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

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Caleb turned on the bedside lamp. “You’re not sick?”

  “Nope. I’m fine, fine, fine.” She looked at him and wiggled her eyebrows. “You’re lookin’ pretty fine yourself, Lips.”

  “I’ll ignore that. Let’s get these boots off.” He straightened her on the bed, then tugged off her boots, leaving her thick white socks on. “Better?”

  “Mmm.” She flexed her toes. “Oh, yeah.” She tugged her shirttail free and unbuckled her belt.

  Caleb swallowed. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting comfor—” She unzipped her jeans. “Comorb—” With a wiggle of her hips she started tugging the denim down her hips. “Comftorble.”

  He stood beside the bed, helpless to stop her, helpless to look away. Had her legs always been that long, that perfect?

  With a final kick of her feet the jeans did a neat little soar-and-dive and fell into a puddle on the floor.

  Caleb couldn’t look anymore. He reached across her and tugged the comforter until it covered her from the waist down. Feeling much better, and not a little proud of himself, he propped his hands on his hips and wished he knew why she’d felt the need to drink the way she had tonight. “Need anything else?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What?”

  She crooked a finger at him. “Come here.”

  He stepped closer. “What do you need?”

  “Come cos— Closer. Come closer.”

  “I’m right here, Mel.”

  She wiggled sideways on the bed, then patted the space beside her hip. “Here.”

  Caleb sat on the edge of the bed and leaned toward her. “What is it? Are you sick?”

  “No.” She shook her head, then closed her eyes and moaned. “Oh, I shouldn’t have done that. Remind me not to move my head again.”

  “Don’t move your head again.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. You want to tell me why you did this to yourself?”

  “You wanna kiss me again?”

  If she had needed to get his attention, she sure did it. “What?” he asked, certain that he did not want her to repeat the question.

  “You liked kissing me.”

  “Melanie…”

  She reached up and traced a finger across his mouth. “You’ve got great lips.”

  Caleb jerked his head back. Letting her touch his lips was not a good idea. Not when he wanted— badly—to taste hers. “Three pitchers of beer, huh?”

  She slipped her hands around his neck and locked her fingers together. “And your point is?”

  “Come on, Mel, let go.”

  “Not until you tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  She licked her lips. “Tell me you liked kissing me.”

  Lamplight glistened along her moist mouth, making him want to groan. Instead, he swallowed. “I liked kissing you.”

  “Then do it again.” She tugged him closer.

  “And have you accuse me tomorrow that I took advantage of you?”

  A giggle escaped her. “Oh, goody. You’re going to take advantage of me?”

  “I am not.” He pulled her hands from behind his neck, but she then slid them around his chest. “Come on, quit fooling around.”

  “Well, that’s typical. All I wanted was a kiss, and you want to fool around.”

  “If you weren’t three sheets to the wind I might just give you what you think you want.”

  “Promises, promises. Come here.” She tugged sharply, throwing him off balance. He caught himself on his forearms before crushing her beneath his weight. “You don’t have to take advantage of me. I’ll take advantage of you.”

  “Melanie.”

  “Caleb. I’ve never known you to talk so much. Are you scared of me?”

  Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that she wasn’t slurring her words quite as much as she had been, but the thought disappeared, along with his common sense, when he admitted, “Terrified.”

  But really, he thought, gazing into her eyes and on down that pert nose to those soft lips. What would it hurt if he kissed her? She wanted him to. And in the morning she probably wouldn’t even remember it.

  And that was disgusting. She didn’t know what she was doing. He had never taken advantage of a woman in his life. He wasn’t about to start with a trusted friend. This was Melanie, for crying out loud. She trusted him. He couldn’t betray that trust.

  “I’ll be gentle,” she whispered.

  “Melanie.”

  “Are you going to make me beg?”

  All the strength went out of his knees, his arms. He lowered toward her until there was nothing but a scant breath separating his mouth from hers. Then there was nothing at all, because he was unable to stop himself from taking what she offered. Giving what she asked for.

  Her taste was hot and sweet, with a hint of beer that made him smile against her mouth.

  When she traced his lower lip with her tongue, he forgot all about smiling. He forgot he shouldn’t be kissing his friend. He forgot that she probably didn’t know what she was doing. He forgot his own name. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care what his name was—he knew hers. It was Melanie. Sweet, sweet Melanie, who could be as soft as an angel one minute, sharp as a blade the next, and just now, in his arms—how had his arms come to be around her?—as fiery and lethal as a bolt of lightning.

  Then suddenly her mouth went slack, her arms slid from around his back to fall to her sides on the bed.

  Caleb raised his head and looked at her. “Melanie?”

  Her eyes were closed. She had passed out.

  It was a sign, Caleb thought as he pushed himself up and off of her.

  Damn. He didn’t even remember crawling on top of her. Another few minutes and he might have done something they would both be a lot sorrier for than a simple kiss or two.

  Not that kissing Melanie even began to resemble simple. They had too much history between then, as neighbors, as friends, for them to change the status quo without some careful consideration.

  He looked down at her sweet, familiar face, her sable-brown hair spread out messily across the pillow. He was halfway toward touching that hair when he stopped himself and backed away. He had no business touching her while she slept. No business standing over her, watching her.

