Trespass Read Free Page A

Russ’s checked shirt over her bare chest, she was glad for one of a very few times in her life that she was a no-bra-required sort of woman. She winced as she bent to pull her dirty jeans up her legs.
    She stared at Russ’s toothbrush for a second before picking it up. The little bag that held her meager, scrounged possessions had been abandoned in the cab of that last truck she’d made the mistake of flagging down. “Sorry, doc.” She scrubbed the stale milk taste from her mouth and rinsed Russ’s brush under the hot tap.
    She felt nearly new as she stepped back out into the den, and she wished her body were up to a good, noisy stretch to punctuate the mood. She spotted a note propped on Russ’s counter, big letters in fat Sharpie scrawl.
    Coffee’s fresh. I’m out back if you need anything. Want to look at your injuries when you’re up.
    She fetched her mug off the floor beside the couch and poured herself a cup of coffee from the machine. Adding milk from the quaint glass bottle in Russ’s fridge, she noted the name of a town she’d passed through printed on the label. She bet her host knew the dairy farmer. With a laugh, she wondered if he knew the cow. Heck, maybe he’d delivered it, if that was something farm vets did. Or maybe cows didn’t need assistance in giving birth.
    Carrying her steaming mug to the rear windows, she stared out over Russ’s overgrown property—waving grass, a sea of faded green flanked by fields of some brown crop that had already been cut down. A few hundred yards beyond was forest, and far beyond that, mountains. Sarah could see the edge of the wooden building next to the house, and most of the fenced-in ring it opened on to. Then Russ himself came into view, leading a horse into the dusty space.
    Sarah hadn’t seen a horse in person for a decade or more, and she’d forgotten how huge they were. This one was mostly brown with white on its face and ankles. Or whatever the correct word was for a horse’s ankles. Russ gave its back a couple of slaps and it wandered off toward the far end of the fence. She remembered how he’d slapped her shoulder that way the night before and cocked an unseen eyebrow at him. Rusty much with women?
    Russ disappeared then brought out another horse, this one a dingy whitish color with gray spots. He inspected something on the horse’s leg then slapped it too, leaving it to its own devices.
    She watched him vault himself over the ring’s wooden fence like a twelve-year-old, watched him squint up into the cloudless noontime sky before disappearing into the side of the barn, emerging with a hat in his hand, an honest-to-God cowboy hat. She sipped her coffee as he set it on his head, heard his claps and shouts before the two German Shepherds came rocketing from around the house, tongues flapping.
    She stood still, hands hugging her warm cup, as she tried to comprehend him. She’d lived her entire life in Buffalo without ever coming across a man like this one—dressed in dusty jeans and a T-shirt, clothes faded and distressed and not manufactured to look that way. No guy back home would wear that hat unless he was being ironic; no dog owner to be found who’d get down and wrestle with his pets as this one was, actually on the ground, rolling around, hat lost in the fray.
    Eventually Russ stood, then found two big sticks and flung them far into the tall grass, dogs shooting off in hot pursuit. He retrieved his hat and whapped the dust off. Setting it on his head, he turned to the house, eyes locking right on Sarah’s. Her heart stopped for a moment, for as long as it took for him raise a hand and offer a smile. She smiled back, feeling dopey, and raised her own hand. Russ held up a finger in a just-a-minute gesture and disappeared back inside the barn…or stable. Whatever it was called.
    She took a seat at his dinner table feeling shy. What had he thought of her, the strange woman freaking his dogs out in the middle of the night, waking him up to