“And when you were old enough?”
“He broke my heart,” she said quietly. Calmly. She remembered the pain, but no longer felt it. “I did everything in my power to get him to notice me, to like me the way I liked him. It never occurred to me to act any other way. Poor Sloan.”
“Poor Sloan? Why do you say that?”
“Are you kidding? All those years with me dogging his heels, showing up everyplace he went. Especially when I turned sixteen and Daddy fixed up that old pickup for me. I had wheels. I was mobile, could follow Sloan everywhere he went. God, how embarrassed he used to get.”
“He didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“I know. I know. But the only way he could have avoided that would have been to fall madly in love with me. And I think I knew that wasn’t going to happen long before I got that first set of wheels. And there you were, every time I got discouraged. You always let me cry on your shoulder, and you never tried to tell me to leave him alone, or that he would change his mind. You were just there.”
Melanie drew her horse to a halt and waited for Caleb to do the same and face her. When he did, she held his gaze steadily. “Right where I needed you to be. Always. Did I ever thank you for that? For a lifetime of that?”
“We were friends,” he said. “Are friends. There was never any need for thanks between you and me.”
“And that,” she said with a saucy grin as she nudged Jack into motion again, “is why I love you.”
At her casual, breezy words, Caleb felt a heavy thump in his chest. He tried to laugh it off, but something was happening inside him that he didn’t understand. It felt like a gathering. Knowledge. Revelation. But it was unclear, fuzzy and just out of his reach. If he could only stretch out his hand far enough, he might be able to grasp it. Whatever it was.
But first he needed to catch up with the woman who was swiftly driving him insane.
A gathering of knowledge. Ha. Nonsense was what it was.
He caught up with her quickly, then slowed his horse to walk beside hers. As far as he could tell, she had yet to answer his question.
“So,” he said casually, “are you saying…what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that what I felt for Sloan was as much habit and suggestion as it was real feelings. I didn’t just wake up one morning two years ago and decided I didn’t love him. It was more a growing feeling—no, that’s not right. Not a feeling. A slow acknowledgment that what I felt for him was selfish and self-serving and superficial, and Sloan and I both deserved better than that. I decided to grow up, to give him a little peace for a change from my constant hounding. And if I sound as if that wasn’t a painful realization, it was.”
Caleb tried to filter through everything she’d said to get to the guts of it. “Are you saying you never really, you know, loved him?”
“I sure thought I did. But now when I look back, I don’t think I understood what love was. I’m not sure I know now, for that matter. But I should have wanted what was best for him, what would make him happy. But all I thought about was my feelings. That doesn’t sound much like love to me.”
“Come on, give yourself a break. And I doubt Sloan ever felt hounded.”
“He was just too sweet to ever say so.”
“Sweet?” Caleb hooted with laughter. “I’ve never heard anybody call him that before.”
“Okay, so he was never sweet. He was always nice to me, though. He treated me just the way he thought of me. Like a kid sister. Think how much grief I could have saved us all if I’d gotten the message a few years sooner.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then Caleb decided to just ask outright. “So, are you really over him?”
Melanie threw her head back and laughed. “Yes, Caleb, I have been really over him for a long, long time. He’s the big brother I never had.”
He gave her a wry grin. “I thought that was my role.”
She snorted. “Hardly. I never thought of you as a brother. You were—are—my friend. My one true friend.”
Her admission both humbled and liberated him. Freed him from some nagging worry he hadn’t even named. “What about Justin?”
She laughed. “Justin’s my playmate.” A few moments later she spoke again. “Did I tell you what you wanted to know?”
“That you’re no longer hot after my brother? Yeah.”
“Caleb,” she said, exasperated, “I haven’t been hot after Sloan for a long time and you know it. Good grief, do you think I could have hooked up with Mark Shannon last year if I still had feelings for Sloan? If I had feelings for any other man?”
Caleb stuck his tongue in his cheek. “Didn’t stop you from jumping into the back seat of Tommy Newly’s car your senior year of high school.”
Melanie groaned and rolled her eyes. “Don’t remind me. What a disaster. Are you going to hold that over my head forever?”
“I was so hacked at you over that I could have turned you over my knee.”
“Ha. You could have lost a few fingers trying. I was the oldest living virgin, and it was a cinch Sloan wasn’t going to do anything about it.”
You could have come to me. Caleb stiffened in sheer terror that he might have spoken those words aloud. Since she didn’t fall off her horse laughing, or throw her hat at him, he had to assume he’d kept his mouth shut. But the words were there, in his head. He refused to examine how long they’d been hidden in the dark recesses of his mind.
“A girl had to do something,” she said with a defiant toss of her head.
“Whatever,” Caleb muttered. He decided they’d had enough conversation. He wished he’d never brought up the subject of her feelings for Sloan.
They rode on in silence, and Melanie was grateful. She had blabbered on like a fool. She was better off keeping her mouth shut.
They clambered down an embankment and up the other side of a dry wash, which put them halfway to the Angus pasture. A few minutes later Melanie’s horse started favoring his right foreleg and nodding his head up and down.
