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

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “It was neither. It was, it’s late and I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “So do I. My horse probably forgot what I look like, I’ve been gone so long.”

  “If you’d stayed home instead of following me all over the state, you wouldn’t have that worry.”

  “If I hadn’t trailed you nearly to Kansas, you’d still be sitting out there in that ditch in that little red tin can you call a car.”

  “I did thank you for rescuing me.”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice turning deliberately suggestive. “You certainly did.”

  “Good night, Justin.”

  “Good night, Blaire. Say good-night to my kid for me.”

  Blaire hung up the phone and pressed a hand over her womb, feeling tears well up in her eyes again. “Oh, baby, what am I supposed to do about this daddy of yours? And what am I going to do about your Chisholm uncles and aunts and your great grandmother?”

  It was the latter, Cherokee Rose Chisholm, who worried Blaire the most. The seventy-eight-year-old woman was a legend in the state of Oklahoma and beyond. She was known not only for her top-notch cattle and horses, but for her honesty, her generosity, and her loyalty, yet it was no secret that the lady didn’t take any crap from anybody. How did she really feel about this new Chisholm not being raised in the Chisholm family?

  Blaire got her chance to find out the next morning. At around ten o’clock a shiny silver SUV pulled up in the parking lot. The way the sun reflected off it, there was no way Blaire could miss it, sitting as she was, before the front window in her makeshift office in her parents’ house.

  The matriarch of the Chisholm clan stepped out of her vehicle as regally as any queen from her carriage. She even had a crown of sorts: her long black and iron-gray hair had been braided and the braid wrapped around her head. Her blue jeans were clean and crisp, her Western shirt piped in red and tucked into the waistband of her jeans, cinched by a brown leather belt with a big oval silver buckle. Her boots were hand-tooled and shined to within an inch of their lives.

  In a deliberate, moderate stride, she crossed the parking lot and entered the feed store.

  Sometime during the next few minutes Blaire realized that her fingernails were digging gouges into her palms. She purposely relaxed her hands, but a few seconds later realized they were knotted into fists again as she stared anxiously out the front window.

  What was Rose Chisholm doing in there? What would she say to her father about the baby? What would her father say in return?

  Blaire winced at the thought of the latter. He would have plenty to say, and all of it blaming Justin. Blaire would have to set the record straight as soon as she found out how much damage her father was doing to the Harding-Chisholm family relations.

  A few minutes later Mrs. Chisholm came out of the store with a flat of yellow pansies.

  Justin’s favorite flower, Blaire noted. But she, herself, would have chosen purple, his favorite color, were she planting flowers for him.

  Of course, Mrs. Chisholm was undoubtedly not planting to please her youngest grandson. More likely she planted to please herself.

  The woman stashed the flowers in the back of her SUV then headed across the lot toward the house.

  Blaire swallowed. There was no place to run, no place to hide from Justin’s grandmother. If there was a way to postpone this meeting, or avoid it altogether, Blaire would do it. She had seen Mrs. Chisholm dozens of times over the years, but they had never held a conversation, or even spoken to each other, as far as Blaire could recall.

  It looked as if that was all about to change.

  At the sound of the doorbell Blaire jerked from the window. All right. She squared her shoulders and wiped her sweating palms down the thighs of her jeans. It was time to meet her child’s great grandmother.

  With her breath locked somewhere near the bottom of her lungs, Blaire made her way down the hall, into the living room, and to the front door. She opened the door and blinked. Up close, Rose Chisholm was even more striking. Her bronze skin was smooth and amazingly free of wrinkles, giving her a youthful appearance. Her deep brown eyes, which could have been hard or cold, smiled at her.

  “Hello, Blaire.” Mrs. Chisholm held out her hand. “I’m Rose.”

  Blaire let out her breath and accepted the handshake. “Of course. Come in, please.”

  “I suppose I should,” she said, stepping in when Blaire moved aside. “Since I used checking on our account as an excuse to get your father to tell me where you were.”

  “If you really want to talk about your account, we can go to my office, otherwise, the living room is much more comfortable.”

  “Then let’s be comfortable,” Rose suggested with a smile. “Besides, since Sloan got smart and married Emily, she handles most of our bookkeeping now. The girl is a godsend. For several reasons, bookkeeping being only one of them.”

  Blaire led Rose to the sofa and motioned for her to be seated. “Can I get you something to drink? My mother makes a fresh pitcher of iced tea every morning.”

  “No, thank you, my dear. I won’t stay long. I just wanted to come by and let you know that Justin told us last night about the baby.”

  Blaire sank to the cushion beside Rose. “Yes. He called and told me.”

  Rose peered at her closely. “He said you knew he was telling us. Is that right?”

  “Yes.” Her lips twitched. “He asked my permission to tell you.”

  Rose nodded. “That’s my Justin. I’m glad he hasn’t forgotten his manners.”

  “Oh, no.” This time Blaire smiled easily. “Justin is nothing if not polite.”

  Rose nodded again. “I’m glad to hear it. You’ll pardon me for sticking my nose in, but I’m an old woman, with no guarantees of another year.”

