Read Online D is for Drunk by Rebecca Cantrell - Free Book Online Page B

wonder he didn’t have trouble balancing on a surfboard. Loose green pants flowed around his legs. His bare chest glistened with sweat or oil. His hair was dark brown when it was dry, and it streamed behind him as the horse galloped into the ring. As cute as he had been in his wetsuit, he looked much better out of it.
    Emily put her finger to her lips and then onto her leg, making a sizzling sound. Yeah, he was that hot.
    “Are you OK, Mom?” Violet asked.
    “Shh,” said Emily. “This is the best part.”
    “Is that Auntie Sofia’s new boyfriend?” Van pointed at Jaxon.
    “Maybe,” Sofia said. “Just maybe.”
    Aidan hummed the song, “macho, macho man.” A hit from the Village People.
    Jaxon and the horses galloped straight toward Sofia and her party. Violet and Van shrank back in their seats, because it looked as if the horses wouldn’t stop. Aidan tensed up next to her.
    But the horses glided to a stop a few feet away from Sofia. Jaxon smiled the same way he had on the board that morning and murmured something. Each horse dropped its outside leg in front, rested its weight on the inside knee, and bowed to her. Jaxon ducked his head and swung his arm to the side.
    The crowd erupted in applause, and Sofia blushed. She didn’t blush often, but when she did she went tomato-red.
    Aidan leaned to the side, probably to say something dumb, and Jaxon looked between them. His green-brown eyes asked a simple question.
    Tex grabbed hold of Aidan’s head and pulled it back toward her, shaking her head. “They’re not together,” Tex said loudly. “At all. He’s with me.”
    Sofia buried her face in her hands. If she hadn’t been embarrassed before, she certainly was now. She peeked between her fingers.
    Jaxon winked, murmured something else, and the horses stood and cantered off to the side.
    Fanning herself with one hand, Tex leaned across Aidan to talk to Sofia. “That may be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
    “He’s just a cowboy,” Aidan said.
    “He is more Khal Drogo than cow-boy,” Emily said. “Wow.”
    Sofia was still watching him on the back of those horses. He slipped from one horse to the other, then disappeared entirely behind the back of one horse, coming up as sinuously as a snake, jumping lightly to the first horse and doing a handstand on its coal-black back. Jaxon’s muscles flexed as he slid from the handstand until he was lying flat across the horse’s back. Then he stood and murmured again. The two horses moved into close formation, and he mounted their backs again.
    A dark-clad figure skipped in from the sidelines and threw Jaxon a flaming torch.
    “That kid gets to play with fire!” Violet pointed to the child throwing the flaming torches. The kid looked about eight, a little older than Violet.
    The youngster threw Jaxon another torch.
    “That kid probably never accidentally burnt down his father’s toolshed,” Emily said.
    “You don’t know,” Violet whispered. “Maybe he burned down ten toolsheds. On purpose.”
    “Shh!” Van put his finger to his lips. “We don’t want Auntie Sofia’s new boyfriend to fall down because we’re too loud.”
    Jaxon didn’t look likely to fall down. He looked completely in charge.
    While the horses galloped in a tight circle inside the ring, Jaxon juggled the torches, hurling them high into the air and catching them before tossing them back to the assistant, smiling one more time at Sofia, and cantering out of the ring.
    Tex looked at Sofia and gave her a thumb’s up. “This is why swimming is good for you.”
    “Auntie Sofia swims?” Violet asked. “I know some good underwater moves. How to punch a shark, things like that.”
    Sofia stared at the ring right where Jaxon and the horses had bowed to her. Horses had never bowed to her before.
    “Quite the talented animal, that horse,” said Aidan. “Both horses actually.”
    Tex punched him on the arm. It must have hurt, because he reached up to rub it.
    Everyone was quiet