Trial by Fire (15 page)

God, when had he become an idiot? He hadn’t been one six months ago, had he?

Even six weeks ago.

He pulled out bread and mustard, ham and cheese. Whoever had bought groceries deserved a raise.

“Is there butter?”

“Uh, I reckon. In the dish there.” Holden pointed to a daisy-yellow butter tray on the counter.

“Can you grab it? I’ll toast these. I like a toastie.” Lachlan grabbed the butter and started slathering, so Holden tugged out the cast iron skillet and got it to heating.

They worked well together, which they’d done this whole time, and he tried hard not to make anything out of it. Two lonely gay cowboys. Shit, that was already a movie, wasn’t it?

Besides, one of those sorry movie bastards died, and he’d already had enough of that shit.

Holden did what he did best and put his head down to work. They made sandwiches and suddenly the kitchen began to fill up, silent cowboys wandering in, hats in their hands.

“Hey, y’all. Come on in. There’s waters, beer.”

“Holden. I…. When’s Crazy going to be put to rest, sir?”

He didn’t even look to see who spoke.

“Three days from now. He’s got folks coming from all over. Preacher’s going to come here for the service. Kids have to get here an’ all.” Crazy had a will. Daddy had it in the safe and had delivered it over to the lawyer. There was land, money, the truck. It would most likely go to Crazy’s oldest boy, Chris. They had a special bond. “We’ll place him in the family plot like he wanted, next to Grampa and where Landon’s and Addie’s stones will go.”

He turned the sandwiches, and Lachlan handed him more before going to pull out plates and cups. “Who wants iced tea?” Lachlan asked.

“I would,” one of the older men said. “I’d like to lead his gelding, if I could, sir. I helped him train that horse.”

He nodded. “Yeah. That works. The bullfighting team is going to carry him down from here to where he’ll rest.”

“Y’all just tell us what you need.”

Lachlan slapped more sandwiches together, the man good at dealing with the hands.

A half hour passed, and they finally sat themselves, ate their sandwiches. Stories about Crazy were flying fast and free, the cowboys giving him honor the best way they could.

“I get the feeling your man Crazy would have loved this,” Lachlan murmured, then handed him a beer.

“I have no doubt in my soul that he’s watching and laughing his ass off.”

“I’m sorry.”

Holden knew what Lachlan meant. Sorry for Crazy, Landon, Addie. All of it. Holden was damned sorry too.

It was what it was, and he had to have faith.

“Mr. Sheffield, do you—we all want to donate to Crazy’s monument.” One of the older men said it, hat in hand.

He was honored beyond belief, and he nodded. These men didn’t have as much as he did, and they still gave. “I’ll get with Daddy, and we’ll get a fund started, huh?”

“Thank you.” The boys all echoed the sentiment. Lord, they were getting maudlin in there.

Of course, that was when his daddy walked in the kitchen door with his momma, smiling like Christmas morning.

“Mrs. Sheffield!” All the cowboys stood up, offering her their chairs, the noise sudden and rattling. Momma took it like the queen of the rodeo she’d been, smiling, greeting the men by name, one after another.

“Hey, boys. Looks like a feast. I could murder a sandwich, Son.” She looked pale, but happy.

“I’m on it,” he said, but Lachlan stood first.

“I can get it, mate.”

Holden kissed Momma’s cheek. “You want me to go get Chloe? She’s been sitting with Mr. Duncan.”

“Please. Please, Son. I need to see her baby face, safe and whole.” Momma looked like she was fixin’ to cry.

“I knew you’d say that.” Miz McCoughey walked in holding Chloe. “Here you are, Margery. Look at your baby girl. All clean and fed and fine.”

“Oh. Oh, Chloe. Oh, praise Jesus, you’re home.” Momma was pale as milk and trembling, and Holden went to stand close, make sure she wasn’t going to keel right over or drop the baby.

She cooed over Chloe, and then the two ladies sat together, making faces to make the baby laugh. Every eye in the room was on Chloe, and he felt the energy as maybe twenty people thanked the good Lord that she hadn’t been hurt, hadn’t been lost to them forever.

“Here’s your sandwich, Missus,” Lachlan said, and Momma shot him a look.

“For chrissake, boy, call me Momma. That’s what Addie called me.”

“Yes, ma’am. Momma.” Lachlan smiled wide. They were all family now, one way or the other. “I’m so glad to see you home.”

