A Cowboy Comes Home

Two

Having escaped to the Terrell’s front porch and perched herself on the railing, Mandy tried not to think about the sensual awareness that flared inside her every time Caleb spoke.

And when he’d hugged her.

Hoo boy. She fanned herself with her white Stetson, remembering the tingling sensation that flowed across her skin and the glow that had warmed the pit of her stomach as he’d pressed his body against hers. Though the brothers were twins, she’d never felt anything remotely like that in a hug from Reed.

She heard the sound she’d been waiting for and saw a Jacobs ranch pickup truck careen up the driveway. She stuffed the hat back on her head as the truck caught air on the last pothole before spraying gravel while it spun in the turnaround and rocked to a halt. Two Jacobs ranch hands exited the passenger side, giving her a wave as they headed for the barn, while her brother Travis emerged from the driver’s, anchoring his worn hat on his head and striding toward her.

“And?” Travis demanded as he approached, brows going up.

Mandy jabbed her thumb toward the front doorway just as Caleb filled the frame.

At six-two, with long legs, all lanky muscle, Travis easily took the stairs two at a time.

“Came to see for myself,” he told Caleb, looking him up and down before offering his hand.

Caleb stepped outside and shook it, while Mandy slid off the rail, her boot heels clunking down on the porch.

“Good to see you, Travis,” Caleb offered in a steady voice.

“Figured Seth had to be lying,” said Travis, shoulders square, gaze assessing. “But here you are. A little uptight and overgroomed, but at least you didn’t go soft on us.”

“You were expecting a pot belly and a double chin?”

“And a pasty-white complexion.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

Travis shrugged. “What brought you back?”

Caleb’s gaze slid to Mandy.

Travis glanced between them. “What?”

Caleb hesitated, obviously debating whether or not to reveal the information about the will.

“Travis can keep a secret,” Mandy offered, moving toward them. Her family would be in a better position to help Caleb if he’d be honest with them.

Travis tipped his chin to a challenging angle, confronting Caleb. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Caleb stated levelly. “I’m solving a problem, not creating one. But I remember gossip spreading like wildfire around here.”

“Welcome home,” Mandy put in, struggling to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

Caleb frowned at her. There was nothing salacious in his expression, no inappropriate message in his eyes. Still, the mere fact that he was looking at her sent a flush across her skin.

“Come back to dance on your daddy’s grave?” Travis asked Caleb.

“You want a beer?” Caleb offered. Surprisingly, there was no annoyance in his tone at Travis’s crass remark.

Mandy took the opportunity to escape from Caleb’s proximity again, passing through the doorway and calling over her shoulder. “I’ll get them.”

She headed straight down the hall to the kitchen at the back of the house, shaking off the buzz of arousal. There was no denying the chemical attraction between her and Caleb, but that didn’t mean she had to give in to it. Sure, he was a great-looking guy. He had an undeniably sexy voice, and he could pull of a Saville Row suit.

She had no doubt he’d look equally good in blue jeans and a Western-cut shirt. When they’d hugged, she’d felt his chest, stomach, thighs and arms, so she knew he was rock-solid with muscle. Whatever he’d been doing in Chicago for the past ten years, it wasn’t sitting behind a desk.

She checked the wayward track of her brain and extracted three bottles of beer from the refrigerator, heading back down the hall.

When she arrived on the porch, Caleb had obviously brought Travis up to speed on the will. The two men had made themselves comfortable in the painted, wood-slat chairs. Mandy handed out the beers, her fingertips grazing Caleb’s as he accepted his. She refused to look in his eyes, but the touch sent an electrical current coursing the length of her arm.

She backed away and perched herself on the wide railing, one leg canted across the rail, the other dangling between the slats.

“Just when you think a guy can’t get any nastier,” said Travis, twisting off the cap of his beer bottle.

Caleb took a swig of his own beer. “Only Wilton could screw up our lives from the grave.”

Mandy had to agree with that. It looked as if Caleb’s father had deliberately driven a new wedge between his two sons. The only way to repair the damage was to tell Reed about Caleb’s offer to return the ranch.

