Pepper's Way by Kay Hooper

Author:Kay Hooper
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-11-09T04:52:51+00:00

Six

The next few minutes were rather full. While Pepper was rescuing Cody from the clutches of the wantonly protective Brutus, Thor, with a totally deadpan expression, explained Brutus's attack training. By the time Pepper had the growling Chihuahua tucked under her arm and while Cody's bemusement was holding him silent, Thor suddenly took note of the other pet cavorting in the pasture with his killer horse.

"What the hell—?"

"It's all right, Thor; I introduced them."

"You what?"

"Introduced them. They're friends now. I didn't want you to have to keep shutting Lucifer in his stall whenever the dogs were outside, so I—"

"Pepper, that horse is a killer! And he hates dogs."

"He doesn't hate our dogs." Pepper took no notice of the pronoun, and Thor was too upset to notice, but Cody filed it away in his bemused brain. "Stop fussing, Thor. He's a very well-trained horse. Did you train him? The slightest knee-pressure, and—"

"You rode that horse?"

"Well, just once around the pasture, but—"

Thor erupted. He swore violently and at great length, mostly in English but with a smattering of Spanish and what sounded like a few words of Arabic. He poured wrath over Pepper by the bucketful, and for ten solid minutes never once repeated himself.

Cody stood with arms folded across his chest, staring at his friend with an expression somewhere between the mildly astonished and the totally stunned, from which Pepper gathered that Thor didn't often explode.

As for herself, Pepper stood listening politely and waited for him to run down. Having heard quite a few explosions in her time, she was well aware that this one had been detonated by anxiety along the lines of You-could-have-gotten-your-stupid-self-killed -you - idiot - and-why - the-hell- didn't -you-have more-sense?

She was enjoying it thoroughly.

He finally began repeating himself, and Pepper decided that it was time to interrupt. "Jean's here," she said, cheerfully breaking in on a sentence calculated to make her hair stand on end. "I think I'll go help her with breakfast. You'd better feed Lucifer, Thor, if you can pry him away from Fifi. And send the mutt on up to the house so I can feed her. See you." She strolled off toward the house, still carrying Brutus tucked underneath an arm.

Venturing to intrude on Thor's fulminating silence, Cody said mildly, "She's quite a lady, Thor. Where'd you find her?"

? Thor dragged his glare away from Pepper's retreating back and fastened it onto Cody's hapless person. "Oh, shut up!" he snapped violently, and stalked away to feed his killer horse.

After the emotional tumult of the day before and his sleepless night, Thor was in no mood to deal with the sudden arrival of Cody. And Pepper's recklessness where Lucifer was concerned hadn't helped. And, though she'd been her normal cheerful and absurd self, he'd taken note of the red-rimmed eyes; the image of her crying herself to sleep last night haunted him.

By the time he and a prudently silent Cody entered the house, Thor had himself under nominal control. The slightest spark, and he knew he'd go up like a rocket though.

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