Finding Purpose (Colorado Veterans Book 1) Read online

  Dex taps his shoulder and says, “Shake his hand. That’s how men greet each other. Make sure it’s firm and look him in the eye.” Carlo glances back at Dex as he lifts his chin to him. Carlo swallows hard and shakes Judson’s hand.

  “Good to have you here. I made spaghetti, Quinn told me you like it. Let’s put your stuff in your room and then we can eat and get to know each other.”

  I smile, realizing that Judson’s obviously nervous too. He never talks this much around new people and only in the last four or five months has he started talking more to me.

  Judd leads the way down the hall and shows Carlo to the room on the left that looks out to the barn and horse pen. I set Carlo’s bag on the bed and make a mental note to take him shopping this weekend for some new clothes.

  “This is where I’m sleepin’?” he asks, looking confused.

  “Yeah, this is your room for as long as you’re here. Is it okay?” Judson asks.

  Carlo’s eyes jump around the room, taking everything in. The queen-sized bed with the navy blue comforter, the matching desk and bedside table, the closet, the big window with grey curtains pulled back to allow the daylight in. The empty corkboard above the desk and the empty white walls.

  “I know it’s kind of bare in here but I thought you could decide what you wanted to hang on the walls instead of me putting something up you may not like. We’ll figure it out as we go. For now, it’s clean, it’s safe, and you don’t have to share with anyone. I just ask that you keep it picked up and keep your bed made when you’re not in it.”

  Finally, Carlo smiles a real smile, first at Judson and then at Dex and me. “Okay. I can do that.”

  We all make our way to the kitchen and help Judson get the food on the table. Dinner starts out quiet, but it doesn’t take long before conversation finds a rhythm between us. Carlo’s particularly interested in Judson’s military career so he shares the basics and handles the questions with patience. Carlo seems shocked by what he calls Judson’s “fake leg” and even a little afraid of it, which makes Judd laugh hysterically.

  The social worker, the principal, and Carlo’s teacher decided it’s a good idea to keep him out of school until this situation with D-Rock is under control. He’s got a mound of work he’ll be doing from home so that he doesn’t fall behind. Judson and I agreed to help him with it and other than that he’ll be getting acclimated to life on the ranch. I hope Judson’s up for the challenge. I’m not sure this kid has ever seen any animals besides a cat or a dog. Maybe a bird or two, but not many inhabit the area he grew up in.

  Later that evening, with Carlo tucked in bed, Judson and I are snuggled on the couch. His back to the corner, feet up on the coffee table, my body is nestled against him, legs stretched out down the couch. The fire is roaring next to us while the hockey game is turned down low on the television.

  “You think he’ll be okay here?” I ask Judson.

  “Yeah, Daisy, I do. He’s never been anywhere like this place. Just needs some time. I’ve got plenty to give him. You’re off for a four-day stretch after the weekend. It’ll be fine.”

  “You seem certain.”

  “We’re good people. We take care of ourselves and those we care about. We’re both strong, making it through tough things in life. We’re both educated and come from good homes. He’s never had any of that. From what you say about his mom she’s a nice person, but not much going for her past that, and his dad isn’t even worth mentioning. It’ll be fine, just an adjustment.”

  “Okay. Have I told you today how much I love you?” I question softly.

  “Nope, but I’m ready to listen,” he grins cheekily.

  I smack his chest playfully and say, “I love you a lot.”

  He kisses my hair and rubs my arm. “I love you too, Daisy.” Without another word he turns off the TV and carries me to our room. After shutting our door, he places me on the bed, strips off my clothes and spends the next hour quietly showing me how much he loves me.

  Judson

  This morning as I’m making Quinn breakfast, a sleepy Carlo wanders out in a T-shirt and ragged pajama pants that are probably a size too small. “Hey, buddy. You hungry?”

  He nods his head but doesn’t say anything, obviously not a morning person.

  “Okay, I’m making bacon and scrambled eggs. Do you eat those?” Another affirmative nod. Not a big talker in the morning. I smile to myself and finish cooking.

