That Summer Read Free Page A

the while keeping one eye turned in our direction.
    Liam looked out over the rolling hills, the large green fields with their run-in sheds, the graceful old trees. He said fiercely, “One day this place will be mine, and I'm not giving up the horses. I've worked too hard to build what I've got here.”
    “You'll make it succeed, Liam. I know you will.”
    His mouth softened and he smiled. “I've missed you, Annie. Your visits home from school were always so short.”
    Liam's smile made Kevin's look dull. I didn't reply.
    “How old are you now anyway?”
    “I am twenty-six, Liam.”
    He looked surprised. “Twenty-six. You mean little Annie is twenty-six already?”
    “Little Annie is twenty-six, and you are twenty-eight. We're not children anymore, Liam.”
    “Believe me, sweetie, I know that.” He looked at me. “But you don't look twenty-six. You still have those big brown eyes and that shiny brown ponytail that makes a guy just yearn to pull it.”
    You look your age,
I thought. He didn't from a distance, but close up I could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and his mouth. Well, Liam had known some hard times in his life, that was for sure.
    I said, “I just saw Kevin.”
    His face didn't change. “He must have gotten in after I left the house. Is he staying long?”
    “I don't know. He said he was taking a break from promoting his new film. If it does as well as the last, he'll be in clover.”
    “I wish I had some of his money.”
    Deciding that we were boring, Thunderhead turned his back on us and continued to graze.
    Liam reached out to tug my ponytail gently. Then he grinned. “I couldn't resist it. “ He straightened away from the fence. “We have a breeding session in an hour. I have to go see if the lady is ready. Can I give you a lift?”
    “No, I'll walk. I'm reacquainting myself with the farm.”
    “Okay.”
    He got in his truck and drove away down the gravel road in a cloud of dust. I turned to look back at Thunder-head. Had I made a mistake in taking a month off from work so I could be here for Mom? After so many years of avoiding Wellington, of avoiding Liam, why would I do something so drastically different?
    I knew the answer before I even asked the question. I had been in love with Liam since I was six years old. For ten years I had stayed away from him, hoping my feelings would run their course, like a virus eventually did. But it hadn't happened. I had dated other men, I had even come close to an engagement once, but in the end my feelings for Liam had always won out.
    Absence hadn't worked; perhaps propinquity would. I had hero-worshipped Liam when I was a child. As an adult I would see him more clearly and, I was hoping, more objectively. I wanted, finally, to break the hold he had over me. I wanted to be free.
    Or so I told myself as I leaned on the fence and watched Thunderhead pull up the green grass with his strong thoroughbred teeth.
    That afternoon I took the car into town to pick up some supplies. Midville is in the heart of Virginia hunt country—there are nine separate hunts in the vicinity— and horses are everywhere on the landscape: in pastures; in horse trailers on the highway and back roads; on roadside signs. There are the restaurants with horsey-sounding names like the Coach Stop, the Jockey Club and the Horse and Hound. There's the tack shop right smack in the middle of Washington Street, the main street in town. There is a statue of a horse at the post office and horseshoes on the bathroom doors in the two local bars. There's an auto repair place called Auto Jockey. If you couldn't tell that Midville was horse country, you had to be blind.
    I was in the Safeway, trying to decide if I wanted Tide or Cheer when a voice from behind me said, “Anne—is that you?”
    I turned to find myself facing a red-haired young man in a suit. It was the hair that clued me in. “Justin,” I said. “How are you?”
    Justin Summers smiled at me. “You look great. I