  Blaire gasped and pressed a hand to Rose’s forearm. “You’re not ill, are you?”

  “What? Oh, no. How sweet of you to ask. No, I just meant that I’ve already lived most of my life, so I don’t like to dillydally around with what little time I’ve got left. Which is why I’m going to ask—did Justin ask you to marry him?”

  Blaire felt heat sting her cheeks. She found she could not hold the woman’s gaze. “Yes, he did. More than once. Please don’t blame him for the two of us not getting married. It’s my fault. I have my reasons for turning him down.”

  “And I won’t ask what they are. I’ll leave you that much privacy, at least,” Rose added with a slight smile. “But don’t be surprised if Justin tries to change your mind.”

  “No,” Blaire said. “I won’t.”

  “Is there anything you need?” Rose asked. “You or the baby? Whether you marry Justin or not, the child you carry makes you part of our family, and we take care of our own. We want to help in any way we can.”

  Blaire heard the sincerity in Rose’s words, in her voice, and was humbled by it. “Thank you. All I really need right now is to get my car out of the shop, but it’s not fixed yet, so no one can help with that.”

  “You’re feeling well?” Rose asked. “You look as if you do.”

  “I’m fine, truly.”

  “Any morning sickness?”

  Blaire rolled her eyes. “Yes. I’m afraid I gave Justin a demonstration of it yesterday morning.”

  Rose smiled widely. “Good for you. I always said women should share more of the joy of pregnancy and childbirth with their men.”

  Chapter Eleven

  How ironic, Blaire thought that evening, that the only person who accepted her right to make her own decision about marriage was the grandmother of the very man Blaire refused to marry.

  Oh, to have such acceptance from her own parents!

  But that, Blaire knew, was too much to hope for.

  Rose had stayed only a few minutes, but in those few minutes Blaire felt as if she’d found a true friend. Someone she could confide in, perhaps, who would not judge her.

  Blaire wasn’t fool enough to believe that Rose Chisholm would
befriend anyone who hurt one of her own, though, so this tentative friendship could be temporary, indeed, if Blaire and Justin couldn’t come to an amicable agreement regarding the baby. But Blaire felt they could. Hoped, prayed they could.

  The dust had yet to settle from Rose’s departure from the parking lot when Blaire’s father flew out the back door of the store and marched across to the house.

  “Well?” he demanded. “What did she want? Is she going to make that boy marry you?”

  “Daddy!” Blaire stared at her father in shock. “You know perfectly well that Justin has asked to marry me, several times. I’ve told you that myself.”

  “Then why aren’t you married, little girl?”

  “Because,” she said tightly, “I said no. No more!” She held her hand up to stop whatever he’d been about to say. “I’m not going to talk about it. Rose Chisholm trusts me to make the right decision. You’re going to have to trust me, too.”

  Without waiting for her father to remark, Blaire spun on her heel and left the house. “I’m taking an early lunch.” She dashed across the driveway to the garage and climbed the stairs to her apartment. There she slammed the door and locked herself in. And the world out.

  What she wanted most in that moment, she realized, was Justin. And that realization appalled her. She had always winced in embarrassment whenever one of her girlfriends felt like running to a man so he could take care of things for her. Even her own mother was prone to expecting her husband to solve her problems for her.

  Blaire refused to become that kind of woman, dependent upon a man to get through the day.

  Good grief, she’d had an argument with her father and she wanted to run to Justin and cry on his shoulder? When had she turned into such a weak-kneed, lily-livered wimp?

  On the other hand, she thought, what was wrong with a person wanting a little comfort, someone to take her side of things? The need for a little emotional support now and then didn’t constitute a weakness. Did it?

  To be on the safe side, when her phone rang that night, she did not answer.

  No one left a message on her answering machine, and she didn’t have caller ID, but she was sure it had been Justin. No one else would call her at ten o’clock at night.

  The next night no one called. Neither did anyone call the night after that, nor the night after that. In fact, Blaire’s phone did not ring for a solid week.

  It was amazing, Justin thought, how much strength and energy and willpower it took not to make a phone call. Not to hop in his pickup and drive into town.

  Not to grab his grandmother by the neck and shake her until she told him what went on at the feed store that day.

  He must have it bad, not to be able to make it through a single day without talking to Blaire, seeing her. Being near her.

  All he’d managed to learn was that yes, Grandmother had gone to the feed store, and yes, she had spoken with Blaire. Blaire was a nice girl and it seemed as if she had a good head on her shoulders.

  As for anything else that might have been discussed between the two most important women in his life, Cherokee Rose Chisholm’s lips were apparently sealed. With superglue. The woman was flat not talking.

  That, Justin could probably have lived with. But that new twinkle that had been in his grandmother’s eyes since her return from town was driving him crazy.

  “I will say one thing,” his grandmother told him as she stopped before her bedroom door on her way to retire for the night. “That young woman needs a break. She’s under a great deal of pressure from her parents, you, even herself. Everyone, including you, needs to back off for a few days and give her a chance to breathe, a chance to think for herself instead of being told what she should or shouldn’t do.”

  “You think I’m pushing too hard?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “If you aren’t, I know you would like to.”