  After breakfast, Quinn leaves and I sit down at the table with Carlo to tell him the schedule. Everything I’ve read says that kids need a schedule so they know what to expect. Supposedly, it helps to reduce anxiety in new situations. When I called my mom to tell her what we were doing and ask her to come by this weekend to meet him, she said the same thing so I made a written schedule he could follow.

  I slide the schedule across the table and explain, “Most of the time during the week, this is what our schedule will look like until you go back to school. On occasion we may have to change plans, but on a normal basis this is it. Why don’t you look at it and let me know if you have any questions.”

  He looks it over and comments, “I’ve never been around horses before. Only seen ’em on TV. I don’t know what to do with them.”

  “That’s okay. I’m going to teach you. It’ll take you a little time to get used to them, but they’re pretty cool. Just follow directions and don’t stand behind them. I don’t want you to get kicked on accident.” His eyes widen but he doesn’t respond so I tell him, “When I give you directions I want to know you’ve heard them, so please say, ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir.’ Okay?”

  He stares at me for a full minute before he says, “Yes, sir.” Okay, so his mom hasn’t taught him basic manners. This will be interesting.

  We spend the morning feeding and exercising the horses and the time after lunch doing schoolwork and talking. He’s a smart kid, but a little rough around the edges. Nothing a little time, care and attention won’t fix. When preparation begins for dinner I allow him to help, giving him instructions on how to do each thing. When Quinn walks through the door, Carlo proudly announces that he’s helped with the horses and dinner. The smile he grants her after excitedly sharing details about his day fills me with pride. Even more so than the last several months of repairs on the barn.

  When dinner’s over we wash the dishes and watch television for an hour before it’s time for Carlo to go to bed. While Quinn is showering, I watch the end of the hockey game in our room. When she strolls out of the bathroom in a light pink tank top and short, pink, plaid pajama shorts, I know we won’t be sleeping anytime soon. Her dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail with little wisps of hair escaping around her face. Her blue eyes shine bright with happiness. She finishes rubbing the lotion into her hands and crawls across the bed toward me like a cat on the prowl. Even after all the women I’ve been with she’s still the sexiest of them all, without even trying. Maybe that’s part of it.

  I reach up and trace my fingers down her cheek to her jaw. “Beautiful. No one I’ve ever been with is more beautiful than you are,” I confess. “How did I get so lucky?”

  She turns into my hand and kisses my palm, holding her lips there for several long seconds. She shifts her weight and moves between my legs, planting a kiss on my chest, then moves down and places one over my nipple, surprising me with a swipe of her tongue before she pulls away and switches to the other one. This time she takes it between her teeth and tugs a little. A groan slips out of my mouth and my head falls back to clunk on the headboard.

  “Quinn…”

  Her finger covers my lips. “Shhh.”

  My tongue swipes out and licks her finger. A wicked grin spreads across her luscious lips and I know immediately what she wants. Hooking her fingers in my pajama pants, she pulls them down and drops them to the floor. Commando underneath, my straining cock pops out and snaps to my stomach with a smack. Her cool palm cups my sac as she massages me with gentle hands.

  “Feels so good, Dai
sy,” I murmur. Her mouth drops close enough for me to feel her breath but not close enough to touch. I twitch in response. Her tongue snakes out and slithers from root to tip and swirls the head. I force myself to hold still as I watch. She repeats the process in reverse and squeezes my balls at the same time. My eyes roll back in my head as my breath quickens. She releases them and slips that hand up my bare abs in a whisper-light touch, the other grips my cock and the head disappears between her lips into the warm, wet depths of her mouth. She works me slow with a twist of her wrist and a twirl of her tongue every time and my legs tense. Her eyes are closed as she puts all of her effort into this. It’s both heaven and hell. I can feel a buzzing pressure at the base of my spine spreading to my balls, but I’m not ready to come so I wrap her ponytail around my fist and pull her away. With a loud pop she releases me and her eyes focus on mine.

  “You didn’t like what I was doing?” she asks, her voice sexy in a breathy kind of way.

  I groan. “I love it, but I’m not ready to come and that’s where you’re taking me.”

