All he heard was her sharp “Get out.” Then, incredibly, the line went dead.
Alarmed, Caleb hung up and redialed. The phone rang a dozen times without an answer.
Maybe he had misdialed. He tried again, his palms starting to sweat. He didn’t like this. Not one damn bit.
Still no answer.
“That cuts it,” he muttered. He grabbed his hat and started out the front door. “Something’s going on over at the PR. I’m headed over there.”
Melanie gaped, outraged. George had not only unplugged her bedroom extension from the wall, but he’d surprised her with a hard yank that jerked the phone from her hand.
“Hey!”
Before she realized what he was doing, he’d rushed through every room in the house—there weren’t that many of them—and gathered up all the phones. There weren’t that many of those, either; Melanie’s room, the kitchen and one on the desk in the den. He put them in a pile on the floor next to the sofa and announced there would be no more calls in or out, without his approval.
“Did you agree to this?” Melanie hissed at her father.
Ralph flushed and looked away. “Just go along with it. It’s only for this one night.”
“And another in a couple of weeks. What about the time in between? They’re going to trust us all that time, but not tonight?”
Her father opened his mouth, then shut it and shook his head, saying nothing.
Caleb broke every posted speed limit between the Cherokee Rose and the Pruitt Ranch. On the way he tried twice more to call her from his cell phone. There was still no answer. In frustration he tossed the phone onto the seat beside him and gripped the steering wheel.
He barreled up the PR’s gravel driveway and had to slam on the breaks when a brown sedan pulled out from the yard and blocked his way.
What the hell?
A short, round man—really round, Caleb thought—climbed laboriously from the car and waddled over to the pickup.
Melanie had said her dad had brought home two creeps. One was, or had been, in the house. Was this creep number two?
“Hi there,” the man said.
“Afternoon,” Caleb offered, barely refraining from swearing. “Mind moving your car?”
When the fat man chuckled, everything on him from cheeks to belly quivered. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. The family’s having a private evening together. They’re not accepting visitors just now. You’ll need to come back tomorrow.”
“Not accepting—no, never mind. I have business with them that can’t wait. I’m asking you, politely, to move your car.”
The man’s eyes narrowed, and Caleb saw the hard meanness in them. “And I’m telling you, politely, you’ll have to leave.”
Caleb glanced toward the house, tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “I guess we’re through being polite. Tell you what. You move your car and you can keep that nice pretty paint job. Because I’ll tell you, I’m going up to the house, whether you move your car or not.”
“Whoa, now,” the man said jovially. “No need to make threats, mister.”
“Threats?” Caleb bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. “That wasn’t a threat, that was a fact.” Without giving the man time for a reaction, Caleb spun his steering wheel to the right and pressed the gas pedal. There was almost enough room between the front bumper of the sedan and the barbed-wire fence a few feet beyond the driveway.
Caleb would be damned before he would take out a neighbor’s fence. His pickup could be repaired. He didn’t much care what happened to the sedan. He drove through. The force of the sturdy pickup shoved the sedan aside with an audible crunch and screech of metal on metal.
The fat man bellowed in outrage.
Caleb ground his teeth and slung gravel all the way to the back door of the house. Ralph Pruitt’s pickup was there, along with a car with Arizona plates. Fayrene’s, he assumed.
The fat guy was huffing and puffing his way after him, waving his arms and hollering.
Caleb got out of the pickup and strode purposely to the back door, intent on getting to Melanie as fast as he could. The door opened before he could reach for the knob.
The first thing he saw was the gun.
Chapter Seven
When Melanie saw Caleb walk through the door, urged along by George’s gun, her breath caught. She wished, desperately for his sake, that he had stayed home. She was chagrined, maybe even a little ashamed, to admit to herself how glad she was that he hadn’t. Just having him in the same room steadied her, made her feel safer, more secure.
In that moment when their eyes met and she read his concern for her, she forgot that she wanted him at arm’s length. She wanted him close. Wanted his arms around her.
But that couldn’t be. Not here, not now, not in front of her parents and the creep named George.
In all honesty, even if she and Caleb were alone—especially if they were alone—she wouldn’t let him get close enough to put his arms around her.
Caleb stood in the familiar kitchen where he’d had breakfast that very morning and silently cursed himself. Damn his hide. He’d known there was trouble at the PR, yet he’d been stupid enough to leave his pistol and his cell phone in the pickup and walk right into a trap.
The man with the gun was tall and lean, with olive skin and dark eyes that held that same mean look as the fat man’s had.
Caleb took a step forward and stopped. “Mrs. Pruitt, it’s good to…” Mercy sakes, she sure looked…different. Even with a gun on him he had to struggle to keep from staring at her chest. “…see you.” He gave her a nod. “Mr. Pruitt.” He nodded at Melanie’s father. “Melanie.” He nodded to her, too. “Is everybody all right?”
“We’re fine,” Melanie said.
Caleb eyed her. “I knew you were mad when I left earlier, but I didn’t think you were this mad.” He cut his gaze toward the gun still pointing in his direction.
Ralph Pruitt cleared his throat. “George, Bruno didn’t say anything about guns.”
