At Home in Stone Creek (Silhouette Special Edition) (5 page)

“Hello?” When had she gotten out of the habit of answering with a businesslike, “Mountain View Bed and Breakfast”?

“I hear you've got an unexpected boarder,” Brad said, his tone measured.

Ashley was unaccountably glad to hear her big brother's voice, considering that they hadn't had much to say to each other since their mother's funeral. “Yes,” she assented.

“According to Carly, he was sick enough to arrive in an ambulance.”

Ashley nodded, remembered that Brad couldn't see her, and repeated, “Yes. I'm not sure he should be here—Brad, he's in a really bad way. I'm not a nurse and I'm—” She paused, swallowed. “I'm scared.”

“I can be there in fifteen minutes, Ash.”

Fresh tears scalded Ashley's eyes, made them feel raw. “That would be good,” she said.

“Put on a pot of coffee, little sister,” Brad told her. “I'm on my way.”

True to his word, Brad was standing in her kitchen before the coffee finished perking. He looked more like a rancher than a famous country singer and sometime movie star, in his faded jeans, battered boots, chambray shirt and denim jacket.

Ashley couldn't remember the last time she'd
hugged her brother, but now she went to him, and he wrapped her in his arms, kissed the top of her head.

“Olivia…” she began, but her voice fell away.

“I know,” Brad said hoarsely. “They're inducing labor in the morning. Livie will be fine, honey, and so will the baby.”

Ashley tilted her head back, looked up into Brad's face. His dark-blond hair was rumpled, and his beard was growing in, bristly. “How's the family?”

He rested his hands on her shoulders, held her at a little distance. “You wouldn't have to ask if you ever stopped by Stone Creek Ranch,” he answered. “Mac misses you, and Meg and I do, too.”

The minute Brad had known she needed him, he'd been in his truck, headed for town. And now that he was there, her anger over their mother's funeral didn't seem so important.

She tried to speak, but her throat had tightened again, and she couldn't get a single word past it.

One corner of Brad's famous mouth crooked up. “Where's Lover Boy?” he asked. “Lucky thing for him that he's laid up—otherwise I'd punch his lights out for what he did to you.”

The phrase
Lover Boy
made Ashley flinch. “That's over,” she said.

Brad let his hands fall to his sides, his eyes serious now. “Right,” he replied. “Which room?”

Ashley told him, and he left the kitchen, the inside door swinging behind him long after he'd passed through it.

She kept herself busy by taking mugs down from the cupboard, filling Mrs. Wiggins's dish with kibble the size of barley grains, switching on the radio and then switching it off again.

The kitten crunched away at the kibble, then
climbed onto its newly purchased bed in the corner near the fireplace, turned in circles for a few moments, kneaded the fabric, and dropped like the proverbial rock.

After several minutes had passed, Ashley heard Brad's boot heels on the staircase, and poured coffee for her brother; she was drinking herbal tea.

As if there were a hope in hell she'd sleep a wink that night by avoiding caffeine.

Brad reached for his mug, took a thoughtful sip.

“Well?” Ashley prompted.

“I'm not a doctor, Ash,” he said. “All I can tell you for sure is, he's breathing.”

“
That's
helpful,” Ashley said.

He chuckled, and the sound, though rueful, consoled her a little. He turned one of the chairs around backward, and straddled it, setting his mug on the table.

“Why do men like to sit like that?” Ashley wondered aloud.

He grinned. “You've been alone too long,” he answered.

Ashley blushed, brought her tea to the table and sat down. “What am I going to do?” she asked.

Brad inclined his head toward the ceiling. “About McCall? That's up to you, sis. If you want him out of here, I can have him airlifted to Flagstaff within a couple hours.”

This was no idle boast. Even though he'd retired from the country-music scene several years before, at least as far as concert tours went, Brad still wrote and recorded songs, and he could have stacked his royalty checks like so much cordwood. On top of that, Meg was a McKettrick, a multimillionaire in her own right. One phone call from either one of them, and a sleek jet
would be landing outside of town in no time at all, fully equipped and staffed with doctors and nurses.

Ashley bit her lower lip. God knew why, but Jack wanted to stay at her place, and he'd gone through a lot to get there. As impractical as it was, given his condition, she didn't think she could turn him out.

Brad must have read her face. He reached out, took her hand. “You still love the bastard,” he said. “Don't you?”

“I don't know,” she answered miserably. She'd definitely loved the man she'd known before, but this was a new Jack, a different Jack. The
real
one, she supposed. It shook her to realize she'd given her heart to an illusion.

“It's okay, Ashley.”

She shook her head, started to cry again. “Nothing is okay,” she argued.

“We can make it that way,” Brad offered quietly. “All we have to do is talk.”

She dried her eyes on the sleeve of Jack's old shirt. It seemed ironic, given all the things hanging in her closet, that she'd chosen to wear that particular garment when she'd gotten dressed that morning. Had some part of her known, somehow, that Jack was coming home?

Brad was waiting for an answer, and he wouldn't break eye contact until he got one.

Ashley swallowed hard. “Our mother died,” she said, cornered. “Our
mother
. And you and Olivia and Melissa all seemed—relieved.”

A muscle in Brad's jaw tightened, relaxed again. He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “I guess I
was
relieved,” he admitted. “They said she didn't suffer, but I always wondered—” He paused, cleared his throat. “I wondered if she was in there somewhere, hurting, with no way to ask for help.”

Ashley's heart gave one hard beat, then settled into its normal pace again. “You didn't hate her?” she asked, stunned.