“How are we going to find him?” she asked.

“We won’t,” said Travis, “if he doesn’t want to be found.”

“Probably doesn’t,” said Caleb. “Which means he’s finally come to his senses and left this place in his dust.”

“He thinks you’re stealing his ranch,” Mandy corrected, her voice rising on the accusation.

“Then why didn’t he call me and talk about it? I’m listed.”

“He probably thought you’d gloat,” she guessed.

“Your faith in me is inspiring.”

She hadn’t meant it as an insult. “I was speculating on what Reed might think. I wasn’t saying what I personally thought.” She took a swig of the cold, bitter brew. It wasn’t her favorite beverage, but sometimes it was the only thing going, so she’d learned to adapt.

“You thought I was going to keep the ranch,” Caleb reminded her.

“But I believed you when you said you wouldn’t,” she countered.

“You want points for that?”

“Or a merit badge.” The joke was out before she could stop it.

Caleb gave a half smile. Then he seemed to contemplate her for a long, drawn out moment. “I should just sell the damn thing.”

“Well, that would be quite the windfall, wouldn’t it?”

“You think I’d keep the money?”

She stilled, taking in his affronted expression. Oops. She swallowed. “Well…”

Caleb shook his head in obvious disgust, his tone flat. “I’d give the money to Reed, Mandy.”

“Reed wants the ranch, not the money,” she pointed out, attempting to cover the blunder.

“Then why isn’t he here fighting for it?”

“Excellent question,” Travis jumped in. “If it was me, I’d fight you tooth and nail. Hell, I’d lie, cheat and steal to get my land back.”

“So, where is he?” Caleb’s question was directed at Mandy.

“I’m going to find out,” she vowed.

Two days later, Mandy was no closer to an answer. Caleb, on the other hand, was moving his alternative plan along at lighting speed, having decided it was most efficient for him to stay on the ranch for now. He had a real-estate broker on retainer, an appraiser marching around the Terrell ranch and a photographer compiling digital shots for the broker’s website. He’d told her that if they didn’t find Reed in the next few days, the ranch was going on the market.

Trying to keep her activities logical and rational, despite the ticking clock, Mandy had gone from checking Reed’s web-browser history for hotel sites, to trying his cell phone one more time, to calling the hospitals within a three-hundred-mile radius, just in case.

At noon, tired, frustrated and hungry, she wandered into the Terrell kitchen. She found a chicken breast in the freezer, cheese in the refrigerator along with half a jar of salsa, and some tomatoes, peppers and onions in the crisper.

Assuming Caleb and the appraiser would be hungry when they finished their work, she put the chicken breast in the microwave and set it to defrost. She found a thick skillet, flour, shortening and a rolling pin, and started mixing up a batch of homemade tortilla shells.

When Caleb walked in half an hour later, she was chopping her way through a ripe tomato on the island’s counter, the chicken frying on the stove.

She glanced up to see Caleb alone. “Where’s the appraiser?” she asked.

“On his way back to Lyndon.”

“He wasn’t hungry?”

Caleb snagged a chunk of tomato and popped it into his mouth. “He didn’t know there was anything on offer.”

“You didn’t offer to feed him?” It was more than two-and-a-half hours back to Lyndon.

“I didn’t think it was worth the risk.”

She gave him a perplexed look.

“I don’t cook,” he clarified.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She turned her back on him to flip the last of the tortillas frying in the pan. “Everybody cooks.”

“Not me.”

She threw the vegetables in with the chicken. “How is that possible? You said you lived alone. Please, don’t tell me you have servants.”

“I don’t have servants. Does anybody have servants in this day and age? I live in a high-rise apartment in downtown Chicago. I’m surrounded by excellent restaurants.”

“You eat out every night?” She couldn’t imagine it.

“I do a lot of business over dinner,” he told her easily. “But most of the restaurants in the area also offer takeout.”

“It’s hard to believe you survive on takeout.” She turned back, returning to chopping the tomato on the island. How could he be so fit eating pizza, burgers and chicken?

