“We’ve already established that you’re a lousy liar, so why don’t you just tell me what’s going on around here? How long has your dad been gone? Has something happened to him? Where are your men? And why is this place starting to look like nobody’s been here for weeks?”
Her cheeks turned bright red. She moved to step around him.
“Melanie, I’m not trying to embarrass you or stick my nose into your business. I’m trying to find out what kind of trouble my best friend and neighbor is in so I can figure out how to help. The more you refuse to answer, the worse I’m going to think it is. Now just tell me, dammit. Where’s your dad?”
What did it matter, Melanie thought, if she told him the truth? If she couldn’t tell somebody soon, the whole ugly mess was liable to explode in her from the inside out. All her life, whenever she had trouble, Caleb was the one she had always taken it to. He had never made her feel small or stupid, had never betrayed a confidence. He had always listened, and, if asked, offered sound advice.
But, oh, how she did not want to have this discussion. It was embarrassing. Humiliating.
“I don’t know,” she blurted. “I don’t know where Daddy is, and right now I don’t much care.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say. What do you mean you don’t know where he is? He didn’t come home last night.”
“I know that. He’s off gambling somewhere. Again.”
“Ah, hell, Melanie, I’m sorry. What happened?” he asked quietly. “I thought he was doing good, going to those Gamblers Anonymous meetings up in the city.”
She shook her head and plunked her mug down on the counter next to the sink. “He was. He was doing fine until he decided he didn’t need the meetings anymore and stopped going. Within a week he started draining cash out of the ranch.”
“Ah, damn, Melanie, I’m sorry. How bad is it? Do you need help?”
She gave a short, harsh laugh. “Help? I had to let the men go three weeks ago. Daddy thinks I’m blowing things out of proportion, but he hasn’t seen anything yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“When he needs cash he uses his ATM card. Yesterday I canceled it. I also canceled the credit card Mama’s been playing with.”
“Did you do that yesterday, too?”
She nodded and took a sip of her coffee. “Yeah. And I think Mama’s sick but I can’t reach her to find out.”
“What makes you think that?”
“There was a big charge on the credit card from a clinic.”
All of that to handle, and then, he thought, she’d gone out and gotten drunk.
“I’m hungry,” she said suddenly. “How about breakfast?”
“You cooking?”
She laughed. “As if you would. As if you could.”
“Hey, do you think Grandmother raised the three of us to be helpless? I can scramble eggs with the best of them.”
“Well, well. Imagine learning something new about you after all these years. You’re in charge of the eggs.”
Breakfast turned into the most awkward affair either of them could remember experiencing. The kitchen was not small, yet it seemed every time one of them turned around, the other was there, too close. By the time the meal was on the table they were practically tiptoeing around each other.
The meal itself wasn’t much better, except they didn’t have to worry about bumping into each other. Except with their gazes, which were quickly averted.
They used to enjoy each other’s company. They used to be able to laugh and talk about anything or nothing. Now it seemed they couldn’t even look at each other.
Melanie couldn’t stand it. She wanted her friend back. She laid down her fork with a definite clatter and glared across the table at Caleb.
“Is this how it’s going to be between us?” she asked. “Have we ruined our friendship?”
“Come on, don’t say that.”
“Well, look at us,” she cried. “This is—this is the pits is what it is.”
“If you think I’m sorry, I’m not. I’m sorry you feel awkward, but what happened between us was something special, and you know it. I won’t apologize for it, and if you say you regret it you’re a liar, and we’ve already established you’re no good at that. You’ve never been a liar before. Don’t start now. Besides,” he added with a narrowing of his eyes and a quirk of his lips. “You started it.”
“Oh, well.” She threw a hand in the air. “That helps. You started it,” she mimicked. “How intelligent. How mature. Am I supposed to come back with Did not so you can tack on a did too for good measure? Then we can stick our tongues out at each other like two adults.”
“Now there’s a picture,” Caleb said. “But if you’re going to stick your tongue out, you should come over here and do it up close.”
“Don’t be a jerk, Caleb.”
“Then don’t be an idiot,” he countered. “We kissed. It was terrific. We did it again, twice, and it was just as terrific. Why should that ruin our friendship?”
Melanie groaned in frustration. “If I wasn’t so hungover I’m sure I’d have a coherent answer to that. Meanwhile I’ll be your friend and tell you to put that ice back on your shoulder.”
He grimaced and reached for the bag of corn. “If you were my friend you wouldn’t have clobbered me in the first place. Care to explain that, pal?”
She scrunched up her face. “I did say I was sorry, didn’t I?”
“You did. So do you always swing a shovel when you find a man in your barn?”
“Damn right I do. I thought you were another one of those creeps coming to collect on one of Daddy’s debts.”
Caleb’s heart gave a hard thump. “What? Are you saying you’ve got thumb breakers coming around here hitting you up because of your dad?”
She shrugged and looked away, a flush of embarrassment coloring her cheeks.
Damn, Caleb thought. Things were worse, much worse at the PR than he could have imagined. With their hired hands gone, Ralph off God knew where, Melanie was left alone to deal not only with the work of running the ranch, but the fallout from Ralph’s gambling.
