He’d looked at her over the top of his book. Around them, the sound of basketballs on the wooden floor and shouts as kids worked off the lunch-hour steam flooded the small area. She wore her hair in a long ponytail, a golden mane that always mesmerized him a little. That and her eyes—so impossibly green—could make him a little dry mouthed.

“Harry Potter.” He turned back to his book.

“Which one?”

“Prisoner of Azkaban.”

“I love that one. Wait until you find out who Sirius—”

“Don’t.”

She had this way of leaning on her hand and smiling at him that made his insides clench up and his skin tingle.

“Don’t what?” She pulled the book down.

“Tell me the ending.”

“Only if you promise to come over and help me. Nanook just had another litter and Dad says I can help train them.”

“Cool.” He looked at the book again, but the words were all jumbled.

“Someday, I’m going to have my own gangline, and I’ll name them after that movie you like.”

“What movie?”

“The fighter pilot one.”

“Top Gun? That’s an old movie.”

“I liked it.” She smiled again.

Heat burned his face. They’d watched it once when she was at his house. He’d found it in the stash of old VHS movies his father kept. Had wanted to run in embarrassment when Maverick had taken that girl to bed.

“C’mon. You said you would help me in the summer race. I teach you to mush dogs, you teach me to fly, right?”

Wouldn’t that be something? To fly his own plane. His dad had been letting him take the yoke now, and he’d even landed once. Someday Sky King Ranch would be his and—

“Right, Dodge?” Echo looked at him. She wore a flannel shirt and a pair of jeans, but something about her had changed this fall. Sure, they were thirteen now, but something about her . . .

She was prettier, maybe. He swallowed, and it stuck in his throat. He nodded.

“Great. My dad is picking me up. He can drive you home afterward.”

He’d always been a little intrigued about Echo and her dad. They were practically neighbors, and sometimes his dad helped hers with homestead chores, like repairing a roof or changing a car engine. And he’d been the one to hang out with Echo. He thought her a little strange—cool, really. She raised her own chickens and goats, and they lived on an off-the-grid homestead with solar power and wood heat. And her dad was some kind of grizzly master.

Most of all, she didn’t have a mom either.