To Be or Not To Be, Part 6

by Katlynn

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the TV program "Big Valley" are the creations of Four Star/Republic Pictures and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended by the author. The ideas expressed in this story are copyrighted to the author.

Chapter 30

Nick blew a piece of straw away from his mouth and sat up with a groan. By the light coming through the open door of the livery he figured it wasn’t much past dawn. He turned to nudge Heath awake and found that he was alone in the hayloft. The clang of metal against metal made him crawl to the edge of the loft in search of his missing brother. But it wasn’t Heath whose noise had awakened him. It was the livery owner.

“Mr. Flynn?” his voice croaked.

“’Morning, Mr. Barkley,” his voice sounded too cheerful for such an early hour.

“’Morning. You seen my brother?”

“You been drinkin’, Mr. Barkley?” Flynn called up to him.

“Mmm...” Nick hummed, frowning at the question.

“Thought so,” the old man chuckled. “You came into town by yourself, Mr. Barkley.”

“I know I came into town by myself,” Nick muttered to himself as he swung his legs over the edge of the loft and unsteadily descended the ladder. When his feet touched the ground, he sat back on one of the rungs and silently surveyed his surroundings. “Did Heath take the stallion out?” he finally asked.

“They were on their way out when I came in ‘bout an hour ago,” Flynn told him. “Hope that was alright.”

“’Course it’s alright. You know where he went?” he yawned.

“Had a fishin’ pole. ‘Spect he’s gone to the river. How do ya’ happen to know Heath?”

Nick pushed himself away from the ladder. “Heath is my brother,” he told the man, watching closely for his reaction to that revelation.

The man was smiling slightly as he turned to look at Nick. “So Tom WAS his father.”

“You knew that?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Suspected it. But Leah would never say. Wasn’t too hard to figure out, though. Only man I can remember bein’ part of her life. Even if it was only for a short time.” He paused for a moment and took a deep breath before saying, “He was a good boy, your brother. He deserved better than he had.”

“I’m not gonna argue that with you,” Nick told him, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

“So ya’ ain’t here to make trouble for him?”

“No! I’m here to try to convince him to come home. He’s got some fool notion that our family doesn’t want him around.”

“Ain’t such a fool notion when that’s the way it’s been all your life,” Flynn said pointedly. “Startin’ with your father.”

“I can’t change what’s already happened, Mr. Flynn, but if you’ll point me in the direction of that river, I aim to try to change his mind about his future.”

“There’s a trail right back of the livery. Follow it for about a half mile, it’ll take ya’ right to the river. Ya’ shouldn’t have much trouble findin’ him once you’re there. One of the best spots for fishin’ is right at the end of that trail.”

Nick sort of nodded his thanks and started to leave but Flynn caught hold of his shirtsleeve to stop him.

“Mr. Barkley -- ya’ want him to go back with ya’ so he can work FOR ya’ ... or WITH ya’?”

From almost anyone else he’d known for such a short time, Nick would have considered the question invasive. But he knew that Flynn was asking because of the fondness he had for the boy who used to work for him and the man he became. And, for that reason, Nick wanted to be sure Flynn understood his priorities. “Well, mostly, Mr. Flynn,” he looked him in the eyes, “I want him to come back because he’s my little brother. And if he wants to be -- I also want him to be my partner. I want him to help me run the Barkley Ranch.”

Flynn returned Nick’s gaze unwaveringly. “Just ... see that ya’ don’t ever hurt him,” he warned.

Despite Flynn’s intense stare, he seemed to shrink away from Nick as he cautioned him against harming his brother. Even hung-over, Nick had an intimidating nature about him. So the smile he flashed was designed to put the man at ease as he assured him, “Mr. Flynn, I’ve waited all my life for a little brother who could be my partner. I’m not about to hurt him.” Nick punctuated his statement with a pat on the man’s shoulder before he turned and left the livery in search of his blond brother.

His first glimpse of the morning sun only intensified the headache he’d felt since he’d awakened and he pulled his hat low to shade his eyes as he rounded the livery to find the path Flynn had directed him to. A ten-minute walk had him close enough to hear the river before he saw it. He stopped when it DID come into view and just enjoyed the scene before him for a moment. Heath was sitting on a rock, his line cast out into the water, and the stallion was tied to a tree on a lead line long enough for it to reach grass and water. But it was interested in neither at the moment. It was nuzzling Heath’s back and, although Nick couldn’t make out the words, he could hear the low hum of Heath talking to the horse. Only when he got closer could he hear Heath saying, “It’s just too bad ya’ can’t hold a fishin’ pole yourself ‘cause then ya’d understand that a man don’t like to be interrupted when he’s tryin’ to pull his breakfast outta a river. ‘Course, seein’ as how ya’ don’t eat fish I can ‘preciate that ya’ might not see the appeal of tryin’ to hook a bass. But let me tell ya’ -- it’s the perfect activity when you’re nursin’ a hangover and don’t wanna get into anythin’ too strenuous.”

“I heard that,” Nick said from behind him. “Now don’t go trying to claim you don’t have one.”

Heath turned just enough to get a glimpse of him. “Boy howdy, Nick, am I glad to see ya!”

“Why is that?” Nick sat down on the ground next to the rock.

“For just a second there, I thought Charger had started talkin’. I’m thinkin’ he’s a smart one -- but not that smart.”

Nick was grinning as he took note of the four fish already hooked and lying in the water on the river’s edge. “Think you got enough?”

“Prob’ly.”

“How long you planning on sitting here?”

“I was thinkin’ ‘til I can stand up without the trees runnin’ rings around me.”

“You sober enough to answer a question for me?”

“I s’pose -- ‘less I gotta do a lotta thinkin’ to give ya’ an answer.”

“I don’t know how much thinking it’ll take,” Nick smiled. “It’s about something you said last night.”

“I don’t ‘member a lotta what I said last night.”

“And you were only a couple seconds away from being asleep when you said it,” the dark haired cowboy told him. “You said Father didn’t know about you. Is that the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know?”

“Had a long talk with Aunt Rachel on Sunday night. She said she didn’t think Mama would want me makin’ any mistakes -- so she answered all the questions Mama would never answer. Most important is that your Father never did nothin’ for us b’cause he didn’t know about me. Mama never told him.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell him?” Nick sounded surprised. “Why would she want to raise you alone? Why not ask for his help?”

Heath took a deep breath before he told his brother, “She was afraid he’d take me away.”

“Why would she think that?”

“Aunt Rachel said that Mama was afraid, since men have all the legal rights, that if she told him about me and asked for any help, he’d take me away from her instead.”

“Father wouldn’ta done that!”

“Ya’ know that for a fact? If ya’d known, Nick ... would ya’ have wanted me to live with ya’?”

“Of course I would have. But...”

“But he wouldn’t have?”

Nick didn’t have to think about that one very long. “I guess he mighta,” he admitted softly.

“And I mighta wanted it, Nick. Aunt Rachel didn’t say it ... but if I’d gotten a look at that fancy house and everythin’ I coulda had ... Mama had to believe I mighta wanted to live there ‘steada here.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Nick said with certainty, shaking his head. “The night you told us who you were -- Jarrod offered you more money than you’d ever seen in one place just to ride out. You turned him down. You weren’t there looking for money and a fancy house. You were there looking for family. And there’s no way you can convince me that you’d turn your back on your mother for any of those things.”

“Don’t ya’ think I’d rather have gotten up and gone to school ev’ry mornin’ ‘steada goin’ to work in the mine? Don’t ya’ think a five-year-old boy wants to find presents under a tree on Christmas mornin’? And don’t ya’ think if I’d seen a horse like that,” his head gestured towards Charger, “I mighta wanted to live on that ranch? I don’t know what I’da wanted, Nick -- so I know how that mighta scared Mama. And I can’t be mad at her for doin’ what she did,” he shook his head.

“It just doesn’t seem fair,” Nick mused. “There shoulda been some way...”

Heath laughed as Nick’s voice trailed off. “It’s too late for that, Nick.”

“Is it too late for us? Too late to be partners?”

“We’ve still got a bitta talkin’ to do,” Heath declined to answer as he pulled in another fish. He added it to the four he’d already caught as he stood up to leave. “Why don’t we go have Aunt Rachel cook us some breakfast?” he suggested. “I told her last night I’d bring it by. And after we eat I’ll show ya’ around like ya’ asked.”

Nick took the fish and the pole from his younger brother and walked ahead of him, leaving Heath to walk the stallion back unencumbered. Nick could hear the soft buzz of the one-sided conversation the blond carried on with the horse and, as with the night before, he wished he could hear what his brother was saying -- but didn’t attempt to intrude. As they neared the town, Heath’s voice got louder as he spoke to Nick, suggesting that Nick take the fish over to Rachel’s house while he got Charger settled in the livery.

“And ya’ might wanna tell her to make the coffee extra strong,” he called after him as Nick headed down the street while Heath headed in the opposite direction.

That figured, Nick thought as they separated. It figured that he’d find some way of making Nick tell Rachel that they were going to need strong coffee. Heath would probably walk in and claim he was fine and wonder why Nick wanted the coffee so strong, the dark haired cowboy thought cynically. That was just like a little brother, he mused to himself. And that thought made him laugh as he remembered doing that exact thing to Jarrod a couple years back when they’d returned from a night in town somewhere around 6 a.m. They may be adults but when her sons stayed out all night, Victoria Barkley was always there to welcome them home. And knowing that she’d be waiting, Nick had offered to tend their horses while he sent Jarrod into the house to be sure the coffee was extra strong. He’d have to remember that Heath had also mastered the ‘why don’t you make sure the coffee is extra strong’ game. AND remember not to try to use it on him in the future. If they had a future together.

* * * * *

Rachel, to her credit, closed her eyes to the symptoms of a hangover that both men exhibited. She ignored the many times their fingers massaged their foreheads and temples. She pretended not to notice how each one cringed when one of them got a bit louder than necessary. She chose not to count how many cups of coffee they each consumed. And she didn’t question the way both sat with their back to the light that came through the only window in the front of the house. Without mentioning any of it, she convinced them that the roof could wait a day. Something told her that their talk the night before had been productive -- but she knew there was probably much more to be discussed and she didn’t want them to put that off. Besides, she couldn’t help telling herself, in their condition there was no way she wanted them climbing up onto her roof.

She shooed them out of the house when they’d finished their breakfast, declining Heath’s offer to help with the dishes. He’d always helped as a boy and he always offered to do the same when he got up from Rachel’s table -- although most times she refused his help, as she did today. They seemed a bit steadier on their feet as they left her house than they had when they’d entered less than an hour before. She watched from the door as they walked down the street and felt tears sting her eyes as she found herself wishing that Leah could have seen this moment. But, she thought as she almost angrily brushed the tears away, perhaps this moment wouldn’t have happened if Leah were alive. She’d always disagreed with Leah’s decision not to tell Heath who his father was, just as she disagreed with Leah’s choice to raise him without help from his father. Leah’s deathbed confession of his parentage came while Heath was still young enough to establish a relationship with his father’s family. But, if things had been different, how long would she have withheld that information from him? No matter how long, Rachel thought as she turned back into the house, it had been and it was wrong. And Nick’s arm around Heath’s shoulder as they disappeared from her view was all the proof she needed to assure herself she’d done the right thing by telling Heath what he’d wanted to know.

“Small schoolhouse,” Nick observed as they passed a building with a sign reading ‘School’ above its door.

“Didn’t seem all that small when I was a kid,” Heath looked over at it. “But I only went for a couple years. I think I prob’ly quit goin’ to school around my eighth birthday. I didn’t quit doin’ my lessons though,” he quickly added. “Aunt Rachel taught me after that.”

“Did you quit so you could work?” Nick didn’t want that to be the answer but knew it probably was.

“Mostly,” Heath agreed. “But it was also a lot easier. Mama had a devil of a time gettin’ ‘em to let me attend school. The good folks of Strawberry weren’t all that tolerant when it came to lettin’ their kids sit side-by-side with the town bastard,” he said matter-of-factly. “I prob’ly learned more from Aunt Rachel than some of them kids did in that school anyway. Minin’ towns ain’t known for their good schools so I guess in that way I was luckier than most kids who grew up here.”

