Loved from Afar

by Stephanie Street

  Loved from Afar

  by Stephanie Street

  Originally published

  Text Copyright ©2015 Shauna Leigh Williams

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design by Shauna Williams

  For my mom and dad for all

  the trips to the library and

  all the love I could ever ask for.

  The Callahan's

  Book One

  Loved So Long

  Book Two

  Loved From Afar

  Book Three

  When Love Awaits

  **Coming 2018**

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  No. Please…Stop! Please! The plea was as silent as the tears streaming down her ivory cheeks. She knew better than to voice them aloud. Begging, she knew from experience, would only prolong her suffering. It was better to bear her agony- her shame- with silent dignity, undermined only by her traitorous tears. She had not been able to master those as easily as her screams. Later, much later, in the quiet of her room, she would succumb to the noisy sobs, which her tormentor so enjoyed. But here, now, she would bite her lips, not allowing a sound to escape them. How she wished for her own escape, but as the days slipped unbearably along, her hopes had all but vanished. Vaguely, as she attempted to detach her mind from her body, she wondered if there was any point at all.

  Chapter 1

  Brand Callahan stepped softly down the stairs, listening carefully for Ethan’s quiet snoring. He stepped on the left side of the third step, on the right side of the eighth, and heaved a sigh of relief when he remembered, at the last second, to completely avoid the first floorboard at the bottom. Brand froze, mid-step, as Ethan’s breathing stopped briefly before resuming its sleepy cadence.

  Sneaking out of my own home.

  Brand shook his head, exasperated with himself. Moving noiselessly across the floor on stocking feet, Brand made his way to the back door, hooking his heavy coat with his thumb along the way. Jerking his arms through the coat sleeves, he reached for the string that unlatched the door and pushed it silently open- patting himself on the back for making sure the hinges were oiled at least once a month. Ethan had teased him for it, wise cracking about having the quietest doors in the county. Unfazed, Brand had blown Ethan off with a retort about thoroughness. However, Ethan’s skeptical gaze had convinced Brand to keep his future hinge-greasing activities under-wraps.

  Easing the door closed behind him, Brand grabbed his boots off the bench on the porch and made his way to the bottom step before pulling them on. He started across the yard to the barn where Dancy was ready and waiting-Brand having offered to do the evening chores in order to saddle his horse, leaving Ethan none the wiser.

  “Shhh,” he murmured to Dancy as the horse stomped his feet enthusiastically upon seeing Brand. “Shhh, it’s just me. Come on, now. Let’s go.” He gently patted the horse’s neck as he grabbed the reins to lead the animal out into the yard. They would walk until they were far enough away from the house so as to not be heard by Ethan. The night was quiet and cool, and Brand was glad the late spring snow from last week had mostly melted. It was difficult to step quietly in crunching snow.

  “What the hell are you doin’?”

  “Ethan!” Brand clutched at his chest, his heart threatening to beat right out of it at the sound of Ethan’s voice coming from behind. “Holy blazes, Ethan!” Brand exclaimed, slightly abashed at the unsteady hitch in his voice. “You scared the daylights outta me!” Brand attempted to calm his breathing even as he wondered how he hadn’t heard his large, and usually ungainly, brother come upon him.

  “I scared you?” Ethan bellowed, his eyebrows raised to his hairline. “What do you think you’re doing running around this time of night, and not telling anybody?

  Ethan’s voice had risen to a yell and Brand flinched at the force of it-not from fear of his little brother, but shame at getting caught. But then, what did he have to be ashamed of-nothing, that’s what.

  “I’m a grown man, Ethan, I can come and go as I please.” Brand stepped away from his brother, pulling Dancy along with him, his jaw tight.

  “Now, wait just a minute, Brand.” Ethan placed a restraining hand on his brother’s shoulder, halting Brand’s progress. “You can’t keep sneaking out at night without some explanation!”

