April, Dani - Raven's Ranch (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme) by Dani April Read Free Book Online Page A

some of the guys about the daily routine, she would take her bike out for a long ride across the plains.
    Leaving her bike behind, she kept walking, her feet becoming sore from the little pebbles hitting her bare soles as she stepped along on tiptoes.
    Up ahead about twenty yards farther on, she saw a small building. Actually it was not a building so much as it was a lean-to, a few poles stuck in the ground holding up a heavy tarp that served as both walls and roof for the structure. She saw that the cement base the structure had been set up on was recently wet, and this attracted her to walk up to it, having to traipse through a weed-infested yard as she went, the gravel path ending before it made its way that far.
    Mosquitoes nipped at her bare legs as she walked through the weeds that came up to past her knees. Her footfalls seemed to scare little creatures out of their weed-covered hiding places. She heard things scurrying away from her as she approached, not sure if what she heard were large bugs running from her, or maybe field mice. Whatever they were, she knew she was being foolhardy to walk through the weeds with no shoes on, and almost half naked. Next time she would know better, she told herself and bravely kept going.
    When she got to the structure, she realized that the wet cement was caused by a small stream of water that was running underneath the tarp, covering the lean-to. It felt good to have her bare feet touch the cement and her legs free of the scratching weeds of the yard. However, this only felt good for about a minute. Then as she walked about the structure to inspect it, she realized that the cement was getting uncomfortably warm against her feet, forcing her to high-step across the patio that led to the entrance.
    There was a loose hanging flap in the tarp that apparently served as a door for the lean-to. Feeling awkward about just barging inside, she hesitated for a moment in front of the flap.
    “Hello?” she called, but got no reply.
    The bottoms of her feet were beginning to sting from the heated cement, and she decided she was foolish to be so timid. After all this was her land and so this lean-to, whatever it was, also belonged to her.
    She pushed back the flap and cautiously stepped inside. It was dark in there. No widows were cut into the tarp to provide light. The only light there was came sneaking in underneath the tarp and this was only barely enough at first to see by. After a couple of minutes her eyes adjusted to the change from the bright sun outside to the dreariness of the inside.
    The whole area under the tarp roof was damp, and Raven instantly realized she had found what she was looking for. Back to the end of the structure was a partition, and behind this were half a dozen tiny shower stalls, the musty odor of shower water and soap pervading the enclosure.
    Though Raven had been looking for a place to take her morning shower, this was not exactly what she’d had in mind. As she stepped down the row of shower stalls, she tried to imagine herself taking a shower in any one of them and just could not bring the image to mind. Only a slight partition separated each one, giving merely the hint of privacy without actually providing any.
    Outside the row of stalls was an area to hang towels and a long row of wash basins. She noticed that each of the wash basins had a mirror hung over it and this would be convenient to comb your hair or brush your teeth in, but she wanted to laugh when she saw that each mirror gave a perfect view into the shower stall that was opposite it. So forget about taking a shower in private, she told herself.
    This arrangement would not work out for very long. She would have to speak to the ranch hands about changing things. Obviously a bunch of range-toughened ranch hands weren’t too modest around each other, but that would not work out for her.
    No one was around right now, however. The hands were all out on the prairie, probably five or ten miles away. This