Nick glanced over at him, thinking that only someone who’d grown up here could see the luck in that. Nick had wanted to quit school from the time he was twelve. He’d argued yearly that he didn’t need any more schooling to run a ranch but he wasn’t allowed to quit until he was sixteen. He’d been only too happy to leave school behind but wondered how he would have felt if he hadn’t been allowed to attend. Or had been forced to quit to help support a family. It shouldn’t have happened to his little brother. It just shouldn’t have happened, he told himself as they continued down the street on their way to the livery.

Further along, on the other side of the street, was a building whose windows, unlike the boarded up windows on most of the abandoned buildings in town, were broken panes of glass. The sign out front, proclaiming it a hotel, was hanging by a single chain attached to its upper right corner. The chain that had once been hooked to the upper left corner was long gone and the sign swung crookedly in the light morning breeze.

“Is that your uncle’s hotel?” Nick asked him, gesturing with a jerk of his head.

Heath nodded. “I’m sorry I won’t have the pleasure of introducin’ ‘em to ya’,” he said distastefully. “Aunt Rachel said she hasn’t seen Uncle Matt or Aunt Martha in a couple months. I hope they’re long gone. I never did much like the idea of Aunt Rachel and Hannah livin’ here while they were ‘round. I tried to move ‘em away from here when Mama died, but they’re both pretty set in their ways. Just like Mama. I wanted her away from here, too. They coulda all had a good life somewhere else. Don’t know why they wouldn’t leave...” he mused as though to himself.

“I hate to say it right out like this -- but that’s one of those things you can’t go back and change,” Nick reminded him.

“No...” Heath shook his head, “...don’t guess I can.”

They entered the livery and saddled their horses so Heath could take Nick on the promised tour of the surrounding area. As they rode towards the river, he pointed out a small cave he’d played in, the entrance now overgrown with weeds. “Prob’ly no bigger than the schoolhouse,” Heath told him, “but I thought it was a palace. Wouldn’t be surprised if there was an old oil lamp in there that Mr. Flynn gave me. And I’m still convinced there’s buried treasure in there that I never found.”

Nick smiled and confessed, “I never found my treasure either.”

They reached the river and headed north with Heath directing him to all the best fishing spots and pointing out the places he used to play as they rode for a couple miles along its banks. Every time Heath pointed out one of the sights, Nick took the opportunity to remind him of one of the reasons Heath should return with him to Stockton. Most of his reasons were repeated from the night before, as he wasn’t sure how much Heath remembered of that conversation. But mixed in with all the reasons Heath was hearing again were the personal ones -- the ones from brother to brother. The plans for fishing trips to Lake Tahoe. Or the weekends gambling in San Francisco. The ones Nick hoped would tip the scales in his favor.

It was about mid-afternoon when they reached a bend in the river and Heath reined in his Modoc and nodded towards their left. “That trail there goes up to the mine. The one your father used to own. Ya’ wanna see it?”

“Yeah,” Nick admitted. He wanted to see it, not because his father had once owned a share of it, but because his brother had worked in it as a six-year-old. It was part of who Heath was.

Heath never dismounted when they got to the mine. Nick did. He walked up to the entrance, barricaded by boards that were nailed over it to form an ‘X’. The sun was high enough in the sky that the entryway was faintly illuminated beyond the boards and Nick shivered at the thought of his brother entering the narrow passageway. He could see about twenty feet down the tunnel and couldn’t help wondering whether it was courage or ignorance that sent a six-year-old armed with dynamite in there day after day. And for no more than a few cents. As he walked back towards Coco he glanced up at Heath who was surveying the surrounding area and very obviously turning his back on the mine. It wasn’t ignorance that sent him in as a child, Nick realized. Heath had probably understood what he was doing at six far better than Nick had at sixteen, he thought with a deep sigh.

They rode back towards town on a road that had probably seen a lot of traffic when the mine was in operation but was seldom used now. They were within sight of the livery when Nick suddenly stopped to ask a question that had been on his mind since that morning. “Heath,” he got his attention, “if Father didn’t know about you ... why did he give your mother the watch to give to you?”

“He didn’t,” Heath said simply.

“Then how’d she come to have it?”

“Oh, he gave it to her,” Heath assured him. “He just didn’t give it to her to pass on to me.”

“I don’t mean any disrespect towards your mother, but...” Nick said carefully, not wanting to offend Heath, “why would he give her a family watch if it wasn’t ... what we thought?”

“I asked Aunt Rachel about it. Seems we’ve got Uncle Matt to thank for that.”

“I’m sure you don’t mean ‘thank’ in a good way,” Nick stated sort of questioningly.

“No -- I can’t think of one good thing that Uncle Matt ever did, said or was,” Heath stated firmly.

“Then what does he have to do with your mother having the watch?”

Heath regarded him silently for a moment before saying, “Accordin’ to Aunt Rachel, Uncle Matt came over to tell Mama that she had to quit seein’ your father. He told her it was hurtin’ his reputation to have his sister carryin’ on with a man the way she was. Aunt Rachel said they got into an argument when Mama told him she’d do as she pleased and not as he ordered. From what she said, I guess it was a good thing Aunt Rachel and Hannah were there otherwise Uncle Matt prob’ly woulda slapped her around insteada just yellin’. She finally picked up a fryin’ pan,” he sort of chuckled, “and ordered him to leave. Aunt Rachel said he slammed the door so hard it shook the walls of the house. Mama had a shelf on the wall near the door that held a clock that had belonged to her mother. It was about the only thing she had that belonged to her mother. When Uncle Matt slammed the door, the clock fell off the shelf and broke. Mama was still cryin’ over it when your father got there,” he related. “Aunt Rachel said she wasn’t sure if Mama was cryin’ over losin’ somethin’ that had belonged to her mother -- or cryin’ ‘cause it was the only way she had of tellin’ time. Uncle Matt was always accusin’ her of gettin’ to work late ‘cause he was too cheap to pay her for a full day’s work. I don’t think she was ever late a day in her life,” Heath said, his bitterness towards his uncle clearly evident.

“So Father gave her the watch?”

Heath nodded. “Aunt Rachel said Mama refused to take it at first ‘cause he told her it was a family watch. But when he left town, he left it there for her. She thought it meant he was comin’ back,” he said softly. “She thought by leavin’ it he was sayin’ he’d come back for it some day.”

“But ... why would she give it to you and let you think it belonged to her family?” Nick wondered out loud.

“She told Aunt Rachel that she never expected to see the day when I’d meet my father -- but she still wanted to know that I had something of his with me. I don’t know why -- but Aunt Rachel said she still loved your father ‘til the day she died. I don’t think she understood that I thought I had reason enough to hate him.”

“You think there’s ever gonna come a day when you call him ‘my father’ insteada ‘your father’?”

“I don’t know, Nick,” he gave him a slight smile. “When I didn’t know who he was, ‘my father’ seemed the right thing to say. Now that I have a name for him -- and I know that he had a family -- it doesn’t seem right to call him that anymore. I spent a lotta time hatin’ a man who didn’t have a name. It’s just different now that he has a name.”

“Do you still hate him?”

“I don’t think so,” Heath shook his head. “I don’t guess I know him enough to hate him. I still hate what he did -- and what Mama did. I hate that he never considered that he mighta left her with a child. I hate that Mama never trusted him enough to tell him she needed his help. And, god, I hate that she lived her whole life in this town scrapin’ for every little thing she needed while help wasn’t so far away. But I could never hate her so I guess -- knowin’ what I know now -- I can’t really hate him neither.”

“Well ... then ... if you don’t hate him ... and you know that we all want you to be part of the family...” Nick said hesitantly, “...are you comin’ back with me? Will you come back to Stockton with me? Will you come back to the ranch and be my partner in running it?”

Chapter 31

Heath sat on his Modoc, silently regarding his brother. The brother he’d spent his life wishing for. The brother who was offering him everything he’d ever wanted his life to be. He studied him carefully and wondered how to answer his question so Nick would understand that, while he wasn’t yet ready to say ‘yes’, he wasn’t saying ‘no’ either. He might not be ready to return to Stockton and stay -- but he WAS going back to Stockton. Even before Nick had arrived in Strawberry, Heath had decided he had to go back there. So he started with that.

“Well, Nick, the fact is ... I decided after talkin’ to Aunt Rachel on Sunday night that I was ridin’ back to the ranch. There are...”

“WHAT!” Nick cut him short.

“I was plannin’ to go back. I...”

“YOU WERE PLANNING TO GO BACK?” Nick exploded, his arms doing as much talking as his mouth. “I’VE BEEN WASTING ALL THIS TIME TALKING AND PERSUADING AND BEGGING ... AND BEING PATIENT, I MIGHT ADD ... AND YOU WERE ALREADY PLANNING TO GO BACK!”

“Nick, would ya’ gimme a chance to explain!” somehow Heath just couldn’t yell with the same volume as his hot-blooded brother.

“Oh, you’re gonna explain, boy! And you’re gonna make it good -- or I MIGHT just knock you out and throw you over a horse! And JUST FOR THE SHEER PLEASURE OF IT!” Nick threatened, leaning closer for emphasis. “Let’s start with why you didn’t tell me when I got here!”

“I didn’t tell ya’ when ya’ got here because I wasn’t plannin’ to go back there to stay,” Heath said tensely.

“Then why were you planning to go back?”

“I was plannin’ to go back because of what Aunt Rachel told me. I thought y’all deserved to know that your father didn’t knowin’ly neglect his responsibilities. I was goin’ back to tell ya’ that. But I wasn’t plannin’ to stay.”

“Oh...” Nick breathed out, the anger and his tone of voice softening. “So ... are you planning to stay now?”

“Would ya’ still think ya’ wasted your time if I said ‘no’?”

“Oh, hell, Heath ... I didn’t mean it like that,” Nick sort of groaned. “I meant ... well ... being patient isn’t easy for me!”

“Yeah, I can see ya’ sweatin’ from the effort,” Heath said with more than a touch of sarcasm.

“I’m sweatin’ because you haven’t answered my question yet. Are you planning to stay now?” he repeated the question.

“I don’t know that yet. Ya’ told me what everyone thinks and feels about me comin’ back and stayin’ -- but I guess I gotta see it and hear it from them myself.”

“Okay,” Nick sounded agreeable. “When do we leave?”

“Ya’ can leave whenever ya’ want,” Heath nudged his horse, continuing on towards the livery. “I’ve still gotta finish fixin’ Aunt Rachel’s roof. I shouldn’t be too far behind ya’.”

“Oh, no!” the dark haired cowboy dug his heels into Magic to catch up to him. “If you’re going back to the ranch, you’re going back with me. I’m NOT leaving without you!”

“Ya’ don’t trust me, Nick?”

“It’s not about trusting you,” Nick said disgustedly. “It’s about knowing what’ll happen if I go home and say -- oh, yeah, he’ll be here in a few days. You have any idea what I’m gonna have to listen to if I try that? And AFTER they’re done giving me an earful, they’re gonna saddle up and come after you and give YOU an earful. The only way to steer clear of that is to go back together. And we’ve gotta be there by Friday night.”

“Ya’ takin’ someone to the dance, Nick?” Heath sort of teased.

“No ... you know I don’t like limiting myself to one woman! What would all the rest of the ladies do?”

“They’d prob’ly be sighing with relief,” Heath muttered to himself.

“What’d you say, boy!”

“I said they’d prob’ly be ... tryin’ to compete,” the blond said innocently. “Ya’ know ... for your attention,” he continued quickly, so Nick couldn’t question him further. “So if it ain’t to go to the dance, why do ya’ need to be home by Friday?”

“’Cause that’s all the time they’re giving me. The only way I could get them not to follow me was to tell ‘em where I was going and promise to be back by Friday night. Unless I’m home by then -- or send a telegram explaining why I won’t be -- at the very least, Jarrod is coming after me. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Mother, Gene and Audra join him. Unless you want all of ‘em riding into Strawberry on Saturday, you’re gonna have to leave with me in time to get back to the ranch by Friday night.”

“Ya’ don’t really think they’d do that -- do ya’, Nick?” Heath asked as he dismounted in front of the livery.

“Damn right I think they would!”

“Guess I’d better get to work on that roof first thing in the mornin’ then,” Heath decided, leading his Modoc into the stable.

“WE’LL get to work on that roof first thing in the morning,” Nick corrected him as he dismounted and followed his blond brother into the building.

