by Amy Lillard
“Chase doesn’t stay mad long,” she said, then went back to the task of putting candles on the mile-wide birthday cake spread across the big wooden table. “Did she do it?”
“No.”
“And you still put her in jail?”
“She confessed, Mama.”
“I thought I raised you better than that. She’s practically your family and the first chance you get, you go and lock her up.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he played it safe and just kept his mouth shut. After a long silence his mother continued.
“I think she’s expecting you to ask her to the Cattle Days Picnic.”
He frowned. “Jessie?”
“Millie.”
“And why would she think something like that?”
“Now, Seth. You’re not getting any younger. Millie’s a good girl from a good family. If the two of you were married—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, not sure whether he should be annoyed or amused. “How did we get from a date to Cattle Days to marriage?”
“I’m just saying, that’s all.” She gave a slight shrug of one shoulder. “It’s high time that we had some more grandchildren around here. And you’re not getting any younger.”
“I believe you’ve already mentioned that,” Seth replied.
“Well, it’s true.”
And it was. But . . .
“Mama, I—” And just how did he finish that? I love Jessie? “I’ll think about it,” he managed.
She tilted her head to one side in that thoughtful pose she struck when she was meddling, but trying not to appear that she was meddling. It was a look he knew well. “I wouldn’t wait too long if I were you. Ethan Davis was asking about her earlier.”
“He was, huh?”
“You wouldn’t want to let a fine girl like Millie slip through your fingers.”
“I don’t suppose I would,” he said.
“But you’re a grown man. Old enough to make your own decisions.”
“Yes, I am.”
She stared at him a moment as if she couldn’t figure out why he was being so stubborn; then she went back to the fine details of the cake.
Her attention elsewhere, Seth ran one finger along the edge of the icing for a quick taste and got a swat for his efforts.
“Seth Langston, you stay out of this cake if you know what’s good for you. Grandma Esther worked all morning on it. She’ll have your hide if she comes in and finds your finger tracks in it.”
“Not a problem.” He grinned. “I’ll just blame it on Jake.”
“That didn’t work when you were twelve, young man. It’s not going to work today.”
He turned and smiled as Esther Langston entered the room. Thin and feisty, his paternal grandmother—despite her eighty-plus years—was hell on wheels on her good days and a force to be reckoned with on her not so good ones.
She pointed a gnarled finger at him. “You been in my cake?”
He plastered his best innocent look across his face. “No, ma’am.”
“Don’t you lie to me, boy. You know where you go for lying?”
“Houston?”
Evelyn stifled a laugh.
Grandma Esther shook her head, then turned accusing eyes to her daughter-in-law. “Too much cheek, that one. Now come over here and give your grandmother a kiss.”
Seth did as he was told, bestowing a small, affectionate peck on her wrinkled forehead. Despite her sass and brass, she had a marshmallow center, and he loved the old bird with all his heart.
“Cake looks real good, Grandma.”
She harrumphed and started criticizing Evelyn’s candle placement. But his mother was used to her and kept right on doing as she pleased.
“Where’s my brother?”
“New Mexico,” Evelyn answered without missing a beat.
He didn’t know whether she was being deliberately obtuse as a joke or she was so consumed with Chase that she automatically thought of him first. He was afraid it was the latter. “My other brother.”
She looked up from the cake, her eyes sad, her lips pressed together in a thin line. “He’s in his office.”
“Is he okay?”
“As well as can be expected. Each year I think it gets a little easier. But he puts on a brave face for Wesley’s sake, so it’s hard to say for sure.”
Seth nodded. “I’ll go see about him.”
“That one’s crooked, Evie.”
“What about Millie?” his mother asked as she adjusted the candle and he headed out of the kitchen.
“I’ll only be a minute.”
“And then you’ll go find her?”
“You need more sprinkles on this side here,” Grandma said.
“It’s a possibility,” Seth answered.
“And ask her to the Cattle Days Picnic?” Evelyn shook more sprinkles on the left side of the cake.
“We’ll see, Mama,” he said, then started down the hallway to Jake’s office.
He rapped twice on the thick wooden door, then stepped inside at his brother’s distracted-sounding summons to enter.
If there was nothing like coming home, then surely there was nothing at all like entering the enormous office that had once been JT Langston’s and now belonged to his second eldest son. Aside from Jake’s framed diplomas that hung on the wall to the left and a snapshot of Wesley that sat on the large mahogany desk, Seth would bet that nothing had changed since his father’s death nearly fifteen years ago. Stepping inside was like stepping back in time. But in a good way.
Not that the ranch was running the same as it had been in his father’s day. No, Jake had taken the Diamond into the twenty-first century and beyond. He worked long and hard—probably too long and too hard, given the fact that it was his daughter’s fifth birthday celebration, and he was chained to his desk.
Except Jake wasn’t working. At least he didn’t appear to be. Unless there was some New Age ranching technique that required a cowboy to sit at his desk, his elbows braced on its surface, his head buried in his hands.