“There’s takeout. And then there’s takeout.” He spread his arms and rested the heels of his hands against the lip of the granite countertop, cornerwise from where she worked. “Andre’s, around the corner from my apartment, will send up filet mignon, baby potatoes in a sweet dill sauce and primavera lettuce salad with papaya dressing.”

Suddenly, her soft-taco recipe seemed lame. She paused. “You must make a lot of money to afford meals like that.”

He was silent for a long moment, and she quickly realized her observation had been rude. It was none of her business how much money he made.

“I do okay,” he finally allowed.

“Tell me something about your job.” She tried to graciously shift the subject.

She also realized she was curious. What had happened to the seventeen-year-old cowboy who landed in Chicago with nothing more than a high school education. It couldn’t have been easy for him.

“The company’s called Active Equipment.” He reached out and snagged another chunk of tomato.

She threatened him with her chopping knife.

But he only laughed. “We sell heavy equipment to construction companies, exploration and resource companies, even ranchers.”

“So, like a car dealership?”

“Not a dealership. It’s a multinational corporation. We manufacture the equipment before we sell it.” With lightning speed, he chose another piece of tomato from the juicy pile and popped it into his mouth, sucking the liquid from the tip of his finger.

“There’s not going to be any left for the tacos,” she warned.

“I’ll risk it.”

“So, what do you do at this corporation?”

Caleb swallowed. “I run it.”

“What part of it?”

“All of it.”

Her hand stilled. “You run an entire corporation?” He’d risen all the way to the top at age twenty-seven? That seemed impossible.

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

He coughed out a laugh. “I’m the president and chief executive officer.”

“They gave you that many promotions?”

“Not exactly. They let me run things, because they have no choice. I own it.”

She set down the knife. She couldn’t believe it. “You own Active Equipment?”

He nodded.

“How?”

He shrugged. “Hard work, intelligence and a few big financial risks along the way.”

“But-”

“You should stop being so surprised that I’m not a loser.”

He paused, but she didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Though it’s true that I can’t cook,” he allowed with a crooked smile. “I guess I concentrated on the things I was good at and muddled my way through the rest.”

“With filet mignon and baby potatoes. Poor you.” She kept her tone flippant, but inside she acknowledged he was right. She should stop being so surprised at his accomplishments.

“It wasn’t always that way,” he told her, tone going more serious. “In the beginning, it was cheap food, a crappy basement suite and two jobs.”

Then he straightened his spine, squaring his shoulders. “But I was never coming back here. I’d have starved to death before I’d have come back to Wilton with my tail between my legs.”

She found her heart going out to the teenager he’d been back then. “Was it that bad? Were you in danger of starving?”

His posture relaxed again. “No real danger. I was young and healthy. Hard work was good for me. And not even the most demanding bosses could hold a candle to Wilton Terrell.”

She retrieved the knife and scraped the tomato chunks from the wooden cutting board into a glass bowl. “So now, you’re a self-made man.”

“Impressed?”

Mandy wasn’t sure how to answer that. Money wasn’t everything. “Are you happy?”

“Delirious.”

“You have friends? A social life? A girlfriend?” She turned away, crossing the short space to the stove, removing the tortilla shell, setting it on the stack and switching off the burner. She didn’t want him to see her expression when he started talking about his girlfriend.

“No girlfriend,” he said from behind.

“Why not?” she asked without turning.

“No time, I guess. Never met the right girl.”

“You should.” She turned back. “Make the time. Meet a nice girl.”

His expression went thoughtful, and he regarded her with obvious curiosity. “What about you? Why no boyfriend?”

“Because I’m stuck in the wilds of Colorado ranch country. How am I going to meet a man?”

“Go to Denver. Buy yourself a pretty dress.”

She couldn’t help glancing down at her simple T-shirt and faded blue jeans with a twinge of self-consciousness. “You don’t like my clothes?”

“They’re fine for right now, but we’re not dancing in a club.”