“Thank you.” Momma looked around. “What are all you boys doing here? I know you have a bunkhouse.”

“Mr. Holden was making sandwiches, and we were talking on Crazy.”

Momma nodded, swallowed hard. “He was a good man and a hero.”

“Yes, ma’am.” All the cowboys spoke as one.

“Any more sandwiches for a starving ex-military man?” Ryan strode into the kitchen, looking worn to the bone. The gang was damned near all here.

“I swear, I’m going to add cook to my CV.” Lachlan headed back to the stove and Holden went to dig up more ham.

Ryan kissed Momma’s cheek, then Chloe’s before he sat down. “Debriefing is mostly over. They held Dez for a few more questions, mainly because he’s a foreigner, I think.”

The glee in Ryan’s voice was more than a little evil.

“What about the kid, Lefty? He gonna make it?”

“Yeah. He’s cuffed to a bed in the hospital. The nurses would like all y’all to chill out for a while.”

“No shit.”

“You think Shiloh is gonna do hard time?” Cowboy Jim asked. He took the younguns under his wing and had to be hurting over this.

“I’m sorry, sir. He made some shitty choices, pardon my French.”

Shitty choices, Holden’s ass. The stupid shit was a kidnapper and helped in getting Crazy killed. Holden knew it wasn’t Christian charity or whatever, but he refused to feel too sorry for the kid.

“He might learn something from getting his ass handed to him,” Lachlan said, and shrugged off some of the cowboys’ looks. “Sorry, lads, he ain’t one of my ringers. I don’t have to be nice.”

“That’s enough, boys.” Daddy came in, his voice booming through the room, years of announcing and controlling cowboys ringing out.

“Yessir.” The cowboys all paid their respects to the ladies, then shook hands with him and Daddy, Ryan, and even Lachlan as they filed out.

Christ, Holden was exhausted all the sudden. Just ready to sit down and never get back up.

Lachlan’s hand slid over this back, barely touching him.

He nodded. He just wanted to sit on his ass.

“Mum, Dad, do you mind if we stay at the big house tonight? I think we ought to make an early night of it, and that way no one has to open up Ades’s place for us.” Lachlan sounded like he was used to herding cats too.

“Fine idea,” Daddy said. “Time got away from us today.”

“It did. I’ll go get Mother’s bags from the car.” Lachlan’s dad was moving, and Lachlan shook his head.

“I got it. You sit.” Lachlan winked at Holden over the top of Mr. Duncan’s head before suiting actions to words.

Momma handed Holden the baby, and he nuzzled her baby head, inhaling the scent of her. “Love you, angel girl.”

She grabbed his nose immediately and held on, gurgling. Oh, she made his heart glad.

“You silly baby.” He leaned her back, nuzzling her belly, tickling her, and she squealed, tiny fingers tight in his hair. So strong already. She was gonna be a barrel racer like her momma. Maybe a roper.

Holden heard a low chuckle and glanced up to find Lachlan watching him, those blue eyes heated, interested.

“She’s got me.”

And God help him, he wanted Lachlan to have him too. Soon. Unseemly thought, considering it was just past suppertime.

Everyone slowly wandered off, leaving them sitting there, Chloe lazy and quiet against him. Even the parents had made noises about lying in bed and watching TV, Daddy taking Lachlan’s folks to their room.

“This is a good place you got,” Lachlan told him. “Good people.”

“It is. You forget sometimes, being in the thick of the running of it.” He let himself look at Lachlan, relax into the chair. “You love your place? I can’t imagine having that much land.”

“It’s vast, for sure.” Lachlan shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, though. We call Oz the Lucky Land, you know? It’s in my blood.”

“Landon told me some about it. Addie never said much, really, but Landon was impressed.”

You should go, Bubba. You ought to go see something more than this ranch
, Landon had said.

This was where he was, though. This was his home, Chloe’s home.

“You should come see it. Bring Chloe and visit some. Hell, we could go to the beach too.”

“Oh, man. I love the beach. I’ve been to Corpus a bunch of times. We haven’t even taken Chloe to the lake yet. Hasn’t been quite warm enough.”

Lachlan nodded. “You beauty. I would love to show you everything. I’ve never been to the beach here either.”

He liked this. Sitting and talking, learning about each other. This time felt like an enormous luxury, as if he might not get the chance again.

“I can’t imagine dealing with her on a plane, but….” He’d try it. For Lachlan. For a shot. It scared him half to death, the thought of going somewhere across the globe, but he’d try it.

