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

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “Okay,” Caleb said. “You’ve got control. Now let her go.”

  “First, tell me where my merchandise is.”

  “What?” George jumped up from his chair. “They’re—I mean it’s—gone? Are you sure?”

  “What do you take me for, an idiot? The camper’s empty. The lock’s broken. From the outside,” Bruno added, glaring at Ralph. “What did you do?”

  “What I did,” Ralph said, “was change my mind. Our deal’s off.”

  “Off?” Bruno bellowed. “Off? Nobody backs out of a deal with Bruno McGuire and walks away.”

  “I’ll just have to find some other way to pay you,” Ralph told him.

  “You said you didn’t have any money.”

  “I don’t,” Ralph admitted. “But I’ll find some somewhere.”

  “Where’s my merchandise?”

  “It’s gone,” Ralph said calmly.

  “Gone?” The freckles on Bruno’s face stood out in sharp relief. “What do you mean gone? Gone where?”

  “That’s not important.”

  “The hell it’s not. You better tell me.” Bruno tightened his hold on Melanie. “And I mean right this damn minute, Pruitt. I’m through being nice to you. I want my merchandise, and I want my money.”

  “You’re not getting them,” Caleb said.

  “Who the hell are you? This is between me and Pruitt.”

  Caleb clenched his fists at his sides. “Let her go.”

  “Let her go,” Ralph said, “or you get nothing.”

  “Take her, then.” Bruno shoved her away, hard.

  She stumbled.

  Caleb sprang forward and caught her. “Are you all right?”

  Panting slightly, she nodded. “Just dandy.”

  “Now, where’s my merchandise?”

  Melanie had heard all she could stand from this bully. She turned around in Caleb’s arms and faced Bruno. “They aren’t merchandise, you bloodsucker, they’re people.”

  “They’re mine. I want them back.”

  “They’re gone,” she told him. “It’s not like you’re even out any money, considering what they paid for the ride.”

  “Gone where? I want them back.”

  Melanie stepped from Caleb’s embrace. He started to hold her back but didn’t want to start a struggle just then. But when she took another step toward Bruno, he had to fight himself to keep from leaping after her.

  “You can’t have them,” Melanie hissed.

  “If you don’t tell me exactly where they are, somebody here is going to get hurt.” For the first time, Bruno himself pulled a pistol from beneath his jacket. He aimed the gun at Melanie’s head. “You wanna be first?”

  “Maybe you want to be first.” Fayrene appeared out of the darkness behind Bruno’s back, pressed the barrel of her.45 to the back of Bruno’s neck, and cocked the gun. “I don’t like men who threaten my baby. Gentlemen, your guns on the floor, please, or your boss is going have a real pain in the neck.”

  Bruno sneered at Ralph. “You let your women do your speaking and your fighting for you?”

  Ralph grinned. “Every chance I get.”

  “That’s usually enough,” came Sloan’s voice from the living-room doorway, “but every now and then his neighbors like to get in on the game. Guns on the floor, gentlemen.”

  Caleb’s knees nearly buckled in relief. Leave it to Sloan to have such perfect timing. Justin was with him, of course, but when their grandmother stepped up between them with her Winchester.30–.30 deer rifle, Caleb hooted.

  Seeing the new firepower aimed their way, Bruno and his men dropped their weapons to the floor.

  “And don’t expect any help from those two yahoos outside,” Justin offered with a cheesy grin. “They’re going to be tied up for a while.”

  “Welcome, neighbors,” Ralph said. “’Preciate the visit.”

  “You would do the same for us,” Rose said easily.

  “Anytime,” Ralph said. “Anyplace.”

  Before anything else happened, Caleb and Melanie gathered up all the discarded weapons: two shotguns and four pistols. Of the original two groups involved, Fayrene was the only one who managed not to be disarmed.

  “Now see what you’ve done,” Bruno said to Ralph. “All you had to do was pay your debt in the first place and none of this would have happened.”

  Ralph nodded. “You’re right, of course.”

