Cowboy Heaven (26 page)

Authors: Cheryl L. Brooks

“I don't blame her.” I gave Troy the once-over. He was a nice guy, and he was gorgeous. Why was he alone on Christmas Eve? “We've gotta get you a girl, mate.”

“I have one in mind,” Troy said. “Think it's too late to call Rachel?”

“Probably not. If you wish her a merry Christmas now, you might get lucky on New Year's Eve.”

“True.” Not bothering with the ladle, Troy poured the remainder of the hot rum into two of the cups. He handed one to Joe, then took a sip from his own. “Not bad. Might taste good on Rachel too.”

“Remind me to give you the recipe.” I winked at Troy. “Wellâ¦good night, guys. Merry Christmas.”

Joe held up his cup in salute. “Merry Christmas to allâ¦”

“And to all a good night!” Troy downed his rum in one gulp, making me glad I'd only heated it enough to melt the butter.

Chuckling, Dusty gave me a squeeze as he steered me toward the stairs. “I'm betting some of us will have a much better night than others.”

“Probably so,” I whispered. “Just don't let Troy hear you say that.”

“Too late!” Troy sang out. “Better give me that recipe now, Angie.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I'm gonna need it.”

Order Cheryl Brooks's next book
in the Cowboy Heaven series

Cowboy Bliss

On sale October 2015

Read on for a sneak peek at the next book from Cheryl Brooks

Cowboy Bliss

Coming soon from Sourcebooks Casablanca

Bunkhouse cook wanted.

Experience preferred.

Must love cowboys.

“You're looking for
who
?” The eyes beneath his dark, forbidding brow were an indeterminate hazel, yet I'd never seen a more intense gaze.

“Mr. Douglas,” I replied. “Calvin Douglas. He's supposed to work here. This
is
the Circle Bar K ranch, isn't it?”

“Yeah. He's here. Just never heard him called âMr. Douglas' before.”

Anyone else would have smiled at that point, but his expression didn't soften in the slightest. From beneath the brim of a dusty brown cowboy hat, his eyes bored into me like a pair of drills, setting off an attack of nerves that made my hands shake and my throat go dry. He was precisely the kind of man I tended to shy away from.

Who am I kidding?

I shied away from all of them.

“M-may I see him?”

Getting out of my car had already taken most of the courage I possessed, even with Ophelia by my side. A mix of German shepherd and several other breeds, Ophelia had been rescued from an abusive home and taken to the shelter where I had worked as a volunteer during my senior year in high school. Usually, she was fairly timid and tended to cringe at loud noises. But she could turn into a fierce, growling protector whenever she thought I was in dangerâas several suspicious characters I'd encountered while out walking near the park could attest. Surprisingly, she didn't growl at this man.

Obviously, she didn't consider him a threat.

I disagreed. I couldn't even look him in the eye, much less argue with him.

Not that he was arguing.

He nodded toward a long, one-story building near the enormous barn. “He's in the kitchen fixing dinner.”

That occupation certainly fit with what little I knew about my grandfather's old Army buddy. According to the letter I'd received from him, their friendship had begun in boot camp and continued on through active duty. Calvin had served his unit as a cook, while Grandpa became a combat soldier. While I could only guess at Calvin's current state of health, Vietnam and Agent Orange had certainly left their mark on my grandfather. Grammy had been pregnant with my mother when Grandpa was drafted and had no other children even after he returned. Five years later, unable to deal with the way the war had changed him, she divorced him and remarried. As Grandpa's only child, my mother wound up being the one to deal with the mood swings and poor health that were the legacy of his tour of duty.

Although Grandpa wouldn't talk about the war, I'd seen the scars and witnessed the sickness, both mental and physical, that had only worsened with the passage of time.

All that was over now, and his ashes had been scattered in the Tetons as he'd requested. When his demons got to be too much for him, those mountains had been the only place he could find peace. I had often wondered why he'd never gone there to live, but I suspected even they were only a temporary fix. No doubt he became immune to their effect after a while, just as he'd become tolerant of so many of the drugs used to control his illness.

The tall cowboy tipped his hat in a gesture that struck me as being more dismissive than polite and went back to the barn without another word, leaving me to find the kitchen on my own. I watched him go, wondering what his story was, why he had been so abrupt and unfriendly.

Not that it mattered. I wouldn't be there long enough to find out anyway. I was simply there to fulfill yet another of my grandfather's dying wishes.

“Come on, Lia,” I said, giving my dog a pat on her broad head. “Let's do this and get going.”

I wrapped my coat more tightly against the chilly wind. Grandpa had died the first of September. No doubt autumn in Wyoming would've been fine weather-wise, but with so many things to do in the aftermath of his death, I wasn't ready to pack up and go before winter set in. Even he had suggested I wait until spring to scatter his ashes.

“Go in April,” he'd advised in one of his more lucid moments. “The weather will be better then.” As cold as it still was in the mountains in late April, I wished I'd waited until July.

I stared at the building the cowboy had indicated, unable to decide which of the three doors led to the kitchen. Scanning the roofline, I spotted a wispy vapor rising from a vent above the door near the center and headed toward it.

Grandpa had come to live with us when I was a child, and since his bedroom and mine shared a wall, I often heard the rattling of my closet doors as he pounded away on the old manual typewriter he'd inherited from his father. I had always known he corresponded with someone on a regular basis, I just hadn't known who he was writing to until I read his will.