“I’ve never danced in a real club.” A barn, sure, and at the Weasel in Lyndon, but never in a real club.

“Seriously?”

She rolled her eyes at his tone of surprise. “Where would I dance in a club?”

He moved around the island, blue eyes alight with merriment. “If we were in Chicago, I’d dress you up and show you a good time.”

“Pretty self-confident, aren’t you?” But her pulse had jumped at the thought of dancing with Caleb.

He reached out, lifted one of her hands and twirled her in a spin, pulling her against his body to dance her in the two-step across the kitchen. She reflexively followed his smooth lead.

“Clearly, you’ve been practicing the Chicago nightlife,” she noted.

“Picture mood lighting and a crowd,” he whispered in her ear.

“And maybe a band?” she asked, the warmth of his body seeping into her skin, forcing her lungs to work harder to drag in the thickening air.

“You like country?” he asked. “Blues? Jazz? There are some phenomenal jazz clubs in Chicago.”

“I’m a country girl,” she responded brightly, desperate to mask her growing arousal.

“You’d like jazz,” he said with conviction.

The timer pinged for the simmering chicken, and they both halted. Their gazes met, and their breaths mingled.

She could see exactly what he was thinking. “No,” she whispered huskily, even though she was definitely feeling it, too. They were not going to let this attraction go over the edge to a kiss.

“Yes,” he responded, his fingertips flexing against the small of her back. “But not right now.”

Caleb had known it was only a matter of time before Maureen Jacobs, Mandy’s mother, extended him some Lyndon Valley hospitality. He wasn’t really in a mood for socializing, but he couldn’t insult her by saying no to her dinner invitation. So, he’d shut the ranch office computer down early, sighing his disappointment that the listing hadn’t come up on the broker’s web site yet. Then he drove the rental car over the gravel roads to the Jacobs ranch.

There, he returned friendly hugs, feeling surprisingly at home as he settled in, watching Mandy’s efficient movements from the far reaches of the living room in the Jacobs family home. The Jacobses always had the biggest house, the biggest spread and the biggest family in the valley. Caleb couldn’t count the number of times he had been here for dinner as a child and a teenager. He, Reed and Travis had all been good friends growing up.

He’d never watched Mandy like this. She had always blended in with her two sisters, little kids in pigtails and scuffed jeans, and was beneath his notice. Now, she was all he could focus on as she flitted from the big, open-concept kitchen to the dining area, chatting with her mother and sister, refilling glasses of iced tea, checking on dishes in the oven and on the stove, while making sure the finishing touches were perfect on the big, rectangular table.

Caleb couldn’t imagine the logistics of dinner for seven people every single night. Tonight, one of Mandy’s two sisters was here, along with her two brothers, Travis and Seth, who was the oldest. And her parents, Hugo and Maureen, who looked quite a bit older than Caleb had expected, particularly Hugo, who seemed pale and slightly unsteady on his feet.

“I see the way you’re looking at my sister,” Travis said in an undertone as he took the armchair opposite Caleb in the corner of the living room.

“I was thinking she suits it here,” Caleb responded, only half lying. He was thinking a whole lot of other things that were better left unsaid.

“She does,” Travis agreed, “but that wasn’t what I meant.”

“She’s a very beautiful woman,” Caleb acknowledged. He wasn’t going to lie, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit the extent of his attraction to Mandy, either.

“Yes, she is.” Travis set his glass of iced tea on the small table between them and relaxed back into the overstuffed chair.

Caleb tracked Mandy’s progress from the stovetop to the counter, where her mother was busy with a salad, watching as the two of them laughed at something Mandy said. He didn’t want to reinforce Travis’s suspicions, but his curiosity got the better of him “Did she and Reed ever…?”

Travis shook his head. “It was pretty hard to get close to your brother. He was one bottled up, angry man after you lit out without him.”

Caleb felt himself bristle at the implication. He hadn’t deserted Reed. He’d begged his brother to come with him. “It wasn’t my leaving that did the bottling.”

“Didn’t help,” said Travis.

