Destry by Lola Stark Page A

shit.
    “I didn’t actually think she’d go though, or that you’d let her out of your sight for that long,” she snickered from her perch on the swinging chair. I shook my head and dusted my hat off on my jeans. Before flopping down beside her, I grabbed the book she was reading out of her lap. “‘Blessed’ from David Michael.” I read out the title and then flipped the book over and scanned the back before looking back at her with an eyebrow raised. “Since when do you read this kind of thing?”
    “Since the author’s cute and it’s a good book.” She snatched it back from my hands and hugged it to her chest. “Nice dodge but no prize, big brother.”
    I sighed and leaned back crossing my legs at my ankles and running my hands down my face. “Yeah, she’s under my skin,” I admitted and crossed my arms over my chest.
    “She’s more than under your skin.” She smiled up at me like a fool. I needed to halt this conversation pronto. I wasn’t real keen on chatting relationships with my baby sister… who was innocent.
    “What’s this I heard about you going to a bonfire with Jimmy Rogers the other night?” I cringed and waited for her answer. Ellie-May might have been the baby and protected by us all, but she was growing up and none of us could stop it, no matter how hard we tried. Baby sister or not, we were screwed. I looked over at Ellie-May who was still smiling with a dreamy look in her pale blue eyes. Her honey-blonde hair hung in waves down her back. Her tiny frame and small dimple in her left cheek, teamed with her blinding smile that could light up an entire room, meant she was already the center of attention. She was a knockout, which in big-brother speak meant we weren’t just screwed; we were royally screwed.
    “He’s cute.” She blushed while I groaned out loud.
    “Cute isn’t good enough,” I told her gently.
    “He’s not just cute; he’s smart. He’s sweet to me.” She looked down at her hands, which were now tracing patterns on the cover of her book. “He’s not like the other boys.”
    “I know you’re not a baby anymore, Ellie-May, but… please just be smart.” I swallowed past the thickness in my throat. “You can always come to me or the boys. Strike that; don’t go to Austin, unless it’s in dire circumstance. Or somebody needs a hidin’.” I scrubbed my hands down my face again and stared off into the wide expanse that was our ranch, contemplating the day my little sister falls in love.
    “Ellie. Please stop calling me Ellie-May. I’m not a baby, you just said it so I’d really like it if you stopped calling me that.” She protested in what I was sure wouldn’t be the last stand on her ‘growing up’
    I’d always been her protector, her rock. The moment she came home from the hospital, she was my little Ellie bug and that was never going to change. She picked her book up and climbed off the swing, squeezed my shoulder and shuffled inside. Our mother had died while having her and left us boys and a newborn little girl with Dad, a guy who was a hard worker and an all-round good man, but had no clue how to raise a little girl or cope with losing the one woman who’d brought him to his knees. Hell, he had no clue how to keep on going after Mom died. So he packed us up and moved us out to the ranch. Not even two years later, he was with Mom thanks to a nasty kick to the head from a stallion he was training.
    Our family had always been into training horses; they were beautiful creatures, but damn if they weren’t strong and on occasion unpredictable. An animal to be respected, once in a while, you’d find that one horse you connected with and she’d be your best friend for life. I pushed off the chair and made my way to the stables where my girl was. I’d been given Gypsy on my tenth birthday as a gift from Gramps. He’d told me every boy needed a good horse and this one, ‘she’ll be good to you.’ He was right too. She was getting up there in