what?” Cisco asked as he looked at his father. They hadn’t said anything that required a yes-or-no decision.
Orlando frowned, turning his affable face into a stern, somber mask. “No, you two are not going to butt heads and who knows what else while competing for the same woman.”
Among Cisco’s many talents was the ability to look completely innocent even when he was completely guilty. He assumed that look now as he turned his gaze on his father.
“What makes you think that Matteo and I are going to compete for the same woman, Dad?”
An exasperated look flashed across the patriarch’s face. He was not about to be hoodwinked—or buried beneath his silver-tongued son’s rhetoric.
“Is the Pope Catholic?” Orlando asked.
“Last time I checked,” Cisco replied. His tone was respectful. The gleam in his eye, however, gave him away.
Orlando shook his head firmly. “And there you have your answer,” he told Cisco. “I never said very much when you boys were growing up and insisted on turning everything into an emotional tug-of-war. I even thought—God forgive me—that it might help you two to build your character—”
“Matteo’s a character all right,” Cisco joked. “However, as far as I’m concerned—” He got no further.
Orlando looked as if his patience was wearing thin and might even be in danger of giving way entirely. “But above all, I want you two to remember that you are brothers. No prize is worth sacrificing that relationship. Not even a woman you might think you love.”
But he, Orlando added silently, was the exception that proved the rule. However, that wasn’t something he was about to share with his sons. It went against the point he was trying to make.
“Don’t worry, Dad. There isn’t going to be any competition,” Cisco assured his father as he slanted a quick glance at his brother.
Orlando nodded his silver head. “That’s good to hear.”
“By the way she looked at me, I’ve already won,” Cisco concluded with that smile that always managed to get right under Matteo’s skin.
And his brother knew it, Matteo thought, unable to do anything about it without getting on his father’s bad side.
But he had to say something, however innocuous. So he did. “In your dreams,” Matteo retorted.
“I agree with you there, Mattie. That little lady certainly is the stuff that dreams are made of,” Cisco told his brother. “Besides, what difference does it make to you? Aren’t you the one dying to leave this place in the dust and take off for good ol’ Miami?”
Although when push came to shove—and under duress—Matteo would admit that he did love his brother, there were times when he would have liked nothing better than to strangle his irritating sibling with his bare hands.
Cisco had a way of getting to him like nobody else could. So much so that if Cisco said “black,” it instantly made him want to shout “white!”
Because of that feeling, it came as not much of a surprise to him when Matteo heard himself say, “Maybe I’ve changed my mind. Maybe I’ve decided to stick around Horseback Hollow for a little while longer.”
Delighted and confident that given enough time here, he would be able to convince Matteo of the merits of living in this wonderful small town, Orlando leaned over and clapped his youngest son on the back. “That is wonderful news, my boy. Wonderful.”
Matteo almost felt guilty about his father’s reaction. He wasn’t staying here because of his father. He was going to be hanging around a few extra days or so to see if he could win over the hostess before she succumbed to his sweet-talking brother.
“Yes, well, someone has to protect Horseback Hollow’s unsuspecting women from the likes of him,” Matteo told his father, nodding at his brother.
“And you’ve elected yourself that protector?” Cisco hooted, amusement highlighting his face at his brother’s declaration. “That’s one mighty tall order, little brother.”
“Don’t call me that, Cisco. I’m not your little brother,” Matteo told him.
Cisco’s amusement only grew. “Well, you’re certainly not my big brother, now, are you, Mattie? I am the older one.”
Matteo scowled. “Two years isn’t all that much,” he reminded his brother. And not even a full two years at that, Matteo thought.
“Oh, but it can amount to a lifetime under the right set of circumstances,” Cisco countered with a very mysterious grin that really annoyed Matteo.
Orlando sighed. He had had just about enough. Listening to this back-and-forth banter and bickering required something stronger to drink than just beer, but it was still too early in the day to contemplate downing any hard liquor.
“Might I remind you two boys that you no longer are boys. You are men,” Orlando told his sons. “It is time to take on that responsibility and act accordingly—or do I have to drag you both into a back alley and use my belt on you?”
The truth of it was that their father had never used his belt on either of them in a back alley, or any other area for that matter. But a reply to that declaration was temporarily tabled because Rachel had returned, bringing with her three freshly opened individual bottles of dark beer as well as Matteo’s cheeseburger and the new bowl of chips.
Setting down Matteo’s meal in front of him and placing the bowl of chips in the center of the table, Rachel proceeded to refill the men’s empty beer glasses, beginning with Orlando’s.
“Will there be anything else?” she asked with a gregarious smile as she made the rounds between the three men.
Cisco spoke up unexpectedly. “You could settle an argument for us,” he said.
Instinct had Matteo shoot his brother a silencing look, but it was already too late.
“What kind of an argument?” Rachel wanted to know, filling Cisco’s glass.
“If you had to go out with one of us, which would you choose?” Cisco asked her innocently.
The question seemed to catch her completely off guard, but Rachel managed to recover gracefully without missing a beat.
“That all depends,” she responded, going on to Matteo’s glass.
“On what?” Cisco asked her before Matteo had a chance to.
Her eyes met Matteo’s for one brief and surprisingly intense moment before she looked back at his brother. “On who would ask me first.”
“All right,” Cisco said quickly, making sure that he got the jump on his brother. “Rachel, would you go out with me tonight?”
It all happened so fast that Matteo felt as if he had just been torpedoed—and sunk—by an enemy sub.
“My shift doesn’t end until eight,” Rachel
