‡‡
Jack joined the rest of the men in the barn at the end of the afternoon, trailing Jo.
“Well, would you look who’s come calling,” Connor called out. “It’s about time. Was thinking you were one lazy son of a bitch.”
“I’ve been making sure no one’s prowling around this ranch,” Jack pointed out. It had taken days to get his surveillance system up and working. And more days to learn his way around the chores with Jo.
“Whatever. We’ve got a sick critter, looks like. Come with me, and let’s see what we can figure out before we go in for dinner.”
Jack cast a look back at Jo, willing her to step in and deflect Connor, but she had already grabbed a pitchfork and was headed for the stable.
“Well? You coming?” Connor asked.
“Don’t know a lot about sick critters,” Jack said uncomfortably.
“Your folks have some magic formula to keep them all well?” Connor scoffed.
Brian looked up from where he was sorting through some tools. “I’d like to know that trick.”
“Wouldn’t we all?” Hunter said.
“No trick.” He’d backed himself well and good into this corner, hadn’t he? Jack braced himself against their derision. “Just haven’t spent that much time on a ranch.”
“Thought you grew up on a ranch.” Brian straightened.
“I did. Until I was seven.”
“What happened then? Folks have to sell out?” Connor asked.
Jack hated the sympathy in his face. Hated what would come next more. “Died.” He would have walked out of the barn, but Connor blocked his way.
“Your folks died when you were seven?”
“Yep.” Jack stood his ground, but it took doing.
“Hell, why didn’t you ever say that?” Brian asked.
“Never came up.”
“And that’s why you’re trailing around my wife like a lost puppy dog?” Hunter drawled. “Thought I’d have to teach you some manners.”
Just like that, the heaviness lifted. Jack allowed a smile to tug at his mouth. “Only one Reed girl has my interest.”
“Better not be Sadie,” Connor said.
“You know it’s Alice.”
“Better come learn how to be a rancher then,” Connor said. “I’m the best teacher you’ll find.”
The other men groaned.
“Better go find Jo again,” Brian advised, “or you’ll have to unlearn everything Connor teaches you.”
In the end Jack went with Connor, who proved to know quite a bit about sick critters, although he ended up calling in the vet to take a look, too. Jack knew he hadn’t heard the last of the jokes, but he also knew he could take it. He liked this work.
Liked these men, too.
He was beginning to think he’d found a home here at Two Willows.
If only he could convince Alice to let him stay.
Alice was sitting on top of the refrigerator again when Lena and Logan arrived home from their honeymoon about an hour before dinnertime. She should have been in her studio working, but she’d hit a wall. Tabitha was curled up in her lap sleeping. Alice had been petting her, trying to get her racing mind to calm down, but it wasn’t working, so she was happy to shoo Tabitha off her lap and climb down to greet her sister.
“Look how tan you are,” Alice exclaimed jealously. Oh, to relax on a tropical island. Wouldn’t that be heavenly? “I’m surprised you didn’t extend your vacation.”
“Missed the ranch too much. The sun was great, so was the water, but nothing beats Two Willows.”
Alice had to smile. Lena would never change.
“Is the General really home?” Logan asked, lowering his voice, after allowing Alice to give him a welcome home hug.
“In his office. He’s spent most of his time there. Corporal Myers—Emerson—guards him like a dragon guards its gold. Emerson bunks down in the living room, but you’d never know it. He’s got his bedding folded up and stowed away every morning and the room straight as a pin before breakfast.” She touched the dog tags she carried in her pocket but decided this wasn’t the time to bring them out.
“Is the General trying to run everything?” Lena asked.
“Trying, but not succeeding.”
Cass came in, and soon the others joined them until the kitchen was full of talk and laughter.
“Well? Where is everyone?” The bellow jolted them all. A moment later Emerson popped his head around the doorway.
“Muster time.”
“We already did muster time,” Jo complained, but they all trouped into the office, including Logan and Lena, who looked like she’d rather be walking toward a firing squad.
“So. You finally decided to come home,” the General said to Lena once everyone had arranged themselves around his bed. Like usual, he was dressed but sitting with his leg propped on several pillows. Alice wondered if his injuries hurt much. Neither he nor Emerson ever complained about them, but toward the end of the day she had noticed Emerson made more trips back and forth from office to kitchen. She had a feeling the General got crankier at night, probably because of the pain and enforced rest.
