The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3) by Lauren Gilley Read Free Book Online Page B

driveway a hundred feet or so, sitting in Davis’s red golf cart, red Solo cups in hand. If the old man was having a drink with this guy, then talks must be going well.
                  “He’s some kinda weirdo perv, I think,” Emmie said, frowning to herself. During their tour, the man had seemed both removed, and overly interested, a strange juxtaposition of energy coming from him. “But he’s talking like he wants the place, yeah.”
                  “My God,” Becca breathed. “You think he’ll really buy it? And let us keep working here?”
                  Emmie swallowed down her hope, trying to keep it contained. “Maybe. We’ll have to wait and see.”
     
    ~*~
     
    Of all her roles at Briar Hall, teaching was by far her favorite. To let go of all the mundane problems of operations, get out in the arena and focus on nothing but student and horse, the dance, the knowledge that she could impart – that was the best part. That was why she mucked stalls and administered wormer and fielded a million questions a day.
                  She taught three lessons, and then checked her voicemail. Joan again. Daddy was falling off his stool at Bell Bar and needed to be picked up.
                  Emmie called her stepmother, got voicemail, and with a resolute groan went upstairs to change.
                  Forty-five minutes later, she was in jeans and a t-shirt, nosing her F-250 into a parking place in front of Bell Bar. She stared at the darkened windows and their cheery neon a long moment, gathering the resolve she’d need to go in there and walk her stumbling father back out to the truck.
                  It was a sticky night, and the sidewalk smelled like greasy bar food. Of all the bars in the city, this one was a hybrid of dive and gentleman’s retreat, populated by blue collar types and tired suburbanite fathers. The college kids tended to go for the flashier haunts. And because it was usually a thirty-and-over crowd, this was the one public spot where the Lean Dogs MC seemed to congregate on a regular basis. There always seemed to be a black Harley or two out front, and tonight was no exception.
                  Telling herself that bikers only broke bottles over people’s heads in post-apocalyptic eighties movies, she entered and went straight to the bar against the back wall, her father’s slumped shape unmistakable on his stool.
                  Matt was behind the bar, and greeted her with a nod. “I’ll tell Joan you showed up,” he said of the owner’s wife.
                  “Thanks.” She sent him a tired smile, then turned her attention to her father. “Dad.” His head swiveled precariously around when she touched his arm. “Come on, it’s time to go home.”
                  Karl Johansen had been a handsome man. Once. Medium height, thinly built, the only child of Scandinavian immigrants, he was the source of her blonde hair and blue eyes. He’d been happy. Once. He’d had a crackling laugh that startled anyone else in the room with its sharpness.
                  But what life the divorce hadn’t stomped out of him, Emmie’s mother’s second marriage had crushed to dust. He was a shell of a man, and nothing seemed to matter to him anymore save filling himself to the brim with gin.
                  He searched her face a long, uncomprehending moment, his red eyes moving sluggishly. “Em,” he finally said. “What are you doing here?”
                  The same thing she’d done the last two nights. “I’m taking you home. Can you stand? Here, I’ll help you.”
                  “But I don’t want to go home,” he protested, sliding down off the stool and nearly collapsing as his knees buckled.
                  “That’s the only place that’ll admit you, I’m afraid. You’re about one