Counting on Love (Contemporary Cowboy Romance) (Carson Hill Ranch series: Book 3)
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Authors: Amelia Rose
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A
MELIA
R
OSE
Counting on Love
Carson Hill Ranch: Book Three
Dedication
To YOU, The reader.
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Contents
“Yo, buddy. We’re closing up soon. You’re gonna have to go,” the young bartender said, slamming his open palm on the top of the bar several times near Joseph’s head. “Come on, take it outside. The new boss doesn’t let people stay in here after hours.”
Joseph lifted his bleary head from the bar and blinked his bloodshot eyes against the glare of neon lights advertising different brands of beer. He nodded mutely at the bartender’s request, then dropped his head back onto the damp surface.
Only with help from two employees on either side of him did Joseph finally end up on the bench outside the bus station across the street. He more or less slept face down on the wooden bench, using his arm as a pillow and snoring loudly in his stupor. The lights in the bar finally blinked out, leaving Joseph in the near darkness of just the single bulb that lit up the doorway above him.
Amy came out of the sheriff’s office and started to climb into her truck to head home when she took one last look around, spotting a sleeping body as she did. She approached the body cautiously, and her heart sank when she realized it was Joseph. Again.
She took out her phone and dialed the number she knew by heart. She hated to wake anyone at this hour, but Amy also knew the family would be devastated enough at getting the call but that it would be more heartbreaking if they thought Joseph had slept out in the cold overnight. A familiar voice answered, deliciously husky from sleep and sending chills throughout her entire body.
“Hey, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Carey mumbled.
“Nothing, honey, everything’s fine. But I have Joseph down here, and he can’t make it home again. I’ll meet you halfway, okay?” Amy suggested, feeling her fiancé’s disappointment through the phone. This was not the first late night rendezvous Amy and Carey had shared since getting engaged but more and more often, Joseph was the reason.
“Um, yeah,” Carey grumbled, still half-asleep and confused. “I’ll be there right away, just give me about five minutes.”
“Take your time, honey, he’s not going anywhere. And I still have to get him into the truck. I may have to go a little slower so he doesn’t throw up this time, so I’ll see you in about thirty minutes. I love you.”
“I love you, too, and Amy, I’m really sorry about this,” Carey added for good measure. “Again, I mean.”
“Hey, it’s all part of my job!” she said with a laugh, finishing with a Western movie-style drawl. “I’m the sheriff in these parts, remember?” She heard Carey laugh quietly, a sound that never stopped causing her heart to leap inside her rib cage, then she said softly, “Besides, it’s what family does for each other. I’ll see you in a little while. Drive carefully.”
She clicked off her phone and headed over to where Joseph still lay, unmoving. She looked down at him for a long time, saddened that in this state, he still looked every bit the kid she knew from Carson Hill Ranch, his boyish features still visible under his
weeklong growth of beard. He’d had a hard time since his accident, still walking with a slight limp whenever it was cold like this, the pain of healed bones in his back, shoulder, and ribs making it impossible for him to do what he’d always loved best, which was to work the ranch alongside his father and five brothers.
“C’mon, Joseph, we have to get you home. Let’s go,” she said loudly, putting her hands beneath his arms and helping to pull him up to sitting. Once he was semi-vertical, she put an arm underneath his shoulder and half-walked, half-dragged him to her truck.
Shoveling him into the front seat for the thirty minute drive to the halfway point between the town of Hale, Texas, and the Carson’s massive cattle ranch, Amy thought for the millionth time about how different her job as a law enforcement officer in this rural part of the country was from her years as a Detroit patrol cop. Back in the city, a drunk on a bench would have earned a night in a holding cell with fifty others, followed up in the morning with a hefty fine and another charge on his record.
But here, she had the authority to handle things differently, especially when anyone could see that there’s usually a reason for the things people do. In Joseph’s case, it was a near crippling injury at such a young age. To add insult to injury, it had happened while doing what he loved—working a cattle drive—the same cattle drive where Amy had first met her future husband, Carey Carson. Amy’s cowboy vacation as a paid guest taking part in the family’s annual drive turned into something more when a local drug ring tried to bring down the Carsons, and she had stepped in with Carey to save them.
In Hale, where her office now oversaw most of the happenings in the county, everyone knew the Carsons for being good people and good ranchers. That’s probably why everyone turned a blind eye to Joseph’s recent change, including the bar owner, who was probably looking the other way with Joseph’s drinking. Sure, the new owner had only opened the bar after Crazy Mack had been shut down and convicted of meth manufacturing, but Amy knew Joseph was still about six month shy of being old enough to drink, and about forty years shy of being old enough to drown his sorrows in a bar every night.
