It was an odd sort of guilt over implying that she did not trust Todd with their children that convinced Blair to give the whole weekend over to horse-hunting with Jack. She couldn't put her finger on exactly why she was worried about Sam in particular, even more so than Sage.

She and Jack drove south early Friday morning, winding their way to all the stables that advertised horses for sale, with plans to end the weekend at an auction if all else failed. Jack read an online ad aloud as they turned into a mid-sized farm.

"Stunning, amateur-safe warmblood gelding. $15,000, bay, white blaze, three white socks, age 6, 16.3 hands, 1100 lbs, foaled: 2006. Absolutely beautiful. Placed fifth in the country at warmblood inspection for the year. Beautifully put together. Just started— solid walk/trot/canter. Brave and very smart over jumps— and loves to jump! Amazing canter. Jumping 2 ft 9" courses. Steady and sane without being lazy. Fun ride for anyone. Sired by Pine Bar. Dam is our own—"

Jack broke off so sharply that Blair looked at him with concern. "You all right?"

"Turn around, please," said Jack. "I can't go into this place."

Blair tapped the break and took Jack's iPad out of his hand. She scanned down to the ad he'd been reading.

Sired by Pine Bar. Dam is our own Gigi's Dream.

Even though Blair hated to discredit her children's feelings, she was tempted to tell Jack that it was just a name, and not some sort of sign. A year ago, she'd been afraid that he would never show any kind of regret or compassion for what he'd done to Shane and Gigi Morasco. Now she worried that he'd never be out from under it.

"All right," she told him. "We'll turn around. We'll take a break and then we'll go on to the next one. We keep moving forward, don't we?"

Jack retrieved his iPad and brought up their itinerary. "We can keep looking for a pony for Hope and Sam if you want. Boreas needs the company. But I don't want a horse of my own."

Blair's heart sank at Jack's self-imposed punishment, but she made herself sound cheerful when she spoke. "That's just too bad, because your father wants to buy you a horse."

Jack ignored her and tapped the iPad some more. "Let's go straight to that place in Virginia that had all the ponies. With the kids' camp next door?"

"Fine," Blair agreed. If Jack didn't fall in love while they were ostensibly looking only for Hope and Sam, she'd push the issue tomorrow.

Before the afternoon was out, they'd put a deposit on Tetris, a cobby gelding barely twelve hands high. He had spent the past five of his fourteen years in a lesson program working with beginning riders. That should have left him equally capable of handling Sam's rambunctiousness and Hope's timidity, not to mention Boreas' periodic mood swings. "Mostly Welsh pony, but he's a mix," the resident trainer told them as they inspected every inch of Tetris' dark bay coat. Jack and Blair left with promises to return early the next morning to finalize the sale as long as Tetris did not develop any mysterious ailments in the meantime.


Sam was very interested in the day's lesson- he liked math because he always saw Starr and Jack studying it and wanted to catch up to them- and so he didn't even notice that he had a visitor until Bree, wide-eyed, poked him and pointed.

His father, who was supposed to be in Tahiti, was standing right outside the window.

Without asking permission, Sam ran from the room as a chorus of tattle-tales shouted "Mrs. Hicks! Mrs. Hicks! Sam is out of his seat!"

Walker picked Sam up and pulled him high in the air so they were eye-to-eye. "Hi, Sammy!"

"I didn't know you were coming!"

"That's because I wanted to surprise you."

Mrs. Hicks told Walker to leave right away, and Walker apologized for interrupting, explaining that it had been over a year since he'd seen his son. Mrs. Hicks softened, and agreed that class was almost over and since Walker was Sam's parent of record with the school, they could leave right away.

"I'm supposed to call Mom and Uncle Todd if I go home with someone besides them or Starr or Jack or Bree," Sam remembered

"I talked to your Mom," said Walker. "She's not even in town, right, she's off buying horses with Jack? So of course it would be my weekend with you. You remember you used to have some days with me and some days with her, right?"