  She flashes her wicked grin at me before her tongue slides out again and swipes at the head of my dick. Good God, that feels so awesome.

  “I don’t want to stop. Don’t I get a say?” she queries. “I want more.” Her tongue laps at me again, as her eyes implore me to give in.

  My grip on her hair loosens because I can’t remember why I was holding out. It makes no sense. “Go ahead, Daisy. If it makes you happy, by all means, have at it.”

  She doesn’t respond, she just ducks her head and goes back to work, her eyes never leaving mine this time. As my orgasm builds, stronger this time, my toes curl, one hand in her ponytail and the other on her neck, pressing her further down on me. Her eyes water a little at the pressure so I release her. She backs off, takes a breath and slides back down, stretching her lips and relaxing her throat. The visual sends me over the edge and I warn, “I’m coming, Daisy.”

  She doesn’t pull away. She swallows as I lose it, coating her throat. When my cock stops pulsing she lets it slip between her lips and smiles at me.

  “You’re gonna kill me, woman,” I tell her, exhausted now.

  “I don’t want you to die, but death by orgasm seems like the way to go, don’t you think?” She laughs hysterically as she crawls up to the pillow and lays her head down. I slip my arm behind her and pull her close to me, thinking this may have been the best day of my life so far.

  A week passes and life continues on in a good way. Carlo is settled into a routine around the house and seems to be calmer than when he arrived. When Quinn had her days off from work, we left the ranch to hike at a nearby park and had dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the outskirts of town. Dex joining us for the outing made Carlo happier than I’d seen him yet.

  The best part of the last week came though when we got Carlo on a horse for his first ride. The kid was scared out of his mind. The size of the horses seems to intimidate him so he’s given them a wide berth but we made him do this. I figured if he was mucking stalls, feeding and helping to brush them down, he should at least get a chance to experience the good part about having them. It took a little while of Quinn working with him for him to relax but he finally did and we actually heard him laugh for the first time during that initial ride. Now, every day, I get him on one. He’s still not experienced enough to use the more difficult parts of the trail so we’re sticking close to the house. In a few weeks that won’t be an issue anymore and we’ll be able to tour the whole property.

  Carlo is working on his math homework when my cell phone rings, the caller ID indicates it’s Quinn.

  “Hey, Daisy.”

  “Hey, honey. I need you to step out of the room if you’re with Carlo.”

  I tell Carlo, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, buddy. You’re doing well. Just make sure you show all the steps and you’ll do fine. I’ll check it when I come back.” He nods his understanding and I walk back to our bedroom.

  “What’s up?”

  “I just got a report that D-Rock is dead at a motel in Castle Rock. I’ll be late getting home so go ahead and eat without me. We’re waiting for visual confirmation before I leave for the night. I have no idea how long it’ll take. Did Ms. Winsted call you today?”

  “She did. There’s been no change with Lateesha.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you in a little while.”

  We hang up and I return to the kitchen table to check on Carlo. He’s still quietly working.

  Two hours later, we’re finishing dinner when a loud boom followed by a whoosh sound, rocks the house from the outside in the direction of the barn. I dart to the window and see flames shooting 50 feet in the air above the ramshackle shed next to the barn. There’s nothing in the shed that would cause an explosion like the one we just heard. In fact, the shed is empty because that was my next project and Carlo helped me with that yesterday. My gut sours. My heart rate picks up and I turn to Carlo, standing about two feet behind me, his eyes are as round as saucers, and his gaze is locked on the flame-engulfed shed. That fire didn’t set itself and I don’t want him to encounter whoever did it. I also need to make sure those flames don’t jump to the barn with the horses.

  “Lock the door behind me and call 911. Tell them there’s a fire on the property and we aren’t sure what caused it. Tell them I’m outside trying to put out the blaze and I have my gun on me just in case. Do you understand?” He nods quickly, terror obvious in his eyes.

