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

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “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.”

  “And when you were old enough?”

  “He broke my heart,” she said quietly. Calmly. She remembered the pain, but no longer felt it. “I did everything in my power to get him to notice me, to like me the way I liked him. It never occurred to me to act any other way. Poor Sloan.”

  “Poor Sloan? Why do you say that?”

  “Are you kidding? All those years with me dogging his heels, showing up everyplace he went. Especially when I turned sixteen and Daddy fixed up that old pickup for me. I had wheels. I was mobile, could follow Sloan everywhere he went. God, how embarrassed he used to get.”

  “He didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  “I know. I know. But the only way he could have avoided that would have been to fall madly in love with me. And I think I knew that wasn’t going to happen long before I got that first set of wheels. And there you were, every time I got discouraged. You always let me cry on your shoulder, and you never tried to tell me to leave him alone, or that he would change his mind. You were just there.”

  Melanie drew her horse to a halt and waited for Caleb to do the same and face her. When he did, she held his gaze steadily. “Right where I needed you to be. Always. Did I ever thank you for that? For a lifetime of that?”

  “We were friends,” he said. “Are
friends. There was never any need for thanks between you and me.”

  “And that,” she said with a saucy grin as she nudged Jack into motion again, “is why I love you.”

  At her casual, breezy words, Caleb felt a heavy thump in his chest. He tried to laugh it off, but something was happening inside him that he didn’t understand. It felt like a gathering. Knowledge. Revelation. But it was unclear, fuzzy and just out of his reach. If he could only stretch out his hand far enough, he might be able to grasp it. Whatever it was.

  But first he needed to catch up with the woman who was swiftly driving him insane.

  A gathering of knowledge. Ha. Nonsense was what it was.

  He caught up with her quickly, then slowed his horse to walk beside hers. As far as he could tell, she had yet to answer his question.

  “So,” he said casually, “are you saying… what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that what I felt for Sloan was as much habit and suggestion as it was real feelings. I didn’t just wake up one morning two years ago and decided I didn’t love him. It was more a growing feeling—no, that’s not right. Not a feeling. A slow acknowledgment that what I felt for him was selfish and self-serving and superficial, and Sloan and I both deserved better than that. I decided to grow up, to give him a little peace for a change from my constant hounding. And if I sound as if that wasn’t a painful realization, it was.”

  Caleb tried to filter through everything she’d said to get to the guts of it. “Are you saying you never really, you know, loved him?”

  “I sure thought I did. But now when I look back, I don’t think I understood what love was. I’m not sure I know now, for that matter. But I should have wanted what was best for him, what would make him happy. But all I thought about was my feelings. That doesn’t sound much like love to me.”

  “Come on, give yourself a break. And I doubt Sloan ever felt hounded.”

  “He was just too sweet to ever say so.”

  “Sweet?” Caleb hooted with laughter. “I’ve never heard anybody call him that before.”

  “Okay, so he was never sweet. He was always nice to me, though. He treated me just the way he thought of me. Like a kid sister. Think how much grief I could have saved us all if I’d gotten the message a few years sooner.”

  They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then Caleb decided to just ask outright. “So, are you really over him?”

  Melanie threw her head back and laughed. “Yes, Caleb, I have been really over him for a long, long time. He’s the big brother I never had.”

  He gave her a wry grin. “I thought that was my role.”

  She snorted. “Hardly. I never thought of you as a brother. You were—are—my friend. My one true friend.”

  Her admission both humbled and liberated him. Freed him from some nagging worry he hadn’t even named. “What about Justin?”

  She laughed. “Justin’s my playmate.” A few moments later she spoke again. “Did I tell you what you wanted to know?”

  “That you’re no longer hot after my brother? Yeah.”

  “Caleb,” she said, exasperated, “I haven’t been hot after Sloan for a long time and you know it. Good grief, do you think I could have hooked up with Mark Shannon last year if I still had feelings for Sloan? If I had feelings for any other man?”

  Caleb stuck his tongue in his cheek. “Didn’t stop you from jumping into the back seat of Tommy Newly’s car your senior year of high school.”

  Melanie groaned and rolled her eyes. “Don’t remind me. What a disaster. Are you going to hold that over my head forever?”

  “I was so hacked at you over that I could have turned you over my knee.”

  “Ha. You could have lost a few fingers trying. I was the oldest living virgin, and it was a cinch Sloan wasn’t going to do anything about it.”

  You could have come to me. Caleb stiffened in sheer terror that he might have spoken those words aloud. Since she didn’t fall off her horse laughing, or throw her hat at him, he had to assume he’d kept his mouth shut. But the words were there, in his head. He refused to examine how long they’d been hidden in the dark recesses of his mind.

  “A girl had to do something,” she said with a defiant toss of her head.

  “Whatever,” Caleb muttered. He decided they’d had enough conversation. He wished he’d never brought up the subject of her feelings for Sloan.

