“I think so. God, my butt is killing me.”
Rad dismounted and came over to me. I saw a hint of laughter in his eyes when they met mine.
“Glad you think this is funny,” I said, wincing.
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding his hand out to me. “But you look so cute with your helmet dangling from your head like that.”
I took his hand, and he pulled me up. “Never again. From now on I’m sticking to merry-go-rounds.”
He looked at me, a strange expression on his face.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he shook his head and smiled.
“No, seriously, why are you looking at me like that?”
“Just what you said about merry-go-rounds. You’re the only person I know who would say something like that.” He grinned at me and shrugged. “I just like how your mind works; that’s all.”
I was taken aback by the compliment and wasn’t sure how to respond. I looked at my feet and smiled.
“So have you fallen off a horse before?” I asked.
“Sure, lots of times.”
I stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” he gave me a look. “You’ve never ridden a horse before, have you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Audrey, why would you lie about that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I figured I could pick it up as I went along.”
“You are ridiculous. You could have been seriously hurt. Luckily, you had a soft landing.”
“What the hell happened, anyway?”
“I think a rabbit ran out onto the trail. It must have startled your horse.”
I sighed. “We’re miles away from anywhere. What the hell are we going to do now?”
“Do you have your phone on you?”
“No, I put it in the saddlebag.”
“Oh. You’re not supposed to put anything important in the saddlebag.”
“What about your phone?”
“It’s dead.”
“Great. What are we going to do?”
Rad chewed on his lip for a few moments. “I know,” he said, walking back toward Midnight. “Why don’t you get on with me?”
“No. Forget it.”
“Audrey, you know what they say when you fall off a horse . . .”
“Don’t you dare.”
He grinned. “You get back on.”
“I hate you.”
“Come on; you’ll be fine.” He held out his hand. “I’ll boost you up.”
“There’s no room for me on the saddle.”
“There is if you sit up front. I saw it in a movie once.”
“It sounds awfully dangerous.”
“We’ll go slow; I promise.”
Reluctantly, I took his hand, and he helped me up onto the saddle.
“Holy shit, this horse is even taller than Molly.” Rad’s horse gave a soft whinny, practically giving me a heart attack.
“It’s okay,” Rad said reassuringly. “You’ll be fine.”
He got up behind me with almost no effort and put his arms around my waist. “Okay, now just hold onto the reins gently, and he’ll take us back to base.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, I can do this.”
“See; this isn’t so bad,” said Rad as Midnight began moving into a slow trot. “It’s actually kind of nice.”
All of a sudden I was hugely aware of Rad’s arms around me and that I was practically sitting in his lap—not to mention that the bouncing motion of the horse had put us in a kind of compromising position. I felt a wave of guilt, thinking about how Duck would feel if he caught a glimpse of this. But then the guilt was replaced by something else, something far more insistent. It was chemical, the way my body reacted to his. A raw, undulating lust was making me ache all over. I felt the heat rise to my cheeks, and I was glad Rad couldn’t see my face.
“You better not be taking advantage of this situation,” I muttered, under my breath.
“The thought barely crossed my mind.”
We made it back in one piece, and I was both glad and disappointed to get off the horse.
“We were a bit worried about you when Molly showed up,” said Bill, taking the reins from Rad. “I was ready to send the boys out in the pickup truck.”
“I’m glad Molly made it back safe—she had a bit of a freak-out.” I took off my helmet. “And I think I left my phone in her saddle.”
“You sure did—Sally found it. You can pick it up from her on your way out.”
“Great, thanks.”
“Molly’s usually pretty good. What happened out there?”
“I think she was startled by a rabbit,” said Rad.
“Ah, I see,” said Bill. “We’ll have to check on our fencing, then.”
A family of four were ambling over toward us, and Bill gave them a quick nod of acknowledgment. Then he turned to us and tipped his hat. “Thanks for your patronage. You two lovebirds have a nice day.”
Sixteen
“There’s something I have to tell you, Lucy,” I said one morning as she and I were catching up on housework.
“What is it?” She closed the door of the dishwasher and stood up.
“I’m hanging out with Rad again.”
She frowned. “Rad? Freddy hasn’t seen him in ages. He kind of just dropped off the radar.”
“He was busy, working on his book. You know my first feature? The author I had to interview?”
“Yeah. You were pretty vague about it when I asked you how it went.”
“I know. That’s because the author was Rad.”
“What? I thought you said his name was Colorado.”
“Rad is Colorado—that’s his actual name.”
It took Lucy a few moments to grasp that.
“Oh, I see,” said Lucy slowly. “God, what a spinout!”
“His book is in the running for the Elliott Tate Award.”
“Jesus Christ, that’s huge! Audrey, this is big news. Why haven’t you told me?”
“Well, I’m telling you now.”
“Does Duck know?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think he’ll be that happy about it. He always had this thing against Rad.”
“But you and Rad are just friends, right?”
“Of course we are.” I looked down at my hands.
“Audrey?” She had a worried look on her face. “Is there more to this than what you’re telling me?”
“No. Well, I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
I looked at her. “I have feelings for him, Lucy. I just—” I let out an exasperated sigh. “We’ve always had this connection, or whatever the hell it is. I don’t know.” I gave her a helpless look.
“Oh, Audrey,” she said, giving my arm a quick squeeze. “I think if Rad is in your life again, he’s there for a reason.”
I nodded. “You know, it’s like Duck and I have hardly anything to talk about. We need constant background noise—like a movie, or an activity, or friends, or something. Otherwise, we bore each other to death. Does that make sense?”
“It does.”
“But when I’m with Rad, we have so much fun. We could be doing nothing at all—it doesn’t matter. We laugh all the time, and he just gets me. Like how you get me, but this is a boy, and because of that, there’s this whole other dimension.”
“I know,” said Lucy softly. “I love Freddy like that.”
The word “love” hung in the air between us, like an ax.
“But how can I break it off with Duck?” I said, sadly. “We’ve been together since we were kids.”
“Audrey, do you remember my lucky Chuck Taylors?”
“The bright orange ones?”
Lucy nodded.
“Oh God, yes. You wore them until they fell to pieces. Even then you refused to part with them.”