Pretend You Love Me Read Online Free

I circled back onto the road, Xanadu cranked down her window. The wind caught her hair, blowing up streams of red ribbons
     around her face. She was breathtaking. I almost drove into a ditch. At the last minute, I swerved to the center of the straightaway,
     hoping she hadn’t noticed my temporary lapse of control.
    “How can you stand it?” She turned to face me.
    I knew what she meant. The silence. The slowness of life. “You get used to it,” I said.
    She averted her eyes to gaze out on the wheat fields. “I’d kill myself first.”
    My breath caught. She didn’t know what she was saying. It was just an expression. We reached the turnoff at the back of the
     property and I pulled onto it, lungs screaming for relief. I calmed myself, tried to. Let out air.
    Driving between two corrals, I stopped next to a double-wide horse trailer and saw Leland Davenport wander out of the covered
     stalls. He removed his Stetson and swiped his gritty face with a forearm.“Hi there, Mike. Oh good, you brought the feed.” He slid his hat back on. “I heard you were working at the Merc. Why don’t
     you back her up to the gate here, if you can get in close.” There was a feed bin behind him, alongside a cone-shaped storage
     shed.
    I cranked the flatbed ninety degrees and let Leland direct me in, even though it wasn’t necessary. I could’ve done it. When
     he began to unload the feed, I jumped out and said, “Know what? I can get this. It’s what I get paid for.”
    He eyed the pallet, then scanned me up and down. I knew what he was thinking: You’re too small; it’s too much for one person.
     He hadn’t seen me in action. I yanked out the work gloves from my back pocket and put them on. I might’ve nudged him gently
     out of my way.
    “Hi, Uncle Lee.” Xanadu appeared at my side. Her bare arm grazed mine and spiked my heart rate.
    Leland reached over and gave her a tweak on the nose. I launched myself onto the truck bed, wondering if the tingling under
     my skin was a permanent condition. I hoped so. They both watched me heft one bag off the pallet and onto my shoulder, then
     jump down and lug it into the storage shed. Xanadu said, “Okay, major guilt trip. I can help with this.”
    Leland cuffed her chin and headed back into the stalls.
    Xanadu said, “Why don’t you hand the bags to me and I’ll stack them in the garage, or whatever it’s called.”
    I smiled to myself. This should be good. Looping a leg up onto the flatbed, I scrambled back onboard. I lifted a bag of feed
     off the pallet and passed it down to her. She caught it between her arms and proceeded to collapse in the dirt.
    It was hard suppressing laughter, but I managed, sort of.
    “Jesus.” She staggered away from the bag, straightening up. “How much do these things weigh?”
    “Fifty pounds,” I told her.
    She arched her eyebrows. “They didn’t look that heavy when you were doing it.”
    “I have a better idea.” I leaped off the truck. “You slide them to the edge and I’ll haul them in.”
    “Help me up.” She extended a hand.
    I grasped it. Long, slender fingers. That electric charge surged through me again. Xanadu clambered onto the bed and stood
     for a moment, surveying the pallet. “I can do this,” she said, sounding determined. She tucked her hair into the back of her
     shirt and got to work.
    We finished the job in fifteen or twenty minutes. By then Xanadu was looking withered and I was soaked with sweat. She sank
     to the end of the truck bed and slumped forward. I hopped up next to her.
    Why’d I do that? I had to reek. Wiping the rivulet of sweat running down my ear with the bottom of my muscle shirt, I snuck
     a sniff under my pit. Whoa. Kill a moose.
    “You’re strong.”
    I turned. She was eyeing me, my arms. “You must work out.”
    “A little. At the gym.” A little? I was obsessed. Now I knew why. Unconsciously—or consciously—I flexed my bicep.
    “There’s a gym in this podunk town?”
    “At the