The Other Brother

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “What’s this?” Bruno asked, incredulous.

  “It’s what Daddy owes you. You’re all paid up now, so we won’t be seeing you again. Right?”

  “A check?” he cried. “You expect me to take a check?”

  “It’s good. It won’t bounce.”

  Bruno laughed. “Honey, I’m a bookie. Bookies deal strictly in cash.”

  “Well, this time you’ll take a check.”

  “Cut your losses,” Caleb told him. “This is the best offer you’ll get around here.”

  The family didn’t wait for Bruno to agree. They ushered him and his men out the door and kept their guns at the ready until all the bad guys had driven away.

  When Bruno and his men were gone, Fayrene offered to fix breakfast for everyone, but Sloan, Justin and Rose thanked her and declined. They needed to get back to help Emily with the Mexicans.

  Ralph offered his hand to Justin, Sloan, then Rose. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did for me tonight.”

  Rose waved his thanks away. “Don’t think a thing of it, Ralph. That’s what friends and neighbors are for.”

  “Still…” Ralph hung his head and blushed.

  “Don’t go getting all embarrassed, Ralph,” she told him. “Not with me. A little gambling debt’s nothing to worry about. My grandfather was hanged for a horse thief.”

  “I never knew that,” Melanie said.

  “It’s true,” Rose declared. Then she turned to Caleb. “Are you coming home with us?”

  “Not just now,” he told her.

  “That’s fine, then.” She put her hand on Caleb’s shoulder and added softly, “She’ll make the perfect addition to the family.” She winked and walked away with his brothers.

  “What did she say?” Melanie asked.

  Caleb smiled. “Nothing.”

  Melanie noticed her father’s dejected expression and decided to lighten the atmosphere a little. “Since when was your grandfather a horse thief?” she asked Caleb.

  “Not my grandfather, hers. And he wasn’t a horse thief, he was just hanged for one. And he didn’t die, because the guys doing the hanging, who were his brothers, by the way, were drunk. They threw the lynch rope over a thin, dead branch, and it snapped. Which was good, because the next day they realized the horse they thought he’d stolen was his own.”

  Seeing her father chuckle, Melanie thought about kissing Caleb right then and there. Instead, she shook her head. “I know you have a colorful family, but I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “It’s true.” Caleb held up his right hand, palm out. “I swear.”

  Melanie turned to her father. “Are you buying any of this?”

  “Why not? After a night like this, I’d believe just about anything.”

  “It has been a hell of a night,” Fayrene agreed.

  “Well, I’ll tell you all right here and now,” Ralph said. “I’m through with gambling. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “That’s good,” Melanie said, “because that money I paid him is the last that will ever leave the PR coffers to pay off a gambling debt. I mean it, Daddy, not another penny, not ever again.”

  Fayrene bristled. “Don’t you talk to your father that way. You be nice to him.”

  Thinking to leave the room and give the family their first privacy of the night, Caleb straightened from where he’d been leaning against the counter and took a step across the floor. “I’ll just—”

  Melanie put a hand on his chest. “Stay put, coward. We don’t have a single secret left from you anyway.” Then she turned to her mother. “You’re a fine one to talk. He’s your husband and you don’t even live with him.”

  “How do you know I’m not changing my mind about that?”

  The look of hope that sprang to her father’s face brought tears to Melanie’s eyes.

  “Are you?” Ralph asked. “Do you mean it? Are you coming home?”

  Fayrene propped her hands on her hips and thrust out her chest. Like steel filings to a magnet, Ralph’s gaze zeroed in. Fayrene smiled. “Under two conditions.”

  Ralph swallowed, but his eyes were locked on the piping outlining the yoke of her shirt. “Just name them.”

  “Number one, no more gambling. Not a single penny. Whatever you’ve got down on next weekend’s OU–Texas football game, you can forget.”

  Ralph had the good grace to blush. He had, indeed, already placed a bet on the game. Still, he nodded. “Done.”