* * * * *

The sun was barely peeking over the mountains the next morning when Nick and Heath climbed the ladder to finish repairing Rachel’s roof. It took most of the day but by the time they were done, Rachel had an almost entirely new roof on her house. They were all seated at the supper table when Nick broached the subject of leaving in the morning.

“Can’t leave tomorrow, Nick,” Heath took a moment to swallow the bread in his mouth before he responded.

“I thought we were leaving after you fixed the roof,” Nick was trying not to show the anger that he instantly felt.

“So did I,” Heath agreed, “’til I stopped over to see Hannah b’fore supper. There are a few things I wanna fix over at her place b’fore I leave. Ya’ can go ahead and leave if ya’ want. I’ll prob’ly only be a day behind ya’,” he gave Nick just a quick look before his attention was back on the plate in front of him.

“You’re doing it again!” Nick accused him.

“Doin’ what?” the blue eyes glanced up at him.

“Giving me that ‘little brother’ look! You think I’m gonna help you, don’t you!”

“Didn’t think that, at all,” Heath shook his head. “I figured ya’d head back to the ranch and tell ‘em I’ll be along -- when I can get there.”

“I know exactly what you’re thinking! And that ain’t it!” Nick accused him. “If I help you at Hannah’s house, can we get it done in a day?”

“Yeah, I ‘spect two men workin’ together could get it all done in a day.”

“And then we’ll leave on Friday morning?”

“Yes,” Rachel said firmly. “He’ll be ready to leave with you on Friday morning. Won’t you?” she reached over and playfully tugged on Heath’s ear.

“Yes, Aunt Rachel, I’ll be ready to leave with him on Friday morning,” Heath didn’t dare brush her hand away. He remembered, only too well, the gesture in a less playful manner from his childhood. It left unspoken the command, ‘you’ll do as I say, young man’. “I’m sure there won’t be any problem leavin’ on Friday, Nick.”

“I’ll count on that, then,” Nick stared him right in the eyes and held his gaze until Heath looked away. Then Nick turned to Rachel and said a simple, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Heath knows perfectly well how I feel about him returning to Stockton. And I won’t tolerate any additional delays. Is that understood?” she asked.

They both knew the question was directed at Heath. He was the one who said, “Yes, ma’am.”

And Nick was the one who sat there with a grin on his face, now trying NOT to look his little brother in the eyes. He knew if he got even a glimpse of those eyes he’d burst out laughing. And that, he figured, wouldn’t be very well received.

* * * * *

Nick had to admit, as they again sat at the supper table the following evening, that their time WAS well spent at Hannah’s house. They’d patched a small section of her roof, fixed the handle on her water pump, tightened the hinges on her front door, and reset some window panes that she claimed “rattled like the devil knocking” when the wind blew. Of course, just because the work needed to be done didn’t mean Heath hadn’t used it as an excuse to delay their return to Stockton. It wasn’t hard to see that there was a definite lack of enthusiasm about riding back into that yard and facing the family he’d ridden away from with nothing more than a couple notes to say good-bye. Although Nick knew that the family was waiting to welcome him home, he could understand Heath’s reluctance to believe that. And he understood it a lot better than he had when he rode into Strawberry looking for him just a few short days before.

But, as Rachel had ordered and Heath had promised, they rode out together on Friday morning at sunrise. And even though Heath joked about heading east into Nevada rather than west towards Stockton, Nick knew he was committed to returning to the Barkley Ranch. He just hoped that, once Heath heard what the family had to say, he’d be equally committed to staying.

They stopped a number of times to rest the horses or eat the lunch that Rachel had packed and still made good time. It was late afternoon, at least a couple hours before supper, when they rode into the yard in front of the stable. Nick had been expecting a welcoming committee; he’d expected Audra to be standing at the window for the past couple days watching for their return. But no one rushed to greet them and he was relieved for Heath that the family wasn’t there to meet them en masse. He knew that such a welcoming committee would have seemed threatening to his younger brother.

He left Heath in the stable, still tending his Modoc and the stallion, and went into the house by way of the front door.

“Mother!” he called out as he dropped his saddlebags on the stairway and began to unbuckle his gunbelt. “Mother! Jarrod! Anyone?” he yelled.

“Nicholas, must you always enter the house so noisily?” his mother asked calmly from where she sat in the parlor.

“Mother! Where is everyone?” he asked as he set his gunbelt and hat on the table in the foyer and joined her in the parlor. He leaned over to kiss her cheek then crossed to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink.

“Jarrod is in the study. Audra is upstairs changing her clothes. And I have no idea where Eugene is at the moment,” his mother told him. She got up and crossed the room to join him. Placing her hand on his forehead, she smiled. “I’m glad to see you’ve been taking care of yourself. How is your shoulder?”

“Heath had already told Rachel what happened,” Nick explained. “She made sure it stayed clean and bandaged.”

“And how is ... Heath?” she asked hesitantly, afraid to hear the answer.

“You can ask him that yourself. He’s still seeing to his horses. He can’t delay coming in for too long,” Nick joked. Then he said seriously, “You should know -- he was coming back anyway. He hasn’t promised to stay yet -- but he WAS planning to come back.” He handed her a glass of sherry and directed her to a chair before sitting down on one facing her. “Mother, I think he just needs to convince himself that there really IS a place here for him. That he’s not hurting anyone by being here.”

“Well -- since you knew where to find him -- it’s obvious that you’re the one who knows him best. And, I must say, that pleasantly surprises me. If that’s what you think it will take, I’d have to believe we have nothing to worry about. I have no doubt that this family will convince him that we not only want him to stay, we also NEED him to stay.”

They could hear the front door opening and then quietly closing. Before they could see anyone to be sure it was Heath, they heard Audra’s voice, confirming it for them.

“Heath!” she cried, hurrying down the staircase.

From the parlor they saw Heath come into view just as Audra reached him and threw her arms around his shoulders. They couldn’t hear what either said in greeting but both were encouraged to see the smile that graced Heath’s face when Audra’s quietly spoken comment was followed by a kiss to his cheek. Victoria was about to stand up and join them when Jarrod’s voice was heard from the direction of the study.

“Heath! Welcome home!” he approached his blond brother with hand outstretched.

As Heath shook the offered hand, Eugene came in from the direction of the kitchen. He welcomed him as enthusiastically as his oldest brother and sister had and also extended his hand in greeting.

“IF ANYONE CARES,” Nick yelled towards the foyer, “I’M HOME TOO!”

His brothers headed into the parlor while Audra waited for Heath to set down his saddlebags, hat and gunbelt. Then, linking her arm in his, she directed him towards the parlor as well. Victoria finally had the chance to welcome him and did it with a gentle kiss and a softly spoken, “Welcome home. I’m glad you came back.”

He wasn’t sure how to respond. His inclination was to say ‘thank you, ma’am’ but he knew how much she detested being called ‘ma’am’. Jarrod saved him from having to figure it out. He handed Heath a brandy and, with a slight nod to Victoria, Heath covered his hesitation by taking a drink. She smiled slightly, rubbed her hand lightly down his arm, then returned to the chair on which she’d been seated. As Heath took a second gulp of his brandy, he realized the room was quiet and all eyes were on him. He wasn’t sure what they were waiting for -- what they wanted him to say. Were they waiting for an explanation of why he left? Or why he’d come back? Was anyone waiting for an apology for his hurried departure? He had no idea what they expected -- but on the ride from Strawberry, he’d planned what he’d say when he had the chance to talk to the whole family together. So he took a deep breath and began.

“I was already plannin’ to come back when Nick got to Strawberry,” he told them, “but I ain’t gonna lie to ya’ and tell ya’ I’m stayin’, ‘cause I don’t know if I am. I had a long talk with Aunt Rachel when I got to Strawberry and she answered the questions Mama would never answer. I ain’t gonna tell ya’ all of what she said but...”

“Heath,” Victoria said when he paused for a moment, “you don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to tell us. No one intends to ask you any questions.”

“There IS somethin’ I hafta tell ya’. It’s why I was comin’ back. Y’all deserve to know,” he finally decided to sit down, uncomfortable being the only one still on his feet. He drained his glass before saying, “Tom Barkley -- he didn’t know ‘bout me. Aunt Rachel said that Mama never told him.”

“Why?” it was Audra who voiced the obvious question, despite her mother’s assurance that no one would ask him any questions.

He’d intended telling them that anyway. So he responded, “She was afraid if she told him and asked for his help, he’d take me away from her. I think she was also afraid that if I saw what I COULDA had rather than what I DID have -- I’d WANT him to take me away. And I can’t honestly say she was wrong about that -- ‘cause I don’t know what I’da done when I was a boy. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he didn’t know -- so none of ya’ have anythin’ to make up for.”

“Heath, we...”

“Jarrod, just let me say what I gotta say,” Heath didn’t let him interrupt for more than a second. “Ya’ know I’m not one for makin’ speeches and I’m on a roll so, uh ... I just wanna finish. There’s really only one other thing I wanna tell y’all about. It’s the watch,” he told them. “He DID give it to her. She didn’t just find it and keep it,” he looked at Eugene when he said it. “I ain’t tellin’ ya’ why he gave it to her. It was somethin’ that happened that ya’ don’t need to know about,” he shook his head, not wanting to tell them any more about his family than he had to. “Mama gave me the watch ‘cause she didn’t ever expect to see the day I met my father -- but she wanted me to have somethin’ of his with me. I don’t know why. She knew I hated him but ... I guess she didn’t understand how I could,” he shrugged. He looked at Victoria as he said, “I want ya’ to know, I don’t ... feel that way anymore. I don’t hate him. I don’t really know what I feel about him -- but I can’t hate Mama for what she did -- so I guess I can’t hate him for not knowin’.”

This time when he stopped, no one said anything. Not Jarrod, who wanted to interrupt him only a minute before. Not Nick, who knew a whole lot more of the story than Heath was telling. And not Victoria, who wanted to tell him that it was just possible that his mother didn’t understand his hatred for his father ... because she had loved his father. None of them said anything so Heath set his glass down and stood up.

“If y’all don’t mind -- I’d kinda like to go get cleaned up. I feel like I’ve been ridin’ all day.” He tried to say it jokingly -- but he wasn’t in a joking mood so it just came out sounding flat.

When no one suggested that he stay and talk, he didn’t. He picked up his saddlebags on the way through the foyer and climbed the stairs two at a time. Only when he was behind the closed door of his bedroom did he feel safe from the eyes that had followed him out of the room and up the stairs. Only then did he breathe.

He barely had time to toss his saddlebags on the bed and get a clean shirt and pants from the closet before he heard a knock on the door. It wasn’t soft enough to be Mrs. Barkley or Audra. So he figured it must be Jarrod. Jarrod, who’d wanted to respond to something he said -- but then didn’t. Jarrod -- the peacemaker -- who would, of course, be the one to follow him.

“Gene!” his surprise was evident when he opened the door to find, not his oldest, but his younger brother.

“Can we talk?” Eugene asked him, not daring to come into the room unless he was invited.

Heath opened the door wider and stepped aside, his actions implying consent. He closed the door behind Eugene then crossed the room to sit on the bed, waiting for his brother to speak. Eugene seemed to be preparing himself for that as he paced back and forth for a minute before stopping abruptly and looking over at his blond brother.

“I owe you an apology,” Eugene began, “because when I said that I knew what it was like for you to grow up without a father -- I had no idea what I was talking about. It would be a major injustice to even suggest that I know what that was like for you. I can’t even begin to know. And when I said that I didn’t know how anyone could believe you were Father’s son -- well that was just plain stupid. Something a spoiled child might say and later regret -- like I do.” He started pacing again. “And if I said anything about your mother that you found disrespectful -- including wondering if she just found the watch and kept it instead of Father giving it to her -- I apologize to you and your mother. I know she must have been an incredible woman.”

Heath nodded and said softly, “She was.”

Eugene finally sat down, nodding with him. “She’d have to be to raise you on her own.” He took a deep breath that he exhaled loudly before asking, “You know when I said I didn’t need another big brother?”

“Yeah, I remember somethin’ like that,” Heath said drily but with a hint of a smile.

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot since you left -- because you took something with you that I DO need. Even before Father died, Jarrod and Nick treated me like they were also my father. I might have grown up with two brothers but neither one ever treated me like a brother -- like an equal,” Eugene sort of shrugged. “You have from the moment we met. I know that hasn’t been a long time -- but it meant more than I thought it did because I missed it when you left. And if you leave again -- I’ll miss it. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss having a brother.”

