Home Is Where Hank Is (Cowboys To The Rescue 1)

by Martha Shields

  Hank followed them all the way upstairs, not uttering a word. Travis seemed oblivious of his presence, even during the several times Hank had to catch him as he staggered back off the stairs to the second floor. As they slowly climbed toward his bedroom, Travis kept up a broken stream of disjointed memories in the rooms they lurched through.

  Finally, he fell onto his bed. He bellowed once and grabbed his rib cage. Slowly his features softened from a grimace as sleep claimed him.

  Alex leaned over and pulled off his hat.

  “Sorry about all this,” Hank began.

  Alex waved him quiet. “You’re the one he’s abusing, not me.”

  Hank removed his own hat and raked tight fingers through his hair. “I don’t understand it. The last time we saw each other was at the rodeo. We got along better than we ever have. But he howled every time I walked into his hospital room, like I was punching him in the ribs.”

  Hank pulled her close and kissed her with a fervency that set her blood boiling, then he walked her to the door. “I heard you tell Claire you’ve got some soup on the stove. Why don’t you go dish it up, while I get Travis out of his clothes? It shouldn’t take long, now that he’s asleep.”

  Alex started to argue, then changed her mind. Hank seemed determined to take care of his brother, whether Travis wanted him to or not. She’d better let Hank do what he could while Travis was in no shape to argue. “Don’t be long.”

  “I won’t,” he promised with another kiss.

  Half an hour later Alex came upstairs to see what was keeping Hank. She found him stretched across his own bed with his boots still on. Shaking her head, she pulled off his boots and covered him with a blanket.

  She bent over the bed to kiss his cheek, rough from four days growth of beard. “Sweet dreams, cowboy.”

  Alex closed the door to the refrigerator. As the loud thump died away, she heard creaking on the stairs.

  “Travis?”

  She dropped two large packages of beef chuck into the sink and stepped into the hall.

  “Where’s Hank?” he demanded before she could say anything.

  “You shouldn’t be down here. What if you fell down the stairs? Go—”

  “I’m tired of being treated like a kid!” he shouted.

  By closing her eyes and counting to five, Alex refrained from informing him that he was treated like a kid because he acted like one. His temper sure hadn’t improved since she’d taken breakfast up to him. “I’m not treating you like a kid,” she said with more patience than she felt. “I’m treating you like an injured man whose mind is clouded with painkillers.”

  “Not today,” he said grimly.

  She placed her hands on her hips. “You didn’t take those pills I put on your tray?”

  His bruised, swollen chin rose a notch, and he steadied himself with a hand on the banister. “I flushed every damn one of them down the john.”

  “What’s going on?” Claire asked from the head of the stairs, still in her nightgown. “Oh. Grumpy’s up.”

  “He just told me he threw away all the painkillers the doctor prescribed.”

  Claire descended to the stair above Travis. “You did what? Why?”

  “I’m home now. I don’t need them.”

  “You idiot,” Claire shot at him.

  Alex threw up her hands. “Fine. Suffer.”

  “Where’s Hank?” Travis demanded.

  “He’s working,” Alex said. “Where else would he be? He left this morning even before I was up. Jed said he went to check on the herd. Hank was dead tired last night, but he lost two days going to get you.”

  Claire nodded. “Hank would get out of the grave to check on the herd.”

  Travis’s eyes narrowed. “He working close?”

  “All I know is he and the men will be home for lunch around noon.”

  His bloodshot eyes moved to the clock. “That’s an hour. I’ll wait down here.”

  He continued down the stairs, grimacing with every step.

  Alex and Claire exchanged puzzled looks.

  “Travis, you’ve been acting like a bear woke up on Christmas Day ever since you came to at the hospital,” his sister pointed out, hands on her hips. “What’s wrong?”

  He stopped and stared up at her a long minute, then descended to the next step. “I’ll be on the porch.”

  Alex sighed. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No.”

  She shook her head and returned to the kitchen, determined to ignore him. Claire followed.