  “I mean it, Ralphie. You go gambling again and I’m gone, for good this time.”

  “You got it. You said two conditions. What’s the second?”

  “That you don’t ignore me the way you used to.”

  Ralph blinked in surprise. “Ignore you?”

  “By working all hours of the day and night, dragging in way past dark, so tired you can’t hold your eyes open, let alone have a conversation. I’m your wife, and I want some of your time and attention. I want you to talk to me, watch a TV show with me now and then, maybe even go out to a movie or something. I want to be treated like a wife, not a live-in housekeeper.”

  Ralph swallowed. “I guess you’re going to have to help me out on that. Remind me when I’m slipping up.”

  “You can be sure I will. And the first thing you’re going to have to do is hire more help around this place so you don’t work yourself into an early grave. I’m way too young to be a widow.”

  Melanie felt the need to butt in. “Mama, there’s no money to hire back the men we usually have, much less extra help.”

  “It’s really that bad?” Fayrene asked. “I can’t believe that.”

  “Believe it. I still haven’t figured out how we’re going to pay for Lucy and Ethel.”

  “Who?” Ralph asked.

  “Never mind,” Melanie said. “What I mean is, we’re broke.”

  Caleb stepped forward. “If you’re going to make me stay for this conversation, then I get to contribute to it.”

  “Go ahead,” Ralph told him. “Like she said, after tonight we sure don’t have any secrets from you.”

  “You should take on a partner.”

  “A partner?” He said it as though Caleb had suggested he grow an extra head.

  “Someone to buy a share of the ranch for cash, and who would take part of the day-to-day workload off your shoulders. That solves two of your problems right there—cash, and more time to spend, uh, doing whatever.”

  Ralph was already shaking his head before Caleb finished. “I’m not about to let some stranger buy part of the PR, come in here and tell me how to run my own ranch.”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that. You wouldn’t want to sell a controlling share. You wouldn’t want him to have a share larger than yours. Melanie owns half the ranch, doesn’t she?”

  Fayrene blinked. “We really don’t have any secrets.”

  “Ah, come on, Miz Pruitt, you know how close Melanie and I have always been. It’s not like she blabs everything to everybody, but she talks to me. But she owns half, and the two of you have a fourth each. You could leave Mel with her half, then take the other half, that right now is split in two, and split it in thirds, instead. Or any other way you wanted to split it.”

  Ralph crossed his arms. “Hmmph. Who would want to go along with a deal like that, buy into a broke ranch, then work it, to boot?”

  “What about me?” Caleb offered. God help him, Ralph had just given up gambling, and Caleb was taking the biggest gamble of his life with this offer.

  “You?” Melanie asked, puzzled.

  “Why you?” Ralph asked, sharing a quick look with his wife.

  “Because,” Caleb said, his heart thundering against his ribs, “I don’t figure Melanie will want to live on the Cherokee Rose after we’re married, so I’ll need to live here. As for the work, I have to have something to do all day, right?”

  “Married?” Ralph asked, skepticism plain on his face.

  “Married?” Fayrene’s face lit with hope.

  “M
arried?” Melanie shrieked. “Who says we’re getting married?”

  “I do. You said you love me. I love you, too. Marriage is the next logical step, right?”

  “If that’s a marriage proposal,” she said heatedly, “it’s the dumbest one I’ve ever heard. I know you haven’t been kicked in the head lately. Maybe aliens came down from space and took over your body, because I don’t know you.”

  Caleb sauntered over toward her. “Sure you do. I’m that other brother. Your best friend. I can’t do the bended-knee thing and give you a proper proposal because that would mean I was treating you differently from when we were just friends, and you said you didn’t want that.”

  The fluttering in Melanie’s stomach rose up to tickle the inside of her throat. Her hands shook, so she clasped them behind her back. “Maybe I’d make an exception. For this, I mean.”

  If she laughed in his face and made a joke of it all, Caleb didn’t know what he’d do. But the look in her eyes, the fear tinged with a touch of what looked like hope, had him taking a deep breath and dropping to one knee.

