Wait for Me — Verna Wolters Sightler

"Save this one for me," Ken Martin, the handsome young college student working at the Creighton's ranch in Colorado, had told Susan's father last summer. "I'll wait for her to grow up." Now it was summer again, and Ken was back to work on the ranch. And back treating 16-year-old Susan like a kid sister when she wanted to be so much more. Had he only been joking about waiting for her? Was there a girl in college, someone closer to his own age? Then Steve Randal, a young Easterner visiting the ranch, began to monopolize more and more of Susan's time. Suddenly, instead of wondering how Ken Martin felt about her, she found herself questioning what she really felt about him... and comparing it to what she was beginning to feel for Steve.

At the beginning of the summer before her senior year in high school, Susan Creighton has much to look forward to. Ken Martin, the handsome college student who works at her father's ranch during the summer, will soon be arriving. Susan remembers last summer and the fun that she and Ken had had together. But Susan has some big worries too. She is several years younger than Ken and perhaps Ken has found an older girl at college -- someone who he does not have to wait for. She hasn't forgotten that last year Ken said -- was it only a joke? -- that he would wait for her.

As Susan wonders about Ken, she has time, too, to think about herself. She is so different from her older sister, Jean. Jean has never had any problem with boys -- or so it seems to Susan -- with anything else in her life. Jean is pretty, popular and very capable. Susan is quiet and shy and more at home in the kitchen with her mother than saddling and riding horses. In fact, while Susan's other girl friends dream of college, Susan's interests are always more domestic, although she does think that she would like to become a writer.

A young visitor to the ranch that summer adds confusion to Susan's mind. Closer to Susan's own age, he may replace Ken in Susan's affections. Wait for Me is the story of the difficult decisions that one young girl has to make in life before she can become a mature woman and good wife.

Hero: Ken Martin
Heroine: Susan Creighton