  “A good night’s sleep didn’t do him any good, did it?” the girl said.

  “At least he seems clearheaded.”

  Claire harrumphed. “But it’s not an improvement. Is it lunchtime already? I thought I was heading down for breakfast.”

  “You want something now or are you going to wait?” Alex asked.

  “I’ll wait. Let me go get dressed, then I’ll come down and help you.”

  “Thanks.”

  As Alex worked on lunch, she could hear the porch swing squeak slowly. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something Hank had done or said was eating at Travis. Hank had left early, before Travis woke up, so he didn’t have a chance to learn what was bothering his brother. Now it looked like Travis came down determined to have it out. Knowing Hank’s mule-headedness and temper, and having had this glimpse into Travis’s, she hoped she wasn’t anywhere around when it happened. Maybe she could head them off until after lunch.

  Claire joined her twenty minutes later. Together they started cooking enough hamburgers to feed the troops while Alex kept a watch for Hank. Halfway through, she saw him striding across the yard.

  “There he is,” she told Claire. She didn’t have to say who. Alex hurried to the screen door, Claire not far behind.

  Travis didn’t get up as Hank stepped onto the porch.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” Hank demanded.

  “Go to hell, big brother.”

  Hank stiffened.

  “Travis!” Claire exclaimed.

  “Hank—” Alex began.

  Hank cut her off with a chopping motion of his hand. “I’ve had a bellyful of my little brother’s fits.” He pointed a finger at Travis. “You’ve been a jackass since the minute we walked into your hospital room. If it’s the pain—”

  “It’s not the pain.”

  “Then what the hell is it? I demand to know why you’re treating me and Claire and Alex like something you stepped in at the barn.”

  “Oh, you demand to know, do you?”

  “Damn straight.”

  Travis rose with a grimace of pain. “Hank, the great communicator, demands an answer. He has to know why I’m being such a jerk. Why should I tell you anything? You never return the favor.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a conversation I had with Ruff Lewis. You don’t know him, do you? He’s the foreman at the Box Seven south of Winslow, Arizona. It’s owned by a Japanese firm. He wanted to know more about the sale of the Garden. Seems his company is planning to put a bid on it.”

  Alex covered a gasp with her hand. She felt Claire stiffen beside her.

  Travis took a menacing step forward. “Is it true, big brother? Is the Garden up for sale?”

  Hank stared at his brother a long moment, then glanced at Alex and Claire. “I would’ve called you by now if you hadn’t gotten hurt. Now that you’re here we can discuss it face-to-face.” He ran a hand down his jaw. “We have to sell the Garden.”

  Chapter Ten

  As Claire cried, “No!” Alex stumbled through the door. She faced Hank, willing him to take back his words.

  He stared at her, his eyes unblinking, unreadable.

  Travis took another stiff step toward his brother. “When were you going to tell us? When you wanted our signatures on the papers?”

  Hank grabbed his hat off with one hand and ran the other through his hair. “Things aren’t final yet, but we’ve
got to decide soon. I told the agent I’d get back to him after I talked to you. Ruff’s Japanese firm has the highest offer.” He told them exactly how much it was.

  Travis cussed, Claire gasped and Alex glanced at the three Edens. So much money. How could they refuse? But how could anyone put a price on their home?

  “That’s an awful lot of money,” Claire said. “But where would we live?”

  “You’ll have enough money to get a place while you go to college,” Hank said. “And you can afford to go anywhere you like, not just a state university.”

  Travis walked to the edge of the porch and looked out over the ranch. “Grandpa Henry must be turning over in his grave. Dad, too. Edens have lived on this land for a hundred years, and you want us to sell out.” He turned to face his brother. “You’ve broken the barrier string this time, Hank. I’m not selling a single rock on this ranch.”

  “Then tell me how we keep it.”

  Travis was silent a long minute. “What the hell are you talking about? The Garden isn’t in financial trouble. You brought us out of debt years ago.”

