Harlequin Heartwarming April 2018 Box Set

by Amy Vastine

  Justin straightened, flipped back his hat and glowered at the assembly. “I’ll be with them.” The curt words were delivered with such authority, such finality, that a few more people fled to their seats. “Y’all are a disgrace, acting like cowards, too afraid to help folks just because they’re outsiders, because they’re different. I bet most of you are religious, but you obviously don’t treat people as you’re taught on Sunday. The people in Fresh Start are bettering themselves. Which is not something any of you are doing.”

  “Ain’t seen you in church in a long time,” crowed a black-garbed man now at the head of the question line. “Not since your brother’s—”

  A woman’s gasp cut him off, and Brielle’s eyes flew to a row of enormous dark-haired men, a petite redhead and a lovely silver-haired woman Brielle recognized from the courthouse. The Cades.

  “Not since my brother Jesse’s funeral,” Justin growled. “What of it?”

  “Ain’t that the point here?” demanded a woman wearing a sweatshirt with an enormous screen image of a pug. “We’re a peaceful community. I’m a Christian, but I’m also no fool. Drugs bring trouble. That gang came right here for Jesse Cade. Who knows who else they might have hurt.”

  “Ma’am,” Brielle interjected, “our patients are seeking to break their drug habits.”

  “So was Jesse,” she rejoined, her chin jutting. “Now I’m sorry, Joy, you’re a good, God-fearing woman, and I know you did your best for your son, but we don’t want trouble in Carbondale. Can you guarantee we won’t have it, preacher?”

  “And won’t some of your patients be ordered by the court to seek treatment? They won’t be voluntarily trying to clean up their vices,” chided a suited man with polished hair that reflected the fluorescent overhead light.

  “That’s true,” Brielle admitted, her eyes cutting to Justin as a flurry of chatter erupted. She waited for it to die down then said, “Nothing in life is guaranteed, but I urge you to have faith. I believe this understanding—that God suffered greatly to face off against the evil in our world—can give these men and women hope as they wrestle with their own wounds. More than anything, I want them to know that they are not alone. Not only do they have fellow soldiers who are also struggling, but they have a God who has personally faced the horrors of combat and will stand with them in the battles they go through. Will you stand with them, too?”

  “We will,” boomed a deep voice from the back of the room, no microphone needed. All heads swiveled to a line of mountain-size men with piercing blue eyes. They took up the entire back row—the entire room, it seemed. An older man in the group hurried down the aisle to Joy and knelt beside her on the aisle, patting her shoulder.

  “Cole Loveland speaking,” the man who had spoken continued. “A program like Fresh Start could have helped our mother. If she’d attended one, she might still be with us.”

  The Loveland clan roared their agreement.

  Mayor Cantwell leaned over and whispered in Brielle’s ear, “Suicide.” She nodded, her eyes on the family Justin had labeled murderers and thieves. They looked like good folk to her. Their staunch support was a finger under her chin, lifting it high. “Any further questions?”

  The Lovelands and the Cades, united in this, at least, cracked their knuckles and glared at the murmuring crowd.

  “I say we take an up-or-down vote to revoke the conditional charter,” cried the pug-loving local.

  The group hollered a resounding “Yes!” and Brielle’s heart leaped to the base of her throat, clogging it.

  A vote? Now? Given the group’s questions, she sensed which way the winds blew…and it was not in her favor, despite the Loveland and Cade support.

  “Do y’all even know who you’re running out of town?” Justin spoke up, stopping the momentum dead. “Do ya? One’s a little bitty thing. Just sixteen years old. She tried to kill herself, twice, because every time she looks in the mirror, she sees a girl she hates. But now she’s got something she’s wanted all her life. A horse. I’m teaching her to ride and care for one so she’ll learn how to love and care for herself.”

  Chairs creaked as residents shifted in their seats, leaning forward, listening to the usually taciturn cowboy. The benefit of seldom talking, Brielle mused, was that when you did, folks paid attention. Thankfully Justin seemed to know better than to use patient names to protect confidentiality.