Heath figured he ought to say something in reply, so he told him, “I’m still learning how to be one. And I guess you’ll have to be patient with me ‘cause ... Nick is my example.”

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out between us,” Eugene couldn’t help laughing at that as he stood up to leave. He was at the door when he turned to tell Heath, “I hope you’ll stay.” And then he left.

Heath sat there looking at the door for several minutes after Eugene was gone. It DID make sense that he’d say he didn’t need another big brother if his whole concept of a big brother was someone who treated him like they were his father. Heath was pretty lucky in that regard. Jarrod WAS a sort of father figure -- but only because he offered advice when Heath asked for it. It was rarely unsolicited. And Nick -- well, he was shaping up to be the big brother Heath had always wanted. It was doubtful he’d ever treat Heath the way a father would. It was kind of sad when he thought about -- Eugene had two brothers from the moment he was born and he’d probably never enjoyed the kind of brotherly relationship that Nick and Heath were already developing. Heath found it easy to understand why he would have said he didn’t need another big brother -- and he actually felt sorry for him. So maybe besides being Nick’s little brother, he mused, he could be the kind of big brother Eugene was looking for.

He was sitting there smiling slightly when he heard another knock. Before he could move, the door was opened and Nick poked his head in. “You mind if I grab the tub first?”

“Nice of ya’ to ask,” Heath picked up the clothes he’d pulled from the closet and headed for the door. “Gives me the chance to get in there before ya’,” he pulled the door further open and pushed past Nick.

“Wait a minute!” Nick followed him down the hall. “I wasn’t asking to give you a chance to get in there first!”

“Then why were ya’ askin’?” he turned around to see him.

“Just ... to be nice.”

“And like I said, Nick, it was right nice,” he patted him on the shoulder as he backed into the room. “Thanks.”

He closed the door and, for good measure, locked it. There was no telling just how nice Nick was willing to be. Nor how patient.

* * * * *

He was trying to decide how much longer he could sit there on the chair in his bedroom without being impolite or holding up supper, when another knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. This one, he decided, was Mrs. Barkley. It was soft and feminine and lacked the command of Jarrod or Nick. Even as he was telling himself that he should get up to answer it, he was calling out, “Come in.”

He was wrong. It wasn’t Mrs. Barkley; it was Audra. And she was carrying a wrapped box.

“For some reason,” she told him, “this family has the idea that going shopping cures me of anything. And I suppose that sometimes it CAN cure a bad mood,” she had to admit. “Earlier this week Mother thought a shopping trip to San Francisco might make me forget that I was worried about whether or not you’d come back. Well -- it didn’t. But it DID give me the chance to buy you a birthday present,” she set the box on his lap. It was heavier than he’d imagined it to be. “Happy birthday a bit late. You should have told us.”

“I didn’t realize it was that close,” he confessed. “I ain’t really looked at a calendar lately.”

“They only work when you already know the date anyway,” she said dismissively.

“Yeah,” he smiled. “I’ve heard that before.”

They were both silent for a moment before she pointed to the box and said, “You can open it if you want.”

Instead of doing that, he got up from the chair and went to sit on the bed so she could sit next to him. THEN he opened the box. There were four books inside.

“I hope you haven’t read that top one,” Audra said as he took it out.

“‘Five Weeks in a Balloon’,” he read the title. “I ain’t even heard of it,” he shook his head.

“It’s by a French author named Jules Verne. I thought you might have already read it because it was translated into English about four years ago. It came highly recommended by the shopkeeper who sold it to me. The other books are by him as well. They’ve only been translated this year so I figured you wouldn’t have read them. They’re supposed to be amazing adventures!”

“‘From the Earth to the Moon’?” Heath read the next title as a question.

“It’s about a trip to the Moon,” she said logically.

“I figured,” he nodded. “How do ya’ s’pose they got there?”

“I guess you’ll have to read it to find out,” she suggested as he took out the next book.

“‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’,” he read.

“It’s about a voyage under water. The shopkeeper said a league is about three miles long.”

“Someone’s gonna be holdin’ their breath for a long time,” Heath joked as he removed the last book from the box and read its title. “‘Around the World in Eighty Days’.”

“I don’t know how they do that,” Audra shook her head before he could ask. “You’ll have to read that one as well to find out.”

He smiled slightly then leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Thanks, sis. I’ve never had books quite so fine.”

“I’m hoping you’ll stay long enough so I can read each one when you’re done with it.”

“I guess that’s something to consider.”

“Good! Now Mother wants us downstairs for supper. She said ten minutes when I came up here so I’m sure it’s just about ready.”

“Well, we can’t keep her waitin’, can we?” he asked rhetorically as he stood up and offered her his hand. He gave her a hug when she was on her feet and repeated his thanks. Then he escorted her to the dining room for what he fully expected to be a very uncomfortable family gathering.

Chapter 32

Supper hadn’t been nearly as uncomfortable as Heath had expected it to be and he had Nick to thank for that. It was the first meal they’d all had together since Nick and Heath had left on their horse-buying trip to Nevada. Nick hadn’t joined the family when he and Jarrod returned home; he’d been confined to bed by order of his mother. And when Heath and Eugene had returned, Nick had slept through the single meal that had been served before Heath left again. So now, with all of the family seated around the table, Nick began telling them of their ‘adventures’ during the two weeks they were gone. He told them they’d found no horses worth buying but plenty of fish worth catching at Walker Lake. He explained why the horse that was now known as Charger had been scheduled to be shot -- and how Heath had changed the owner’s mind about that. He admitted to almost falling off the mountain near Sweetwater but, upon seeing the expression on his mother’s face, quickly explained that it wasn’t much more than slipping.

“And even that,” he told her, “wouldn’t have happened if Heath had told me that I couldn’t get to the water from that direction.”

Heath just rolled his eyes, knowing Nick was trying to get a rise out of him. So instead of reacting to the comment, he suggested, “Why don’t ya’ tell ‘em about the snake, Nick?”

“The snake?” Nick asked in a tone that left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he knew exactly what Heath was talking about.

“Ya’ know -- the one that knocked ya’ flat on your...”

“No need to go into all the boring details!” Nick interrupted him. “Besides, it’s not much of a story.”

“I thought it was a pretty good one. I think I wrote it down so I’d remember all the little things,” Heath jokingly took a small tablet out of his shirt pocket.

He barely had the tablet in his hand before Nick reached over and snatched it from him. “We’ll just see what you’ve been writing down,” Nick said almost as a challenge.

Okay, Heath thought, the joke that he’d been writing things down so he’d remember to tell the crew about them was over. The only notes that Nick would find on the paper were about things that had to be done around the ranch. It was a habit to carry the pad in his pocket but he hadn’t written anything on it since...

“Liza?” Nick interrupted his thoughts. “With an address in Carson City? Who’s Liza?”

Heath knew that the blush he detested was about to betray him -- and he knew that it was too much to ask for Nick not to notice. More than Nick’s eyes were on the blond cowboy when he said, as though to brush it off, “I told ya’ ‘bout Liza.”

“You never said a word about anyone named Liza!” Nick argued good-naturedly.

“Yeah, I did. Ya’ remember when we were havin’ lunch in Carson City -- right after ya’ got in from Reno?”

“You NEVER said a word about anyone named Liza,” Nick repeated.

“Ya’ asked what I’d done in Carson City that I wasn’t tellin’ ya’ about,” Heath reminded him.

“Yeah.”

“And I told ya’ the most I’d say was that I ran into an old friend.”

“That was Liza?”

“Yep.”

“AND YOU CALL THAT TELLING ME ABOUT HER!”

“I call that tellin’ ya’ the most I’m gonna say about her,” Heath responded and turned his attention back to his supper. Then he looked back at Nick and said, “I think everyone’s waitin’ to hear about the snake, Nick. Ya’ want me to tell ‘em for ya’?”

“Eat your supper,” Nick said disgustedly, tossing Heath’s tablet on the table.

With a satisfied smile, Heath picked it up and slipped it back into his shirt pocket.

Victoria, too, wore a satisfied smile. Of course, Nick had told her how his feelings about his brother had changed. And she’d sensed a change in the relationship between the two brothers since they’d returned. But this was really the first opportunity she’d had to actually see them sitting side-by-side and bantering like brothers. She’d never heard Nick teasing his younger brother this way. Certainly he might have asked the same question a few weeks prior if he’d found the young lady’s name on the tablet of paper. But it wouldn’t have been in a joking manner. It would have been a demand for information. And Heath’s answer wouldn’t have been in the same joking tone. It would have been defensive -- a ‘none of your business’ kind of answer.

She was still smiling when Heath glanced up and caught her eyes. The smile almost became a laugh when the look he flashed in her direction was one of pure triumph. It was the same look she’d seen so often on Nick’s face when he bested someone -- usually his older brother. The look, coming from Heath, surprised -- and then delighted -- her. Maybe his willingness to be that open with her meant he was beginning to feel at home. Or at least less guarded. She looked away reluctantly, not wanting to give up what they’d shared in that brief exchange of glances. Surveying the plates in front of her family and finding that all except Audra seemed to have finished their meal, she excused herself by telling them she was going to check on dessert.

It was a chocolate cake. Nick had caught her squeezing frosting from a rolled paper funnel, writing ‘Happy Birthday Heath’ on the top of the cake an hour before supper. She’d baked it the day before in the hope that Nick would bring Heath back. But she’d left it undecorated, knowing that it wasn’t certain that he would. She’d swatted at his hand as he sampled a bit of the chocolate frosting from the side of the cake.

“Nicholas! Can’t you wait until the cake is served?” she’d scolded him.

“Just wanted to be sure it tastes as good as it looks,” Nick had told her, giving her a placating kiss on the cheek. “I hope you don’t plan to make a whole big deal outta this.”

“You’re the one who wanted a party,” she’d pointed out to him.

“That was before he told me he wasn’t much for parties. Besides his birthday was four days ago. He’d think we were trying to make it up to him if we celebrated now. The cake without a lotta fuss would be just about right,” Nick had suggested as he swiped one more sample of the frosting then quickly backed away before turning and leaving the room.

So now she placed a single candle in the middle of the cake and let Silas carry it to the dining room. She lit the candle at the door, listening to the laughter coming from around the table. As she walked in ahead of Silas, she heard Heath say to the others, “I swear -- the man didn’t say a word ‘til Nick moved over to the other counter. Then he stepped over there himself and said ‘can I help ya’.”

“Well, that’s what you get for going to the post office when you should be going to the telegraph office, Nick. Hope you learned your lesson,” Jarrod chuckled at the formalities of the small town of Mason Valley. Seeing his mother at the door he announced to the others, “Looks like dessert is about to be served.”

Silas waited until the Barkley matriarch was seated before he carried the cake in to set it on the table in front of both her and Heath who was seated on the side of the table to her left. “Happy birthday, Heath,” she smiled in his direction. “I hope you don’t mind a single candle. It’s the first we’ve had the pleasure of celebrating with you. I’m hoping we’ll add many more candles in the years to come.”

How was he supposed to respond to that, Heath wondered. He couldn’t very well say ‘I’m still thinkin’ on that, ma’am’. That didn’t quite seem appropriate when she’d just had a birthday cake set in front of him. But he didn’t want to lie and tell her that’s exactly what they’d be doing. Maybe a simple ‘thank you, ma’am’ -- except, he reminded himself quickly, she hated to be called ‘ma’am’.

Nick, on Heath’s left, leaned closer and said in a whisper that all were intended to hear, “It’s a birthday cake. I know you’ve seen one before.”

“Yeah...” Heath agreed in the same loud whisper. Then he added, tongue-in-cheek, “But this one’s got writin’ on it. I need some time to read it.”

“Blow out the candle before the wax melts into the frosting,” Nick said with a slight laugh.

“You’d better, Heath,” Eugene spoke up. “Or Nick might do it himself.”

“And don’t forget to make a wish,” Audra said from directly across the table.

He smiled slightly at that. Mama had always put one candle on his cake and told him to make a wish. He’d never made one that had come true. Except -- now that he thought about it -- Mr. Pierce, had once had a bay stallion at his ranch outside Strawberry and when he was ten -- or maybe eleven -- he’d wished for a horse just like it. Now that he thought about it, no one had ever promised that a wish would come true in any specific amount of time. And Mama HAD always said that the best things were worth waiting for. He remembered that and his smile grew.

