A Cowboy Comes Home (4 page)

Mandy wasn’t sure how to answer that. Money wasn’t everything. “Are you happy?”

“Delirious.”

“You have friends? A social life? A girlfriend?” She turned away, crossing the short space to the stove, removing the tortilla shell, setting it on the stack and switching off the burner. She didn’t want him to see her expression when he started talking about his girlfriend.

“No girlfriend,” he said from behind.

“Why not?” she asked without turning.

“No time, I guess. Never met the right girl.”

“You should.” She turned back. “Make the time. Meet a nice girl.”

His expression went thoughtful, and he regarded her with obvious curiosity. “What about you? Why no boyfriend?”

“Because I’m stuck in the wilds of Colorado ranch country. How am I going to meet a man?”

“Go to Denver. Buy yourself a pretty dress.”

She couldn’t help glancing down at her simple T-shirt and faded blue jeans with a twinge of self-consciousness. “You don’t like my clothes?”

“They’re fine for right now, but we’re not dancing in a club.”

“I’ve never danced in a real club.” A barn, sure, and at the Weasel in Lyndon, but never in a real club.

“Seriously?”

She rolled her eyes at his tone of surprise. “Where would I dance in a club?”

He moved around the island, blue eyes alight with merriment. “If we were in Chicago, I’d dress you up and show you a good time.”

“Pretty self-confident, aren’t you?” But her pulse had jumped at the thought of dancing with Caleb.

He reached out, lifted one of her hands and twirled her in a spin, pulling her against his body to dance her in the two-step across the kitchen. She reflexively followed his smooth lead.

“Clearly, you’ve been practicing the Chicago nightlife,” she noted.

“Picture mood lighting and a crowd,” he whispered in her ear.

“And maybe a band?” she asked, the warmth of his body seeping into her skin, forcing her lungs to work harder to drag in the thickening air.

“You like country?” he asked. “Blues? Jazz? There are some phenomenal jazz clubs in Chicago.”

“I’m a country girl,” she responded brightly, desperate to mask her growing arousal.

“You’d like jazz,” he said with conviction.

The timer pinged for the simmering chicken, and they both halted. Their gazes met, and their breaths mingled.

She could see exactly what he was thinking. “No,” she whispered huskily, even though she was definitely feeling it, too. They were not going to let this attraction go over the edge to a kiss.

“Yes,” he responded, his fingertips flexing against the small of her back. “But not right now.”

Caleb had known it was only a matter of time before Maureen Jacobs, Mandy’s mother, extended him some Lyndon Valley hospitality. He wasn’t really in a mood for socializing, but he couldn’t insult her by saying no to her dinner invitation. So, he’d shut the ranch office computer down early, sighing his disappointment that the listing hadn’t come up on the broker’s web site yet. Then he drove the rental car over the gravel roads to the Jacobs ranch.

There, he returned friendly hugs, feeling surprisingly at home as he settled in, watching Mandy’s efficient movements from the far reaches of the living room in the Jacobs family home. The Jacobses always had the biggest house, the biggest spread and the biggest family in the valley. Caleb couldn’t count the number of times he had been here for dinner as a child and a teenager. He, Reed and Travis had all been good friends growing up.

He’d never watched Mandy like this. She had always blended in with her two sisters, little kids in pigtails and scuffed jeans, and was beneath his notice. Now, she was all he could focus on as she flitted from the big, open-concept kitchen to the dining area, chatting with her mother and sister, refilling glasses of iced tea, checking on dishes in the oven and on the stove, while making sure the finishing touches were perfect on the big, rectangular table.

Caleb couldn’t imagine the logistics of dinner for seven people every single night. Tonight, one of Mandy’s two sisters was here, along with her two brothers, Travis and Seth, who was the oldest. And her parents, Hugo and Maureen, who looked quite a bit older than Caleb had expected, particularly Hugo, who seemed pale and slightly unsteady on his feet.

