Mandy's Homebound Cowboys

by Regale, Rhea

  Mandy cleared her throat. “Craig, how’re you holdin’ up?”

  Craig gave her a half grin. He was an impeccable sight in his fine black suit, starched white shirt, and black tie. Strands of mahogany hair brushed his cheeks and teased his nape, having been released from the tie he donned at the church.

  “Fine. You bein’ here means a lot,” Craig said. He shifted, scanning the dense crowd that had returned to the house for food and to deliver condolences. When his gaze landed back on her, there was a piqued discomfort in his expression, one that caused her brow to wrinkle. “Um, do you think we can talk? Outside?”

  Mandy turned to Heidi, but found her friend deep in the crowd, somberly speaking with other townsfolk.

  “Of course.”

  Craig nodded and led her through the house and out the back screen door. Once across the deck and down the stairs that led to the sprawling Ryder property, he loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. Mandy watched him in his uncharacteristic state of dishevelment, uncertain of what to say. A light rose touched high on his sharp cheeks. His nostrils flared beneath the angular slope. Something resembling a wince or a grimace stressed his mouth.

  It didn’t help that he practically ripped off his suit jacket and carelessly tossed it onto a lawn chair. Mandy grabbed his arm when he started fumbling with the buttons on his cuff. His muscles were taut and rigid, the faintest of tremors coursing through them. As he relaxed, the strangest sensation of calm and familiarity flowed into her through her fingertips and came to settle low in her womb.

  “Craig, you’re worryin’ me,” Mandy said on a soft breath. She curled her fingers around his arm, tightening her hold until he dropped his hand from his cuff and sighed. “Talk to me.”

  The pain in his expression could slice through the thickest layers of a person’s soul. Seeing Craig, a man she always perceived as strong and powerful and completely in control at his breaking point, left her raw with sympathy.

  “I needed to get out of that house. Seein’ Momma cryin’ so much is eatin’ at me. I can’t do a thing for her. That pain…” He pounded a fist against his chest and shook his head. With a deep breath, he continued. “That pain is inside her, and I can’t make it go away.”

  “That’s pain only time will ease. No person can soothe it. Just give her love, Craig. Love heals everythin’,” Mandy cooed, knowing damn well that love caused the worst kind of heartache. Craig’s momma was living proof of it. “Your momma’s a strong woman.”

  Craig raked a hand through his hair. Mandy dropped her hand from his arm and walked ahead of him, jolting him into motion. She climbed onto the wooden fence that led to the pasture where the cattle grazed, and she sat down on the top beam. Craig followed her, hooking the heels of his polished black shoes on the middle beam. He folded his hands between his spread thighs and hunched his shoulders. A warm breeze blew across the pasture, ruffling his soft hair and plastering his white shirt against the well-formed muscles of his arms.

  Mandy looked away, silently cussing the stirring warmth between her legs and the sudden swelling of her breasts. Today wasn’t the day to be feeling that throb in her clit or picturing herself lying beneath either Craig or Brody. Today was a day of mourning.

  “Brody’s been actin’ all the good son since he arrived the other mornin’,” Craig said. “Kills me because I know he and Pa had a big argument that was never resolved.”

  Mandy moistened her lips. She should have known Brody might’ve been at the root of his behavior.

  “I don’t know what transpired, but I know it wasn’t pleasant. Momma said Pa was upset over it for days. He even tried calling Brody, but whoever answered Brody’s phone said he was rehearsing for a show and couldn’t talk. Even though Pa gave a message, Brody never called back.”

  “Craig, I have little to say in response to that. You may not want my opinion on the topic,” Mandy said quietly. She didn’t want to get in the middle of a family feud.

  “I value your opinion, Amanda. Always have.”

  Mandy drew her gaze up to his, stunned by the small revelation and the sincerity behind his words. Craig shrugged a shoulder, a hint of a shadowed grin brushing his kissable lips.

  “You know somethin’, Craig Ryder? You’re the only person in this town who calls me by my birth name. I’m Mandy to everyone,” she pointed out. Craig chuckled under his breath. “Why?”

