Tag, You're It! by Penny McCall Read Free Book Online Page A

possible. He tried to climb off the sled and promptly fell on his face in the snow.
    Alex watched him flounder for a minute or so before she hauled him up by his armpit.
    "Thanks," he said, scrubbing the snow off his face, "knees don't seem to want to unbend." He looked down, but the joints in question were well below the snow line. "My ankles aren't too great, either, but I'm sure the pain will go away when frostbite sets in."
    Alex rolled her eyes, untied her snowshoes from Jackass's saddle and tossed them down in the snow. "Put these on."
    He glanced over at the sled and then shrugged. "It'll be a change of scenery, anyway."
    Jackass turned his head, baring his big, square yellow teeth in Tag's direction.
    "I think you hurt Jackass's feelings."
    "Aw, that just breaks my heart." Tag stepped toward the snowshoes—which took him closer to Alex. Which Jackass didn't like. Tag had to jump out of the way before the horse could take a chunk out of his ass. "I can see why you named him Jackass."
    "That's not why."
    He waited for her to elaborate, but he could have saved himself the trouble. She wasn't the average woman who felt the need to talk a man to death. But she was normal enough to get a kick out of him asking, and he wouldn't give her the satisfaction. "If I didn't know better, I'd say your horse is the jealous type."
    "Horses don't have a lot of self-control," Alex told Tag. "If he was the jealous type, you'd probably be a lot less happy about being behind him the last couple of hours."
    "Good point." But Tag kept an eye on Jackass while he strapped on the snowshoes. He flexed his knees a couple of times and, lulled into a false sense of confidence by the way he stayed pretty much on the surface of the snow, took a step. And fell on his face.
    Alex laughed outright. So did Jackass—okay, he bared his teeth and whinnied, but Tag took it for the equivalent of equine laughter.
    Alex helped him up, shaking her head and chuckling at the sight of him standing there, feet about a yard apart, arms outspread for balance. "You've never used snowshoes before?"
    "Not a lot of treasure hunting goes on in the winter. The only time I had to do any winter work, it was on a snowmobile."
    "Kind of hard to track anything wild on one of those," Alex pointed out unnecessarily, adding, "just keep it natural," as she took Jackass's lead and headed off.
    Tag took a cautious step. The snowshoes tangled up and he sprawled on his face, Jerry Lewis without the laugh track.
    "You have to keep your feet far enough apart so the shoes don't hit your legs midstride," Alex said, coming back to him. She knelt in front of him and tapped the inside of his right knee until his feet were where she wanted them. When she looked up he was grinning at her.
    "In your dreams," she said.
    "Maybe if you ever let me sleep again."
    "You fell out of a plane and got my cabin firebombed, and then you didn't even shoot the guys who did it. If anybody is keeping anybody from sleeping around here, it's you."
    She stood and set off again, leaving him to flounder along in her wake. When he got to the point where he was only falling down every five or six steps, he felt like he was making progress. Alex, however, finally felt the urge to ashim.
    "When you get to a deep spot, lift your knees a bit higher and shorten your stride," she said without looking back at him.
    "It's annoying how you know what I'm doing without looking at me."
    "Who needs to look? You're making enough noise to single-handedly end hibernation. Every time you fall down you swear, and you puff like a steam engine when you're trying to get your feet under you again."
    Tag righted himself, concentrating so hard on staying silent that he fell over with the first step.
    Jackass laughed at him again.
    "And try not to let the snowshoes hit in the middle," Alex said.
    "Any other brilliant observations?"
    "Falling down is bad." He could almost hear her smiling.
    "Thanks," he said, struggling to his feet again.
    He