A Cowboy Comes Home (19 page)

“I’m not…” But then Abigail’s words came back to haunt her. Was this what she’d tried to warn Mandy about?
Was
Mandy substituting Reed for her own family?
Had
she become way too invested in Reed and Caleb’s relationship?

Had she made a colossal mistake that was going to hurt them all?

Reed’s dark eyes watched her closely while she struggled to bring her emotions back under control.

“Mandy?” he asked softly, a sad, ghost of a smile growing on his face. “How long have you been in love with Caleb?”

Mandy’s stomach dove into a freefall.
“What?”
she rasped. “I didn’t… I’m not… It isn’t…” She could feel her face heat to flaming.

Reed cocked his head and waited.

She couldn’t explain.

She wouldn’t explain.

She didn’t have to explain.

“I only slept with him,” she blurted out.

Reed’s lips formed a silent whistle. “And you just forced him to walk away and leave you with me? Oh, Mandy.”

“I’m not in love with him,” she managed. Falling in love with Caleb would be the most foolish move in the world. “It was a fling, a lark. It was nothing.”

Reed reached across the table and took her hand in his. It was big, strong, callused. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“I know that now,” she admitted. She should have listened to her big sister. She should have minded her own business. Maybe if she had, Reed and Caleb would have found their way back without her.

“Go to the airport,” Reed advised. “Go to Caleb right now.”

But Mandy vigorously shook her head.

It was far too late for her to go to Caleb. And it wasn’t what Reed thought. Caleb never offered her anything more than a plan for a fling in Rio. And even that was over now. She was pushing Caleb right out of her heart. Forever.

Twelve

C
aleb’s jet took off from the Sao Paulo airport, heading northwest into clear skies. The past two days had been an exercise in frustration, but with Danielle’s help, he’d defeated the Brazilian banking system’s red tape, and they were ready to start shipping raw materials next week.

They had a plant manager in place who spoke very good English. Their accounting and computer systems were set up, and they’d approved the hiring of three foremen who were now looking for local skilled trade workers.

“I’m going to set up a meeting with Sales and Accounting for Friday,” said Danielle, punching a message into her PDA. “We have to watch the gross sales ceiling for the first six months, and I want everybody to understand the parameters.”

“I’m not sure about Friday,” said Caleb. He had to give final instructions to the moving company. The sooner the better as far as he was concerned.

“Why not?”

“I need to go to Colorado.”

She whirled her head in his direction. “Wait a minute.
What?
”

“The outstanding water rights issue is playing havoc with property values, but I told the broker to take any deal. I want this done.”

“But, your brother.”

“What about my brother?”

“We found him. He’s back. Sign the damn thing over to him and forget about it.”

Caleb wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “What do you mean
we
found him?”

Danielle straightened, her tone completely unapologetic. “Mandy wasn’t going to get anywhere on her own, so I had Enrico make a few calls.”

“Enrico found Reed?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think you should run this by me?”

“I didn’t charge you anything. Besides, you were off in la la land, reconnecting with your roots and ignoring your own best interests.”

Caleb coughed and shifted in his airplane seat. “Okay, setting aside for a second that you went behind my back, Reed doesn’t want the ranch. He turned it down.”

“So? Put it in his name, anyway. I can have something drafted by the time we land in Chicago.”

“I’m selling it,” Caleb stated flatly, his frustration growing by the second.

“That’s a ridiculous waste of your time. We need you in your office, with your head in the game, not out on the range, chasing—”

“Since when is my life managed by consensus?”

“Since you stopped managing it for yourself.”

“I take a couple of weeks, a couple of weeks to visit my hometown.”

“Since when could you care less about your hometown?”

Caleb didn’t care about his hometown. Okay, maybe he did. A little. It was fun hanging out with Travis again. And Seth was a great guy. And Mandy. He sucked in a breath. Mandy was going to be impossible to forget.

He’d tried to tell himself she’d lied about her feelings for him. But then he’d been forced to admit, she was. He’d been an absolute ass to accuse her of sleeping with him to get him to give Reed back the ranch. She’d never do that.

He’d even tossed the idea of seeing her again back and forth in his brain about a thousand times. Assuming that she’d be willing.

“Is it Mandy?” Danielle asked, startling him from his thoughts.

