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the acrid bite of smog to begin to seem normal.
    Megan closed her eyes to savor the absence of carbon monoxide. She'd never really appreciated that clean air could have a taste, too. It tasted of mountain springs and tall grass, of sagebrush and cotton-wood, of wide open space and endless skies.
    "It's something, isn't it?"
    Startled, Megan opened her eyes to see Gun standing on the ground below where she leaned on the porch railing. **I didn't hear you," she said.
    "Sorry. I'll try to walk harder."
    "I guess I'm so used to dty noises that anything less than a blaring horn just doesn't register," she said, smiling. "I thought you were checking on a mare."

    "She decided to wait another day or two." Gun climbed the steps to join her on the porch. It struck Megan that, for such a big man, he was very light on his feet. "Kel will be up in a bit," he added, seeing her eyes go past him.
    Megan gave what she hoped was a disinterested shrug, as if Kel Bryan's whereabouts were of absolutely no interest to her. She only wished it was true.
    **Are you from this area?" she asked.
    "Bom and raised a few miles north of here," he said, nodding his head in that direction. "My father's ranch borders the Bryan place."
    Megan opened her mouth to ask why he was spending the summer working on the Lazy B when his father owned the neighboring ranch, then closed it without speaking. It was none of her business.
    "My father and I don't see eye to eye," Gun said, apparently reading her mind. "Actually, last time we saw each other, he promised to greet me with a shotgun if I ever set foot on his land again."
    His tone was light but Megan couldn't help but think that there was an underlying note of pain in the words. Or maybe it was just reflecting old hurts of her own onto Gun. All the years she'd wondered what she'd done to cause her parents to walk away from her. It was only in the past few years that she'd finally realized there wasn't anything an eight-year-old could do to deserve abandonment, that it wasn't what she'd done, it was simply what her parents had been.
    "Family's never as simple as The Brady Bunch made it look," she said ruefully.

    "Too bad. Just think how great it would be if every problem could be solved ia half an hour with time left over for commercials."
    "And your biggest problem was whetha* your dad would loan you the car to go to the big dance."
    Gun chuckled. "Or whether your burgundy leisure suit would be ready in time to pick up your date."
    "Now there was a big problem.''
    Kiel saw them laughing together as he came up from the bam and he slowed. They made an attractive couple. Gun lowered his head to hear what Megan was saying and the porch haloed their fair hair, reminding Kel of the illustrations of angels in childhood picture books.
    Or Ken and Barbie, he thought irritably.
    His footsteps were heavier than they needed to be on the porch steps and he was unreasonably pleased when their laughter trailed off. Not that it mattered who M^an laughed with. He sure as hell didn't care. It was just that it was late and he was tired and the two of them standing there laughing like a pair of idiots grated on his nerves.
    "We were just discussing The Brady Bunch as a model for problem solving," Gun said, turning as Kel stepped onto the porch.
    "The Brady Bunch?'* They were discussing a twenty-year-old television show?
    "Sure. The show offered a microcosm of life experience," Gun said, drawing his face into solemn lines. "I think it should be considered on a par with groundbreaking social commentary programs like Leave it To Beaver and Life With Father, * *

    "Let's not forget The Three Stooges,'' Kel said dryly. **Now there was a show filled with deeper meaning."
    "Clearly a statement against the meaningless violence of society." Gun shook his head, drawing his mouth down in a reasonable semblance of professorial concern.
    **I always wanted to be able to twitch my nose Uke Samantha on Bewitched,'' Megan said, sounding wistful.
    "A