“You’re nineteen, Sam,” she yelled back. “I don’t even think you can be adopted anymore.”

“Oh yeah.” She laughed. “Awesome, so I can just move in right away. Why don’t I start packing?”

“Why not?” Amy grinned.

Elsewhere around the ranch, her dad had been keeping himself busy tidying up the property and restoring it to its former glory. So far he had cleared the gutters, fixed a few tiles on the roof of the house, replaced the rotting timber around the vegetable garden, dug new soil, sown new seeds, replaced a dozen or so fence posts, hacked away what seemed like a mountain of weeds, mown the fields (after spending a whole day troubleshooting why the riding lawn mower’s engine cranked but wouldn’t start, which turned out to be because of a clogged fuel filter), and was halfway through sanding and repainting the barn. He was, by his own admission, not a natural handyman, and although there had been a couple of minor incidents—one with a rusty nail, the other involving some hay and a buried rake—on the whole, he thought he was acquitting himself quite well, or at least that’s what he liked to tell Amy.

Such industrious productivity outside the barn meant he was always a step behind with the horses, though, especially compared to his daughter. He was capable, but his skills weren’t comparable to hers, which, from Amy’s perspective, worked out fine because it gave her a chance to sharpen her own.

“No, no, you need to sit straighter, and loosen your hands,” Amy told him one afternoon as they were taking Snowflake and Bella on a walk somewhere in Seabrook State Park. “And you need to shift your feet forward,” she added, pointing down at his stirrups. “The back of your heel should be resting on the bar, not hanging off the edge.”

He did as he was told and adjusted accordingly. “How you’ve learned all this so quickly, I have no idea. Are you sure we’re not lost? Everywhere looks the same to me. Haven’t we come this way already?”

Amy reached into her pocket and pulled out a map, left for them by Roger. “I know exactly where we are. Sam and I have been riding the trails, scoping them out. This is one of the trails that Mr. Porter’s son used to ride. Ryan, right? This is where he took people.”

“Ah, I see,” he said, bobbing in the saddle. “You know, I thought it would be another six months before we could begin thinking about opening up the trails, but do you know what? You look like you’re almost ready.”

Amy smiled. “Yep, I think I am.”

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