How was she supposed to sleep when he hadn’t tried to kiss her again?
She rolled her face into her pillow to muffle a groan of frustration. She was out of her mind. Perverse. Crazy. Stupid. She wanted to kiss him again. Wanted, maybe, more than that. Yet when the opportunity arose, she pushed him away, or ran.
Stupid.
But why did her best friend suddenly have to be so damn appealing?
Caleb didn’t have as much trouble going to sleep as Melanie did. But once he slept, he dreamed. About green eyes, dark hair, smooth skin. No fear in those eyes, but warmth, welcome. The afternoon in the hay barn, in his dream, was spent much differently than the reality. They had, indeed, set the hay on fire. Figuratively speaking.
Beneath his rough fingers her skin felt like silk. Beneath her touch his skin felt on fire.
In the dream there had been no need to work buttons, fumble with zippers. Their clothing melted away, letting the warm air caress every inch of them, as they caressed, tasted, every inch of each other.
He took her down onto the fresh, fragrant hay. In his dream it was loose and soft rather than baled and prickly. She reached for him and pulled him down into heaven.
He woke at 3:00 a.m., hot and hard and sweaty.
He nearly laughed out loud. He hadn’t wanted a woman this badly in a long time, and it felt good. Damn good. Too bad he couldn’t do anything about it.
Of course, he had options, but they were limited.
He could knock on Melanie’s door and hope she didn’t keep a gun in her bedroom.
Naw, bad idea.
He could take a cold shower, as distasteful as that sounded. But the noise of the shower would probably wake Melanie, and how would he explain taking a shower at 3:00 a.m.?
In frustration, he rolled over and buried his face in his pillow to stifle a groan.
The next morning started out more calmly than the one before. No hangovers, no hitting each other with shovels. No breath-stealing kiss in the kitchen. Just bacon and eggs and pancakes.
While Melanie started breakfast, Caleb headed for the back door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I thought I’d turn the mares out.”
“Why don’t you cook and I’ll take care of the mares.”
“The whole point of my being here is so you don’t go out to the barn, or anywhere else, alone, in case those goons come back.”
“But it’s okay for you to go alone? I don’t think so.”
“Come on, Melanie, you’re—”
“If you were about to say I’m a girl—”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. We’ll eat, then go out together.”
“A very sensible plan. How do you want your eggs?”
With breakfast behind them and the kitchen cleaned up, they headed out for the day. They let the chickens out, then the mares, and cleaned out the stalls. Every step Melanie took, Caleb was right beside her. They invariably reached for the same bucket, the rake, the pitchfork at the same time, ending up tangling their fingers together more than once.
By the time they finished in the barn Melanie was almost used to the constant tingling that shot up her arm every time their hands touched.
She started to complain. There was plenty of room, no need for him to crowd her so damn much. But she had the feeling he was just waiting for her to gripe at him. She decided not to give him the satisfaction.
They loaded fencing supplies—T-posts, post pounder, wire, come-along, fencing pliers, staples, and more—into the back of her pickup and followed the path they had driven the day before to the field where the fence needed repairing.
They installed a new T-post halfway between the broken wooden post and the next post on either side, took out the broken one and restrung the barbed wire, fastening it securely to the new posts.
It was inevitable, with two people working together on such a chore, for their shoulders to occasionally brush, their knees to bump, their hands to touch. Accidentally, of course. Every touch an accident. Almost every touch.
Sometimes, however, he was a little too casual about it, telling Melanie that some of the touching was on purpose. Such as when he reached across her for the fencing pliers and his forearm brushed slowly, lightly against hers.
Sharp tingles of awareness flooded her. Her nipples peaked. Her breath caught.
“Sorry,” he said.
Melanie wasn’t buying it. He looked entirely too innocent.
All right, pal, she thought. Two can play this game. “No problem,” she told him quietly. “Oh, no!” she cried as she smeared dirt all down his arm. Accidentally, of course. “Now I’m the one who’s sorry. Here, let me.” She stripped off her gloves and gently stroked the dirty spot.
He jumped as though he’d been shot. “It’s just dirt. Leave it.”
“No, I think there’s a scratch under there. It could get infected.” She reached into the toolbox and pulled out one of her packaged towelettes. “This’ll just take a second.”
But instead of wiping off the dirt, Melanie cradled his forearm in one hand and used the other to caress the soiled skin. She brushed carefully from elbow to wrist, barely touching, applying no pressure. Then she did it again, sideways, following the pattern of hair growth, inner arm to outer, inner to outer.
His arm jerked in her hand, but he didn’t pull away. She did, however, hear him swallow rather heavily.
She had to fight to keep from doing the same. Her ploy to tease him seemed to be backfiring, if the spike in her pulse was any indication. The sight of her pale hands on his bronze skin made her heart pound.
“There.” Her voice was a little too breathy for comfort. “All clean, and no cut at all.”
He swallowed again, cleared his throat as he turned away. “Thanks.”
He didn’t brush or bump or rub against her again. It didn’t seem to matter. She was as aware of him as if he were stroking her bare flesh.