  They rode on in silence, and Melanie was grateful. She had blabbered on like a fool. She was better off keeping her mouth shut.

  They clambered down an embankment and up the other side of a dry wash, which put them halfway to the Angus pasture. A few minutes later Melanie’s horse started favoring his right foreleg and nodding his head up and down.

  “Whoa, Jack.” She barely had to pull gently on the reins to have the horse stopping. “Hold up, Caleb.” She swung down from the saddle and rounded to Jack’s right side.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s favoring this leg.”

  “What happened?” He dismounted and joined her.

  “I don’t know. He just started limping.” She had checked each hoof, shoe and foot before saddling him, but she checked again, thinking maybe Jack had picked up a stone. But there was no sign of one, and the frog didn’t seem to be tender when she pressed on it.

  She didn’t have to go far above the hoof, however, to find the problem. “Feel this.” She pressed her hand over Jack’s right fetlock. She checked his left ankle for comparison and found it no warmer than it should be. “His right ankle’s hot.”

  Caleb placed his hand where she indicated and felt. “Yeah, it’s hot all right.”

  “He must have pulled a tendon, poor boy, or bruised it on something.” She stood and rubbed the horse between his ears. “Poor baby. We’ll get you home and take care of you.”

  “Rub on some liniment or alcohol, pack a little ice around it, he’ll be good as new in a few days.” He rose to his feet. “We’ll head back. You can ride with me.”

  Melanie spent another few minutes petting Jack and fretting over his leg. When Caleb remounted, Melanie handed him Jack’s reins. Caleb removed his left foot from the stirrup and held an arm down for her.

  Melanie gripped his forearm and he hers; she put her foot into the stirrup and, with a tug from Caleb, swung up to sit on the skirt behind the seat of the saddle. The horse moved restlessly beneath the new weight, seated farther back on his back than he cared for.

  “Easy, boy,” Caleb murmured. “It’s just Melanie. You all set?” he asked over his shoulder.

  Melanie gripped the cantle and settled her weight. “All set.”

  “You gonna hold on?” he asked.

  “I’ve got a nice grip on the saddle. Take off. I’m fine.”

  “If you say so,” Caleb muttered. He’d ridden the back end of a horse often enough to know that holding on to the saddle was no way to keep your seat unless the ground was smooth and level and you weren’t in a hurry.

  They weren’t necessarily in a hurry today, but she was going to have a hell of a time keeping her seat without holding on to him when they climbed up out of the wash.

  His horse didn’t seem to care how his extra passenger held on. He wasn’t pleased with the extra weight. Especially when that extra weight kept shifting and fidgeting instead of sitting still. The horse sidestepped restlessly and tossed his head.

  “Easy, boy.” Caleb patted the horse’s neck. “What’s wrong back there?” he asked Melanie over his shoulder.

  “Nothing,” Melanie claimed.

  “Then sit still, will you, before this fellow tosses us both in the dirt.”

  “I know how to sit a horse, thank you.”

  “Then prove it.” He reached around and grabbed her hand, placing it on his waist. “Hang on to me.”

  The minute he released her hand, she removed it from his side and shifted her weight again.

  The horse gave a small buck in objection. The action threw Melanie against Caleb’s back with a gasp
of alarm.

  Caleb swore. At the horse, at Melanie. “You all right?”

  “I would be,” she said, straightening away from Caleb’s back, “if this ornery beast would settle down.”

  “He’d settle down if you’d quit moving around back there. And he’s not ornery, he’s uncomfortable, and not too happy about that extra weight bouncing around on his butt.”

  “Are you saying I weigh too much?”

  “I’m saying you need to hold on to me and sit still.”

  He sent the horse down the incline into the dry wash.

  Gravity threw Melanie forward again into Caleb’s back. She tried to lean back but couldn’t. And she didn’t want to touch him. They had just had a long, friendly conversation, putting their friendship back on track, where it belonged. It was imperative that she not touch him, because touching him made her want to forget about friendship and move on to a more interesting relationship.

  Yet if she lost his friendship, she would lose a part of herself. A vital part that she wasn’t sure she wanted to live without.

  As soon as they reached the bottom of the ravine she leaned back, shifting her weight away from Caleb, and gripped the saddle again.

  The horse responded with another little bump with his hindquarters, bouncing Melanie a good two inches into the air. She came down with a hard umph.

  “Told ya,” Caleb muttered.

  Behind his back Melanie made a face.

  “Did you just make a face at me?”

  “What, have you got eyes in the back of your head now?”

  “No, I just know you.”

  They were across the wash and starting up the other side before Melanie could psych herself up enough to voluntarily touch him again. The climb was steeper than she’d realized. Reflex and instinct, along with the fear of falling, kicked in. With a shriek she threw her arms around Caleb’s waist and hung on for dear life. His warmth instantly seeped into her. The smell of her soap and his shampoo combined to tease her senses.