The situation, as far as Caleb was concerned, was intolerable. “When’s your dad due back?”
“I have no idea.”
Caleb thought a minute, then nodded. “All right, then.” He got up and went to the wall phone beside the back door and called home. Sloan’s wife, Emily, answered.
“Hey, it’s me. I need a favor.”
“Caleb, where are you? We’ve been worried to death.”
“Sorry,” he said, realizing he should have called home last night. “I gave Melanie a ride home last night. She didn’t feel good—”
Behind him Melanie snorted, sounding like a disgruntled hog.
“—and her dad wasn’t home, so I stayed.”
“Is she all right? What do you need me to do?”
“She’s fine. It looks like Ralph’s going to be gone for a few days, so I’m going to stay over here and give Melanie a hand.”
“Caleb, no,” Melanie protested.
Caleb ignored her and spoke to Emily. “Can you gather up enough clean clothes to last me two or three days and have Hector run them over here when he gets a chance?”
Emily readily agreed, promising the clean clothes within the hour.
“Caleb,” Melanie said after he hung up. “You can’t be serious about staying here.”
“Sure I can. That’s what friends do, Mel.”
“But it’s not necessary. You think I can’t do my own chores?”
“I think you can do your own chores just fine. But there’s no reason you should have to do all of your work, your father’s, the work of two hired men, and fight off thumb breakers, all by yourself. And that has nothing,” he added to forestall the argument he could see forming in her eyes, “to do with your being a woman.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
He knew better. Knew her better. “What is it with you today?” he demanded. �
��That’s at least the third time you’ve lied to me.”
“That wasn’t a lie,” she protested. “It was a denial.”
Caleb rolled his eyes.
“In any case, you’re not staying here.”
“Yes,” he said emphatically, “I am.” He had to. There was a need. If the need was his more than hers, that didn’t scare him. Not too much.
The hell it didn’t, he thought. He’d known her all his life, but suddenly he felt drawn to her, had a need to be near her that had nothing to do with friendship.
But all that aside, he couldn’t leave her here alone to fend for herself, especially if there was the chance of some goon showing up to make mischief.
He’d like to punch Ralph Pruitt square in the nose.
“Caleb, I appreciate the offer, but I neither want nor need your pity.”
“That’s a stupid thing to say, and it’s mean. Since when have I ever pitied you?”
Melanie snapped her teeth together. The truth was, he had pitied her plenty of times over the years, whenever she had cried on his shoulder because Sloan wouldn’t pay her any attention. She had deserved Caleb’s pity then because she had been pretty damn pitiful.
“I’m not staying because I feel sorry for you,” he claimed, and she believed him. “I’m staying because I’d do the same for any neighbor, so I can’t really see myself doing any less for a neighbor who happens to be my closest damn friend, all right? I don’t care if you need me here or not. I need to be here. Get over it.”
Melanie threw her hands in the air. “I’m going to take a shower. Toss that bag of corn back in the freezer before it thaws and trade it for the peas.”
Caleb couldn’t help smirking. “Yes, ma’am.”
With a snarl of irritation, she spun on her heel and stomped from the room in bare legs and cowboy boots.
For his sake, Caleb hoped that when she came back she’d have on some damn pants. Platonic friends weren’t supposed to have legs that long and shapely.
When Melanie returned to the kitchen thirty minutes later she did indeed have on some damn pants. Jeans, faded, worn and soft-looking. Her dark hair was still wet and slicked back from a face scrubbed clean. Her eyes, while still a shade on the bloodshot side, were nonetheless alert, even as they avoided his gaze.
She stood in the middle of the room and blinked. “You cleaned the kitchen?”
He frowned. “Yeah, so?”
“So? You guys over at the Cherokee Rose have a housekeeper who I happen to know cleans up after all of you and keeps your house spotless so you don’t have to lift a finger in that area.”
“That she does.” He gave the counter a final swipe with the dishrag in his hand. “But Earline’s only been with us a few years. If you think Grandmother didn’t make the three of us clean up after ourselves—”
“Got it. And you’re right. I know she raised the three of you, and she wouldn’t have waited on you hand and foot or cleaned that big house all by herself. Not Rose.”
“You got that right.”
“That’s what makes her one of my heroes.”
Outside, a pickup pulled up. Melanie folded her arms and watched out the window as Caleb went out and took a duffel bag from the young Mexican man behind the wheel.
It was so like Caleb, to see a friend in need and refuse to do anything other than help. This particular friend, however—namely, herself—would breathe a little easier if Caleb went home, but it didn’t look as if that was going to happen anytime soon.
A gleam came into her eyes. Maybe she couldn’t convince him to go home. So, if he was going to stay, she was going to take full advantage of it and see that some long-postponed work got done around this place. If he thought he was going to get to sit around the house and watch ESPN all day while sipping iced tea, he had another think coming.
She was being ridiculous, she knew. She’d never known Caleb to sit still when there was work to be done, and he was the one who kept pointing out how much work needed to be done on the PR. So she would accept his help.