“She was my mother,” Brad said. “Of course I didn't hate her.”

“Things might have been so different—”

“Ashley,” Brad broke in, “things
weren't
different. That's the point. Delia's gone, for good this time. You've got to let go.”

“What if I can't?” Ashley whispered.

“You don't have a choice, Button.”

Button
. Their grandfather had called both her and Melissa by that nickname; like most twins, they were used to sharing things. “Do you miss Big John as much as I do?” she asked.

“Yes,” Brad answered, without hesitation, his voice still gruff. He looked down at his coffee mug for a second or so, then raised his gaze to meet Ashley's again. “Same thing,” he said. “He's gone. And letting go is something I have to do about three times a day.”

Ashley got up, suddenly unable to sit still. She brought the coffee carafe to the table and refilled Brad's cup. She spoke very quietly. “But it was a one-time thing, letting go of Mom?”

“Yeah,” Brad said. “And it happened a long, long time ago. I remember it distinctly—it was the night my high school basketball team took the state championship. I was sure she'd be in the bleachers, clapping and cheering like everybody else. She wasn't, of course, and that was when I got it through my head that she wasn't coming back—ever.”

Ashley's heart ached. Brad was her big brother; he'd always been strong. Why hadn't she realized that he'd been hurt, too?

“Big John
stayed
, Ashley,” he went on, while she sat there gulping. “He stuck around, through good times and bad. Even after he'd buried his only son, he kept on keeping on. Mom caught the afternoon bus out of town and couldn't be bothered to call or even send a postcard. I did my mourning long before she died.”

Ashley could only nod.

Brad was quiet for a while, pondering, taking the occasional sip from his coffee mug. Then he spoke again. “Here's the thing,” he said. “When the chips were down, I basically did the same thing as Mom—got on a bus and left Big John to take care of the ranch and raise the three of you all by himself—so I'm in no position to judge anybody else. Bottom line, Ash? People are what they are, and they do what they do, and you have to decide either to accept that or walk away without looking back.”

Ashley managed a wobbly smile. Sniffled once. “I'm sorry I'm late on the mortgage payments,” she said.

Brad rolled his eyes. “Like I'm worried,” he replied, his body making the subtle shifts that meant he'd be leaving soon. With one arm, he gestured to indicate the B&B. “Why won't you just let me sign the place over to you?”

“Would you do that,” Ashley challenged reasonably, “if our situations were reversed?”

He flushed slightly, got to his feet. “No,” he admitted, “but—”

“But what?”

Brad grinned sheepishly, and his powerful shoulders shifted slightly under his shirt.

“But you're a man?” Ashley finished for him, when he didn't speak. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“Well, yeah,” Brad said.

“You'll have the mortgage payments as soon as I get a chance to run Jack's credit card,” she told her brother, rising to walk him to the back door. Color suffused her cheeks. “Thanks for coming into town,” she added. “I feel like a fool for panicking.”

In the midst of pulling on his jacket, Brad paused. “I'm a big brother,” he said, somewhat gruffly. “It's what we do.”

“Are you and Meg going to the hospital tomorrow, when Livie…?”

Brad tugged lightly at her braid, the way he'd always done. “We'll be hanging out by the telephone,” he said. “Livie swears it's a normal procedure, and she doesn't want everyone fussing ‘as if it were a heart transplant,' as she put it.”

Ashley bit down on her lower lip and nodded. She already had a nephew—Mac—and two nieces, Carly and Sophie, although technically Carly, Meg's half sister, whom her dying father had asked her to raise, wasn't really a niece. Tomorrow, another little one would join the family. Instead of being a nervous wreck, she ought to be celebrating.

She wasn't, she decided, so different from Sophie. Having effectively lost Delia when she was so young, she'd turned to Olivia as a substitute mother, as had Melissa. Had their devotion been a burden to their sister, only a few years older than they were, and grappling with her own sense of loss?

She stood on tiptoe and kissed Brad's cheek. “Thanks,” she said again. “Call if you hear anything.”

Brad gave her braid another tug, turned and left the house.

Ashley felt profoundly alone.

 

Jack had nearly flung himself at the singing cowboy standing at the foot of his bed, before recognizing him as Ashley's famous brother, Brad. Even though the room had been dark, the other man must have seen him tense.

“I know you're awake, McCall,” he'd said.

Jack had yawned. “O'Ballivan?”

“Live and in person,” came the not-so-friendly reply.

“And you're sneaking around my room because…?”

O'Ballivan had chuckled at that. Hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Because Ashley's worried about you. And what worries my baby sister worries
me
, James Bond.”

Ashley was worried about him? Something like elation flooded Jack. “Not for the same reasons, I suspect,” he said.

Mr. Country Music had gripped the high, spooled rail at the foot of the bed and leaned forward a little to make his point. “Damned if I can figure out why you'd come back here, especially in the shape you're in, after what happened last summer, except to take up where you left off.” He paused, gripped the rail hard enough that his knuckles showed white even in the gloom. “You hurt her again, McCall, and you have my solemn word—I'm gonna turn right around and hurt
you
. Are we clear on that?”

Jack had smiled, not because he was amused, but because he liked knowing Ashley had folks to look after her when he wasn't around—and when he was. “Oh, yeah,” Jack had replied. “We're clear.”

Obviously a man of few words, O'Ballivan had simply nodded, turned and walked out of the room.

Remembering, Jack raised himself as high on the pillows as he could, strained to reach the lamp switch.
The efforts, simple as they were, made him break out in a cold sweat, but at the same time, he felt his strength returning.