  Justin chuckled and kissed his grandmother’s cheek. “You know me too well. I’ll give her some time and space, but I’m not about to let her get away from me.”

  “No.” She kissed his cheek in return. “I never thought you would.”

  He watched her enter her room and close the door, then he closed himself into his own bedroom. He would do his best to keep his word to his grandmother, for Blaire’s sake, because he knew his grandmother was right.

  But he couldn’t just not call. He’d left her with the impression that she would hear from him today. One call, that would be all, and then he would back off for a while.

  She didn’t answer. He let it ring and ring and ring, and she didn’t answer.

  Maybe she was ready for that breather now instead of later.

  A man who couldn’t take a hint was at best a nuisance. At worst, a creep. All things considered, he would just as soon the mother of his child not think of him as a creep.

  But as one day turned into another he began to wonder if maybe he really was in love with her. Why else would he feel this need to be with her, to hear her voice? Why else would he feel this constant yearning?

  How was a man to know?

  After three days of not calling her and not going to town, he still didn’t know if he was in love, but everyone else came to believe he’d lost his marbles. He rode his horse out to the middle pasture, but came back without the calf he’d gone out there to get.

  At supper that night six-year-old Janie was confused. “How come Daddy said Uncle Justin was out to lunch? It’s suppertime, and he’s not out, he’s right here.”

  Her big sister, older by two years, rolled her eyes in disgust. “It’s an expression, silly.”

  “Libby,” Emily cautioned her daughter. “No name calling.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, what’s it mean?” Janie demanded.

  “It means,” Libby said in her my-sister-is-an-imbecile tone, “that he’s cuckoo.”

  “Oh.” Janie slurped up another strand of spaghetti between pursed lips. “You mean like this afternoon when he tried to use the paintbrush to fix the flat tire on his pickup?”

  “Yeah,” Libby said. “Like that.”

  Justin made a face. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you two it’s not polite to talk about people when they’re sitting right here?”

  “Well, golly.” Janie’s little eyebrows lowered. “If you can’t talk about people when they’re right here, and you’re not supposed to talk about ’em behind their backs, when can you talk about them?”

  Emily cleared her throat to get the attention of her daughters. “I believe the lesson there is that it’s not polite to talk about other people at all.”

  Libby’s eyebrows climbed up her forehead. “If we can’t talk about people, what are we gonna talk about?”

  There was the unmistakable sound of muffled and choked laughter as Sloan picked up the large bowl of mashed potatoes and started it around the table.

  A full week after Justin had brought Blaire home from Stillwater, he finally gave in and drove to town. If asked, he would swear that his pickup turned off Main into the parking lot of the feed store all on its own. Surely he himself had more willpower than to play the lovesick high school teen and drive by his girl’s house.

  Hell, he thought. At least he hadn’t driven by and honked.

  Of course he hadn’t. He’d parked and gotten out, walked into her father’s store without proper mental preparation. And Tom Harding was waiting for him with both barrels, metaphorically speaking.

  “Why haven’t you married my girl yet?” Harding demanded.

  Justin glanced around to find himself the only customer inside. The others, who belonged to the other vehicles in the lot, must have been out in the warehouse. It was a common place to run into friends and hang around for a visit.

  “Well?” Harding barked.

  How was he supposed to answer? The simple truth was, he would marry Blaire in a heartbeat, had asked her several times, but she had turned him down. If he said as much to her father the man was likely to take it o
ut on her in some way.

  In the end, Justin shrugged. “That’s something Blaire and I will have to work out between the two of us.”

  “Well, get to working it out, before the kid graduates high school.”

  “Thanks for the advice.” Having completely forgotten the excuse he had used to come to the store, Justin turned and left.

  Outside, he stepped off the porch-cum-loading dock and drew to a halt. Beyond his left shoulder stood the Hardings’ house, where Blaire was probably working at that very moment. Straight ahead sat his pickup.

  To the left, possible—probably—humiliation, because he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from asking her yet again to marry him, and she would once again turn him down.

  Straight ahead, escape.

  From the window in her office, the same window from which she had watched Rose Chisholm arrive nearly a week ago, Blaire saw Justin standing in the parking lot.

  She’d seen him arrive about ten minutes earlier, had still been at the window when he left the store. Now he simply stood there, as if trying to decide what to do.

  Blaire smoothed her hair and unrolled the sleeves of her shirt. Her makeup could use a little refreshing, but she didn’t have time. He would be knocking on the door any second.

  This is, if he ever decided to move, she thought with a frown. What was he doing just standing there? Oh, he looked good. The weather was mild enough that he wore a flannel shirt with no jacket or overcoat. The breeze was strong enough to ruffle his hair back from his face and redden his cheeks.

  She had missed him. She could admit that to herself, privately. She had missed his face, his phone calls, his laughter.

  Why was he just standing there? Why wasn’t he coming to the house to see her?

  Whatever she’d eaten for lunch—and for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what it was even though she’d eaten it less than an hour ago—must not be agreeing with her, because she felt a burning ache beneath her ribs. It had come on sharply the instant she’d realized Justin was not coming to see her.