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.
Chapter Six
“I know you’re in there, Carson!” Crazy Mack shouted from the yard in front of the large, two-story main house on Carson Hill Ranch. “Get your ass out here and face me!”
Another shot rang out, taking another one of the large windows with it. Mack was up to four windows so far, blasting out each of them one at a time in his rage. Anders had called the sheriff after the first shot tore through a ground floor window but even by helicopter, the police were still a good twenty minutes away.
“What does he want?” the kitchen staff’s lead assistant asked from where they were crouched in the oversized, windowless kitchen where Anders had herded them all to safety. Even for someone so young, he’d been smart enough to order them all into the large room and down on the floor when the first window was taken out. They were all too happy to comply, especially with the shouting coming from outside the house.
“I can’t be sure, in his state of mind,” Anders began. “but I’m willing to bet that it has something to do with his two hookers going missing and showing up here a couple of weeks ago.”
“Please don’t call them that,” one of the housekeepers said sternly, looking at Anders reproachfully.
“That’s
