Chapter 1

Julia leaves Minneapolis by bus, headed for wherever. Her parents’ nagging and strict rules have finally gotten to Julia and she decided to run away, although the term was a little childish for the sixteen-year-old. She had packed up all her money and even taken her twin sisters’ money and her older brother’s money from their banks. Julia left the house for what she hoped to be the last time. By looking up the choices for destinations, she picks and chooses random landing spots, eventually ending up in Texas.  

Chapter 2

The travel. Julia stops for the night in Lincoln, Nebraska, and lies her way into a motel room. She goes to the bus depot the next morning and has to wait for the next bus, which doesn’t leave until noon. She goes window-shopping meanwhile, and finds a little Buddha statue. Hoping it’ll bring her good luck in her new life, she buys it and carries it around in her pocket, feeling just a little safer. Once Julia’s in Texas, she lets the bus leave without her, since this looks like as good a place as any at the time, and very far away from home.  

Chapter 3

After spending the night in a shabby little motel to save money, Julia spends the day looking around her new home, searching for a cheap place to stay and for a job. Discouraged when nothing turns up, she heads back to the motel and goes swimming in the pool. While she’s sunning on the deck, a guy comes up to talk to her. He’s all muscled and everything, and through talking to him, Julia finds out that he’s a ranch owner’s son and he’s at the motel swimming with his friend, whose father owns the motel. Said friend greets Julia. Ranch owner’s son invites Julia back to the ranch with him when he finds out she’s looking for a job. Julia agrees and they head back to the ranch.  

Chapter 4

Ranch owner’s son gives Julia a tour of splendid ranch, which has a thousand head of cattle and over a hundred horses. The horses they use for the dudes that spend the summer at the ranch, and the cattle are their income. Julia lies to son’s father that she can ride and work horses, so father takes her untried. Bad idea. Julia’s never been on a horse in her life, much less roped a cow. In fact, the one time she had a chance to take riding lessons the thought of riding the huge beasts had sent her to quaking. The fact that she had only been seven at the time added to the fact. Julia slept that night in a room of the huge guest mansion figuring that if she really needed to, she could pull this off. After all, it couldn’t be that hard.  

Chapter 5

Julia finds out just how wrong she was. When son takes her out on a horse for a tour of the ranch, Julia manages to skip out of tacking up the horse and manages to ride behind son the whole way, copying his motions very carefully. It’s a good thing she’s always had a sharp eye for details. When they get back the son is acting a little funny, but Julia is in too much pain to notice. She eats dinner with the family and all the ranch hands and maids and collapses into bed. 

Chapter 6

Almost too sore to rise, Julia gets up the next morning and asks to just help around the barn mucking stalls and cleaning tack instead of riding that day. She pulled a muscle yesterday, she lied. Son hangs around with her, beginning to realize just what’s going on as Julia fumbles through her chores. Instead of pushing her to tell him what she’s up to, son prays for wisdom and guidance and instead helps Julia learn without letting on that he’s on to the fact that she doesn’t know anything about horses. As Julia tells lie after lie and even swears a little, son realizes that Julia isn’t a Christian and vows to talk to her about Christ if it took him forever.  

Chapter 7

Son talks to father about Julia and informs him about his suspicions about Julia’s lack of religion. Next day is Sunday, so they invite Julia along. She skips out with the excuse that she has nothing to wear. While the family is gone she hangs around the barn learning the barn language and trying to figure out how to saddle a horse. She manages to halter one and get it crosstied when a hand asks her to, but one of the men gets angry with her when he has to show her how to groom the horse. When family gets back from church mother takes Julia out to get her some riding boots and jeans and works clothes and some other stuff. Julia goes to bed that night wondering why her family couldn’t have been this kind.

Chapter 8

Next day son helps Julia again with her riding, being very patient and kind. Julia wishes her brother were this nice. After a week at the ranch, Julia’s gotten a lot better at handling horses and can even throw a rope fairly well, although she wouldn’t venture near a steer for a thousand dollars. Since Julia used a different name when she bought tickets for the bus, she was quite literally untraceable. And since she cut off her long braid and is a lot more tanned, she’s almost unrecognizable. No one at the ranch knows that she is a runaway, just that she’s lied to land the job and is trying to hide the fact that she’s never been around horses before. Son tries to earn her trust and ventures so far as to ask her a few questions about her faith and background and how she got there. Julia evades some of the questions but is very clear about how fake she thinks the whole idea of Jesus is. Son is depressed and prays for uplifting and courage to carry on.

Chapter 9

When Julia catches son praying a lot and notices his Christian–like attitude, she has to question him. She wants to know where his family finds its peace and why his family is so utterly opposite from hers. Son breaks into the discussion very gently and explains how devoted to Christ his family is and all that. Julia scoffs and leaves, but later approaches him again to find out more. She goes to bed feeling very confused and doesn’t sleep all night, thinking about what she’s heard that day.

Chapter 10

Next day she asks more questions, which son is all too happy to answer. Julia spends the day riding with son and talking about Jesus and why she doesn’t (didn’t, rather) believe He even existed. At the end of the day Julia confesses all to her wonderful new friend and tells him why she ran away and why she was even open to this idea, that being that she wanted her family like his. He told her that it wasn’t just them; it had to be her too. Jesus could change all that, though. He told her how. He invites Julia to church the next day and she accepts, just to see what it is like.