“Rafael,” Frank said, glancing at Courtney. “Thought I’d stop by and check in with you.”
“I’ve been my usual busy. Have you two met?” Rafe asked, glancing between the two of them.
“No. I’ve not had the pleasure,” Frank said, eyes glued to Courtney with her wild hair and tight jeans.
“Courtney is Carter’s sister. They are working on turning their ranch into a bed & breakfast now. They aren’t going to sell the ranch after all,” Rafe said.
“Hello, ma’am,” Frank said, all serious. He even tipped the brim of his hat and that had Rafe internally rolling his eyes.
“Hello,” Courtney said.
“That’s good news. Carter will be around after all,” he said, glancing at Rafe. “The town could always use the business and increased tax revenue.”
“Glad we could help the town and its increased tax revenue,” Courtney said, tipping her imaginary hat back at Frank.
“So,” Frank said, not having anything further to add, turning a little red, caught off-guard by Courtney’s teasing. He turned to Rafe.
“You haven’t been at the bar much. Business picking up?” Frank asked.
“It is. I picked up some more restaurants so I’m thinking about adding some more hens,” he said.
Courtney rolled her eyes at Rafael’s talk of chickens and walked away.
“I’d better get going. Tell Carter I’ll stop by soon,” Frank said to Courtney’s retreating back.
“Tell her yourself. Stop by the house,” she said, looking over her shoulder.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, ma’am,” he said.
“It was a real pleasure meeting you, too sir,” she said, speaking in her best southern drawl, smiling as she did so, her hands in her jeans. Rafe guessed that was her imitation of a Texan.
#
Sunday – mid morning
Courtney was in the kitchen, cooking, testing out new recipes. She was dressed for another day of cleaning, hair pulled back in a ponytail resting on the top of her head, an old t-shirt and cut-off jean shorts. She felt, rather than heard, someone at the back door. He was tall, whoever he was.
She pulled out her tray of muffins from the oven and walked over to the door. It was a fine man in a uniform, and a good place for him to be, she thought. She opened the door, held out her hands, crossing her wrists as if she was a suspect preparing to be taken into custody.
“I’m ready. You can take me in. What crime did I commit, Sheriff?” she asked, batting her eyelashes. It was that cute and serious sheriff from the other day at Rafe’s.
He cleared his throat, and looked a little shaken. She inwardly smiled, happy to ruffle his feathers. Nobody should be that serious.
“None today,” he said, very serious and formal.
She laughed and dropped her hands.
“I like you,” she said, holding the door open so he could come in.
“I stopped by to check in on Carter, find out how she’s doing with the ranch. And see how you two were getting on,” he said.
“She’s not here. Went across the street, I believe, or who knows? She’s probably in the barn.”
“I’ll see her another time then. Tell her I heard the good news and stopped by to congratulate her,” he said.
“Well since I’m going to be working with her that’s more good news for you,” she said, looking him over, running her eyes over him, not bothered that he’d watched her.
“You married?” she asked.
He grinned at her assertiveness. “No, ma’am. I’m not.”
“That’s good to know,” she said, giving him another smile. He tipped his hat and walked away. She stood on the porch, still watching him. He smiled again as he opened his official car and got in.
She watched him drive away.
#
“Where do you think we could find ourselves an officer?” Courtney asked Carter later on that evening. They were in the kitchen, having finished dinner.
“A what?”
“An officer of the law. I was working with Rafe a few days ago when this cute officer stopped by, red-headed and tall. He stopped by today, looking for you, but really it was me he was after,” she said.
“When?”
“This morning. I told you, didn’t I?”
“No, you didn’t,” Carter said.
“Well, Officer Frank stopped by to ‘look in on you’ as he put it. Where is he from, anyway? Mayberry? I met him at Rafe’s a few days ago. He is cute, and back to my original question. Where would one go about finding him?”
“I thought you were interested in Rafe,” Carter asked, jealousy getting the best of her.
“Rafe? Don’t think so. He’s like a brother. Not my type, and anyways that one is only interested in you,” she said, her grin wide. “And… I know you too, have a thing for him. I see the way he looks at you and you get all giddy when we are anywhere near him. Either that or you’re in a funk ‘cause you think I like him. I don’t. I’ve noticed, and I don’t poach. Not that I’m interested anyway.”
“That’s good to know,” Carter said, relieved, staring into space, considering the ramifications of this new information.
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” Courtney said, snapping her fingers in front of Carter’s face. “Rafe told me that he and Frank are sometimes in town at our one-and-only bar. Let’s go check it out. See if he’s there this evening.”
“What if he’s not?”
“We’ll have a drink and come home.”
“I’m tired,” Carter said.
“Hey, you owe me. It’s not fair that you have Rafael,” she said, smiling. “I need a way to escape the sometimes boring monotony of cleaning and cooking. I think you should help me find Frank,” she said.
“You do know Frank is white.”
“No!” Courtney said, her hand at her chest, all drama. “He is? Oh my goodness. Oh, what to do,” Courtney said, falling back into the chair with her hand at her forehead. “I’ll be right back,’ she said, jumping up, running to her room. She was back two minutes later, with a photo of her mother.