  “Another is a vet. National guardsman. Served our country in Iraq. His whole platoon came under fire while they were clearing a section of Mosul. This guy’s a decorated hero for risking his life to grab his pinned-down buddies. Yeah. That’s the kind of person Carbondale’s too good for,” Justin said, the accusation met with a wave of head shakes.

  A man wearing a leather jacket with an American flag patch limped over to Justin and clapped him on the back.

  “Then there’s a grandfather who couldn’t afford his medication and started hallucinating. When he wandered from his home one Christmas Eve, he went missing for a long time. When his children found him, he was homeless, nearly dead of hypothermia. This is the first home he’s had in over five years, and you want to take it from him.”

  A mumbled chorus of noes broke out.

  Brielle gaped at Justin, moved at his knowledge of her patients, and shamed by it, too. He’d scolded her about not interacting with them, something he’d clearly been doing the past couple of days.

  She’d urged him to help himself. Perhaps she needed to heed his advice as well. Justin made her patients real, not just threats to her teetering emotional stability.

  “May I propose an alternative to tonight’s vote,” she blurted, thinking fast. “A fact-finding mission by a city council–appointed group. They can tour the facility, prepare a report and share their findings and recommendations at next month’s meeting. That way you’ll have the information needed to make an informed decision that will affect not just Fresh Start’s patients, but the community’s ability to serve locals with addiction and other social-emotional problems.”

  “We don’t have none of those,” called an anonymous protester.

  “That’s a lie!” cried a pretty blonde sandwiched between the Loveland brothers. A sister.

  Brielle considered a stone-faced Justin. No wonder he failed to recognize his own depression, his alcohol dependence. The town lived in the same denial he did.

  “Order, please,” pleaded Mayor Cantwell. “The council will confer and relay our consensus to you momentarily.”

  Brielle’s heart thudded as the city council members huddled, murmuring in low, indistinct voices.

  Was this the end of Fresh Start?

  CHAPTER SIX

  JUSTIN ZIPPED HIS leather jacket against the cold October night and eyed an empty beer can beside the town hall’s recycle bin. In two strides, he reached the container, brought it to his nose and inhaled.

  His eyes closed and his throat constricted at the faint scent of hops. Nothing ever smelled so good. He needed a drink. Bad. How long had it been? Three days…and five and a half weeks to go unless the approved fact-finding mission recommended revoking Fresh Start’s charter.

  “What are you doing?”

  Justin whirled at the sound of his sister’s voice, tossed the can in the bin and shoved trembling hands into his back pockets. The parking lot behind him hummed with activity; headlights blared, engines cranked.

  “Darn litterers,” he muttered.

  The pug sweatshirt–wearing attendee halted and shook her finger. “Why don’t you start with cleaning up that mouth?”

  Justin’s lip curled into a snarl, and her husband threw an arm around her shoulders. “We don’t want no trouble.” He hurried his protesting wife after the chattering crowd streaming toward the parking lot.

  Jewel planted her boots wide and angled her narrow, freckled face up at her brother. An oversize Stetson covered most of her unruly red ha
ir. “Didn’t know you were so civic-minded.”

  He shrugged and her hazel eyes, bright beneath the streetlight, probed his as she spoke. “How’s it going?”

  “Taught the residents how to saddle a horse, and they walked them around the corral yesterday.”

  “I meant you. How are you doing?”

  He scuffed a pile of dead pine needles with his boots. “No complaints.”

  She ducked her head and caught his eye. “We miss you.”

  “Yeah, right,” he scoffed, picturing their happy evenings without him bringing everybody down. “Like a hole in the head.”

  A choking sound snapped his head up. Jewel blinked, hard and fast, her features scrunched into a tight mask of grief. “Don’t ever joke about that.”

  He laid a hand on her arm. “’Bout what?”

  “Shooting yourself.”

  “I wasn’t—” he protested, her ferocity taking him by surprise. Jewel was tough as nails and rarely sentimental. Growing up in a house of rowdy brothers, his petite, rough-riding sister learned fast how to survive in a testosterone-filled world. Truth was, she had more guts, more grit than any of them.

