Heartland by Sara Walter Ellwood Read Free Book Online Page A

than a chance to see her again?
    Was he that hard up for a tumble between the sheets?
    If anyone ever found out what he’d done with the ticket, it would add fuel to the fire of mistrust he already lived with. Mike Ritter’s misuse of the office of sheriff had tarnished it in the minds of the county’s people. He’d not been the first sheriff elected after Ritter’s arrest and imprisonment, but he had a long way before he gained the people’s trust.
    As he crossed the wide front porch, he shook the unpleasant thoughts from his mind and opened the screen door into his childhood home. The scent of tomato sauce and garlic bread enticed his nose and the high-pitched sounds of kids playing in the room to the right assaulted his hearing when he stepped into the small entry.
    “We need to move the herd out of the east pasture,” his oldest brother, Tucker, was saying to Vince as EJ removed his hat and hung it onto the hook by the door. “The grass in there is getting too thin to support that many head.”
    From the living room, Vince noticed EJ at the doorway over their brother’s shoulder and nodded toward him, then said in response to Tucker, “Fine by me. Have you asked the boss about it?”
    Tucker tipped his bottle of Coors and took a long drink. “We have a meeting with her in the morning to talk about it.” He turned toward EJ and held up his bottle as a wide grin spread across his sunburned face. Of the five Cowley kids, Tucker looked the most like their dad with his dark hair and eyes. “Hey, little brother, where the heck did you go?”
    Tucker had been following EJ onto the ranch, but he’d stopped when he noticed Emily in the corral with the horses. Damn, Tucker would never let his need to see Emily go.
    Despite Tucker and Vince being twelve and ten years his senior respectively, they were as close as any three brothers could be, and always had been. They also had two sisters. Lori taught seventh grade and lived over the state line in Oklahoma, and Becky worked as an accountant over in Amarillo. Both of them were closer to EJ in age, but they may have been strangers, and at times like this, he wished his older brothers didn’t know him so well. They would never let him live down his stupid schoolboy fascination with McAllister’s pop star princess.
    “Sheriff’s business, that’s all.” EJ shrugged and pointed to Vince’s beer bottle. “You have another one of those, or has he”--he jerked his thumb toward Tucker--“drunk it all?”
    “Sheriff’s business, eh?” Tucker crinkled his brow and lifted his beer to his lips, but before taking a sip, he asked, “With who?” Before EJ could answer, Tucker lowered the bottle and lost the puzzled pucker, then laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Holy hell, you aren’t sniffing after Emily Kendall, are you? I saw her in the pasture with her horse.”
    “No, of course not.” EJ snatched the opened beer from Vince the moment he reentered the living room from the kitchen, and took a long pull on the bottle. He couldn’t confess his reason for stopping at the big house.
    “What’d I miss?” Vince looked from Tucker to EJ.
    With a smirk, Tucker pointed his bottle at EJ. “I think our little brother hasn’t gotten over his crush on Emily.”
    EJ choked as he swallowed the cold beer. “What the fuck?” He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “She’s like eight years younger than me. I never had a crush on her. God, she was a little girl when I went to college and joined the Army. What do you think I am? A pedophile? She was like ten, and I was eighteen!”
    But she’s all woman now. The memory of her long lean body, which had enough curves all in the right places to be sexy, flashed through his mind. His face flushed hot, and he knew he’d played right into Tucker’s hands.
    His brothers laughed, and Tucker patted him on the back. “Yeah, well, she sure isn’t a kid anymore.”
    Vince sobered and sat on the recliner facing a