Family Love Read online

  Family Love

  The Love Brothers

  -Book 4-

  By Liz Crowe

  ~~~

  Smashwords Edition

  Family Love

  Love Brothers Book 4

  Copyright © 2015 by Liz Crowe

  Cover Art and Design by Fiona Jayde

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced

  in any form without permission.

  For more information:

  [email protected]

  www.lizcrowe.com

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  They may not be re-sold or given away,

  except as provided in promotions sponsored by the author.

  If you would like to share this book with another person,

  please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  If you are reading this book and you did not purchase it, win this copy during a promotion or, if not purchased specifically for your use only,

  then please delete this copy and notify Liz ([email protected]).

  We encourage you to purchase your own copy

  and support the author's hard work in their craft.

  Dedicated to Janet Tarry,

  Liz’s Mom and the “swear jar” inspiration.

  The best and most beautiful things in the world

  cannot be seen or even touched.

  They must be felt with the heart.

  Helen Keller

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  1 - Chapter One

  1 - Chapter Two

  1 - Chapter Three

  1 - Chapter Four

  1 - Chapter Five

  1 - Chapter Six

  1 - Chapter Seven

  1 - Chapter Eight

  1 - Chapter Nine

  1 - Chapter Ten

  1 - Chapter Eleven

  1 - Chapter Twelve

  1 - Chapter Thirteen

  1 - Chapter Fourteen

  1 - Chapter Fifteen

  1 - Chapter Sixteen

  1 - Chapter Seventeen

  1 - Chapter Eighteen

  1 - Chapter Nineteen

  Part Two

  2 - Chapter One

  2 - Chapter Two

  2 - Chapter Three

  2 - Chapter Four

  2 - Chapter Five

  2 - Chapter Six

  2 - Chapter Seven

  2 - Chapter Eight

  2 - Chapter Nine

  2 - Chapter Ten

  2 - Chapter Eleven

  2 - Chapter Twelve

  2 - Chapter Thirteen

  2 - Chapter Fourteen

  2 - Chapter Fifteen

  2 - Chapter Sixteen

  2 - Chapter Seventeen

  2 - Chapter Eighteen

  2 - Chapter Nineteen

  2 - Chapter Twenty

  2 - Chapter Twenty-One

  2 - Chapter Twenty-Two

  2 - Chapter Twenty-Three

  2 - Chapter Twenty-Four

  2 - Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Love Liz Crowe?

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Lindsay’s Story

  Kentucky horse country

  Summer, late 1950’s

  “Mama, I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “But Lindsay, his parents are expecting this. You know how important it is for the family’s—”

  Lindsay froze, hand on the doorknob. “I know my responsibility to the Halloran family, Mama. You and Daddy have made it perfectly clear, multiple times. But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t like him.” She jerked her shoulder out from under her mother’s palm. “I want to take Zelda for a ride. I’ll be home in time for your stupid dinner.”

  “Young lady, you had best watch yourself. I won’t stand for being sassed.”

  Lindsay turned and glared at her tall, thin, acerbic mother. As she was about to retort, her brother Frank dashed through the large foyer, distracting the woman long enough to allow Lindsay to duck out the front door.

  “Lindsay Alice Halloran, you get yourself right back in here!” Her mother’s shouts carried across the large front lawn, but Lindsay had already decided to keep ignoring her.

  For two blissful hours there would be nothing but her, her horse Zelda, and the wide open spaces behind the Halloran Farms row of barns … the very barns she would sacrifice her freedom to save in a few short weeks.

  She would save those barns, a duty her parents had scheduled for the summer of her twentieth birthday, by marrying one William Scott, the tall, blond, admittedly good-looking, and utterly vacuous son of a rival horse farm owner. On Lindsay’s wedding day, the eighty-year old Halloran Farms, birthplace of three Derby winners, would once again be on firm financial footing.

