COLE WAS PUTTING FRESH HAY INTO THE EMPTY STALLS WHEN several of the girls who'd been riding marched into the stable. "Diana, we need to talk to you about Corey," Haley Vincennes announced. Cole looked up from his chore, took one look at the group, and knew that the all-girl jury was about to deliver their verdict. And it wasn't going to be a good one.

Diana obviously sensed it, too, and tried to head them off, her voice sweet and persuasive. "I know you'll all like Corey when you get to know her, and then we'll all be good friends."

"That just can't happen," Haley decreed with haughty finality. "None of us have anything in common with somebody from a hick town we've never even heard of. I mean, did you see that sweatshirt she was wearing last week when you brought her over here? She said her grandmother painted that horse's head on it for her."

"I liked it," Diana said stubbornly. "Corey's grandmother is an artist!"

"Artists paint on canvases not sweatshirts, and you know it. And I will bet you a month's allowance those jeans she's wearing today came from Sears!"

A chorus of murmured laughter from the other girls was proof they agreed; then Barb Hayward finally added her vote to the majority opinion, but she looked a little timid as she decreed poor Corey's fate: "I don't see how she can be our friend, or yours either, Diana."

Cole winced with empathy for Corey and with sympathy for poor little Diana, who he was certain would buckle under the intense peer pressure, but poor little Diana didn't give an inch, even though her voice never lost its softness. "I'm really sorry you all feel that way," she said sincerely, directing her words to Haley, who Cole already knew was the leader in this and the nastiest of the dissenters. "I guess I never realized you'd be afraid of the competition if you gave her a chance."

"What competition?" Barb Hayward asked, looking baffled but concerned.

"Competition with boys. I mean, Corey is very pretty, and she's lots of fun, so naturally the boys are going to be hanging around her wherever she goes."

In the stall across from the girls, Cole paused, pitchfork in hand, a smile of admiration on his mouth, as he realized Diana's strategy. As he'd learned while working there, boys were the most desirable, most valued of commodities to teenage girls, and the possibility that Corey might attract more boys into their collective lair was almost irresistible. He was wondering if that possibility wouldn't be outweighed in their minds by the threat that Corey might steal their existing boyfriends, when Diana interjected smoothly, "Of course, Corey already has a boyfriend back home, and she isn't interested in having another one here."

"I think we should give her a chance and take some time to get to know her before we make up our minds we don't want her in the group," Barb said in the earnest, hesitant tone of a girl who knows the difference between right and wrong, but who lacks the courage to be a leader.

"I'm so glad!" Diana said happily. "I knew you wouldn't let me down. If you had, I'd have missed all of you—I'd have missed sharing some of my best clothes with you, and missed having you go with us to New York next summer."

"Missed us? What do you mean?"

"I mean that Corey is going to be my best friend. And best friends have to stick together."

When the others left to return to the party, Cole strolled out of the stall, startling Diana. "Tell me something," he said with a conspiratorial grin. "Does Corey really have a boyfriend back home?"

Diana nodded slowly. "Yes."

"Really?" Cole asked dubiously, noticing the guilty laughter in her sparkling eyes. "What's this boyfriend's name?"

She bit her lip. "It's sort of an odd name."

"How odd?"

"Promise you won't tell anyone?"

Enchanted with her face, her voice, her loyalty, and her cleverness, Cole drew an X over his heart with his index finger.

"His name is Sylvester."

"And he's a—?" Cole prompted.

Her gaze mischievously slid away from his, her curly russet lashes casting shadows on her cheekbones as they lowered over the jade of her eyes. "A pig," she confessed.

Her voice had been so low, and Cole had been so certain that Sylvester was a dog or cat, that he thought he had misunderstood. "A pig?" he repeated. "As in oink? As in piglet?"

She nodded. "As in 'hog,' actually," she admitted as she lifted glowing green eyes to his. "Corey told me he's huge, and he tags after her at home like a cocker spaniel. At her old home, I mean."

At that moment, Cole decided that Corey was a very lucky girl to have a diminutive but potent champion like Diana Foster to help her bridge the social gulf. Unaware of his silent compliments, Diana glanced at him. "Is there anything to drink inhere? I'm really thirsty."

Cole smiled. "Deceit is hard work, isn't it? And there's nothing like going to battle against a half-dozen stuck-up girls to work up a thirst, is there?"

