For a moment Alex stood still. He was torn between the desire to run away, and his inability to take his eyes off her. He was quite a distance from the ring. But he could see her as she finished her ride. For a moment she glanced his way, and he could have sworn that she looked at him. Right in the eyes. That's when panic set in; that's when he turned and made his way through the crowd. He put the now sleeping Ryan in his car seat and drove out of there as fast as he could. His eyes were glued to the rear vision mirror all the way home, as if he expected that she had followed him. But she hadn't.

He told himself he was being paranoid. It probably wasn't even her. And if it was then that she probably hadn't seen him. And if she had seen him, then she probably hadn't recognized him. And if she had recognized him then she probably wouldn't have cared.

He had thought LA was a safe place to bring Ryan up. Who would think to look for him here? In this big city? On the other side of the world? Among all these people?

He told himself to calm down. She wasn't looking for him. She was competing in a barrel race.

As the days went by and she didn't show up on his doorstep, Alex relaxed. He sunk back into his hidden life as Marcus Newman.

That brief re-visitation to Alex Ryan's life was over. He began to convince himself he hadn't seen her, it was only someone who looked like her. She had been riding so fast. He couldn't see properly. And he was just overcome with the familiar sights, sounds and smells of the rodeo. He told himself it was all a dream.

During the day he lived the life as Marcus Newman, but in the depth of the night- he was still Alex Ryan. He dreamed of the places that Alex Ryan had lived, and the faces staring back at him in his dreams were the faces of Alex Ryan's life.

The following weekend he and Ryan finished their breakfast early Saturday morning.

"What do you want to do today pal?" Alex asked him.

"I wanna go to the Rodeo" He told his dad.

Alex's heart skipped a beat. He had decided no more rodeo, no more horses, no more anything to do with the life he had struggled to leave behind. But hearing his little boy say he wanted to go to the rodeo… ..he couldn't help but smile. Still, he had to be strong.

"Lets go to the toy store, I'll get you that new game you wanted?" Alex offered.

"No daddy, I want to see the horses!" Ryan protested as he folded his arms across his chest.

"Hey lets go to the beach, we'll get ice cream" Alex tried to tempt his son.

"No. Rooodeo" Ryan repeated.

"What about Disneyland?" Alex offered, his last desperate attempt. He couldn't refuse Ryan much longer.

"No!" Ryan insisted "Rooooodeoooo daddy!"

"We already went to the rodeo, lets do something different" Alex tried again. He was not up for another incident like last week. Too many memories. He couldn't allow himself to step back into that life.

"I wanna go to the rodeo. And when I'm big I'm going to ride in the rodeo. I'm going to ride the horses." Ryan told his father proudly.

Alex had to turn from his son, tears forming in his eyes. Where did this little boy who had been raised on the 10th floor of an apartment building, and never even owned a pet goldfish, had never seen a horse until last week, where did he get this desire from? Alex knew the answer. And he no longer wanted to talk Ryan out of going to another rodeo.

They packed the car and headed off to another small town where there was a rodeo event that weekend. Alex told himself he had imagined everything last week. He just got scared and carried away, and he wouldn't let it happen again. Maybe this was something he and Ryan could do together on a regular basis. Maybe when Ryan was old enough to start school, he could start riding lessons.

Alex enjoyed himself more the second time at the rodeo with his son. He began explaining all about the events to Ryan, and Ryan was hanging on every word, although Alex guessed he didn't understand half of it. Alex decided this was a time for new memories to be created. The past would no longer haunt him. This was something new, something to share with his son. And when Ryan sat next to him, gazing up at him as if he was the most important person in the word, Alex felt more fulfilled than ever in his life.

It was now time for the team roping event. Alex explained the event to Ryan who nodded a lot and smiled at his dad. Ryan turned his full attention to the event, and Alex smiled down at his boy, and then did the same. It was then he saw her again. Or the one that had looked like her. That's what he told himself. He felt himself sinking down in his chair, although this time they were closer to the back of the crowd, she wouldn't have seen him. He watched her. Trying to decide, if it was her, if it looked like her? She was riding fast, they were close to the back of the crowd, he couldn't see. Its not her, its not her , its not her...he repeated to himself inside his head. Satisfied with this he turned from the girl and gave his attention to the second rider in the team.

It was the horse he noticed first. He'd been around horses all of his life. He got to know them well. And he recognized that horse. Then he slowly turned his attention to the person on top of that second horse, half afraid, half excited. He held his breath as he saw her hair. But its only hair. Lots of people have that color hair. But as he saw her face suddenly there was no doubt.

That horse! He'd been there when that horse was born. It was years ago, but he'd been there. It was a young foal when last he saw it, now it was a champion. It was years ago, and the horse was going so fast, and all horses sort of looked the same. But there was no doubt in his mind. That horse was Starlight.

And the girl on Starlight's back! She was hardly a girl anymore. He had known her most of her life, and if he cast his mind back far enough he even recalled the time that girl had been born.

He wanted to run. But how could he do that without Ryan throwing a tantrum? He took a deep breath and told himself he was safer in the crowd. That why he came to the city, to be lost in the crowd. So that no one could find him.

Then the thought struck him- if the two of them were here, perhaps there were more of 'them'. Those people that belonged in Alex Ryan's life in rural Australia. Those people that didn't belong here. Those people that could destroy everything he worked so hard to build for Ryan's future.

He looked back to the horse. A champion. The night that horse was born had been one of his last nights in Australia. The foal was severely injured. Alex was going to shoot it. He didn't want to. The horse was from champion stock, and was a long awaited arrival on Killarney. But a bullet really was the kindest thing.

She had begged him to just wait until the morning. It seemed to him to be cruel, and just delaying the inevitable. But he relented. He didn't have the strength to say no. All of a sudden she reminded him so much of her sister. And he couldn't say no. He went to bed. She sat with that horse all night. And in the morning the horse was better. Each day he grew stronger.

Now that horse was fulfilling the dreams Alex had for it. That horse was a champion. That horse was 'Starlight'.

And the rider. He remembered the week she had been born. Not that it was an exciting event for him. But he heard all about it from Claire. How Meg was so busy with the new baby, the baby cried all day, the baby smelled bad…Alex knew Claire was jealous about sharing Meg's attention, but she wouldn't admit it.

The rider was Jodi Fountain. Jodi McLeod. Jodi whatever her name is now. She might be married Alex thought to himself. While Claire was alive no one knew that Jodi was really her half sister. But now when Alex looked at Jodi, he saw so much Claire in her, it was hard to imagine that no one guessed earlier. It broke his heart to think that Jodi and Claire never got to be 'sisters'. Although they fought like siblings at times, he remembered.

And the other rider. The girl from the barrel race last week. It had been her. She was hardly a girl now. She was Ryan's sister. Half sister. Did she even know she had a brother? Ryan certainly had no idea he had a big sister out there, or that he was watching her at this very moment in the team roping event. What was Alex doing keeping them apart? He silently reminded himself of all the reasons it had to be this way. But as he watched the remainder of the event, he looked up at her, and he saw the similarities. He never realized before the resemblance they both shared with their mother. Seeing her ride, it would be easy to mistake Rose for her mother.