Okay, so he had the horse. But there’d always been another part of that wish and it was something he still wanted. With a brief thought of the ranch he hoped to one day be running, he took a quick breath and blew out the candle. Then he turned to Victoria and said, “Thank you for the cake. Chocolate is my favorite kind.”

“Then I’ll make sure you get a double-sized piece,” she picked up the knife Silas had provided to cut it. “Unless ... YOU want to cut it.”

“Oh, no,” he shook his head with a laugh. “I tried that once. Mama said ‘never again’.”

The laugh died as quickly as it rose in his throat. He couldn’t believe he’d just talked about his mother in front of this fine lady who was just trying to make him happy with a birthday cake, he thought with a silent groan. She didn’t need to be hearing that in her own house.

But Victoria responded with a laugh of her own, patting his hand as she said, “I’ll trust your mother’s judgement on that.”

He watched her face as she concentrated on cutting the cake. He was looking for the hurt that he was so used to seeing there. She had to be feeling it, he knew. It had been an unconscious thought that he’d voiced and immediately regretted. But she seemed more amused than anything as she placed the first piece of cake on a plate and handed it to him. And her good humor lasted through their dessert, confusing him as he tried to figure out what was different about tonight that made her not react as she usually did. Well -- whatever it was -- he was going to enjoy it while he could. Because he didn’t really expect it to last.

They were leaving the dining room when Jarrod asked Heath if he would mind giving him a closer look at the ‘wonder stallion’ that, until now, he’d only been able to admire from a discreet distance. Nick and Eugene tagged along as the lawyer and Heath went out to the stable. Heath didn’t, at all, mind showing Charger off but cautioned his oldest brother to approach slowly until he was sure the stallion was calm enough to have visitors. Jarrod gave him only a moment with the horse before he said, “Why don’t we get back to him. There something in the tack room that Gene and I wanted to show you.”

Well, how do you like that, the blond fumed to himself as he followed Jarrod into the back room. His brother tells him that he wants to see the stallion just to get him out to the stable. Then he takes the opportunity to point out something wrong with the tack room! It wasn’t like he’d actually been around to take care of it in the past couple weeks. And besides, even if he had, it wasn’t his job to keep the tack room neat and orderly. And what was Jarrod doing pointing out...

“Happy birthday,” he heard both Jarrod and Eugene say as Jarrod, with a flourish, pulled a blanket off a brand new saddle.

It was a working man’s saddle -- and the finest looking saddle he’d ever seen. His brothers seemed to know him well. The mahogany leather was smooth and well oiled. Heath had never much liked flowers or fancy scrolls tooled into the leather. He much preferred an unblemished saddle. A bridle of matching leather lay over the deep, padded seat. It was the perfect saddle for the man who spent much of his day on horseback.

“Gene and I thought you should have a new saddle for your new horse,” Jarrod told him when Heath didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Ain’t no one gonna recognize me if I go ridin’ into town in this saddle on Charger’s back,” Heath breathed out. Then with a laugh he added, “Maybe that’s a good thing. Thank you,” he looked first at Jarrod and then at Eugene. “It’s exactly what I woulda chosen myself.”

“That’s gonna look mighty fine on that stallion when you get him saddle-broke,” Nick commented. “I’d almost like to take a ride with you over to Nevada and let Aaron Whitaker see what he passed up,” he laughed, resting his hand on Heath’s shoulder. “That saddle looks so comfortable, I’m probably gonna have to be waking you up every hour or so. Your snoring will probably scare the cattle.” He looked past Heath at his older brother. “Good taste, brother Jarrod.”

“I’ll have you know that Gene picked that one out,” Jarrod declined to accept the credit.

“Well, you done good, kid,” Nick complimented his youngest brother.

“Guess I must have learned something from you about being a rancher,” Eugene gave him a slight smile.

“If you two wouldn’t mind taking this mutual admiration society somewhere else,” Jarrod suggested, “I’d like a few minutes alone with Heath.”

Eugene didn’t hesitate to obey. He’d learned that what Jarrod said as a suggestion was usually to be taken as an order. So he left the room without delay. Nick, however, took a moment to grip Jarrod’s arm as he passed by and leaned close to speak softly, right into his ear. “Remember that you’re his brother. Not his lawyer. I’d hate to have to break you in two because you forgot.”

Despite the threat, Jarrod laughed and patted Nick’s arm as he replied, “I wouldn’t want to put you in that position.”

Nick gave him his best cautionary glare before following Eugene from the room.

“Do you mind if we take a walk?” Jarrod asked Heath, mindful of the fact that he was asking -- not telling.

“S’pose I could use the exercise,” Heath agreed and they exited the stable by the side door, away from the house.

They walked for about a minute before Jarrod said, “It’s been pointed out to me that I sometimes have a problem separating Jarrod Barkley, the brother, from Jarrod Barkley, the lawyer. When we talked in the study about the options you had open to you, I wasn’t looking at that as your brother. I was considering it as a lawyer. I spend a lot of my time explaining the advantages and disadvantages of various options while trying to avoid the temptation to tell a client what to do. And, unfortunately, I brought that tendency into the study with us that night. I thought,” he paused, trying to decide exactly what to say. “I thought -- that you’d already decided to leave. So instead of doing what a brother would do and try to talk you out of it, I did what a lawyer would do and explained that you had more options than you realized. Maybe I was influenced by my concern for Mother. I thought that if you were leaving, there were things she wouldn’t hear about. The watch. The picture. I thought it would hurt her to know that Father had given your mother something that had meant so much to him. I thought that knowing about the picture would make her wonder more than she needed to about the true nature of the relationship between Father and your mother. But I was wrong to...”

“No, ya’ weren’t wrong,” Heath cut him short. “I didn’t want her to know about those things for the same reason. Jarrod, the last thing I wanna do is hurt your mother.”

“I know,” Jarrod assured him. “But Mother was furious when she found out that I considered some hurt feelings to be more important than you. And she’d be equally as angry to know that you were willing to leave to spare her feelings,” he put a brotherly arm around Heath’s shoulders and was happy not to feel him pull away. “I WAS wrong to consider anything but your place in this family. Regardless of what name you use -- you have Tom Barkley’s blood in your veins. You’re my brother and I should have told you that I don’t want you to leave. I should have told you that, as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one choice open to you. And that’s staying here and running the ranch right alongside Nick,” he stated firmly. Then looking him right in the eyes he said, “I want you to stay, Heath.”

Heath was silent for a minute or so as he thought about what he should say in reply. The fact that Jarrod wanted him to stay was important to him -- but there was something equally important that he wanted to hear. “Would ya’ answer a question for me? And promise to tell me the truth?”

Jarrod frowned at the question. It must be something very important to his brother if he thought it might require him to lie. So he said as sincerely as he possibly could, “I’ll answer any question you want to ask me with complete honesty.”

“Okay,” Heath accepted that. “Why did ya’ read the Pinkerton report when ya’ got it? Nick told me ya’ requested it right after I got here so I understand about that. In your place, I’da done the same,” he conceded. “But I thought by the time ya’ got it, ya’ trusted me. Ya’ knew I was your brother. Leastways I thought so.”

“You’re right. I did. And I do,” Jarrod agreed. “I’ve thought about that question a lot. I didn’t expect Nick to get mad at me for reading it and when he did, it made me think about my motive for doing so. I think what it comes down to is -- I didn’t think I knew enough about you. You’re my brother and I knew virtually nothing about you,” he shook his head. “I didn’t think I’d learn the things I did, though.”

“I think you’re talkin’ like a lawyer now, Jarrod, ‘cause that don’t really make sense. What difference does it make what ya’ learned?”

“Heath, I thought I’d find out that you’d worked at a string of ranches. Maybe you’d done a little scouting for a wagon train. Maybe you’d been some sheriff’s deputy for a while. I thought I’d read about the adventurous wanderings of a cowboy. Things that you’d get around to telling us some day,” Jarrod explained. “But I didn’t want to wait to know those things about my brother. And I didn’t think you’d mind if I read it because I didn’t expect it to include the sort of things you wouldn’t want me to know.”

“So what did ya’ read that ya’ think I wouldn’t want ya’ to know?” Heath asked quietly.

“Anything that knowing your father might have prevented,” Jarrod told him. “Having to go to work and quit school when you were a child. Running off and joining the army four years before Father ever would have let you do that. Struggling all your life to support and protect your mother,” Jarrod enumerated.

“Ya’ left out Carterson,” Heath almost sounded bitter.

“That’s because I don’t even know how to discuss that with you. I only know what I’ve read about it and I find it inconceivable that I’m standing in front of a man who survived that as a boy. I can’t even begin to express what I feel about it. I had no idea you were that strong willed.”

“Ya’ wanna know what got me through each day?” Heath almost dared him to respond. But then, without giving Jarrod the chance to answer, he said, “I started each day cursin’ the father I didn’t know for not bein’ there to stop me from joinin’ up. And every night I promised myself I’d find him some day and make him pay for all the time I spent there.”

“I’m glad you did,” Jarrod said. “And he would be, too. Heath, he was wrong not to go back and find out if there was a child as a result of his relationship with your mother. Certainly he knew it was possible. Maybe he thought she’d contact him and figured since she didn’t it was because there was no reason to. Regardless, he was wrong. And if he’d been alive when you rode in here -- while it would have stabbed him in the heart to know what you went through -- he’d have welcomed that hatred if he knew it’s what got you through it.”

“Well ... I don’t hate him anymore,” Heath shrugged. “Knowin’ that he didn’t know about me changed a lotta what I was feelin’.”

“I hope you’ve also changed the way you feel about leaving the ranch,” Jarrod said as they stepped onto the patio outside the study. He’d steered them towards the house once they’d started talking about the Pinkerton report and now he pulled the door open and let Heath precede him into the room. He crossed to the safe, opened it, and took out the report. Extending it to Heath he said, “This is the Pinkerton report. It’s yours to do with as you want.”

Heath took it but didn’t really look at it. “Who knows what’s in it?”

“I’ve read it. So has Mother,” Jarrod saw Heath’s eyes close almost in resignation when he heard that Victoria Barkley had read the report. “Nick knows some of it,” Jarrod continued. “He didn’t want to hear all of it. And Eugene knows some of it.”

“What about Audra?”

“I don’t know if she even knows that it exists,” Jarrod shrugged.

Heath finally looked down at it and nodded slowly. “I think ... I’m gonna go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

Jarrod said ‘good night’ but Heath didn’t respond as he left with the report in his hand. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to read it. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know what the Pinkerton detectives had found out about him. But he DID want to know what the others might now know. It couldn’t have been anything too bad. He didn’t figure Mrs. Barkley would have made him a birthday cake if she was planning to ask him to leave because of something she’d read in the report. And Jarrod wouldn’t have given him that saddle if he was going to say at tomorrow morning’s breakfast table, ‘oh, by-the-way, we want you to leave because...’

Because of what, he wondered as he slowly made his way up the stairs. Had he ever done anything that was so sinful that this family would ask him to leave because of it? He’d thought that being wounded and captured by the South -- and spending all that time in Carterson -- was the worst thing he’d ever done. He’d thought about it so many times as he waited to die ... or be liberated. Was there anything he could have done to avoid what had happened? Anything other than not joining up in the first place? He’d never really thought of any way that it could have been different except if he’d turned and run before that bullet hit him. And running hadn’t been an option as far as he’d been concerned. Still he’d spent all his time in Carterson and most of the time after he got out thinking it was the worst thing he’d ever done. And never telling anyone about it.

But Nick had said it was the most heroic thing he’d ever heard of. He’d never expected anyone to say something like that about it. Of course, Nick had been slightly drunk when he’d said it, Heath smiled as he opened the door to his bedroom and closed it quietly behind himself when he was safely inside. He tossed the report on the bed as he crossed the room to light the lamp on the table beside it. As its light illuminated the room he noticed that the watch was still there. He hadn’t seen it earlier. He knew that the others must have seen it when he left. Nick and Jarrod had both mentioned Mrs. Barkley being angry that he’d been allowed to leave over a pocket watch -- so they must have seen it.

