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

hate that this is the only impression she’ll ever have of me. For the rest of my life, I’m gonna be her drunk brother-in-law, who she had to drag home all those times.”
    Emma didn’t say anything for a while. She knew all too well that once someone had formed an opinion of a person, it usually stuck.
    “But what’s your sob story?” Joseph asked callously, causing Emma to look at him in alarm. She had no way of knowing how much of her story Joseph already knew.
    “I don’t really have a story…” she began, but Joseph cut her off.
    “Emma.”
    She looked over at him, meeting his intense gaze, watching his gray-blue eyes for any sign that he was about to call her out for her past.
    “Emma, you don’t have anything to hide. Everything you went through is over now, it’s behind you.”
    “You know about that?” she whispered, looking away again in shame.
    “Um, I hate to be the one to break it to you, especially like this, but everyone knows. Hale is a small town, and Carson Hill is an even smaller town all its own. But the version we know may not be the one that you carry around with you.” Emma looked at him, wondering what that could possibly mean. “You might be focusing on the things you did, but everyone else sees it from the point of view that you were trapped. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for a girl like you to basically be a prisoner. Well, actually, now I can. I know exactly how it feels to be trapped by your own body, needing something more and more every day and being willing to do what you never thought you would do, just to feel better for a little while.”
    When tears formed in Emma’s pale, clear eyes, Joseph stretched a hand across the aisle that separated them and opened it, inviting her hand to find his. She tentatively moved her trembling hand toward him, gasping quietly when the warmth of his fingers wrapped around her own.
    This simple act of non-judgmental kindness was more than she could have ever hoped for, from anyone for that matter. Sobs threatened to choke her as she silently cried. Emma was shocked when Joseph shifted in his bunk, a quiet but agonizing mask of pain on his face as he moved over, before pulling on her arm gently, inviting her over.
    Emma came across to lie beside him lightly, terrified of causing Joseph any amount of pain. He pulled her next to him and placed her head in the crook of his good shoulder, wrapping his other arm around her petite frame and letting her cry.
    Emma couldn’t remember the last time any man had touched her for any reason other than his own selfish pleasure. She let the sensation of simply being comforted wash over her and warm her as two years of unshed tears finally fell. She tensed momentarily when she felt Joseph’s hand move against her back, but began to cry all over again when she realized that he was simply rubbing small, comforting circles across her body. Her instinct had been to think he was trying something, and it broke her heart to realize that she couldn’t even let another human being comfort her with thinking he was up to something awful.
    “Thank you for not thinking the worst of me,” she finally managed to say, lifting her head carefully to look at him.
    “We’re in pretty sorry shape, aren’t we?” Joseph asked in a tongue-in-cheek way. “You can’t get over your past, and I can’t make it through the present. But, Emma, I’m really glad you’re here. I don’t know how you found your way out to Carson Hill, but I’m really glad you did.”
    “I’m glad, too. But you didn’t need me to come along. You have a great family who cares about you. They’ll do anything for you, you know. They’ll even invite someone like me along if it would help you.”
    “THAT! That right there! See what you did?” Joseph demanded as he looked down at her surprised face. “You have to stop thinking of yourself as ‘someone like me’. You are you. You’re Emma Gray, and I think you’re pretty