To be honest, I hadn't expected the address to be current, but my letter to Calvin Douglas had received a reasonably prompt reply. In it, he thanked me for informing him of Grandpa's death and offered his condolences, stating that he hadn't heard from his old friend in more than two years.

I climbed the two steps up to a small wooden landing. In response to my knock, a tall, rail-thin man with sparse gray hair opened the door. “Tina Hayes?”

I nodded, holding out a hand that was still trembling from my encounter with the cowboy. “You must be Mr. Douglas.”

“Calvin,” he corrected. He looked even older than Grandpa had when he died, but his handshake was firm and at least he was smiling. Smiling men had become something of a rarity in my life. I'd become accustomed to Grandpa's wild-eyed glares, his doctor's solemn mask, and then there was the funeral director's grave countenance. Even the lawyer hadn't smiled much.

“Thanks for your directions,” I said. “I might not have made it here without themâeven with the GPS on my phone.” I'd driven across the country with Grandpa's ashes in a box in the trunk and Calvin's letter taped to the dashboard. Having lived in Kentucky all my life, Wyoming's vast open spaces and rocky terrain were completely foreign to me. Now that I'd finally seen the Tetons in person, I wished I'd found the time to accompany Grandpa on some of his trips out west. Unfortunately, school and work had always gotten in the way.

Always too busy.

And now it was too late.

“Those fancy gadgets don't help much out here,” Calvin admitted. “Come on in. Dinner will be ready shortly.”

“I hadn't planned on staying that long.” I hesitated. I had no desire to sit down to dinner with a bunch of rowdy cowboysâif the one I'd met was any indication, they wouldn't want me toânor did I want to seem rude.

I'd had no idea how this meeting would go. Calvin hadn't heard from Grandpa in two years. A lot had happened in that time, and none of it good. Surely he wouldn't want to hear all the gory details. I certainly didn't want to talk about them, especially over dinner.

“Do you really think I'd let John Parker's granddaughter come all this way and not stay for dinner?” Narrowing his eyes, Calvin gazed at me from beneath bushy gray eyebrows and shook his head. “Ain't gonna happen, young lady.”

I caught myself smiling for the first time that day.

Calvin apparently took my smile as acceptance of his dinner invitation. “That's more like it. In honor of your visit, I'm making my famous chili and corn bread.” He shot me a wink. “It was your granddad's favorite, although I work with better ingredients now than I did when we were in the Army.”

I had the strangest feeling this man knew my grandfather better than anyone. I'd never noticed him having a preference for that particular meal. But then, perhaps none of us made chili the way Calvin did. What sort of things had they discussed in those letters? I hadn't a clue, but I'd found three full shoe boxes of them in Grandpa's closet after the will was read.

A will that instructed me to do what I was about to do now.

“Sounds great.” Several moments went by before I found the words. “I guess you're wondering why I'm here.”

He shook his head. “Not really. You have something to give me, don't you?”

I nodded. “In his will, Grandpa asked that I give you back the letters you'd sent him, and these.” I handed him the two small boxes I had tucked in my purse.

Tears filled Calvin's eyes. “He saved my life, you know. Saved a bunch of us.” He opened one box and then the other. “He got this one for saving us, and this one for nearly dying in the process.”

I blinked back a few tears of my own. “A Purple Heart and a Silver Star.” I shook my head slowly. “I never even knew he had them.”

“John was like that. Never one to toot his own horn. Kinda shy, really.”

That description also fit his granddaughter. However, I kept that tidbit to myself.

Calvin slid the two medals into his pocket, then went back to his stove and began stirring a huge pot of chili. The heavenly aroma of chili combined with baking corn bread soon had my stomach growling, making me very glad I'd agreed to stay for dinner.

Voices from the next room broke the silence, accompanied by the scuffling of booted feet and the scrape of chair legs on the wooden floor.

“That'll be the men coming in for dinner,” Calvin said. “Go on into the mess hall and have a seat.”

Mess hall.
I wondered what the dining room had been called before Calvin took charge of the kitchen. “Can I give you a hand?” I didn't want to admit that being the lone woman in a room full of men brought out the nervous Nellie in me like nothing else could.

“Sure.” His smile suggested he either understood my reluctance or at least acknowledged the reason for it. “I'll dish up the chili if you'll get the corn bread.”

Grateful for a task to occupy myself, I took off my coat and laid it on a chair next to a small corner table, then snatched up a pair of slightly singed oven mitts. One by one, I removed two cast iron pans from the oven, each of which was divided into seven sections containing round loaves of lightly browned corn bread.

“Smells great,” I said. “Love the pans.”

Calvin snorted a laugh. “Keeps the men from fighting over who gets the most. Everybody gets two.”

“Nothing wrong with their appetites, huh?”

“It's practically a full-time job keeping them fed.” He grinned. “Kinda like keeping the hogs happy.”

“I heard that!” someone shouted from the mess hall. Good-natured laughter followed.

“You boys get on in here and grab a bowl,” Calvin called back. “Or should I just pour the chili in the trough?”

“We're coming.” After more scraping of chairs and scuffling of boots, the men descended upon the kitchen.

I should've turned around and smiled, but I simply couldn't face them. I'd be gone in an hour anyway. No need to make friends with everyone. Not that I
could
â¦

Apparently, Ophelia wasn't interested in making friends, either. With a whine, she darted between me and the stove, sending me stumbling backward only to slam into a rock-hard body and be gathered up by a pair of strong arms.

Order Cheryl Brooks's next book
in the Cowboy Heaven series