“Whoa, Jack.” She barely had to pull gently on the reins to have the horse stopping. “Hold up, Caleb.” She swung down from the saddle and rounded to Jack’s right side.
“What’s wrong?”
“He’s favoring this leg.”
“What happened?” He dismounted and joined her.
“I don’t know. He just started limping.” She had checked each hoof, shoe and foot before saddling him, but she checked again, thinking maybe Jack had picked up a stone. But there was no sign of one, and the frog didn’t seem to be tender when she pressed on it.
She didn’t have to go far above the hoof, however, to find the problem. “Feel this.” She pressed her hand over Jack’s right fetlock. She checked his left ankle for comparison and found it no warmer than it should be. “His right ankle’s hot.”
Caleb placed his hand where she indicated and felt. “Yeah, it’s hot all right.”
“He must have pulled a tendon, poor boy, or bruised it on something.” She stood and rubbed the horse between his ears. “Poor baby. We’ll get you home and take care of you.”
“Rub on some liniment or alcohol, pack a little ice around it, he’ll be good as new in a few days.” He rose to his feet. “We’ll head back. You can ride with me.”
Melanie spent another few minutes petting Jack and fretting over his leg. When Caleb remounted, Melanie handed him Jack’s reins. Caleb removed his left foot from the stirrup and held an arm down for her.
Melanie gripped his forearm and he hers; she put her foot into the stirrup and, with a tug from Caleb, swung up to sit on the skirt behind the seat of the saddle. The horse moved restlessly beneath the new weight, seated farther back on his back than he cared for.
“Easy, boy,” Caleb murmured. “It’s just Melanie. You all set?” he asked over his shoulder.
Melanie gripped the cantle and settled her weight. “All set.”
“You gonna hold on?” he asked.
“I’v
e got a nice grip on the saddle. Take off. I’m fine.”
“If you say so,” Caleb muttered. He’d ridden the back end of a horse often enough to know that holding on to the saddle was no way to keep your seat unless the ground was smooth and level and you weren’t in a hurry.
They weren’t necessarily in a hurry today, but she was going to have a hell of a time keeping her seat without holding on to him when they climbed up out of the wash.
His horse didn’t seem to care how his extra passenger held on. He wasn’t pleased with the extra weight. Especially when that extra weight kept shifting and fidgeting instead of sitting still. The horse sidestepped restlessly and tossed his head.
“Easy, boy.” Caleb patted the horse’s neck. “What’s wrong back there?” he asked Melanie over his shoulder.
“Nothing,” Melanie claimed.
“Then sit still, will you, before this fellow tosses us both in the dirt.”
“I know how to sit a horse, thank you.”
“Then prove it.” He reached around and grabbed her hand, placing it on his waist. “Hang on to me.”
The minute he released her hand, she removed it from his side and shifted her weight again.
The horse gave a small buck in objection. The action threw Melanie against Caleb’s back with a gasp of alarm.
Caleb swore. At the horse, at Melanie. “You all right?”
“I would be,” she said, straightening away from Caleb’s back, “if this ornery beast would settle down.”
“He’d settle down if you’d quit moving around back there. And he’s not ornery, he’s uncomfortable, and not too happy about that extra weight bouncing around on his butt.”
“Are you saying I weigh too much?”
“I’m saying you need to hold on to me and sit still.”
He sent the horse down the incline into the dry wash.
Gravity threw Melanie forward again into Caleb’s back. She tried to lean back but couldn’t. And she didn’t want to touch him. They had just had a long, friendly conversation, putting their friendship back on track, where it belonged. It was imperative that she not touch him, because touching him made her want to forget about friendship and move on to a more interesting relationship.
Yet if she lost his friendship, she would lose a part of herself. A vital part that she wasn’t sure she wanted to live without.
As soon as they reached the bottom of the ravine she leaned back, shifting her weight away from Caleb, and gripped the saddle again.
The horse responded with another little bump with his hindquarters, bouncing Melanie a good two inches into the air. She came down with a hard umph.
“Told ya,” Caleb muttered.
Behind his back Melanie made a face.
“Did you just make a face at me?”
“What, have you got eyes in the back of your head now?”
“No, I just know you.”
They were across the wash and starting up the other side before Melanie could psych herself up enough to voluntarily touch him again. The climb was steeper than she’d realized. Reflex and instinct, along with the fear of falling, kicked in. With a shriek she threw her arms around Caleb’s waist and hung on for dear life. His warmth instantly seeped into her. The smell of her soap and his shampoo combined to tease her senses.
She wasn’t sure, because of the thunder of her own pulse in her ears, but she thought she might have heard laughter. And not from the horse.
She glanced over to make sure Jack was making it okay. He seemed to be keeping up all right.
It wasn’t far up the bank. The wash wasn’t all that deep. They were up and over the lip in a matter of seconds. The instant the horse settled back into an easy walk Melanie shoved away from Caleb and repositioned herself.
The horse nickered, tossed his head, and kicked out with one hind leg.
“Okay, that’s it.” After looping the reins around the saddle horn, Caleb kicked his feet free of the stirrups, swung his right leg up and over and jumped to the ground. It wasn’t an easy maneuver for a grown man who would never see thirty again, but he was just ticked enough to pull it off.