  “’Cause Amanda is your name, and I rather like it. More fittin’ to a woman who’s the town’s best kept secret genius. Mandy’s cute for when you have that lick of pink in your cheeks or you’re chewin’ your lips because you’re nervous, like you’re doin’ now.”

  Mandy froze, not realizing her involuntary motion until he pointed it out. She released her lip from her teeth and knotted her fingers on her knees, unsure how to take his close observation.

  “I’m no genius. I’m a waitress at the dive diner on the edge of town with no future ’cause I don’t know what I want to do,” Mandy dissuaded.

  “Just ’cause you don’t know what you want to do doesn’t make you any less a genius. A woman who aced school a year ahead and graduated top of the class with a full-ride scholarship to Princeton University in my book equals genius.”

  “Well, Craig, I like your book, but that scholarship went down the drain when my cheatin’ father left my momma for some hooker ten years ago.” Mandy pressed her lips together, unwilling to give into the daydream of what may have been had she finished her program and received her bachelor’s degree. “She needed help here.”

  “You made a selfless sacrifice. One that many townsfolk still talk about to this day, includin’ my momma.”

  His compliment was bittersweet. Mandy loved her momma, and she would sacrifice her future all over again to help her out, but it still left her sullen at times. She had no path to life, no direction beyond waitressing and attending the community college in hopes of obtaining something that would dig her out of tips and frilly pink diner attire. She still lived at home, still drove the old family Chevy that ended up at Brent’s shop more than it sat in their driveway, and was still single. Dirtbags and scum were the only prospects that knocked on her door, and she steered clear of them.

  Mandy cleared her throat and forced a farced smiled that far from reached her soul. “You’re doin’ quite well yourself, I hear. Holdin’ your own four-point-oh.”

  “This last stretch’ll be stressful.”

  She nudged him in the hip with her elbow and laughed. “You’ll do great.”

  “Keep inspirin’ me, Amanda.”

  “Why, Craig, you don’t need to go flatterin’ me—”

  “No flattery. Just the god-honest truth.” He reached for her face and traced her cheekbone with a single finger. A trail of crackling heat and tingles stood in wake of his touch, sealing off her throat. She blinked once, twice, staring at the handsome face with rugged cuts and curves coming closer and closer.

  His lips were feverish and pliant, easing her mouth open without a fight. She sat stiff and rigid, a thousand thoughts beating around inside her head. Bets, brothers, bad blood. Everything that spelled disaster lay in this kiss, but the kiss itself made her heart hammer ferociously. His strong hand cupped the back of her neck, his thumb tipping her chin up until he settled his mouth so perfectly over hers. He tasted like spice and whiskey, masculinity and sexuality. Everything she craved, and yet, everything she feared.

  Mandy placed her hand on his shoulder, planning to gently push him away. When her fingers curled against the hard berth of muscle, a current flooded her, melting her. She sank into his kiss, meeting the slow, lazy swirls of his tongue in a sensual dance that left her pussy wet and aching. The fluttering of her heart made it hard to breathe. The onset of trembles crept down to her hands and coiled around her legs.

  She pressed into Craig with a soft moan, wanting a deeper drink of tenuously controlled kiss. Her shoe slipped over the beam. She shrieked, pitching forward while grappling for the fence. Craig c
aught her against him, his steely arms encasing her against his equally steely body. The bulge digging into her lower belly left her hot in the face and downright scorching in her pussy. The clean, crisp scent of his cologne filled her nostrils, mixing perfectly with the earthy scent of his skin and fresh scent of his hair.

  At last, Craig placed her on her feet and stepped back, a calm crossing his expression. His stormy eyes flickered with a strange new light. Mandy swayed, still choking on the unexpected euphoria that cocooned her, holding fast to his biceps for support.

  “I didn’t bring you out here to pour my family dilemmas onto your shoulders. I wanted to ask you if I could swing by later and steal you away for some time,” Craig said. The new husk to his voice teased her mind and stroked the sensitive flesh slick with arousal and throbbing for release.

