Front Range Cowboys (5 Book Box Set)

by Evie Nichole

  “My husband is dead!” Avery moaned. “My life is over!”

  They had been moved from the hospital hallway to a private family waiting room down near the nurses’ station for obvious reasons. Of course, the most pressing reason had been Avery’s absolute devolution into tears and her very loud expression of grief.

  Finally, Jesse couldn’t take it anymore. “Avery, don’t you think you’re being a tad overdramatic? Two days ago you told the cardiac rehab lady that you didn’t need to hear what she had to say because you were leaving Joe anyway. You said he was on his own!”

  “But I didn’t mean it!” Avery drew back in horror. “Do you really think I would leave my husband? Good wives don’t do that!”

  “Good wives?” Jesse ground her teeth together and tried to have a little compassion for the woman. It was very difficult. “What about good husbands? Joe was hardly a good husband to you.” Jesse had to be careful here. As much as she wanted information, she really didn’t care to sit here and browbeat a grieving widow.

  “Joe was a good man.” Avery sniffed and pressed a lace-edged handkerchief to her nose. “He always treated me well. He just had some trouble with the faithfulness part of things. But some of it was the behavior of other women!”

  Jesse blinked. She couldn’t stop staring at the hankie. There was a border carefully stitched around the edges of the thing. Sun. Moon. Stars. A date. There was a date on it somewhere. In the corner maybe. Why did Avery have that handkerchief?

  Jesse felt a rush of anger. She snatched the hankie away from Avery. The woman tried to snatch it back. Jesse could not imagine what anyone would think of her now. Stealing a silk handkerchief from a woman grieving the loss of her husband only a few moments ago! Except this hankie didn’t belong to Avery Hernandez. It had belonged to Amelia Collins.

  “Why do you have this?” Jesse asked coldly. “And don’t try to bullshit me, Avery. Why do you have this? I know what this is. I remember this! My mother told me that Mrs. Farrell had sewn these for my mother to celebrate her wedding.” Jesse turned the hankie in her hands and finally found the date carefully stitched in royal purple thread. “Right here. See? This is the date my parents got married.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Avery tried to snatch the hankie back, but Jesse pulled it away. “You give that back, you little thief. Don’t you think you’ve stolen enough from me over the years?”

  “What?” Jesse gaped at Avery. “What are you talking about? Do you think it’s somehow my fault that your husband is dead? You just killed him by making him freak out while he was lying in a hospital bed recovering from a massive heart attack! You got him all excited, and don’t tell me that you didn’t mean to do it either. Any woman who was honestly worried about her spouse would not have stood there railing at him, accusing him of things that she knew were making him agitated. You killed him on purpose, and you know it.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Avery shot to her feet. She pointed at Jesse. “Get. Out! You’re not fit to be in here. You’re Amelia’s daughter, and everything that was wrong with my husband was your harlot of a mother’s fault!”

  Jesse had felt a lot of anger in her lifetime, but this sensation pressing heavily on her chest right now was more than she could handle. The sheer violence of the emotions whipping through her right now was almost too much for Jesse to handle. She stood slowly and handed the handkerchief back to Avery. The woman snatched it up as though it honestly belonged to her. Although, if Jesse was right, then Avery had been the one to pack up Jesse’s parents’ house after their deaths. That mean Avery had felt entitled to Amelia’s things simply because she felt wronged by the other woman.

  “You’re a sad old woman and I pity you,” Jesse told Avery quietly. “You were my mother just as much as Amelia Collins. I had my real mother for eleven years. I’ve had you ever since. Tell me. Do you feel as though you were a good mother to me? Or do you maybe feel that you blamed me for what my mother and your husband did together?”

  “Blame has nothing to do with it,” Avery hissed angrily. “Your mother seduced my husband. You were a constant reminder to him of the woman he loved and a constant reminder to me that I was not the woman my husband truly longed for. Tell me, girl, what would you have felt if you had been in my position?”

  “Pity,” Jesse said flatly. “That’s what I feel right now.”