  “Sure, I can. And what do you mean, keep sneaking out?”

  Ethan’s eyes threatened to roll back in his head. “Are you kidding? I’m not an idiot, Brand.” Ethan paused, grinning. “Well, most of the time I’m not.”

  It was Brand’s turn to roll his eyes. “That’s debatable.”

  “That isn’t the point, Brand. I know you’ve been leaving the house at night once you think I’ve fallen asleep.”

  “Yeah, well-”

  “And,” Ethan cut him off. Brand sighed, deciding it would just be easier to just let Ethan get it all off his chest. There would be no avoiding a confession this night.

  Ethan continued his rant. “And you’ve been oiling the door at least once a week, that’s just not normal, Brand. And you didn’t get up until 7 o’clock last week…twice! And the week before that, you fell asleep in the middle of the day! You weren’t even sick!”

  To Ethan, whose very existence centered around the ranch and the work that needed doing every day, sleeping in and falling asleep mid-day with work waiting was about as big an offence as robbing a bank. Brand rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze heavenward, stalling.

  “Once a month, not once a week,” Brand corrected.

  “Brand.” Ethan refused to be distracted. “What is going on?”

  “It’s not a big deal, Ethan,” Brand said. “I’ve just been going into town- to Alan’s.”

  “Alan’s?” Ethan reared back, surprised. “Alan’s!” Ethan exclaimed again. Then he was laughing, loud guffaws coming out in bursts, his hands resting on his knees. “Why in the world would you be sneaking off in the middle of the night to go to a blacksmith’s shop,” he asked, when he could finally catch his breath.

  Brand cringed as heat inched up the back of his neck. He knew his brother would think he was ridiculous, and likely he was. But he had his reasons for going and Ethan’s approval was not requisite. “Does it really matter?” he asked the still chuckling Ethan.

  “For heaven’s sake, Brand. Here I thought it was some big secret. I even thought maybe-”

  Ethan’s abrupt stop left Brand instantly suspicious.

  “What did you think,” he asked, his curiosity riled. Even in the darkness Brand could tell Ethan’s color was rising. What hare-brained idea had taken root in his fool-of-a-brother’s head? “Spill it, Ethan.”

  “Well, I- You see, I thought since you- Oh, good grief, Brand,” Ethan stammered, more than a little uncomfortable.

  Brand’s temper was as riled as his curiosity now. He all but growled at his brother. “What?”

  Ethan took a deep breath before the words tumbled out of his mouth like manure dumped from a barrel. “Well, I thought since you and Sawyer have become such good friends that…well…maybe…” he paused and sucked in a deep breath before finishing. “I thought maybe you were seeing a
girl over at his place or something.”

  Brand reared back as though Ethan had struck him. For such garbage flowing out of his mouth, Ethan finished his words strong, finally looking Brand square in the face. He even had the gall to quirk his eyebrow, challenging Brand to own up, in case the smithy story had been a lie.

  “You think…you think I’ve been going to a whorehouse!” It was all Brand could do to force the word past his lips. The look of horror on his face must have convinced Ethan, because his expression instantly changed from skepticism to chagrin.

  Recovering quickly, Ethan became defensive. “What was I supposed to think, Brand? You’ve been leaving in the middle of the night for weeks! What else would you be doing? If you were seeing a good girl, you would have just gone calling like a normal man. It was the next reasonable conclusion.”

  “Reasonable conclusion? Your next reasonable conclusion was that I was carryin’ on with whores?” Brand was flabbergasted. His own brother! Hadn’t they been raised in the same house? With a mother who had done nothing but expect the utmost respect from them for any female, no matter her age or situation in life? “Good grief, Ethan, I am glad to know you think so highly of me.”

  Ethan finally looked properly remorseful. “Well, I’ve got to say, I was awfully relieved to hear you’ve been at the blacksmith’s and not the saloon.”