Caleb hit the man with a warning glare.

“I’m saying he lost his mother, then he lost you, and he was left to cope with your father’s temper and crazy expectations all on his own.”

Caleb cleared his dry throat with a sip of his own iced tea. “He should have come with me. Left Wilton here to rot.”

“You understand why he didn’t, don’t you?”

“No.” Caleb would never understand why Reed had refused to leave.

“Because of your mother.”

“I know what he said.” But it had never made sense to Caleb.

Their mother was gone. And the legacy of the ranch land didn’t mean squat to Caleb. There was nothing but bad memories here for them both. Their father had worked their mother to death on that land.

The sound of female laughter wafted from the kitchen again. Caleb couldn’t help but contrast the loud, chaotic scene in this big, family house to his own penthouse apartment with its ultramodern furniture, crisp, cool angles of glass and metal, its silence and order. Everything was always in its place, or at least everything was sitting exactly where he’d last left it.

Maureen passed her husband, Hugo, giving him a quick stroke across the back of the neck. He responded with a secretive smile and a quick squeeze of her hand.

Here was another thing that wasn’t in Caleb’s frame of reference, relaxed and loving parents. He couldn’t remember his mother ever voluntarily touching his father. And his father had certainly never looked at his wife, Sasha, with affection.

Travis shifted his position in the armchair. “Reed thought you were afraid to stay and fight.”

Caleb straightened. “Afraid?”

Travis shrugged, indicating he was only the messenger.

“I hated my old man,” Caleb clarified. “But I was never afraid of him.”

That was a lie, of course. As a child, Caleb had been terrified of his father. Wilton was exacting and demanding, and quick with a strap or the back of his hand. But by the time Caleb was seventeen, he had a good two inches on his father, and he’d have fought back if Wilton had tried anything. Reed was even bigger than Caleb, and Wilton was no physical threat to Reed by then.

“Where do you think Reed went?” Travis asked.

“I couldn’t begin to guess,” Caleb responded, thinking Reed’s decisions were finally his own. He honestly hoped his brother was happy away from here.

He’d thought a lot about it over the past two days. Reed was perfectly entitled to live his life any way he saw fit. As was Caleb, and Caleb had become more and more convinced that selling the ranch was the right thing to do.

Reed could do whatever he wanted with the money. And, in the short term, Caleb was in no position to hang around Lyndon Valley and run things. And he sure couldn’t continue to depend on the Jacobses to help him out.

He supposed he could hire a professional ranch manager. But, then what? It wasn’t as if he was ever coming back again. And Reed had made his choice by leaving. If Reed had any interest in keeping the ranch, all it would have taken was for him to jot down a contact number in his cryptic note. Caleb would have called, and they could have worked this whole thing out.

Mandy swished across the room, a huge bowl of mashed potatoes in her oven-mitt-covered hands. She’d changed from her usual blue jeans to a pair of gray slacks and a sleeveless, moss-green sweater. It clung to her curves and brought out the color of her eyes. The slacks molded to her rear end, while her rich, chestnut-colored hair flowed like a curtain around her smooth, bare shoulders.

“I see the way you’re looking at my sister,” Travis repeated.

Caleb glanced guiltily away.

“You hurt her,” Travis added, “and we’re going to have a problem.”

“I have nothing but respect for Mandy,” Caleb lied. While he certainly had respect for Mandy, he was also developing a very powerful lust for her.

“This isn’t Chicago,” Travis warned.

“I’m aware that I’m not in Chicago.” Chicago had never been remotely like this.

“We’re ready,” Maureen announced in a singsong voice.

Mandy sent Caleb a broad smile and motioned him over to the big table. Then she seemed to catch Travis’s dark expression, and her eyes narrowed in obvious confusion.

“She’s a beautiful, intelligent, strong-minded woman,” Caleb said to Travis in an undertone. “You should worry about her hurting me.”

Travis rose to his feet. “I don’t care so much about you. And I’m not likely to take her out behind the barn and knock any sense into her.”