  Jesse walked out of the family waiting room and closed the door behind her. She heard Avery pick up her wailing right after Jesse was out of sight. The pure fakery of that sound was almost too much. Did Avery honestly believe that anyone would feel as though she were a real widow? She had not appeared in public with her husband for nearly a year now. She refused to “deal” with his attitude, his drinking, his embarrassing himself and the family in public, or even his interference in her children’s lives. Now, all of a sudden, she wanted to be the one who received sympathy from others because she had lost her husband?

  Jesse snorted. She wished she were here by herself. She was ready to go. She was hungry and tired, and she just wanted to be home.

  “What’s wrong?” Cal suddenly appeared beside her. “Are you all right? Where’s my mother?”

  “Your mother?” Jesse offered Cal a very fake, very sugary-sweet smile. “She can go to hell for all I care. And if she honestly believes that anyone is going to buy her grieving widow routine, then she’s more foolish than I ever gave her credit for.”

  Cal drew back, but she could not decide if that was disbelief on his face or just regular old run-of-the-mill disgust. It was tough to tell. Then he held out his arms, and Jesse went willingly into his embrace. He wrapped her tight and pressed his lips to her hair. They stood that way in the middle of the hall for probably longer than was appropriate or necessary. Jesse didn’t care. At the moment, appropriate didn’t mean anything to her. She was sick and tired of appropriate.

  “Did you call your brothers?” Jesse whispered to Cal. “I imagine they’ll need to come and help your mother with the arrangements.”

  “I called Laredo.”

  “So, pretty much he’ll take care of the rest,” Jesse said with a sigh. “Good.”

  Cal touched her face. She loved the way his fingertips felt against her skin. There was something so gentle about him. And that was pretty damn cool considering he was one of the roughest living men of her acquaintance.

  He kissed her forehead. “Why is that good?”

  “Because I want to leave. I need food. And I need to get out of here,” she told him quietly.

  Jesse heard a noise behind her in the hallway. The door of the family waiting room opened. From the corner of her eye, Jesse could see Avery Hernandez leaning into the hallway. She was gesturing to Cal.

  “Calvin, I need you to come and stay with me.” Avery’s face was streaked with tears. Her big blue eyes were made even more enormous by the drops glistening on her lashes. She looked like a television rendering of a grieving widow. There was absolutely nothing genuine in the way she appeared, and yet she looked good.

  Jesse could feel the hesitation in Cal. She knew he was very fond of her, but this was his mother they were talking about. His father had just died, and now his mother was requesting that her eldest child come to her side.

  Jesse stepped away from Cal. She swiped at her own face and took a deep breath. “Go on,” Jesse urged Cal. “She wants you near until Laredo gets here with Met. That’s always how it will be.”

  “All right.” He didn’t look convinced.

  The expression of triumph in Avery Hernandez’s eyes burned Jesse in ways that she could not grasp. This woman had been her mother figure for a good portion of her life. Did she really feel this much animosity toward Jesse now after all these years? Why? What was this really about?

  “Cal, please?” There was a plaintive note in Avery’s voice. The quaver was almost contrived. How could this woman be acting like this when her husband had just passed away?

  Jesse hadn’t liked Joe Hernandez that much. But she
’d had respect for him as a rancher and a strange kind of appreciation for him as a provider and a father because she had lived under his roof for years. It seemed so odd that he could just be gone with nothing further than a doctor’s pronouncement that he’d suffered a massive heart attack.

  “I’ll be downstairs,” Jesse told Cal. “I’m going to look for the cafeteria.”

  “I’ll be right behind you.” Cal called the words after Jesse, but she didn’t look back.

  She didn’t want to see him turn away from her and turn toward his mother. This whole thing was just messed up. Jesse was not Joe Hernandez’s biological child. There was nothing short of hard evidence that would make her believe otherwise. So, why was Avery behaving the way that she was? What did she have to gain from it?

  “Jesse!”

  As she got close to the elevator, she realized that Cisco and his younger brother Met were already striding down the hallway. Cisco was waving emphatically at her. Jesse continued to head toward the elevator, meeting them almost right in front of the doors as they were still hovering open.

