Read Online Taking The Reins (The Rosewoods Book 1) by Katrina Abbott - Free Book Online Page B

to look around, like he was about to tell me a grave secret. My heart stuttered as he leaned closer, filling my nose with his masculine smell: fifty percent boy, fifty percent tack, one-hundred percent amazing.
    He was almost close enough to kiss me, and as if they were hoping it would happen, my eyes drifted down to his mouth. Involuntarily, I leaned forward.
    He cleared his throat, snapping my attention back up to his eyes.
    “I have it on good authority that the dean has a soft spot for dressage. We’ve had a sub-par team for years, but if we had someone with four blue...”
    “Five,” I said, interrupting him. “I have five blue ribbons.” Which was true, but probably wasn’t a good indicator of my skill as much as the lack of skill in anyone else at my old stables.
    He nodded, “Five. Like I said: impressive. Leave it with me; I’ll see what I can do.”
    I opened my mouth to thank him, when I heard Emmie’s laugh, muffled, but loud enough that Brady would be able to hear it if he was paying attention. One glance at his face told me he hadn’t heard, but it was just a matter of time if we stuck around.
    I cleared my throat loudly. “So I have all this fruit and carrots. Can I give it to the horses?”
    He pointed at the form again. “Sign up.”
    “Right.” I cleared my throat again while I scribbled my name on the form, cursing the pen that decided it didn’t want to write upright. I pretty much scratched my name through the page and quickly turned back to Brady.
    “Okay, good to go.” I cleared my throat again to cover Emmie’s giggle. “Sorry. Something in my throat.”
    He gave me a weird sideways look, but didn’t say anything more as he led me away from the office and down the hall towards the stalls.
    “So, do you ride?” I asked him. It felt like a stupid question; asking the stable boy if he rode, but you never know. And anyway, it filled the weird silence that was stretching between us.
    He gave me a look, his right eyebrow raised.
    “What?” I asked. “Did I say something wrong?” I suddenly had a panic attack that he had fallen from a horse and had some sort of PTSD or something.
    He shook his head and grinned. “No. Nothing’s wrong. Yes, I ride a little. Come on, let’s distribute your goodies and then I have to lock up. As much as I’d like to hang out here all night with you, I do have an early day tomorrow.”
    My heart fluttered in my chest at his words. Was Brady flirting with me? No, he was staff here and that had to be against the rules, even if he did seem kind of young; he was probably older than he looked, anyway.
    Probably he was just being nice to the new girl who’d cried on his shoulder over her childish problems.
    Yes, that had to be it. But why didn’t my pounding heart believe it?

Love Rekindled
    “I don’t know what I was nervous about, but you were right, Brooklyn: it was fine. No. It was better than fine, it was amazing! Dave is amazing.”
    It was the sixth time Emmie’d used the word amazing since she’d returned from her stables rendezvous, kicked off her shoes and threw herself onto her bed, almost two and a half minutes before. It was tempting to point out that she was going to qualify for the ‘overused word drinking game’ if she wasn’t careful, but her excitement was infectious, so I just let her ride it out. Realizing I wasn’t going to get back to reading my textbook anytime soon, I wondered if I’d get any work done this year with Emmie as my roommate. I might have to figure out somewhere else to study for exams, but for now, before the workload got too heavy, I didn’t mind.
    And I loved her energy; I hoped maybe some would wear off on me.
    She bounced a little on her bed. “He looks even better than I remembered, since his hair’s grown out. I mean, you just can’t see it on Skype, you know? And it’s so soft and he smells exactly how I remembered; clean and masculine and kind of like leather and just pure goodness, you