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As she set the milk back in the fridge, she saw the remains of the raspberry whipped
cream and she dipped a finger into it and brought it to her lips.
The rich, fruity scent and flavor twined around her senses once again and she
almost orgasmed standing in front of her open refrigerator. She would never be able to
look at a jar of raspberry jelly or a carton of heavy cream again without her belly flip-
flopping. She could just imagine her future shopping trips avoiding the jelly aisle and
feeling her way past the dairy case with her eyes closed.
60
Nothing But Sex
The cereal tasted like cardboard, but she forced it down, glancing at her wall clock.
Heaving a sigh, she walked into the living room and blinked. He had cleared away the
chaotic mess and her clothes had been picked up. She turned to look for her keys. She
remembered tossing them onto the lamp table just after she locked the door and hot
color flooded her cheeks as she recalled exactly what she had done after tossing them
there. Her keys were gone? Damn. He must have accidentally picked up hers along
with his. She supposed he would drop them off later.
Dawn was breaking when she stepped out the back porch door and headed for the
barn and feed lots. Cattle lifted their heads and then moved laconically toward the
troughs. The chickens came racing out of the hen house and almost tripped her in their
eager pursuit of the grain she flung to them as she walked. She dumped the rest of the
small feed bucket on their heads as they tried to peck some corn from her boots. She
flung a broken bale of meadow hay over the feed lot fence into the trough and spread it
out so the six young heifers could get to their own share more easily, before heading
into the corral and across to the barn where the hooves of the appaloosa pony rang
against the door of his stall.
Hold your horses, Chickapee. Yours is coming. She grinned at the perfectly
proportioned head that popped out over the door of the box stall. She opened the door
of the big loose box at the far end of the barn and forked a pat of meadow hay into the
feedbox and dumped a quart of mashed oats into the smaller feed cup on the wall,
before filling the trough bucket with fresh water. When she snapped the lead onto his
halter and swung the door open, Chickapee tried to bolt past her and she laughed and
shoved him back, making him behave. Be a gentleman, please. You won t starve.
But she recalled that she hadn t fed him yesterday afternoon, having spent time
with the doc and the police. And with Mike. She rubbed his forehead and kissed his
muzzle. Sorry. Forgot you are starving, you poor boy.
61
Fran Lee
She unclipped the lead as he entered the loose box and she closed the gate,
watching him dig hungrily into his oats first, then the hay.
It had been years since she d had a horse in here, until Lilly Santiago had asked her
to board Chickapee for Suzi, her teenaged daughter. Now the pleasure she derived
from caring for the beautiful little championship jumper helped her feel less cheated by
life. Suzi came over after school and groomed and rode him, while Lee was busy
grading homework from her students. It worked out perfectly.
Knowing how Lee had loved to ride before she d had to sell the horses, Suzi had
offered to let her ride the classy little POA, but she had declined, thinking of her one-
hundred-fifty-pound weight on the almost delicate-looking little show-jumper, despite
Suzi s assurances that a POA could carry her easily. Last thing she wanted to do was
cause damage to those dainty, fine legs.
She leaned on the unpainted top rail of the loose-box and was dreamily admiring
the coloring of the animal when the sound of a heavy truck coming into the barn s side-
drive made her heart clench, and she almost panicked, wondering if Howard had
managed to finagle his way out of jail somehow.
Instinctively reaching for the hay fork, she turned and walked to the barn door and
stopped dead at the sight of the big horse van that was just rolling to a halt in the open
space between the house and the barn corrals. The gleaming blue and silver fifth-wheel
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