  Jesse quickly stepped inside the elevator. Cisco frowned and stuck his hand out to prevent it from closing. “What’s wrong? Why are you leaving? We got Cal’s text about Dad, but we were already on our way here to spell Mom so she could go home and get a decent night’s sleep.”

  “Your mother doesn’t want me around,” Jesse said coolly. Then she shrugged. Her gaze wandered toward Met. Of anyone, Met should know exactly why Jesse was no longer welcome in the family circle. “It’s all right. We all know that Avery Hernandez is not a huge fan of my parents. Apparently, in her grief, she’s decided that she just can’t handle my being around.”

  “That isn’t fair, Jess,” Met told her quietly. His normally jovial expression was somber. “You know it’s not the way the rest of us feel.”

  “That’s all right.” Jesse took a deep breath. Then she forced herself to smile at Met. “Now that her favorite golden boy is here, maybe she’ll let Cal off the hook. He’s my ride and I’m really ready to go home.”

  Cisco and Met nodded. The two of them looked awfully calm for having just gotten the news of their father’s death. Neither man was shedding a tear. They didn’t even look bothered. Jesse remembered crying her eyes out when she’d been told her parents had died in an accident. She’d been eleven at the time, but she didn’t feel like there would be any difference between how she had felt then and how she would feel now.

  To that end, she tilted her head to one side and gave the brothers a very thorough once-over. “Are you two all right? That must have been a horrible shock about your dad. I’m really sorry it’s ended so suddenly for him.”

  Cisco pursed his lips and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Dad wasn’t a warm and friendly guy, Jesse. You knew that. He beat the tar out of us if we stepped out of line, and he’s made the business end of the ranch hell on earth in the last few years. He’s a mean drunk who’s been holding a grudge against Paul Weatherby and the Flying W for no earthly reason that we can think of. I’m sad he’s dead. But I’ll be honest with you. There’s a bit of relief in there as well, and I’m not ashamed to say it.”

  “Me neither,” Met muttered. “You think my mother’s acting crazy? Well, she is. But who drove her crazy? Answer me that.” Met’s face turned hard. “I’ll tell you who drove her crazy. It was Joe Hernandez. And sometimes in life we reap what we sow. It’s just too bad for my father that he’s been sowing so much bullshit for so much time.”

  The two men nodded to Jesse before letting the elevator doors slide shut. The silence was deep except for the low hum of the elevator sinking to the lower levels of the hospital. Jesse listening to the whirring of the motor and wondered when the entire Hernandez family would stop reaping what Joe Hernandez had sown.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I want you to stay away from that girl, Calvin. Do you understand me? Her whole family is just bad.” Avery was pacing back and forth in the family waiting room. Her feet made a soft shuffling noise on the aged patterned linoleum. Avery waved her hand in the air as if to emphasize her thoughts. “We tried to raise her right, but sometimes there’s just no changing someone’s heart.”

  Cal stared at his mother and tried to decide if she honestly believed he was going to respond to her comments. Then she looked up at Cal, and he felt the pressure of her expectancy so strongly that he could no longer remain silent.

  “Mom, that’s ludicrous.” Cal cleared his throat. “Jesse is a good person. She’s not responsible for her mother’s behavior any more than I’m responsible for my father’s behavior.”

  “You don’t understand!” Avery said shrilly.

  Cal pressed his lips together. What was it about Jesse’s mother and that whole situation that drove his mother so far out of her sanity? The way this topic could make his mother act was disturbing!

  “Mom,” Cal said sharply. “I don’t want to hear any more of this. Do you understand me? I don’t want to hear another word against Jesse. I love her. I think I’ve always loved her. And I think you have always known that.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Avery’s dismissive tone stung. “She’s your sister.”

