"Jessie loved her and she got sold. I feel that if I can find that horse, I can find Jessie." Nathan paused and put his feet up on the table at the Northeast Edmonton Mountie office. He'd been lucky to find a private room with a telephone, though at this hour there weren't many Constables around. "See if you can guess the name of the horse, and here's a hint. You know a horse with the same name." Nathan said.

"Hmmmm," Elizabeth said, thinking. "I'm assuming this is a signpost, because you are completely a believer now. Okay, Bear and Sergeant are very male, and you already said she. The name Sarah would move it from a signpost into the supernatural, so I'm not guessing that. Not Toby or Rio... It's either Sugar or Sunset. I'll guess Sugar."

Nathan laughed. "You had a fifty-fifty chance!"

"No, it's Sunset?" She laughed too. "Oh, so close!"

"Close only counts in horseshoes and darts, angel."

"Ah, yes, darts. I seem to remember getting a bullseye in darts once. It just happened to be in your beer," Elizabeth said, giggling. "I couldn't make that shot again if I had a thousand tries." Her voice became tender. "But it's where I wanted it to go."

Nathan said, "So are you saying that you were flirting with me?"

Nodding, Elizabeth said, "I'll admit I wasn't very good at it. But just as a reference, if a woman throws a dart in your beer after putting cupcake frosting on your nose, she's flirting with you!"

Laughing, he said, "Let me write that down..."

"Don't bother, you won't need it. I'm the only one you'll be flirting with, and I promise to be more clear about it in future," Elizabeth said.

"A-HEM," Allie said from the doorway. "Young child entering the room to speak with her father."

Elizabeth laughed and said into the phone, "Your daughter would like to talk to you. I'll come back and say goodnight when you two are done."

"You'd better," Nathan said.

"Here she is," Elizabeth said, handing the phone to Allie.

"Hi, Dad!" Allie said. "How's the big city?"

"Still big and noisy and smelly," Nathan said. "How was Hattie's birthday party?"

"Big and noisy and not smelly. It was actually really fun. We played games, and they had chocolate cake."

"Your favorite," Nathan said. "Listen, Allie, I'm working on something, and I'd really like to get your point of view."

Allie raised her eyebrows. This was a first. "Sure."

"I'm going to ask you what you would do in a hypothetical situation, okay? Let's say Sarah doesn't belong to you, and she's being stabled at the livery."

"Okay," Allie said.

"Feeling the way you do about Sarah, what would you do if the livery sold her to someone else and she went away?" Nathan asked.

"I'd find out where she went," Allie said.

"And then what?"

"I'd tell you I wanted her back and ask what we had to do to get her," Allie said.

"And what if I told you that we couldn't do anything. The new owners don't want to let go of her, and that's that?"

"I'd go see them and try to convince them."

"Would you ask me first?" Nathan said.

Allie laughed softly. "Are we still talking hypothetical?"

Laughing too, Nathan said, "Yes."

"No, I wouldn't ask you because you'd tell me I couldn't. And you'd be right because it might be dangerous. But feeling the way I do about Sarah, I'd have to at least try."

Nathan took a deep breath. "We may have to make you an honorary Mountie, Allie. Thanks."

"Is that why Jessie is missing?" Allie said. "They sold her horse?"

Nathan knew that Elizabeth had talked with Allie about what he was doing in Edmonton, but this was one of those times that Allie sounded so adult, so mature, that it almost took Nathan's breath away.

"We think that might be the reason. And I wanted your perspective because you're the same age and you love Sarah so much," Nathan said.

"I hope you find her. She's got to be scared," Allie said.

"I'll bet she is," Nathan said. He paused. "Allie?"

"Yeah?"

"If you ever feel that you've hit a brick wall with me, just punch right through it, okay? I don't ever want you to feel like you have to run away to get heard," Nathan said.

Allie said, "Okay." She smiled. "You don't mean actually punch, right?"

Nathan laughed. "Use your words first. Then warn me. If I still don't listen, you can punch me. Softly."

"I love you, Dad," Allie said.

"I love you, Allie. Sleep tight. And get your mom, please."

Elizabeth came back on the line. "Why is Allie grinning like that?"

"I asked her to help me, tell me what she would do if Sarah got sold out from under her," Nathan said.

"What did she say?"

"That she would try to talk about it first and if that didn't work, she would go after her," Nathan said. "First thing in the morning, I'll ask a Mountie from Spruce Grove to go out to the stables and find out where Jessie's horse is. Then we'll go from there."

"That was very sweet of you to include Allie. That's why she was grinning," Elizabeth said softly.

Nathan said, "It may have been sweet, but she really helped me. At least now I have some direction."

While Nathan and Elizabeth talked on the telephone, there was a young girl in Lamoureux, Alberta who was whispering softly to a pretty Appaloosa named Sunset.

Jessie Fletcher was tall for her age, and she'd had no trouble convincing the owner of the Lamoureux Stable and Livery that she was seventeen. That and her excellent work ethic had gotten her a job mucking out stalls and feeding and grooming the horses. When Mr. Bailey had realized she didn't have a place to live, he'd even given her the loft above the stables to sleep in.

There were plenty of young people with no families working on their own in Edmonton. In Spruce Grove, Jessie would have drawn attention, but the Lamoureux suburb of Edmonton wasn't a place anyone would generally run to. As long as she didn't mess up, she had a good place to sleep, she was saving money, and she was relatively happy.

It was warm and safe at the livery and Jessie loved the sounds and smells of the stable. But the best part was that she got to say her first good morning and her last goodnight to Sunset.

