Remember When

soft-spoken style that completely belied her determination and courage. 'Sure,' he relented, tipping his head to the rear of the stable. 'Help yourself.'

At the end of the hallway, on the right, Diana found a small room that she assumed was Cole's, with a single bed made up with military perfection and an old desk with an ancient lamp. Books and papers were neatly stacked on the desk and one of them was open. Opposite the bedroom, to the left of the hallway, was a bathroom and tucked behind that was a kitchen area containing only a sink, a small stove, and a miniature refrigerator like the one under Diana's father's bar at home. Diana assumed the refrigerator would be stocked with soft drinks for everyone's use, but when she opened it, there was nothing inside but a package of hot dogs, a carton of milk, and a box of cereal.

She was surprised to see that he kept his cereal in the refrigerator and even more surprised that although this refrigerator was obviously for his use he didn't keep much food in it. Puzzled, she closed the door and filled a paper cup up with water from the sink. When she dropped the cup into the little trash can, she saw two apple cores in it. The apples she brought had been old and soft and completely unappetizing, and she couldn't imagine why he would eat one, let alone two of them. Unless he was hungry. Very, very hungry.

The empty refrigerator and the apple cores were on her mind as she paused to pet a pretty palomino quarter horse; then she returned to the stable entrance to see how Corey was doing. Three girls were talking to her near the corral.

'Do you think you should go out there, in case she needs more help?'

'No, Corey will be fine. She's really great, and they'll find that out. Besides, I don't think she'd like it if she thought I was sort of. helping things along.'

'You're quite a 'helper outer,' ' Cole joked, then realized she was embarrassed, and hastily said, 'What if they decide they don't like her?'

'Then she'll make lots of other friends on her own. Besides, these girls aren't really close friends of mine, particularly not Haley. Neither is Barbara. It's Doug I really like.'

Cole gaped at her, thinking of Barbara's extremely tall and very gangly brother. 'Doug is your boyfriend?'

She shot him an odd look and sat down on a bale of hay near the open doors. 'No, he's my friend, not my boyfriend.'

'I thought you were a little short for him,' Cole joked, rather enjoying her company. 'What's your real boyfriend like?' he asked as he reached for a big red plastic glass he'd left on the windowsill earlier.

'Actually, I don't have a boyfriend. What about you, do you have a girlfriend?'

Cole nodded and took a swallow of water.

'What's she like?' Diana asked.

He propped his foot on the bale of hay near her hip and leaned his forearm on his knee, looking out through a side window that faced the house, and Diana had the feeling that he had drifted very far away. 'Her name is Valerie Cooper.'

There was a long pause.

'And?' Diana prompted. 'Is she blond or dark, short or tall, blue eyes or brown?'

'She's blond and tall.'

'I wish I was,' she confessed with a wistful look.

'You want to be blond?'

'No,' she said, and Cole laughed. 'I want to be tall.'

'Unless you're planning an amazing growth spurt, you'd better aim for blond,' Cole advised lightly. 'In your case, blond would be a little easier to achieve.'

'What color are her eyes?'

'Blue.'

Diana was fascinated. 'Have you been going together very long?'

Cole belatedly realized he was not only socializing with one of his employer's guests, which was totally unacceptable, but that the guest was fourteen years old and the conversation was entirely too personal. 'Since high school,' he said briefly as he straightened and turned to leave.

'Does she live in Houston?' Diana pressed, sensing the conversation was over but rather hoping it wasn't.

'She goes to UCLA. We see each other whenever we can, usually during the holidays.'

The birthday party continued for hours, ending with a huge cake served on the lawn, where Barbara opened piles of gifts; then everyone went inside while the servants cleaned up outdoors. Diana had started to follow along when she noticed that half the chocolate birthday cake was still left, and she thought about those lonely hot dogs in Cole's empty refrigerator. On a whim, she walked back to the table and cut a huge chunk off the corner because he'd get more frosting on such a piece; then she took it down to the stable.

Cole's reaction to the chocolate cake was almost comically ecstatic. 'You are looking at the owner of the world's biggest sweet tooth, Diana,' he said as he took the plate and fork.

He was already eating the cake as he headed down the hall toward his room. Diana watched him for a moment, aware for the first time that people she actually knew, actually came in contact with, didn't always have enough to eat. As she turned away, she decided to bring extra snacks whenever she went to the Haywards, but she sensed instinctively that she'd have to find a way to give them to him that wouldn't make him think it was charity.

She knew nothing about college men, but she knew something about pride, and everything about Cole made her think he had a great deal of it.

Chapter 4

'Life is good,' Corey announced to Diana two months after Barbara Hayward's birthday party. She'd lowered her voice so they wouldn't be heard by their parents, who had already gone to sleep. The two girls were huddled beneath the quilt on Diana's bed, their backs propped against a pile of feather pillows with lace-edged cases, eating jumbo pretzels and having a gossip session. 'I can't wait until you meet Grandma and Grandpa tomorrow. By the time they leave here next week, you'll be crazy about them, you'll see. You'll think of them as if they had always been your very own grandparents.'

The truth was that Corey desperately wanted that to be so. She wanted to give Diana something of value to repay her for everything she'd done.

School had started last month, and by that time, Diana had already become Corey's best friend and champion. She helped Corey choose her clothes, helped her fix her hair in different styles, guided her through the social maze at school, and in the end, even Diana's friends—some of whom were snobs—accepted Corey into their inner circle.

Corey spent the first month in a state of gratitude and mounting awe toward her new sister. Unlike Corey, Diana never got flustered, never worried about saying the wrong thing, never made a dumb joke, and never looked like a fool. Her thick, dark reddish-brown hair was always glossy; her complexion was flawless; her figure was perfect. When she climbed out of the swimming pool with her hair soaking wet and no makeup on, she looked like a television commercial. She never even got wrinkles in her clothes!

By then, both girls were already thinking of their respective stepparents as real parents, and now Corey wanted to give Diana some 'real grandparents.'

'When you meet Gram and Gramps,' Corey told her, 'you'll see why everybody thinks they're so neat. Gram can figure out a way to make almost anything, and it turns out pretty. She can knit and sew and crochet. She can walk into the woods and come out with ordinary twigs and leaves and stuff, and turn it into amazing things by using just a dab of glue or a little paint. She makes the presents she gives to people, and she makes her own wrapping paper; then she uses things like berries for decoration and everything looks awesome! Mom is just like her. Whenever there's a church auction, everybody in town tries to buy whatever Mom and Gram donated.

'A man who owns a fancy designer gallery in Dallas came to an auction in Long Valley and saw their work. He said they're both really, really talented, and he wanted them to make some things he could sell in his