  He turned off the lamp and left the room. As he stepped into the hall, a delicate snore followed him. He smiled.

  Chapter Three

  The sofa in the Pruitts’ living room was almost long enough to allow Caleb to stretch out. Almost, but not quite. During the night, he was certain he’d set a new record for tossing and turning, if anyone kept track of things like that. Now the sun was coming up, yet he felt as if he hadn’t slept a wink.

  Of course, sleep might have come easier if he hadn’t kept seeing Melanie’s long, bare legs, and the lower edge of her white lace panties every time he closed his eyes.

  Her father hadn’t returned, and Caleb hadn’t been able to go home and leave her alone last night. The girl he’d known since childhood, the woman she had grown into, would not have gotten drunk last night, or any night, without a damn good reason. It wasn’t like her.

  Maybe he’d been right Saturday night. Maybe she really wasn’t over Sloan. Caleb couldn’t think of anything else that would bother her so much, and he knew her well. But a broken heart? Yeah, that would do it for Melanie. She might act tough as nails, could be as hard and mean as she had to be when the situation warranted, but she had the most tender heart on the planet.

  When he crawled from the sofa it took him a minute to straighten up. He should have slept on the floor. It might have been harder, but at least it wouldn’t have been too short.

  He went to Melanie’s door and found her sound asleep, sprawled on her back, her hands over her head as if in surrender. No way was he waking her.

  He checked again to see if her father had returned, but there was still no sign of Ralph Pruitt. On a ranch at six-thirty on a Tuesday morni
ng there was always work to be done. Where the hell was the man?

  Caleb went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. While it brewed he stepped out the back door to have a look around. The air was cool and damp, the wind light. From the chicken house across the driveway came a noisy fuss and clatter, hens bickering amongst each other, a couple of roosters crowing for all they were worth.

  Not knowing if the Pruitts let their chickens out during the day or kept them penned and safe from predators, Caleb decided to leave the birds alone and headed for the barn instead.

  There he found three pretty mares pacing restlessly in their stalls.

  “Good morning, ladies. I bet you’d like to get out of there. How about a handful of oats first? Maybe a little grooming?”

  * * *

  Melanie came awake in slow, painful stages. Then wished she hadn’t. Her head! How had a hammer ended up inside her head, and who the devil was banging it against the inside of her skull?

  “Somebody shoot me, please,” she moaned. The beer. Why, why, why had she drank so much beer? For that matter, how had she drunk that much? She’d never been able to hold that much water in one evening, let alone beer.

  Too bad she hadn’t gotten even drunker. Maybe then she wouldn’t be remembering… Good grief! What had she done? Caleb brought her home and had been sweet enough to take care of her, tuck her in, and she had…she had… She’d done something, she knew she had. It involved mouths and lips and tongues, but it was all fuzzy in her pain-fogged brain.

  In sheer misery she rolled to her side. The light from the window blinded her.

  Light? Good grief! If it was that light, it was late. She’d slept half the morning away.

  The mares! Oh, those poor babies.

  Melanie tossed the comforter aside and pushed herself up. Every muscle and joint screamed in protest, and her stomach heaved. She wrapped her arms around her gut and moaned.

  “I will not throw up. I will not throw up. I will not throw up.”

  She waited, breathing deeply, to be sure the mantra was going to work. When everything stayed settled, she slid off the side of the bed and tested the strength of her legs. Since they seemed to work, she staggered from the bedroom toward the back door.

  Coffee. The aroma reached out and tempted her to pause for a cup of sustenance, but she feared that if she gave in, it might be an hour before she was able to force herself outside, and the mares were surely impatient by now, wondering what had happened to her. Much longer and they’d be kicking down their stalls.

  She steeled herself against the seductive smell of coffee and opened the back door. Only then, as the rush of cool air made goose bumps rise on her legs, did she look down at herself. She was wearing last night’s shirt and bra, panties, socks, and not a damn thing more.

  To heck with it. She jammed her feet into the extra pair of boots she kept by the door and slammed outside. It was cool but not cold, and there was no one around to see her.

  At the sound of the door slamming, the chickens set up a clatter in their fenced pen surrounding the chicken house.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Melanie called. “I’m coming, babies.” It had long been accepted on the PR, although reluctantly by most, that their chickens were for egg production, not for the frying pan. At the age of six, when Melanie caught her mother wringing the neck of a hen that had stopped laying, Melanie had cried for three days and refused to eat. She most especially had refused to eat Esmeralda, her favorite pretty bird.

  Her parents had tried and tried to explain the realities of ranch life, of where food came from, but Melanie hadn’t budged. She could eat beef. The ranch produced so many steers each year, and they kept them for only a few months, out in the pastures. She never really had much of a chance to get attached to any of them.

  The chickens were a different story. There were a scant dozen of them, and they were right there by the house all the time, and her parents had never warned her not to get attached, not to name them, not to pet the tamer ones.

  Eat them? No way!

  Of course, her attitude made her the butt of many a joke among her friends, but she didn’t care. To her, eating one of her own chickens would be like eating the family dog. She could eat the Colonel’s chicken, or the grocery store’s, without a qualm. But not her own.