  “And the politicians are working to put us right back in. I’m talking about property taxes, little brother. You don’t stay in one place long enough to have ever heard of them, but they’re killing the Garden. They rose seventy-five percent last year alone. Looks like they’ll rise again this year. Ranches have gone under all over Wind River Valley, one by one. Looks like ours is next.”

  Alex felt like the world was being ripped from beneath her. What she thought was solid ground suddenly shifted, leaving her drifting in space. She thought she’d found the home she’d been searching for all her life. The Garden seemed so permanent. Edens had been living on the ranch for nearly a hundred years. She’d been certain they’d be there for a hundred more. Her feelings for Hank were so mixed up with her love for the Garden that she didn’t know if she loved the man or the ranch.

  Suddenly the difference seemed important.

  “The hell ours is next,” Travis replied, drawing her attention back.

  “Then tell me how we keep it,” Hank roared. “I’ve been tearing my hair out for three years now, trying to figure it out. I can’t see any options.”

  “There are always options,” Travis said.

  “Give me one.”

  “How much are the taxes?”

  Hank named a sum that made Alex’s heart plummet She’d had no idea it cost so much to maintain a ranch. And that was just one expense.

  “I can cover that,” Travis said without blinking. “I’ve got enough winnings saved up to—”

  “No,” Hank said flatly. “I’m not taking your money.”

  Travis’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have any choice, big brother. You only own one-third of this ranch. You may control Claire’s share, but not mine. I will pay the damn taxes, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  Hank released a deep, frustrated breath. “Okay, say you pay them this year. Say you pay them next year and the year after that. Even as much money as you make on the circuit, you’ll soon run out.”

  “I’ll get a job instead of going to the university,” Claire offered, finally speaking up.

  “No!” her brothers thundered in chorus.

  Claire backed up a step at their vehemence. “But I could help—”

  “You can help by graduating and getting a good job,” Travis told her. “We’ve got the short-term solution down. We need to think of long-term now.”

  “But Hank said—”

  “He doesn’t want to take my money because he thinks losing the ranch is his fault. He thinks it means he’s failed. That he’s let down our father and grandfather and great-grandfather.” Travis met Hank’s eyes squarely, daring him to deny it.

  Hank was good at hiding his feelings, but not from Alex. Not anymore. She saw the pain clearly in the tightening of his lips, the muscle that twitched along his jaw. The wound Travis rubbed salt into wasn’t fresh, but it had been picked at a lot, and recently. Hank blamed himself for losing the Garden.

  Suddenly Alex knew how she felt—disappointed. And angry at Hank for not telling her or his siblings anything about his plans. But there wasn’t the soul-deep sense of loss that should have been there if the Garden was so vital to her happiness.

  Visions of the only home she’d ever known swept across her mind. She could see the house on Magnolia Street plainly even now. White frame with a high pitched roof, it had a deep, wide porch that ran around the front and sides. She could see the corner of the kitchen where she played with her doll listening to her mother hum as she cooked. Her mother’s big bed where she would run to safe, warm arms when something scared her in the night. The deep, cool porch where she and her mother would sit on hot summer evenings, watching the fireflies light up the night.

  Her mother. All the memories of that home were tied to her mother. It was her mother who made that old house a home, not the walls.

  At times the Garden seemed a larger version of the house she’d lived in with her mother. Alex had worked hard to make it shine, just like she and her mother did with their old house, with wax and elbow grease and love.

  But all that work hadn’t made the Garden hers, and it never would. What made it hers were the people who lived there—Claire and Travis and Hank. Most of all Hank.

  She knew now that her plan would never have worked. She couldn’t make a home without filling it with people she loved, people who loved her.

  Hank was her home, not the Garden.

  She loved Hank. If she hadn’t been sure of it before, she was absolutely, positively certain now. An enormous weight lifted from her heart, and she forced her mind back to the argument as Travis continued.

  “But it isn’t your fault, Hank,” the younger brother insisted. “Ranches are failing all over the country. The ones that survive are the ones that get creative in their thinking.”

