Reed had said something wrong. He wasn’t sure what it was, but she’d abruptly shut him out.

Katrina didn’t know why she’d told Reed about her ankle last night. It was a foolish slip of her tongue. It compromised her ongoing efforts to keep her two worlds apart, and this morning she vowed to do better.

In the years since her father’s sister, her generous Aunt Coco, had taken her under her wing and convinced her parents to let her move to New York City with her, she’d been living two separate lives. In New York, enrolled in the ballet program at the Academy, she felt vibrant and alive. She was a part of the cultural mosaic Auntie Coco, a renowned contemporary painter, had been so careful to expose her to while she was growing up. She fitted in. She was normal, accepted, even respected. In Colorado, she was out of step. An anomaly who could never show weakness.

She often wondered why her aunt had decided to rescue her from the ranching world, what it was she’d recognized as a kindred spirit in a ten-year-old child. She’d always meant to ask. But Coco had died of a sudden aneurism two years ago before Katrina had had the chance.

Now, she came to the bottom of the stairs of the Jacobs’ house and took a bracing breath. Her two brothers and two sisters were already dressed for the day’s work, sitting at the breakfast table eating pancakes, bacon and scrambled eggs. It never ceased to amaze her that Mandy and Abigail could consume so many calories and keep such trim figures.

As she pivoted around the end of the staircase, she was careful not to limp. Then again, Reed would probably tell Caleb, and Caleb would tell Mandy, and once again she’d be the pathetic, weak branch on the robust Jacobs family tree.

She approached the breakfast table to a chorus of good mornings, taking the empty place next to Mandy, searching the table for fruit, or maybe a whole-grain muffin. But a platter of fluffy pancakes was handed her way, followed by maple syrup and a mounded serving tray of eggs.