Dying For Love (Carson Hill Ranch: Book 6)

By Amelia Rose

A contemporary cowboy romance novel.
Crystal Stapleton has everything a princess could want: ski vacations, a suite to herself in her parents' mansion, even her own Prince Charming. Too bad there's a mean streak lurking under the surface of her fiance, one that her parents refuse to see. With her father's prodding to marry a well-connected and wealthy man and her mother's constant ugly domineering attitude, Crystal is prepared to do as she's told, regardless of how unhappy her future will be.

But a chance two week stay at Carson Hill Ranch brings her not only a new found sense of freedom and joy, it also brings her face to face with the decidedly good looking and very unattached Jacob Carson. The more time she spends in Jacob's presence, the less certain she is about the future her parents have laid out for her.

Will she accept the freedom a cowboy like Jacob can offer? Or will she do what she's expected to do, no matter how much it hurts her heart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gold Crown
• Release date: Jun 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310903052

Amelia Rose

Amelia Rose holds a PhD in Literature and Language; she specializes in teaching positive, self-reliant principles to children and adults of all ages.  Dr. Rose lives with her husband and three children in the Hudson Valley, New York area, where she enjoys the outdoors and spending time with her family and friends.   Matthew Maley is an artist with nearly twenty-five years in the fields of Illustration and Design. His work has appeared in publications such as Archie Comics, Marvel, Disney, Nickelodeon, and Children’s Television Workshop. He lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife, daughter, and a variety of animals.

Book preview

Dying For Love

Carson Hill Ranch: Book Six

AMELIA ROSE

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Amelia Rose.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

To YOU, The reader.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you for your emails.

Thank you for your reviews.

Thank you for reading and joining me on this road.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

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Chapter One

The wind howled outside the large house, rattling the windows of the two-story, sprawling home in their frames. Inside, a fire crackled in the oversized stone fireplace, fed from the large stacks of logs that were built up on either side of the hearth. The smell coming from several rows of industrial chili pots simmering on the multiple ranges in the kitchen filled the entire house with the promise of a good, filling, hot meal to come. That meal would be eaten in several shifts as the cowboys and ranch hands filed into the kitchen, a room that took up most of the first floor of the ranch house, to grab a bite to eat before heading back out to their work.

At this time of year, the work on the ranch was particularly brutal. As if the fire and brimstone summers on a Texas cattle ranch weren’t hard enough, every few years brought in a winter so extreme that crops suffered and more than a few of the thirty thousand herd of cattle were lost to some illness or another. Regardless of the temperature or the speed with which the wind broke through the wide-open ranch, bending the dried, dead grasses over until their tips touched the frozen dirt, the chores went on. A staff of nearly fifty hands and interior workers kept the daily life on the ranch moving, with a few dozen more employees who were hired for things like the cattle drives or the harvesting of the thousands of acres planted with feed crops.

Through all of the weather that fell on Carson Hill Ranch, one thing hadn’t changed since the first members of the Carson family bought the land nearly eight generations ago: the Carsons worked it alongside their employees, every day and in every kind of weather. They were up by four in the morning to start the first round of feedings, and fell in their beds at the end of the day, wiped out physically but wearing the smiles of people who were content with their good fortune.

The only enigma in the rowdy bunch of six Carson brothers and their various wives was the youngest, Jacob. When his father, Bernard, proudly carried his first children—twin boys, Casey and Carey—in his arms and showed them the land that would be their birthright, he couldn’t have expected that four more sons would follow. Anders and Joseph, although not twins, were close enough in age and right behind the oldest sons that they might as well have been. Seamus and Jacob, the younger set of twins, rounded out the family. They’d suffered the loss of their mother ten years later, shortly after giving birth to the lone daughter in the family, who had lived only two days.

Jacob Carson was far from an outcast by any stretch of the imagination, but he was the brother most likely to spend his time finding additional work that needed doing rather than hanging around the fireplace in the evenings with the family and main ranch staff. He kept to himself, more likely to watch a situation and analyze it from every side than to rush headlong into the fray like his brothers tended to do. Only Anders, the bookish, smart one who had opted for a job in a city over working on the range, was alike in Jacob’s quiet, somewhat withdrawn ways.

He adored his brothers, though, and had always found himself in the tenuous position of being the family peacemaker when squabbles broke out among his older brothers. Even though he was the youngest, they naturally gravitated to his stoic, solid heart in times of irritation or crisis that needed to be decided by a neutral third party. It didn’t always make him the favorite, especially when one of the injured parties lost out, but it did earn him respect.

This time of year was when he thrived. Jacob could be left to his own devices and allowed to work in solitude most of the time because only a crazy person would sign on for some of the jobs Jacob liked to do in this weather. One of his favorite jobs was making the trek of the property line once every few months, keeping a watch for problems and noting repairs that needed doing. Although the job would take a day or two at most by truck, Jacob preferred to do it the way all the Carsons before him had…on horseback. He’d pack a rucksack of supplies and a bedroll and head out, starting by heading west toward the small town of Hale and working his way around the perimeter of the land, eventually coming back around to the house as much as two to three weeks later.