Of course, Mr. Bailey had no idea that Jessie was a girl. As far as he was concerned, he'd hired a seventeen-year-old boy named Jamie. It was hard at first to cut off all her hair, but now that she'd been passing as a boy for almost three weeks, she was finding that all that hair was a bit of a nuisance anyway. And the skirts, and the petticoats, and everything else that she was supposed to live up to.

As Jessie brushed Sunset tenderly, she closed her eyes. She had only said once that her dream was barrel-riding with Sunset, and her mom's reaction was so severe that she'd never said another word. For Stella, school was the only answer, and Jessie knew on one level that school was the smart path – but there were other things in life. She'd come into riding too late for world-class rodeo anyway, and Jessie knew it. But the happiest she ever felt was when she was around horses. And this horse in particular.

Sunset needed her, and that was a powerful feeling, to be needed by a gentle, loving, thousand-pound animal that you also loved to distraction.

She knew that Stella had to be going crazy right now, but after this was over she could come home – with Sunset. Mr. Bailey had learned after buying her from the Bar-S in Spruce Grove that Sunset had a problem with her eyes. She had a condition that was common to Appaloosas – she was sensitive to light, and she needed an ointment gently massaged around her eyes every night to keep her from going blind. It was more trouble than Mr. Bailey wanted to go to, so he was willing to sell her to Jessie in exchange for six months of work.

Sunset needed to be ridden, but since the sun bothered her, Jessie got to ride her every night. She knew all the paths by heart, and when there was no glare to contend with, Sunset was a joyful girl who loved the wind in her mane. With the moon overhead, they had found a sort of heaven together.

Jessie thought Sunset's name was a great example of irony.

She was trying hard to keep up with her studies because Jessie had no intention of not graduating from school. It might be a year later, but she would get her diploma. She'd brought all her school books and was reading every day and trying to adhere to a lesson plan of sorts.

The hardest part was knowing how desperate Stella must be. Jessie had no desire to cause pain to her mother – she loved her very much. But she kept telling herself that this was only for a short time, and then things would go back to normal.

Lately, Jessie had been having risky thoughts – of somehow getting a note to Stella to let her know she was okay. If she could only stick it out for the full six months, there would be no danger that she'd be discovered. Taking a chance like that meant she might lose it all.

But Jessie was a naturally kind person, and not a day went by that she didn't think of Stella and how distraught she must be. It was the only dark spot for Jessie right now.

Her mother wasn't a bad person, she just didn't understand that Jessie was grown up and could make her own choices. Stella still saw her as a child, but here she was; making a living, being responsible, setting goals for herself and following through on them. Those were all the things that her mom had told her were important.

"Goodnight, girl," Jessie said softly, kissing Sunset's neck. "Good girl." Sunset nuzzled her and leaned in, her favorite way of saying goodnight.

Jessie cleaned and put away the tack and walked down the line of twelve horses. She already knew all their names, their quirks, where they liked be to scratched, the various sounds they made and what they meant. She knew which ones were restless, which ones didn't like the coyotes calling outside, which ones wanted oats more than hay, and whether they slept head in or out.

And the reason Jessie wanted so much to graduate from school is that right after, she was going to veterinary college. This was the life she wanted, no matter what anyone else wanted for her.

But if she hadn't run away, if she'd kept to her mother's plan instead of her own, she never would have found this. She had followed one horse and had found her heart's desire.

After making sure all the gates were closed and locked, and that everyone was safe and happy, Jessie climbed the ladder. She slept on a bed of hay, fragrant and soft, and the small lantern she used to read by was set up on a wooden box. She had two chapters of Jane Eyre to finish tonight, and sunrise came early.

Most readers of Jane Eyre knew that Pilot was Mr. Rochester's dog, but Jessie would guess that of those, very few knew the name of his spirited, jet black horse. She knew. It was Mesrour and the name came from The Arabian Nights, where the character by that name was the chief executioner. Jessie smiled. Who says you have to be in a schoolroom with a teacher, to learn? All it takes is motivation, dedication and steady progress. Just as Stella had always told her.

Jessie had to believe that on some level, her mother would be proud of her. But she still kept feeling a need to ease her mind. After reading her chapters, washing up and changing into her clean sleeping shirt and pants, Jessie knelt down and closed her eyes.

Thank you, God, for another day in this beautiful place. Please give Mom some peace, and help me to know the best thing to do. And as always, thanks for Sunset.

Nathan couldn't know that as he talked with Elizabeth from the room in Northeast Edmonton that Jessie was only nine miles away in Lamoureux, closing her eyes in a bed of hay and dreaming of a life with horses.

It was late, and Nathan and Elizabeth needed to wrap up the phone call so that Florence could go home. Both Florence and Fiona relaxed the rules for the Grants because they knew that talking to each other was like breathing for them.

Elizabeth said softly. "Just before we hang up, I have a little news for you, although you'll find this out as soon as you get home anyway."

Nathan frowned. "That's mysterious. What?"

"You know how you and I had this long mature discussion about Jack calling you Nathan, because he'd always called you that and wouldn't understand the whole concept of changing Nathan to Dad, and also he was a Thornton, and on and on..."

"Yes," Nathan said. "That was a long discussion."

"Well," Elizabeth said, "Jack has overruled us."

"Uh-oh," Nathan said. "Now I'm afraid. What's he calling me?"

"Dad."

There was silence on the other end of the line, and Elizabeth let him have the time. She knew, more than anyone, how completely and utterly Nathan loved Jack, from the very first moment he'd seen him.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low and rough. "Well, isn't that something?"

"Yes," Elizabeth said, her voice a little shaky too.

"Do me a favor, angel? Nathan asked.

"Anything," Elizabeth said softly.

"Tell Jack his dad says goodnight," Nathan said.