The Rancher Next Door

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The bright red bike beckoned Katie Fitzgerald. It lay abandoned in a heap of other more battered bikes, all left behind the ice cream parlor where Katie’s older brother and his friends had gone for an afternoon snack. The pocket of her jeans jingled with the coins her father had given her to keep her out of trouble, and she knew that fresh peach ice cream, her favorite, had been made that morning.

But even more tempting than the thought of cool, creamy ice cream melting on her tongue and slipping down her throat was the realization that this might be her only chance with the bike. The twins, younger by two years, could both ride two-wheelers already, but she couldn’t. Not because she wasn’t coordinated enough but because her parents had never let her try.

It wasn’t her fault that she had been born small, she thought balling her hands into fists. Her father laughingly called her the runt of the litter, which hurt her feelings, but she never let him see the tears in her eyes. Instead she kept her head high and chin thrust out, because she was a Fitzgerald and ten years old, which was practically grown-up.

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