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    For Want of a Nail
    For Want of a Nail
    For Want of a Nail
    Ebook45 pages38 minutes

    For Want of a Nail

    By Naomi Bell

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    About this ebook

    A woman rides her horse into a snowstorm, and disappears. When her body is found in spring, the police assume an accident. But a man who never met her finds himself pulled into the world of horses to solve the puzzle of her life and her death.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaomi Bell
    Release dateApr 28, 2012
    ISBN9781476176130
    For Want of a Nail

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      Book preview

      For Want of a Nail - Naomi Bell

      For Want of a Nail

      Published by Naomi Bell at Smashwords

      Copyright Naomi Bell 2012

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Chapter One

      My grandmother’s dog ran off in the bush and found a stick of trouble.

      I’d dropped in at my grandmother’s farm unannounced on a Sunday afternoon, for want of anything better to do. I found her in the barn, up to her elbows in a great beast of a machine.

      Oh, she said. David.

      We sat in her kitchen drinking coffee and batting how-have-you-beens back and forth. When she snuck a glance at her watch, I checked mine.

      Her Labrador, Jasper, saved us. He bounced around the kitchen as if on springs: door, grandmother, door.

      So we walked, along the track between fields stubbled with last year’s corn and into the leafless trees of the provincial park. The trail snaked upward, the grey trees dropping away until we climbed among ankle-twisting rocks. My grandmother walked a dozen paces in front, shoulders squared, facing the March wind headlong. Me, I shivered and hunkered into my parka.

      Jasper scrambled from rock to rock, racing ahead. At the top of the ridge the trail twisted onto a rough plateau, bare of trees. Spines and ribs of granite jutted out of the ground, as if we moved amidst a herd of plunging beasts petrified into stillness.

      Below us lay the gray smudge of the farm, and beyond it the firefly lights of the highway. To the west stretched a quilt of dull brown fields, streaked white in the gullies with snow.

      I huffed for breath and tried to pretend not to. My grandmother shot me a sidelong glance. Really, David.

      The wind scooped up a clump of loose leaves and sent it tumbling. Jasper tore off, snatching at it. The wind tossed the leaves off the plateau out into open air, and the fool dog leapt after it.

      He skidded down the slope, paws slapping on shale. He slithered and yipped and pin-balled into the trees.

      My grandmother called, Jasper, come!

      He poked his head out, unharmed. He knew better than to disobey, but instead of returning he ducked back into the branches. We caught glimpses of his tail, a slashing whip of yellow.

      Oh, he’s found something. My grandmother said, Go get him before he rolls in it.

      What, I should go down, as if two feet were better for mountaineering than four paws? I backtracked along the ridge to where the slope was a little less steep. Even there I had to slither down sideways, with a hand out to catch the cliff face. My grandmother stood on an outcrop and yelled at Jasper

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