They finished the repairs, then drove along the fence checking for any other trouble spots. They found a place where a tree had fallen and pulled the fence between the PR and the Cherokee Rose down with it. It was just lucky that neither ranch had any cattle nearby.
As they hauled out their supplies again, Caleb said, “I can’t believe in all these years we haven’t just put a gate in this fence so we can go back and forth when we want.”
Melanie paused and looked at him. Then at the fence. “I’ve thought the same thing a dozen times over the years,” she admitted.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I thought it was a dumb idea.”
“What’s dumb about it?”
She shrugged again. “Nothing, now that I think about it.”
He grinned at her. “You game?”
She grinned back. “Why not? We could rig a Texas gate out of wire.” A Texas gate consisted of strands of wire fastened to a stationary fence post at one end and a loose, unplanted post at the other. Loops of wire on the opposite post held the loose post in place to close the gate. Simple, effective.
“Let’s do it,” Caleb said.
She laughed. “What’s Sloan going to say?”
“Or your dad,” Caleb said.
“Hey, if he can’t take a joke, to heck with him. Besides,” she added grimly, “he can’t get much madder at me than he already is.”
Caleb rested a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, the two of you will work it out.”
She gave him a wry smile. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I am.” He turned her and held her gently by both shoulders. “You and your dad are closer than any other two people I know. He’s worried about his debt, you’re worried about the ranch. You’ll work it out.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I am. And you know he won’t mind about the gate.”
She smiled. “No, he won’t mind.”
“Well, then, let’s get it done.”
Cha
pter Five
It was another long night for Melanie, but the reasons were somehow different from the night before. Today, not only had she felt the sharp physical pull toward Caleb, the hot sexual tension, but she’d also been reminded of his kindness, and his sense of fun.
How was a woman supposed to resist all of that? Why would a sane one even want to try?
She must have eventually fallen asleep—although she had seen 2:00 a.m. come and go on her bedside clock—because she woke at her usual five o’clock.
Bleary eyed, she stumbled from the bed and down the hall to the shower. Ten minutes of hot water pounding on her head helped make her feel more like a human being. She put on her robe, shoved her wet hair back with her hands and opened the bathroom door.
And ran smack into the hard wall of Caleb’s chest.
“Oomph,” was the closest way to describe the sound she made. Yet even with most of the breath knocked out of her she had no trouble feeling the solid warmth of his bare chest against her face and hands as she tried to catch herself.
“Whoa.” Caleb stepped back and steadied her by clasping her arms. “Sorry. Guess I was still half-asleep. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Or she would be, if she could convince her hands to remove themselves from his pecs. Oh, the man had glorious pecs.
“You sure?” he asked, his fingers flexing on her upper arms. “You look a little dazed.”
She caught herself leaning closer to him and jumped back. “I just haven’t had my coffee yet. I’ll, uh, go start breakfast while you shower.”
Caleb turned and watched as she beat a hasty retreat to her bedroom. He entered the bathroom and closed the door, taking in the scent of her soap and shampoo that lingered in the air.
That was no lack of coffee he’d seen in her eyes. She was just glad to see him, or his name wasn’t Caleb Chisholm.
By the time he stepped into the shower, he was whistling.
“What’s on today’s agenda?” he asked over breakfast.
Melanie had given herself a stern lecture while she dressed and another while she cooked. Caleb was her friend, and he had volunteered to help her around the ranch. If she didn’t get a grip on herself she would end up drooling all over him, and wouldn’t that be a pretty sight?
But she was steady now, and prepared to act normally around him. If it killed her.
“Since you’re here and willing to work, I thought we’d saddle up and move the Angus herd up to the corral for their worming. You know, the glamorous part of ranching.”
“Well,” he offered with a slight smirk. “The riding might be glamorous, but I’d have to argue about the worming.”
An hour later they were saddled up and riding toward the pasture where the purebred Angus herd grazed. There were only a dozen head of the black cattle, not counting the bull, Big Angus, who was kept in a separate pasture.
It was a glorious morning, warm and bright, the smell of cottonwood leaves turning for the season teasing the air. The call of bob-white quail was music on the breeze, with a counterpoint of the creak of leather, a cow calling her calf.
“If there’s any better life than this,” she said, staring up at the blue, blue sky, “I can’t imagine what it could be.”
“There is no better,” Caleb said.
They rode on at a walk, in silence. Melanie felt an emotional closeness with Caleb that she’d never felt before. At times like this she believed they were more than friends, they were kindred spirits, two people with like values who enjoyed the same things, believed in the same things.
“Mind if I ask you a question?” Caleb said.
She tilted her face to the sky and took in a deep breath. “Right now I feel so good you can ask me anything you want.”
“It’s personal, and maybe none of my business.”
“Oh boy, this ought to be good. Go ahead. Shoot. I might even answer it.”
“If you don’t want to, that’s okay. If the subject makes you uncomfortable we can drop it.”
She peered over at him. “Now you’ve got my curiosity up.”
He gave a slight shrug and gazed out over toward the woods on the far side of the empty pasture they were crossing.
“It’s about Sloan.”
Melanie laughed. “He’s your brother. I doubt there’s anything I can tell you that you don’t already know.”
