The Chisholm Brothers:Friends, Lovers... Husbands?

by Janis Reams Hudson

  The poor man just didn’t seem to have any sense where women were concerned. And now, according to what little she’d gotten out of Justin when she ran into him in town last night, Sloan had gone and rescued another damsel in distress. And this one with two kids, no less.

  Melanie considered it her “sisterly” duty to check this woman out. Maybe a few well-placed words would send the bimbo packing.

  She picked up the box from the passenger’s seat—after all, showing up without a legitimate excuse wouldn’t do for this visit—and climbed out of the truck.

  On her way to the front door she glanced around but saw no one. They must all be out in one of the pastures or someplace. She hoped she’d timed it right and the woman would be alone in the house. But even if she wasn’t, Melanie could still ask a few pointed questions and form an opinion.

  She decided to be polite and ring the doorbell.

  When no one answered she rang again. Then it dawned on her that the noise she heard was probably the vacuum cleaner. It would be hard to hear the bell over that. She turned the knob and let herself in.

  She called out, “Hello!” and pounded on the open door.

  With the roar of the vacuum filling her ears, Emily worked around the pair of socks beside the recliner. The loud voice from only a few feet behind her startled her. She whirled toward the door.

  A woman stood there, dark, shoulder-length hair pulled back and tied at her nape, a clear, flawless complexion and bright green eyes.

  “Hello?” Emily said.

  “Hi.” The woman, about Emily’s own age, smiled. “I’m sorry to startle you. I’m Melanie Pruitt from next door.”

  “Oh, yes.” Emily remembered hearing the family speak of her. “The nearest neighbor.” She released the vacuum and extended a hand. “I’ve heard the family speak of you. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Emily.”

  Melanie met her offer with a strong handshake.

  But when Emily had released the vacuum—without, she would soon regret, turning it off—she must have jerked it or given it a small nudge. It suddenly made a horrible grinding noise.

  “Oh, my word,” she said with disgust. She had sucked up a sock. She shut the unit off immediately. The silence, except for the sound of the washer out on the utility porch, was blessed. “Excuse me a minute, will you?”

  She turned the vacuum on its side so she could get to the rollers on the bottom, and there was half the sock sticking out. She gave it a tug, then another, harder one. The rollers grudgingly turned backward and disgorged the sock.

  She grabbed its mate from beside the recliner and carried them both to the kitchen trash.

  “That’ll learn him,” Melanie said.

  Emily pursed her lips. “If only,” she muttered to herself. Then, “I’m sorry, but the family is all out somewhere on the ranch right now. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Oh, no, I just came over to drop off these.” She raised the box she held, but before she could say anything else, or Emily could see inside or ask what was in it the back door crashed open.

  “Mommy, mommy,” Libby wailed. “Mommy, I hurt myself!”

  “Libby?” Emily took off at a dashing run toward her baby. “What happened? Where are you hurt?”

  Libby wailed again, giant tears streaming down her cheeks. “Here.” She bent her arm up and pointed at her elbow. “I falled down.”

  “You fell down,” Emily corrected automatically. Libby knew the right word to use, but when she got upset she sometimes lapsed into baby talk.

  “I told her it wasn’t that big a deal,” Janie said with the disdain of one of advanced years. “It’s just a skinned elbow.”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “But I bet it hurts, doesn’t it, baby.”

  Libby sniffed. “Uh-huh.”

  It was barely a scratch, but Libby liked to milk life’s little injuries for all they were worth. This small scrape should be worth at least a little cooing, a bandage she could show off and a kiss or two.

  “Poor baby.”

  “Who’s that?” Libby asked, pointing at Melanie, already forgetting her injury.

  “I’m Melanie.” Melanie placed her box on the kitchen counter and came to inspect Libby’s elbow. “Looks like you got a pretty good boo-boo.”

  “That’s not a real boo-boo,” Janie said from where

  she leaned against the open back door. “It’s barely even an owie.”

