Read Online Appaloosa Blues (Sisters of Spirit #8) by Nancy Radke - Free Book Online

There were things I wanted to ask you...." Her expression turned serious. “Get your help.”
    Jo sighed, looking around the familiar room they had shared as children. Clothes covered most of the floor, desk and chair, a guitar stood in one corner beside rows of stuffed animals. "Adam knows. Who else?"
    "Johnny's mom and grandparents. They've known all along. And Mike. Adam's been a big help."
    Adam again. Jo couldn't shake him from her thoughts and Karen didn't help. Had Adam urged the two on, just to get back at her grandfather? She wouldn't put it past him. "How can you do this when I've worked so hard to get Gramps over his grief." Including my staying away from Adam. "Throwing Johnny in his face will stir everything up again. You might even cause another heart attack."
    "I know that. Otherwise we'd elope. That's why you've got to help."
    Jo's heart reached out to her younger sister and she bit her lower lip, perplexed. What a dilemma. Karen, sensitive to the birthmark, had missed out on so many things. It would be tragic if she couldn't date Johnny openly, to find out if it was really love, or just the excitement of a secret romance. But they mustn't hurt their grandfather. The old man had already had the cruelest blow life could give him. "I don't know. I don't see as how I can."
    "You’ll have to tell Gramps somehow. You can talk Gramps into anything. Remember how he wanted you to go to college here in Oregon and you talked him into the one in Virginia?"
    "Yes, but—"
    "Well, now he wants me to go to college, too. To Virginia. Really, Jo, he was going on about it all last week."
    "Well, you know how that is. It's always harder for the first child to break away. Once its done, folks get used to the idea. It's easier for the next one who tries it."
    "But that's not fair."
    "No. But that's the way things are."
    "There has to be some way we can tell him."
    "Maybe." Jo shook her head. How could she help Karen when —confronted by an identical situation when Adam tried to date her in high school—she hadn't been able to help herself? She and Adam had the same barrier between them. The accident, and Gramps. "I don't know if I can. I'll try to figure something out. But I don't know what it'll be. Why on earth did you have to fall for Johnny?"
    Karen hugged her gently. "'Cause he's super, that's why. 'Night, Jo."
    Was he as 'super' as Adam? If so, then Jo easily understood her sister's feelings. "Good night," she replied.
    Moving sleepily into her own bedroom, she hauled back the patchwork quilt her great-grandmother had made, folded it very carefully and laid it on the sheepskin rug to put away later.
    Throwing open her window Jo looked up at Adam's house. Karen and Johnny. What to do? Johnny sounded like a cheerful, optimistic young man, much more approachable than Adam—an extrovert, while Adam had been tempered by heavy responsibility.
    Jo liked the sound of Johnny. He and her quiet sister might go well together. Everything would be great for the two except...he was a Trahern.
    "Guess what?" Karen edged into the room, her face wary.
    "What?" Jo took off her robe and opened the closet door.
    "Well...I, uh.... Are you going with anyone right now?"
    "No, not at the moment."
    "Then I've got it! I've figured out a way to get an okay from Grampa!" She smiled hopefully at her puzzled sister.
    Jo paused in the process of reaching for a hanger. "You have? I couldn't think of anything."
    "Yes, you did. It was your idea in the first place. I mentioned it to Johnny on the phone just now. Adam was in the room. We ended up with a three-way conversation."
    Jo pulled on her nightshirt. "What are you talking about? I haven't had any ideas."
    "Sure you did," said Karen, handing her a ham sandwich on a plate. "Here. I made it after I talked to Johnny."
    "Thanks." Jo took a bite. "What idea? If it's so great, why are you acting like you're trying to sell feathers to a fish?"
    "Adam's already agreed to our plan."
    "What plan? Karen, so