Read Love Me Tender for Free Online

ten miles by highway, only eight by the back roads and trails. It usually takes Robin and me about half an hour, but we move fast. Don’t know how much speed you’re up for.” He cocked an eyebrow.
    â€œI’m up for pretty much anything.” Her striking blue-gray eyes danced, and he got the sense she didn’t just mean riding.
    â€œUh,” he said awkwardly, “we should let the horses warm up first.” The moment he said those words, he wondered if they could be taken sexually too. He was about to clarify, then figured that would only make things worse.
    â€œSure,” she said. “My muscles could use a little warming up too.”
    Riding muscles, right?
    Best to change the subject.

Chapter Four
    Cassidy gazed at Dave, who looked the total cowboy this afternoon. It was fun getting him flustered, though frustrating trying to sort out his mixed signals.
    â€œYou’re settling in okay in Caribou Crossing?” he asked.
    So he had retreated to safety, had he? She’d go along. For now. “I sure am.”
    She stroked Cherry’s neck again, enjoying the rhythm of the horse’s body under her, the warmth of the sun on her shoulders, the scent of wild roses from a bush growing along a sagging wooden fence. They were out of town now, on a wide dirt track fenced on both sides and dotted with occasional piles of manure, which Merlin neatly avoided. A field of hay blew gently in the breeze on one side, and on the other cattle grazed, a few lifting their heads to watch her, Dave, and the well-behaved black poodle.
    Riding, fresh air, gorgeous scenery, these were the reasons she’d come to Caribou Crossing. The handsome man on his pretty horse was an unexpected bonus.
    Her old jeans and cotton shirt were comfy and the thrift shop boots fit as if she’d been wearing them for years. The cream straw cowboy hat sat lightly on her head, and its brim shaded her face from the brightest of the sun’s rays. Oh yes, life was good.
    Caribou Crossing had been a brilliant choice and she blessed the silver lining of her Monday exhaustion that had landed her on the floor of Dave’s hotel lobby.
    â€œMadisun said you got a room at Ms. Haldenby’s. She’s a, uh, interesting woman.” Dave’s mouth gave a wry twist.
    She chuckled, thinking of her white-haired landlady: efficient, brisk, opinionated, yet warmhearted underneath it all. “Very interesting. I hear she was your fourth-grade teacher.” Dave must have been a cute kid. The sandy hair that flopped boyishly over his forehead would have been lighter then. His greenish brown eyes and full mouth would have been carefree rather than, as now, often shadowed by some internal burden.
    â€œYup. You meet someone in Caribou Crossing between the ages of twenty-five and sixty, chances are she taught them.”
    â€œShe has stories,” she teased.
    â€œI hate to think.”
    â€œD’you recall a frog you brought to school to try to scare her? Silly boy, thinking an experienced teacher like her would be frightened by a frog.”
    â€œActually, it escaped. I didn’t bring it for her; it was for Jessie.”
    â€œAha! You were trying to scare a cute little girl?” The one he’d later married; Robin’s mom.
    He snorted. “You haven’t met Jessie.”
    She was curious about his ex-wife. “She wasn’t the typical little girl?”
    â€œShe loved nature. Horses and dogs especially, but basically any living thing. I found the frog in the garden at home. It had unusual markings and I figured she’d like it.”
    â€œYou were in love with her even back in fourth grade?” She had to wonder what had broken them up in the end.
    He shook his head. “Jessie was a pal, a buddy. A tomboy. A lot like Robin is now.”
    â€œSo you fell for her in your teens? You must have married when you were awfully young. Robin’s what? Eleven,