  Brand shook his head in disbelief. “Ethan, you know Sawyer doesn’t run a brothel out of his saloon. Goodness, you should hear the man, he’s so adamant against it. I wouldn’t choose to be his friend otherwise.”

  “I have heard that, but it’s not as though I’ve spent a lot of time in there to know for myself,” Ethan defended.

  Brand blew out an aggravated breath. “I don’t spend that much time in the saloon, either.” Shaking his head, he turned Dancy back toward the barn. He should have already arrived at Alan’s by now. It was getting too late; he would just go another night. Ethan’s footsteps sounded behind him as he headed to the barn.

  “I am sorry, Brand,” he said, quietly. “I didn’t want to think that you were capable of…you know. It’s taken me a couple weeks to get up the courage to confront you about it.”

  Brand sighed. “No, Ethan, it’s my fault. I should have just told you what I was doing.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Brand paused for a moment, saddle in hand, before setting it down. What should he say? It wasn’t as though smithing was anything to be ashamed of. Why hadn’t he wanted to talk to Ethan about it? He supposed it all came down to not wanting to admit to his brother that he hated work on the ranch; wishing instead to be able to finish apprenticing with Alan, and maybe even taking over the older man’s shop when he finally hung up his hammer. But how could he tell Ethan that? Ethan, who loved the ranch?

  The responsibility of running his father’s ranch and raising his younger sister had been placed on Brand’s shoulders after the death of their parents. He supposed now that Amy was married to his best friend, Beau, he could think about leaving, but he and Ethan had made plans for the ranch and its future. It didn’t seem fair to run out on his brother, especially since both Caleb and Dylan had chosen different paths. But how could he explain to Ethan that the ranch felt like an anvil hanging around his neck? And what would Ethan do? The ranch was not a one-man operation.

  “Brand?”

  “I just miss it, Ethan,” he said, simply. Ethan’s brow puckered in bewilderment.

  “Smithing? Enough to lose several hours sleep every night?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Brand, answered. The look on Ethan’s face made him feel like he had to defend himself. “It’s not just shoeing horses and repairing plows, Ethan.”

  “I know, Brand, you’ve made some really nice things.” Ethan’s gaze flicked toward the front porch where a sign hung that Brand had made a few years back. It had been a gift for his mother, an intricate design of scrollwork with the family name at the center. In fact, Brand was working on a similar piece for Beau and Amy to hang outside their new home.

  “I still don’t see why you have to go in the middle of the night.” Ethan folded his arms on top of Dancy’s stall, his foot hooked casually on a low rung.

  “When am I supposed to go, Ethan? The work here keeps me busy all day long just the same as you.” Brand tried, probably in vain, to keep the resentment out of his voice.

  “Brand, we’ve been talking for years about hiring some help around here. And now, with Caleb gone and Dylan’s responsibilities in town taking more of his time, he only sleeps here once or twice a week. He’s never home to do any real work.”

  That much was true. Caleb had returned to school out east right after Amy’s wedding five months earlier. Not that he had been a lot of help with his bookkeeping jobs keeping him busy most days. But, he had usually been around for morning and evening chores. Now, Brand was doing the bookkeeping himself, and he and Ethan were doing the chores along with everything else.

  Dylan started out as a volunteer deputy before even finishing his schooling and with the retirement of Sheriff Johnson more than a year ago, had been voted in as the new Sheriff. Recently, he had taken to sleeping in the small room at the back of the Sheriff’s office and taking his meals at the hotel. Brand didn’t begrudge either of his brothers their opportunity to do what they wanted…too much.

  “Come on, Ethan. You need your beauty sleep,” Brand teased as he led the way out of the barn and across the yard. Ethan snorted.

  “Aw, Brand, you know I’m already the handsomest of us Callahan brothers.”

  “Ha! Well, I’m not sure what to say to that without sounding as vain as you,” Brand snickered as he opened the door to the house.

