Another Saturday Night and I Ain't Got No Body (A Page Turners Novel) (21 page)

The lab dismounted and loped off but slowly circled back with a predatory gleam in his eyes.

“It’s like getting free HBO,” Edna said, “but with dogs instead of people.”

Roy looked at Edna in slight shock, then broke into good-hearted laughter. “Woman, how would you like to join me on the porch for some lemonade while these two go for their ride?”

“I’d like to join you for lemonade and a ride,” drawled Edna, still in Southern mode.

Again, Roy laughed and held his arm out for Edna to take. They made their way up the steps toward the rocking chairs on the porch.

“Take as long as you like, kids!” Edna hollered over her shoulder. “Roy and I will just be over here gettin’ acquainted.” 

Sunny shook her head and turned to follow Levi to the barn when a streak of yellow ran past her, and the hump-machine started in on Beau again. Duke looked like he was trying to start a two dog conga line, and Beau just hadn’t caught the dance fever yet.

“Dad, put this dog in the house, would ya?” Levi called out to Roy as he again shooed Duke off of Beau.

Duke regretfully obeyed Roy’s call of “Come here, Boy,” and slunk up the steps and through the screen door that Roy held ajar.

“C’mon, I want to show you the horses.” Levi took Sunny’s hand and pulled her toward the barn.

The horses were housed in a well-maintained red barn. They stepped through the doors from the warm sunshine into the cool shadowy walkway between two rows of stalls on either side of the barn. Sunny’s nose was filled with the barn scents of hay, dirt, horses, and manure, and yet the mixture of them all together was kind of pleasant.

Levi introduced Sunny to his gelding, Star. He was a large black beast with a white marking along his nose faintly resembling a star shape. He brought Star out of his stall and wrapped the reins of his bridle loosely around the top rung of the stall door.

He opened the neighboring stall and led forth another horse that was smaller than Star and had white sock markings on its two front legs.

“And this beautiful lady is…uh…well…Lady,” Levi said. Sunny was beginning to get a sense of his creative mind when it came to naming his farm animals.

Sunny stepped forward and reached out to stroke the side of Lady’s head and neck. The horse looked at her with gorgeous brown eyes and moved to nuzzle its head into her shoulder. A fly landed on the horse’s rump, and she simultaneously stamped her right foot down onto Sunny’s toe and shook her head with a huff. Sunny cried out from the assault on her big toe as Lady blew horsy snot right across Sunny’s upturned cheeks and into her open mouth.

“That was not very ladylike.” Levi tugged on Lady’s halter, leading her and Star out into the sunshine as Sunny stood doubled over, spitting onto the ground, wondering if Levi was talking to the horse or her.

After a few minutes, Sunny joined Levi in the arena and approached Lady from the side, questioning how on earth she was going to get from the ground up into that saddle.

“Just put your right foot in the stirrup there, grab the saddle horn and swing up into the saddle,” Levi instructed.

Easy for you to say.
She stuck her right foot up in the air and jabbed for the stirrup. She got her foot into the loop and tried to reach for the saddle horn, in a perfect yoga move of ‘Stork Reaching for the Horizon’, when something slipped and down she went. Landing hard on her rump, Sunny tried to laugh off her embarrassment and quickly got up to try again.

“Let me help.” Levi dismounted from Star and came up behind her. With her foot back in the stirrup, he simultaneously pushed while Sunny pulled on the saddle horn. Between the two of them, she somehow ended upright in the saddle. Levi’s help was a cross between a goose and a grab, and his cheeks were flushed pink as he climbed back into Star’s saddle, avoiding eye contact with her.

So far, this date is off to a great start.
Between her gassy dog, her lady-like spitting, and her obvious clumsiness, she’d made quite a great first impression. Whether she liked him or not, the cute cowboy probably wished he hadn’t agreed to Piper’s fix-up.