"Right," Sam agreed. It made sense.

"And I wouldn't know where Mom and Jack are if I didn't talk to her, right?"

"Right," Sam agreed again, and he didn't think much more of it because it had always been special not to have to share Dad with Jack.


The hotel restaurant was crowded, so Jack and Blair sat at the bar. Jack stared fixedly at the bartender as he mixed drinks. The man really was a bit of an artist, so Blair let Jack get lost in his daydream until the bartender ducked away in search of fresh limes.

(Jack himself was drinking a Shirley Temple, which was suddenly an acceptable drink among teenage boys in the Philadelphia area thanks to the Philadelphia 76ers baby-faced point guard, Jrue Holiday. Upon being drafted at the age of 18, he had made a public show of never drinking while underage, but instead asking for extra cherries in his Shirley Temple. Blair was tempted to write him a thank you note.)

"Hey," said Blair. "How're you doing?"

"Bartenders have to know how to make a lot of drinks," said Jack blandly.

"Soccer players have to know a lot of different moves," she said. "Learn any new ones lately?"

"Mostly how to keep a bunch of guys from rioting because the school decided to go for the publicity of having a girl on the boys' team."

"Is she good?"

Jack gulped his soda and nodded, more himself since they were off the subject of horses. "Good enough to play, even though she's only a freshman. Not a starter or anything, but she's fast and she's tough. She could sub here and there. But that means she'd be the star of the girls' team in the spring if she'd play field hockey now and soccer then."

"Does she say why she doesn't?"

"She wants to play softball in the spring." Jack shrugged, as if nothing could be done about that. "And she says field hockey skirts are stupid and no one plays field hockey in New York. She says it's archaic."

"She's from New York?"

Jack cocked his head curiously. "You don't know?"

"Don't know what?"

"That we're talking about Jamie Vega?"

Blair almost choked on her wine. (She couldn't breastfeed Sage while she and Jack were traveling, so she was indulging in her first glass of wine in what seemed like forever. It would have been a shame to waste any of it.) "Yes, Jack, you may have forgotten to mention that."

"I thought you knew! You know how Aunt Dorian is always all I practically raised those boys. That makes Jamie practically her granddaughter, and Jamie's doing something that's usually all guys. I'm surprised Aunt Dorian's not on C-Span crowing about it."

"Give her time," Blair suggested. Jack wasn't wrong. Carlotta must have deliberately withheld the news from Dorian. "I didn't even know Antonio and Talia were back in Llanview. Or did they just send Jamie?"

"No, it's all of them." Jack slurped the last of his soda and the bartender gracefully replaced it with a full glass. "Maybe that's why it's a secret. It sounds like Talia sucks at taking care of the baby and they needed help, so they had to come back to where their family is."

"Jack! You have personal experience with how much hard work a new baby is. Everyone needs help."

"I saw Talia when she came to pick Jamie up yesterday. She looked weird. Wiped out. Like, more than what's normal when a baby screams all night."

"Maybe its postpartum depression," Blair mused. "When I saw her at Cristian's wedding, Talia didn't look like she was enjoying being pregnant at all."

"Do any women enjoy being pregnant?" asked Jack dubiously. "Always seemed pretty damn miserable to me. You hurt all the time, you're not allowed to do anything fun, everybody judges you, you're always scared, and you get fat."

Blair laughed and couldn't resist leaning over on her stool to hug Jack. "I loved being pregnant with you."

"You mean when Dad hated you so much he gave me away and told you I was dead? When he was so awful you had to run away to Mexico to get away from him?"

"I didn't run away to Mexico to get away from him," said Blair, even though she had.

"Dad said you did," Jack trumped. "And he said it when he was really trying to get me to like him, so I don't think he'd say it if he didn't think he had to."

Blair saw her opportunity. "He's worked hard to make it up to you and connect with you. And one of the things he would like to do is buy you a horse."