  “No. She isn’t my sister. She never was.” Cal shook his head. “I was nineteen when she came to live with us. She was a sad little thing, but I could tell that someday she was going to grow up to be an incredible person. So, I sat back and I waited for her to grow up. I didn’t make moves on her. I didn’t try to pressure her or somehow make her think she had no choice. I wasn’t trying to be her guy, Mom.” This was so important to Cal. He needed to know that people realized that he hadn’t ever taken advantage of Jesse. “But I love her, Mom. And now that we’re both adults, I want to be with her.”

  Avery’s nostrils flared, and she stomped her foot on the floor. “I won’t allow it. Do you hear me? I won’t allow that! It’s for your own good.”

  Cal shook his head. “No, Mom. I don’t understand why, but it’s for your own good.”

  Thank goodness someone knocked on the door. And it was even better when Cisco and Met stepped into the room. If anyone could keep his mother from behaving like a lunatic, they could.

  “That was fast,” Cal grunted.

  Cisco gave a nod. “We were already on the way here so that Mom could go home and get some sleep and a shower.”

  Met was already putting his arms around their mother. Cal was relieved. Met was her favorite, her youngest, her precious baby boy, and pretty much the only one who could both understand her and talk sense into her when necessary. Cal could not help but hope that Met would be the one to help Avery see that Jesse was not their enemy.

  “Oh, Met,” Avery moaned. “He was still so young! I just can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe that he’s really gone.”

  Cisco looked squarely at Cal. “Can we see him?”

  “I’m not sure.” Cal hadn’t even considered the possibility of his brothers needing to see the body. “How about we wait until everyone else gets here and then we can ask to be let into the room.”

  “He’s still in his room?” Met’s blue eyes were wide with surprise. “They just leave him in there?”

  “It’s late in the day, and they want to make sure they have a spot for him, I guess.” Cal shrugged helplessly. “How am I supposed to know? I only came to see Mom and Dad.”

  “He brought Jesse,” their mother accused. She turned an angry gaze toward Cal. “I don’t know why you would do that! She got your father upset with all of her ranting and raving about her parents and all of that nonsense!”

  “It isn’t nonsense, Mom.” Cal bit back any further comments. The problem wasn’t whether or not it was nonsense. The problem was that his mother was simply not in a good frame of mind to be realistic about anything right now.

  “Laredo just drove in. He’s got Darren with him.” Cisco looked at the display on his phone. “How about we just wait until we’re all here and then you”—Cisco gestured
to Cal—“can tell us exactly what happened.”

  “That woman happened!” Avery snarled. “It was all her fault!”

  Met’s brows drew together. “Jesse? You’re blaming Jesse for Dad’s death?”

  “Who?” Avery looked confused. “Amelia. Jesse. They’re the same!”

  Met exchanged a look of concern with Cisco and then turned to Cal. “Would you like to stay at Laredo’s place in town tonight? I’ve been staying with Daphne at her place anyway, so the mansion is currently empty anyway.”

  “The mansion?” Cal snorted. “I thought I saw an email about some scheme to auction that place and its contents for charity.”

  “Daphne’s working on it,” Met said almost defensively. “Talk about paperwork! Sheesh!” Then Met pointed suspiciously at Cal. “But you can’t destroy the place.”

  Cal shook his head. “You of all people have no right to even suggest that I would. If the place can survive you staying there, I think it can handle one night of me and…” He managed to stop himself just in time. Saying that Jesse would be sharing the house with him for a night was one surefire way to piss off his mother. Cal grunted and headed out of the family waiting room. He would try his luck in the hallway searching for his middle brothers.

  It was quieter in that sterile-smelling white hallway than it was in the family waiting room with his mother’s wailing and bemoaning every poor decision anyone had ever made in their life, whether it affected her or not. Cal knew that grief did funny things to people, but he was having a lot of trouble understanding what was going on with their mother.

  He had made it almost all the way to the bank of elevators when he spotted Laredo and Darren standing at the end of the hallway deep in conversation. Both men seemed engrossed. Aria and Maggie, their respective fiancées, were with them. All four of them seemed to be much more disturbed and even depressed by the recent events. Maggie kept swiping at the corners of her eyes with a tissue, and Cal wondered how well she had even known his father. It all seemed strange to Cal.