“This is my mother.”
Carter looked over the picture. “Oh,” Carter said, looking at the portrait of Courtney’s mother staring back at her, smile on her face. She was very blue-eyed. And white.
“Yeah. Oh. So do I have your permission now?” she said, a bite to her words.
“Sorry. I’ve grown up listening to your uncle. Marry within your race. Slavery and all that,” she said.
“What about Rafe? He’s not the slave master.”
“No, he’s more the field hand.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“No, it’s not. You will admit that it’s hard to navigate race.”
“Who says you have to navigate it? Some people are nice, some aren’t. Some people are blue and others are purple. Some love, some hate, some eat peas, and others eat rice,” she said.
“It’s that simple for you?” Carter said.
“It is,” she said.
“You don’t carry the whole weight of the race and its future on your shoulders.”
“What?”
“Who’s going to keep the African American race going if we all up and marry into other races?”
“Hate to break it to you, Carter, but we are the same race. The human race. I am, although I’m not so sure about you sometimes. You may be part horse.”
“I do need a shower,” Carter said, laughing along with her sister.
“I know, it’s that part-horse I can smell. Fine. Don’t take longer than 15 minutes, or I’m going by myself and I’ll pick up Frank and Rafe and take them home and ravage them both,” she said with a grin.
“I can’t believe that you are my half-sister!”
“We can pretend we are whole. I know how blessed and lucky you feel to have me,” she said.
Carter threw a towel at her head. She ducked, laughing.
“Do you have any pictures of Raymond?”
<
br /> “Not with me. I left them with my mother. She’s dying to come out. I’ll ask her to bring them when she comes.”
#
Rafael reached for his cell. The specific tone indicated someone had sent him a text. He smiled as he read it: Meet me at the bar at seven. Bring the sheriff with you. I told Carter I wasn’t interested in you, so it’s now or never.
He left to track down Frank.
#
Sunday evening
“I don’t believe it. You are finally interested in a woman,” Rafe said, grinning at Frank. Frank had spent the last 20 minutes playing 20 questions with him about Courtney.
“Why is that funny?” Frank asked.
“Nothing. She is all energy, that one. Has a lot to prove in this world,” he said, grinning again.
“I can’t believe you’re not interested,” Frank said, turning to face him.
“Nope. It’s the cousin—no, half-sister—that I like.”
“Half-sister?”
“Long story. I’ll let them tell you,” Rafael said.
“Carter meets your list of requirements?” Frank asked.
“Honestly, Courtney meets it more. But you were right when you said it’s Carter that I love.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“Does she know?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, it’s our lucky night, ‘cause here they are, and heading our way,” Frank said, his eyes glued on Courtney, taking in her devil-may-care smile.
Rafe swiveled around on his bar stool and caught Carter’s eye as she followed her sister over to him. He couldn’t read her, but it was back to acting weird around him, a little distant, unless she was interested in the sex with him part.
“Hello ladies,” Rafe said, when they stood next to him.
“Hi Rafe. Howdy, Sheriff,” Courtney said, in her mock western drawl.
“Carter, nice seeing you again. Ma’am,” Frank said, tipping his hat toward Courtney, a small smile at his lips.
“I’m not a ma’am. I’m a Courtney,” she said.
“Hello, Courtney,” Frank said, and his smile widened at Courtney’s grin.
“How long have you been here?” Carter said. They were both watching Courtney and Frank flirt.
“Not that long. About 20 minutes. You hungry? They make pretty good burgers here,” Rafe said, looking between Frank and Courtney. “You two want to get a booth?”
“Sure,” everyone said. Rafe told the bartender that they were moving, grabbed a couple of menus, and moved them all to a booth in the corner.
Courtney sat first and Frank slid in next to her. She looked over at him and smiled. She was a beautiful woman, Rafe thought, and turned to slide in across from her and caught Carter watching him. He smiled. She gave him a small one back. He inwardly chuckled. Could Courtney be right? Could she really be into him? And more than just sex? His heart buoyed at the thought.
“Want to dance?” Courtney asked, looking at Frank. The music here was piped in, country mostly, with the occasional pop tune thrown it. The dance floor was empty, but it usually was this early in the evening.
“Sure,” Frank said, and scooted out. Courtney followed him to the dance floor.
Carter picked up her menu, pretending to look it over. “What’s good here?” she asked.
“The hamburgers. I’d stick close to the popular items. I can’t vouch for the others. What’s up?” he asked.
“You’ve been helping Courtney quiet a bit. I thought…”
“You thought what, Carter?”
“I thought maybe you might want to move on. She seems like more of a match to your list than me.”
“Did you want to be a match to my list? I thought you were only interested in Mr. Bentley Now, not looking for more.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said, looking at him, her chin sticking out, like she was spoiling for a fight.
“Oh, yeah? You interested in more from me?”
“I am,” she said.
“You’re jealous?”
“Maybe,” she said, same tilt to her chin.