  Janie, Emily thought with gratitude, had certainly come out of her shell since they’d arrived at the Cherokee Rose.

  “Melanie,” Emily said, “these are my daughters, Libby of the great and terrible wound, and Janie-the-Elder. Say hi to Miss Melanie, girls.”

  “Hello, Miss Melanie,” they said in unison.

  “Hello to you, too,” Melanie responded.

  “Excuse us a minute, will you, Melanie, while I take Libby to the bathroom and clean this up? Janie, come inside and close the door.”

  Janie started to comply, then stopped and shrieked. “Mother! Water! It’s spraying everywhere!”

  “Water? Sit here in this chair, Libby, while I see about this. Excuse me,” she added to Melanie.

  At the door to the porch Emily stopped short. “Oh, my word.” A geyser of water shot from behind the washer, where the hose from the washer connected to the faucet in the wall. It sprayed clear up to the ceiling, showering a good half of the porch. Washer, dryer, freezer. Walls, floor, ceiling. Sopping.

  Melanie took a look at the mess. “Yikes.”

  “Yeah.” Emily sighed. “Well, fixing it probably won’t take nearly as long as cleaning up the mess.”

  “Fixing it?”

  “It won’t take long.” Water splayed beneath each footstep as Emily stepped up to the washer. First she slapped the knob to shut off the machine, then she reached over to the wall and turned off the water at the faucet. At least it was the cold that was spraying. She wouldn’t have to worry about getting scalded. Which was a good thing, since she was already drenched.

  “Mommy’s all wet.” Libby giggled, forgetting her terrible injury.

  The problem causing the leak was easy enough to spot—the thick rubber hose had split at the fitting on the end. She didn’t suppose the Chisholms kept a spare hose lying around in some handy, obvious location. She couldn’t be that lucky.

  But she was that lucky. The gods of plumbing smiled on her when she opened the cabinet beneath the tool drawer. Right there in plain sight lay a package of replacement hoses for a washing machine.

  “I must be living right.” Finally. Finally something in her life went right. Thank you, Lord.

  Emily wasn’t a tool purist. If a good pair of pliers would do the job, she would take them any day over some fancy specialized wrench. She took the pliers from the tool drawer, the package of replacement hoses from the cabinet and set them on the dryer. Then she unhooked the split hose from the faucet.

  Now came the fun part. She had to pull the washer out from the wall; the hose connection was on the back of the machine, down near the floor. Impossible to reach without moving the machine away from the wall. But since it sat flush between the dryer on one side and the wall on the other, it had to come all the way out.

  It had to come out, regardless, so she could mop up the water and dry the floor. But if she didn’t take care of some of this water on the floor in front of the washer first, she was likely to slip and end up on her rear.

  When the floor before the washer was dry enough to suit her, she opened the lid of the machine, grabbed where she could and tugged. It barely moved. She repeated her efforts, grunting this time with exertion. It moved a little farther, but not much.

  “Need some help?” Melanie offered.

  “I think I do, if you can find a place to grab on.”

  Together they managed to pull the washer far enough away from the wall for Emily to crawl behind it and replace the hose. The hose, which, of course, still had water in it, but what the heck, she thought. It was still wet behind the
washer anyway.

  She took care of both the hose replacement and the rest of the water in short order, and Melanie helped her push the washer back into place.

  Then, to be safe, they pulled out the dryer so Emily could mop and dry the floor beneath it.

  The entire event took approximately ten minutes.

  “You know,” Melanie said thoughtfully, “something isn’t right, here.”

  Emily straightened from giving the floor in front of the door a final wipe with a towel and turned. “What do you mean?”

  “Well.” Melanie narrowed her eyes and tapped the tip of her index finger against her lower lip. “It’s true that I’ve never replaced a washer hose myself, but I’ve seen men do plumbing repairs like this and something’s missing.”

