LITMIR.BIZ

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      She nudged Buttercup. Even if it was dry, at least she and Buttercup could rest and cool off in the shade.

      As they made their way toward the trees, she couldn’t help remembering less anxious outings when she’d come here with her cousins and Uncle Buster, who had always said this was the prettiest pasture on the Triple K Ranch.

      Blackstone Ranch now.

      Oh, how she’d loved Uncle Buster. He’d been a lot like her daddy except way more fun.

      A yowl from the brush pierced the silence. A little brown rabbit sprang up underfoot. Buttercup reared. Clenching her legs tight and seizing fistfuls of black mane, Ritz held on as the rabbit made a wild dash for it.

      Letting out a war whoop, Ritz and Buttercup raced after it.

      Crazed with fear, the rabbit dived into a hole.

      Buttercup circled, pawing and snorting.

      Then Ritz remembered where she was and glanced nervously toward the oak mott.

      No sign of a cat…. Nor a tall, dark naked man-boy.

      Pressing her calves tighter, she and Buttercup were soon inside the shade of the oak trees. The creek was no more than a narrow trickle of water spilling over rocks and sand and damp brown leaves. Four yellow birds fluttered in the sand near a clump of Spanish dagger, chirping.

      The banks were stony, littered with sticks, and thorny with yellow-berried Granjeno, which made for dangerous riding, so Ritz dismounted Buttercup, because she was too precious to her to risk a leg injury.

      Quietly, so as not to startle the birds, Ritz grounded the mare. The birds fluttered to the high green branches that arched above like a natural cathedral. Buttercup sunk her muzzle and guzzled sloppily from a little pool. Ritz knelt on the bank, dabbing cool water onto her red face and sunburned arms. She kept thinking about Roque Blackstone and wondering how she’d ever get out.

      When she’d cooled off a bit, she just sat there, mesmerized by the guppies flashing in the dark waters. Wishing she had jars to catch them with, she forgot she was trapped in the forbidden kingdom with a naked boy.

      Scooping up a handful of water and two guppies, she smiled as they wriggled their tails spraying wet pearls of sunlight. Releasing them, she saw Buttercup a good ways downstream nibbling mesquite beans.

      Buttercup was not to be trusted, so Ritz got up to go after her. Then she spied a darling black spider curled up in a white flower. When she peeled back the petals, the spider curled up as small as a pill bug.

      “Don’t be afraid, little spider.”

      Little legs tickled her ankle. When she brushed at the bug, she saw an amber colored army of ants racing along a miniature highway in the tall brown grasses. Every ant returning to the mound carried a leaf bigger than it was. She fell to her knees to watch them. Every ant coming out of the mound bumped into every ant carrying a leaf.

      “Why?” she wondered aloud, spellbound. “Do you have a secret language?”

      For a long time, she was aware of nothing but the ants. Then a large animal sneezed. She jumped to her feet.

      “Buttercup?”

      The yellow birds weren’t singing anymore. The last of the red-gold sunlight flickered in the twisted, wind-skewered branches. An owl went, “whoo, whoo, whoo.”

      Where was Buttercup?

      Ritz ran in the direction where she’d last seen her. When she stopped to get her breath, she was in a part of the oak mott she’d never been in before. Shrouded eerily with mistletoe, the trees were like dancers frozen in some dark spell.

      The owl hooted again.

      Sometimes witches took the shape of owls and changed little girls into birds…at least, in one of Ritz’s favorite fairy tales. Ritz shivered.

      The trees, the creek—all that had seemed so familiar and wondrous were suddenly strange and terrifying. She was all alone. Without the wind to rattle the palmetto fronds and stir the brown leaves that littered the ground, it was too quiet.

      She stared up into the branches looking for cats. Then she remembered the No Trespassing signs, and a pulsebeat pounded in her temple.

      This was Blackstone land. Why hadn’t she climbed the gate and run home? She had to get home—fast—really fast, before something really bad happened. She would have to end the feud some other day when she was bigger and braver.

      “Buttercup? Where are you—”

      There was no answering snicker. The sun went behind a cloud and the glade darkened. Branches moaned in the wind. Leaves rained down and scuttled at her feet.

      Then a twig crackled behind her.

      Sobbing with fury and terror, she whirled. Sunlight and shadows played across the grass. Alert, triangular, gold ears above the waving brown tips pointed straight at her.

      A cat!

      Her heart slammed against her rib cage.

      Another gust of wind sent more leaves flying. The grass waved. The big ears disappeared.

      Oh, my God! Where was he? Her eyes glued to the spot where those ears had been, she pushed her glasses up. Then she stealthily tiptoed backward, moving robotically, one careful little half step at a time because she knew she wasn’t supposed to run. Not from a cat—they liked to chase things.

      To a big cat, she’d be no more than a mouse was to Molly, Mother’s gray Persian that was forever catching birds…just to play with them and kill them. A big cat would bite her neck, crunch her bones, toss her around like a rag doll, paralyze her and then drag her off to some tree or hole—

      Last year she’d seen a dead little filly over near the beach house that a cat had gotten. There’d been nothing left but bones and strips of hide and a few strands of black mane and tail blowing in the wind.

      She conjured this image so vividly, she forgot not to run. With a panicky yell, Ritz twisted and sprinted full out toward the sunny pasture and pond.

      Her sneakers flew across fallen branches, logs and rocks, splashing sloppily through the mud and water. When her foot got stuck between two rocks in the slippery ooze, a rattler hissed from the bank. At the sight of those brown coils, she yanked at her ankle with the frenzy of a coyote chewing its leg off to get out of a trap.

      Then she was free, sobbing but running wildly. Thorns scratched her legs. Cutoffs weren’t right for such dense brush. Cowboys wore leather leggings and jackets and gauntlet-type gloves.

      Her right toe hit a rock wrong, and she pitched forward, hitting the ground so hard, it knocked the breath out of her. Her bleeding palms burned from skidding across gravel and sticker burrs, but she was too stunned and too terrified by what she saw beyond the trees to even whimper.

      There he was!

      Not naked!

      Worse!

      Bold as brass, Roque Blackstone stared straight at her, unzipped his fly and shook his big thingy out.

      Just like last night, she covered her eyes with her fingers and crouched as still as a mouse and prayed, hoping he hadn’t heard her, hoping he hadn’t really seen her.

      Finally her terrible curiosity got the best of her and she peeked through her slitted fingers.

      “Oh, my God!”

      His skin was as brown as mahogany. He had it pointed at her now and was deliberately spraying a rock not five feet in front of her with a stream of yellow pee.

      Adrenaline. Sweat. Sheer terror.

      Slowly, when nothing happened, her dreadful curiosity took the ascendancy of her common sense.

      She squinted and tried not to see that part of his anatomy. Only somehow that was all she saw. It was big and long and purple-pink. It stuck straight out. At her!

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