  “This place is a mess.” Ethan wrinkled his nose as he took in the pile of dishes in the basin and laundry strewn about. “I think we weren’t appreciative of all the work Amy did around here. Maybe we should hire a housekeeper along with those cow hands.”

  “Go to bed, Ethan. We can worry about all that in morning.” Brand stifled a yawn as he pulled off his boots and tossed them in a corner.

  “Yep, it’s getting awfully uncivilized around here.” Ethan eyed Brand’s boots wryly as he started up the stairs and laughed when Brand’s balled up sock hit him in the back of the head. “Good night, Brand.”

  “Night, Ethan.”

  Chapter 2

  For the next two weeks, Brand continued going to the blacksmith shop only now he left after dinner and returned long before midnight. Brand’s work around the ranch improved and thus, his relationship with Ethan. He supposed it had been silly to keep his desire to continue working at the smithy from his brothers. Brand was pleased, however, with result of the piece he had made for Amy and Beau. It was different from the one he had made for his mother, which had been a series of scrolling lines wrapped around the name Callahan. Daisies, Amy’s favorite flower, surrounded this new piece with the Weston name at its center. It had been a long and tedious process to stamp out petals and weld the pieces together, but the result of his work was gratifying and he felt confident Amy would enjoy it.

  In fact, he and the boys were headed to Amy and Beau’s for dinner. The sign lay in the back of the wagon, carefully wrapped in thick brown paper. Brand was happy to have dinner away from home. It would be a welcome change of pace, eating something other than his own cooking, or worse, Ethan’s.

  Ethan was right about one thing; they definitely missed having their sister around the house, especially at meal time. Amy was a darn good cook and housekeeper. Brand had been mulling around the idea of hiring someone to help out with the household chores, but it would hardly be proper to bring a woman to stay with two bachelors. However, he sure hated doing domestic chores along with everything else.

  “Beau built a nice little home for our girl,” Dylan commented, distracting Brand from his own thoughts as the team started up the lane leading to the house. He nodded in agreement. And it was true, the little two-story home was well built and c
ozy. It was a perfect home for Amy and Beau as they started out their new life together. Beau had been adamant that he and Amy needed a place of their own, even though Claire would have welcomed them at the larger ranch house. The smaller house was a half a mile from the main house and so far, the arrangement was working out well for everyone.

  “Yeah, I still can hardly believe our little Amy is married and living on her own. Don’t seem possible,” Ethan sighed, shaking his head.

  “Our little Amy ain’t so little anymore,” Brand remarked, remembering Amy’s eighteenth birthday celebrated shortly before her wedding.

  “That just means we’re getting older,” Ethan complained, his smile crooked.

  “Well, Brand’s the only one who needs to worry too much, huh, old man,” Dylan teased, playfully elbowing Brand’s ribs. Brand grunted, unwilling to rise to the bait. Dylan was right; however, Brand wasn’t getting any younger. And it seemed, especially since Amy’s wedding, he was becoming more aware of the things missing in his life. Surely, there was more to life for him than working cattle and evenings spent at the forge.

  “Just look at her,” Ethan interrupted Brand’s musing, his face split in a wide grin.

  Brand looked up and couldn’t stop his own smile. Amy stood on the front porch, her hand shading her eyes from the late afternoon sun as she watched her brothers drive up the lane, a dish towel slung haphazardly over her shoulder. Even from this distance Brand could see the broad smile lighting her face. It had been a good day, the day he’d given his little sister away in marriage to Beau. For years, he had watched his little sister agonize in love with his long-time friend. It had been a relief when Beau returned home after punching cows for a couple of years. And even more so as Brand realized Beau’s feelings for Amy were as strong as they had ever been. He couldn’t think of a better man for his baby sister than Beau Weston.

  “She sure looks happy,” Dylan mused, a small smile tugging the corners of his mouth. If Brand didn’t know better, he would think his brothers looked a bit wistful. And he had to admit; Beau and Amy made marriage look good.