Barbara Dunlop: A Cowboy Comes Home

He let the hug go on a little too long, then reluctantly let her go.

“You missed the funeral.” Her tone was half regretful, half accusing as she backed her way inside the house, gesturing for him to follow.

“I didn’t come back for the funeral,” he told her soberly as he took a step over the threshold. Reminded of his reason for being here, his mood swung back to determination.

“He was your father,” she chided, turning to walk around the corner from the foyer and into the big living room.

Caleb followed, letting his silence speak for itself. Unless Mandy was hopelessly naive, she knew the history of the Terrell family. Wilton Terrell might have been Caleb’s father, but he was also the meanest son of a bitch in northwestern Colorado.

Inside the startlingly familiar room, he glanced around, attempting to orient himself. Why was Mandy here, and where was Reed? “So, you and Reed are…”

She shook her head. “He’s not here.”

“I can see that.” It was a big house, two stories, four bedrooms, but if Reed had been around, Mandy’s squeal would have brought him running. Now, Caleb found himself impatient to qualify her role. “You live here?”

Her look went blank. “Huh?”

He enunciated his next words. “Do you live here?”

“Are you asking me if I’m sleeping with your brother?”

“I’m asking if you’re in a relationship with him, yes.” That was the most obvious answer for her presence.

“I’m not.” Her left eye twitched. “Either of those things.”

“Okay.”

Good. Very good. Not that it mattered to Caleb. Nothing about Lyndon Valley or the Terrell ranch mattered to Caleb. This was a temporary glitch on the thoroughfare of his life. Mandy was irrelevant.

Her tone turned tart. “But how very polite of you to inquire about my sex life.”

“You’re here, and he’s not,” Caleb reasoned. She’d answered the front door, appeared very much at home. It wasn’t such a stretch to think she lived here.

She traced a finger along the beveled edge of a polished cedar side table. “I came up here to check things out.” Then a cloud of concern darkened her expression. “I got worried.”

“Why were you worried?”

“Because nobody’s seen Reed since the funeral five days ago.”

Mandy Jacobs had been Reed’s close friend for nearly ten years. Before that, she’d felt something close to hero worship for him in high school, ever since the day he’d rescued her when her bikini top flew off as she dove into the Stump Lake swimming hole. The boys in her own grade had howled with laughter, stopping her girlfriends from coming into the water to help her, waiting with wide-eyed anticipation for the numbing cold to force her from the lake.

Just as she was about to give in and cover her dignity as best she could manage, Reed had come along and read the younger boys the riot act. He’d stripped off his boots and waded up to his waist, handing her his own T-shirt. He’d never even peeked while, teeth chattering and toes tingling, she’d struggled her way into the shirt while under water. And then he’d threatened the younger boys with dire consequences if they dared to tease her about it in the future.

When she came home after two years in college in Denver, she and Reed had grown closer still. Over the years, she’d learned about his mother’s death, his father’s cruelty and the reasons behind his fraternal twin brother, Caleb, leaving the valley.

Reed had no siblings left at home, and Mandy’s two brothers did nothing but tease her. Her oldest sister, Abigail, had been a bookworm, while her younger sister, Katrina, had gone away to boarding school when she was only ten. If Mandy could have chosen a brother, it would have been Reed.

This morning, genuinely worried and determined to track him down, she’d let herself into the familiar house, listened to his phone messages, hunted her way through his letter mail, even checked his closet before realizing she wouldn’t know if some of his clothes were missing or not. She did know his wallet was gone. His watch wasn’t lying around and his favorite Stetson wasn’t hanging on the peg in the front entry hall.

She had to believe he had left the ranch willingly. The man was built like a mountain. She couldn’t imagine anyone forcing him to do anything he didn’t want to do.

Still, she was very glad Caleb had shown up when he did. Something definitely wasn’t right, and she could use his help to figure out what had happened.

Caleb clunked his briefcase down on the hardwood floor, interrupting her musings as he straightened beside the brown leather couch that sat in front of the picture window.

His gaze pierced hers. “Define missing? ”

“Reed left the cemetery after the funeral,” Mandy explained, casting her memory back again to the events of last week, hunting for little details she might have missed that would give her a clue to what happened. “He drove off in one of the ranch pickup trucks. I assumed he was coming back here.”

She focused on the row of pictures along the fireplace mantel, zeroing in on a recent one of Reed at the Lyndon Rodeo. “We all came over to the house afterward for refreshments. I didn’t see him, but I didn’t think that was particularly odd. He’d just lost his father and, you know, he might have wanted to be alone.”

From behind her, Caleb’s voice was cool. “Are you trying to tell me Reed was mourning our father?”

She turned back to face him while she framed her answer. She couldn’t help contrasting the two brothers. They were about as different as two men could get. They’d both been attractive teenagers who’d grown into very handsome men. But where Reed was rugged and rangy, Caleb was much more urbane and refined.

Reed was nearly six-four, deep-chested, bulky in his arms and legs, and about as strong as an ox. His hair was dark, his eyes darker. While Caleb was closer to six-one, broad shouldered, but with leaner muscles, a chiseled chin and bright blue, intelligent, observant eyes. His hair was a lighter brown, his voice bass instead of baritone.

“Mandy?” Caleb prompted, and there was something about the sound of her name on his lips that made her heart thud an extra beat. Where on earth had that come from?

“I doubt he was mourning your father,” she acknowledged.

If anything, Reed and Wilton’s relationship had deteriorated after Caleb left. Wilton wasn’t capable of anything but criticism, no matter how hard Reed worked. And no matter how much Reed accomplished on the ranch, his father wasn’t satisfied and told him so on a regular basis.

Intimidated by the man, Mandy had visited the Terrell house only when Wilton was away. Thankfully, he was away quite often. The very definition of a crotchety old man, he seemed to prefer the company of cattle to humans, and he spent many nights in line shacks on the range.

She’d done everything she could to support Reed. When she was sixteen and Reed was twenty, Wilton had ended a particularly hostile argument by whacking Reed’s shoulder with a two-by-four. Mandy had impulsively offered to marry Reed so he could move to the neighboring Jacobs ranch.

But he’d had laughed at her and tousled her hair, telling her he loved her like a sister, not a wife, and he wouldn’t turn his back on his father ever again. And by then, he was big enough to defend himself against Wilton.

“He should have left when I did,” Caleb broke into her thoughts again, his voice brittle.

“ You should have stayed,” Mandy countered, giving him her unvarnished opinion. If Caleb had been around, it would have been two against one, and Wilton would not have gotten away with so much cruelty.

Caleb’s eyes crackled like agates. “And rewarded him for killing my mother, by breaking my back for him day after day?”