Ride a Painted Pony

Twenty-seven miles of dark road and driving rain were all that stood between Nick and the bed he'd reserved for what was left of the night. He might have pulled over and waited for the downpour to pass, but he was set on having himself some pleasure this night. Real, rock-solid pleasure. He was this close to laying himself down f lat, stretching out his whole long, bone-tired body over fresh white sheets and soft pillows. If he had just pulled over, he might have spared himself the one thing he always took care to avoid. Nicholas Red Shield hated surprises.But more than the surprise of a pair of wild eyes staring back at him in his high beams, he hated making roadkill.Eyes left.Wheel right.It was a tricky maneuver. His empty horse trailer fishtailed as he shifted into Neutral, kicked the brake and arced the steering wheel to the left. Getting the trailer in line was only half the battle now that the rubber no longer met the road. Every scrape against the pickup's precious chassis felt like a bloody gouge in Nick's own leathery hide. His beautiful blue twoton duallyas near to new as any vehicle he'd ever hadmowed down a mile-marker post, jolted, shuddered and went still.Rain pelted the roof of the cab.Nick took a deep breath and slowly loosened his grip on the steering wheel. He glanced in the rearview mirror, searching for familiar eyes."You okay back there, Alice?" His passenger popped her head up to assure him that she was only slightly less bored with him than usual.Nick was okay, too, thanks for asking. A little shook up, but he wasn't going to let it show, even when nobody but the cat was looking. Bad form was bad form.And stuck was stuck. He couldn't tell whether the main cause was mud or the mile marker, but his efforts to get loose soon had six tires spinning in all gears.Nick was not a man to curse his luck. He wasted nothing, including breath. Ever equipped to handle his own problems, he practiced taking care of business to perfection. If the mile marker was the hang-up, he hoped the business of jacking his baby off the damn thing wouldn't take all night. He chuckled and started humming as he reached under his seat for the f lash-light. "Jackin' my sweet baby off," he sang softly. Times like this, a little humor couldn't hurt. He exchanged cowboy hat for yellow rubberized poncho and climbed out of the truck with an unconscious smile. He could really be funny when nobody was listening.But the sight of his truck's skewered underbelly was nothing to laugh at. It would take more than a f lash-light beam to assess the damage, especially with the cold spring rain rolling off the hood of his poncho. He could have sworn he heard her groaning softly, just like a real woman."What do you expect me to do in this rain, girl? Beam you up?"Something behind him snapped. Nick pivoted and swept the light over the roadside slope until it hit on a clump of bushes and a clutch of bobbing branches. Damn, had he clipped that deer after all? He grabbed his pistol and a loaded clip from the glove box and then sidled down the steep, wet slope. He'd been lucky. Better his precious pickup had impaled herself on a post than gone tumbling trailer over teakettle down the hill.The bushes weren't much taller than he was, but they were dense and filled out with new foliage. And they weren't moving on their own. There was definitely something in there. Nick parted the branches with his gun hand, f lashed the light into the tangled thicket and found two more of the night's thousand eyes.They weren't doe eyes, but they were almost as big. "Don't," a soft voice pleaded as the eyes took refuge from the light behind a small, colorless, quivering palmEagle, Kathleen is the author of 'Ride a Painted Pony', published 2007 under ISBN 9780778325086 and ISBN 0778325083.