Caleb stood to his full height. “Does she know you try to intimidate guys like this?”

The question sent a brief flash of concern across Travis’s expression. Caleb tried to imagine Mandy’s reaction to Travis’s brotherly protectiveness.

It was all Caleb could do not to laugh. “Stalemate.”

“I’ll still take you out behind the barn.”

“I’m not going to hurt Mandy,” Caleb promised.

Not that he wouldn’t let Mandy make up her own mind about him. She was a grown woman, and if she offered a kiss, he was taking a kiss. If she offered more, well, okay, he didn’t imagine he’d be around long enough for that to happen. So there was no sense in borrowing trouble.

He deliberately took a chair across the table from Mandy instead of sitting next to her. Travis grunted his approval.

As dishes were passed around and plates filled up, the family’s conversation became free-flowing and boisterous.

“If there’s a competing interest lurking out there,” Mandy’s sister Abigail was saying, “I can’t find it. But it’s important that as many ranchers as possible show up at the first meeting.”

“We need a united front,” Hugo put in, helping himself to a slice of roast beef before passing the platter to Travis. “It’s suspicious to me that they’re calling the review five years early.”

“The legislation allows for a water use review anytime after thirty years and before thirty-five,” Abigail responded. “Technically, they’re not early.”

Seth, the eldest brother, stepped in as he reached for a homemade bun. “When was the last time the state government did anything at the earliest possible date? Dad’s right, there’s something they’re not telling us.”

“I’ve put in an access to information request,” said Abigail. “Maybe that’ll solve the mystery.”

“That won’t get you anything,” Hugo grumbled. “The bureaucrats will just stonewall.”

“You should catch Caleb up,” Mandy suggested.

“This is important to you, too,” said Travis, and Caleb waited for him to elaborate.

“Any decrease in the flexibility of our water licenses, will devalue the range land.”

“Devalue the range land?” Seth interjected. “Who cares about the land value? It’ll impact our grazing density. There are operations up and down the valley that are marginal as it is. The Stevensons, for example. They don’t have river access anywhere on their land. A couple of tributaries, but they depend on their wells.”

“Seth,” Maureen put in, her voice stern. “Did anyone ask you to bring your soapbox to the dinner table?”

Seth’s lips thinned for a moment. But then he glanced down at his plate. “Sorry, Mom.”

Maureen’s face transformed into a friendly smile. “Now, Caleb. How long do you expect to be in Lyndon?”

Caleb swallowed a mouthful of potatoes smothered in the best gravy he’d ever eaten. “A few days. Maybe a week.”

“We’re sorry you missed the funeral, dear.” Maureen’s tone was even, but he detected a rebuke. One look at Mandy’s expression told him he’d detected correctly.

“I was tied up with work,” he said.

“Did you know Caleb owns his own company in Chicago?” Mandy asked.

Caleb appreciated the change in topic, and silently thanked Mandy. The Jacob family would learn soon enough that he was planning to sell the Terrell ranch. Just like everyone would soon learn about Wilton’s will. But he was in no hurry to field the inevitable questions.

“Active Equipment,” he told them. “Heavy machinery. We’re making inroads into Asia and Canada, and we hope to succeed in the South American market soon.”

“That’s lovely, dear,” said Maureen, her quick gaze going from plate to plate, obviously checking to see if anyone was ready for seconds.

“Active Equipment?” asked Hugo, tone sharp and vaguely accusing. “ The Active Equipment, loaders and backhoes?”

“Yes,” Caleb confirmed.

“So, you can get me a discount?”

Maureen scowled at her husband. Travis laughed, and Mandy’s eyes danced with amusement.

“Absolutely,” Caleb answered, unable to look away from Mandy. Her green eyes sparkled like emeralds under the chandelier, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen a more kissable set of lips. “Just let me know what you need.”

“Seth and I will come up with a list,” said Hugo.

“Happy to help out,” said Caleb.

Mandy’s lashes swept briefly down over her eyes, and the tip of her tongue moistened her lower lip. He didn’t dare glance Travis’s way.