A Cowboy Comes Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

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