  “Um, yeah. Sure.” Mandy rubbed the crease that formed between her brows and bit back the sudden anxiety. When her eyes met his, she fell somewhere that the logic of how bad this could turn out didn’t exist. Only the defined thump of her heart that sped up with each moment she stood beside this man. “What time?”

  “Say eight?”

  “I’ll be waitin’. Don’t go Casanova on me.” She took a step back, trying to unfold from the dizzying effects Craig created. This wasn’t the first time they’d come in contact with each other, although it was the first time he’d ever kissed her. In those few precious moments, something blossomed between them. Something changed, and that change frightened her as much as it enticed her.

  Craig snorted. “That horrible stigma still hangs over all our heads, doesn’t it?”

  Mandy flashed him an exaggerated smiled and nodded once. “Yessir.”

  He pinched her cheek gently and gave her a sincere smile. “You don’t have to worry ’bout a thing, Amanda Pearson. I’ll be showin’ up at your house, eight sharp, with a full night planned.”

  Craig climbed the fence and helped her over. He pressed a finger to his lips and then to hers, and he headed off away from the house. Mandy watched him disappear into the thin line of trees before she turned back to the house.

  Her heart sank. Brody stood, leaning against the edge of the deck. He turned away and disappeared around the side of the house.

  Damn, she did not want to be a new Caroline. She did not want to antagonize the brothers’ ire toward each other by reopening raw wounds.

  “Gotta pick one,” Mandy murmured. ’Cause there ain’t no both with these Ryders.

  Chapter Eight

  Brody didn’t know what to make of the sourness churning his gut. He asked Mrs. Pearson where her daughter had gone. She directed him out back. He had reached the deck in time to see his brother holding Mandy in an embrace that certainly wasn’t all friendly and definitely warned attraction. He slipped down the stairs and watched the two climb over the fence, never once realizing he stood against the deck.

  Craig’s gesture of placing a kiss on Mandy’s full lips with his fingertip forced the wind out of his lungs. Holy hell, it was happening all over again, only this time, Brody wanted the same woman as his brother. Caroline had never caught his attention. The accusations of screwing her reared to life as he stared at Mandy, who watched Craig disappear in the thin forest line before turning.

  Everything in her expression cinched all his vital organs. Shock, confusion, and pity, among other emotions, rolled over her angular face when she realized he watched her. The high arch of her cheekbones turned a deep shade of red he could see from a distance. Her lips parted. She looked so damn sexy and lithe in her black outfit that he forced himself to turn away, walk away, before something transpired that would leave a dark cloud over this already dark day.

  He wasn’t about to deny his own fierce attraction to the redheaded beauty. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he wanted a woman so damn bad. Even the faintest image of Mandy in his mind left his cock in a state of extreme discomfort until he jerked off in a cold shower. Two days of this damn torture was driving him mad.

  Why the hell did he have to walk out back to see that small exchange, that tiny gesture, between Mandy and his brother?

  “Fuck me,” Brody groaned, kicking a rock with the tip of his boot. It plinked off one of the dozens of cars crowding the front yard.

  “What’s got your dick in a knot, Brode?”

  Brody took a short breath and composed himself before facing Rylan. His cousin was dressed in his formal sheriff attire, except for his hat, which he held at his side. Dark sunglasses hid his eyes from Brody, but he still felt the man’s inquisitive stare.

  Guess that’s what happens when you lose someone you love. Death left a coldness in a man and tears on a woman.

  “Nothin’,” Brody said, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. “Thinkin’.”

  “’Bout?” Rylan motioned toward the cars. “A point system for each rock that comes in contact with a vehicle?”

  Brody shifted and leaned back on the side of the house. The gentle rustling of the oak leaves shading the side of the house should have lent some comfort. Good memories grew in that ancient tree, even if bad memories haunted every other aspect of the property.

  Crossing his ankles, he let his head fall back against the house. “I think I might be finding myself in an undesirable jam.”

  “No surprise. You’re always in a jam.”

  He snorted. “Don’t need to rub it in. I know I was trouble, but ain’t nothin’ I went lookin’ for.”

  “You’re a good man. Stubborn as sin in hell, but a good man.” Rylan sidled up alongside him and leaned back on the house. He tipped his head skyward and smiled. “Women bring even the best men the worst trouble.”

