we sat down on bags of oats. I sat next to Misty, while Monica plopped herself down across the room.
"How do you like living here?" I asked Misty.
"It's okay," she said, "since I don't have to be part of the program."
"Well." I looked at her. "You sure don't need to be on any diet."
"Thanks," she said. "I've never had to worry about my weight."
"Your hair's pretty, too."
"So's yours. I just love guys with brown hair and blue eyes. Just like Tom Cruise."
I was embarrassed and didn't know what to say. No girl had ever given me a compliment before. "Well, uh…"
Then Monica spoke up. "Hey, J.R., how come your ears are so red? Bee sting you or something?" With that, she laughed way too loud and went out the door, slamming it behind her.
Misty just smiled and looked down at her hands clasped together in her lap. I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life, and I would have been plenty happy to just sit there with her all afternoon. But I heard Rosebud's footsteps crunching on the gravel path outside.
"J.R., you in there?"
"Here."
He came and stood at the door. "Miss Biggie says for you to come to the house. Mr. Rex wants to see you."
I said good-bye to Misty and followed Rosebud out of the barn and into the bright sunlight.
"You go on up to the house," Rosebud said. "I'm gonna help these fellers clear up out here."
I looked around me before starting up the path to the house. About fifty yards from the barn, I saw a large riding ring with jumping hazards set up on both sides. Around the outside edge of the ring, someone had built a cinder track. The girls were doing laps around it, with Stacie holding up the rear. Even from that distance, I could hear her whining and complaining. Grace Higgins stood on the sidelines looking at what I guessed must be a stopwatch.
Biggie was standing outside the door waiting for me when I got to the house.
"He wants to meet you," she said.
"Did you tell him? Everything?"
"That you're his grandson? Of course, J.R. He has a right to know."
I followed her through the living and dining rooms, down a wide hallway paved with Spanish tiles. She tapped on a door, opened it, and went in. I followed.
The room was large and bright with wood paneling on all four walls. A king-sized bed angled out from the corner, and next to it French doors opened to the patio. A lot of medicine bottles stood on the mantel that hung over a big, empty fireplace. Rex Barnwell was in a leather armchair next to the fireplace. Even though his body looked small in that large chair, his shoulders were broad and he had big hands and feet. I figured he must have been a mighty big man in his day. He motioned to me to come toward him.
"Why, Fiona, he looks just like you— except maybe a little like me as a boy." He kept staring at me until I squirmed. Then he laughed— a big, hearty laugh. "Sorry, son. I didn't mean to embarrass you. Have a seat on that stool over there so I can look at you. Your granny tells me this is all brand-new to you, getting a new grandpa you never knew you had. Well, it's new to me, too."
"I never heard anybody call her Fiona before." I nodded toward Biggie, who had taken a seat in a chair opposite Rex.
"No fooling? What do they call her?"
I explained to him about how I couldn't say Big Mama when I was little so I shortened it to Biggie. I told him how everybody in town calls her that now.
He laughed again. "Biggie, huh? Well, I say that doesn't fit worth a damn. She's no bigger than a gnat. Never was." He looked fondly at Biggie.
I looked at a picture of a car over the mantel. A man stood beside it wearing racing gear. "Is that you?"
The smile left his face. "It was, son. It was. Would you like to have that picture?"
"I sure would!"
"Then take it home with you when you go. Now I want you to tell me all about yourself. Fill me in on all the time I've missed."
I didn't know where to start, so I just started at the first. "I was born in Dallas," I said. "That's where my mama and daddy lived a long time ago. Daddy