  When Lindsay entered the paddock and whistled for her, Zelda came cantering over, her gorgeous mane rippling in the breeze. Lindsay had unbraided it after the morning’s dressage tournament—another win for her and this amazing animal—and would swear Zelda let loose a huge sigh of relief when she brushed it out.

  Lindsay cursed under her breath at the tears clouding her eyes. “I won’t do it, I tell you,” she said while she stroked Zelda’s silky-soft, jet-black mane. “I won’t. We’ll just pack up, grab Daisy, and take off for … for … oh, hell.”

  She pressed her aching forehead against Zelda’s neck. The horse snorted and nodded, stamping her foot, reacting to her young mistress’s foul mood. Lindsay’s chest ached in a way she couldn’t explain beyond the visceral fury at her mother’s assumption that she’d allow herself to be sold off like some kind of medieval princess to a spoiled, rich, brat of boy in a man’s body.

  She sighed, leaning against Zelda’s shoulder while she watched her oldest brother, JR—short for “James Jr.”—play cards with one of the stable boys on an overturned bucket. Anger filled her head as she watched him laughing, smoking, and joking around, being the male he was, free to choose whom to marry, what to do, how to act. Her every move had been orchestrated from the second she was born. The only freedom she ever experienced was when she rode one of her horses.

  “Come on, let’s take a real ride, since it appears no one is paying you a bit of attention after your bath, poor sweetheart.” She rubbed Zelda’s nose and tossed a larger saddle onto her back, more comfortable than the tiny one used for their earlier work together.

  She kept her eyes on JR, making sure he didn’t notice. He’d pitch a fit if he thought she was overriding one of the more expensive pieces of horseflesh they owned. “C’mon girl.” Zelda let out a low neigh. “Shh …” Lindsay put her palm over the horse’s soft, velvety nose. “Don’t tell, or we’ll never escape.”

  She climbed up onto the saddle and gave the subtlest of heel digs, letting Zelda know to take off like a bat out of hell. Which the horse did, putting the full force of her thousand pounds and eagerness to run free behind the effort. Lindsay blew JR a kiss, laughing when he jumped out of their way.

  “Hey! Linds! You aren’t supposed to take her out again!”

  But Lindsay ignored him, giving Zelda her head, and concentrating instead on the wide-open green fields and the deep blue Kentucky sky. Lindsay had been present at Zelda’s birth, and had trained along with her, earning them plenty of ribbons and trophies.

  Patrick, the Halloran Farms manager, had been skeptical about Zelda’s trainability, calling her “too stubborn and single-minded.” But Lindsay’s father, James, the man she loved with all her heart, had just laughed and reminded Patrick that since Lindsay was no better in the stubbornness department, the two of them should get on like a house afire.

  And they
did. Their hours of illicit riding, begun the minute Zelda was broken to the saddle, helped them bond, which Lindsay believed was important … even though her new riding instructor insisted that it took Zelda three days to calm down and pay attention to their training after one of their rides.

  “I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.” A small nugget of peace bloomed in her soul while she repeated that mantra, feeling the powerful muscles beneath her, the wind whipping at her own hair, which she’d let loose to match Zelda’s. When she realized they’d been gone for more than an hour, she turned Zelda toward home, figuring by now her mama had alerted her daddy to their wayward daughter’s sassy attitude.

  While she was glancing around for one of the stable boys to take her horse so she could sneak up to the house, her feet got tangled up, and she lurched forward, letting go of Zelda’s reins and dropping to her hands and knees in the dust and hay. Her face burned hot as forbidden words rose to her lips. Both her brothers cursed —outside their mother’s hearing—like sailors on leave, and she’d picked up a few of their habits. The words felt so good coming out of her mouth, she couldn’t help but use them whenever she was in the barns, a place her mother rarely graced with her presence.

  “Shit. God damn it.” She flinched when a very warm, very masculine hand took hold of her arm. Thinking it must be one of her brothers, she yanked herself away. “I can get up my own self.”