  “Who cares if he’s right?” Melanie said fiercely. “Just because you owed him money doesn’t give him the right to send his creeps snooping around in our barn when they think no one’s around.”

  “When did this happen?” Ralph demanded.

  “Never mind that,” Melanie said.

  “Twice in the past few weeks,” Caleb supplied. “When she was here alone.”

  Ralph flushed in anger. “I’m sorry, Mel. I wish you’d told me.”

  “Forget that for now. Your debt didn’t give him the right to do that, and it didn’t give him the right to threaten you into letting him use this place to smuggle illegal aliens into the country.”

  Bruno started blustering, but Melanie cut him off.

  “Here’s how it’s going to be, Bruno. You’re going to get the money Daddy owes you, and you’re going to leave this ranch and never come back. You’re going to write off the Mexicans as a loss, even though you didn’t lose a dime, you actually made money off them. You’re not going to look for them, and if you accidentally find them you’re not going to threaten them or harm them in any way. Do you have a problem with any of that?”

  “You’re damn right I do. I paid to have that merchandise brought in. It’s mine and I want it.”

  Melanie remembered the hideous condition she and Caleb had found those poor people in. She walked to the counter where they’d placed all the weapons and picked up her revolver. She aimed it at Bruno’s head and said, “If you say one more word about those people, just one more, I’m going to shoot you between your shifty little eyes. Same goes if you or anyone you know comes near this ranch or my family or those people again.”

  A trickle of sweat made its way down Bruno’s left temple, but he managed a credible sneer, looking as if his dearest dream was to get his hands around her throat. “You’re bluffing.”

  With her right thumb, Melanie cocked the hammer on her revolver. “Am I?”

  There was a taut moment of silence but for the hum of the refrigerator. Then Fayrene stepped forward and patted Melanie’s shoulder. “Heaven knows the cockroach deserves killing, baby, but think of the mess we’d have to clean up. You know how you hate to clean the kitchen.”

  Always helpful, Justin piped up. “If you’re really set on shooting him, Mel, we can take him outside. That way you wouldn’t have to clean up anything.”

  “And if you shoot him,” Sloan added, “you won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  Ralph chuckled. “As much as I appreciate all the suggestions, I guess we should stop teasing these fellows and send them on their way. The sooner I’ve seen the last of them the better I’ll like it.”

  Bruno snarled. “You won’t see the last of me until I get my money and my—”

  “Ah-ah-ah,” Melanie said. “You weren’t going to mention something that as far as you’re concerned no longer exists, were you? No, of course you weren’t. You didn’t get where you are today by being stupid.”

  “Where he is right now?” Fayrene asked. “You mean, in the kitchen, being held at gunpoint by a couple of women?”

  “All right, girls,” Ralph said. “That’s enough. Let’s let these gentlemen be on their way.”

  Melanie heaved a sigh of disappointment. “Okay, Daddy, if you’re not going to let me shoot him.”

  “That’s a good girl,” Ralph told her.

  “But before they leave, wait just a minute.” Melanie dashed out of the room. She was back a moment later and handed Bruno a check.

  “What’s this?” Bruno asked, incredulous.

  “It’s what Dad
dy owes you. You’re all paid up now, so we won’t be seeing you again. Right?”

  “A check?” he cried. “You expect me to take a check?”

  “It’s good. It won’t bounce.”

  Bruno laughed. “Honey, I’m a bookie. Bookies deal strictly in cash.”

  “Well, this time you’ll take a check.”

  “Cut your losses,” Caleb told him. “This is the best offer you’ll get around here.”

  The family didn’t wait for Bruno to agree. They ushered him and his men out the door and kept their guns at the ready until all the bad guys had driven away.

  When Bruno and his men were gone, Fayrene offered to fix breakfast for everyone, but Sloan, Justin and Rose thanked her and declined. They needed to get back to help Emily with the Mexicans.

  Ralph offered his hand to Justin, Sloan, then Rose. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did for me tonight.”

  Rose waved his thanks away. “Don’t think a thing of it, Ralph. That’s what friends and neighbors are for.”