He picked it up as he sat on the bed and silently studied the engraved letter. He wondered what his mother would have told him about that ‘T’ without the coincidence of a first name and a last name that bore the same initial. Well ... it didn’t matter, he decided. Now that he knew the truth about its origin, he didn’t feel that he had a rightful claim to the timepiece. It belonged to the Barkleys and the sooner he gave it back, the better. Maybe it was just the reason he needed to talk to Mrs. Barkley. She always left the door to her bedroom slightly cracked open until she knew that everyone else in the house was safe in their own room for the night. And he’d seen light through that crack when he reached the second floor. He knew he should probably wait until she indicated that she was ready to talk -- but he had to find out if Nick was right in saying that she didn’t want him to leave. Knowing what she did -- or didn’t -- want could make all the difference.

With the watch in his hand, he stood up and headed for the door. He pulled it open and came face-to-face with the woman he was about to seek out. Her hand was poised to knock and she seemed taken aback to have the door abruptly open before she could announce her presence. The surprised look on her face slowly changed to a smile when she saw that Heath was just as surprised to see her.

Victoria was the one to recover first. Speaking softly, she asked, “May I come in? I think we have some things to talk about.”

Chapter 33

Victoria Barkley sat on the only chair in the room and silently regarded Heath as he stood leaning back against the dresser, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt. It was obvious that he was uncomfortable and she wasn’t sure if it was her presence that made him ill at ease or the simple fact that they were in his bedroom. In the short few minutes since she’d been invited in, he’d first sat on his bed, then walked over and stood facing her in front of the window, and then paced back and forth. She wasn’t sure how long he’d stand still by the dresser so she asked, “Would you be more comfortable if we went downstairs to the parlor? Or the study?”

“No, ma’am,” he said softly.

“Okay,” she smiled reassuringly. “How about if we start with this then?” she asked as she held out a box that she’d brought into the room with her.

It was a shallow box. No more than a couple inches high and not even a foot long or wide. It was wrapped in white paper with a blue ribbon that crisscrossed the box and was tied in a bow on top.

“What is it?” Heath asked hesitantly as he pushed away from the dresser to accept it.

She laughed. “The whole point of wrapping a present is so you have to unwrap it to find out what it is. Happy birthday.”

He still had the watch in his hand and set it down next to him as he walked over and sat on the bed. It was easier to unwrap the present, he figured, if he could hold it on his lap while he used both hands to untie the bow. He didn’t want to make any mistakes -- like using his knife to just cut the ribbon. Victoria waited patiently as he worked on the knot, content to let him open it as he saw fit. She suspected, if he’d been handed the gift by Nick or Audra, he might have just tugged on the ribbon until it broke. But he was always concerned about doing the wrong thing or acting the wrong way in front of her. She knew that it was probably, subconsciously, his need to show her that his mother had done a good job of raising him, despite the disadvantage of doing that alone. So she sat quietly and watched as he struggled to open the present without damaging the ribbon or its wrapping.

Not only was he trying to open it neatly, he was also trying to figure out what might be inside. He hadn’t expected a gift from her for his birthday and he couldn’t imagine what she might have chosen to give him, but he guessed that it was a book from its size and shape. When he finally got the ribbon untied and removed the top, he turned back the thin sheet of covering paper to find what looked like another box. This one was covered in dark leather with the edges trimmed in silver. Two silver hinges were set into one side. It wasn’t until he took it out that he realized it was a picture frame that, when opened, could display two pictures. The right side of the frame already held a picture; the left was blank.

He moved a bit closer to the light to study the picture that was in the frame. At first glance it looked like...

“That’s your Uncle John and your father,” Victoria answered the unspoken question in his eyes when he looked over at her. “John was just about your age when that was taken. You favor him very much.”

“How old was...” Heath couldn’t bring himself to say ‘my father’ while looking at a picture of him.

“He was three years older than John,” Victoria supplied, understanding the hesitation. “I thought you might have a picture of your own that you’d want to put in the other side of the frame.”

He wondered if she meant the one of his mother and ... no, he shook that thought off as quickly as it occurred to him. She couldn’t possibly want to see THAT picture displayed in his bedroom. But he DID have several other pictures now, so he nodded and said, “Thank you. I -- um -- well, Aunt Rachel gave me some pictures when I was in Strawberry. One of those would look real nice in here,” he said as he closed the frame and studied it for a moment, running his hand over the soft leather. Again he looked over and this time smiled slightly as he repeated, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she smiled back. “Nick mentioned that he’d seen some pictures while he was in Strawberry. Pictures of you and ... and your mother. If you wouldn’t mind showing them to me, I’d quite like to see what you looked like as a boy.”

He hesitated a moment before getting up and crossing to the dresser where he’d placed the book that Rachel had given him. He didn’t mind showing it to her. She’d already seen a picture of his mother and it hadn’t seemed to bother her, so more of the same shouldn’t be painful to look at. But if she was looking for the picture of his mother with Tom Barkley, she was going to be disappointed. He’d removed the picture specifically because he didn’t trust others in the household to ask before they looked and he didn’t want to share that picture with them. At least not yet. So he gave her the book, returned to where he’d been seated on the bed, and then watched silently as she paged through the pictures.

“So this is the one that made Nick wish he’d knocked your teeth out,” she laughed when she saw the one of Leah and Heath, two front teeth missing from the smiling young boy.

He couldn’t help laughing with her as he remembered, “I didn’t wanna smile ‘cause of my missin’ teeth but Mama poked me in the ribs and I couldn’t help it.”

“Mothers do those sort of things,” Victoria agreed as she turned to the final page. It was clear that a picture had once been glued to it. There were four distinct tears in the paper where the corners had been pulled away. She assumed it was the picture of Tom and Leah. Clearly, she thought, Heath had removed it for a reason -- most likely because he wasn’t ready to show it to the rest of the family. So she chose not to ask about it. “It was nice of your aunt to put this together for you.” She turned back to the picture with the missing teeth. “You look like you had a bit of the devil in you when you were a child,” she observed with a smile. “I’ve seen pictures of your Uncle John at that age and you favored him even then.”

Her comment made him think of the watch and he reached down to pick it up. “When I opened the door before and ya’ were standin’ there ready to knock -- I was comin’ to see ya’. I was gonna give ya’ this,” he opened his hand for her to see it. “I always thought it belonged to Mama’s family. But now that I know the truth -- I don’t think it was meant to be mine.”

“Oh, I think it was,” Victoria said quickly. “Whatever the reason that Tom gave it to your mother -- and I’m not asking you to tell me that -- it’s all the reason I need, to know that it belongs to you. It was a gift from your father to your mother. And a gift from your mother to you. I have no desire to reclaim that watch because I believe your father would find something poetic in the fact that you carry the watch that matches the one your uncle has. And I believe John will be equally as pleased when he meets you.”

Silence filled the room as he thought about that. The only uncle he’d ever known had been his Uncle Matt. And until Nick had mentioned his Uncle John he didn’t know he had another one. He wondered what it would be like to have an uncle who might actually be pleased to meet him. Certainly, growing up in Strawberry, he never would have imagined that could happen. The thought of Strawberry made him realize that there was something else he’d planned to say to Victoria Barkley when he started to leave his room and had been stopped by her arrival. As he closed his hand over the watch, he broke the silence that was becoming awkward by saying, “I’m sorry I rode out the way I did -- when I went back to Strawberry, I mean. I shoulda told ya’ I was leavin’. I shouldn’ta just left a note.”

“I’m sure you had a good reason for what you did,” she suggested.

“I thought I did at the time,” he sort of shrugged.

“Did it have anything to do with that?” she nodded towards the Pinkerton report that he’d tossed on the bed.

He picked it up, almost regretting that he’d left it out in the open. It had everything to do with the report but he’d hoped to approach that subject a bit more subtly. Not yet ready to tell her his thoughts, he stood up and crossed the room to the window, putting the report on the dresser as he passed by. She could see the tension in his shoulders as he stood with his back to her, looking out at the darkened yard, his arms crossed in front of him.

She gave him time to consider his answer but after a minute in which he still hadn’t responded, she said, “Nick told me you asked about it.”

Heath took a deep breath before turning to face her. He tried to appear casual but the way he leaned back against the windowsill with his arms stiffly supporting himself and the way he clenched and unclenched his jaw betrayed his intent. “I understand why Jarrod thought he needed to find out about me,” he told her in a carefully controlled voice.

“But --?”

He looked at her silently, trying to remain expressionless as their eyes met.

“Heath -- we’re never going to get anywhere if you won’t talk to me about it,” she stated firmly. “Now I know you probably think I’m a tiny, fragile woman and you don’t want to hurt me by saying what’s on your mind. But if there’s one thing you should have learned in the time you’ve been here, it’s that your brother, Nicholas, rarely hesitates to tell anyone who’ll listen what’s on his mind. I’ve been listening to that since -- well, certainly before he was even able to talk,” she rolled her eyes. “Nick has never been shy about expressing himself and I have managed to survive all these years. Please believe me when I tell you -- there’s absolutely nothing you can’t say to me.”

He felt like he was a little boy again, standing in front of his mother and not wanting to tell her where the latest bruises had come from. He knew she had always suspected that they were the result of his Uncle Matt’s anger but he never confirmed that. It was his way of protecting her. If he didn’t tell her, she wouldn’t confront her brother and she’d be safe from his anger. It was that same instinct that instantly kicked in when Victoria asked about the report. He didn’t want to tell her because he felt that silence was more protective. If he didn’t say anything, he rationalized, he couldn’t hurt her.

Victoria could almost see the thought process as he considered what to say. She knew he had no desire to hurt her. And she knew that he believed he would if he told her the truth. So she decided to say it for him.

“You’re angry that we read the report when we received it, aren’t you? We no longer doubted that Tom Barkley was your father -- and that was the main question that prompted Jarrod to request that Pinkerton investigate you. So you think we shouldn’t have read the report when we got it. Am I correct?” she almost demanded an answer.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said without hesitation, pushing away from the window. Those two simple words seemed to empower him to continue. The anger he was trying to control came out as he asked, “Why do the rest of ya’ have the right to decide what everyone knows about your life -- but I don’t? I ain’t read it yet -- and I don’t know if I will -- but I know there are things in there that I never woulda told ya’. Y’all say ya’ didn’t have any doubts by the time ya’ got the report -- but everyone sure wanted to read it! Why didn’t I have the right to decide?”

She’d been ready to tell him that she’d read the report because she wanted to learn about his life. That WAS part of the truth but it was no longer an acceptable answer, she realized when she heard his question. Still there was another reason that she’d read it and maybe he could accept that if she was as honest with him as she wanted him to be with her.

“You SHOULD have had the right to decide,” she agreed, “and I apologize for not realizing that when the report arrived. I suppose like your brothers, I was only concerned with what I wanted and didn’t think about what you might want. I DID want to learn about your life and, in all honesty, I simply thought it was easier to read about it than to try to get you to tell me about it. You’re just like your father in that regard,” she couldn’t help a slight smile. “When someone asks you a question, you tend to respond with the shortest answer possible. I could ask both you and Nick how your day was -- you would respond ‘fine’ and Nick would give me a five-minute answer. So I thought reading the Pinkerton report was the easier way to learn about the life of someone who has become an important part of my life. But, I also thought that it might answer a question that was troubling me. Jarrod said the report indicated that they were unable to provide an answer to the question of whether or not your father knew about you. Heath...” she said and paused until he looked at her and she could hold his gaze, “I knew Tom Barkley better than anyone else did. I thought I might read something in the report that would speak to me differently than it would to those who’d put it together. I thought I might read something that would prove to me that he didn’t know.”

“He didn’t,” Heath interrupted with a tenseness that surprised her.

“I know that now,” she assured him. “And you have no idea how much I appreciate that you were willing to come back to tell us that. But at the time I didn’t know. Certainly you can understand that I wanted an answer to that question. I knew of his relationship with your mother -- that wasn’t an issue. But I needed to know that he didn’t intentionally neglect you for us. And I thought I might find that answer in the report.”

He took a deep breath that came out as a sigh. “Yeah,” he had to admit, “I s’pose I can understand that.”

“Don’t misunderstand me, though. I may have wanted that answer for my own peace of mind but I now see that we should have told you about the report and asked your permission to read it. I’m very sorry that we considered our own needs over yours.”

“Ya’ ain’t that much different than most people,” he said with a slight laugh.

