Creed's Honor
Page 28
“All you need,” Conner told Brody, in order to lighten the moment a little, “is a ruffled apron.”
Brody chuckled, hauled back a chair. “Don’t push your luck, little brother,” he said. “I might have decided to let you live, but the jury is still out on whether or not I kick your ass from here to next week.”
Conner sat down at his own place, picked up his fork and stabbed three pieces of chicken onto his plate. “You’re welcome to try that at any time,” he said affably. He looked the whole meal over again, and shook his head. “You even made gravy and mashed the spuds,” he marveled. “What else can you do, brother? Darn socks? Make curtains out of flour sacks?”
“Keep pushing it,” Brody drawled, but there was laughter in his eyes.
For a while, they ate in silence. This was the first real meal Conner could remember having at that table since Kim and Davis moved to their own place up the road.
“You’ve been in prison all this time,” Conner speculated. “And they put you on kitchen duty. That’s the big mystery.”
“There is no big mystery,” Brody said, and now his eyes were solemn and his tone was serious. “I was on the rodeo circuit, I told you that.”
“I follow the rodeo circuit,” Conner pointed out, considering a fourth piece of chicken and deciding against it because he was full to the gills. “I saw your name once or twice, Brody, but not often enough to account for ten years of being gone.”
Brody sighed. “You are not going to leave this alone, are you?”
“No,” Conner said. “I’m not.”
That was when Brody told him about the woman, and the boy, and the accident that had taken their lives.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE NEXT DAY, in the small conference room at Lonesome Bend’s one and only bank, Tricia held the cashier’s check in both hands and stared at it in awe. All the papers had been signed and witnessed, and now River’s Bend and the RV park and the Bluebird Drive-in belonged to Brody Creed.
Suddenly, she was free. Suddenly, she had so many choices.
Of course, she had to settle the few debts Joe had left behind, and pay off the small balance on her one credit card, and there would be taxes to pay. Even so, she was rolling in it.
Possibilities flashed through her mind—none of them were new, but they were all more substantial, now that she didn’t have to live from hand to mouth.
She thought about Paris, about not only visiting the City of Light, but living there for a while.
She thought about Seattle, that bustling, busy place where something was happening, everywhere and all the time.
She thought about a gallery, with her name over the door in elegant gold script, a small but tasteful storefront full of vibrant art of all sorts and mediums.
But mostly she thought about Conner.
There were two worlds in Tricia’s personal universe now, it seemed—one with Conner in it, and one without. Should she choose the world her brain wanted—freedom, counterbalanced by the inevitable times of loneliness—or summon all her courage and follow her heart? Allow herself to take the terrible risk of loving and being loved in return?
Tricia shook off the nagging questions. She had things to do, starting with depositing the funds that would change everything, no matter what she decided to do in the end.
Brody, dressed to the nines in a perfectly tailored gray suit and a spiffy tie, looked wan and a little hollow-eyed as he watched her tuck the check back in its envelope and slip that into her purse.
“Buyer’s remorse?” she asked, with a little smile.
“No,” Brody replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Nothing like that.”
She should get going. Head back to Natty’s and help Carolyn supervise the placement of her furniture and unpack. Figure out what to wear for her dinner date with Conner that night.
Oh, and what to do with the rest of her life. Add that to the list.
But she liked Brody Creed, and she was grateful to him, so she tarried.
“Thanks,” she said, putting out her hand to Brody.
He smiled and shook it, very businesslike.
She squinted at him. “Are you all right?” she asked, very quietly, so the bankers and Carla, still chatting in the conference room, wouldn’t overhear.
Brody gave a raspy chuckle. “Conner and I were up pretty late last night, talking things through,” he explained. “It’ll be a long road back, but at least we’re on the way.”
“That’s good,” she said, remembering their conversation at her kitchen table, after Brody brought Valentino home from the ranch. She knew it troubled Conner, maybe even grieved him, to be estranged from his only brother, though he hadn’t talked about it much, at least to her.
“It’s good,” Brody agreed. “But we went over some rough ground, my brother and me.” He paused, and the smile drained out of his eyes, replaced by a dark expression she couldn’t put a name to. “It’s some consolation to know that Conner feels like he’s been dragged backwards through a knothole, just as I do.”
Tricia stood on tiptoe, kissed his cheek. “Give it some time,” she said. “Things are bound to get better if you don’t give up.”
“If you say so,” Brody joked, but the change in his eyes indicated that something else was going on beneath the surface here.
“Are you moving in over at River’s Bend today?” she asked, hoping to lighten the mood.
“Yeah,” Brody replied. He smiled again, but there was an edge to it. He nodded, as if to say goodbye, and half turned away from her, only to turn back. “Tricia?”
She waited. Glanced past him to the door of the conference room; she could see Carla’s shadow through the frosted glass. Any moment now, the others would join them.
Brody gave a deep, ragged sigh. Ran a hand through his hair. “I might be way out of line here,” he said hoarsely, “but there’s something I need to say. About you and Conner, I mean, and whatever is or isn’t going on between you.”
Inwardly, Tricia stiffened. Outwardly, she probably appeared calm. “What’s that?”
