Read Online Water Lily by Terri Farley - Free Book Online Page B

the first time since the men had left, Kit looked up at her.
    Darby nodded, but she knew she’d been right about one thing.
    â€œWhat about the helicopters?” Darby folded her arms. “I’ve seen what can happen. There’s no way I could keep quiet.”
    â€œYou started out pretty good,” Kit told her. “Their idea wasn’t great, but they would’ve come around—”
    â€œThey did come around,” Cricket said quietly. “And if they hadn’t, I would have reminded them of that crash in Wyoming.” She looked aside at Kit and said, “A pilot herding wild horses failed to maintain proper altitude.”
    Cricket was right. An example like that, one that showed concern for people as well as horses, would have been more persuasive.
    You started out pretty good, Kit had said, but Mr. Klaus had ended their conversation by joking that she was a kid playing cowgirl.
    Darby knew how she’d made her good beginning go wrong. Embarrassed—no, humiliated!—she replayed her whining about not being included.
    That had zero to do with protecting Black Lava’s herd. She’d sounded like a kid, all right.
    Besides, nothing would convince Kit or Jonah to let her go along on the horse drive if they had qualms about her riding ability.
    And yet Darby only considered running for her bedroom, to hide, for a fraction of a second.
    â€œWhat should I do?” she asked Kit.
    â€œWhat I’m going to do is go take a look at that foal,” Cricket said. “We have a few sick horses at the barn. With luck, this baby’s symptoms won’t be similar.”
    Role model, Darby thought again as she gazed after Cricket.
    Alone with Kit now, Darby blurted, “Are you mad at me?”
    It seemed like forever before Kit shook his head no. “Surprised,” he admitted. “You usually think ahead, act sensible, yeah?”
    Kit grinned at his Hawaiian-sounding sentence, but his eyes turned wise.
    Too wise, Darby thought, for a guy in his twenties.
    â€œKnow what my grandpa Mac used to say at times like this?”
    â€œNo,” she whispered, “but I bet I won’t like it.”
    Kit matched her lopsided smile, then made his pronouncement.
    â€œListen, or your tongue will make you deaf.” Kit stayed quiet as the whir of bird wings passed overhead and the slosh of Navigator drinking at the tack-room trough drifted in to underline what he’d said.
    Darby memorized the words.
    Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf was a better saying than Shut up so you can hear what other people are saying. And she needed to learn that, because even though she’d been too shy to speak up for most of her life, Hawaii seemed to be changing her.
    Or she was changing in Hawaii.
    â€œDon’t get too down on yourself before you help me dump the water barrels.”
    â€œOkay,” Darby agreed, “but what’s your grandfather’s name again?”
    â€œMacArthur Ely,” Kit answered proudly. “He’s the best.”
    Darby followed Kit toward the barrels, but her mind was elsewhere.
    She’d been thinking about adding a chapter to her diary called “Paniolo Wisdom,” but this meant she had to change the title. She might be able to say Kit was part buckaroo and part paniolo but not his Shoshone grandfather.
    But she’d have to solve that problem later. Tipping water from the barrels she and Megan had set out last night, into Hoku’s trough and the water troughs by the tack room, kept Darby focused on lifting and balancing and trying not to get too wet.
    With that chore finished, Kit told Darby to lead each cremello up to the tack room to drink while he walked Cricket to her Jeep, so she could get back to work at the feed store.
    Hoku objected by slamming her corral fence with jealous kicks.
    Afraid the filly would splinter the wood, Darby shouted, “You know I love you best!”
    Though Darby