  “Melanie, will you marry me and be my best friend, my lover, my partner, for the rest of our lives?”

  A tiny cry escaped before she clamped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes filled with moisture. She blinked rapidly so she could see him clearly. She wanted to remember this moment for the rest of her life.

  “Well?” he demanded, growing concerned when she didn’t answer.

  Melanie threw her arms wide and fell against him. “I thought you’d never ask!”

  Caleb squeezed his eyes shut and held on to her for all he was worth. Damned if he would ever let her go.

  “Did you hear that, Ralph? Oh, my. Our baby’s going to marry Caleb.”

  “How about that,” Ralph answered. “How about that.”

  Caleb heard them say something else, but he couldn’t make out the words over the pounding of his own heart. Something about somebody named Lucy and somebody else named Ethel, but since he didn’t know anyone by those names, he let it go.

  “I love you,” he whispered to the woman in his arms. “I love you.”

  “Oh, Caleb, I love you, too. Are we crazy?”

  “Probably.” They rose with their arms around each other and he held her tight. “But who cares?”

  “Surely,” she said, kissing his neck, his jaw, his cheek. “Surely somebody somewhere does.”

  Caleb threaded his fingers into her hair and angled her mouth toward his. “To hell with them.” He took her mouth with his and drank deep and long. A need rose up in him, sharp and strong. He fed it, fed on her. She was his. She’d said yes. He still couldn’t believe it. Could he be dreaming?

  He prayed not. Prayed that he was awake and this was real and they were really getting married.

  “I want you,” he murmured against her mouth.

  “Yes.” She sounded as breathless as he was. “Yes.”

  He tore his mouth from hers and buried his face against her hair. “We’re in your kitchen.”

  Melanie pulled back and blinked. “Oh. Yeah.”

  “We’ve got a problem,” he told her.

  She nudged her hips against his, putting pressure on his erection, and smiled slyly. “I’d take care of that for you, but as you say, we’re in the kitchen.”

  “And your parents are home. But our main problem is, neither one of us ever left the damn nest.”

  “Ah.” She didn’t need it spelled out. “I live with my parents, you live with your family.”

  “I’m going to be taking a lot of cold showers between now and the time we’re married.”

  She leaned up and rubbed her smooth cheek against his raspy one. “We’ll find a way. I promise.”

  “A quick wedding date would solve the problem. After that, I’ll just have to get used to making love to you down the hall from your parents.”

  Melanie chuckled. “I think for the next little while my parents are going to so preoccupied with each other that they’ll never notice.”

  Chapter Ten

  It should have been a relatively simple matter, Caleb thought, to set a date, make arrangements, get married. It wasn’t the invasion of Normandy, for crying out loud, it was just a wedding. His wedding, Caleb acknowledged, and he wanted it done.

  But that contrary woman he’d proposed to and who had accepted could think up more delaying tactics than fleas on a hound.

  First, she and her parents needed a few days together as a family. After her mother’s two-year absence and her father’s recent disastrous gambling streak, Caleb was forced to agree a little family time for the three of them was surely called for. He couldn’t begrudge them a few days. A week.

  Then she had to help her dad hire new men and spend a few days getting them acquainted with the PR and how things were done there.

  Okay, Caleb could buy that. How could a woman think about picking a wedding date when she had all that on her mind?

  Events at his home weren’t helping anything, either. It took nearly a week to get one group of the Mexicans settled in New Mexico with family members who had immigrated years earlier. Then they made arrangements for some to go to Texas where they said they had friends.

  Most of the rest of the group decided to go to Tennessee where they heard that a food-processing plant didn’t care if their workers were illegal. They paid what to an American would be slave wages, but to the Mexicans was decent money for plucking and cutting up chickens.

  That left only Pedro, Maria and little Rosa. They would have been gone by now, but Pedro had made himself practically indispensable taking up some of the slack caused by Caleb spending so much time at the PR of late.

