“Jack, that’s what’s so great!” Ashley’s smile was wide enough to crinkle her cheeks. “We’re taking her with us! Mom said the girl was dumped at a truck stop down by Cokeville, and no one else can shelter her right now. It’s an emergency, Jack. She’s coming here—it’s already settled.”
“Great. Just great. Now I’ll get stuck baby-sitting some little girl, and I’ll never get to take any good shots,” Jack complained, mentally hanging on to that picture of the cliff dwelling in the photography magazine. It wouldn’t do much good to moan about it now, since his parents had already said yes to the foster child.
Sure, it was important to help people in need, but sheltering kids during emergencies often turned Jack’s life upside down. He liked things to be neat. Orderly. In place. He wanted to feel in control. Now his trip and his whole life were completely messed up. Well, maybe not his whole life, but—
“Quit looking so mad!” Ashley, whose hair hung down her back in a braided rope, chirped, “Mom says the foster girl won’t slow anything down at all. So, are you going to come out into the living room and meet her when she comes, or are you just going to sit here looking like a grump?”
“I don’t know.” Jack threw his magazine onto the bed where his T-shirts and shorts and socks lay in neat piles, ready to go into his duffel bag. Next to them was his camera with four rolls of film, a package of lens-cleaning tissues, and an extra lens cap, just in case he lost one. “I gotta finish packing,” he decided. “I can meet her in the morning.”
“Up to you!” Tossing her braid in protest, Ashley left the room.
Jack unzipped his duffel bag and started putting things inside it. Just because I don’t want another foster kid right now, does that make me a bad person? he wondered, feeling a little guilty. His sister, Ashley, who was only ten and a half, loved it when new kids came crashing into their lives. Their father, Steven Landon, welcomed the extra children—he’d once been a foster kid himself. Their mother, Olivia Landon, would have taken foster children full time, instead of just for short-term emergencies, if she hadn’t worked at such a demanding job. Olivia, a veterinarian, frequently was called to national parks to help solve problems concerning wildlife, which was exactly the reason they were heading for Mesa Verde National Park in the morning.
Two days earlier, a cougar had attacked a boy hiking a nature trail. All of Mesa Verde was in an uproar, so the park officials had done what many of the other parks around the country did when they had animal trouble—they’d called Olivia Landon for help.
Often when Olivia traveled to the parks as a consultant, Steven and Jack and Ashley went with her. Now there’d be another person tagging along. Jack sighed. Why did foster kids always need help at the worst possible times?
When everything was stowed inside his duffel, Jack sprawled across the foot of his bed and picked up Photography Today. Once more he turned to the picture of the cliff dwellings, trying to figure out whether the photographer who took the picture had used a color filter on his lens. There was so much to learn about photography. His dad was still learning after 20 years behind a camera lens. Jack lost himself in the pages of the magazine, reading article after article about zoom lenses and filters and fancy, expensive tripods.
Once again his door banged open. “I know you’re not happy about this, but trust me, Jack. You gotta come,” Ashley said. Even though she was trying to speak softly so she wouldn’t be overheard, excitement bubbled up through her voice.
“No, I don’t gotta,” Jack answered.
“But she’s here,” Ashley murmured. “She’s fantastic! Wait till you see her, Jack. Her name’s Lucky.”
“Sounds like a dog.”
“A dog!” Ashley started to giggle. “Some dog. Come on, Jack. I left her all alone in the living room. Mom and Dad and the social worker are in the kitchen talking—about Lucky, I bet.”
“I’m ready for bed.”
“Come on—quit stalling.” Ashley stomped her foot impatiently. “If you won’t come, you’re being rude. Lucky really wants to meet you. Rude! Hear me?” The door slammed loudly behind Ashley’s retreating figure.
“Yeah, and close the door on your way out,” Jack muttered sarcastically. He slid off the bed onto his knees. If Ashley told their parents that he was being impolite to one of the foster kids, he’d get into trouble. “Fine, just…fine! I’ll go meet her. Then will everyone just leave me alone?” Grumbling to himself, he pulled on a pair of jeans, but danged if he’d wear shoes. Bare feet ought to be good enough for meeting some little girl named after a dog.
The extra-long T-shirt he used for sleeping hung down almost to his knees, and the jeans were too short because he’d been growing a lot lately, and he’d already packed his new ones. As he glanced into the mirror, he saw that he looked kind of weird, but he didn’t care. Barefoot and tousle haired, with a droopy shirt and outgrown jeans, he slouched down the hall to the living room.
At first he didn’t see her. Then he heard her voice. “You’re Jack, right?” she asked, smiling.
Perfect white teeth. Warm smile. Jack barely registered the dimples because his attention was caught by her eyes—fringed with thick, dark lashes and as green as the four-leaf clover she wore on a chain around her neck. He’d never, not once in his whole life, seen anything—anyone—like her.
“It’s great to meet you,” Lucky told him softly.
Stunned, he blurted, “They said you were a little kid! How old are you?” and immediately felt like a jerk. What a way to start a conversation!
“Sorry to disappoint you. I’m thirteen,” she answered. “And you’re what? Fifteen?”
Ashley burst out laughing. “Fifteen! Come on, Lucky. He’s only twelve.”
Jack stammered, “I’m practically thirteen.”
“Practically? Oh, yeah, right,” Ashley snorted. “You won’t be thirteen till—”
Before Ashley could finish, Lucky broke in, “I bet I thought you were older because you’re so tall. You’re a whole lot taller than I am. You could pass for high school, easy.”
He straightened his spine as far as it would go until he realized that stretching himself made his too-short jeans rise up even higher above his ankles.
“I bet you’re glad you came to meet her now, aren’t you?” Ashley snickered, “Some dog, huh, Jack?”
Still smiling, but looking puzzled, Lucky asked, “Dog? What do you mean?”
“Oh, just that my dumb brother Jack said that with a name like Lucky, you must be a—”
Jack leaped to his feet so fast he felt his own teeth rattle. He grabbed his sister’s arm and growled, “Come with me, Ashley. Now!”
“Why? Where?”
“We’re going to get Lucky a drink.”
“That would be great,” Lucky murmured. “A Coke, if you’ve got one. Or, water’s fine.”
Ashley writhed under Jack’s grip as she argued, “Both of us don’t need to go….”
“Yes, we do!” Eyes blazing, Jack dragged his sister into the hall.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “What did I do?”
He lit into her with a hissing tirade of furiously whispered words, telling her how she’d humiliated him and that she’d just better figure out when to keep her mouth shut if she knew what was good for her. Stung, Ashley looked at him, wide-eyed. “I was only teasing, Jack. Geesh, when did you get so sensitive?”
Clamping her arm even tighter, Jack ordered, “I don’t want you embarrassing me in front of Lucky. Now, you go back into that living room and talk nice