Carter (Bourbon & Blood Book 3) Read Online Free

tongue at him like a worried hen. “Carter, you need to go pick up Bennett and head out to Emmitt’s. That boy needs to clear his head… Some good hard work on the farm will fix him right up.”
    It wouldn’t. The only thing that would fix Bennett up was climbing right back into Mia Darcy’s pants, but that caused a whole slew of new problems and he sure as hell wasn’t about to say that to his mother. Lord, he wanted to be done with it all. He wanted to not be assigned to take care of poor, broken hearted Bennett or to lure surly ass Emmitt out of his house or keep Savannah from letting her mouth write checks her ass couldn’t cash. For someone that was a reputed layabout, he sure as hell didn’t get a moment’s peace from people asking him to fix things.
    “Yes, ma’am. I’m on my way to Bennett’s now. Emmitt already texted me.”
    Lynnette grew quiet. “Emmitt can text? Does he say more that way than he does in person?”
    Carter laughed out loud in spite of his shitty mood. He couldn’t help it. “No. Not really. And yes, in spite of the fact that his hands are the size of a Christmas ham, he can text.”
    “All right, then. Get Bennett out there and let him work off some of the mad… or whatever else it is that’s got him wound up like a long tailed cat. And don’t drink too much while you’re out there! You boys act like fools when you get drunk!”
    Carter pulled his truck into Bennett’s driveway, knowing his mother was watching from her front window across the street. Climbing out of the truck, he waved a little and headed for the porch. From the corner of his eye, he saw a streak of movement across the backyard. Turning his head fully, he caught sight of Mia Darcy’s retreating form as she sped through the woods and back to her very own ivory tower.
    “Shit,” he muttered, even as he opened the door to let himself in. Bennett was standing in the kitchen looking poleaxed, for lack of a better word. “Dude, what the fuck?”
    “Mind your own business, Carter,” Bennett snapped, but he didn’t bother to turn around.
    That pissed him off. Hell, when Bennett had mooned over her a decade ago, Carter had been the one to drag him kicking and screaming back to the land of the living. “Last time I checked you were still my blood… and she’s still the woman who tried to rip your heart right out of your chest just like in the Temple of Doom, so I figure that makes it my business.” There was no way this was going to go well. Bennet would be heart broken, the whole town would be talking about them. Again. And any time a Hayes tangled with a Darcy, Samuel would start calling favors. Property taxes doubles, mortgages were suddenly called in or payments were misplaced. That man had fucked them over more times than any of them could count.
    “You figured wrong. I can handle this.” Bennet had poured them both glasses of bourbon as he spoke.
    Carter laughed—hard. He bent over double with his hands on his knees and laughed until he couldn’t breathe. The sheer ridiculousness of Bennett, the original love sick fool, telling him he could handle it was just too much. Finally, breathless and wiping tears from his eyes, Carter rose to his full height and shook his head. “You’re so damn dumb I almost feel sorry for you.”
    Bennett passed him a glass of bourbon and a warning look to accompany it. “I get that you don’t have more than a passing acquaintance with sympathy, Carter, but in general, people don’t express it by laughing so hard they damn near piss themselves.”
    “Can’t help it,” Carter replied taking the glass and slamming the bourbon before handing it back for a refill. It burned like fire, but damn it was worth it. What he had to say wouldn’t be taken well, but that didn’t make it any less true. “It’s funny now. But when she chews you up and spits you out again, none of us will be laughing… We don’t need another reason to hate the Darcys. We got plenty