  “Still…” Ralph hung his head and blushed.

  “Don’t go getting all embarrassed, Ralph,” she told him. “Not with me. A little gambling debt’s nothing to worry about. My grandfather was hanged for a horse thief.”

  “I never knew that,” Melanie said.

  “It’s true,” Rose declared. Then she turned to Caleb. “Are you coming home with us?”

  “Not just now,” he told her.

  “That’s fine, then.” She put her hand on Caleb’s shoulder and added softly, “She’ll make the perfect addition to the family.” She winked and walked away with his brothers.

  “What did she say?” Melanie asked.

  Caleb smiled. “Nothing.”

  Melanie noticed her father’s dejected expression and decided to lighten the atmosphere a little. “Since when was your grandfather a horse thief?” she asked Caleb.

  “Not my grandfather, hers. And he wasn’t a horse thief, he was just hanged for one. And he didn’t die, because the guys doing the hanging, who were his brothers, by the way, were drunk. They threw the lynch rope over a thin, dead branch, and it snapped. Which was good, because the next day they realized the horse they thought he’d stolen was his own.”

  Seeing her father chuckle, Melanie thought about kissing Caleb right then and there. Instead, she shook her head. “I know you have a colorful family, but I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “It’s true.” Caleb held up his right hand, palm out. “I swear.”

  Melanie turned to her father. “Are you buying any of this?”

  “Why not? After a night like this, I’d believe just about anything.”

  “It has been a hell of a night,” Fayrene agreed.

  “Well, I’ll tell you all right here and now,” Ralph said. “I’m through with gambling. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “That’s good,” Melanie said, “because that money I paid him is the last that will ever leave the PR coffers to pay off a gambling debt. I mean it, Daddy, not another penny, not ever again.”

  Fayrene bristled. “Don’t you talk to your father that way. You be nice to him.”

  Thinking to leave the room and give the family their first privacy of the night, Caleb straightened from where he’d been leaning against the counter and took a step across the floor. “I’ll just—”

  Melanie put a hand on his chest. “Stay put, coward. We don’t have a single secret left from you anyway.” Then she turned to her mother. “You’re a fine one to talk. He’s your husband and you don’t even live with him.”

  “How do you know I’m not changing my mind about that?”

  The look of hope that sprang to her father’s face brought tears to Melanie’s eyes.

  “Are you?” Ralph asked. “Do you mean it? Are you coming home?”

  Fayrene propped her hands on her hips and thrust out her chest. Like steel filings to a magnet, Ralph’s gaze zeroed in. Fayrene smiled. “Under two conditions.”

  Ralph swallowed, but his eyes were locked on the piping outlining the yoke of her shirt. “Just name them.”

  “Number one, no more gambling. Not a single penny. Whatever you’ve got down on next weekend’s OU–Texas football game, you can forget.”

  Ralph had the good grace to blush. He had, indeed, already placed a bet on the game. Still, he nodded. “Done.”

  “I mean it, Ralphie. You go gambling again and I’m gone, for good this time.”

  “You got it. You said two conditions. What’s the second?”

  “That you don’t ignore me the way you used to.”

  Ralph blinked in surprise. “Ignore you?”

  “By working all hours of the day and night, dragging in way past dark, so tired you can’t hold your eyes open, let alone have a conversation. I’m your wife, and I want some of your time and attention. I want you to talk to me, watch a TV show with me now and then, maybe even go out to a movie or something. I want to be treated like a wife, not a live-in housekeeper.”

  Ralph swallowed. “I guess you’re going to have to help me out on that. Remind me when I’m slipping up.”

  “You can be sure I will. And the first thing you’re going to have to do is hire more help around this place so you don’t work yourself into an early grave. I’m way too young to be a widow.”

  Melanie felt the need to butt in. “Mama, there’s no money to hire back the men we usually have, much less extra help.”

  “It’s really that bad?” Fayrene asked. “I can’t believe that.”