  “All I’m saying is I already lost one brother. I’m not losing another, even if you are a miserable grouch.”

  “At least I’ve got my looks,” he teased, tugging on his beard.

  That coaxed a grin from Jewel. “If you think a werewolf’s good-looking.”

  “To each his own,” he intoned, and her chuckle soothed the ache inside. He hated causing his family pain or concern. Despite what Jewel thought, they’d all be better off without him.

  “Listen to this.” Jewel lowered her voice and moved closer. “Jared heard someone spotted Boyd Loveland shopping for a ring.”

  “What kind?” He whipped his face toward the town hall’s door as Jared emerged. He cupped Amberley’s elbow as her guide dog led them down the concrete path to the parking lot.

  “A diamond.”

  “For Ma?”

  Jewel nodded. “Got to be.”

  He smacked his forehead. If there ever was a reason to go back to drinking, the thought of his mother marrying Boyd Loveland sure was a good one. “Where’s he getting the money?”

  “Beats me.”

  “You two talking about Boyd’s ring shopping?” Jared asked, joining them.

  Justin scratched Petey’s notched ears, and the former cattle dog’s tail thumped. He’d come a long way from the stray who’d shown up in their barn a couple years back. With Jared’s training, he’d become Amberley’s service dog when she lost her sight. “Yeah. Who’d you hear it from?”

  “Sheila,” Amberley piped up, her eyes swerving in Justin’s general direction. “She waited on Boyd at Jay’s Jewelers.”

  “No secrets in small towns,” Jewel observed.

  Justin swore under his breath. “He’s just gonna up and marry her, and we’ve got no say?” His eyes cut to the Loveland crew as they tromped from the meeting hall. Justin’s muscles wound tight when he glimpsed Cole Loveland stopping to talk with Brielle. The family already had his mother wrapped around their fingers—he’d be darned if he let them have Brielle as well.

  “We’ve got plenty of say in it,” James said as he neared.

  “How’s that?” Justin’s gaze stuck on Cole and Brielle. What were they talking about?

  James fastened his work coat’s top button. “According to Jack, he wants all of our support before he’ll pop the question. Won’t do it otherwise.”

  Heath Loveland halted beside his pickup and cranked his head at Jewel’s startled laugh. “That’ll never happen,” she exclaimed. “We won’t be related to them.”

  “Not a snowball’s chance in hell,” Justin vowed, though he didn’t breathe any easier, not with Brielle now touching Cole’s arm and smiling up at him. Justin’s hands balled and he swallowed the urge to walk over there, yank Cole away from Brielle and lay him out.

  “He’s got Jack’s support.” James pulled on a pair of black gloves and retrieved his keys from his pocket. They clanked together, the metallic clash matching Justin’s jangling nerves.

  “How’d he get that?” Justin exclaimed. Cole’s hand now rested on the wall behind Brielle, and the cowboy leaned close. Justin took an involuntary step forward. If it wasn’t for this conversation, he’d break up whatever was going on over there.

  James blew his nose then tossed out the tissue, along with the contents of his pocket: broken animal crackers, a worn-down crayon and a Popsicle stick. “Boyd called him.”

  “And Jack just said yes?” Jewel’s eyes flashed when a blonde gal approached Heath Loveland then hopped into his truck’s passenger side before he reversed out of his spot.

  James nodded.

  “Traitor,” Justin growled. Tension bubbled inside at Brielle laughing up at Cole. What was so funny?

  “He’s got a right to his opinion,” James said mildly. “Same as me.” James’s cell phone rang, the shrilling sound echoing through the parking lot. He pulled it out and scanned the screen, quickly typing back a reply to the text that had interrupted their conversation. “Guess I’m off to find chocolate-banana-coconut ice cream. Sofia’s got a craving.” He clapped Justin on the shoulder. “You did good in there, little brother.”

  Jewel shook some wintergreen Tic Tacs into her hand then offered them around. “You think he’s gonna give Boyd his support?” she asked once James moved out of earshot.