“Don’t hurt him,” Brody said. With a nod, he indicated the purse she held, an oblique reference to the cashier’s check inside, most likely. “You have a lot of options now. If your plans don’t include Conner, then I’d appreciate it if you’d back off and leave him alone.”
Heat suffused Tricia’s face. Carla, still chatting with the bank officials who’d overseen the closing, started to open the door.
“You were right before, Brody,” Tricia said evenly, careful to keep her voice down. “You are out of line. By a country mile.”
With that, she turned on her heel and stormed along the corridor, practically erupting into the main lobby, where the tellers stood at their windows, between customers and therefore watching her with interest.
Tricia stopped, took a deep breath, released it slowly.
Be calm, she told herself.
Then she marched over to the nearest teller, opened her purse and took out the envelope with the seven-figure check inside.
“I’d like to make a deposit, please,” she said.
Brody caught up to her outside, several minutes later, as she was about to get into her Pathfinder.
“Tricia, wait,” he said, and he looked pained.
She glared at him. This was one of the biggest days of her life so far, and he’d nearly spoiled it by implying that she might be jerking Conner around, encouraging him when she had no intention of following through. “What?” she snapped, begrudging him even that one word.
“I might not be the most tactful person in the world,” Brody said.
“Maybe not,” Tricia agreed, settling herself in the driver’s seat and fastening her seat belt with a noisy click. She couldn’t have shut the door if she’d wanted to, because Brody was in the way.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Oh,” Tricia mocked, with a sweeping gesture of one hand, “well, then. That changes everything!”
All the steam went out of her.
“There’s no guy,” she said softly. “Not anymore.”
“What about leaving town? Is that what you mean to do?”
Tricia was quiet for a long time. Then she turned the key in the ignition, switched on the heater. With the door open to the cold, much of which seemed to be coming from Brody rather than the environment, the benefits were limited. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “There are a lot of things to consider.”
“Here’s another one for you,” Brody said evenly, gripping the framework of the door and leaning in a little way. “Conner cares about you. It might be a while before he gets around to admitting that, to himself or to you, but, believe me, he does care. He’s a good man, through and through, and he’s smart as all get-out, but game playing is something he just doesn’t understand—when he falls for somebody, he falls hard. He’s rock-solid, the original straight shooter, the kind of guy most women think isn’t even out there anymore.”
“Are you finished, Brody?” Tricia’s flippant tone was a bluff. Hurting Conner in any way, shape or form had never crossed her mind, but it was true that she might leave Lonesome Bend. After all, without River’s Bend to oversee, she was pretty much at loose ends. Money or no money, she needed something to occupy her days or she’d go crazy.
“Just one more thing,” Brody finally answered, stony-faced. “If you break Conner’s heart, he’ll be alone for the rest of his life, because he’s not the sort to settle.”
With that, Brody stepped back.
Trembling a little, Tricia shut the door.
And then she just sat there for several minutes, waiting until she felt calm enough to drive home.
CONNER SPENT THE MORNING on the range, with Clint and Juan and some of the extra hands Brody had hired on, setting up feed stations for the cattle and horses. Just before noon, he rode back to the ranch house, his coat collar raised against the icy wind, his hat pulled down low over his face. The sky churned with low-bellied clouds, gunmetal gray and, in his opinion, fixing to give birth to the perfect storm.
Kim and Davis drove up in their going-to-town car just as Conner was dismounting in front of the barn. He waited, speaking quietly to the horse, and grinned wide when his uncle eased his big frame from behind the wheel and got out, settling his hat on his head as he approached.
Two tiny dog faces looked out of the deep, wool-lined pockets of Davis’s coat, bright-eyed and clearly enjoying the ride. And damn if they didn’t have little pink bows on the tops of their heads, just as Brody had said.
The sight was so incongruous that Conner had to laugh. Kim, glowing with happiness as usual, looked Conner’s way and shook her head with amusement.
Davis, so comfortable with his own masculinity that it probably wouldn’t have occurred to him to be embarrassed to be seen with a pair of pink-bowed pocket dogs, grinned. He and Conner shook hands, their customary way of greeting each other after a separation of any length. “I hear Brody went ahead and bought Joe McCall’s property,” Davis said.
Conner nodded. The chill bit at the edges of his ears, even with his hat on, and he cast a wary look up at the fitful sky. “He’s in town finalizing the deal right now,” he said. Tricia would be at the closing, too, of course. He was glad for her, glad for Joe, who had held on through thick and thin, having set his heart on leaving something behind for his “little girl.”
“Is the coffee on?” Kim wanted to know, reaching into Davis’s pockets, one by one, and collecting the dogs. Holding them up to her face to nuzzle them between their perked-up ears. “If not, we’ll make some, won’t we?” she asked the pups.
Davis rolled his eyes, but his love for his wife was almost palpable.
He watched her fondly as she headed for the house, being as much at home there as she was at the other place, then walked alongside Conner as he led his horse into the barn and removed the animal’s saddle and bridle inside the stall.
Davis brought a couple of flakes of hay and tossed them into the feeder, while Conner gave the gelding a quick brushing-down. It was an ingrained habit, something he always did after a ride and rarely thought about.