Finally, they set off on their ride, leaving the arena, then walking the horses through a meadow. As they crossed the tall grass, Lady must have decided to acknowledge her woman’s right to have a snack if it presents itself and stopped dead in her tracks. She proceeded to drop her head and happily munch on the green stalks. Because Sunny terrifyingly clung to the reins, she also proceeded to drop forward.

“Uh, Levi, help, please,” Sunny called, as she clung to Lady’s neck.

“Aahh, she’s just eatin’,” he said, and sauntered back to where they had stopped. “Grab the reins and pull back on her head real hard.”

“I think I dropped the reins. And I don’t know how to sit back up from here,” Sunny said pitifully.

Levi brought Star up next to Lady’s head and reached down for the reins. He pulled the horse’s head up and passed the reins back to Sunny. She pushed back into a sitting position.

But within a few minutes of walking, Lady found a new grassy delicacy, and the process repeated itself again. After several rein-rescues, Levi wrapped the reins around the saddle horn to help keep Lady’s head up. He looked a little disappointed in Sunny’s horseback riding abilities, so she sat up straighter in the saddle, determined to take control of the horse and Levi’s opinion of her
.

Okay
.
Now I’m getting the hang of things.
After several minutes of riding without any other mishaps, she was beginning to see why Piper enjoyed this so much. They plodded through the meadow and followed a path into a stand of aspen trees, with Sunny’s horse in the lead.

Several times Sunny turned to smile encouragingly at Levi and would catch him staring at her behind. Caught, he would look away quickly, his cheeks pink with embarrassment.

A bit smug, now that she had caught the cowboy checking her out, she was a little more confident in herself and her riding abilities. After leaving the meadow behind, she unwrapped the reins and proceeded to lead Lady through the trail.

No sooner did Sunny begin to get comfortable and almost enjoy the ride, than Lady’s head whipped back, and the horse took a nip at her leg.

“Hey!” Sunny screamed. “She’s biting me!”

“Aahh- she’s just playin’ with ya,” Levi said. “She won’t really bite ya.”

“Well, she keeps bringing her head back and snapping her teeth at my leg,” Sunny cried, now having brought her leg out of the stirrup and hooked her foot behind the saddle horn.

“Hey, stop it!” she shrieked, as Lady turned her head to the other side and tried to nip Sunny’s other leg. She pulled that leg up too and counterbalanced, slipping off the saddle. Grabbing for the saddle horn, she began a slow motion descent as her body weight pulled her and the saddle sideways until she let go and dropped unceremoniously onto the ground.

Evidently, her shrieking must have scared Lady as much it did Sunny, because the horse took off like a shot, leaving Sunny in a dusty pile of tears on the ground.

“What the heck? Are you all right?” Levi swung down from Star’s back and came toward her. “I’ve never seen her do that. Usually she likes women.”

“Well, thanks. Tha
t makes me feel so much better.
” Sunny wiped her cheeks and tried to untangle herself from the bush she had landed in, her newfound confidence waning with each scratch from the prickly branches
.

“I didn’t mean she didn’t like you,” Levi faltered as he reached down to help Sunny to her feet. “I meant she’s never done that to other women. Err… I mean…”

“Just forget it,” she grumbled and started back down the path toward the meadow.

They silently plodded back to the barn. Levi walked with her, leading Star behind him. Reaching the barn, they found Lady back in the arena, calmly munching some hay from the center trough.

Sunny had realized two things. She did not enjoy horseback riding, and her cute ‘cowboy’ boots were definitely not made for walking. Her feet hurt, her rump was sore, and she was ready to call it a day.

As Sunny limped back toward the house, she could hear Edna and Roy’s laughter coming from the porch. Beau, who had been hiding under the steps, ran cheerfully out to greet her.

“I think we’re ready to head back,” Sunny called to Edna as she neared the porch steps.

“Already
?
We were just having such fun.” She smiled over at Roy, who winked conspiratorially at her.

“I hate to be a party pooper, but I fell off the horse, and my feet are killing me. I’m ready to go home now,” Sunny explained.

“Oh, honey, are you all right?”  Edna came down the stairs. “Did you break anything?”