“I could help with that. I mean, I have a plane we use to get back and forth in Oz, but I would get you first class to get there. The big commercial planes are safer.”

His heart clenched, and he nodded. “I could handle that. Your help. You.”

“Yeah?” Lachlan scooted closer, reaching out to put a hand on the back of his chair.

“Yeah.” For real. For long-term serious real.

“Good.” Lachlan leaned in and kissed him, almost chaste. Like he was making a promise.

It was. Good, he meant. It could be real, if they wanted.

Maybe.

He leaned into Lachlan, Chloe resting between them.

MUM
cried when she saw Ades’s house. “Oh, she did miss us,” she wailed, and Lachlan had left her to Dad, knowing she needed to blubber some.

Took three days for Miz Margery to feel well enough to go shop, and it was Ryan and Dez, of all people, who drove them into Dallas. Mr. Brandon and Dad rode out together to play cowboy too, Mr. Brandon drilling Dad on his roping skills, which were rusty, but surprisingly good.

Lachlan, he spent three glorious days with Holden and Chloe, stealing kisses from one and snuggles from the other.

Holden asked him endless questions, curiosity never sated. “What’s your favorite band? Do they really make lamb and mushroom pies? What the hell is Vegemite?”

He discovered that Holden was covered in scars, tiny ones, huge ones. They came from ropes and bulls, from horses and fences and fights. All the myths about the American cowboy were alive and well, in that little bitty body.

Lachlan grinned, the very idea of the night before making his body thrum with tension. He’d spread Holden out in the bed and looked at every bit of him, leaving the lights on so he could see what he held.

Holden had let him touch and stare for hours, then Holden had showed him again how soft and hot those lips could be, as promised. Christ.

“Woolgathering, are you lad?” His dad chuckled, clapping him on the back. They all tended to gravitate toward the sunroom at the big house at one point or another.

“I am. It’s warm in here. I was thinking about opening the room up.” That hadn’t been exactly what he’d been thinking about, but it worked.

“Nice breeze coming in, so why not?” They moved around the room, opening windows, Mum joining them with a tray of tea and proper biscuits.

Oh, it was so nice to have a decent cuppa. He had to say, Holden was learning, but no one did it like his mother. He’d bet more than one Aussie said that.

“We need to talk, son. Where’s Holden, d’you think?”

Lachlan paused, biscuit halfway to his lips. “Checking on the new barn, so far as I know.”

“You think you could call him in?” Mum leaned down, tickling Chloe’s belly, making her giggle. “We all need to chat.”

“Sounds ominous.” He’d learned to dread these little “chats” his oldies wanted when he was, oh, eighteen. God knew he loved them, but his parents inevitably wanted him to do some kind of dirty work.

“No. No, we just need to discuss when we get to see our grandbaby. I want to come to some sort of agreement before we head off. We want to go see the Rockies, since we’re here, explore.”

Lachlan had thought that staying in Ades’s house was going to be too much, too far. They needed to get away, to process it all. He got that. “Sure. I can see what he’s up to.” He texted Holden, because he wanted to get this done. They’d drive him mad poking.

It took a second, but Holden wrote back with a “right there.”

“He’s coming.”

Dad stood at the window. “Barns look good. These blokes know what they’re doing.”

“They do.” Lachlan liked these people. They had more in common than he’d ever thought, and they’d loved Ades so.

He didn’t get why Ades couldn’t have… let them love her too, he guessed, although they had. They’d loved her dearly. Everyone had a different view of their lives, he supposed.

Holden walked in a few minutes later, breaking into a smile for baby Chloe, then him. Such a fine man, that Holden. Those dark eyes danced with life, with mischief.

“Hey, mate. Thanks for interrupting your day,” Lachlan told him.

“Oh, no worries,” Holden teased. “The barn’s raising quick enough that it should be presentable for Crazy’s funeral tomorrow. People will start bringing food any minute, I imagine.”

“I think that’s already started.” Miz Margery came in with another plate of biscuits. “Are we having a town meeting?”

“Just a chat about what we’re all going to do about our Chloe, hmm?” his mom said. “I can’t miss her whole life. I lost years of Adelaide, and I don’t even understand why.”

Margery sat, Holden moving to help her down. “What are you thinking, honey?”

“Well, now, I don’t want to upset you, Margery, but Duncan and I talked a lot last night. We’d like to try working out a schedule.”