  “Believe it. I still haven’t figured out how we’re going to pay for Lucy and Ethel.”

  “Who?” Ralph asked.

  “Never mind,” Melanie said. “What I mean is, we’re broke.”

  Caleb stepped forward. “If you’re going to make me stay for this conversation, then I get to contribute to it.”

  “Go ahead,” Ralph told him. “Like she said, after tonight we sure don’t have any secrets from you.”

  “You should take on a partner.”

  “A partner?” He said it as though Caleb had suggested he grow an extra head.

  “Someone to buy a share of the ranch for cash, and who would take part of the day-to-day workload off your shoulders. That solves two of your problems right there—cash, and more time to spend, uh, doing whatever.”

  Ralph was already shaking his head before Caleb finished. “I’m not about to let some stranger buy part of the PR, come in here and tell me how to run my own ranch.”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that. You wouldn’t want to sell a controlling share. You wouldn’t want him to have a share larger than yours. Melanie owns half the ranch, doesn’t she?”

  Fayrene blinked. “We really don’t have any secrets.”

  “Ah, come on, Miz Pruitt, you know how close Melanie and I have always been. It’s not like she blabs

  everything to everybody, but she talks to me. But she owns half, and the two of you have a fourth each. You could leave Mel with her half, then take the other half, that right now is split in two, and split it in thirds, instead. Or any other way you wanted to split it.”

  Ralph crossed his arms. “Hmmph. Who would want to go along with a deal like that, buy into a broke ranch, then work it, to boot?”

  “What about me?” Caleb offered. God help him, Ralph had just given up gambling, and Caleb was taking the biggest gamble of his life with this offer.

  “You?” Melanie asked, puzzled.

  “Why you?” Ralph asked, sharing a quick look with his wife.

  “Because,” Caleb said, his heart thundering against his ribs, “I don’t figure Melanie will want to live on the Cherokee Rose after we’re married, so I’ll need to live here. As for the work, I have to have something to do all day, right?”

  “Married?” Ralph asked, skepticism plain on his face.

  “Married?” Fayrene’s face lit with hope.

  “Married?” Melanie shrieked. “Who says we’re getting married?”

&nbs
p; “I do. You said you love me. I love you, too. Marriage is the next logical step, right?”

  “If that’s a marriage proposal,” she said heatedly, “it’s the dumbest one I’ve ever heard. I know you haven’t been kicked in the head lately. Maybe aliens came down from space and took over your body, because I don’t know you.”

  Caleb sauntered over toward her. “Sure you do. I’m that other brother. Your best friend. I can’t do the bended-knee thing and give you a proper proposal because that would mean I was treating you differently from when we were just friends, and you said you didn’t want that.”

  The fluttering in Melanie’s stomach rose up to tickle the inside of her throat. Her hands shook, so she clasped them behind her back. “Maybe I’d make an exception. For this, I mean.”

  If she laughed in his face and made a joke of it all, Caleb didn’t know what he’d do. But the look in her eyes, the fear tinged with a touch of what looked like hope, had him taking a deep breath and dropping to one knee.

  “Melanie, will you marry me and be my best friend, my lover, my partner, for the rest of our lives?”

  A tiny cry escaped before she clamped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes filled with moisture. She blinked rapidly so she could see him clearly. She wanted to remember this moment for the rest of her life.

  “Well?” he demanded, growing concerned when she didn’t answer.

  Melanie threw her arms wide and fell against him. “I thought you’d never ask!”

  Caleb squeezed his eyes shut and held on to her for all he was worth. Damned if he would ever let her go.

  “Did you hear that, Ralph? Oh, my. Our baby’s going to marry Caleb.”

  “How about that,” Ralph answered. “How about that.”

  Caleb heard them say something else, but he couldn’t make out the words over the pounding of his own heart. Something about somebody named Lucy and somebody else named Ethel, but since he didn’t know anyone by those names, he let it go.

  “I love you,” he whispered to the woman in his arms. “I love you.”

  “Oh, Caleb, I love you, too. Are we crazy?”