Jacks lips thinned out and he shook his head. "When I saw that name, I knew it was a sign. It had to be."

"And sometimes you're a lot like your father."

Jack snorted and stabbed at his cherries with his straw. "I haven't heard that since before we all decided that this guy was my father."

"He's always been your father," said Blair quietly. "He worries that the things he's done in the past mean that he and our family can never be happy. Last year, when we were in Key West, after he and I left you kids on the beach—"

Jack clapped his hands over his ears and flushed red. "I do not want to hear what you did next. Starr might think it's romantic, but I never needed to have anyone look at Sage's birthday and do the math."

Blair tried hard not to laugh at his embarrassment. "That's not what I was going to say. What I was going to say was that later that day we were stuck in an elevator. Your father thought it was some sort of sign that he was being punished for marrying me. He thought that—I'm not sure exactly what he thought, maybe that Irene would come back to life and hurt us. But sometimes a broken elevator is just a broken elevator. Sometimes the name of a horse is just the name of a horse."

"I thought you'd say something like that."

"Maybe that's because you know I'm right."

Jack produced his iPad and handed it to Blair. "If I have to have a horse, how about this one? He's a lost cause, just like me."

Blair read the advertisement:

Free horse. Sasha is a 2005 dapple grey registered purebred Egyptian Arabian gelding who needs a home with an advanced rider and a large pasture for consistent turnout as he is extremely high energy. He needs to stretch his legs and be a horse. He is suitable for light riding only. Okay with bathing, clipping, and trailering. Not suitable as a resale project. Not suitable for beginners or new horse owners. Not suitable for children.

"No way, Jack."

"I could handle him. If I can handle Boreas, I can handle this one."

"You are not going to have a horse that dangerous around your little brother and sister."

"Boreas is dangerous."

"Not until you get on his back. He doesn't bite or kick. Hope got under his feet last week and he stood like a statue until Starr got her out of there."

"Starr has a two-headed poisonous snake that she smuggled out of South America!"

"Tweedledee and Tweedledum aren't poisonous," said Blair, although she privately had some doubt about Starr's assurances on that issue. "Besides, they live up on a high shelf in Starr's room where Hope and Sam know they aren't supposed to go. When Starr closes her bedroom door, they can't get in without a key. I want the younger kids to have the run of the stable."

Jack took the iPad back in defeat. "Whatever."

"You are not a lost cause and that horse is not a lost cause, but you don't get to be the one to help him. Not this time."

Their food arrived in front of them just in time to end the conversation.


Todd let himself in the back door of Llanfair in the hopes of avoiding anyone other than Viki or Jessica. Luckily, Jessica and Bree happened to be sitting on the floor with an elaborate doll between them.

"Hi Uncle Todd," said Jessica, nonplussed. She was used to him not announcing himself like a normal person. "What's up?"

"Where's Sam?"

Jessica's eyes widened with horror. "Bree," she said dangerously, "you told me Sam went home with Uncle Todd."

"He did," said Bree. She backed slowly away from Jessica, terrified to see her mother angry.

"No, he didn't," corrected Todd. It took all of his strength not to jump out of his skin and shout at Jessica's little daughter. Blair had finally been convinced to accept him as a partner in their family, and he hadn't lasted a day before losing the boy she had convinced herself he didn't really want. He was going to wring someone's neck, but it wouldn't be Bree's.

Bree burst into tears and made to run from the room, but Jessica grabbed her. "Bree, baby, no one's mad at you. We just need to know what you saw."

"I told you!" said Bree indignantly. "I told you he went with his Daddy."

Jessica paled. "And I told you that you meant Uncle Todd."

"Well, he used to be Uncle Todd!"

Todd extracted a photograph of Viki and Walker from the thousands of pictures cluttered on the accent table. He shoved it in Bree's teary face. "This is who Sam is with?"

"Yes," Bree confirmed.

