Last Chance Llama Ranch Read Online Free

nerve ending (and twice through a few), she wondered if Johnny had waited for her like he’d promised.Emerging from the Jetway, stiffness making her slight limp more pronounced, Merry looked around for her lover. Coffee and perhaps a few farewell kisses would not go amiss, she thought with a smile. But her smile died as a trio of buxom coeds standing around the waiting area squealed, “OMG, that’s him !” and launched themselves at Johnny like charging rhinos in clingy tank tops. Their shrieks of “Johnny! Johnny!” were loud enough to be heard halfway back to Istanbul, and they already had pens out as they begged him to sign their boobs, pose for selfies, let them stroke the snowboard he’d been given special permission to carry on the plane. Their jumping and shouting attracted attention from all quarters, and soon Johnny was mobbed.
    No one noticed Merry.
    Her throat tightened. Once she’d garnered attention like that. Not the panting girls so much, but excited, eager fans who wanted nothing more than a moment with the girl who was going to bring home the gold. Back then, it had made her uncomfortable, self-conscious. But now…
    Johnny’s eyes met Merry’s across the departure lounge. Gotta go , he mouthed, shrugging apologetically as he was carried away by the crowd. Catch ya later.
    Much later, if at all ,Merry guessed. His star was rising, and hers had quite clearly set. She turned her back. Get over yourself, woman , she thought, closing her throat against any possibility of tears. It’s over, you’re done, and that’s the end of it. She forced herself to move toward the taxi stands outside the terminal, briskly and without a backward glance.

G wendolyn Manning wants to Skype with you ,” Merry’s tablet informed her.
    Merry groaned. Her mother had spectacular timing, as usual.
    She’d barely collected her pet turtle, Cleese, from Andy down the hall, and was still debating whether to chuck or wade through the stack of mail that had accumulated in the box the super kept downstairs for her when she was out of town. Judging by the machine-addressed see-through windows and the “Past Due!” notices printed in angry red ink on most of the envelopes, she wasn’t going to like the contents of that correspondence. Then again, correspondence with the fam was likely to be equally unpleasant.
    “ Do you wish to accept? ” asked her device.
    No, I really, really don’t.
    It wouldn’t just be Gwendolyn (never “Gwen”) either. Pierce would be beside her, stiff and uncomfortable in front of the webcam, doing his usual impression of Dignified Dad. Marcus, her evil, adorable older brother, would surely be there too, hovering over their shoulders with a glint in his eye that said he wasn’t going to be any help at all. His Twitter feed—always a reliable means of keeping track of the twit—had announced “a visit to the ancestral pastures” a couple of days back.
    The holy trinity of familial perfection.
    And on the other side of the Skype session, Merry. The fallen one. The great disappointment. Merry—the girl whose sole saving grace had been her athletic ability. Without which…
    Well. There wasn’t much to say, was there?
    Merry couldn’t help remembering the morning of her first big competition. How her mother, swaddled in Arctic fox from neck to knee, had stood dwarfed by the unlikely daughter in team-sponsored spandex and space-age ski boots.
    “I expect you’ll win quite handily today, darling,” said Gwendolyn, turning her collar up against the wind at the summit of the Aspen ski area.
    Merry felt herself flush with the unexpected praise…until her mother finished her sentence. “Of course, with your height and build, we must be grateful you inherited my family’s athletic abilities.”
    Merry had heard this refrain countless times since she’d started towering over her peers while still in grammar school. She clenched her fists around her ski poles, resisting the urge to flip down