crack widened and a thread of hope snaked through. “Sure could. Who’s cooking?”
Caleb reached for the reins and took them from Brock’s gloved hand, then led the animals toward the barn. “Things have changed around here. We have a lot to catch up on.”
Brock walked beside him. “I’m looking forward to it.”
The gray-blue eyes that met his held an unmistakable sheen. “Me, too, little brother.”
After unsaddling and brushing the horses, then throwing down hay for them, the two men walked toward the house, where a familiar dark-skinned woman with a glossy black braid met them at the back door and led them into the warm humid kitchen. She rested a chubby, dark-haired baby on her hip.
“Ruth is my wife now. This is our son, Barton.” At Brock’s puzzled expression, Caleb added, “I told you there was a lot to catch up on. Marie’s dead,” he explained, referring to his first wife. “She was thrown from a horse and stayed in a coma until she died.”
Brock was at a loss for words. “I’m sorry” didn’t seem adequate, yet he couldn’t help thinking guiltily how miserable Caleb had been with his first wife and how he was better off without her.
“I’m glad you’re home, Brock,” Ruth said with a warm smile, teeth white against her dark skin. “And don’t let your brother fool you, he’s glad you’re here, too.”
Ruth was John Whitefeather’s sister, and she had stayed with them for a time many years ago.
Brock nodded. “I’m glad to be back.”
“Dada!” the baby burbled, and flapped a chubby arm at his father.
With a wide smile, Caleb took the boy from his mother and tossed him in the air. The baby chortled and a string of drool hit Caleb on the chin. He shook his shaggy head and grimaced, which only made the baby giggle harder. Caleb brought the boy to rest against his wide chest and wiped his face with his shirtsleeve.
Ruth laughed and the couple exchanged looks of affection and pride. She turned to Brock then and said, “Let’s get you settled. I’ll heat water for a bath.”
“Do I smell?” he asked with a grin.
She laughed good-naturedly. “The first thing your brother wants to do after he returns from a trip is clean up.”
“Well, you’re right about that. I stayed at the hotel last night, but I didn’t take time for the niceties.”
“You were in town overnight?” A furrow dipped between Caleb’s brows.
“Yes. I needed a little time to collect myself. I wasn’t sure—well, I wasn’t sure how you were going to react to seeing me.”
“Ruth’s right. I’m glad to see you. About damned time is all I have to say.” Caleb handed the baby back to his wife. “We’ll talk at supper.”
With that, he turned and left the house, the door banging shut in a gust of wind.
“He doesn’t have a coat on,” Ruth commented.
“I think he was a little distracted,” Brock replied.
“He is glad you’re here.”
“I hope so.” For some reason it seemed easier to talk to this woman than to his brother. “I spent too long on the trail and I’m ready to settle in somewhere. Make up for the lost years, if I can.”
“Well, you’re welcome here. This is your home.”
He didn’t know if she’d feel the same if she knew what he’d been doing all those years, if she knew the things he had to put behind him: the violence and the bloodshed and the wavering line between right and wrong that he’d walked for so long. Too long.
Brock didn’t know if it was possible to put all that behind him, if the man he’d become could be the man he wanted to be. Even if he cut himself off from every person who’d known him or known of him, and started over, could he ever live at peace with himself?
“I’ll have the tub and water brought to your room.”
Brock thanked his new sister-in-law and climbed the stairs, his gun hand riding the glossy banister.
Catching up took Brock and Caleb most of the day, half a bottle of rum and several cigars. Ruth prepared lunch, something she claimed to enjoy, since Caleb normally ate in the bunkhouse with the hands at noon.
After telling the story of his and Ruth’s romance, Caleb related how Will had come home a year ago, wanting to return the gold. Caleb hadn’t wanted it, didn’t want money to be a factor between them, so they’d secretly buried it in a cornerstone of the Double Deuce Saloon, which Caleb owned.
“That doesn’t sound like the Caleb I remember,” Brock told him. “I can’t picture you doing something like that.”
Caleb grinned. “Hopefully I’ve changed—for the better.”
“I saw Zeke yesterday,” Brock told him.
Caleb slapped a hand against his thigh. “Are you the stranger he saw outside the hardware store?”
Brock grinned. “That’s me.”
“He was taken with the revolvers you wore. I see you don’t have ’em on today.”
And he had no idea how difficult it was for Brock to leave them in his room, even while in this house.
Caleb’s eyes narrowed and he pierced Brock with a look he remembered too well, a look that said he’d see through him if he tried to lie. “So what have you been doing all these years, little brother?”
Chapter Two
Brock brushed his fingertips across the empty space on his denim-clad thigh where his holster should have been. The absence of that familiar weight kept surprising him. “I hired on in a range war in Wyoming after I left here. Occasionally I rode shotgun for Wells Fargo on special runs. But the ranchers kept hiring me to do their dirty work, and they paid too well to say no. After a while it seemed I was getting so many offers that I could choose.”
Brock stood and stretched his legs, striding to the window and gazing out at the snow-covered mountains. “I traveled with army details to recover stolen horses. Took a couple of U.S. Marshal jobs. Things like that.”
“You never wrote.”
The words hung in the air, more of a hurt-revealing question than an accusation.
Brock hadn’t written because he hadn’t wanted his enemies to be able to track him to his family. The sugarcoated version of the past he was feeding his brother was enough. The less Caleb knew, the better. “I didn’t know what to say.”
“You could have said you were okay.”
“You were mad that I left, weren’t you?”
“I was mad at your hotheaded foolishness