“But we should be,” she stated. “We’re your family. You have the right to expect more from us than you do from others.”

“Even from you?”

“What do you mean?” she frowned.

“Well -- Jarrod, Nick, Gene and Audra got the same father as me. But -- I ain’t really nothin’ to you,” he shrugged and shook his head then rested back against the windowsill, a more relaxed position this time. “Nothin’ ‘cept someone who reminds ya’ of things ya’ prob’ly thought were behind ya’ a long time ago.”

“That’s not true. You’re much more than that to me. But I’m glad you brought it up,” she unnerved him with a smile. “I think there’s been a miscommunication in that regard.”

“I’m not sure I know what ya’ mean.”

“Oh, I think you do,” she said good-naturedly. “Clearly I’m not as good as you are at communicating with just a look. Nick says you have ‘the little brother’ look down to perfection. And I saw a look at supper tonight that was quite expressive. Roughly translated, I think it said ‘I win’,” she sort of joked. “But, apparently, I haven’t had as much luck conveying my thoughts to you. I know you believe that by being here, you’re reminding me of what happened between my husband and your mother. But, as I said a moment ago, that is no longer an issue to me. It happened. Your father and I dealt with it. And the hurt is long past.”

“But the hurt is there,” Heath asserted. “I see it in your eyes.”

“I’m sure you do,” she agreed. “But I can promise you, it’s not because you remind me of my husband’s failure to honor his marriage vows. It’s because -- regardless of whether he knew about you or not, his neglect was inexcusable. A man should accept his responsibilities and even if your mother didn’t want to tell him, it was his responsibility to find out. I think I might have made the same choice she did -- no loving mother wants to take the chance of losing her child. But not one of us thought about you. Your mother kept silent because it was what SHE wanted. Your father ignored the possibility that he had another child -- perhaps because he was afraid it would destroy HIS comfortable life. And I chose not to think about it because I didn’t want anything to disrupt MY family. We all failed you -- and as the only one who is still here to face you, I want to see that you get what should have been yours from birth. I want to see that you get what you want.”

“The only thing I ever wanted was to buy a ranch of my own,” he unconsciously voiced the thought.

“And I know that Jarrod spoke to you about that,” she made him aware that she’d heard him. “If that is truly what you want -- if that’s what would make you happy -- then that’s what you should do. But make no mistake about what the rest of us want, Heath,” she stood up and took a couple steps closer to face him. “Without exception -- your brothers, your sister, and I all want you to stay right here on the Barkley Ranch. We want this ranch to be your home. We want you and Nick to share the responsibility for running this ranch. We want you to be a part of our family.”

“When I came here, I thought that’s what I wanted too,” he admitted, wanting to move away from the gaze she leveled at him but finding the self-proclaimed ‘tiny, fragile woman’ quite imposing. “I didn’t know so many people would be hurt, though. Nick didn’t want me for a brother and then he did. Gene accepted me as his brother and then he didn’t. Memories that you thought were long buried have been dug up. It seems that comin’ here just turned everythin’ upside-down and I ... I don’t think Mama wanted me to do that,” he shook his head.

“I think your mother wanted you to find your father’s family. I don’t think she would have told you unless that’s what she wanted you to do. She HAD to know it might be a struggle and that people could be hurt. But -- I don’t think she wanted you to be alone. I wouldn’t want my child to be alone so I have to believe she sent you here. I have to believe she wanted to make things right. And I HAVE to believe she wanted me to help her do that,” Victoria said passionately, her voice getting stronger with each sentence. “I also believe that you know all that -- and you want the same thing -- but it scares you more than you’ll ever admit!” she commanded his eyes not to move away from hers. “You’re afraid if you let your guard down and accept this family as your own -- it could be snatched away from you because we suddenly changed our minds about welcoming you into our home. But,” her voice softened, “that isn’t going to happen. This is your home now. And the only one who can make you leave, Heath Barkley...” she reached out and gently rested her hand on his arm, “...is you.”

She wanted to leave him with that thought so without another word, she turned and left the room, pulling the door closed behind her. She’d just reached her bedroom and had her hand on the doorknob when she heard the whispered voice behind her.

“Mother?”

She turned to look at Nick.

“Is he staying?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I left him with any doubt about what WE want -- but I don’t know if it’s what HE wants. I’m sorry I can’t give you a better answer.”

“Well...” Nick breathed out, “...at least he knows. G’night, Mother,” he gave her a light kiss on the cheek.

“Good night, Nicholas,” she returned the kiss.

They both turned away in unison, both entered their rooms, and both quietly closed their door. Nick leaned back against his and wondered how it had happened. Just a few short weeks ago he’d have been happy to see Heath ride out. And now, Nick could find no pleasure in the thought that -- despite all their words -- Heath might do just that. And he didn’t know what else to say to stop him if he did.

* * * * *

It wasn’t that Nick thought Heath was going to suddenly disappear on him without saying good-bye. But after a moment of panic upon joining the family for breakfast on Saturday morning and finding all assembled except for Heath, Nick stuck close to him for the rest of that day and the next. Heath had little opportunity for any time alone over the next couple days. He figured he’d put up with it for awhile -- he knew Nick would have to relent sooner or later. And it wasn’t as though Nick was all that observant -- Heath didn’t have too much trouble slipping away when he really wanted to.

“Gene!” Heath sort of hissed his younger brother’s name as he hurried up the stairway after him on Sunday night after supper. He gripped Eugene’s arm and directed him into his bedroom, checking over his shoulder for anyone’s presence behind them before he closed the door. “I need your help.”

“With what?” Eugene asked suspiciously.

“Nick ain’t let me outta his sight for more than a couple minutes since yesterday. I need to get somethin’ from the attic and I don’t want him to come along and see me doin’ it.”

“Why?”

“Gene! Are ya’ gonna help me or do I go get Audra?”

“What do I have to do?” the tone was still suspicious.

“Just -- keep an eye out for Nick while I go up and get it. And if he comes along -- warn me,” Heath said logically.

“Okay,” Eugene agreed a bit reluctantly, “but only if you let me in on the secret.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Heath patted him on the shoulder. “I plan to tell ya’ all about it.”

He pulled his door open and checked in both directions before heading for the attic stairs. Even taking them two at a time, he managed to climb the steps quietly. He’d already set aside the box he was going up to retrieve so he picked it up quickly and was on his way down in less than a minute. He peeked over the rail and down the hall. Eugene was waving him on and they both returned to his bedroom with the door, once again, closed and no one else the wiser.

“Okay, what’s in the box?” Eugene demanded to know.

“Shirts,” Heath opened it to show him.

Eugene took one out. “It’s just a bunch of Nick’s old shirts,” he sounded disappointed.

“I know,” Heath nodded. “I found ‘em earlier today when I was helping Audra look for the boxes of old clothes that she wants to take over to the orphanage. We tried to get Nick to help. Now I’m glad he thought I was safe in Audra’s care.”

“Why do you want a box of Nick’s old shirts?”

“They’re too small for him now. Right?”

“So?”

“And ya’ can hardly tell ‘em from the shirts in his dresser,” Heath said with a satisfied smile. “Good thing Nick gets set in his ways.”

“Don’t tell me you wanna dress like Nick!”

“Boy howdy, he’d throw a fit if I did that!” Heath laughed. “Gene, ya’ got no imagination. Sit down, boy. Ya’ need an education. If we do this right, Nick ain’t gonna have any idea what’s goin’ on...”

* * * * *

If Nick thought it was unusual that Eugene was up before him or that Heath didn’t have to be called in to join the family for breakfast on Monday morning -- he was too preoccupied to mention it. He was tugging at his shirt sleeve as he came into the dining room and fidgeted so much during their meal that his mother was finally prompted to ask, “Nicholas, are you feeling alright? You’ve been jumping around like a little boy who’s come home with his pockets full of frogs.”

“Mother, I swear, I don’t know what’s wrong. I put on three shirts this morning and every one of ‘em felt tight,” he shrugged his shoulders and twisted his neck like he was trying to loosen the garment. “And the sleeves seem short,” he held his arm out to show her.

“Maybe it’s those three helpings of roast beef and mashed potatoes you had for supper last night,” Audra suggested.

Heath choked on the glass of milk he was drinking and Nick reached over to slap him on the back. “You okay?”

“Fine, Nick. Thanks,” the blond coughed without daring to look at his brother who was again stretching out his arms to check the length of his sleeves.

“It’s probably all the roping you were doing yesterday,” Jarrod offered his own suggestion. “I’ve heard that all that tugging can stretch your arms out,” he said seriously.

“Well, I’m almost about to believe that,” Nick grumbled as he pushed back his chair and stood up. “You coming, Heath?”

“Yeah, I’ll be along in a couple minutes,” he promised, still avoiding direct contact with Nick’s eyes.

“Audra,” Jarrod also stood up, “if you want a ride to the orphanage, I’m leaving.”

She placed her napkin on the table and joined her brothers in saying good-bye to their mother.

It was just Victoria, Heath and Eugene and that’s when she asked, “How long are you two going to make Nick wear those five-year-old shirts before you tell him why they don’t fit?”

“’Scuse me?” Heath looked up innocently.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, Heath Barkley!” she tried to sound stern but the laugh in the middle gave her away. “You and Eugene were the only two who DIDN’T comment on Nick’s shirt. How long?”

Heath looked over at Eugene to see if he planned to answer. When he made no comment, Heath told her, “We figured two or three days -- then we’d put the others back and let him wonder why they suddenly fit again. We kinda thought that was enough time for him to get all worked up about it but not enough time for him to go out and buy some new ones.”

She couldn’t help smiling at the answer.

“You plannin’ on tellin’ him?” Heath asked her.

“Oh, no,” she laughed. “I think I’ll quite enjoy seeing how this one turns out,” she admitted as Eugene was excusing himself with a relieved sigh.

Victoria reached over and placed her hand on Heath’s wrist as he started to get up as well. He didn’t need to be told that she wanted a moment of his time. So Heath waited as Eugene gave his mother a kiss and left the room, then he looked at her expectantly.

“I’m just wondering,” she said, “what are you going to do when Eugene leaves for school in a few months and you don’t have a little brother to help you?”

“Well...” Heath drawled, “...I figured I have less time to practice bein’ a big brother so I gotta do it while I got the chance. Once Gene leaves ... then I’ll practice bein’ the little brother. And I guess then ... Jarrod’ll have to watch out,” he smiled slightly. “May I be excused? You know Nick. He don’t like to be kept waitin’.”

She was laughing as she simply nodded her consent.

Victoria lingered over her tea, thinking about the implication of Heath’s words. He still hadn’t said he was staying. But he was talking like that was a very definite possibility. Every day he stayed would make it harder to leave. SHE could take it one day at a time. She couldn’t help wondering, though, if NICK could.

Chapter 34

Nick Barkley had been 22 years old when his father died. Twenty-two ... and he was suddenly running one of the largest ranches in the West. It had never been planned that way. He was supposed to work side-by-side with his father until Tom Barkley was ready to leave the day-to-day details to his son. He was supposed to have time to learn how to run the empire his father had built. The mantle of power was never meant to be his at such a young age.

Like anyone forced to assume an overwhelming responsibility before they were ready, the transition was a difficult one. He was too young to be taken seriously by those of his father’s generation and not yet old enough to garner respect from his own. It was no exaggeration to say that he’d often thought he’d sell his soul for just one more year of his father’s guidance. If he’d only known that the loss would be so sudden, he’d have learned more about the business of running a ranch rather than just the mechanics of doing so. He was blessed to have a mother whose mate had generally treated her as an equal in financial matters. And equally as fortunate to have an older brother who understood them, as well.

But still he wanted someone to join him in the daily workings of the ranch. If he could no longer have his father at his side, he wanted a brother there. Fate, however, seemed to have other plans for the brothers he’d grown up with and as he became accustomed to the role that had been thrust upon him, he also became resigned to the fact that for the foreseeable future, Nick Barkley would be the one running the Barkley Ranch.

By the time Heath Thomson rode into Stockton six years after Tom Barkley’s death and laid claim to a share of the Barkley domain, Nick’s authority was unquestioned. Those who’d found him too young now considered him their peer. And those who’d thought that age commanded respect learned that effective leadership was ageless. It had taken a willingness to seek the counsel of his mother and older sibling when needed and it hadn’t been an overnight process but, in those six years, Nick Barkley and the Barkley Ranch had become synonymous.