  “Go!” I bark. Then I run to my room and grab my 9mm from the safe under the bed, pop in the clip and shove it in the back of my jeans as I turn and sprint outside. I hear the click as the door locks behind me and I glance back to see Carlo’s wide eyes following me through the window panes in the door, phone to his ear, mouth moving. I run to the water hose and turn it on full blast, scanning the property around me as I do. I see nothing, but it’s dark and there are a lot of hiding spots on this ranch. A motion sensor floodlight pops on over in the side yard and I spin to see a shadow shift back toward the house. I back out of the light into the shadows and lower the hose to the ground, hoping it will wet the grass enough so the dry grass between the shed and barn doesn’t catch on fire and spread.

  What the hell am I gonna do? I have to get across the yard and back into the house with Carlo. A crash that sounds like breaking glass comes from the front of the house and my head swings around to see that Carlo is no longer in the window watching me. I stop debating on what to do and pull my piece as I sprint for the house.

  What the fuck is going on? Of course the door is locked on the backside because I asked him to do that for me. Shit. I look through the windows and see nothing. While running for the side yard I smack into a large form along the edge of the house. We both go down in a heap and my gun flies out of my hand.

  I throw a punch and dodge one at the same time. By the feel of him, we’re about the same size. I barely clip the guy and he misses me all together. I roll him to his back and pound on his face with concentrated force. His swings are wild in return but two of those connect, knocking me a little senseless for a few seconds, just long enough for him to flip me and rain punches in my midsection and one more to my face. I can’t get the traction I need to buck him off because of the leg. I reach up and grab his neck with both hands and smash my forehead to his, knocking him stupid long enough to throw him off. He hits the ground with a thud and a groan, gripping his bloody forehead, and I roll quickly and army-crawl along the ground the two feet to where he rolled. He’s still dazed and moaning in pain so I lock my hands around his neck and squeeze for all it’s worth.

  I can hear the click of a switchblade pop open as he struggles against me and I shift my attention toward the sound just in time to see the silver glint of the sharp blade in the light and feel the burn as it slices my arm. I squeeze tighter hoping he’ll pass out before he gets to me again. Attempting to take away his range of motion with the blade, I lean toward the side, putting pressure on his bic
ep, and it works for a few seconds. His body jerks toward the other side throwing me off balance enough for his arm to swing again. This time the blade sticks in my forearm and I let go of his neck to plow a punch in his face with my uninjured arm.

  He finally loses consciousness so I yank out the blade and flip it closed. I roll him to his stomach, tug off my belt and use it to secure his arms behind his back. He’s breathing, but out cold. My arm’s on fire where the blade first sliced me but I don’t have time to worry about it. Once he’s secure, I run for the house, certain he’s not the only one here. Who the fuck are these people?

  When I reach the front porch I see glass scattered all over like someone knocked it in and used the small opening to unlock the door. I tiptoe inside, scanning as I proceed, moving from room to room. There’s no one in this part of the house so I creep into the library and grab the other gun safe I have hidden, since my gun is in the grass somewhere, and remove my Glock. I load it and move back to the hall as quietly as I can. One bum leg is not making a stealth approach easy.

  Carlo’s terrified shriek rings through the house and a fear I’ve never felt in my life shoots through my body, activating my adrenaline again. I give up on quiet and sprint to his room, throwing my shoulder into his door as I go. The door pops right open and I stumble in.

  The biggest black guy I’ve ever seen in my life is standing over a sobbing Carlo with a gun pointed at his head, execution style. Both sets of eyes jump to mine and before anyone can make a peep I aim and fire right between the eyes of the guy with the gun. Carlo screams, dropping to the floor face-first as the man jerks and drops on top of him. Hysterical screaming fills the air and I scramble to roll the guy off of Carlo. The big guy is gone, dead as a doornail. I’ve never been happier in my life to have perfect marksmanship. I tug Carlo to me and wrap my arms around him. He’s still screaming.

  “Shhh. Shhh. Carlo. Stop. I need you to tell me if there are any more.” He’s still screaming, but not as loud or as consistently. “Carlo,” I squeeze tight and command, “tell me, are there any more of these guys?” His head shakes back and forth quickly and the screaming turns to a keening sound I hope I never have to hear again in my life.