On bare feet Samantha silently padded to the kitchen, plugged in the electric coffee maker Caroline used, and then sat waiting in the dark kitchen, letting her mind drift back to the night before. It had been a lovely Christmas party she had shared with the others. Like one gigantic family, all of them linked to each other, each one caring about the other, the children familiar with everyone who lived there, happy and shouting and running around the big beautifully decorated Christmas tree. Thinking about the children at the Christmas party the night before suddenly made her think of Charlie and Melinda's children. This was the first Christmas that she hadn't sent them gifts. She remembered her promise to Charlie with a pang, but she had been nowhere near a store. As Samantha sat in the empty kitchen she felt suddenly very lonely, and without warning, her thoughts shifted instantly and very painfully to John. What was his Christmas like this year? How did it feel to be married to a woman who was pregnant? Had they already done the nursery? The pain Samantha felt knife through her was almost beyond bearing, and as though by reflex action she felt herself reach for the phone. Without thinking, yet desperately wanting to reach out and hear a friendly voice, she dialed a familiar number and only a moment later she heard Charlie Peterson answer the phone. His mellifluous voice boomed into the receiver with a resounding rendition of “Jingle Bells.” He was halfway into the second verse before Sam could squeeze in her name.

“Who?… ‘O'er the fields we go…’”

“Shut up, Charlie! It's me, Sam!”

“Oh… hi, Sam… ‘Dashing all the wayyyy…’”

“Charlie!” She was laughing as she listened, between rounds of trying to outshout him, but despite the amusement of listening to him, there was another pang of loneliness and she felt terribly far away. She suddenly wished she were with them, and not three thousand miles away on a ranch. There was no choice but to wait for him to finish singing.

“Merry Christmas!”

“You mean you're through? You're not going to sing ‘Silent Night’?”

“I wasn't planning to, but if you're making a special request, Sam, I'm sure I could…”

“Charlie, please! I want to talk to Mellie and the boys. But first”-she almost gulped as she said it-“tell me how things are at the office.” She had forced herself not to call. Harvey had practically ordered her not to and she had obeyed. They had her number if they needed her, and her boss had thought it would do her good to forget about them as completely as she could. And actually she had done better than she had expected to. Until now. “How are my accounts doing? Have you lost them all yet?”

“Every one of them.” Charlie beamed into the phone with pride and lit a cigar, and then suddenly he frowned and looked at his watch. “What in hell are you doing up at this hour? It must be… what? Not even six o'clock in the morning out there! Where are you?” He suddenly wondered if she had abandoned the ranch and returned.

“I'm still here. I just couldn't sleep. I've been getting up at four thirty every morning, now I don't know what to do with myself. This feels like the middle of the afternoon.” Not quite, but she was certainly wide awake. “How are the kids?”

“Wonderful.” There was a moment's hesitation in his voice, and he hurried on to ask her how she was. “They riding you ragged out there, I hope?”

“Absolutely. Come on, Charlie, tell me what's happening back there.” Suddenly she wanted to know everything, from the office gossip to who was threatening to steal which account from another house.

“Nothing much, kiddo. New York hasn't changed much in the last two weeks. What about you?” He sounded serious for a moment and Sam smiled. “You happy out there, Sam? You all right?”

“I'm fine.” And then with a small sigh, “It was the right thing to do, much as I hate to admit it. I guess I needed something as radical as this. I haven't watched the six o'clock news all week.”

“That's something at least. If you're up at four thirty, you're probably asleep by six o'clock at night.”

“Not quite, but close.”

“And your friend… Caroline, and ail the horses? They're okay?” He sounded so much like a New Yorker that it made her laugh as she pictured him puffing on his cigar and staring into space wearing his pajamas and his bathrobe and maybe something the children had given him for Christmas, like a baseball cap or a mitt or a pair of red-and-yellow-striped socks.

“Everyone here is fine. Let me talk to Mellie.” She did, and Melinda didn't catch Charlie's signal. She almost instantly told Sam the news. She was pregnant. The baby was due in July, and she had just found out that week. For just a fraction of a second there was a strange silence and then suddenly Sam was full of effusive congratulations as in the distance Charlie closed his eyes and groaned.