“I see the way you’re looking at my sister,” Travis said in an undertone as he took the armchair opposite Caleb in the corner of the living room.

“I was thinking she suits it here,” Caleb responded, only half lying. He was thinking a whole lot of other things that were better left unsaid.

“She does,” Travis agreed, “but that wasn’t what I meant.”

“She’s a very beautiful woman,” Caleb acknowledged. He wasn’t going to lie, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit the extent of his attraction to Mandy, either.

“Yes, she is.” Travis set his glass of iced tea on the small table between them and relaxed back into the overstuffed chair.

Caleb tracked Mandy’s progress from the stovetop to the counter, where her mother was busy with a salad, watching as the two of them laughed at something Mandy said. He didn’t want to reinforce Travis’s suspicions, but his curiosity got the better of him “Did she and Reed ever…?”

Travis shook his head. “It was pretty hard to get close to your brother. He was one bottled up, angry man after you lit out without him.”

Caleb felt himself bristle at the implication. He hadn’t deserted Reed. He’d begged his brother to come with him. “It wasn’t my leaving that did the bottling.”

“Didn’t help,” said Travis.

Caleb hit the man with a warning glare.

“I’m saying he lost his mother, then he lost you, and he was left to cope with your father’s temper and crazy expectations all on his own.”

Caleb cleared his dry throat with a sip of his own iced tea. “He should have come with me. Left Wilton here to rot.”

“You understand why he didn’t, don’t you?”

“No.” Caleb would never understand why Reed had refused to leave.

“Because of your mother.”

“I know what he said.” But it had never made sense to Caleb.

Their mother was gone. And the legacy of the ranch land didn’t mean squat to Caleb. There was nothing but bad memories here for them both. Their father had worked their mother to death on that land.

The sound of female laughter wafted from the kitchen again. Caleb couldn’t help but contrast the loud, chaotic scene in this big, family house to his own penthouse apartment with its ultramodern furniture, crisp, cool angles of glass and metal, its silence and order. Everything was always in its place, or at least everything was sitting exactly where he’d last left it.

Maureen passed her husband, Hugo, giving him a quick stroke across the back of the neck. He responded with a secretive smile and a quick squeeze of her hand.

Here was another thing that wasn’t in Caleb’s frame of reference, relaxed and loving parents. He couldn’t remember his mother ever voluntarily touching his father. And his father had certainly never looked at his wife, Sasha, with affection.

Travis shifted his position in the armchair. “Reed thought you were afraid to stay and fight.”

Caleb straightened. “Afraid?”

Travis shrugged, indicating he was only the messenger.

“I hated my old man,” Caleb clarified. “But I was never afraid of him.”

That was a lie, of course. As a child, Caleb had been terrified of his father. Wilton was exacting and demanding, and quick with a strap or the back of his hand. But by the time Caleb was seventeen, he had a good two inches on his father, and he’d have fought back if Wilton had tried anything. Reed was even bigger than Caleb, and Wilton was no physical threat to Reed by then.

“Where do you think Reed went?” Travis asked.

“I couldn’t begin to guess,” Caleb responded, thinking Reed’s decisions were finally his own. He honestly hoped his brother was happy away from here.

He’d thought a lot about it over the past two days. Reed was perfectly entitled to live his life any way he saw fit. As was Caleb, and Caleb had become more and more convinced that selling the ranch was the right thing to do.

Reed could do whatever he wanted with the money. And, in the short term, Caleb was in no position to hang around Lyndon Valley and run things. And he sure couldn’t continue to depend on the Jacobses to help him out.

He supposed he could hire a professional ranch manager. But, then what? It wasn’t as if he was ever coming back again. And Reed had made his choice by leaving. If Reed had any interest in keeping the ranch, all it would have taken was for him to jot down a contact number in his cryptic note. Caleb would have called, and they could have worked this whole thing out.

