Ride a Painted Pony by KATHLEEN EAGLE

Author:KATHLEEN EAGLE
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BelleBooks Inc.
Published: 2016-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

NICK FOUND HIS mysterious guest sitting on the floor beneath the wall phone, hugging her knees, the John Deere cap dangling from her fingers. Like a big-eyed child wary of a scolding, she watched him every step of the way as he crossed the warped brown linoleum from back door to boxy kitchen. He washed his hands, drank some water from a coffee mug, peered through the unadorned window at an unclouded sky, all the while trying to come up with something to say. It was no good asking. That much he knew.

He’d begun to worry that at some point she might decide to give him the answers he no longer really wanted. All too often, truth was a bitch. Whatever it was in this case, sooner or later truth would take her away. Which would have been fine just a few days ago. How long had she been with him now? Less than a week, and he’d let himself get all tied up inside over something that made no sense. But the reason it made no sense was because he was tied up over it. The truth about Joey was none of his business.

Believe it, he told himself, and keep it simple on your end. The only truth is what you see for yourself what you do and the way you do it. That’s it. The rest is only talk.

When he turned to her again, she stood slowly, as though he’d summoned her. “I was just about to . . .” She made a futile gesture toward the phone.

“Go ahead. I’ll leave you alone if you want.”

“I don’t. It’s the stupidest thing I could do right now.” She took a step closer. “I don’t know what happened to me, Nick. You must think I’m crazy. Dillon must think—”

“He’s okay with racing True Colors,” he said quickly. He noticed the change in her expression right away, the vacancy beginning to fill. “I mean, trying him out. Says he’ll go with my decision, but if he’s got real cante—you know, heart—seems like we oughta give it a shot with you here.” He lifted one shoulder. “As long as you’re gonna be here, anyway.”

“Give me a few days with him. That plowed field is a pretty good place to work him, but if there’s a track close by, I’d like to run him against a stopwatch.” Her passion swelling as the plan grew, she touched his arm. “I won’t waste your money.”

“What do you charge?”

“Not me, but all the other fees that have to be considered. You can easily afford me, Nick. I don’t eat much.”

He wasn’t worried so much about his bank account as about the fact that sooner or later she would make that call, and he wasn’t sure what he would do when the sonuvabitch showed up at his door, looking to take her back. He’d seen it before, good women like his sister letting love get the best of them, suck them dry, then leave them feeling ugly and ashamed.

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