Sheltering Rain Read Online Free Page A

impossible to stop smiling, and nodding, and yet was struggling to properly hear anything he said, above this unfamiliar pounding in her ears. She was grateful to be able to hold on to the reins, and legitimately gaze at the long gray neck in front of her, stooping and rising in time with the sound of hoof fall, because she couldn’t quite concentrate on anything. She felt simultaneously distant from everything around her, and acutely aware of the smallest thing. Like his hands. And his freckles. And the way he got two lines in the side of his jaw when he smiled. She didn’t even notice when the mosquitoes zoomed in back on her neck, trapping themselves under her tied-back hair, and feasting on pale and tender flesh.
    Best of all, he could ride. Properly ride, in that he sat tall and relaxed in the saddle, his hands moving gently backward and forward so that his reins didn’t pull back against the horse’s mouth, one occasionally reaching forward to stroke, or to bat an unsuspecting fly away. Joy had been to the stables only with one other man she had liked, a shy banker friend of her father’s, and her fragile crush had dissipated like smoke on the wind when she saw him lurching around on the horse’s back, unable to hide his fear when the horse moved into a slow trot. William she didn’t even want to bring near. There was nothing to put you off a man like seeing him on a horse. It was only now, however, that Joy realized the potent appeal of a man who could ride well.
    â€œEver been to Scotland?” said Edward.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThese mosquitoes. They’re like midges,” he said, slapping the back of his own neck. “Bite you anywhere.”
    Joy blushed and looked down. They rode on.
    The sky grew darker, and sank lower, so that Joy was unsure whether it was the damp air or sweat soaking her clothes and making stray pieces of grass and seeds stick to her skin. The atmosphere seemed to muffle everything, cloaking the sound of the horses’ hooves as if they were wrapped in flannel, enclosing them both in a warm, wet blanket. Above them, high against the backdrop of Lion Mountain, even the buzzards seemed to hang in the air like black drops of moisture, as if movement itself were too much of an effort, while the leaves that brushed against her boots left trails of water, despite the lack of rain.
    If he noticed her thoughts careering chaotically, or picked up on the fact that she blushed repeatedly, found it hard to speak, or that her horse kept taking advantage of her absent-mindedness to snatch the odd mouthful of shrubbery, he said nothing. She became more composed when they cantered along a bridle path alongside a paddy field, and again when he pulled up at a roadside shack in order to get her a quarter of watermelon, but it was apparent only in that she could now gaze at him without embarrassment. It was at this point that she realized her ribbon had come out, and that her hair hung in ungroomed, sweaty strands around her shoulders. But if he noticed that, he didn’t show it, either, and merely reached out, as he handed her his handkerchief, in order to push a piece away from her face. She felt the shock of that touch electrify her skin for minutes after.
    â€œYou know, Joy, I’ve had the best time,” he said, meditatively, as they walked the horses back toward the yard. “You don’t know what it’s meant to me, being able to ride.”
    Joy was conscious that at some point she was going to have to speak, but she felt that if she opened her mouth, she would say something gauche and inappropriate, or, worse, that she would somehow reveal this strange, aching longing that had sprung out of nowhere. If she said nothing, what was the worst he could think of her?
    â€œI don’t know many girls who can ride, either. At home, the girls in my village are, shall we say, a little on the beefy side. Village girls. Not the kind I’d normally