  Melanie might be having trouble deciding on a wedding date, but Ralph seemed downright eager to settle the details of the new partnership. They had decided that Melanie would, indeed, keep her fifty percent. Fayrene, Ralph and Caleb would split the remaining fifty percent equally among them, giving them each one-sixth of the Pruitt Ranch. When it came to ranch business, Melanie’s decisions would be final unless the other three partners agreed on a different course of action. Then they’d be tied, fifty-fifty, and nothing would get done, but what the hell. The point was that the ranch would always belong to Melanie. Caleb had no quarrel with that. He would work his fingers to nubs to make the ranch prosper for her and their children.

  Children. There was another topic Melanie hadn’t found the time to discuss. She had always said she wanted children, so he didn’t know what the big deal was. If he could ever get her alone for five damn minutes, maybe he’d ask her about it.

  But then, who was he kidding? If he got her alone for five damn minutes he wasn’t going to want to talk about anything. He was going to want to jump her bones.

  “You look like you’re a thousand miles away.”

  Caleb jerked away from the corral fence involuntarily as if shot. He hadn’t heard Sloan come up behind him.

  “But I guess you’re just over on the next ranch.” Sloan punched him on the upper arm and chuckled.

  “Actually,” Caleb said, “I was wondering how Earline’s enjoying her retirement.” It wasn’t a complete lie. He’d been thinking about Earline about an hour ago. Thinking how odd it was to walk into the house and find Maria doing all the things Earline used to do. The cooking, the cleaning, the general taking care of the house and family.

  Earline had been keeping house for the Chisholms for more years than Caleb could remember. That she would finally retire to enjoy her golden years at home with her husband and all the grandchildren who lived near them shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But Earline had seen in Maria someone capable, eager, and in dire need of a home and job.

  Earline’s recommendation alone would have been enough to guarantee Maria the job, considering how much Rose liked the young woman. But Pedro was equally well liked by Sloan and Justin.

  Caleb hadn’t spent as much time with the man as his brothers had, but from what he’d seen, the Cherokee Rose would bene
fit from his presence. He wasn’t a rancher, but he was an excellent caretaker of buildings, equipment and animals. He could do all those pesky things Caleb and his brothers kept putting off because they couldn’t be done from the back of a horse.

  And they were going to need an extra full-time person once Caleb made the move to the PR.

  “If you ask me,” Sloan said, “she was just waiting for someone like Maria to come along so she could retire. She might have retired when she met Emily, but Emily made it plain that she wasn’t after her job.”

  “Speaking of Emily,” Caleb said, “how is married life these days?”

  Sloan chuckled. “Contemplating your future, are you?”

  Caleb shrugged and turned back to watch Sloan’s new mare prance around the corral.

  “Getting cold feet?” Sloan asked quietly.

  “Hell, no,” Caleb said forcefully. “Not me.”

  “Melanie, then.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because it’s been two weeks and the two of you haven’t set a date yet.” And because he knew his brother and didn’t want to see him brood, he asked, “Are you really going to like living with her parents?”

  Caleb’s lips twitched. “Probably not. How do you think Emily likes living with all of us?”

  “I’ll admit I was concerned about that at first.”

  “Not anymore?”

  Sloan shook his head and propped his boot next to Caleb’s on the fence rail. “Emily never had a family. As far as she’s concerned, the more people in this house the better she likes it.”

  “What about you?” Caleb asked. “Wouldn’t you like a little privacy for the two of you now and then?”

  “Not really. The honeymoon was great, don’t get me wrong. We did need that, and probably will again, maybe on a regular basis. But no matter how much we enjoyed our time alone together, we were both glad to get home. There’s a lot to be said for being surrounded by family.”

  “Yeah, but all the time?”

  Sloan laughed. “There’s always the lock on the bedroom door. And when we use it, we’re lucky enough to have somebody else in the house to look after the girls for us. If it was just us, Emily and me and the girls, our privacy would be even more scarce.”