“Except why you finally gave up on him when you say you did a couple of years ago.”
“When I say I did?” she cried. “You still don’t believe me?”
“Don’t get your drawers in a twist. I’m—”
“Drawers in a twist?”
“—just trying to figure it out in my head and I don’t get it. One day you were chasing after him, crying when he wouldn’t return your feelings, the next you’re saying you’re over him. How does that work?”
Melanie came close to telling him to mind his own business, but considering how many times over the years she had used his shoulder for a crying pillow, it seemed as though the subject of her feelings for Sloan pretty much was Caleb’s business. As close as she and Caleb had been all their lives, there was plenty she had never told him. Maybe it was time she did.
“When I was five years old Freddie Wilson threw me out into the middle of that pond over at your place. We were having a picnic or something. Maybe Fourth of July.”
“I remember,” Caleb said. “Sloan fished you out. What does that have to do with your getting over him?”
“I’m telling this,” she said. “Anyway, he didn’t just fish me out. He saved me.”
“Saved you, hell. That water didn’t even come up to your chin.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that. I was a good swimmer, but I thought the whole pond was as shallow in the middle as it was two feet from shore. When Freddie, the creep, threw me in I went under and came up spitting red, dirty water. My mother had tied my hair in pigtails, and I had these pretty, red-white-and-blue ribbons. Now they were ruined. I was so mad I wanted to scream. And my knee hurt where I’d scraped it on something. When I went to stand up I kept my leg bent, but the bottom wasn’t where I thought it should be, so I went under again.”
“And Sloan saved you.”
“From my earliest memories my mother used to read to me. Fairy tales.”
He chuckled. “‘Cinderella’?”
“Among others. Stories of knights on white steeds riding to the rescue of damsels in distress. The darkly handsome prince, older, wiser, a man of the world, saving the fair young maiden.”
“I’m sure I heard some of those same stories, growing up.”
“Maybe, but you guys get to be the knights and princes. You get to fight the battles, slay the dragons, defeat the villains and save the girl. For the most part, the girl—Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, whoever—is supposed to look pretty even in rags, keep a clean house, prepare gourmet food from scraps, always be a lady, and wait to be rescued by the man of her dreams.”
“What about Goldilocks? She had an adventure.”
Melanie shrugged. “She broke into a house, ate someone else’s food and went to sleep. She didn’t get to climb a beanstalk and face down a giant. She didn’t get to wield a sword to defeat some deadly monster. She ate and went to sleep.”
“Okay, okay. Small feet and looking pretty. I get it.”
“I doubt it, but anyway, there I was, five years old and thinking I was drowning. Then, out of the blue appears this beautiful, dark-skinned older man of thirteen. He wasn’t riding a white steed, but his bay was tied up to a tree at the edge of the pond. He waded in and lifted me out of the water with one arm. One arm. The only other person I knew of who was that strong was my father. Daddy had always been my hero. But that day Sloan took over the title. I was, as they say, smitten.”
“Sloan was your knight.”
“And my prince. And my hero.”
“Is there a point to this regarding getting over him?”
“I’m getting to it. Don�
�t get your drawers in a twist,” she added with a smirk.
“Touché.”
“Anyway, when I got home from the picnic all I could talk about was Sloan. If I’d been about ten years older I might have recognized the gleam that came into my mother’s eyes, but I didn’t. I just thought she was as excited about Sloan as I was. And in truth, she was.”
“She liked the idea of your needing to be rescued from the pond?”
“No, she liked the idea that the eldest grandson of Cherokee Rose Chisholm had taken notice of the only child—a daughter—of the Pruitt Ranch.”
“Holy Hannah, you were only five years old.”
“Which, in her mind, I think, gave me plenty of time to enthrall Sloan and make him my slave. Or some such nonsense.”
Caleb’s lips quirked. “Did you think it was nonsense?”
“At five I wasn’t thinking in terms of slaves. I was thinking that when I grew up Sloan would marry me, and I had to do everything I could to make sure that happened.”
“Good God. At the age of five?”
“What can I say? I was already programmed to become a wife and mother. Those were my goals in life. That, and being a cowgirl.”
He tossed her a cocky grin. “That goes without saying.”
“Thank you.” She gave him a regal nod. “I guess I have my obsession with Sloan to thank for learning to be a cowgirl.”
“How’s that?”
“It was something Daddy picked up from Mama. She used to say things like, ‘Eat your vegetables, honey, so you can grow up faster for Sloan.’”
Caleb snorted.
“Yeah, well, it worked. She would tie ribbons in my hair so I would be pretty if I saw Sloan. Everything she wanted me to do, she held out Sloan as the carrot. It got to the point where I believed I was supposed to eat and dress and groom and take naps to impress Sloan. Even Daddy got into the act, telling me how much more Sloan would notice me if I could rope a steer faster, saddle my own horse.”
“They brainwashed you.”
“Very effectively, but I went along with them. Eagerly, you might say, because to me he really was a hero. My hero. And when I got older and realized he was dating girls—other girls—it was okay at first, because I knew I wasn’t old enough.”
The Other Brother Page 9