Mandy swished across the room, a huge bowl of mashed potatoes in her oven-mitt-covered hands. She’d changed from her usual blue jeans to a pair of gray slacks and a sleeveless, moss-green sweater. It clung to her curves and brought out the color of her eyes. The slacks molded to her rear end, while her rich, chestnut-colored hair flowed like a curtain around her smooth, bare shoulders.

“I see the way you’re looking at my sister,” Travis repeated.

Caleb glanced guiltily away.

“You hurt her,” Travis added, “and we’re going to have a problem.”

“I have nothing but respect for Mandy,” Caleb lied. While he certainly had respect for Mandy, he was also developing a very powerful lust for her.

“This isn’t Chicago,” Travis warned.

“I’m aware that I’m not in Chicago.” Chicago had never been remotely like this.

“We’re ready,” Maureen announced in a singsong voice.

Mandy sent Caleb a broad smile and motioned him over to the big table. Then she seemed to catch Travis’s dark expression, and her eyes narrowed in obvious confusion.

“She’s a beautiful, intelligent, strong-minded woman,” Caleb said to Travis in an undertone. “You should worry about her hurting me.”

Travis rose to his feet. “I don’t care so much about you. And I’m not likely to take her out behind the barn and knock any sense into her.”

Caleb stood to his full height. “Does she know you try to intimidate guys like this?”

The question sent a brief flash of concern across Travis’s expression. Caleb tried to imagine Mandy’s reaction to Travis’s brotherly protectiveness.

It was all Caleb could do not to laugh. “Stalemate.”

“I’ll still take you out behind the barn.”

“I’m not going to hurt Mandy,” Caleb promised.

Not that he wouldn’t let Mandy make up her own mind about him. She was a grown woman, and if she offered a kiss, he was taking a kiss. If she offered more, well, okay, he didn’t imagine he’d be around long enough for that to happen. So there was no sense in borrowing trouble.

He deliberately took a chair across the table from Mandy instead of sitting next to her. Travis grunted his approval.

As dishes were passed around and plates filled up, the family’s conversation became free-flowing and boisterous.

“If there’s a competing interest lurking out there,” Mandy’s sister Abigail was saying, “I can’t find it. But it’s important that as many ranchers as possible show up at the first meeting.”

“We need a united front,” Hugo put in, helping himself to a slice of roast beef before passing the platter to Travis. “It’s suspicious to me that they’re calling the review five years early.”

“The legislation allows for a water use review anytime after thirty years and before thirty-five,” Abigail responded. “Technically, they’re not early.”

Seth, the eldest brother, stepped in as he reached for a homemade bun. “When was the last time the state government did anything at the
earliest
possible date? Dad’s right, there’s something they’re not telling us.”

“I’ve put in an access to information request,” said Abigail. “Maybe that’ll solve the mystery.”

“That won’t get you anything,” Hugo grumbled. “The bureaucrats will just stonewall.”

“You should catch Caleb up,” Mandy suggested.

“This is important to you, too,” said Travis, and Caleb waited for him to elaborate.

“Any decrease in the flexibility of our water licenses, will devalue the range land.”

“Devalue the range land?” Seth interjected. “Who cares about the land value? It’ll impact our grazing density. There are operations up and down the valley that are marginal as it is. The Stevensons, for example. They don’t have river access anywhere on their land. A couple of tributaries, but they depend on their wells.”

“Seth,” Maureen put in, her voice stern. “Did anyone ask you to bring your soapbox to the dinner table?”

Seth’s lips thinned for a moment. But then he glanced down at his plate. “Sorry, Mom.”

Maureen’s face transformed into a friendly smile. “Now, Caleb. How long do you expect to be in Lyndon?”

Caleb swallowed a mouthful of potatoes smothered in the best gravy he’d ever eaten. “A few days. Maybe a week.”

“We’re sorry you missed the funeral, dear.” Maureen’s tone was even, but he detected a rebuke. One look at Mandy’s expression told him he’d detected correctly.