“Why did you tell her?” He was whispering hoarsely at his wife as she attempted to continue to talk to Sam.

“Why not? She'll find out when she comes back anyway.” Melinda had put her hand over the phone, whispered back to him, then took her hand away and went on. “The kids? They all say they want another brother, but if it isn't a girl this time, I quit.” Charlie made impatient gestures, let her say a rapid good-bye, and recovered the phone.

“How come you didn't tell me, kiddo?” Sam tried to sound nonchalant, but as always when she heard that kind of news, especially lately, it touched something very old and sad and still sensitive near her very core. “Afraid I couldn't take it? I'm not mentally ill, you know, Charlie, I'm just divorced. That is not the same thing.”

“Who cares about that stuff anyway.” There was something sad and worried in his voice.

“You do.” Sam's voice was very soft. “And Mellie does. And I do. And you're my friends. She was right to tell me. Don't yell at her when you get off the phone.”

“Why not?” He grinned guiltily. “She needs to be kept in line.”

“Some way you have of keeping her in line, Peterson. It's a good thing you're the most overpaid art director in the business. You're going to need it for all those kids.”

“Yeah,” he growled contentedly, “ain't I just.” And then after a long moment, “Well, kid, be good to your horses, and call if you need us. And Sam”-there was a heavy pause-“we all think about you a lot, and we miss you. You know that, don't you, babe?” She nodded, unable to speak, her voice and her eyes instantly filled with tears.

“Yeah, I know.” It was all she could finally choke out. “And I miss you too. Merry Christmas!” And then, as she smiled through her tears and blew him a kiss, she hung up. She sat in the kitchen afterward for almost half an hour, her coffee cold in the cup, her eyes riveted to the table, her heart and her mind three thousand miles away in New York. And when she looked up again, she saw that outside the day was slowly breaking, the night had faded from deep blue to pale gray, and she stood up and slowly walked with her cup over to the sink. She stood very still and knew exactly what she wanted to do. With a determined step she walked down the hall, slipped quietly into her clothes, and bundled herself up in two warm sweaters and a jacket, put on the cowboy hat Caroline had lent her a few days before, and with a last look over her shoulder to make sure that no one was stirring, she walked quietly out of her room, down the hall, and out the front door, closing it softly behind her.

It took her only a few moments to reach the stables, and when she did, she stopped a few feet away from his stall. There was no sound stirring within, and she wondered if he was still sleeping, the giant shining ebony animal she suddenly knew that she wanted to ride. She gently opened the half door and stepped inside, running a hand smoothly down his neck and his flanks and speaking so gently that she almost cooed. He was awake, but he wasn't restless. Black Beauty looked as though he had been waiting for her to come; he gazed meaningfully at her from behind the bristling black lashes, and Samantha smiled at him as she quietly let herself out of the stall, went to get his saddle and bridle, and returned to prepare him for their ride. There had been no one in the stable to see her when she got there, and there was still no one there now.

When she led him slowly out the main door a few minutes later into the early morning, there was no one in the vast yard outside. She walked Black Beauty to a nearby block and quickly climbed it. After hoisting herself into the saddle with ease and pulling the reins taut, she moved away toward the now familiar hills. She knew exactly where she wanted to ride him, she had seen a trail through some woods a few days before and now she knew that this was where she wanted to go. At first she cantered gently toward her destination, and then after a while, sensing the huge beast straining to go faster, she let him lope from a canter into a gallop as he made his way toward the rising sun. It was one of the most exquisite feelings she could remember, and she held her knees to his flanks and pressed harder as effortlessly they cleared a series of low bushes and then a narrow stream. She remembered the first time she had jumped him but knew that this was different. She was taking no chances with Black Beauty this morning, but she wasn't angry either. She only wanted to become a part of Black Beauty's very body and soul. She felt like an ancient myth, or Indian legend, as she let him slow on the crest of a hill, and she watched the sun begin in earnest its climb into the sky. It was only then that she heard the hooves behind her, then that she knew she'd been followed, and then that she turned in surprise. But when she saw him riding the ivory and onyx pinto toward her, she wasn't really surprised to see Tate Jordan. It was as though he were also a part of the legend, as though he also belonged there, as though he too had fallen from the fiery golden morning sky.