Todd stormed out of Llanfair, ignoring Jessica's shouted apologies and suggestions of an Amber Alert. He didn't need the police to tell him where Walker would take Sam. Walker didn't want to make any secret of who he was or what he was doing- if he had, he never would have taken Sam in front of dozens of witnesses, at least one of whom knew exactly who he was.

This wasn't about spiriting Sam away, never to be seen again.

This wasn't about catching up with Sam, either. Walker could have told them that he was awake and functioning. He could have asked Blair for time with Sam. Blair would have granted it.

This was about Todd. This was Walker humiliating Todd, undermining Todd to Blair, and demonstrating that he could still take Todd's children away whenever he wanted to.

Todd had made great strides with Jack in the past year, but he would never be the father who had taken Jack to his first horror movie or taught him to play soccer. All those memories were Walker's, and Todd couldn't steal them back the way Walker had stolen Todd's memories.

It took Todd short minutes to reach the house Walker had shared with Tea and Danielle before they'd all left for Tahiti. Todd had left the house in Tea's name without a fight, a small generous act which he now regretted.

Walker opened the door with a smirk as soon as Todd approached.

"Remember that time you 'borrowed' Sam because you wanted to talk to me?" Walker asked.

The self-control Todd had just barely managed to pull together in front of Bree vanished.

He punched Walker, hard, in the jaw.

The next several minutes were a flurry of kicks and punches. Walker had the unfair advantage of knowing exactly how Todd thought and how Todd had learned to fight. Todd had the perfectly fair advantage of not having spent the past year in a coma, and also of being extraordinarily pissed off.

At some point, Walker stopped fighting and Todd kept hitting until Tea pulled him by the hair and screamed at him in Spanish. He understood exactly what she said because the only words she used were obscenities.

He didn't stop because Walker had stopped or because Tea was yelling.

He stopped because Sam was standing on the stairs with his mouth hanging open in disbelief.

Todd regrouped as best as he could when his blood was pumping and his knuckles were bruising. "Sam," he said, "You know you're not supposed to go leave school except with Mom and me or your brother and sister. Or someone on Bree's list."

"But he's my dad," said Sam.

"Yeah," mimicked Walker. "I'm his dad."

"I asked you to be my dad, and you didn't want to," Sam pointed out.

The smirk fell off of Walker's face. It was less satisfying than Todd would have thought. "Tea," said Walker, "file those papers."


On Saturday morning, Blair and Jack returned to finalize the purchase of Tetris. As Blair signed the paperwork, a red roan sauntered over to the edge of a field to whinny at Tetris. "That better be goodbye and not hello," a stable hand said. "No one wants to buy you, because you're a pain in the ass."

Jack, of course, had to have a closer look. "Who is this?" he asked.

"Ginger," the stablehand told him. "Genuine Wyoming mustang. Jumps, does dressage, goes 25 miles a day through the mountains, and a pain in the ass. Can't work at the youth camp."

"Does she bite?"

"No, nothing like that. But she gets nervous when we give her a new rider, and at youth camp we need the horses to take a new kid a few times a day, you know?"

"She for sale?"

"Two grand."

Seeing where Blair's attention had drifted the manager launched into a genuine sales pitch. "Fifteen hands, 1100 pounds. She's been here since 2008. There's no quit in her. As sure footed as any horse around here. She'll go anywhere she can get through. Strong, too. No reason not to breed her if you'd like. She just needs to be handled by the same people every day."

"Can Jack try her?" Blair asked. She hadn't even put her checkbook away; the answer was obvious.

"Sure thing. But remember, she'll be more skittish because she doesn't know him. That's why she's a bargain."

As soon as Blair saw Jack on Ginger's back, she wrote a second check and handed it to the manager. The manager grinned. "You save on shipping this way."

She had come into this trip expecting Jack to choose a horse with a pedigree as long as the Llantano river and a price tag ten times higher than Ginger's. She certainly hadn't expected Jack to choose a mare.

Her children always found ways to surprise her.