That day, though, he was jumpy as a five-year-old on Christmas Eve—he’d be taking Tricia out for dinner that night—so he made short work of the grooming.
The other horses nickered companionably as he and Davis left the barn. A few enormous flakes of snow were drifting down.
Conner squared his shoulders, adjusted his hat again.
Inside the kitchen, Kim had all the lights on, and she’d started a fire in the cookstove while the coffee was brewing. The little dogs peeked out of a bottom drawer in the china cabinet, keeping a close eye on the proceedings.
“Are you sure those critters are dogs,” Conner teased, grinning at Kim, “and not some kind of fancy rodents?”
Kim made a face at him, then laughed. “They’re Yorkshire terriers,” she said.
For as long as Conner could remember, she’d been like that, lighthearted and easy to get along with, full of mischief and uncomplicated joy, taking things as they came and making the best of the bad as well as the good.
It must have been a disappointment to Kim, Conner thought now, that she and Davis had never had a family of their own, but if it was, she’d never let on. She’d loved him and Brody and Steven full-out, like any mother.
Davis chuckled and hung up his hat, then his coat. “Wait till you hear their names,” he told Conner.
The pups spilled out of the bureau drawer and trotted over to sniff at Davis’s boots. They were pretty damn cute, all right, but Conner was worried that he might step on them. To make sure that didn’t happen, he crouched and scooped them up, one in each hand, and both of them commenced to licking his face as though he’d used gravy for aftershave that morning.
“One’s called Smidgeon,” Davis went on, “and one’s called Little Bit.” His tone was teasing, for Kim’s benefit, but there was a certain pride in his gaze, too. The look on his uncle’s face reminded Conner of Steven, when he’d brought Melissa and Matt and the babies to the ranch to show them off.
“Smidgeon and Little Bit,” Conner mused, with a wink for Kim. “Isn’t that redundant?”
“Your uncle,” Kim said dryly, eyes still twinkling, “wanted to name them Puffy and Fluffy. I had no choice but to intervene.”
Conner put the dogs down carefully and looked over at Davis. “Puffy and Fluffy?”
Davis colored up a little, under his jawline. “I haven’t had a lot of practice at naming dogs,” he said. “The last one already had a name when we got him.” Conner laughed.
The dogs explored the kitchen, inch by inch, then leaped back into the bureau drawer, snuggled up in a furry little pile and went to sleep.
Kim poured coffee and the three of them sat at the table, sipping the brew, letting the heat thaw the marrow of their bones.
They talked, mainly just about catch-up stuff. Sure enough, Kim confirmed, Steven and Melissa were coming home for Thanksgiving, and of course they were bringing the kids.
Brody showed up, driving Conner’s truck because his own was still down by the gate, the engine deader than a doornail, just as Davis and Kim were about to take Smidgeon and Little Bit out of the drawer and head for town. Kim thought they ought to stop by the supermarket and stock up on nonperishables, in case the storm turned out to be a humdinger.
“Was it something I said?” Brody joked, looking on wryly as Davis tucked the yawning pups into his coat pockets.
Kim laughed and kissed his cheek before stepping back to give him the once-over. “That’s quite the suit,” she remarked. “If Conner hadn’t told us y
ou were at the bank, sealing a real-estate deal, I’d think you were about to get hitched.”
Brody chuckled, but the look in his eyes was out-and-out somber. “I can’t wait to get out of it,” he said, and disappeared into his bedroom.
When he came out, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, Kim and Davis and the pups were gone, and Conner was standing at the sink, a fresh cup of coffee in one hand, watching the snow come down.
The flakes were thick as goose feathers, and there wasn’t much space between them now. In fact, he could barely see the barn.
Brody drained the carafe of the coffeemaker into a mug and sighed. “Damn,” he said. “I could do without a blizzard right now.”
Conner turned his head. Studied his brother’s grim profile. “Join the club,” he said, with a halfhearted effort at a chuckle. “We’ve got months of feed-hauling ahead of us, if we want to keep the range stock alive.”
Brody met his gaze. “You’re gonna kill me,” he said, out of the blue.
Conner frowned. “Maybe,” he allowed solemnly, “but I guess I’d like to know why before I go ahead and do it.”
Brody tried for a smile, but it didn’t work. “I meant well,” he said.
Conner felt a small muscle bunch up in his cheek, then wriggle itself loose again. He knew this speech had something to do with Tricia, since Brody had just been with her at the bank.
“What?” he rasped out.
Brody gave a heavy sigh and made his way to the table, hobbling a little, as if he’d been thrown from one too many bad-ass bulls during his rodeo career. Which he probably had.
“Sit down, Conner,” he said, still gruff.
Conner nearly tipped his chair over, pulling it back from the table. But he sat.
Brody was across from him, but still within throttling distance if it came to that. “As I said,” he reiterated, “I had the best of intentions.”
Conner didn’t say anything. He just waited, flexing his fingers into fists, relaxing them again.
Brody plunked his elbows on the table and splayed his hands over his face long enough to bust out with a loud sigh, as though he were the beleaguered one.