Dances with Wolf Read Online Free Page A

time, and building a career, a life, she could be proud of forever.
    As for Ben, he was amazing on paper. And he loved her, in puppy-like fashion. But Abby wanted heat and fire and explosive passion, and Ben was lukewarm at best. She knew that something, someone, was out there waiting for her, just beyond the horizon. All she had to do was keep her foot on the gas and keep moving toward it.
    That ’ s what she’d told Bridget, who totally got it because she totally got Abby. But to everybody else, she’d just said, “I missed the Flathead. It ’ s the only home I ’ ve ever known.” That line, designed to appeal to the regional pride characteristic of all Montanans, usually shut them up.
    Her parents hadn’t given her a hard time about coming back. As an adopted only child, Abby was the focus of their devotion, and they trusted her completely. But when most folks in the area so much as heard the term “horse whisperer,” they snorted and shook their heads. They might have been thinking about that cheesy movie with Robert Redford. Or they might have had their own ideas about horse whispering. “A bunch of malarkey,” Jess Olsen, an old-school rancher who had ruled his horses with an iron first before Abby had gotten the chance to convert him, once said. “Hippie mumbo-jumbo.”
    But if Abby were talking to a real horse lover, she ’ d mention the legendary Buck Brannaman, who was famous for taming wild horses in a matter of minutes. Abby believed that she could follow in Brannaman ’ s footsteps. She was able to sense when a horse was in physical pain and could spot an injury that might have gone unnoticed for weeks or months. Most importantly, she was able to detect when a horse was suffering from an emotional injury—a memory of abuse, for example, or of a fire in which stable mates had died. Abby made it her mission to try to understand what a horse was feeling before she ever laid a hand on her.
    Lately, she ’ d wondered if the same principle applied to people. Brannaman had once said something along the lines of, “A horse ’ s nerves heal real slowly. Lots of things about us heal real slowly, too.”
    Bridget was front and center with her own philosophy about men, telling her the other night over beers at the Rusty Spoon, “If only you could read men the way you read horses, you ’ d be set for life.”
    “If only the men around here could read at all,” Abby had joked, nodding toward a middle-aged guy at the bar with a potbelly and three days of stubble. The man ’ s eyes had been ping-ponging between her butt and Bridget ’ s for the last two hours, until he ’ d gone nearly cross-eyed with the effort.
    “Oh, Abby. So picky. Nobody’s ever good enough for you.” Bridget winked.
    Even Wolf? she ’ d wanted to ask. But she knew better than to bring his name into the conversation . Bridget would answer, “B est friends don’ t let best friends date rodeo cowboys. And they definitely don ’ t let them date their brothers.”
    Abby glanced at her watch. It was nearing ten a.m. She ’ d agreed to meet Bridget at ten fifteen to check out the slim pickings among the dress shops in Kalispell. Stella licked her paw and circled twice before settling on the seat beside her.
    Abby hated shopping. She wore T-shirts and a snug-fitting pair of Wranglers every day of the week. Driving down Main Street looking for the dress shop Bridget had talked about, she muttered to Stella, “This is a waste of my precious time.” The dog stuck her tongue out and panted sympathetically.
    She pulled into a parking place and drained her cup of Mountain High coffee. There were two clothing stores in Kalispell and both of them had ridiculous names: The Toggery and Blue Lagoon. Abby felt much more at home in the aisles of Ranch & Home or Cabela ’ s. Never mind. She could do this, with Bridget ’ s help. What was keeping her, anyway?
    “Send a rescue squad for me if I ’ m not back in fifteen minutes,” Abby told