They bounced slowly along the dirt road on the edge of the Carson property, Amy trying to be careful of Joseph’s head where it leaned against the passenger window. Not two weeks ago, he’d been in this same condition in this same front seat, but the movement of the truck over the roads had made him sick. Amy did not want a repeat performance.
After some time, she saw headlights in the middle of the dirt road, waiting for her.
Carey
, she thought with a huge smile. She didn’t see nearly enough of her fiancé as it was, and if it took meeting at two in the morning to pass off a drunk family member to spend any amount of time with him at all, she’d take it.
She pulled up alongside his vehicle and jumped down from her truck, coming over to the passenger side and climbing in. She scooted across the seat to Carey’s waiting arms and leaned against his chest. Amy kissed Carey for a long time before pulling back and saying, “I’m sorry I had to wake you up.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m glad you did. Besides, our middle of the night dates are the best time to see you,” he teased, placing another soft kiss on her lips and wrapping his arms tighter around her. “But now you have to drive back, too. I’m really sorry.”
“That’s okay. It’s all part of the job. But what are we gonna do about Joseph? He can’t keep going like this, Carey. This is the fourth time I’ve had to drag him back home.” She looked at his sad eyes, made all the more ominous in the glow of his truck’s dashboard. “I’ve seen this kind of behavior before in my own family. He’s just going to keep going downhill.”
“I know. I just don’t know what to do to make him listen. No one’s said a word about this to my dad, but maybe it’s time we did. It’s gonna break his heart but this has to stop.” Amy placed an arm around Carey’s neck and held him, sending her love and her support through that gesture.
“Well, we’ll figure that out soon. For now, get him home and then get back in your bed. Be sure to think wonderful, sexy thoughts about me!” She smiled at him before kissing him one last time, and getting out of his truck. It took both of them to get Joseph into Carey’s truck, then they said their goodnights and each went home.
“Are you sure you can’t stay longer?” Emma asked, hugging Dee one last time before the bus driver came back from getting himself a cup of coffee. “We’ve been doing all right all this time, we could just keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
Dee shook her head, her newly permed curls bouncing against her shoulders. It had been nearly two years since she’d first left home in a fit of teenaged rage, and it hadn’t taken long for reality to knock her down. Finding her way into Hale, Texas, and into Crazy Mack’s world of meth and prostitution had nearly sealed her fate. But now that both she and Emma were clean and had a handle on the addiction that had almost killed them, Dee was ready to return home, the prodigal daughter wanting nothing more than to feel her mom’s arms around her again.
“I can’t stay here, Emma, not when I have a family back home waiting for me,” she said, holding her friend close. “But you remember to call me every day and tell me how you’re doing, and don’t forget to email me and Facebook and…”
“I know, I will!” Emma promised for the hundredth time. “We’re gonna be just fine, girl.” There was a sadness in her voice, not only from losing her best friend but also from the fear that without Dee to lean on, both girls could end up right back where they were only a few months ago. The seemingly endless weeks of lying on a dirt floor and screaming as the drugs left every cell in their bodies was not a far off enough memory for either of them.
“We’re gonna be better than fine, Emma. We’re gonna be great. We’re gonna be awesome!” Dee said with an eager expression she had carefully practiced for days. “But what about you? I have a job lined up at home, nothing big, of course. Just a waitressing thing, but it’s in a really nice restaurant. What are you gonna do?”
“Oh, don’t you worry about me,” Emma replied in her best unconcerned voice. “I’ll be working over there.” She jerked her head in the direction of the bar. “Now don’t give me that look, Dee…”
“Emma, no. You can’t,” Dee whispered, gripping her friend’s arm in horror. “You can’t go back in there. Promise me you won’t ever go back in there!”
“Dee, it’s not like it was when Crazy Mack owned the place. It’s just a regular bar now, and they have all kinds of rules about who can be in there, and what goes on in there. It’s an honest business now. And you know Sheriff McDade isn’t gonna put up with anything funny. It’s gonna be okay, I promise!”
Dee didn’t look convinced. The memories from the days when Emma and Dee were held practically as prisoners and forced to work in the back rooms of Mack’s bar resurfaced, threatening to choke her.
“You call me every day, Emma, and I mean that. Every day! Oh, there’s the bus, I’ll call you when I get there!” she called over her shoulder, after giving Emma one last rib crushing hug. Dee climbed the steps and dropped down into a seat, pressing her hand against the window to wave again. Emma followed the bus for a few steps, waving until the driver made the turn and Dee was out of sight. She let her shoulders drop, feeling the loss of the one person who had been her only comfort during the nightmare of the last year and a half.
