Read Saving Gideon for Free Online

together with four buttons across the top. She’d tightened those as best as she could, cinched them around her waist with a scrap of cloth from the basket in the kitchen and hooked them over her shoulders with the attached suspenders. Then she’d rolled the legs up to just above her ankles to keep them from dragging on the ground. They were a little worse for wear—considering she’d slept in them. And she would die a million deaths if someone actually saw her in them, but at least she was adequately covered. Maybe now Gideon would stop looking at her like that .
    The sun was faithful and warm, and the last drifts of snow on the north side of the barn were finally starting to melt. Avery stretched and propped her bare feet up on the wooden porch railing and watched the farm go by. At least what there was of it. She’d thought a farm would be a little busier than Gideon Fisher’s seemed to be. But what did she truly know about farms? Nothing. Big, fat nada.
    Still, Gideon had disappeared in the barn about an hour ago—her traitorous companion hot on his heels—and neither one of them had come out again. Didn’t he have fields to plow and crops to harvest and what not? And wasn’t he going to church? After all, it was Sunday.
    And what did she care?
    Except that she had never felt more useless in her life. All she had done since she’d been here was wash the dishes in unnecessarily cold water—Gideon had showed her that very morning how he used water heated in a bucket by the fire to wash the dishes—and sit around. And that didn’t seem quite right.
    Her father always had a billion things for her to do—appearances to make, volunteer work, benefits to attend. It wasn’t hard work, but it kept her busy.
    Gideon had saved her life, clothed her, fed her, shouldn’t she give something in return? She was on a farm. There were no benefits to attend, but shouldn’t she do something ?
    She should. And she would start by finding her host and . . . and . . . well, finding her host was something, now wasn’t it?
    Avery stood and started off the porch, stopping only when she got to the smooth patch of red dirt at the bottom of the stoop. She didn’t have on any shoes. She surveyed the uneven ground that separated her from the barn. A few tufts of brown grass lined the well-worn path that was mostly mud with only a few spots packed down since the snow had melted. Her Manolo Blahniks were no match for this type of terrain and that left her only one option.
    Despite the rising heat of the day, the path was cool on the soles of her feet, but not unpleasant. In fact, the experience of walking barefoot across a country farmyard was surprisingly pleasant. The sun was on her face, the ground soft beneath her feet, the rolled up pants legs brushing against her ankles as she made her way to the barn.
    Three dogs lay in the sunshine just before the cool, shadowy entrance to the barn—a beagle, a black and white border collie, and a spotty dog she guessed to be some sort of heeler. None of them moved anything save a small wag of their tails as she passed them by. Her furry friend was nowhere to be seen.
    Avery stopped just inside the door, taking a moment to let her eyes adjust to her new surroundings. It was dim even with the top half of the Dutch doors open on the other end. She could say one thing about the barn: it was neat. Fresh smelling, clean hay scattered across the packed dirt floor and perfumed the air as she trod on it. And it was big, with a trussed roof and expansive loft stretching the length of the barn. And empty . . . except for a lone cow in one stall and a couple of horses housed just to the left and opposite the tack room.
    Okay, that was three things, but Avery was so proud of herself for remembering the term “tack room” that she wasn’t keeping count. An “uncle” of hers over in Ft. Worth, one of her father’s associates, owned a sprawling ranch. Avery had gone out there once, toured the barn and