Searching For Love (Contemporary Cowboy Romance) (Carson Hill Ranch series: Book 2) (4 page)

He’d felt an affection for Amy long before she nearly got herself killed but when he was riding alongside her and reaching for her hand, it wasn’t just obligation that made him react. Carey was certain that this went way beyond chivalry, more into the territory of…what, exactly?

He didn’t have to think about it for long. An angry shove to his shoulder jerked him from his thoughts. He whirled around to see who was asking for a fight and was shocked to see Karen standing there, her feet planted wide and her hands balled up on her hips.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, a snarl turning down the corners of her mouth. Her eyes blazed with whatever fury had her so worked up. For his part, Carey stared at her blankly.

“I don’t think I know what you mean, ma’am,” he began, falling back on his father’s requirement that staff members be polite to the guests at all times, attempted assaults included.

“Don’t play stupid, you’re not enough smart enough for that,” she shot back at him. “Is this all a big game to you, where you bring people out here and you all play Wild West with us for two weeks? Do you all go around sweeping up the damsels in distress and carting them off to the ‘medicine man’, or is that just something you’re doing to Amy because you think she’s vulnerable enough to fall for it?”

“Look,” Carey started, completely dumbfounded by her accusations. “I don’t know what’s happened to offend you, but I ‘swept up’ Amy because she was about to get her forehead kicked in by a charging horse, one that was dragging her, I’d like to add.” He pointed behind him to the RV. “If you’d like to step in there and take a look at her injuries for yourself, you’re welcome to. But knock first, she might not want you in there.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Karen demanded, jutting out her jaw at his insinuation.

“It means exactly what I said. Amy’s a big girl, and she’s tougher than anyone I’ve had the pleasure of riding with on one of these drives. But if you think she needs rescuing from me, by all means, you can go in there and you can be the one to sweep her up and save her. I was just doing my job.” He turned and stormed away before he could say something his dad would make him regret.

True to his word, Carey found Amy after the rest of the afternoon’s ride and lowered himself to sit beside her on the cool ground. He laughed quietly when he looked over at her and saw that she was asleep, sitting up with her dinner untouched in her lap. “Psst,” he whispered close to her ear before sitting straight up, an innocent look plastered on his face. Amy jumped slightly and looked around, embarrassed at having fallen asleep during dinner.

“Tired?” he asked coolly, before taking a bite of his barbeque sandwich. Amy nodded slightly and speared a piece of potato, chewing it without looking in his direction.

“So, how’s your back feeling? Are you gonna survive?” he asked lightly. She didn’t respond right away, causing Carey to lean forward to see her face. “Hello? I asked how you’re feeling?”

“I heard you. I also heard you earlier. I heard you when you were talking to Karen,” she answered frostily. “But you don’t have to be polite anymore. I know you’re only doing your job.’” She took another forkful of her dinner, more for the excuse of eating to avoid having to talk to him than from actual hunger, having nearly lost her appetite altogether.

Carey was confused for a moment, but then remembered his argument with Karen. “Oh, you heard that?” he asked, his good mood sinking just a little bit. Amy silently smirked at him, then turned away and went back to eating. “That’s not what I meant to say, Karen just got me really frustrated. I’m sorry, really. It came out wrong.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Amy managed to reply before standing up. “I won’t be any more trouble for you. I’ll let you focus on your real work.” She turned and walked away, leaving him to wonder how this had all gone horribly wrong. He considered just leaving well enough alone, certainly now that he had two different guests on this trip angry with him but when he saw the triumphant look Karen shot him, he decided to act. He jumped up and followed Amy, resisting the urge to shoot an inappropriate gesture in the witch’s direction.

With her injured back, it wasn’t hard to catch up to her. Carey approached her where she was standing behind one of the trucks, away from the prying eyes of the others, and touched her lightly on the arm. “Hey, Amy. Stop a second and talk to me.”

“What?” she demanded sadly, angry with herself for letting Carey see how much he’d upset her when she turned and saw his face. He could tell that she seemed to be on the verge of tears. “What is it? I meant what I said, you don’t have to look out for me. You have your job to do and I’ll stay out of your way from now on.”