Lena sputtered for a moment before she found her voice. “Are you serious—?”
“I’m waiting for my report,” the General said to Logan, ignoring her. “Status?”
“Uh… fine, sir. We had a great honeymoon. We’re both rested and ready to get back to work.”
“Good, good. Lake?” the General turned to Brian.
Lena’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s it? After eleven years, all you have to say is ‘good’?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“How about, ‘Great job running the ranch, Lena. I always knew you had it in you. Wow, you handle things way better than those assholes I sent—’”
“Lena,” Logan said.
“No, I’m going to have my say.” Lena shrugged off her husband’s restraining hand. “You are a lousy father,” she said to the General. “Always have been, always will be. This is my ranch, and I’m going to run it the way I see fit, and you just stay out of it!” Lena caught herself, took in the men around her, who’d all been helping to run things the last few months, and the wind went out of her sails. “You all know what I mean,” she said.
“We do,” Brian assured her. “We’ve been through this before, and we have a system in place that works. No need to rock the boat. Sir, with all due respect, we’ve got this ranch running shipshape.”
“That’s what I just said,” Lena growled.
“I’m still the senior officer here,” the General began.
“And what—you think you can do a better job than I can? When’s the last time you even rode a horse?” She gestured at his leg supported on the pillows. “What are the chances you’ll ever ride again? A cowboy who can’t ride isn’t a cowboy—and you aren’t fit to run this ranch—”
“Lena!” Logan said again. “Think about what you’re saying!”
Lena stilled. Alice couldn’t remember ever hearing Logan raise his voice before—or her sister letting anyone restrain her temper. For a moment she thought Lena might walk out. Instead, she closed her eyes, turned back to the General. “I’m… sorry,” she managed to say stiffly, although her anger was plain to hear. “I shouldn’t have said that, but there are a lot of things you shouldn’t have said or done, either. Maybe I’m not a man, but I’m your wife’s daughter—”
“You’re my daughter, too,” the General snapped.
“Am I? You sure as hell haven’t ever acted like it. Not since I got—” She gestured to her breasts and hips, making an hour-glass shape in the air with her hands. “Why do you hate women so much?”
“I don’t hate women.” The General pushed himself up straighter in the bed. “I’ve done everything I can to protect you—”
“I don’t want protecting. I want respect! Why is that so hard to understand?”
The General searched for an answer but couldn’t seem to come up with one.
Lena threw her hands up. “I’m so over this.” And she walked out the door.
“Momentous day,” Cass said a half hour later when Jack walked through the kitchen, checking to see if it was dinnertime. The smells emanating from the oven had him salivating. “The General is joining us at the table for dinner.”
“To celebrate all his daughters being home?” He wondered how Lena would handle that.
“Probably.” She smiled at her friend, who was chopping vegetables to add to a salad. “Plus, I’m pretty sure he’s trying to set up Wyoming with Emerson.”
“Either that or he’s sweet on her himself,” Sadie quipped, coming in and opening the fridge.
Wyoming dropped her knife and faced her. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“You’d be our mom,” Sadie teased her. “You could boss Cass around.”
“Sadie.” Cass’s voice was sharp.
“Just kidding.” Sadie reappeared with a soda and left the room again.
“If your father hits on me, I’m out of here,” Wyoming told Cass while Jack crossed to grab himself a beer. “I’ll be out of your way and back home in a couple of days, anyway.”
“No hurry at all,” Cass assured her. “I love having you stay here. We all do. You know that.”
“It’s true,” Jack added. “You’re not in anyone’s way.” Quite the contrary. He wanted her close in case Alice needed a chaperone again.
“I need to find a real job, though.”
“Any new leads?”
Jack left them to their discussion. When he made it upstairs and bumped into Emerson coming out of the bathroom, he was pretty sure it would be the corporal hitting on Wyoming, rather than the General. Emerson’s hair was damp. His face newly shaved.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Jack told him. “Wyoming’s here.”
“Thanks.”
“You all right with this? The General setting you up?”
The younger man flushed. “Why not? Wyoming’s sweet. Pretty, too. This place—it’d be a good home.”
“Where is your home?” He knew Emerson’s parents were gone. Was pretty sure the man’s only home was the Army.