  “Doesn’t matter if he does.” Justin dropped the mints on his tongue. “Boyd said he’s not proposing unless we all support him, and the three of us won’t, at least.”

  “Well. We’d better go.” Jared gave Justin a one-armed hug, and Amberley smiled his way. “Amberley’s got an early race in Denver tomorrow.”

  “Don’t show up those sighted barrel racers too bad, girl,” Jewel called after them. “Not like you do to me.”

  “You do just fine,” Amberley chided over her shoulder.

  Jewel cupped her hands around her mouth. “Didn’t know you for a liar,” she hollered.

  Amberley’s laugh floated back to them, followed by the slam of Jared’s truck door and the rev of his engine.

  “You reckon Jared might say yes, too?” Jewel questioned.

  “Better not. Either way, there’s still two of us,” Justin answered, grim.

  Cole pointed to his truck, and Brielle shook her head. Was Cole, a recluse since he and his ex-fiancée called off their wedding a few years back, actually offering Brielle a ride? Maybe looking to date her?

  Not on Justin’s watch.

  A tight-lipped, stubborn, arrogant Loveland was the last guy Brielle should get involved with.

  Not that he had a clue who she should see.

  But it sure as heck wasn’t a Loveland.

  “Can I ride back with you?” Justin called to Brielle. The rest of the Fresh Start crew left earlier, so she must have driven herself.

  She twisted his way. A dark wool coat, buttoned over a navy dress, contrasted with her bright hair and fair skin. His heart did a strange flip. Brielle was as pretty as the porcelain dolls his gram had collected. She’d kept them perched on a high shelf, just beyond his reach.

  “Sure,” she called.

  Cole scowled in Justin’s direction, and he smiled back, baring his teeth at his longtime rival, happy to come between whatever plans Cole had for Brielle…

  Jewel threw a hug on him then pecked his cheek. “Looks like you’ve got a hot date,” she whispered in his ear then released him. “Like that song…what’s it called? ‘Hot for Preacher’?”

  A chuckle rumbled out of him. “Teacher, idiot. Least I’m not hankering after a Loveland.”

  Jewel jerked away as if stung, and he caught her hand. “Kidding. We’re just tweaking you about Heath. You hate them as much as any of us.” He thought of
Jack and James… “Or me and Jared, at least.”

  She mumbled something indistinct and fled just as Brielle joined him. “I was looking for you.”

  “Not too hard.” An irritated edge ruffled his voice.

  Her long eyelashes blinked fast. “Excuse me?”

  “I saw you talking to Cole.”

  Now why did he sound accusing?

  A line formed between her brows. “He was asking about volunteering at Fresh Start.”

  Justin’s eyes flew to the full moon engulfing the purple-ink sky. “He just wants an excuse to be around you.”

  She rubbed her hands together and blew on them. “He wants to help.”

  “To help himself to more time with you.” He caught her hands between his and rubbed them, the sensation of her soft skin against his callused flesh a trip wire to his pulse. It rushed headlong through his veins, tumbling over itself.

  “You sound jealous,” she accused, her words a bit breathy, misting the air white.

  “Jealous? That’s crazy.” It took every bit of willpower to release her. Her touch banished the dry burning in his mouth, the pounding in his head. Being around her, holding her hands, settled him somehow.

  “Thank you for before.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “What you did in there. Talking about the patients. I couldn’t have done it.”

  “If you knew them, you could.”

  She ducked her head and pushed her hands into her coat pockets.

  “Besides,” Justin continued, “You came up with the plan for the fact-checking group.”

  “I did,” she half groaned. “And now they’re planning to show up unannounced to look us over. What if we get a bad report?”

  Between his ranching program, the group sessions, counseling and fitness and diet regimens, the patients received exactly what Brielle described, a real chance to make permanent life changes. Any committee failing to see that would be blind, stupid or just plain biased. “We won’t.”

  “Let’s hope. Are you ready to go?” There was a brief catch in her voice as he tucked her loose scarf into her coat collar.