Counting on Love (Contemporary Cowboy Romance) (Carson Hill Ranch series: Book 3) by Amelia Rose

the buttons of Carey’s shirt, pressing their flesh together as she kissed him more hungrily than before.

Chapter Eleven
    “Whatcha have there, kiddo?” Miranda asked, coming around the corner as Gracie moved stealthily toward the front door, her arms loaded down with odds and ends. Gracie looked up in surprise.
    “Um, just some stuff I thought would make the hay loft more comfortable. You know, kind of like a tree house, only without the tree,” she answered quickly, smiling at her own silly attempt at humor.
    “Oh, right. And also, if said tree house was actually a hayloft situated right above about thirty smelly horses,” Miranda joked. “And if this tree house of yours was bathed in perpetual darkness. Do you really need to redecorate the hayloft at this time of night?”
    “Well, if I don’t do it now, I’ll forget,” Gracie hedged. “I always mean to bring this stuff up there but then I forget, and then the next time I’m reading up there, I don’t have a blanket and the hay is all scratchy and…”
    “Okay! I get it! It’s a pressing matter!” Miranda said with a laugh, throwing her hands in the air in surrender. “Um, I’m not sure the food is a good idea, though. That could draw vermin. Let’s leave that here, and you can come in for meals like a normal person, okay?”
    “Oh, okay,” Gracie answered, her face falling slightly as she planned out how she’d have to sneak back with it after bedtime. She moved to hand over the plastic dish of leftovers and snack foods, but the shift in her carefully arranged pile sent some of her books falling to the floor.
    Miranda reached down and scooped up the books but instead of replacing them on the pile, she walked towards the door and held it open for Gracie. “Come on, I’ll carry these. You go ahead.” Gracie froze. “Don’t stand here letting the cold air in, come on! I’m right behind you!”
    Gracie still didn’t move but instead, she reached for her books. “Um…I got this. Here.”
    Miranda eyed her suspiciously before setting the books down on a side table, throwing her hands on her hips, and staring her little sister down. “Gracie Billings, what is going on? And I want the entire truth, right now.”
    The girl’s shoulders slumped in defeat before she began to cry. “There’s a homeless person in the hayloft, and I’m taking this stuff up there to…”
    “What?” Miranda interrupted, struggling to keep her voice down. “There’s a homeless man in the barn?” She looked around to see if anyone had heard them, pulling her sister toward the coat closet in the front entryway.
    “No, a homeless girl. She’s one of the girls who lived in the cabin, remember?” Recognition flashed across Miranda’s face at the memory, and she put a hand across her eyes briefly, thinking this through. “Please don’t say anything to Bernard or Casey! They’ll send her away!”
    “Gracie, don’t be ridiculous, they won’t send her ‘away’ and they certainly won’t do it at this time of night. But she can’t live in the hayloft!” Miranda took the items out of Gracie’s arms, settling them next to the pile of books, before regarding her sister’s worried expression with a mixture of pride at her compassion for someone, and confusion on how they could make this work. “Come on, let’s go get her out of the barn.”
    Together, Miranda and Gracie crossed the wide yard to the stable and climbed the ladder to the loft. Gracie held out her flashlight, pointing its beam to the floor, then called out to Emma. Emma stuck her head up from behind a hay bale, but her expression turned somber when she recognized that there were two dark figures behind the light, not just one.
    “Gracie? You told on me? No! I trusted you,” Emma began, a whimper forming in her shaky voice.
    “It’s okay, Emma. This is my sister, Miranda,” the girl explained. “I didn’t mean to tell her, but she figured out I was hiding something. But she’s going to