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hissed.
    â€œDon’t start grinding on her yet,” Ann told Darby.
    â€œWhat?” Darby was amazed at the warning in Ann’s tone.
    â€œYour mom. I know you want to smooth things out between her and Jonah, and I know you want to stay here with Hoku—”
    â€œAnd we want you to stay,” Megan added.
    â€œâ€”but just hang back for a little while,” Ann concluded.
    Ellen’s voice floated over her ring of admirers.
    â€œâ€¦not exactly on Easy Street, but things are going well enough that Darby and I will be able to flee the suburbs for the city. I’ve got my eye on a high-rise apartment with a view of the Hollywood hills….”
    Aunt Babe must have felt Darby’s alarm, because she slid her a calming look. It didn’t work. A sickening sweet smell welled up from Aunt Babe’s orchid lei. Darby felt light-headed, as if she were falling toward the flowers’ peach-streaked throats.
    Ann brushed Darby’s hair away from her ear.
    â€œI know what I’m talking about,” Ann whispered. “If you take her on here and now, you’ll lose.”
    â€œThat goes for Jonah, too,” Megan insisted, because Darby’s grandfather had just stepped into view. He looked toward Ellen, shading his eyes. “Right, Cade?”
    When Cade shrugged, Megan leaned toward him, nose to nose.
    â€œI know you agree.”
    Cade looked down at his boots. He showed no sign of the confident kid he’d been last night, until Megan rephrased her question.
    â€œCade, what would you say to Jonah if you were in Darby’s place right now?”
    Cade slid his hand under his paniolo braid and rubbed the back of his neck.
    â€œNothin’, just…nothin’.” But then he looked up. His brown eyes met Darby’s. “Don’t saddle ’em upand make ’em prance for you, yeah? Not yet. Give ’em some time.”
    Darby was pretty sure she understood, and though Megan and Ann looked dubious, they both said, “See?”
    Darby sighed. Her friends cared about her. They thought they knew best, and maybe they did.
    But Darby’s mind wouldn’t stop replaying something she knew.
    In the city there’d be no place for a wild horse.

Chapter Seven
    W ith his deadline looming, Mark Larson finally left the celebration, but he’d extracted a promise from Ellen Kealoha to do a full interview the next time she visited Moku Lio Hihiu.
    As the reporter departed, Darby saw Jonah stroll toward the corral of cremellos.
    It was just like Jonah to be invisible until the TV crew had left. Darby couldn’t blame him for not wanting a reunion—especially one this uncertain—to be shown on television.
    Most people knew the Kealohas’ story already. Generations of “secrets” were confided and discussed on the small island, but Jonah had spotted a place where they might still have some privacy.
    Earlier, visitors had admired the herd of cream-colored horses, but now most people were leaving for home or drifting past the corral to walk on the resort’s famed white-sand beach.
    Megan must have seen Jonah, too, because she thrust Stormbird’s halter rope at Darby and said, “He’s sleepy and hungry. Could you take him back to Flight?”
    Darby would have pushed the chore onto Cade, but he was nowhere in sight. All at once Darby realized the woman she had not quite recognized in the crowd could have been Cade’s mother, Dee. Could Cade be with her?
    Megan and Ann disappeared before Darby could ask, and since Stormbird was sucking on her fingers, underlining his need for a snack, Darby turned to her mother.
    â€œMom, would you like to see Stormbird’s mother, Flight? And the rest of Aunt Babe’s cremello horses?”
    â€œI’d love to! I don’t know anything about cremellos,” her mom said, following in her clacking heels while Darby told her all she could remember.
    Aunt Babe