  Emily frowned. “The hose is replaced, the floor is dry and clean and the machines are back where they belong.” She reached over and turned on the water and started the washer again. It sounded perfect. “What could be missing?”

  “First, you didn’t use any swearwords.”

  “Not out loud, anyway. Little ears, you know.”

  “Hmm. Yes. But another thing, your knuckles aren’t bleeding, there are no new holes in the wall, you had the part you needed and you knew where it was.”

  Emily grinned. “I confess, all that’s true.”

  “But the main thing you did wrong as far as I can see is that you didn’t have to have three buddies over for a six-pack of beer in the middle of the project, while the wet laundry sat in the tub and soured.”

  Emily burst out laughing. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  “Mommy,” Libby called from the table, “what about my owie?”

  “I’m coming, baby. Excuse me, Melanie, I’ll just be a minute.”

  Melanie chuckled and stepped aside. “No problem. Take your time.”

  It didn’t take any time at all to carry poor, wounded Libby to the bathroom and tend to her scrape, and they were back in the kitchen with Janie and Melanie.

  Emily walked over to Melanie and stuck out her hand. “Hi. I’m Emily Nelson. You must be Melanie from next door. What can I do for you?”

  Melanie burst out laughing. “Oh, I think I’m going to like you, Emily Nelson. I think we should celebrate the new washer hose, and young Libby certainly deserves a reward for her owie. And Janie for sounding the alarm on the washing machine.”

  “A celebration it is, then,” Emily agreed. “I don’t think a small dip of ice cream will do too much harm.” She smoothed a hand over each daughter’s hair. “They’ll still eat like little piggies at supper tonight.”

  Libby scrunched up her nose and snorted like the little piggy she’d just been named.

  “Not only ice cream,” Melanie declared. “Our blackberries are going crazy this year. I brought a couple of pies.”

  “Oh, but you brought those for the family,” Emily objected.

  “Trust me,” Melanie said, lifting her pies from the box she’d placed on the counter. “If you’re living in their home, they think of you as family. Besides, I baked them, so I get to say who eats them.”

  “Well, then.” Emily took plates down from the cabinet.

  “We’ll have pie,” Melanie said.

  “And ice cream,” Emily added.

  “And ice cream. And you can tell me how you met Sloan and ended up out here in the middle of Oklahoma.”

  Sloan had wanted to come in that evening before everyone else. He’d planned it that way. He wanted, if possible, a few minutes alone with Emily.

  It wasn’t the first time in his life that he’d been hot after a woman, but this felt somehow different. He could recall plainly the feeling of looking forward to the next time he would see a particular woman. Pleasant anticipation, sometimes strong, sometimes merely… pleasant.

  Today’s feeling was different. More intense. He hadn’t thought, It’ll sure be nice when I get to see her again. No, he’d felt as if he had to see her again, and soon.

  Of course he’d known all day that she would be waiting at the house when he returned. He only wished he knew she was waiting for him, specifically.

  But coming in early meant leaving both his brothers, their two hired hands and his grandmother, to take up the slack in his absence. Leaving the men wouldn’t have kept him awake at night, but he couldn’t give even a passing thought to leaving his seventy-eight-year-old grandmother to help finish moving the cattle to new grass, and then check a few fences before heading in, just so he could go back to the house and coax another kiss out of Emily.

  So he clamped down on his impatience and tried to keep his mind on the task at hand, namely moving the cattle to fresh grass. He couldn’t justify heading in for another couple of hours, at least. There were still fences to be checked, and, when they got back, tack to be repaired.

  Rose rode up next to him. “I’m heading in for the day,” she told him.

  He eyed her critically. “Tired?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I can still outlast you all day in the saddle, Grandson, even at my age.”

  Sloan held up a hand. “Not saying any different. Just asking. You might not be tired, but I am.”

  “Ride back in with me. They don’t need us for this. I want to talk to you.”

