AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re out of your mind!”
“So you’ve told me.” He guided the car up the lane leading to the house, parked in the yard and grabbed Cassie’s hand, pulling her to the stables where the geldings were housed.
Inside, while Cassie blinked against the bright lights and her nostrils filled with the scent of horses, leather and musty hay, Colton saddled two geldings, a short gray creature named Lamont and a lanky buckskin called Joshua.
“I don’t suppose you have a sidesaddle,” she said as he tightened the cinch around Lamont’s belly.
Colton shook his head and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “You’ll just have to hike up your skirts.”
The joke had gone on long enough. “Colton, you’re not serious . . .” she said when he slapped Lamont’s reins into her hand and opened the stable door. The gray pricked his ears and lifted his head.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I think I left it in the drawer with my common sense,” she said, taking off her coat and tossing it over one of the stall gates before following him and Joshua through the door. “This is madness—sheer, unadulterated madness!”
Colton swung into the saddle, and Cassie, caught in the excitement of it all, followed suit. Her skirt bunched around her thighs as she prodded Lamont with her knees. The eager little horse took off, swinging into a gentle gallop and keeping up with the buckskin’s longer strides.
The wind rushed at Cassie’s face, yanking the pins from her hair, stealing the breath from her lungs and snapping her skirt like a long, scarlet banner. She leaned forward over the horse’s shoulders, adrenaline pumping through her system, her spirits soaring as the gelding’s hooves thundered against the thick spring grass.
Ahead, washed in the moon’s silvery light, the pine forest loomed before them, and through the trees the reflection of the clear water appeared jewellike against the black tree trunks.
She felt her mount take the bit in his mouth and leap forward, his ears flattening back against his head as he challenged the bay. Colton’s horse responded, and soon the animals were charging across the field, hoofbeats thundering, nostrils wide, eyes sparking with defiant fire.
Cassie leaned lower, urging the little horse on, whispering words of encouragement. Racing across the moon-washed fields beneath a spray of glittering stars, Cassie rode hard, tears smarting in her eyes.
Colton’s laughter rang through the night, and her heart skipped a beat. How long had it been since she’d felt so carefree, so young?
At Colton’s whoop, the bay leaped forward. Though Lamont labored, he couldn’t catch the longer-legged horse.
Near the edge of the forest Colton reined his horse to a slow walk. Lamont, dancing and snorting, caught up with him and tried to take a nip out of Joshua’s backside.
“Sore loser,” Colton teased, guiding his horse along the overgrown path through the pines. Cassie followed a few steps behind. The sounds and smell of the forest closed in on her: the deep-throated hoot of an owl, the crackle of twigs and rustle of leaves and the fresh fragrance of pine and soil.
The trees gave way to the banks of the lake. Pale rocks rimmed the darker water. A ribbon of moonlight rippled across the glassy surface. Cassie felt as if she and Colton were the only man and woman on earth.
“You going to stay up there all night?” Colton asked.
Lost in the beauty of the night, she hadn’t noticed he’d dismounted. Colton reached up, his hands slipping around her waist as he helped Cassie down from her mount. She touched ground, and his palms slid upward against her ribs. He tightened his grip then and drew her close.
“I’ve thought about this from the minute you walked down the stairs at your house,” he whispered, running his hands through her hair and yanking loose the few remaining pins.
“We could’ve ditched the party.”
“Oh, no.” When her hair fell free, he framed her face with his hands. “Then I couldn’t have shown you off.”
“‘Is that what you were doing?”
“Mmm. You were far and away the most gorgeous woman there.”
She laughed, the sound ringing through the surrounding hills, and she shoved her thoughts of Vince Monroe aside. “And did you see that in a movie, too?”
“‘No—that’s my own.”
“You’re irrepressible.” Loving him, she tilted her face up to his.
He sighed. “You know,” he whispered, taking a pin from her hair and letting the long loose curl drop to her shoulder, “I thought I’d leave you alone for a week, maybe two. Give you time to realize just how miserable your life is without me, but I couldn’t make it.”
She struggled against a giggle and failed. “Twenty-five years of misery. It’s a wonder I survived.”
