Wade - A Love Like Ours

T welve-year-old Jake Porter never felt a hundred percent right unless Lyndie James was beside him.

She was his sidekick. Or maybe he was hers. She was the one with the flair and the imagination. He was the one with the even temper and the sense.

They were a pair.

Jake stood at the edge of the pond, watching Lyndie try to skip a stone. Without bouncing even once, her rock dropped straight into the afternoon sunshine sparkling on the top of the water. Another dud. Her fifth dud in a row.

Well, shoot, Lyndie muttered. Standing halfway up to her knees in the pond, she bent over to look for another rock.

Hold still. Ill get one for you. He didnt want her cutting her foot on a piece of glass or a sharp stone. Jake put his boots on just about as soon as he got up in the mornings. But Lyndie only wore shoes when her mom made her. He sort of wished her mom made her more often.

He handed her the two smoothest, flattest rocks he could find. Lyndie was ten. For a girl who could do almost anything else, she was getting kind of old not to be able to skip a stone.

Jakes brother Ty approached them. Still cant skip one, Lyndie? He grabbed a rock and showed her how to use her wrist. Like this. See?

Jake frowned at his brother, irritated. Ty was only fifteen months older than Jake, but he acted like he knew everything. It annoyed Jake, sometimes, to be the youngest of the three Porter brothers. He was only older than his sister, Dru, which didnt even count. She was just two years old.

Ty sent his rock flying and it bounced off the water four times, leaving circles. Ty had always loved for people to watch him do stuff, so he picked up another rock and did it all over again. See that?

Lyndie doesnt need your help. Jake had already shown her how to skip a rock lots of times. She just needs practice.

Ty looked at Lyndie and lifted one eyebrow. I skipped one twenty times once.

Lyndies eyes rounded.

Anger shot though Jake. No, you didnt. The most Ive ever seen you do is six.

That one time, at the Millers house?

No.

Ty shrugged and pushed sweat off his forehead with his wrist. Im getting hot.

Now that the spring weather had turned warm, the Porter brothers and Lyndie spent their weekends riding horses, exploring, and seeing what kind of orneriness they could get themselves into when their parents werent paying attention.

Im going to jump in, Ty said.

Youre not supposed to, Jake warned.

Who said?

Dad.

Nah. I dont remember that.

Ty definitely remembered. Their dad had told them more than once that they werent supposed to swim in the pond without permission or without an adult around.

Jake looked toward their older brother Bo, who was sitting against the trunk of a nearby tree reading a book about horses. Bo was sixteen. Their mom had made him come along to keep an eye on the rest of them.

Jake cleared his throat. When Bo lifted his head at the sound, Jake pointed in Tys direction. Ty had already started climbing the hill that curved around the side of the pond.

Bo rose in one smooth motion, his book dropping to the side. What are you doing?

Im going swimming. Ty pulled off his T-shirt.

Bo started toward him. No youre not.

Jake gave Lyndie a small smile. Tattling on Ty made having Ty for a brother a lot more fun.

Lyndie smiled at him in answer, her brown eyes dancing. A few pieces of long, white-blond hair blew in front of her face. She reached back, grabbed all of her wavy, windblown hair, and brought it over one shoulder. She wore a shirt with a faded picture of a dog on the front and jeans shed cut off herself to make shorts. Both of her thin knees had Band-Aids on them.

Ty! Bo broke into a run. Dont you jump in.

Ty yanked free his boots. Of course Im gonna jump in, Bo. Rolling in or crawling in would take too long.

Bo didnt have a chance of making it to Ty in time to stop him. Jake reached for Lyndies hand and led her carefully from the water.

Two seconds later, Ty did a running cannonball off the hill. He hit the surface with a loud ker- splash .

Bo groaned and stuck his hands on his hips.

Ty came up smiling and laughing. He whooped and used both hands to send water high into the air.

One edge of Lyndies lips tipped upward. Now how am I supposed to learn to skip rocks?

You could go ahead and skip them right into his head, Jake suggested.

Lyndie laughed.

The sound made Jakes heart turn big and warm.

Bo and Ty started arguing about whether Ty should get out of the water now or later. Lyndie watched them with her arms crossed and Jake watched Lyndie.

Hed known her always. Their moms were best friends. Lyndie had a younger sister named Mollie with cerebral palsy, and since Mollie couldnt play with Lyndie, Lyndie spent a lot of time at their house playing with them. Playing with him was a better way to put it.

Hed heard Lyndies mom say that Lyndie trailed along behind the Porter boys. But Jake had never let her trail. Hed always stayed beside her. And hed never minded.

He had friends at school his own age, but he didnt feel the same way about them that he did about Lyndie. He was a normal kid, but Lyndie? Lyndie was more than that. She could draw amazing pictures. She loved animals even more than he did. She was the bravest girl in Holley, Texas. And she had a really good imagination. Almost every day, she talked him into going on made-up adventures with her.

She was his favorite person.

Did you hear that, Jake? She stilled and turned one ear up.

What?

She looked hard into the area beneath a group of trees. It sounds like chirping. Like a... a little bird.

Together, they moved toward the sound. Off to one side, a shrub shook, and beneath it, a black cat paused to watch them. It had something in its mouth. Before Jake could take a step in its direction, it dashed off like a streak of black chalk.