  “What makes you think this is about a woman?”

  “It’s not?” Rylan’s head rolled against the wooden slats, his gaze falling on him. “Has nothin’ to do with one Amanda Pearson?”

  “Eh.” He scuffed the toe of his boot in the grass.

  “That’s as tellin’ a response as sayin’ it in words.” He chuckled and turned back to the tree. “She blossomed overnight, it seems. I remember when she was a scrawny little thing with a nightmare mop of red hair. She’d spy on us until we caught her, and she’d go runnin’ back to Mrs. Pearson and tattle on us if we were doin’ somethin’ we weren’t supposed to do.”

  “I didn’t recognize her down at Martin’s when I first got to town.” Brody nodded, trying to keep the potent vision of Mandy from his mind. Like a stream of fuel into a fire, her image left him blazing hot and hurting in his jeans. God, what he’d do to convince her to give him one chance. “She’s definitely a beautiful woman.”

  “She’s got fangs that’ll bite you good if you wrong her. I know that from breakin’ up an argument here and there. Usually I’m savin’ some poor man’s balls from the butcher’s block.” Rylan placed his hat low on his forehead so the brim didn’t press into the house. “Trust me, those men deserved her ire, but she’s one that’ll take revenge in her own hands.”

  “Is she datin’ anyone now?” Brody asked. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know if Mandy and Craig had something going.

  “No.”

  “Seems tight with Craig.”

  Rylan pressed off the wall and caught Brody’s gaze. “Craig and Mandy have been good friends since you left for Nashville. That doesn’t mean there’s anythin’ goin’ on between them.”

  “Well, we both know my track record with Craig and his girlfriends.”

  “Gossip that got out of control. She knew how to weave a deceptive story.”

  Brody snickered. “Yeah, and Craig believed her.”

  Rylan shrugged. “You chose to run to Nashville and nurse your wounds among the big players. That’s why those wounds are still raw. Remember, it was your decision to skirt the entire scandal instead of facin’ your brother and tellin’ him the truth.” He tipped the brim of his hat in a mock bow and started back to the house, but not before calling back, “You should think about fixin’ things between you both
before somethin’, or someone, leaves it unsalvageable. Three years is long enough.”

  Brody couldn’t return to the anguish that sat inside his momma’s home. He walked across the front yard and down a dirt path to the barn his pa transformed into a garage. Bracing himself for a tumultuous ride of emotions, Brody unlatched the lock and pulled the heavy wooden door open. The hinges creaked, and the wooden boards yawned. Dust floated in the thin streams of golden sunlight filtering through the hazy windows.

  The light switch to the right of the door still worked, and fluorescent white flooded the dim barn. Pressure welled inside his chest, choking his breath as he looked over the tractors filling the front of the barn. He and Craig used to ride with their pa into the wheat fields as boys, laughing beneath the Kansas sun before playing a game of hide-and-seek in the neighboring cornfields. Pa was known for his haunted hayrides around Halloween, and his corn mazes the week before he plowed down the stalks and prepared the land for the next crop.

  Brody walked down the aisle, dragging his hand across the side of the John Deere at his right and Kubota on his left. Dirt clung to the tires between the treads. Everything his pa loved, from the farm to his livestock to the equipment used to make a living, Brody had thrown back in his face. He hated everything about small town living, and he made that very, very clear to his pa before turning his back on him.

  The first signs of tears came as a sting in his eyes he blamed on the dust. He stepped out from between the tractors, his gaze landing on the old pickup truck parked at the back of the barn behind two of his pa’s favorite classics cars. The old Ford sat half in shadows, tucked against the wall.

  Brody picked up his pace, coming to the driver’s side door of his very first truck. His pa gave it to him on his sixteenth birthday, a hand-me-down, but full of character and power.

  He tried the door handle, and the door opened on quiet hinges. Despite a thin layer of dust on the red-and-brown exterior, the truck looked in better condition than he remembered leaving it in. He peered inside and felt the stretch of a smile cross his lips. The truck was clean and polished, down to the mud mats and seat belts.