Free My Texas Sweetheart (book one) by Pauliena Acheson Page B

know. What is wrong with me? Am I falling for him?
    Just then, I see someone out of the corner of my eye.  Storm gets spooked, rears up, and throws me. I hit the ground hard.  Everything hurts and I can’t open my eyes. I feel a trickle of blood run down my face. “Oh, my god,” I moan. I can feel someone’s hands pulling at the zipper of my pants. I try to raise my hands to push whoever it is away, but the pain is too much.  My world goes black.
     
     

Chapter 10 (Jase)
     
    We are all sitting at the table talking about what happened to Maggie when we hear her coming down the stairs. I look at everyone else and motion for them to stop talking. Maggie walks into the room. “Seriously, please stop looking at me like that!” she yells. We watch her storm out the door.
    As everybody starts talking again , I get up from the table and look out the window to see her heading for the barn. “Oh, where did Maggie go? We were supposed to go shopping,” Lily says.
    I turn to her and say , “Looks like she’s going for a ride. She overheard our conversation and ran for the barn.” Looking back out the window, I notice Maggie and Storm heading down the path, toward the road.
    Returning to the table , I sit and try to pay attention to what everyone is saying, but my mind keeps wandering. I have to force myself to stay seated. She needs this time to herself. She doesn’t need me to add to the stress. I look over at Adam a couple of times. He’s got stress lines developing on his forehead.  Chase has been roaming about the room, looking out the window every so often, watching for his sister. I can see that he is getting more worried, but is trying to keep up with the conversation. I hear Lily quietly sobbing in the kitchen as she is preparing supper. I look at Adam and motion towards the kitchen. Adam looks at his dad and says, “I think you might want to go check on Mom. I can hear her crying.” Brad excuses himself.
    Chase moves quickly to the table . “I’m getting really worried about Maggie. It’s starting to get dark out and she’s not back yet. I don’t want to worry Mom and Dad so I’m going to go saddle one of the other horses and see if I can find her.” We all jump up, arguing about who was going to go with Chase.
    He motioned for all of us to sit back down . “I will take Jase with me. We don’t want Mom and Dad to worry, especially with what’s happened the past few days. I’ll take my cell phone with me and let you boys know when we find her. I need you all to keep things calm here and cover for us until we get back.” They all let out a quiet grumble, but knows that he was right.
    Because of the chill in the night air, we gather coats and some water. Chase looks at his brothers. “We’ll find her. She’s fine. We’ll bring her home.”
    As we start to head out the door, Adam says, “Jase, please bring her home.  She’s our only baby girl.”  I reach out and clasp him on the shoulder.
    Chase and I head over to the barn , saddle up Dixie and Midnight, and put our stuff in the saddle bags. I hand him one of the flashlights that I had grabbed, and we head out. My mind is cluttered with feelings and thoughts. What is going on in my head? This is so unlike me. Why am I getting so wrapped up in this? I am a one-night stand kind of guy. Is it because her brother is my best friend, or is it because she’s told me that she doesn’t like my lifestyle? I hear Chase say something. Snap out of it! Once again, Chase’s voice filters through to my ears. “…should we…?”, but the sound of hoof beats cuts him off.
    We both take off towa rds the sound. It looks like Storm, but the darkness is making it hard to tell. We can tell that we’re closing the distance between us and the horse. Chase is shouting back to me, “It’s Storm!” In one quick motion, I grab the reigns around Storm’s neck, looking around to see if I can see something, anything that would tell us what happened.  God,