  “Sorry, miss. Only trying to help.”

  She scrambled to her feet in a sort of slow motion. That voice had been a new one—gravelly, gruff, and low. It reverberated in her chest, making her both tingly and mad. The man who belonged to the voice stood touching Zelda’s flank, his deep brown eyes boring into Lindsay’s. She tried not to stare, but couldn’t help herself.

  He had thick, coal-black hair, olive skin, and shoulders as wide as any man’s she’d ever seen, even though he wasn’t tall, which she’d always preferred. But if she had to conjure a sultry Italian star for a Hollywood movie, this stranger would be a shoo-in, with his incredible voice, dark jeans, and Halloran Farms chambray work shirt worn so tight she could discern every muscle in his torso.

  His utter foreignness, not simply his appearance and voice, but the very fact of his presence in her family’s barn, heated every inch of her skin. She kept retreating from him, embarrassing herself even more, and then compounding it by whamming her bottom into a stack of metal buckets in the cleaning area, sending them clattering down and deafening everyone in the vicinity. Another curse burst out of her mouth.

  The man didn’t move, other than to keep stroking Zelda so she wouldn’t skitter away from the terrifying clamor. Then he pushed his hat up and tilted his head, looking confused, or amused at her abject clumsiness and idiocy. Lindsay sensed something between them—something she’d pooh-poohed when she read her mother’s forbidden romance paperbacks. But one of the more clichéd phrases sailed into her brain and stuck there, like a candy wrapper in a chain link fence.

  Time stood still.

  Her face flamed hot when embarrassment morphed into convenient anger.

  “What do you think you’re staring at?” She’d meant to sound demanding, bossy, the more-than-slightly-spoiled daughter of the rich horseman. But her voice cracked, betraying her. She cleared her throat then opened her mouth to try again. The unbelievably handsome man with the deep brown gaze and odd, raspy voice had rendered her utterly speechless.

  “Ah, there you are.” Her father’s voice made her flinch and trip straight into the pile of buckets with another curse. “Lindsay, honey, what has gotten into you? Such language.”

  She glared over at the man who’d taken Zelda’s reins but still had not stopped staring at her like she was a freak show exhibit.

  “Sorry, Daddy,” she said, moving next to him, shivering in the coolness of the barn after she’d spent the past hour in the sun. He gave her a one-armed hug and kissed her hair, then turned her slightly.

  “Sweetheart, allow me to introduce you to Lorenzo Love.” A taller but less compelling and obviously related version of the man with the voice smiled and held out a hand. She shook it, trying to parse the words coming out of her father’s mouth. “Lorenzo is our new manager. He’ll be working with Patrick for a few weeks before he takes over.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said in a whisper, the back of her neck prickling for some reason.

  “I hired these boys out from under old Yarrington,” her father said with an obvious bit of pride. “That sonofabitch was hollerin’ at me for sure. But I knew he had to have seriously good barn management. So, I hired them. Paying them twice what he did, the sorry so-and-so.”

  The man with the voice who’d brought her brief, naïve life to a screeching halt with one look moved closer to Lorenzo. He seemed nervous, and a little shell-shocked, which gave Lindsay another jolt right through her gut.

  “This is Tony,” her father said, gesturing to him. “Tony Love. He’ll be his brother’s assistant. All right now, boys, I’ve got to get my baby girl on up to the house. Her mama has a dinner party planned, right, sugar? Y’all see Patrick, and he’ll get you settled. It’s a shared house, but it has running water and a kitchen, should you want to cook for yourselves. There is always food up at the house, where you’re welcome to eat during the week.”

  Lindsay swallowed and nearly choked on her own spit when Tony stepped forward, took her hand in his and pressed it to his lips. “Bellisima,” he said, clear as day. His dark eyes twinkled. His bright white smile blinded her. And that voice—the deep growl of it combined with his over-the-top movie-star Italian looks, made her shiver.