“Let’s all go into the living room,” George said, “and have a seat.”
Caleb gave serious thought to tackling the man. If it had been just the two of them he might have done it. But that gun could easily go off. Melanie or one of her parents could get hurt.
He went to the living room with the others, as ordered. The first thing he noticed was the pile of telephones beside the sofa.
“All we have to do,” George told them, “is watch a little television and behave ourselves. Ralph’s new business partner has a little business to transact later on tonight. Little Donnie and I are just here to make sure nobody gets in the way and gets hurt. See? Simple. Now, sit.”
And so they sat. Ralph, Fayrene and George took the sofa, leaving the recliner and wingback for Melanie and Caleb.
“I told you not to come back,” Melanie muttered.
“What do you think of my new shape, Caleb?” Fayrene asked.
Melanie choked.
Ralph made a funny squealing sound.
George hooted.
Caleb chuckled and winked. “Looking good, Mrs. P. Real good. New hairdo?”
“Ha!” Fayrene laughed hysterically and slapped her knee.
Ralph scowled. “You blind, boy?”
“New hairdo,” Fayrene shrieked. “That’s a good one, Caleb.”
“Good grief.” Melanie snatched the remote control from the coffee table. “Give me that.” She called up the satellite-TV on-screen program guide to look for something to watch. There wasn’t a person in the room she was currently interested in talking to. They were all lunatics.
“I don’t suppose anyone wants to tell me what this is all about,” Caleb said.
“The less you know,” George told him, “the better off you are.”
“Now why,” Caleb said lazily, “did I know you were going to say that?”
After a long silence, during which everyone looked at everyone else, looked everywhere but at the gun in George’s hand, Ra
lph finally cleared his throat.
“What brought you here, Caleb?” he asked.
Caleb glanced to Melanie, but her expression was closed to him. Caleb shrugged. “I was on the phone with Melanie and we got cut off. I tried calling back several times, but got no answer. I was concerned.”
Ralph nodded and looked down at his hands. “It’s good of you to come all the way over here to check on us.”
“You should know,” Caleb said with another glance at Melanie, “that except for a couple of hours today, I’ve been here since Monday night.”
Ralph bobbed his head another couple of times, then snapped to attention, his eyes going wide. “Here?” he demanded. “Since Monday?”
“That’s right.”
George hooted again. “This is getting good. What happened?”
Melanie’s expression wasn’t closed now, it was disgusted.
“Alone?” Fayrene asked carefully. With a hint of craftiness that made Caleb wince. “You and Melanie have been here alone, together, since Monday?”
Caleb leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “That’s right.”
“Caleb.” Melanie’s voice was almost a wail. She flopped back in her chair and threw an arm over her eyes.
“This is better than a soap opera,” George offered with an eager grin.
Melanie lowered her arm and snarled. “Shut up, George.”
“Well, well.” Fayrene arched an eyebrow. Speculation danced in her eyes as she glanced from Caleb to Melanie and back again. Then she jabbed an elbow into her husband’s side. “Where have you been since Monday?”
“I had business,” Ralph said defensively.
“So you went off and left our daughter alone with Caleb?”
“I didn’t know Caleb was here.”
“No,” Caleb agreed. “But you knew you were leaving her here to do the work of three or four men.”
Ralph gnawed on the inside of his jaw and eyed Caleb. “Did you get the hay in?”
“Daddy!” Melanie cried, outraged. “You ought to be apologizing for putting a neighbor to this much trouble, not asking how much work he got done.”
“We got the hay in,” Caleb said. “And the fence repaired. Oh, and we put a gate in between the PR and the Rose down in the middle of one of your pastures.”
Ralph blinked. He looked as if he was having trouble taking everything in. Caleb couldn’t say he blamed the man. A bookie’s goons bringing him home for some kind of shady business to keep his kneecaps whole, his wife showing up with a new…shape. His neighbor moving in with his daughter and making decisions regarding his ranch.
In the same place, Caleb would be having a little trouble taking it all in, too.
About an hour after dark George had to go to the bathroom. Because he would not leave the others alone, he took Ralph with him.
“If anybody’s missing when we come back,” George warned, “well, it wouldn’t go too good for poor Ralph, here, if you get my meaning. And no phone calls,” he added.
The instant the bathroom door closed, Caleb pounced. “What the hell is going on?”
Melanie dropped her head against the back of the chair. God, how much humiliation could one woman be expected to stand? With her eyes closed, she told Caleb what was happening.
“It looks like you were more right than you knew,” she told him, “when you called them goons.”
“So we’re just going to sit around and let this joker hold a gun on us all night?” he asked.
“You have a better idea? One that doesn’t get any of us hurt?”
“It wouldn’t be hard to—”
“And gets Daddy out of debt?”
“Oh, well, if you’re gonna get picky.”
“I’ll tell you what I’d like to do,” Fayrene said in a heated whisper. “I’d like to shoot that George character right between the eyes for threatening Ralphie, for making him let them do whatever it is they’re doing out there in the pasture tonight. And I’d do it, too, put a bullet between his eyes, but he’s got the key to the gun cabinet.”
