found this afternoon, “and I’ve put away my childish things.” She paused to look thoughtfully out the window. The evening darkness on the other side gave the glass a mirror-like quality, reflecting an indistinct image of herself. “It’s going to be interesting to meet Ridge as an adult.”
    “Sharon . . . you’re not—”
    The hesitancy and veiled warning in her mother’s voice made her smile. “No, Mom, I’m not still crazy about him. That’s one of the childish things I’ve put behind me.”
    The events of that afternoon had put her on anew footing with Ridge, but Sharon didn’t intend to replace puppy love with passion. Both were equally blinding emotions. And she didn’t plan to walk down another dead-end street.
    Spring had exploded on the rugged plateau, turning the seemingly barren terrain into a patchwork of color. Sharon walked the close-coupled bay horse, a Latigo brand burned on its hip, through a grove of aspen trees growing on the north slope below the ridgeline. She was making one last sweep through this section of range for any strays that might have escaped the first roundup before joining the crew at the holding pens.
    Bushes of chokecherry and serviceberry crowded close under the shade of the aspens. The leaves overhead formed a glittering, silvery-green canopy that trembled at the slightest stirring of air. Showy blooms of blue columbine, the Colorado state flower, blanketed the ground in the aspen grove.
    Emerging from the stand of aspens, Sharon kept her horse pointed down the slope toward the sage-covered valley. The muted purple-green color of the sage was interspersed with patches of wild-flowers, the brilliant crimsons and scarlets of Indian paintbrush, firecracker penstemon, and scarlet gilia.
    The air was sharp and clear, the morning sun pressing its warmth on her the instant she left the coolness of the north slope. Sharon reined in the bay horse and peeled off her jacket, tying it behindher saddle. Her flannel shirt of green and gold plaid was adequate covering on this exceptionally mild spring day.
    A ribbon of green wound crookedly through the valley of sage, marking the course of a small creek. The scattering of cottonwood and willow trees growing along the banks offered potential concealment for an odd cow or two. Taking up the reins again, Sharon urged the bay horse into a canter and headed for the creek to investigate.
    The small creek was full from the winter runoff, and the water ran swiftly over its shallow bed in a rushing murmur. There were no cattle in sight, nothing larger than a mule deer disturbed into flight by Sharon’s approach. Still, she continued to walk her horse along the wide band of tall grass beside the creek. The scene was too idyllic to leave, and the general direction of the stream was one she would have taken anyway.
    The strides of her