Emma finally turned and walked across the street to the newly christened Loco Coyote bar and grill, and took a deep breath before she was able to bring herself to push the new stainless steel and glass door open. That glass had been Emma’s first clue that things were going to be different now, because the clients who had frequented Crazy Mack’s bar had been too drunk and unruly to be trusted around a glass door.
“You’re late, Emma,” the older bartender called out good-naturedly. He was obviously just giving her a hard time. Tommy was the perfect and incredibly stereotypical teddy bear of a guy. He was burly and gruff, but Emma had never felt safer in her life than when he was in the room.
“Sorry, Tommy, but Dee was leaving for good and I had to see her off. Won’t happen again, promise!” she called out, tying her apron around her waist and signing the log book for her tickets. She went to the window between the kitchen and the bar, waving to Jennie, Tommy’s wife of forty years. She was busy stirring the batter for the dinner rush that would be there in just a couple of hours.
“I know, I know,” Tommy called, smiling to himself as he counted the till and prepared the change needed for the night crowd. “Hey, after you finish, we have to have a short staff meeting, I suppose. The sheriff paid me a little visit, and told me we were serving under aged kids in here. That kind of thing will get this place closed down faster than if we food poisoned the whole town! We can’t have any of that kind of stuff going on in here.”
“Sure, Tommy, I’ll be right there,” she replied firmly as she finished her first task.
Tommy and Jennie had bought the bar after Crazy Mack was arrested for drug dealing, manufacturing, and prostitution, namely of Dee and Emma. The girls had spent the better part of a month on the Carson Hill Ranch getting clean, and were now ready to face their lives with a fresh start. Dee was going home to her family now that she was no longer under the meth’s control, but Emma didn’t have that luxury. She hadn’t had a family since she was turned out on the streets as a thirteen-year-old girl.
In the few short weeks since the couple had bought the bar and turned things around, they’d already halfway adopted Emma. That was thing about living in a small town…word traveled fast, whether you wanted it to or not. It was Jennie who had first approached her about working in the bar, offering her a place to live in the small upstairs apartment and an advance on her paycheck to get her started. She ate her meals with Tommy and Jennie and in return for having her bills pretty much paid, she only worked for tips. But it was more than enough.
Already though, one of Emma’s “regulars” had come into the bar after work one Friday night and tried to get a little more than a drink out of Emma. After the third time she’d had to slap his hand away from where it was digging suggestively into her backside, Tommy handled him, with help from the other bartender he’d hired. It had been embarrassing to have her past thrown in her face, especially after things were going so well for her but the only way she could ever really get away from what had happened in this very bar would be to outrun it like Dee did.
She went to work wiping all the empty tables, refilling the salt and pepper shakers, and any number of other tasks associated with keeping the doors open each night. Jennie smiled at her as she walked through with a tray of glasses fresh from the dishwasher, and Emma moved on to wiping down the chairs.
There was one thing Emma had learned about her job working for Tommy and Jennie: there was no task that was beneath her. She wasn’t too good for any job that happened to go along with running a restaurant, whether it was wiping old dried up globs of ketchup off the chairs or mopping up when a toilet overflowed. So much of her life in this very bar had been spent in the worst possible kind of degradation and pain, working for a couple as wonderful as the new owners was a welcome change, no matter what kind of work it was.
“Do you have everything you need in your apartment?” Jennie asked, coming back in with a tray full of table top supplies. “I know it can get too hot and too cold up there, depending on the weather.”
“Oh, I’m used to it. I’ve lived up there for a while, remember?” Emma reminded her with a happy smile. Her face darkened for a minute as she thought about her time living in that apartment. As a surprise, the Connors had completely repainted and refurnished it for Emma when she returned from getting clean, knowing through the town grapevine—make that Sheriff McDade—that she’d need a job and a place to stay when she was through. Tommy and Jennie had been more than happy to step up and care for her, taking Emma as part of the bar.
“Of course, sugar. I forgot,” Jennie said with a smile, apologetic at having to bring up painful memories. “You just remember to let me know if you need anything, anything at all.” She gave Emma’s arm a squeeze and went back to the kitchen, leaving her to finish sweeping up before the first wave of customers came in from getting off work.
Chapter three
Joseph woke up to the heat of a sliver of sunshine shooting across his face. The pain in his head from a night of binge drinking didn’t even compare to the pain in his back and shoulder from not sleeping correctly on his specially made orthopedic pillow. Ever since the accident on the last cattle drive, when he was thrown from his horse, he hadn’t been able to function without pain shooting through his back, even as he slept.
Eventually, the doctor declared him healed and cut off his pain medication, and no one would listen to him when he tried to explain how much he still hurt. Winters and rainy weather were the worst, when the muscles around his shattered vertebrae would tense up and contract. Joseph was certain his bones were being pulled in ninety different directions and even his nerve endings would turn against him.
