Horse Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

in the crowd while Tec maneuvered through the throng and fetched them two large plates of cheesecake. The room was full. Everywhere she glanced, people with various levels of tans and relaxed looks seemed busy, happy, full, and content. Lisa was sure, though, that none of them was as happy as she was that night.
    Tec was right about the cheesecake. It was very good, but she could only eat a few bites. Tec was true to his word. While they talked about all the activities they could do the next morning, he finished off the considerable remains on her plate.
    And when he was finished with that, he did somethingthat totally surprised her. He reached under the tablecloth and took her hand. She felt a shiver of pleasure pass through her.
    “And now that we’ve decided what we’re going to do tomorrow, let’s talk about what we’ll do tonight. I heard a rumor that there’s a nearly full moon. We could go down to the beach and look at the reflection on the water. Would you like to do that?”
    “Yes,” Lisa whispered. She was sure that was the loudest noise she could make at that very moment. “Yes,” she said again.

“O UCH !” S TEVIE SAID .
    “What?” asked Carole.
    “I pinched my hand.” Stevie was trying to set one of the heavier saddles down on a sawhorse in the feed room and had managed to trap her hand against the raw wood. Carole lifted the saddle enough for Stevie to pull her hand out.
    “It’s nothing,” Stevie said, shrugging.
    “It’s a bruise,” Carole corrected her, pointing to the mild swelling that was beginning to show on the back of Stevie’s hand.
    “Nothing,” Stevie repeated.
    “It’s not nothing if that’s your painting hand,” Carole said.
    “I’m a totally ambidextrous painter,” Stevie assured her.
    The two of them returned to the tack room to move the next batch of saddles and bridles.
    They had been working for hours. It didn’t really surprise either of them that Stevie was getting a little careless. What did surprise them was what Stevie saw when she looked out the window.
    It was dark out there, but the sky was filled with stars and a beautiful nearly full moon. “Check that out!” Stevie said, pointing to the sky.
    Carole leaned over to see out the dusty window of the tack room (soon to be washed
and
freshly painted). The sight nearly took her breath away. “It’s so big and it’s not even full yet. It’s like it’s sitting just above the horizon.…”
    “It’s that pretty orange-gold color, almost as if it’s been toasted,” Stevie said.
    “I like it when it’s not quite full,” Carole said. “It has a sort of lopsidedness to it, like it’s not perfect but will be.”
    “You mean, like it’s got promise?” Stevie asked.
    “Exactly,” Carole said. “But speaking of promises, we’ve got one to work on.”
    Stevie shook her head in dismay. The fact that it was night and the moon was up meant that they’d beenworking even longer than she’d thought, and it was beginning to seem like they would be working forever.
    “I think maybe this was a bad idea,” Stevie said.
    “No, just a big one,” Carole told her, handing her a box of bits. “Look, we’re getting tired. Why don’t we quit for the night and pick up where we left off tomorrow?”
    “But it’s just a few more loads.”
    “It’s not a few more loads, it’s a lot more loads,” Carole said sensibly. “And they’ll still be here tomorrow. By then, we’ll be a little more rested.”
    “And we will have eaten,” Stevie said. Food was not often far from her mind.
    “Yes, that, too,” said Carole.
    They took the last load of the night into the feed room and rearranged some of the grain bins.
    “That’s it. It’s time to go home,” said Carole, slinging her arm across Stevie’s tired shoulders.
    Stevie stood up and followed Carole out of the room and along the aisle to the door of the stable.
    “It’s really time to murder Phil Marsten,” Stevie said. “If he’d stuck to