He laughed. “I’m not interested in your sister. Never have been,” he said, looking at her.
“Okay,” she said, her chin down now. She went back to looking at the menu. “You do have to agree that she meets most of what’s on your list. More than me, anyway,” she said a few minutes later.
“I threw that list away a long time ago. It was stupid to begin with,” he said, looking away for a minute. “My father loves my mother, beyond what I think is healthy, beyond reason, actually. It’s crazy love; always has been, even growing up. She can be…is demanding. Sometimes it seems as if she’s never satisfied. It was hard to see my dad give so much to her and get less back.”
“Maybe you couldn’t see what she gave back to him.”
“That kind of love can hurt you,” he said.
“It doesn’t have to, as long as the other person loves enough to be hurt, too, right? If they both are there in it, feeling the same thing?”
“Right. I guess it could work if both people felt the same,” he said.
“It could work.”
“It could,” he said, smiling now.
“So, how long ago?” she asked.
“How long ago what?”
“How long ago did you throw your list out?” she asked.
“Not too long after I met you.”
“Oh. That’s good,” she said, trying not to smile.
“You don’t know? You never figured it out, did you?”
“Figure what out?”
“Courtney’s worked with me all this time to make you jealous. I wanted to marry you the first time I asked you; that day in the barn after you’d returned from talking to your dad. I knew then.”
Carter was quiet at his words.
“I wasn’t ready. I thought about it, though,” she said. “I needed to figure out who Carter was first, and you were a huge help with that,” she said, leaning over to softly touch her lips to his. “Thank you. And if your invitation still stands, I’m open now to marrying you,” she said.
“Come here,” he said, pulling her closer to him. “I love you. Will you marry me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said and leaned in to kiss him again.
#
“Rafe…,” Carter said, her words a moan as she lay flat on her back, her hands stretched above her, a tight grip to his bed’s headboard as Rafe moved with determination above her.
“Yes,” he said, as he thrust into her, his hands on her hips, his mouth near her breasts. He took one into his mouth.
“Oh,” she moaned.
“Yeah… I know,” he whispered against her skin, as he pulled out and slid back into her warmth, moving his mouth to her other breast.
“I love you,” she said, part moan and part declaration.
He stopped and looked up, catching her eyes. “I love you, too,” he said, his breath ragged from the effort of making love to the woman he’d grown to loved. He gazed at her underneath him, the woman that he loved like no other. He hadn’t thought it was possible to love someone so much.
“What is it?” she said, in between pants, staring into his eyes, trying to read his expression. He smiled.
“You are where I belong,” he said, and smiled as he pushed into her body. He slid up to capture her lips with his, pleased at the moan she’d released. He was one lucky man.
“You are where I belong,” he said, again, capturing her mouth with his.
#
Twenty-Three
Two weeks later.
“Hell no. We are not giving them any money. I mean it, Carter. Hell no,” Courtney said. A few days ago, Carter had brought up what had been running though her mind for a while now.
“I can’t let them hang in the wind. As much as I want to, I can’t. They were my family. They are our family. Our great-grandfather put them in the will for a reason. He left it up to me to make the decision for
the family for a reason. He trusted me to make the right decisions. We cannot allow them to fail. I can’t follow in my ex-father’s footsteps.”
“You can’t. But I can,” Courtney said.
They’d been having this discussion for the last three days and Courtney was nowhere near budging.
“If I can forgive them, so can you. See what it did to our uncle? Do you want us to be responsible for generating more hate? Help me here, Courtney. It will be tough, but we can make it. It’s the right thing to do. We have to choose love over hate every time. I have to choose love over hate.”
“Okay. Fine. We can have them come to the house weekly, and give them a little of it at a time. String them along, like a drug dealer,” she said.
Carter laughed. “Remind me to not get on your bad side. Let it go, Courtney. Please,” she said.
“Fine!!!!” Courtney screamed at the top of her lungs. She looked over at Carter and started laughing.
“You are crazy.”
“You are crazy for giving them money, but fine, I’ll agree to it. Not that I have to. You don’t need me to,” she said, her tone back to its normal volume. “I’m doing it for you, because it means so much to you and you’ve come to mean so much to me,” she said.
“Love you, too,” Carter said.
#
“So, are you happy?” Rafe asked her, coming to stand beside her in the barn later on that night.
“I’m getting there. There a few more things that I need to do,” she said.
“Like what?” he asked.
“First, I’m going to give some money to my sisters.”
“Why?”
“It’s the right thing to do. Yes, my father was wrong in not telling me the specifics of the will, my dad/uncle, whatever he is now, and I’m not sure I’ll ever speak to him again. But my sisters need the money, especially Madison. She won’t stop calling me. But even without all of that, I still need to help them,” she said, looking at him.
“What was Courtney’s reaction?” he asked.
“About what you’d expect. But she eventually agreed. It was my call, and there is enough money for all of us. I’m going to split it seven ways, and give my sisters their share. My great-grandfather wanted them included for a reason and I need to honor those wishes. The decision is not about them, it’s about me,” she said, with more force than she meant.
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