Free Riding the Thunder by Deborah MacGillivray Page A

month.”
    â€œSorry, I don’t play social arranger for my brother.” She laughed at Netta’s grumpy face.
    â€œWe could double-date,” The blonde pressed.
    Dwight yelled again, “Netta! Coffee!”
    â€œAll right, already, I’m coming. Some people just got
no
manners,” she almost shouted playfully. The whole restaurant heard, and roared with laughter.
    Watching Netta work the room, Asha smiled. Strange, there was nearly ten years difference in their ages, but you’d never know from their friendship. As Netta made her return pass, Asha suggested, “Come back in fifteen and we’ll plot.”
    The woman’s face brightened. “Sure thing, boss!”
    Asha glanced back at Liam and Jago. Under different circumstances the two men could have probably been friends. The farm now stood between them. Valinor satisfied Liam the way The Windmill did her. Liam loved raising horses, and was good at it; though not making a fortune, the farm never ran in the red. She feared Mac had allowed his never-ending bitterness over the divorce from their mother to push him into considering the sale of Valinor without taking Liam’s wishes into account.
    Both men were smiling, talking easily, obviously comfortable with each other. Evidently something was said about her, for Liam turned and very pointedly looked as she wiped down the counter. A blush rose to Asha’s cheeks as both sets of eyes fixed upon her, but Asha only saw the man with sable hair. Unable to look away from Jago, all around her shifted focus, blurring.
    Asha swallowed hard, fighting back panic. This special bond summoned by Jago Fitzgerald scared the bloody hell out of her.
    The spell broke as Monty Faulkner swaggered through the door. Asha gritted her teeth. Something was decidedly queer about Faulkner, and not as in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but
off
. He rarely came in the restaurant, and he never did anything out of line, but Asha hated the way he leered at her.
    The man’s eyes were a strange flat gold, reminding her of a crocodile she’d once seen on a school field trip to the Cincinnati Zoo. She’d gone into the reptile house alongwith the other children. Snakes gave her the willies, and lizards weren’t much better; eschewing those exhibits, she walked to the corner and looked down. Oddly, she’d found herself staring at a glass floor with a crocodile under her. A large one. She’d watched it, assuming it to be stuffed, a harmless display. The eyes were a weird yellow-gold, lifeless like marbles. As she observed the thing, repulsed yet hypnotized, the blasted croc jumped up and snapped at her. She was terrified, seeing that yawning jaw coming at her; only when the croc bumped into the glass did she breathe again, remembering there was fortunately a barrier between them. As soon as the blasted creature understood that, too, the thing went back to lying there, alive, yet there was no life force to the reptile. It existed and killed. That was the long and short meaning to its life.
    Asha recalled that crocodile when she looked at Montague Faulkner—only there was no glass wall between them.
    In his twenties and thirties he’d likely been beautiful, a golden angel that would’ve outshone Liam or Jago. His hair was California blond, the shade few ever kept into adulthood, the mass of curls at odds with a face ravaged from time and drink. Not having a magic portrait tucked up in his attic like Dorian Gray, the ugliness of his soul was etched on his dissipated countenance.
    Without waiting for Rhonda to seat him, he shoved into the large C-shaped booth at the front of the diner. Asha opened her mouth to caution him, but a breeze brushed against her cheek. She glanced around, puzzled. The door to the kitchen and the one to the front were closed. The heater overhead blew warm air; this had a distinct chill. Feeling little guilt, she shrugged and kept her mouth shut.
    Netta