Tonight, though, he sat on the edge of the hearth, banking the fire for the guys who’d be coming in for their dinner soon. He knew the calm of the warm room would be broken by the men filing through on their way to dinner, the door opening and slamming behind them, their noisy conversations fighting to be heard over the others. For now, though, it was just him in the room, and it was peaceful.

Jacob? Need any help with that? His sister-in-law, Emma, asked on her way down the stairs, her baby daughter, Cara, in her arms.

No, I have it. Thanks, he added, remembering the manners that didn’t always come second nature to him. He looked up when Emma came closer, letting the heat from the fire warm her and cause her face to reflect its glow. She turned so that her daughter was cradled in her shadow, keeping the heat from getting too close.

Here. You sit. I’ll take her, Jacob said, standing up and gesturing to his spot on the stone hearth. He took Cara out of Emma’s arms and held her head carefully before settling her across his lap on the sofa. He watched in amused delight as the tiny little girl reached for his curly hair with her tenuously outstretched fingers, smiling her toothless, drooling grin in response to his adoring expression. Is she warm enough in this outfit? It seems awfully thin and the temperature’s only just above freezing outside.

She has on a few layers, and I always check her whenever I change her, Emma promised, laughing silently to herself about the overprotective nature of every uncle on the ranch. Pity for any girl born into this family, she thought. What with any potential boyfriend having to face down an entire offensive line of uncles, fathers, cousins, and cowboys. Cara’s pink cheeks and happy giggle were proof enough for her mother that the baby was warm and secure. I’d imagine you just feel cold after working outside all day. It’s a wonder you guys ever manage to get warm again after staying out in that mess.

You get used to it, I suppose. When there’s really no choice, you just learn to stop thinking about it so much. He made faces at Cara as Emma stretched out in front of the hearth, letting the heat from the glowing embers burn through the fabric of her clothes and nearly scorch her skin.

Emma and Jacob were quiet, enjoying the warmth of fire and family as baby Cara giggled at her uncle’s antics. As various people began to intrude on the moment by coming through to eat or warm up, Jacob handed Cara back to her mom with a kiss on the top of her head, then took off for less populated parts of the house. Emma watched him go sadly.

He was stopped in the hallway leading to the family’s separate bedrooms by his father, Bernard. Jacob! I was just looking for you! He called out eagerly, patting his son on the shoulder as he turned him around and led him back down the stairs he’d just climbed, steering him toward his office. We have a new hunting trip and I’d like you to be their hired guide. You have a minute to talk about it?

Jacob nodded quietly. Hunting parties, or groups of people who paid to hunt on Carson Hill’s extensive property during the season, were an important part of the operations of the ranch. A nice cabin—if cabin wasn’t too simple a word to describe the two-story cedar structure with its five bedrooms, two bathrooms, and kitchen with stainless steel appliances—sat on nearly forty thousand acres of its own, far enough away from civilization that nothing concerning the cattle would be disturbed. The revenue it generated was an important enough reason to allow hunters to pay to bunk at the cabin for sometimes weeks at a time, but it also culled some of the herds of wildlife that nibbled on the farm’s feed crops. Hunters were also expected to participate in one predator hunt during their trip, thinning out the numbers of very dangerous threats to both the cattle and the local wildlife.

Son, I’m not going to lie to you. This particular party might be…problematic. Bernard turned and looked Jacob in the eye, letting his expression tell how worried he was. I immediately thought of you when they called to arrange it.

Problematic? How so? Jacob asked. He watched his father silently, gauging the older man’s facial expression as he waited for an explanation.

I don’t know, exactly. I can’t really put my finger on it. But it’s someone who knows someone who was recommended by someone, if you know what I mean. He wants to come out here and bring his business partners and his future son-in-law for two weeks. I just didn’t get a good feeling about them. Like, when I asked what they planned to hunt on this trip, you know what he said to me? ‘Whatever wanders in front of my gun!’ How’s that for careless?

Yeah, I know what you mean. It sounds downright reckless to me. Why didn’t you just tell him he couldn’t come?

Well, I hate to turn someone away just going on my gut instinct, especially when I could be wrong. It’s not like I get a lot of practice dealing with strangers out here, now does it? Bernard said merrily. And you know we rely on this income as part of the ranch’s annual profits. I have to have something more to go on than just not liking a man’s sense of humor before I turn down that kind of booking. He put his arm around his son’s shoulder and leaned closer, whispering in an almost conspiratory way. "That’s why I thought of you. I know you’ll shut the whole trip down before you let anyone get out of hand. You don’t take gruff off of