“Mandy what?”

“Are you going back to see Mandy?”

Caleb pressed his head hard against the high-backed seat. He had no idea how to answer that question. Mandy and the ranch were two completely different issues, but somehow they’d gotten all tangled up into one.

“If you’ve got a thing for her, you might as well go get it over with.”

Caleb didn’t have a thing for Mandy. Okay, well, he definitely had a thing for her. But the way Danielle put it, it sounded so crass. “How is this any of your business?”

“It’s not. But we have this lawyer-client confidentiality thing going on, so I feel like I can be honest.”

“Go be honest with someone else.”

“Caleb.” Her voice took on a tone of exaggerated patience, and she folded her hands in her lap. “We agreed that the solution was to give your brother back the ranch. I’ve handed it to you on a silver platter. You need to take it.”

“I’m selling it,” he repeated. He held the trump card, because there was nothing she could do to change his mind.

“Why?”

“Because he doesn’t want it, and he’s better off without it.”

“So, you’re doing this for him.”

“Right.”

“Yet, you haven’t spoken to him in ten years.”

“I spoke to him the other day.” And it had been a surreal experience.

The person he’d fought with in Helena had been Reed, only not Reed. The new Reed was a twenty-seven-year-old man, broader and stronger than he’d been as a teenager, self-confident, self-assured. Part of Caleb had wanted to sit down and talk things over with him. And part of Caleb had wanted to throw Mandy over his shoulder and carry her away.

Mandy had said they were just friends. Yet, she stayed behind with Reed.

No, Caleb wasn’t going to go there. Mandy told him she wasn’t romantically involved with Reed, and he was going to believe her. The remaining question was whether she was interested in being romantically involved with Caleb.

Three days ago, he might have said maybe. Today, he’d definitely say no. But what if he went back? What if he treated her properly this time? Was there a chance of something between them?

He’d regretted walking away from her the second his feet hit the pavement in Helena. And he’d regretted it every minute since.

“I’m going to Colorado,” he told Danielle with determination.

She shook her head and leaned back in her seat. “I can’t save you from yourself, Caleb.”

Sitting at his office desk, hitting send on a final email before he headed to the Chicago airport, Caleb heard someone enter through the open door.

He didn’t look up. “Tell the driver I’ll be ten more minutes.”

“You have a driver?” came a deep, male voice.

Caleb turned sharply, swiveling his high-backed, leather chair to face the doorway.

Reed’s large frame nearly filled the entrance. His boots added an inch to his six-foot-three-inch frame, and his midnight-black, Western-cut shirt stretched across his broad shoulders. In the office, he looked even more imposing than he had outside the hotel.

Caleb instantly came to his feet.

Reed didn’t look angry, exactly. But he didn’t look happy, either.

“What are you doing in Chicago?” was the only thing Caleb could think to say. He couldn’t help but wonder if Mandy was with him.

“Wanted to talk to you,” said Reed, taking a few paces into the office.

“Okay,” Caleb offered warily. He’d been feeling off-kilter since he last saw Mandy, and his emotions continued to do crazy things to his logic. He really wasn’t in the mood for a fight.

Reed stepped up to the desk. “Don’t sell the ranch.”

Caleb’s jaw went lax.

“It’s mine,” said Reed.

Caleb didn’t disagree with that. Morally and ethically, the ranch belonged to Reed.

“And I want it,” Reed finished.

“You want it?” Something akin to joy came to life inside Caleb. Which was silly. The ranch wasn’t good for Reed.

“Yes.”

“Just like that.” Caleb snapped his fingers.

Reed’s dark eyes went hard. “No. Not just like that. Just like ten years of sweat and blood and hell.”

“I was going to give you the money.”

“I don’t want the money. I want the land. My land. Our mother’s land.”

Caleb’s heart gave an involuntary squeeze inside his chest.

“Did you forget her great-grandmother was born at Rock Creek?” asked Reed, voice crackling hard. “In that tiny falling- down house next to the waterfall?”

Of course Caleb hadn’t forgotten. His mother had told them that story a hundred times.

“And her grandfather, her father. They’re all buried on the hill, Caleb. You going to sell off our ancestors’ bones?”