  She entered the chicken yard, leaving the gate open as she scattered grain on the ground. The birds would wander in and out through the day, but they wouldn’t go far; the hens were attached to their nest boxes and the scratch Melanie fed them every day.

  The mares were waiting, so Melanie didn’t linger. Her boots scuffed a fast trail across the gravel and dirt to the barn. It was only as she neared that it dawned on her that the barn door was open. She was positive she had closed it before leaving with Justin the evening before. She would not have been so careless as to have left it open.

  Hearing what sounded like a voice coming from inside the barn, Melanie darted to the side of the big door. Steam bubbled inside her, along with a small dash of fear. If one of those goons her father owed money to had come to the PR again as they had a few months earlier to demand she pay her father’s debt, there would be hell to pay.

  Hearing another low murmur, Melanie slipped through the door and into the deep shadows of the first stall, which was open and empty. For once she was glad her father had taken to leaving tools there instead of putting them away where they belonged. She would have preferred a pitchfork, but the shovel in the corner would do just as well. Quietly she picked it up and peered down the center of the barn.

  A man stood at one of the mare’s stalls, his back toward Melanie.

  Melanie gritted her teeth and gripped the shovel tightly in both hands. No stranger snuck in and messed around in her barn, by damn. She crept soundlessly across the dirt floor of the barn. The creep never heard her coming. She hefted the shovel in the air, and when she knew she was close enough, she swung.

  She would never know if she made a sound, or if some sixth sense alerted him to her presence. Either way, just as she swung, he stood and turned.

  Caleb!

  With a shout of protest he raised an arm to fend off the blow.

  Melanie tried to halt her swing, but it was too late. She did manage to shift her aim, thank God. The steel spade whacked him solidly on the shoulder rather than the head, where she had originally aimed. Still, the ring of the connecting blow echoed through the barn. As did Caleb’s brief grunt of pain.

  “Oh no!” Melanie cried.

  “Damnation, woman, what the hell was that for?”

  “Caleb, I’m sorry. I thought— I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  He grimaced and rubbed his shoulder. “What do you think? You whacked me a good one.”

  Now that she realized he wasn’t seriously hurt, Melanie was disgusted with herself. She must be more hungover than she’d thought not to have noticed Caleb’s pickup, which, now that she thought about it, was parked outside the back door of the house. Idiot that she was, she had walked right past it without paying attention.

  Even without noticing his pickup, she should have recognized, even from the back, a man she had known her entire life. Should have recognized a voice nearly as familiar to her as her own.

  “What I want to know,” Caleb went on, “is why?”

  “Never mind.” She tossed the shovel aside and took him by the arm. “Let’s get some ice on that shoulder.”

  “I’m all right.” He pulled free of her. “Let’s get the mares taken care of first.”

  Melanie was torn. Taking care of Caleb was a need. The mares were a responsibility. Caleb was right. The mares came first.

  It took mere minutes to see to the mares and turn them out into the pasture for the day, then she was back at Caleb’s side, leading him toward the house. She took him into the kitchen and pushed him down onto a chair at the table.

  “Take off your shirt,” Melanie said as she turned away and opened the freezer.

  “All you had to do wa
s ask,” Caleb said. “You didn’t have to hit me with a shovel first.”

  “Very funny.” She pulled out a clear, zippered plastic bag of corn kernels. She had grown the corn, sliced the kernels from the ears herself and had the nicks in her knuckles to prove it. She turned back toward Caleb, but stopped where she stood.

  She had seen him without a shirt before, many times, she was sure, but she didn’t remember the sight of his bare chest ever causing this hitch in her breathing before, or this sudden need to swallow. To touch. To feel.

  The hangover must be having an even stranger effect on her than she’d realized. With a shake of her head she carried the frozen corn to him and gently placed it over the red spot on his shoulder.

  “You’re not going to kiss it first?”

  Melanie narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re sure full of yourself this morning. What are you still doing here, anyway? You look like you slept in that shirt.”

  “I could say the same, but at least I’m wearing jeans. Not that I’m complaining about your clothes, or lack thereof. Actually, I kinda like this look on you.”

  Dumbfounded, Melanie looked down at her bare legs. “Oh.” In her book, there was nothing that looked more ridiculous than the combination of cowboy boots and bare legs. With her socks showing out the tops of the boots, no less. “Ugh.”

  Then she glanced up at Caleb and realized he was not looking at her boots with the socks showing above them. His gaze rested somewhat higher, namely the end of her shirttail, which was almost embarrassingly high on her thighs. “Pervert.” She reached out and pinched his uninjured shoulder.

  “Hey, what was that for?” He rubbed the new red spot. “Got another bag of corn?” he grumbled.

  “Baby.” She tried to step away, but he put a hand on her hip. She stopped instantly. His touch, through the cotton of her shirt, was warm, and felt much more intimate than it should.

  “You didn’t think I was such a baby last night,” he said quietly, his gaze capturing hers and holding it like a magnet.

  Melanie’s pulse jumped. “I…don’t remember much… about last night.”