  Sloan bit back a groan. Invoices. She was going to want to talk about this month’s invoices. Well, it couldn’t be helped. The ranch was a business, and it was theirs. No one else was going to take care of it. But damn, he hated bookkeeping.

  “Sure,” he told her. “Let me tell the others, and I’ll catch up with you.”

  Caleb was the nearest. Sloan rode over to him and told him he was riding back to the house with their grandmother and he’d see the rest of them there when they came in for the day. Then he caught up with her.

  He was glad she was going in. She talked a good game about being able to outlast him in the saddle, but she had no business spending all day on horseback at her age.

  Of course, he was only a mortal man, so he would never say such a thing within her hearing. It had been many years since he’d had his ears boxed, and he wasn’t fool enough to push his luck.

  He slowed his horse to match her pace. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “Windows.”

  “Pardon?” That certainly wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “What windows?”

  “The ones in our house. We have a lot of them, you know.”

  “And what? They need washing?”

  “Oh, probably, but they’re clean enough to see out of.”

  He hated it when she got cryptic. “And what have you seen out of our windows?” The instant the words were out, he knew.

  “Lots of things. My bedroom windows, for instance, look out over the backyard, the garden. The creek.”

  “The creek.”

  “I’ve seen two cute little girls playing in the yard. That’s a nice sight. The Cherokee Rose needs children.”

  Uh-oh, Sloan thought.

  “I’ve seen a pretty woman with yellow hair working in our garden to bring food to our table. I’ve seen my eldest grandson kissing that pretty woman.”

  “Spying on me, Grandmother?”

  “Ha!” She laughed. “You can’t stand out in the open and expect privacy around here. You know better than that.”

  “Okay, so what’s your point?”

  She looked at him then for the first time since he’d caught up with her. “I just wonder if you know what you’re doing.”

  Sloan couldn’t hold her gaze for long because, in truth, he wasn’t sure he did know what he was doing. “I’m just helping out a woman in need.”

  His grandmother’s lips twitched. She looked away, faced forward again. “And she needs help with kissing?”

  “You’re either trying to make me laugh, or make me mad.”

  “Neither. She’s a good woman.”

  Sloan was more than surprised at his grandmother’s words. Rose generally liked people, but she tended to be stingy with
her praise outside the family. “I’m glad you like her.”

  “I can see that you like her, too,” Rose said. “That is good.”

  “Now don’t start thinking there’s more going on than there is.”

  “I have eyes. I see the way you look at her, when you stop fighting the need to fill your eyes.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what you see. She’s only here long enough to get her car fixed and get back on the road to Arkansas.”

  “You’re going to simply let her go?”

  He looked at her, stunned. “Of course I’m going to let her go. She’s not mine to keep.”

  Rose let out a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose.”

  “Come on, Grandmother, look at her. A woman that dainty and delicate wouldn’t survive two months out here on the ranch. You don’t want me falling for another helpless female, do you?”

  “Of course I don’t. But if you think Emily is helpless, then you need glasses, Grandson. She’s a strong, competent woman.”

  “I don’t mean to say she’s weak or incompetent. I don’t mean that at all. It’s just— Never mind. She’ll be gone in a matter of days anyway, and that’s the end of this conversation.”

  Rose made a humming sound deep in her throat, but thankfully said no more on the subject. She questioned him instead on the condition of the hay crop, would they have enough stored to get them through winter if it was a hard one.

  “With all this rain we’ve been getting, we’ll have plenty,” he assured her. And damn, but it felt good to be able to say that. Some years they had to truck hay in from some other state that hadn’t been hit by a drought just to get the herd through the winter. Those years were a pure bitch.

  When they reached the corral, Sloan swung down from his horse. After Rose dismounted he took her reins. As much as he wanted to rush to the house to see Emily, he knew his grandmother was tired, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

  “I’ll see to your horse,” he told her.

  “Thank you, Grandson.” She patted his cheek. “I’m ready for a shower, and maybe even a nap, but if you repeat the latter, I’ll deny it.”