“That was fast,” she said when the pickup drove away and Caleb came back inside.
“Emily’s a godsend, and Hector drives fast.”
“Hector, huh? A new hand?”
“We took him on a couple of weeks ago.”
“Hmm.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” She shrugged. “It’s just that there’s been a flood of illegal aliens around here lately. Is he local?”
“I don’t believe you said that.” Caleb gaped at her.
“What?”
“I’d wager that a quarter of this county is of Mexican descent, or Indian.” Namely him and his family, part Cherokee, one and all. “Or both. Since when did that matter to you?”
Melanie blinked. “You think I care that he’s got dark skin? I can’t believe you said that.”
Caleb turned away and ran his fingers through his hair. He knew better. He knew she wasn’t prejudiced. Or, he thought he’d known. She had never seemed to care that his skin was so much darker than hers. And he knew she had friends from school who were Mexican Americans.
“Then what did you mean about Hector?”
“I just meant he didn’t look familiar.”
“That’s not what you meant. Just because you don’t recognize him doesn’t mean he’s an illegal. That’s not a logical assumption, even for you.”
“What do you mean, even for me?”
“Don’t change the subject. What have you got against Mexicans?”
“Nothing,” she cried, throwing her hands in the air. “Okay, look. There’s a rumor going around that somebody around here is helping illegal aliens hide from Immigration.”
“And you think it’s us?”
“I’m hoping it’s not.”
Interesting, Caleb thought. Crazy, but interesting that she would think such a thing. “Would you care?” he asked.
“Of course I would care,” she cried. “You think I want to see you and your family get in trouble? Hiding illegal aliens is against the law. Besides which,” she added with a quirk of her lips, “I’d think a Native American would be the last person who’d want to see more foreigners flooding into this country.”
“Hey, I’m only half Indian. Half of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower.”
“Yeah, yeah, and the other half met the boat. I’ve heard that one before. About a hundred times.”
“So all this smoke about Hector and illegal aliens is because you’re worried about me?”
“Oh, just go soak your head in the shower.”
“Thanks.” He hefted his duffel bag. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
While Caleb was in the shower Melanie decided to head out to the barn and get started on what was shaping up to be a long day. She was halfway to the barn when her father sped up the driveway, a giant rooster tail of dust shooting up behind him. He came to a skidding halt a few feet away from Caleb’s pickup, got out and slammed the door. He eyed Caleb’s rig briefly, shot her a look and a short nod, then hurried into the house.
“Daddy?”
The slamming of the back door was the only answer she got.
She stood in the dirt, fuming. He goes off for two days without a word, then comes home and ignores her? No way was she letting him get away with that. Plus, she had yet to tell him that she had canceled the ATM card.
Of course, his inability to withdraw cash from the bank could explain his lack of a greeting. With a heavy sigh, she trudged back to the house.
“Daddy?” He wasn’t in the kitchen, nor in his room. “Daddy?” His bathroom was empty. She crossed through the living room to the small den they used as an office and found him booting up the computer. The screen desktop appeared and he clicked on the icon for the bookkeeping software.
Melanie’s surprise was complete. Her father never looked at their finances. That was Melanie’s area and had been for several years. As far as she knew, he’d never even used
the accounting software before. “What are you doing?”
“What is this?” He stared at the computer screen.
“What is what?” She came and stood beside him to see what he was seeing. The pitifully low balance in their cash account. “It’s a disaster is what it is.”
“Where the hell’s the rest of our money? And what nonsense is the bank spouting about us canceling our ATM card?”
Melanie folded her arms across her chest. “It’s not nonsense. I canceled it yesterday. Along with our credit card.”
He turned toward her as if in slow motion. His cheeks turned the color of fresh blood. “You what?”
Grown men had been known to back away from that look on his face. Melanie stood her ground. “I had no choice.”
“What are you talking about? What happened to our bank balance?”
“What do you think happened to it?” she asked heatedly. “It went to pay off your damn bookie, and mother’s never-ending spending sprees.”
“What spending sprees?”
The entire subject made Melanie so angry her hands shook. She pulled out the credit card statement she’d received yesterday and tossed it at him. “Here’s the latest fiasco. She maxed out the card. In one month she maxed it out. We can’t pay it off. The interest charges alone are going to kill us. The two of you together are going to bankrupt us if you don’t stop.”
Her father’s eyes bulged. “So you took it upon yourself to cancel our ATM and credit cards? Without consulting me?”
“I did what I had to do to keep us from going under. Granddad didn’t build this ranch so we could put money in the pockets of bookies and boutiques.”
“We just sold our calves. Where’s the money from that?”
“It’s drawing interest, what’s left of it, so we can pay the light bill for the rest of the year. You might remember that except for the occasional stud fee for Big Angus, there won’t be any more income until we sell calves again next fall.”
“You watch your mouth, little girl. I’ve been ranching, running the PR since before you were born. I’m still your father and you’ll by God do what I tell you. I need cash, and I need it right now, today. Or else.”
The Other Brother Page 6