The door to his bedroom door opened a crack, and Carey stood in the doorway leaning against the frame, his arms crossed in front of his chest. He watched Joseph as he reached for the bottle of pills he kept under his mattress. He watched as his younger brother downed a couple of the pills, swallowing them without so much as a cup of water.
“I thought you were done popping the pills,” Carey said with an angry sneer. Joseph groaned and fell back on the bed, flipping him off before covering his eyes with an arm thrown across his face. “It’s time to get up. Dad wants to see you downstairs.”
“Tell him I’ll come down in a little while. I just need some more sleep,” he replied, his voice trailing off into a snore at the end.
“Sleep? You mean like what I didn’t get last night when I was hauling your drunken butt home? You think I like having my future wife pass you off in the middle of the night like some pathetic bum? No, you’re gonna tell him yourself,” Carey shot back furiously. “and you’re gonna do it now. Get up!” He stormed over to the bed and pulled the covers off into the floor. He grabbed Carey under the arms and yanked him out of the bed but loosened his grip when Joseph screamed, his legs buckling underneath him. Carey released him and jumped back, wide eyed at having hurt his brother. “Joseph?”
“What?” Joseph moaned from where he still lay crumpled on the floor. His hands went to his neck, trying to forcibly rub the pain away with his fingers.
“Did that seriously hurt you?” Carey asked, coming over to him and squatting down.
“Well, it sure as hell didn’t tickle,” Joseph replied, angry now that he was awake. There were tears in the corners of his eyes from the sensations that still shot through his neck and down his back. He took a deep breath then dry heaved from the spasm wracking his body. Carey dropped down beside him in horror, afraid to even touch him.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone? It’s not supposed to hurt this much, the doctor said so.”
“That doctor’s full of it. It hasn’t let up hurting since the day I left the hospital. I can’t even sleep through the night ‘cause every time I so much as move my arm to scratch an itch, it wakes me up.”
“Here, come on,” Carey said, straightening up and reaching his hands down to his brother. “Get back in the bed, and I’ll tell Dad you’re not up yet.” He didn’t touch Joseph for fear of hurting him again but instead, he let his brother pull himself up using Carey’s hands to brace himself. The pain shot through him once more, making Joseph clutch at his stomach with nausea.
Joseph let himself fall on the bed, seeing stars as his neck hit the pillow. He worked to slow his breathing down as the initial pain began to subside a little. Carey watched him warily, unsure of how to even feel about this. Joseph was so obviously in pain, but pills? Booze? Drinking binges to the point that he had to go retrieve him in the middle of the night? Let alone the fact that Joseph had dragged Amy out in the middle of the night to take him home. Things just couldn’t continue like this.
“I’ll have Emily bring you something to eat. It’s not good to take those on an empty stomach,” Carey said half-heartedly as he turned to go.
“Carey, wait a second,” Joseph called quietly. “I’m sorry you guys had to bring me home last night. Really. I mean it. Please tell Amy I’m sorry. Please. I don’t want her to think the worst about me.” Whether it was a genuine apology or his pills were kicking in, Carey couldn’t tell, but he nodded and closed the door behind him.
Downstairs, he stuck his head in the kitchen and asked one of the staff members to take Joseph some soup or something light. The three kitchen workers exchanged nervous glances before Emily, the head cook, said they would be glad to. Carey nodded his thanks and left, only to run into Bernard.
“Son,” Bernard began. “where’s your brother? I thought you went to get him.”
“He…he can’t come down yet, Dad,” Carey answered, grinding the toe of his boot in small circles in the floor, looking away from his father’s irritated expression. “He’s really doing bad, so I told him to stay in bed.”
“You did what?” Bernard demanded. “I told that boy to get down here, and I expect him to appear!”
Carey finally looked at his father, concerned for the first time. “Dad, I’m telling you, something’s wrong with him. I don’t know if it’s something the doctor didn’t catch, or if there’s some other kind of injury happening that’s not related at all to him getting thrown from that horse, or what. But he’s in real pain. I’ve seen pain, Dad, and I know you have, too. Guys get hurt on the ranch all the time, and this thing’s real.”
Bernard pursed his lips into a straight line, squaring his shoulders and throwing his hands on his hips. “I don’t know what to believe, Carey. If you say he’s hurting, I want to believe you. I really do. But how bad can it be when he has the energy and the ability to haul himself into Hale and drink himself under the table?” Carey looked at his father in shock. “Yeah, the new owners called me. They’re worried about him, son. Joseph’s in there a little too often having a little too much to drink. You know you have a drinking problem when the town bartender calls your daddy about it.”