  “Like what?” Hank demanded. “The price of beef hasn’t risen in years, but the costs of raising cattle sure has. So adding to the herd will only make it worse.”

  “Then let’s cut the herd.” Travis held up a hand to stop Hank from interrupting. “Hear me out. We can raise fewer cows and concentrate more on rodeo stock. The roping horses you train are getting a reputation nationwide. Hell, nine have gone to the National Finals in the past seven years. Cowboys ask me about your stock everywhere I go. We could probably sell four times as many as we do. We could expand that into a real business. Advertise. Hire a few more hands to help. Go to major shows.”

  A light went on in Hank’s eyes. “Think we could earn enough money?”

  “Hell, yes. Rodeo’s getting bigger every day, getting more professional, more specialized. In order to win, cowboys have to have horses trained by experts. They sure can’t train them themselves, not and be on the road three hundred and fifty days out of the year.”

  Hank rubbed his chin. “You might just have something there.”

  “Couldn’t we sell off part of the Garden if worse came to worst?” Claire asked. “The couple of hundred acres along the Wind River would probably bring as much as the rest of it combined. They’ve been building a lot of houses along the river in the past few years.”

  Travis shook his head. “I don’t want to give up a single tree. I suppose that’s an option if there isn’t any other way, but I think training rodeo stock is our best plan. What do you think, Hank?”

  Hank took hard looks at all three of them. Then his eyes shifted out to the land in question. Finally he said, “We need to talk about it some more, but I think it just might work.”

  An audible sigh escaped Travis and Claire. Alex felt like her bones were melting into the porch. She’d faced the devil inside her and stared him down. She knew exactly what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, where she wanted to be. She couldn’t wait to tell Hank. But now was not the time. Maybe after lunch—

  “Lunch!”

  She spun around and raced into the kitchen. Behind her, she
heard Travis suggest they move their discussion into the house, but she was too busy saving the hamburgers to care. When she’d rescued the ones in the pan and added another batch, she turned to find Claire and Travis watching her.

  “Where’s Hank?” she asked.

  “He’s upstairs getting cleaned up for lunch,” Travis told her.

  “What do you think about all this?” Claire asked quietly.

  Alex thought about that for a minute, then said, “As long as we’re together as a family, I don’t care where we live. But I have to admit I’m glad we’re staying.”

  Claire’s face lit up. “Then you’re going to stay?”

  “If Hank wants me.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Travis said with a grin. “In fact, I think you’d have to stick a knife in his heart to get away from him.”

  Alex smiled her thanks. “Why don’t you sit down in here? That way when you continue the discussion I can hear what you say and finish lunch at the same time.”

  Travis settled into a chair at the kitchen table but Claire pulled a stack of plates from the cabinet. The burgers in the pan began to sizzle as Travis rubbed his shoulder thoughtfully.

  “What I want to know,” Claire began as she set the plates on the table, “is what Hank was planning to do after he sold the ranch.”

  Travis shrugged. “I guess he planned to get a job.”

  “Right,” Claire scoffed. “Can you see Hank working for anybody else?”

  Their banter jarred Alex’s memory and words Hank said at the rodeo dance in Lander came back to her. As she realized their significance, her heart skipped a beat and she froze with salt upended over the pan.

  Travis shrugged. “He could be foreman on a big spread. That—”

  “I know what he planned to do.” Alex realized she was making a salt lick out of one of the burgers and set the shaker beside the stove. She turned to find their eyes on her. She swallowed with difficulty. “Rodeo.”

  “Rodeo?” Claire cried.

  “Are you sure?” Travis asked.

  Alex nodded. She leaned heavily against the counter as pieces of the puzzle that made up Hank Eden fell into place. As each piece fit, her happiness melted like snow swept by a warm Chinook wind. She’d thought he’d learned how to communicate, that he was opening up, letting her and his family know what was going on. He hadn’t learned a damned thing. The news about selling the ranch told her that. The realization that he’d only told her part of the truth about returning to rodeo made her certain.