“Amy, you’re not in the way, and I didn’t help you today because I had to. I helped you because I couldn’t stand the thought of you getting hurt.” Carey watched her carefully, but ignored the voice in his head that began telling him how weird he sounded, how pathetic. He shook his head and continued, no matter how ridiculous the thought of pouring his heart out to someone he’d met only days ago might be. “I don’t even know you but for some reason, I’ve figured out that I spend a good bit of my day trying to make you smile, because your smile is the best thing I’ve seen in a long time.”

She stared at Carey, unsure of how to respond, waiting for all of this to make sense but at the same time, hoping it would keep being so unreal. He waited for her to say something but when she stayed quiet, his heart began to drop.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, I don’t know anything about you and it’s not my place to tell you these things. For all I know, you have a boyfriend back home and…”

Amy closed the distance between them and kissed Carey hungrily, not caring who was watching.
Karen could stand there and give us pointers, for all I care,
she thought as she lightly placed her hands on Carey’s arms, warming inside when he returned her kiss and put his hands at her waist, drawing her closer.

“Oh, wow,” she said, breaking the kiss and looking sheepish. “it’s my turn to apologize…”

“No, don’t apologize!” Carey insisted, his grin lighting up his face.

“I shouldn’t have done that, I’m so sorry!” She looked away, embarrassed at letting his words get to her like that.

Carey stepped closer to her again, looking into her eyes and saying, “I’m really glad you did. I’ve wanted to kiss you since you stepped off the bus!”

Amy laughed lightly, still shocked at herself for being so bold, so out of character. “Well, I can’t say the same. When I stepped off that bus, there were two of you! I wouldn’t have known who to attack! But seriously, I’m sorry for throwing myself at you like that.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Carey said quietly, taking one of her curls between his fingers and playing with its silkiness. “I’m not.” She looked up at him and saw her own want reflected in his expression but this wasn’t the time or the place, especially not now that she could hear voices approaching the vehicle. Amy decided it might be best to change the subject as they stepped out from behind the truck and headed back to rejoin the group.

“I don’t see how you guys do it. How do you do this much manual labor
all-day and still have the energy to sit around talking and singing after dinner? It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open, but I’m afraid I’m going to miss something if I close them.”

“Well, it’s not exactly like you only endured a regular day’s work. Your poor little body was pretty beat up out there today. But to answer your question, we get used to it, I guess,” Carey conceded. “I can only imagine how out of place I’d feel if I tried to follow you around at work for a week. You do things that I don’t have to handle, you know.”

“Like what?” she asked, making herself comfortable near the campfire that was beginning to take hold.

“I don’t know exactly, but I’m guessing you go to the grocery store, you go out to eat, you look like you go to the gym,” he said, pinching her small bicep between his fingers lightly, thrilling her as he did. “You probably go to the movies and stuff like that. Right? I don’t think our cowboy lifestyle…sorry,
cow human lifestyle…is any harder than your life. It’s probably just different.”

Amy smiled at his mention of their joke from before, then nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t think anything of going to the movies at eleven o’clock at night, then getting up and going to work the next day. It’s just that I don’t burn anywhere near as many calories in my day-to-day life as people must do out here.”

“I see you’re not having your beer,” Carey mentioned, gesturing to her usual tin cup of water with his hand. “You only get the one, you might want to go snag it!”

“Oh, I’m kind of a light weight. I don’t drink much. And that’s even when I’m not letting my
horseplay piñata with me!” she laughed, trying her best to find the humor in the incident from earlier. Everyone had been very careful and cautious with her, so she knew it had to have looked pretty bad. Thinking of how funny it must have looked helped Amy focus instead on the positive, namely that she didn’t crack her own head open or get stomped to death by a horse. “After the beating I took today and the headache afterward, I’ll just stick to water.”

“In that case, I bet there’s a line of guys who would saddle your horse for you for the rest of the trip if you let them. Dad’s really laid back with his staff when they’re off the clock, as long as they don’t get into trouble or do anything stupid. But on the drive, we’re on the clock the whole time, so he has a one-drink-limit.” Carey waved over one of the hands who was walking past, then turned to Amy with a questioning look. “You’re sure you don’t want it?”

Amy nodded. “I’m sure. I never really liked the taste anyway.” Carey negotiated the bargain between Amy and the cowboy who’d been eating nearby with his back against the tire of one of the trucks, laughing when the guy took off running back to the chuck wagon to help himself to an additional drink.