“What are you doing?” Melanie demanded.
“I’m walking,” he said. “If you find touching me so distasteful that you’d rather irritate the poor damn horse to the point where he’s ready to buck us both off, then I’ll just walk, if it’s all the same to you.”
The anger in his eyes got her own dander up. She moved up into the saddle, then used the stirrup to swing down. She stood before him, her fists propped on her hips. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for the two of us to get all cozy, that’s all.”
“Cozy?” It was almost, but not quite, a bellow.
The horses moved away to chomp the still-green grass in a less volatile atmosphere.
“You know what I’m talking about,” she snapped. “Every time we get within touching distance of each other you get that look in your eyes like you’re ready to lap me up, and my skin starts humming.”
A quick grin curved his lips. “Humming?”
“Get over it. I’m just trying to keep things simple between us. To keep our friendship safe. All this touching and teasing and kissing is going to ruin everything.” She started pacing back and forth before him, kicking at tufts of grass.
“If we keep it up,” she warned, “we’ll end up in bed together.”
“And your problem is?”
“And if we like it enough,” she said, rolling over his words, “the next thing we know, we’ll be having a hot, torrid affair, then one of us will do something to hurt the other one’s feelings and we’ll break up, and then not only will we not have all that great sex anymore, we won’t even have our friendship.”
Caleb stared at her, dumbfounded. “All we’ve done is kiss a few times and you’ve got us into a torrid affair, and broken up, and not speaking to each other. Gee, did we have any kids during all this time?”
“You are sooo funny.”
“I’m funny? You’ve built this whole scenario out of a few kisses. Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?”
“Of course I know how crazy it sounds,” she cried, waving her arms in the air. “And it’s all your fault, because you’re making me crazy.”
“I’m making you crazy?” He took his hat off and slapped it against his leg. “What you’re saying is you want a guarantee. Like for a new car. Five years or fifty thousand miles. Is that what you want?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Well it’s a damn good thing, because I’m sure as hell no new car. For all you know, the sex will suck for both of us, we’ll have a good laugh over it and go back to being just friends.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” she said. “Like it would really suck between us.”
“Yeah, I know. Not much chance of that.” He moved closer to her. “It’d be great. We both know it.”
She gave a toss of her head. He doubted that her chin could poke out any farther. “What makes you think that?”
“This.” He pulled her close and kissed her.
Somewhere in the back of her mind Melanie had expected this. Hoped for this. Yet still he managed to take her by surprise and lock her breath in her throat. Along with her heart. She was helpless to do anything other than cling to him and kiss him back.
He felt hard and smooth beneath her hands as she spread them over his back. He tasted of that last cup of coffee he’d had before leaving the house.
She felt as if she’d had entirely too much coffee rather than the single cup she’d sipped. Every nerve ending danced beneath her skin.
And she wanted him. Could finally admit how much she wanted him. But she pulled back slightly and whispered, “Is this a mistake, Caleb?”
He kissed her right cheek, her left, and pulled her ball cap off, tossed it to the ground. “Do we care?” He flicked his tongue across her lips.
“No,” she breathed. “No, we don’t care. But in case we’re wrong, let’s make it a doozy.
” She leaned into him and ran her hands up his back and hooked them over his shoulders. She had never felt such urgency before. If she didn’t get closer to him, she might die.
It was only sex. That’s what she told herself. Just two willing bodies coming together to scratch an itch. It didn’t have to be a big deal, and it wouldn’t. It was just sex.
And it was going to be stupendous, she thought with a secret smile.
She raised one leg and rubbed it against his outer thigh, trying to get closer.
Sloan got the message and was grateful for it. He wasn’t sure who took whom down, but the next thing he knew they were rolling in the grass and he had his hand on her breast. At long last. And the feel of her was infinitely better than in his dream. Softer, firmer, fuller. Real.
“I want your clothes off.”
Caleb thought he’d spoken aloud what was in his mind, then realized that was Melanie’s voice. He laughed, delighted. “You won’t get an objection out of me.”
She tugged at the snaps on his western shirt and they popped open. “Is that a fact?”
“As long as I get to return the favor.”
Melanie swallowed. “Be my guest.”
She was afraid to look away from his eyes, afraid she would wake up and find this was only a dream. Sunshine, the smell of autumn grass, a warm southerly breeze, and Caleb.
Don’t let me wake up.
While she pulled open his shirt he worked on her buttons. But he was much too slow for her. She rose to her knees and pulled him with her, where she promptly stripped him of his shirt and took off her own.
Caleb managed, but just barely, to refrain from simply pouncing on her. She was suddenly so confident, so bold and sure of herself, so magnificent with the sunlight pouring over her pale skin, her dark hair. She took his breath away. With hands that weren’t as steady as they should have been, he reached behind her and unhooked her plain white bra.
She felt the air first, then the sun on flesh that never saw the sun. Then Caleb’s hands cupped her, the first man’s hands to touch her this way in a long, long time. She closed her eyes and felt her breasts swell to fill his palms.
The Other Brother Page 10