“Mama, I don’t want to hear any more talk about shooting.”
Fayrene huffed and folded her arms beneath her breasts, making them look even larger.
Melanie dared a glance at Caleb and found him staring somewhere in the vicinity of the top of her mother’s head. Bless his heart, he was working diligently to avoid offending anyone by staring at her mother’s chest. Melanie, unable to avoid staring herself—it was, after all, quite a sight—had to admire his tact and control.
Maybe in about ten years she might get used to her mother’s new look. Maybe.
“We’ll just have to grit our teeth and wait this out,” Melanie said.
Caleb hoped it would be that simple, but he had his doubts. Why would George and his pals want to leave a bunch of witnesses who could identify at least two of them?
On the other hand, if things went according to plan, the only charge that would stick would be home invasion, if that was a legitimate charge, because Caleb and the others would never get near this so-called merchandise and wouldn’t know what it was. The only evidence would be tire tracks in the pasture.
So they seemed to be more or less stuck here, waiting it out, then letting the bastards go. Hoping the bastards would let them go.
He turned the situation over in his mind and thought maybe it wouldn’t be in this Bruno character’s best interests to leave a bunch of dead bodies around. He was obviously, in addition to whatever this business tonight meant, a bookie. How could he make any more money off Ralph if he killed him?
Then, too, if George was bent on killing them, why hadn’t he already done it?
One thing was certain. If they all got out of this alive, Caleb was going to butt his nose in and have a serious talk with Ralph. The man had no right to endanger his wife and daughter this way. Granted, he probably hadn’t know Fayrene was here, but he had deliberately brought George into Melanie’s home. Whatever Caleb had to do to see that such a thing never happened again, including tying Ralph up and tossing him in a closet, he would do.
The hours of the evening and night crawled by at a snail’s pace. It was just after one in the morning when two pairs of headlights cut across the backyard.
Ralph jumped to his feet. “Is that them?”
George waved him back. “Stay there. I’ll check on it.”
But when George moved to the kitchen, everyone got up and followed him. George opened the back door and looked out. Ralph and Fayrene followed him, while Melanie went to the window over the kitchen sink.
Caleb stood at her back and looked out over her head. He placed a hand on her shoulder for the simple reason that he couldn’t go another single minute without touching her.
When she raised her hand toward his, he knew she was going to push his hand away. But she didn’t. Instead she stroked his fingers, sending hot shivers up his arm. Then, with her back still turned toward him as she watched out the window, she threaded her fingers through his and squeezed.
Outside, a two-toned pickup with a white camper shell covering the bed drove beneath the utility light, then past the barn and on toward the pasture over the rise, down near the spot where Melanie and Caleb had made love that day. A small, light-colored car followed.
Out at the edge of the yard, near the mouth of the driveway, Little Donnie waved his flashlight. To signal back, George flipped the porch light on and off.
Several minutes later the small car came back from the pasture. As it passed beneath the utility light, two people were plainly visible where there had been only one before.
The car stopped for the driver to speak to Little Donnie, then drove away.
“Now what?” Melanie wondered aloud.
George shooed her parents back inside the house and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He pressed a couple of buttons and put the phone to his ear.
“It’s George,” he said. “The truck’s here, and Hank’s bringing the driver to you right
now. Yeah, everything’s fine here. The daughter’s boyfriend showed up, but he’s behaving himself. Okay, boss, we’ll see you when you get here.”
George ended the call and slipped the cell phone back into his pocket.
“Now what?” Melanie asked again.
“Now we wait.”
“We’ve been waiting,” she said tartly.
“And the first part is over. The goods have arrived. As soon as the driver checks in with Bruno, Bruno and some of the guys will come down and divvy up the goods, then we’ll all go home and you good people can have your lives back.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Melanie muttered. “How long might this next part take?”
George shoved the back door shut and locked it. “It’ll take as long as it takes. Might as well make yourselves comfortable. In the living room, if you please.”
Fayrene heaved a huge sigh, which made her chest rise to impressive levels. George nearly drooled.
“Well,” Fayrene said. “If we’re going to be up and awake, we might as well have some coffee. Is it all right if I make coffee?” She smiled coyly at George.
Ralph pulled his gaze away from his wife’s breasts long enough to scowl at her.
“Sure thing, Mrs. Pruitt. I’d like some coffee.”
“Fine, then.” Fayrene all but batted her lashes at him. “You all just go right on and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll start the coffee.”
“All right, everybody, let’s go have a seat,” George said.
“I’ll stay and help Mama,” Melanie said, turning toward the coffeemaker on the counter without giving him a chance to object.
When the others had gone to the living room Melanie hissed at her mother, “What are you doing, playing up to that creep?”
“Just watch your mother, baby, and learn a thing or two.”
“What are you up to?” Melanie whispered.
“Shh. Get me a filter. Where’s the coffee? You’ve moved it.”
Together they managed to take twice as long to start the coffee brewing as Melanie would have alone. But it was so good to have her mother home that Melanie didn’t mind the added confusion in the least.
The Other Brother Page 13