“She’s fine. She just took a little tumble,” Levi said, coming up behind them, apparently having taken a few minutes to put Star and Lady back into their stables.

“Oh, shoot
!
Is that when you sat in the horse poop?” Edna asked, as she circled Sunny, looking for obvious injury.

“What?” Sunny cried, her hands reaching back to feel crusty, dried, horse-poop covering her back side. “When did that happen?”  She frantically tried to brush it off.

“I think when you tried to get on Lady, there in the arena,” Levi said quietly, as he looked away in embarrassment.

Ding! Ding! Last straw of the day just joined the party!
Hurt and embarrassed, Sunny’s normally calm temperament had been through enough.

“I’ve had horse-shit on my ass for the whole last hour and you didn’t tell me?!” Sunny shrieked, then gasped in humiliation at the memory of his ‘stolen’ glances at her backside.

“Sorry, I didn’t…” he began.

“Son, you better get these ladies on home now,” Roy interrupted, trying to save them any more mortification. He began to herd them toward the pickup where they all piled in. Beau jumped into the cab, and Roy shut the door behind him.

“It was nice meeting you, ladies,” Roy said through the open window. “I’ll be in touch, Edna.”  He patted the side of the pickup as Levi slowly pulled away.

The ride home was uncomfortably silent, and Sunny and Edna mumbled their thanks to Levi as he deposited them into the driveway.

He pulled away, and Edna sighed. “I would have at least taken the goodbye kiss.”

Sunny shook her head, smiling, and trudged up to the front door, pampering her left foot where she could feel a blister already forming.

Sunny just wanted to climb into a hot bath and forget about humping dogs, spitting-biting horses, sore feet, and her humiliating poop-encrusted butt. In Levi’s words, she was done “just playin’.”

18

“There he is,” Cassie cried, as she jumped up and down in her seat.

“I can’t believe he showed up while we were here,” Sunny said incredulously.

“Right
?
What are the odds?”

“Well, the odds aren’t too bad considering we’ve been hanging around here for the past two days just hoping we’d see him,” she answered wryly.

Maggie had to show up at her day job, so Sunny and Cassie had spent most of the day on Monday and Tuesday at the café across from Finney’s Investigations, where Piper and Drew had spied Jake the week before. They had wasted hours watching and waiting for Jake’s return. So far, they had tried all six flavors of milkshake the café offered. If Sunny saw another french fry, she might vomit.

On Monday, they each showed up to the restaurant in head to toe black apparel, then laughed at each other’s silly prime-time idea of spying.

“Maybe the all black is better at night,” Sunny said, dragging the black baseball cap from her head.

“Well, you did it too!” Cassie pulled the black leather driving gloves from her hands and stuffed them in her purse. “I just got excited. It’s my first stakeout. I didn’t know what to wear!”

Their stakeout had gone from exciting and thrilling to dull and boring. So far, it had resulted in watching several women go in and out of the salon and constant full bladders from too many iced teas
.

After so many hours of tedious observation, Sunny couldn’t believe it when Jake’s Mustang pulled up in front of the strip mall. As he climbed from the car, she took in his lean muscled body. His dark aviator sunglasses added an extra air of dangerousness.

Cassie gave a low wolf whistle. “I can definitely see why you’re into this guy. He’s hot!”

“Told you! Now get down.” Sunny pulled Cassie into a squat behind her chair, then reached up to throw some bills on the table for a tip. They duck-walked out of the café and hid behind some low shrubbery, both scrambling to get their dark glasses out of their purses.

Sunny pulled on her glasses then covered her mouth to prevent a giggle from escaping as Cassie looked at her from behind a huge pair of black sunglasses, giving her the impression of a big-eyed fly.

“Cut it out.” Cassie swatted at Sunny. “C’mon,” she said, and the two ran across the street as soon as Jake had entered the building.

They sneaked in the front entrance just in time to see Jake push open the door to Finney’s office. As they crept closer, they could just make out the conversation through the partially open door.