Random Acts of Kindness by Lisa Verge Higgins Read Free Book Online Page A

for whom.
    “Hey, there’s a bison ranch nearby,” Jenna said, ignoring the ring as she perused a pamphlet. “They’ll actually drive you out into the pasture and let you feed them from the flatbed.”
    “A bison ranch.” Nicole heard Jenna’s call beep mercifully to voice mail. “That sounds like a lot more fun than driving to Denver, doesn’t it, Claire?”
    “We can feed bison all over these plains, but if we leave soon, we could be knocking on Sydney’s door by six.”
    “I’m sure our Sydney would love that,” Nicole said. “Six in the evening is always such a tranquil time in a working woman’s house.”
    Claire waved away the objection. “It’s a hundred-mile detour, Nicole. Embrace it. Unleash your inner gypsy.”
    “My inner gypsy is exhausted from hauling the caravan.”
    Claire gave Nicole a squinty-eyed look. “You’ve got it all mapped out in your head, don’t you? You’ve made up some one-shot route, arrow straight all the way to Pine Lake.”
    Nicole tried not to look sheepish. Yeah, so she’d planned an efficient route already. Next stop Lincoln, Nebraska, then Iowa City, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pine Lake. She liked knowing where she was going. Mapping out her little pins on her phone app was like cleaning the dishwasher trap or oiling the closet hinges. It made her feel like she had some kind of control.
    And, honestly, she couldn’t get to Pine Lake soon enough.
    “Wow, look at this.” Jenna held up another pamphlet. “There’s a bar here called the Outlaw Saloon. It has sawdust floors and a mechanical bull.”
    Nicole raised her brows. “Did you hear that, Claire? We can’t possibly leave Cheyenne without riding a mechanical bull.”
    Claire swiveled one arm with a dramatic wince. “I suspect mechanical bulls go against doctor’s orders.”
    “But two-stepping in sawdust doesn’t,” Nicole countered. “Personally, I think we should stay here tonight and enjoy everything Cheyenne has to offer. We can hole up in the Plains Hotel there, that lovely building right across the square. I’ve already made a reservation on my phone. It’s historic, reasonably priced, and it’ll even allow us to bring in Lucky for a small fee.”
    A strange emotion rippled across Claire’s face, an expression that passed so quickly Nicole couldn’t get a bead on it. Once, she would have read the flicker of an eye or the jump of a muscle in a jaw with the skill and confidence of a major-league pitcher reading the body language of the hitter before hurling a slider. It was a terrible thing to lose faith in one’s own judgment.
    She turned her face back to the window. How had she let Lars talk her into this, anyway? When she’d shown him Jenna’s abandoned phone, he’d actually packed her suitcase for her. He’d even mimicked her life coach philosophy, talking about the importance of getting perspective, of retreating from everyday existence for a while so when she returned she could see it more objectively.
    Well, she knew Lars right down to his fallen arches, but only after all these hours in a car with these women was she getting an inkling of what he’d been trying to do. He wanted to kick-start her back into the former, energetic, happy Nicole. Not the new Nicole who slept late every morning and avoided phone calls and visitors and spent hours painting the chips on the moldings so she wouldn’t have to think about the unthinkable.
    As if sending her off with the owner of an incontinent dog and a Buddhist with a junk-food habit could bring about any real change.
    “Well,” Claire said, “I suppose I can’t really say no to two-stepping if there’s beer involved. But”—she raised the face of the phone toward Nicole—“I still have a call in to Maya Wheeler. Rumor has it that she’s at an archaeological dig somewhere in South Dakota. So don’t you get it into your head, darling, that we’re going to get in the car and make it to Omaha by tomorrow, you got