  Her father frowned, then chuckled and smacked Tony hard on the shoulder, sending a message with the force of it. James Halloran Senior was large, in charge, and might tolerate the help paying his precious jewel of a daughter a compliment in a fancy foreign language after kissing her hand, but only once.

  Time did that standing still thing again. She watched Tony grin at her father, then shift his gaze to her. She forced the immediate imaginary vision of the expanse of his incredible body utterly naked out of her addled brain. As the sister of two boisterous, unabashed brothers, she had seen the male anatomy before; not for more than a minute or two, but enough to visualize Tony’s. She shook her head.

  Nice girls do not think about penises.

  “See you in the morning, miss?” Low, gruff, gravelly—the voice would haunt her the entire night, she just knew it. “I’ll have your horse ready for you.” He bowed his head slightly, then turned to Zelda and clicked his teeth. To Lindsay’s amazement the horse trotted right over to him, playfully flicking his hat off with her nose. Zelda had always been standoffish at best, temperamental at worst. She did not tolerate strangers.

  Tony crooned to her in Italian while he rubbed her nose and neck, chuckling when Zelda snorted into his hair. He patted her long neck and turned, catching Lindsay’s eye again. She sucked in a breath when he winked, then walked Zelda toward the washing stall.

  “Tony Love,” she whispered, biting her lip before her father tapped her shoulder and pointed to the door.

  Chapter Two

  “God, will you just stop?” Lindsay smacked her mother’s hands away. “I’ve got this.” She turned to face the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the bridal shop, admiring herself. “I want this one.” And she did. Something about the fairy-tale quality of her image kitted out in a soft cream wedding gown that suited her coloring perfectly almost made her forget why she had one on in the first place.

  “That doesn’t suit your figure,” her Aunt Caroline insisted while circling her. “Your mama is right. Let’s try the next one.” She snapped her fingers. Two shop girls scurried around, bringing coffee and iced tea to the gathered throng of females, who were seated in a ring of comfy chairs facing the slightly raised floor in front of the mirror.

  “Kathy, tell her I pick this one.” Lindsay recoiled from the shopgirl who’d approached to unhook the zillions of tiny buttons marching
down her spine.

  Her best friend shook her head and nibbled on her a tiny, crustless sandwich. No big surprise. Lindsay loved her to pieces, but Kathy was a mealy-mouthed little thing, so far under the thumbs of her elders she might as well not exist.

  “This is my wedding.” She stomped her foot once. But her mother’s high-arched eyebrow put a stop to that. “Fine.” She flounced into the changing room.

  Two solid hours and a dozen dresses later, they had a consensus—although the chosen gown was not Lindsay’s favorite. It wasn’t even her second favorite. But by then, she’d given up and allowed the tides of opinion, dominated by her bossy mother, to carry her along. She didn’t want to marry Will anyway. Why pretend she gave a rip about the dress she’d be doing it in?

  She and Kathy suffered the ladies’ chitchat over lunch at the country club that included Will’s insufferably snobby mother and his dog-ugly twin sisters. Set loose to go “have fun” afterward by the crowd of twittering aunts, cousins, and future in-laws, all loopy on Bloody Marys, she and Kathy climbed into Lindsay’s convertible Mustang and gunned it out of the parking lot.

  “So help me, if that woman said the words ‘my William’ one more time while she side-eyed me, I was gonna slap her into next week,” Lindsay said, reaching into the glove box for a pack of cigarettes. “Light this for me, will you?”

  Kathy giggled and was lighting two when they pulled into a gravel parking lot. Lindsay grabbed a blanket and warmish six-pack of beer from the trunk, and they found a spot by the river hidden from the road and other picnickers by a line of mature trees.

  “I hate beer,” Kathy said, holding her nose and taking a sip from the can.

  “Then don’t drink it, silly cow.” Lindsay popped open her second one, not really sure why, since the first had gone straight to her head, making her dizzy and exhilarated. She flopped onto her back and held up her hands, ignoring the tasteful diamond as best she could.