He didn’t move as Seth approached. Not good. A squatty glass of amber-colored liquid sat near, and Seth was afraid that the heartbreaking memories of the day were more than Jake could handle.
“Tell Sonny I’ll be there in a minute,” Jake said his voice muffled, tired.
“You’d better come now. The clown canceled, and you’re the only one who can wear the suit.”
Jake jerked up at the sound of Seth’s voice, rising out of his seat as if he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Like maybe brooding. Or drinking.
“When’d you get here?” he asked, walking around the desk.
Jake was the tallest of the Langston boys, topping Seth and Ty by at least an inch and Chase by several. He had the same green eyes and dark, dark hair inherited from their father. But what Seth noticed most in his brother’s face the most were the brackets at the side of his mouth, the product of stress and grief. The light salting of gray at his temples and the tiny little lines that fanned out from his Langston eyes, memories of days in the sun and long-ago laughter. But Jake seldom laughed anymore—only for Wesley. He rarely smiled anymore—only for Wesley. And Seth had to wonder at the irony of the one thing that brought his brother joy was the one thing that had taken it all away . . . Wesley.
Seth looked at the tumbler. “A few minutes ago.”
Jake caught the direction of his stare. “It’s iced tea.”
“I knew that.”
The eldest Langston shook his head and smiled a sad little smile that barely touched his lips. There was no hope of the movement ever reaching his eyes. “No, you didn’t. You thought I’d fallen off the wagon.”
Seth feigned innocence. “Who, me?”
“Don’t even try to lie. You we
re checking up on me, and I love you for it.”
“Good, because I’ve got a favor to ask.”
Jake didn’t comment, just raised a dark brow and waited.
“I need to put this in the safe until the party’s over.” Seth held out the bank envelope Jessie had given him.
Jake whistled under his breath. “Is that what I think it is?”
“No, it’s not a payoff. I told you when I took this job I’d be honest and trustworthy.”
Jake chuckled, then shot a pointed look at the stack of twenties. “That sure ain’t lunch money.”
Seth crossed to the wall safe and pretended preoccupation in getting the combination correct so that he didn’t have to answer. At least not right away. He just wasn’t sure how much to tell Jake. He set the money inside, shut the door, then turned back to face his brother. “It’s the money to fix Chase’s truck.”
“And you have it why?”
Seth took a minute to answer, unsure of whether he was ready for the fallout from the truth, yet unwilling to lie all the same. “Jessie gave it to me.”
“Is it true you made her spend the night in jail?”
Seth pinched the bridge of his nose and wished that he hadn’t left his hat on the kitchen table. If anything he could throw it at Jake—for old times’ sake. Instead he took a deep breath and counted to ten. “She confessed.”
“But did she do it?”
“You know, there I was. Chase was screamin’, half the town was watchin’, and Jessie was confessin’ . . .”
“Did she do it?”
“And then there’s the whole Homecoming ’08 thing. . . .”
“Yeah, but did she do it?”
Seth looked his brother square in the face and expelled a pent-up breath. “No.”
“And you made your brother’s girl spend the night in jail. For a crime she didn’t commit. That’s cold. Even for you.”
“I was hoping she would break down and tell the truth.”
“You’re talking about Jessie McAllen, right? ’Bout this tall, red hair. Kind of impulsive.”
“I know, I know. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Jake nodded and a long brotherly silence stretched between them.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Jake finally said.
“Did you think I wouldn’t show?”
His brother shook his head, a wistful smile barely curving up the corners of his mouth. “Nah, I’m just glad.”
“You’re just hoping to get out of this whole clown thing,” Seth said as he led the way to the door.
“About that,” Jake returned, following him and turning off the office light on the way out. “Not a good joke. The clown is the only entertainment we have.”
Chapter Five
Langston family get-togethers usually included the entire ranch and half of the town. Wesley’s party was no exception. Aside from the traditional clown that Evelyn hired every year, Jake had arranged for “pony” rides on a gentle old mare named Ginger for the younger children and a heavy plastic dummy bull had been dragged from the barn into the yard to entertain the others. The older boys were practicing their throws while the adults finished up the last of the cake and watched from the large green tent that had been set up for the occasion. Seth knew that it wouldn’t be long before a few innings of softball or a not so friendly game of powder-puff football broke out.
“Uncle Seth, watch me!”
Seth smiled and waved to prove he was doing just that as Wesley tried her hand at roping the plastic bull. Wesley was all Langston, though she was the spittin’ image of her mother. With her blond hair and enormous brown eyes, the only things she seemed to have gotten from her father were the slashing dimples on either side of her bow-shaped mouth. Dressed in a red T-shirt, cutoff Wranglers, and once-shiny-but-now-covered-in-dust brown ropers, she looked every inch the tomboy she had been raised to be.
As Seth watched she settled the rope easily around the bull’s head and turned back to smile at him under the brim of her straw hat.