Unabashed, she rolled her eyes at him and smiled. She was spunky as hell, Cole decided, but with a unique soft-spoken style that completely belied her determination and courage. "Sure," he relented, tipping his head to the rear of the stable. "Help yourself."

At the end of the hallway, on the right, Diana found a small room that she assumed was Cole's, with a single bed made up with military perfection and an old desk with an ancient lamp. Books and papers were neatly stacked on the desk and one of them was open. Opposite the bedroom, to the left of the hallway, was a bathroom and tucked behind that was a kitchen area containing only a sink, a small stove, and a miniature refrigerator like the one under Diana's father's bar at home. Diana assumed the refrigerator would be stocked with soft drinks for everyone's use, but when she opened it, there was nothing inside but a package of hot dogs, a carton of milk, and a box of cereal.

She was surprised to see that he kept his cereal in the refrigerator and even more surprised that although this refrigerator was obviously for his use he didn't keep much food in it. Puzzled, she closed the door and filled a paper cup up with water from the sink. When she dropped the cup into the little trash can, she saw two apple cores in it. The apples she brought had been old and soft and completely unappetizing, and she couldn't imagine why he would eat one, let alone two of them. Unless he was hungry. Very, very hungry.

The empty refrigerator and the apple cores were on her mind as she paused to pet a pretty palomino quarter horse; then she returned to the stable entrance to see how Corey was doing. Three girls were talking to her near the corral.

"Do you think you should go out there, in case she needs more help?"

"No, Corey will be fine. She's really great, and they'll find that out. Besides, I don't think she'd like it if she thought I was sort of… helping things along."

"You're quite a 'helper outer,' " Cole joked, then realized she was embarrassed, and hastily said, "What if they decide they don't like her?"

"Then she'll make lots of other friends on her own. Besides, these girls aren't really close friends of mine, particularly not Haley. Neither is Barbara. It's Doug I really like."

Cole gaped at her, thinking of Barbara's extremely tall and very gangly brother. "Doug is your boyfriend?"

She shot him an odd look and sat down on a bale of hay near the open doors. "No, he's my friend, not my boyfriend."

"I thought you were a little short for him," Cole joked, rather enjoying her company. "What's your real boyfriend like?" he asked as he reached for a big red plastic glass he'd left on the windowsill earlier.

"Actually, I don't have a boyfriend. What about you, do you have a girlfriend?"

Cole nodded and took a swallow of water.

"What's she like?" Diana asked.

He propped his foot on the bale of hay near her hip and leaned his forearm on his knee, looking out through a side window that faced the house, and Diana had the feeling that he had drifted very far away. "Her name is Valerie Cooper."

There was a long pause.

"And?" Diana prompted. "Is she blond or dark, short or tall, blue eyes or brown?"

"She's blond and tall."

"I wish I was," she confessed with a wistful look.

"You want to be blond?"

"No," she said, and Cole laughed. "I want to be tall."

"Unless you're planning an amazing growth spurt, you'd better aim for blond," Cole advised lightly. "In your case, blond would be a little easier to achieve."

"What color are her eyes?"

"Blue."

Diana was fascinated. "Have you been going together very long?"

Cole belatedly realized he was not only socializing with one of his employer's guests, which was totally unacceptable, but that the guest was fourteen years old and the conversation was entirely too personal. "Since high school," he said briefly as he straightened and turned to leave.

"Does she live in Houston?" Diana pressed, sensing the conversation was over but rather hoping it wasn't.

"She goes to UCLA. We see each other whenever we can, usually during the holidays."

The birthday party continued for hours, ending with a huge cake served on the lawn, where Barbara opened piles of gifts; then everyone went inside while the servants cleaned up outdoors. Diana had started to follow along when she noticed that half the chocolate birthday cake was still left, and she thought about those lonely hot dogs in Cole's empty refrigerator. On a whim, she walked back to the table and cut a huge chunk off the corner because he'd get more frosting on such a piece; then she took it down to the stable.

Cole's reaction to the chocolate cake was almost comically ecstatic. "You are looking at the owner of the world's biggest sweet tooth, Diana," he said as he took the plate and fork.

He was already eating the cake as he headed down the hall toward his room. Diana watched him for a moment, aware for the first time that people she actually knew, actually came in contact with, didn't always have enough to eat. As she turned away, she decided to bring extra snacks whenever she went to the Haywards, but she sensed instinctively that she'd have to find a way to give them to him that wouldn't make him think it was charity.

She knew nothing about college men, but she knew something about pride, and everything about Cole made her think he had a great deal of it.