The Fifth Season Read Free Page A

everything was in order. With a nod, Emma turned to head out and slammed smack into a concrete wall.
    Eye level with his chest, she inhaled sharply as his scent invaded her senses.
    Stone grabbed her upper arms, his fingers tightened painfully, and she winced.
    Gazing up, her eyes met an entirely different wall. A wall of blue fire that burned right into the center of her soul.
    “What game are you playing?”
    “I don’t understand?” Emma said, trying to clear the cobweb of physical awareness that spread across her brain.
    “You and my grandmother? What game is this? You’ve lived here for fifteen years, and she willed the place to me? If this is some hair-brained scheme to reintroduce me into society, then you can stop the charade right now. I’ll have nothing to do with it.”
    Emma’s heart was doing a great rendition of a paddleball game. She hated this feeling. “Let go of me, you’re hurting my arms.”
    “Not until you tell me the truth.”
    “The truth?” She cringed as her voice rose several octaves. “I don’t understand this madness any more than you do. I created this place. I brought the clientele here. I wanted nothing in return but a little security. Nothing but a home to stay in.” Her voice rose in crescendo until she practically screamed the last few words at him.
    He released her in obvious shock. She swallowed quickly controlling anymore words from spewing forth and continuing this regrettable outburst. “I’m entitled to my rages as well, you know. You haven’t cornered the market yet,” she said, fighting to regain her internal balance.
    He flashed that grin again. Emma ignored the gone-over-the-hill-too-fast-left-my-tummy-behind jig feeling it evoked.
    She needed air. “I’ll be preparing dinner for eight o’clock, until then help yourself to whatever you want in the kitchen.”
    Emma spun and exited the suite before she did something stupid like slug him. These were uncommon urges for her and extremely unsettling. She raced through the resort into the comforting environment of her private apartment.
    Emma paced from cubby-sized room to cubby-sized room, absently rearranging knick-knacks given as parting gifts from appreciative guests.
    Space.
    She needed space. Stripping out of her jeans and into a pair of grungy khaki gardening shorts, Emma knotted her hair on top of her head and headed outside.
    Retrieving a rusty blue wheelbarrow from the barn, she piled her pruning shears and gloves inside.
    The scent of hay and the warm summer sun smoothed her tangled emotions. Emma wove between the white hens that were scattered across the barnyard and headed out past the horse pasture.
    “Tomorrow would be a good day to gather eggs,” she said to herself, realizing she’d forgotten this morning.
    She couldn’t prevent the giggle that emerged as the back of her legs were nudged by little furry heads. Rhett and Scarlet, the resort’s pair of Pygmy Goats, danced behind her. They followed her happily, frolicking in the grass and chasing butterflies. Passing a grove of quaking aspens, Emma arrived at her destination.
    A patch of wildflowers grew in abundance, shimmering beneath the sunlight in an ocean of blues, purples and yellows. Emma carefully selected the flowers she wished to display, clipped them, and placed them gently in the wheelbarrow. She then knelt and pulled at the stubborn weeds sprouting from between the carefully laid brick border. She smiled at the silly antics of the goats. They were everywhere. In her garden, down the field, back to the garden, and up to the house.
    It was times like this that all her troubles faded away. Life was good and wonderful. The velvet petals on her Black Eyed Susans were a miracle of nature, fragile yet sturdy enough to battle the stiff western breeze that blew through the valley.
    Emma inhaled the sweet afternoon scent. Suddenly, things weren’t all that bad. She’d tolerate Stone Connor, and maybe…somehow, talk him into keeping River