Seth gave her two thumbs-ups just as a pixie in purple denim shorts and a pink T-shirt with a smear of chocolate icing on the front came screaming into view. Seth prided himself on knowing his community, but he had never seen this child before. Though with the current oil boom, the county was filling up with families that he had yet to meet. Her dark hair was curly and tangled, the sparkly tiara perched on top, glittering in afternoon sun. Her chocolate brown eyes were vaguely familiar. She couldn’t have been more than four, her feet in their scuffed red cowboy boots pumping furiously as she ran from Denny Anderson, one of the ranch hands’ boys. Denny carried a small grass snake in one hand, a wicked smile on his little-boy face.
“You stay away from me or I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what?” Denny leered at her.
“She’ll sic the sheriff on you,” Seth drawled.
Denny stopped, his grin instantly falling from his face.
“Hi, Sheriff Langston,” he said sullenly, dropping the snake to the ground, where it slithered off harmlessly.
The pixie, knowing an ally when she found one, slipped behind Seth, wrapping her chubby little arms around his legs.
“Go on back to the party, Denny.”
“I was just playin’.”
“Go on.”
“It wasn’t poisonous,” he added as he dragged his feet and returned to the group of boys taking turns “riding” the oil barrel that had been rigged between two trees.
“Layla?” a voice called. “Where are you?”
“Mommy,” the imp behind Seth cried. But instead of letting him go, she clutched him even tighter.
That need for a family of his own reared its ugly head once again. Was there such a thing as a male biological time clock? If so, his was currently gonging like Big Ben. Given half a chance, the pint-size cowgirl princess would have his heart for her very own. Seth looked up to greet her mother and instead found . . .
Millie Evans.
“Hi, Seth.”
The years had been good to her. Seth couldn’t see much difference in the Millie he had known then and the one who faced him now. Oh, she had a few little creases at the corners of her deep brown eyes and they were filled with the wisdom that only age can bring. She was a tad curvier than he remembered, but all in all, she was the same girl he’d known practically his whole life. “I heard you were back.”
She nodded, the moment between them familiar and yet uncomfortable. Nostalgia urged him to lean in and kiss her cheek, to take her hands into his own, but too many years had passed and he stopped himself from acting on the impulse. “Layla and I got into town a couple of weeks ago.”
“She’s yours?” He remembered now hearing through the grapevine that Millie had a daughter.
“Most days,” she answered with a smile, the wind stirring the ends of her dark brown hair as she twisted the obviously Layla-made macaroni necklace around the fingers of her right hand.
“I’m sorry to hear about you and . . .”
“Travis.”
Seth nodded.
Millie shrugged and let go of the necklace. It fell with a slight rustling noise against the soft cotton of her faded green T-shirt. “People get divorced all the time. Your mama tell you about that?”
“Of course.”
Millie shook her head. “She’s found a reason to drive out to the ranch every day this week.”
Seth smiled. “She means well.”
“She’s a great lady.”
Seth could only nod.
“I heard that you made Jessie McAllen spend the night in jail.”
“Good news travels fast.”
“So does bad news,” she murmured. “Did she do it? Did she really trash Chase’s truck?”
Seth looked over to where Jessie h
ad retreated behind the lens of her camera, snapping off frame after frame of the day’s festivities. Sissy Callahan stood nearby, and judging from the tense line of Jessie’s shoulders, the conversation between them was anything but friendly. “Does it matter?”
Before she could answer, a cloyingly sweet voice drifted between them.
“There you are. I swear, Seth, I’ve been lookin’ all over the place for you.”
“Hi, Darly Jo.” Seth hoped the smile on his face was welcoming, or at the very least not too close to the grimace it really felt like. “You remember Millie Evans.”
“Actually it’s Sawyer.”
Of course she’d keep her married name. Divorced or not, she had a child with Travis . . . Sawyer. But to him she’d always be just Millie Evans.
There had been a time when Seth had thought that he and Millie would get married. They dated all through high school, started at UT together, but then she had decided during their senior year that ranch life wasn’t for her after all. She’d broken up with him the week before finals and eloped with a baseball player the day after commencement. Seth had thought his heart would never be the same. He’d accepted the job offer in California. Buried himself in every beach babe he could find. He had gotten over Millie. Proof positive that he’d get over Jessie too.
But more than that . . . maybe it was time to try to forget about Jessie. Try to get a life. Maybe even get married, have babies. No doubt with a little time he could learn to love someone else. No doubt about it.
“Of course,” Darly Jo said, echoing Seth’s thoughts as she nodded, then slipped her arm through his. “I’ve been lookin’ all over the place for you.”
“So you’ve said.”
She sidled up close to him, as close as humanly possible, and Seth resisted the instinct to push her away even though he could feel Millie’s questioning gaze on the two of them. Apparently Darly Jo was in an unusually possessive mood today. Just what he needed. His mother shoving Millie at him, Darly Jo tugging on him, and—
Just then Seth felt a pull at his legs and looked down to see Layla staring up at him, a mulish expression on her pixie face as she did her best to push him and Darly Jo apart. Darly Jo looked a bit startled, but seeing as she didn’t have any children of her own, she wasn’t sure how to react to the situation. She opened her mouth to speak—more likely protest—then thought better of it and instead decided to go for the “ignore it and maybe it will go away” approach.