Emerson’s flush deepened. “Don’t have one,” he said and hurried away.
“Dinner is going to be a disaster,” Alice whispered to Cass when they met in the upstairs hall. She’d passed Jack a minute ago and had just popped into the bathroom to freshen up before the meal. She’d found Cass waiting for her turn when she got out again.
“Is that a prediction?”
“I don’t need a vision to know it. Lena’s furious, and the General is practically throwing Wye at Emerson.”
“I think it’s the other way around, actually.” Cass sounded amused. “Wye is getting a taste of what we’ve all gone through. After the way she’s laughed at our expense these past months, I kind of think she deserves it. Besides, Emerson seems like a pretty nice guy. I don’t know how he stands the General.”
“He’s a corporal. He signed up to be ordered around. We didn’t.”
When Cass announced that the meal was ready, Emerson helped the General to his seat at the head of the table, then took the empty chair by Wyoming. Alice thought he looked handsome tonight, although he had to be several years younger than Wye. She appeared rather discomfited by the situation, which was amusing, seeing as Wye was usually so practical and calm. Alice had long thought Cass had chosen her as a friend for those very characteristics.
She wasn’t calm now. And Lena was practically smoldering.
When Cass passed Wyoming a bowl of green beans, Wye dropped the serving spoon on the table. She dropped her napkin later and nearly bumped heads with Emerson when they both bent to fetch it.
But it was when she spilled milk across the table halfway through the meal that Alice realized Wye was nervous.
Nervous—about Emerson?
Or the General?
The General was watching Wye and Emerson like they were two rats in a laboratory experiment. His avid attention seemed to unnerve Wye.
Lena watched the General the way a mountain lion watches a tethered goat. Alice was finding it hard to eat.
Emerson wasn’t faring much better.
He remained silent through the meal, until the General barked, “Cat got your tongue, Corporal? Lord, you yammer all day long when you’re with me. What’s the problem?”
“Nice weather we’re having,” Emerson managed.
Wye’s eyebrows shot up. “It’s twenty-five degrees out there.”
“Nice for Montana. I think.”
“You have to give him that, Wye,” Sadie said mischievously.
“Tell us about yourself, Emerson,” Cass said kindly. “Where were you born?”
“Chicago.”
Alice stopped with her hand outstretched to grab the salt shaker. “I didn’t know you were a city boy.”
“I’m not. Spent most of my childhood in Nebraska.”
Alice had the feeling there was more he wasn’t saying, and she stopped pestering him, afraid she’d hit a sore spot. Emerson focused on his plate, but a few moments later he went on. “My parents died in a car crash. My grandparents raised me. I’m grateful to them.”
“Sorry for your loss,” Alice said. Jack had lost his parents, too. She and her sisters had lost their mother—and the General for a number of years. They’d all lacked for parental love.
Still, they’d all survived. Thrived, even. Were here now.
Although Lena didn’t look like she was thriving.
“What’s got up your craw?” the General asked her when he noticed her glaring at him.
She just shook her head, stabbed a baked potato from the bowl Logan had passed her and let it drop on her plate.
“Didn’t anyone teach you any manners?” the General asked. “We have guests.”
“Guests?” Lena parroted. “All I see is your honorary son and my future honorary sister-in-law.”
Wyoming choked. Emerson turned crimson.
“You always did want a boy,” Lena added pointedly.
“Maybe I did. Maybe I thought I could have understood one better. Maybe with a boy I wouldn’t have screwed up every time I turned around. Maybe a boy would have loved m—” The General broke off, cut another bite of steak and popped it in his mouth.
Alice held her breath. She noticed Jo touch the General’s arm. The General noticed it, too.
“You’re lonely,” she pronounced.
The General stood abruptly, swore, grabbed the table to steady himself until Emerson leaped up and supported him. “Office. Now. Bring my food,” the General managed. Emerson helped him out the room. A minute later he came back for his dishes.
“Of course he’s lonely,” he hissed at them. “He’s always been lonely. And I’ve never tried to be his son—but if I did, I’d be a hell of a lot better at it than you all are at being his daughters.” He strode out of the room, leaving Alice and her sisters each in their private shame. Even Lena looked nonplussed.
“Welcome home,” she whispered to herself wryly.
Alice’s heart sank. Would there never be peace at Two Willows?