“Just make sure he follows through every day,” Carey warned her with another of his glorious smiles. “Because you’ll be in the truck tomorrow, he might forget by the next day!”

“Do all the guys listen to you like that?” Amy asked, trying not to come off as nosy.

“What do you mean?” he asked, cocking his head in confusion.

“You know, you just tell them what to do and they go running?” she asked timidly.

“Well…no. Not really. I mean, there’s some of that, where the guys kind of have to listen to me because my dad’s Bernard Carson and his name’s on their paychecks, but it’s not just that.” Carey suddenly looked uncomfortable, and it took him a minute to realize that Amy’s question made him feel like a fraud, like he had stepped into his twin brother’s shoes when no one was looking. People didn’t listen to him, he was the younger twin…always had been, always would be. He knew it was a dynamic of his own making, certainly no one else had pushed him into the role of forgotten younger twin. For the first time, though, he began to wonder why that was, or more accurately, why he’d made that true.

“What is it then?” Amy asked, genuinely interested in what made Carey so easy-going and likeable, but still so efficient and so in charge.

“I think if you can make people want to do what you ask, then they’re more inclined to. Look at us. Did I
tell
you to eat with me? If I remember it right, I didn’t even ask you. I just offered to find you because you looked like you could use a little lighter conversation and a little more pleasant company. And here you are.”

“Are you saying you were so charming, I wouldn’t have had any other choice but to sit with you?” Amy asked coyly, even while knowing deep down that it was entirely, unavoidably true.
There was something inherently charming about Carey Carson, most of it coming from the fact that he didn’t seem to know how heart-stoppingly good looking he was.

“Nope. I’m saying I was hoping you’d want to eat with me, and so I just behaved that way,” he said, returning her gaze. “And considering who your mealtime companions have been so far, I think I might have been the best offer you’d had yet, so here you are!” Amy nodded, remembering the constant baiting and debating going on within her group of fellow travelers over everything from religion, to politics, to women’s issues. It was enough to ruin a nice, pleasant,
quiet
sunset on the prairie.

“But you said you have to make people want to do what you say. How? Do you just make people think it was their idea?” She hated that she sounded like she was prying, but this was knowledge she needed. It was exactly the kind of thing that made her sign up for this trip in the first place.

“Not at all. It comes from having the same goal in mind, from wanting the same things. We want these cattle to get to market safely, and in good health. We all want that, or these guys wouldn’t be here. They just know that I wouldn’t ask them to do something that wasn’t in their best interests and the interests of the ranch. I don’t have a power trip, I guess, and the guys know that about me.”

“Well, you are a rare person these days, if you don’t have any hidden agendas or power trips,” she said morosely. “Far too many people these days are out to see if they can be the top dog, and they make other people prove it for them.”

“That’s awful, that’s no way to live,” Carey said quietly. “I guess there is one way that the cowboy lifestyle is different than the rest of the world. Out here, we’re all just trying to make enough that we can keep doing this. Any one of these guys could find a job in a city doing hard labor, and probably make triple what they earn on the ranch. They’re out here because they want to be, not because they have to be.”

They finished eating the rest of their dinner in thoughtful, comfortable silence. When they finished their meals, they silently put their plates away and walked past the truck, past the blazing campfire where everyone was gathering for the evening entertainment. Without a word between them, Carey and Amy kept walking, out into the dark, away from the group, listening to the sounds of insects calling to each other around them. Carey silently reached for her hand, interlacing his warm fingers among hers. He felt her tense up at his touch before relaxing little by little.

When they reached the ridge that overlooked their camp for the night, they climbed to its small peak and sat down, looking out over the group, watching the sparks from the fire dance upward and melt in the dark. Carey pulled Amy closer to him, wrapping his arm lightly around her injured shoulders and holding her closer to him. She turned to watch his face and smiled, biting her bottom lip and silently begging him to kiss her as her eyes watched his mouth hungrily. He placed one strong hand gently on her cheek, holding her carefully as he leaned down and placed his lips on hers, lightly at first but growing more eager when she parted her lips and invited him in. Their tongues met tentatively at first, their kiss growing deeper and more feverish as they gave in to the other.