Read Wild Ride for Free Online Page B

up and headed for the front window and craned her neck to get a sight line down to the park gate. “Oh.”
    â€œWhat?” Cindy said, coming to stand beside her.
    â€œThe FunFun at the gate is gone.”
    â€œYes, he is,” Cindy said, looking, too. “So he’s the robot clown who knocked you down. Bastard.”
    â€œYes,” Mab said. “I spent a full week making him gorgeous and then he flattens me.”
    â€œWhat an ingrate,” somebody said from behind them, and Mab turned and saw that the guy with the shoulders had come to look out the window with them.
    Close up, he looked like Drunk Dave. Drunk Dave showered and shaved and possibly gainfully employed and dressed in a blue pin-striped shirt instead of something with BENGALS written on it, but still . . . “Dave?”
    He grinned down at her, and she lost her breath. “I get that a lot.” He held out his hand. “I’m Dave’s cousin, Joe. Dave’s out of town for a couple of weeks, so I’m house-sitting for him.”
    â€œDave has a house?” Mab looked down and saw his outstretched hand and took it, trying to look calm, but there was still something about him that disoriented her, something besides his warm, firm grip and the fact that he held her hand a moment too long for just a handshake. She would have sworn he was Drunk Dave, except he was sentient and sober and attractive. And warm. And happy. And near. She felt stirrings. It had been a while since she’d felt stirrings. She’d given up stirrings because they never turned out well and they interfered with her work, but now here they were again.
    He was definitely not Drunk Dave.
    â€œSo you’re Dave’s cousin,” Cindy said. “Welcome to Dreamland. You should avoid the Beer Pavilion and just stay here with me where you’ll be safe from robot clowns.” She dimpled at him.
    â€œRobot clowns?” he said to Cindy, laughing.
    â€œMab met one last night.”
    And there she was, a Batty Brannigan, her first seventeen years all over again. So much for stirrings. Well, she had work to do anyway.
    â€œTell me more,” Joe said.
    â€œTragically, it’s not my story,” Cindy said. “It’s Mab’s.”
    He turned and looked at Mab again, and her heart beat faster. “A robot clown?”
    â€œI was joking. He was a hallucination. I hit my head.”
I’m not weird
.
    â€œThat’s a shame.”
    â€œIt’s fine now.”
    â€œNo, it’s a shame it was a hallucination. How many people get run down by robot clowns?”
    â€œNot many?” Mab guessed.
    â€œIt would be an experience,” Joe said. “Instead of life as usual.”
    â€œExactly,” Cindy said.
    Mab frowned at her. “I like life as usual.”
    â€œBut you don’t remember life as usual,” Joe said, his smile warm on her. “At the end of your life, you’re not going to remember all the life-as-usual days, but you’re going to remember being run down by a robot clown.”
    â€œI wasn’t run down by a robot clown.”
    â€œAre you sure?” Joe said, and Mab met his eyes and saw all the light and excitement there, and thought,
No, but I’m positive I’m stunned by you
.
    â€œI like the way you think,” Cindy told him.
    â€œI don’t,” Mab said.
    Joe smiled into Mab’s eyes as if he knew her and spread out his arms. “Embrace the experience, honey.”
    Mab realized she wasn’t breathing, which was absurd. She took a deep breath, trying to get oxygen back to her brain. Maybe it was the word
embrace
coupled with the stirrings.
I could embrace the experience if you were the experience
.
    She picked up her work bag and her miner’s hat before the stirrings got out of hand. “I have to go meet somebody.”
    â€œWho?” Cindy said.
    â€œThe Fortune-Telling Machine,” Mab said, and