Splinters Read Online Free PDF Page B

riding a horse beside a man named Duke who makes ol’ John Wayne look like a sissy. This makes me smile very happily and wiggle a little in my seat.
    Quite suddenly, my previously trudging horse starts picking up the pace. I hold up the reins in one hand and flap the other at Duke. “W-w-what’s it d-d-doing?” I can barely speak for the jolting bounce. “Put it back in n-n-neutral.”
    Duke’s laughing seems to urge the damn horse on, even as Duke comes alongside of us and reaches for the reins. I hand them over and grab the blunted horn thing on the saddle. My legs are stiff and my feet in the stirrups stick out like naked chicken wings. I grimace and try to lean back as my balls get smushed and pounded now. My hat jostles forward, covering my eyes.
    “Stop this! Stop it now .”
    I can’t see what he does, but the horse finally knocks it off and stands still. Pushing my hat back into place, I turn a glare on the hyena formerly known as Duke. “That was not funny. Your horse is defective.”
    He snorts, one of those caught by surprise, utterly humiliating laugh-noises, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Certainly doesn’t stop him. I cross my arms. It wasn’t funny. I mean, maybe from his point of view it was, but not from mine. My ass is probably going to bruise. I nearly had a heart attack. He tapers down to giggling like a boy. I bite my bottom lip because I’m not going to laugh.
    He leans on his saddle bump thing and wipes at his eyes. With his hat tilted back and a big smile on his handsome face, he’s hard to resist. I smile, just a little, but stick my nose in the air. Duke snickers and then exhales hard like he hasn’t laughed so much in years.
    “You done?”
    He clears his throat. “Don’t squeeze Suzy with your knees like that.”
    “I didn’t squeeze her.”
    “Don’t have to be much, but that’s how she knows to hurry up.”
    Suzy bobs her head up and down. Of course, she agrees with him.
    “I thought you had to whistle and slap their butts or something.”
    “Might be you’ve seen too many movies there, Al.”
    I glare. “Might be you have a weird horse.”
    He chuckles and sits back. For a moment, he’s really quite beautiful in the way he’s so comfortable where he is. I’m clinging to this temperamental beast, but Duke looks like he’s one with his horse. How cowboys should be, I suppose. There’s grace and confidence in his every movement.
    I sigh. “So no squeezing.”
    “Right.” He hands me back Suzy’s reins.
    He gets his horse out front this time, and Suzy seems happy to follow. My sigh now is decidedly dreamy because he just looks so good on horseback. An object of real masculine beauty. But with the silence that settles in, even the sight of him can’t distract me from my thoughts.
    Between golden grasses and wide-open sky is the wrong place to be if you don’t want to think. There’s so much space and quiet out here, my thoughts are everywhere. There’s nothing to stop them.
    Was it a mistake to stay? I feel safe here, I honestly do, but maybe the right thing to do would’ve been going back to Houston and talking to the cops there. Not that I think Smoot doesn’t know what he’s doing, just that Houston is the scene of the abduction and everything.
    Should I go home to Manhattan? I’m imposing on Duke, thrusting myself and my problems into his already complicated life. I’m sure he has better things to do than wander out here with a tourist who doesn’t want to go home because…because I’m lonely there. I put a hand over my heart. I’m lonely . Oh, I hadn’t realized. But now, not even twenty-four hours in Duke’s presence, I feel more connected to someone than I have in a long time. There’s something about him that lifts me in ways I didn’t know I needed. I don’t want to leave.
    And I’d been assaulted here. Is a cure for loneliness really that good of a reason to stick around? That’s not normal behavior. When Elsie arrives, I should get in