Carter (Bourbon & Blood Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

already.”
    The Darcys had been his family’s enemy for so long he wasn’t even sure why they all hated one another. He just that knew it ran deep and Bennett and Mia would never not be caught in the middle of it. They both needed to accept it and move the hell on.
    After a long pause, Bennett nodded. “You’ve made your point. Why are you here?”
    Carter shrugged, trying to make it appear casual and not like the whole family plotting to get him out of the house and away from temptation. “Emmitt’s tearing down that old barn today… figured a little destruction might improve your mood.”
    “You’re driving,” Bennett said as he moved toward the door. “You’ve had less bourbon.”
    Carter followed Bennett outside and then climbed behind the steering wheel. Bennett was shifting in the seat, digging between the cushions until his hand emerged, clutching a very tiny and very pointy high heeled shoe. He cocked an eyebrow at Carter. “Changing up your wardrobe a little?”
    Carter eyed the shoe for a minute and then smiled. That was his in. She wanted that shoe back, and she’d have to see him to get it. He laughed. “She said she lost that in here. I thought she made it up to have an excuse to come back!” he joked.
    “Who?”
    Carter shook his head. He was keeping that to himself. Not just because Josie would never want anyone to know but because he didn’t want the humiliation of having it blow up in his face when she more than likely rejected him. “Like I’m gonna tell!”
    “So you can butt your big ass nose into my business but I’m not allowed to know yours?” Bennett groused.
    Carter took the shoe and tossed it behind the seat. “That’s not ‘business’. That was one wild, crazy and fantastic night that will never be repeated. No harm, no foul,” he lied. Deciding to turn the tables, he said, “This thing with you and Mia is going to bring hell down on all of us. You know that, right?”
    Bennett sighed. “I know.”
    For the longest time they sat there in silence until Carter finally turned the key in the ignition. Carter thought about Josie, about the scandal he was courting, about the risks and about all the things the upright citizens of Fontaine would have to say about both of them. So he asked Bennett the burning question, “Is she worth it?”
    “A million times over,” Bennett admitted.
    It wasn’t Mia Darcy on his mind then. It was Josie Marcum standing in the middle of his bedroom in a t-shirt that covered her to her knees. He was starting to understand where Bennett was coming from. “Then do what you gotta do and we’ll sort out the mess later.”
    Carter drove the short distance to the farm and turned onto the rutted gravel road, the truck bumping so furiously that Bennett very nearly came off the seat.
    “You gotta get a new truck man. This thing is a death trap.”
    It was true, but Carter loved that truck. He held on to it out of nothing but sentiment. They all knew it. He could have bought another one years earlier and chose not to. Bennett was still shaking his head as he climbed out. “Fine. Keep this junk heap. And keep your secrets about whatever girl it was who lost a Barbie sized shoe in there.”
    Carter shook his head as he eased the truck into a parking space beside Emmitt’s monster SUV. “I’m not giving up this truck. It’s a classic. Do you know how many hours Papaw and I spent working on this thing together?”
    Bennett shook his head. “Not a damn one of us can count that high. From the time you were old enough to hold a wrench, you were covered in grease… Let’s go make Emmitt do all the work while we drink all his beer.”
    That had been Carter’s plan all along.

    J osie glanced at her phone for the fourteenth time in the last hour. She’d gotten used to daily texts from Carter. Now that they’d stopped, she missed them terribly. She missed him .
    Carter had always say something that just hovered on the edge of inappropriate. That