“You going to live with the memory of
him?
” Caleb blurted out.

“You going to let him defeat us?” Reed squared his shoulders. “He was who he was, Caleb.”

“He killed her.”

“I know. Do you think I don’t know? And I can’t bring her back.” Reed’s voice was shaking with emotion. “But do you know what I can do? What I’m going to do?”

Caleb was too stunned by the stark pain on his brother’s face to even attempt an answer.

“I’m going to have her grandchildren. I’m going to find a nice girl, who loves Lyndon Valley, and I’m going to give her babies, and my first daughter will be named Sasha, and she will be loved, and she will be happy, and I will never, ever,
ever
let anyone hurt her.”

Caleb’s chest nearly caved in, while his heart stood still.

“Are you going to stand in my way?” Reed demanded, bringing his fist down on the desktop.

“No,” Caleb managed through a dry throat.

“Good.” Reed abruptly sat down and leaned back, crossing one boot over the opposite knee.

Caleb slumped in his chair. “Why didn’t you say all that in the first place?”

“I’ve said it now.”

“You’re going to find a nice girl?” Caleb couldn’t help but ask.

Reed nodded. “I am. A ranch girl. Someone like Mandy.”

Caleb’s spine went stiff, and his hands curled into fists.

Reed chuckled, obviously observing the involuntary reaction. “But not Mandy. Mandy’s yours.”

“No, she’s not.”

“Yeah. She is.” Reed’s tone was gruff, his eyes watchful. “Unless you’re going to cut and run on her, too.”

“I’ve never—”

“She’s in love with you, Caleb. Not that you deserve her.”

Reed had it all wrong.

“No, she’s not. She’s…” Caleb wasn’t sure how to describe it. “Well, ticked off at me for one thing.”

“Because you were such a jerk in Helena?”

“So were you.”

Reed shrugged. “She’ll forgive me in the blink of an eye, once I tell her I’m moving back.”

“I’ll sign it over to you today,” Caleb offered. Now that the decision was made, he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

“What about Mandy?”

“That’s between me and Mandy.”

Caleb’s brain was going off in about a million directions. Was it possible that she loved him? Had she told Reed she loved him? What business did she have loving him? She was a Lyndon Valley woman, and he was a Chicago man. How was that going to work?

“You slept with her, right?”

“None of your damn business.”

“Do you think a woman like Mandy would sleep with just anyone?”

Of course Caleb didn’t think she’d do that. And he couldn’t help remembering how it felt to have her sleeping in his arms, the taste of her lips, the satin of her skin. And he wanted to feel it all again, so very, very badly.

“I thought you were going to take my head off in Helena.” Reed chuckled low. “She had no idea what she did, by the way, telling you she was staying with me.”

Caleb remembered that moment, when she had a choice and she hadn’t picked him. He never wanted to feel that gut-wrenching anguish again. Mandy belonged with him. Not with Reed and not with any other man. Him, and him alone.

“You should go talk to her,” Reed suggested.

“I
was
going to talk to her. Good grief, can I make at least one decision on my own?”

“Apparently not a good one. When were you going?”

Caleb pasted Reed with a mulish glare. “The jet’s warming up on the tarmac.”

“You have a jet?”

“Yes.”

“Bring a ring.”

Caleb drew back. “Excuse me?”

“You better bring a ring. You’ve been a jerk, and you need to apologize so she’ll forgive you. And that whole thing’s going to go a whole lot smoother with you on one knee.”

“You haven’t spoken to me in ten years, and you come back and the first thing you do is tell me who I should marry?”

“Second thing, technically,” said Reed.

“Where do you get your nerve?”

“I’m bigger than you. I’m stronger than you. And it’s not me who wants you to propose.”

Caleb scoffed out a laugh at that. “It’s not?”

“No. It’s you.”

Caleb stared at Reed, suddenly seeing past everything to the brother that he’d loved, still loved. Because, despite everything that had happened between them, it was still the same Reed. And he was still smart and, in this case, he was also right.

Caleb grinned. “You want to catch a ride back to Lyndon?”

Mandy had sworn to herself she wouldn’t wallow in self-pity. She wouldn’t pine away for Caleb, and she wouldn’t let herself get involved any further in the brothers’ conflict. She was going cold turkey.