And then fate stepped in again and gave him the brother he’d always wanted to work by his side. A brother who brought with him the truth that Tom Barkley wasn’t a man without flaws. The truth that Nick’s father was, in fact, as human as every other man who walked the Earth. The truth that Nick struggled to deny along with the young man who’d brought that truth to the Valley. Even as he tried to reject him as his brother, the manipulations of his family gave him the opportunity to learn about him and gradually embrace him as the brother and partner he so fervently desired.

When Nick and Heath had returned from Nevada, Nick was eager to share the responsibility for running the ranch. So eager that he went after Heath and convinced him to come back when the blond chose to leave. They couldn’t work things out, Nick had said persuasively, when they were living in two different towns. He told him that he’d always wanted a little brother to help him run the ranch. He told him he NEEDED his little brother there. And Heath had believed him and returned to Stockton with him.

The family had continued their persuasive ways when they had him back in the fold. Eugene and Jarrod had both apologized for anything and everything they’d done to make him believe they wanted him to leave and both had asked him to stay. Mrs. Barkley, too, had accepted some of the responsibility for the growing sense of insecurity he’d had on the Barkley Ranch. Heath found her so much like his mother that it hadn’t been hard to believe her words when she’d said that the family wanted him to stay. Except in his own home in Strawberry -- and to a lesser degree among the men he’d served with in the Army -- he’d never felt the type of acceptance that he felt that first day after his return.

In just a matter of days, though, it was easy to see that it wasn’t going to be the way they’d promised. Nick wasn’t ready to relinquish any of the control he had over the workings of the ranch. Certainly he’d had every intention of sharing the responsibility with his brother. But habit was far stronger than good intentions and Heath soon found that nothing had really changed. He knew if he fought for what had been promised, the family would support him; the promises were theirs as much as Nick’s. But he was tired of fighting. He’d fought all his life for one thing or another and he didn’t want to fight anymore. He especially didn’t want to fight his brother and couldn’t help but think that he might have been wrong to come back. He’d been hesitant to say ‘yes’ when Nick had asked him to stay in Stockton and help him run the ranch because he found it hard to believe that Nick could change his mind so easily about accepting him as his brother and partner. Now he wondered if he shouldn’t have trusted his instinct.

Victoria Barkley could see the promise being broken. She could see that Heath started each day with hope and ended each day with a resignation that made her wonder if his return was only temporary. After the delight she’d seen on the Monday following his return when he and Eugene had watched Nick struggle to feel comfortable in a too-small shirt, the pay-off just three days later, when the outgrown shirts were removed from Nick’s dresser and replaced with those that should have been there, fell flat. Heath didn’t even seem to notice when Nick sat down at the breakfast table and loudly proclaimed that whatever had made his shirts seem too small had miraculously changed overnight.

The Barkley matriarch had hoped that Nick and Heath would just naturally settle into a partnership that satisfied both of them. But perhaps, she thought as more than a week went by and she could see that wasn’t happening, they’d all been too quick to think it would be so easy. Regardless of who ran the ranch, it was a family business and if there was going to be a division of responsibility it was clear that the family was going to have to decide who would do what. That became obvious to them all when Jarrod came home with a telegram similar to the one that had taken Nick and Heath to Nevada. This one was from a rancher in Modesto who was offering them a colt that was the progeny of a stallion Nick had long coveted.

Nick’s response was an immediate groan when Jarrod broached the subject after they’d finished their supper but before anyone could be excused from the table. “I know it’s only two ... maybe three days at the most,” Nick protested, “but this isn’t a good time for me to go look at that colt.”

“That’s not a problem, Nick,” Jarrod answered him. “Mother and I weren’t expecting you to go look at him.”

“Jarrod, you can’t just wire him money and have someone deliver the horse! As much as I want that stallion, I’m not about to accept a colt just because...”

“Nicholas, that’s not what your brother meant,” Victoria’s well-modulated voice silenced her son.

“Well, then ... what did he mean?”

“I meant that we’re sending Heath to look at the colt,” Jarrod told him.

“Oh...” Nick sort of frowned as Heath looked up sharply at his oldest brother.

“Nick, we DID discuss it before you went to Nevada. The reason you and Heath went together was so he could eventually be in charge of our horse breeding operation. There’s no reason that can’t begin now.”

“But ... I need him here.”

“For what, Nick?” his mother asked. “Repairing fences? Counting cattle? Branding, perhaps? We’ve hired men who are capable of doing those things. You don’t need Heath’s assistance with any of that. We’ve just invested in some fine horseflesh. And we have a number of wild horses that may have been saddle broke but they’re not effective for working a ranch -- nor for filling the order the army gave us. We need Heath to begin working on that.”

Nick took in a deep breath that he let out loudly before looking over at his blond brother. “If I let you go ... are you coming back?” he asked.

Nick wasn’t sure if it was anger or hurt that he saw when Heath said tensely, “I ain’t given ya’ a reason to ask me that, Nick.”

“Perhaps Nick thinks he’s given YOU a reason not to come back,” Jarrod suggested.

“And what’s that supposed to mean!” Nick demanded of the lawyer.

“I believe your brother means we’ve made promises that we’ve failed to keep,” Victoria responded.

“Is that what you think?” Nick looked back at Heath again.

“Ya’ know somethin’, Nick,” the blond pushed his chair back and stood up. “We’ve had this talk -- twice. I ain’t listening to any more promises,” he shook his head. “Are ya’ sendin’ a telegram to let ‘em know I’m comin’ to look at the colt?” he asked Jarrod.

“As soon as the telegraph office opens in the morning,” Jarrod assured him.

“I’ll be on my way before daybreak, then. ‘Scuse me. Got a couple things to take care of in the stable.”

As Heath left the room, four pairs of eyes turned towards Nick. “What!” he demanded. “What did I say? I just asked if he agreed with you!”

“Why did you ask him if he was coming back?” Audra wanted to know. “He hasn’t said anything about leaving! You’re making it sound like you don’t trust him on his own!”

“I didn’t say that I didn’t trust him! I just ... I need him here to help me run things and I’m worried that he might find something better out there.”

“Nick,” Eugene spoke up, “I’ve been out there working with both of you. You’re not letting him help you run things. Nothing has changed. All you’re doing is keeping a tight rein on him.”

Victoria and Jarrod chose to remain silent. Nick’s younger siblings weren’t the voices of authority to him but they spoke with more personal feeling than their mother or oldest brother. If Heath left the ranch, both Victoria and Jarrod would accept it as a decision Heath had the right to make. And both would assume that the decision had been made after Heath had carefully weighed all his options. They knew he wouldn’t leave a second time as impulsively as he had the first. But Audra and Eugene were simply afraid of losing a brother to whom they’d both grown close -- and they both thought Nick was the key to making him stay. So their words weren’t as calculated. They were spoken from the heart.

“If you don’t want him to leave again,” Eugene seemed to take courage from the fact that Audra had spoken up first, “you’ve gotta loosen up. You can’t say stupid things like ... ‘if I let you go’. If he’s really your partner, he doesn’t need your permission to do his job.”

“You’re a fine one to talk about saying stupid things,” Nick grumbled.

“Nick!” Audra almost sounded like her mother. “He might have said something he shouldn’t have -- but he apologized and made it right!”

“Yeah, I know ... and they’re best friends now, aren’t they?” Nick asked sarcastically.

“Well, who do you think it was who switched the shirts in your dresser so you spent three days not even knowing you were wearing shirts you outgrew five years ago?” Audra asked, her tone implying that the answer should have been obvious.

“WHAT!” Nick’s eyes got wide as he realized what she meant. His gaze shifted to Eugene as he said, “Why you little...”

“Nicholas!” this time it was his mother.

Nick’s eyes narrowed as he studied his youngest brother. Then, slowly, the scowl faded to a grin and he was laughing. “That’s not bad,” he had to admit, “but there’s no way YOU thought of it.”

“No, actually, it was Heath’s idea,” Eugene believed in giving credit where credit was due.

“I KNEW IT!” Nick pushed back his chair and stood up. “Oh, he’s gonna pay for this!” He was almost out of the room before he remembered to say over his shoulder, “Excuse me, Mother. I’ve got a couple things to take care of in the stable!”

“Oh...” Victoria said softly to those who remained in the room, “...I DON’T like the sound of that...”

* * * * *

Whatever Nick and Heath said to each other in the stable, they kept it to themselves. When Heath departed for Modesto the next morning, the family was left to wonder if he’d return to the promised partnership or simply to deliver a colt before he rode out again. Neither cowboy offered any clue as to what might happen in a few days’ time. At least not before Heath left.

It was close to midnight the day after he departed when Victoria found Nick in the study, standing in the open patio door, a drink in his hand and his eyes gazing up at the night sky. She cleared her throat and waited for Nick to acknowledge her presence.

“Don’t try to tell me I woke you up,” Nick said good-naturedly. “I was being quiet.”

“Uncharacteristically quiet,” she agreed. “In fact, you’ve been unusually quiet for ... oh ... two days now.”

He smiled slightly. “I miss him,” he admitted. “Bet you never thought you’d hear me say that.”

“Maybe not a few weeks ago.”

“You know, I wasn’t intentionally breaking any promises,” he told her. “When I worked with Father, that’s the way it was. We worked together. He was teaching me about running the ranch. I liked working at his side. And I like working side-by-side with Heath. I like having my little brother out there beside me. I guess I was just taking that a little too far.”

“Is that what you told Heath?”

“More or less,” he shrugged. “After I gave him hell for switching those shirts.”

“I’m probably speaking out of turn,” Victoria suggested, “but I asked what he was going to do when Gene leaves for school. He said he had to practice being a big brother while he had the chance -- and once Gene leaves he’ll practice being a little brother. That was less than two weeks ago and he certainly sounded as though he planned to be around for a while. I hope those are still his plans,” she said a bit questioningly.

“I do, too, Mother,” Nick nodded. “I know I can’t keep putting it off. I want him to know he can trust me. I’ll make it right,” he vowed.

“I’m sure you will,” she stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Good night, Nicholas. Don’t stay up too late. This is a working ranch, you know,” she patted his arm and flashed a slight smile before leaving him alone with his thoughts.

* * * * *

Heath rode into the yard in front of the Barkley stable a couple hours after lunch the next day. He turned the colt over to one of the hands and despite Victoria’s insistence that he sit down and have something to eat, he departed again just fifteen minutes after arriving. Promising to be back for supper but telling her not to hold it if he wasn’t, he said he had some business to take care of in town and wanted to get it done as soon as possible. She suppressed the urge to ask if he REALLY planned to return for supper. She didn’t want him to think she doubted his word but she was concerned that he didn’t seem inclined to tell her what sort of business found him heading into Stockton so soon after he got back.

Nick, too, was worried about Heath’s absence when he got home. Of course he knew his brother had returned. The colt was scampering around in one of the corrals and was hard to miss. Half the crew was hanging on the fence, admiring the new arrival. None of them, however, could tell Nick where Heath was.

It wasn’t until he went into the house, and his mother explained about Heath’s quick departure, that the uneasiness settled in. Nick paced the parlor and repeatedly checked the window, watching for his brother. But as the supper hour approached he was nowhere to be seen. With Jarrod also absent, the family delayed gathering in the dining room. When the lawyer finally walked in, fifteen minutes after they’d normally have started their meal, they all gravitated towards the dining room as though none of them expected Heath to join them.

“Did you see Heath in town today?” Nick asked his older brother when they’d been seated for a few minutes and plates were being filled.

“Yeah, he came into my office. He had some business he needed me to take care of for him. He sent me a telegram yesterday and said he’d be in this afternoon. I thought he’d left town an hour before I did,” Jarrod sort of shrugged it off.

“You could have said something when you came in,” Nick said, a touch of anger in his voice. “What kind of business would he need a lawyer for?”

“I think he wants to tell you about that himself,” Jarrod said as they heard the footsteps that signaled Heath’s arrival.

He was whistling as he came into the dining room to join the rest of the family. “Sorry I’m late,” he apologized as he slid into the chair next to Nick. “I stopped for a beer b’fore I left town and lost track of time.”

“What are you whistling about?” Nick asked suspiciously. “What are you up to?”

“Not up to anythin’ at the moment,” Heath reached to stab the last steak on the platter.

“What are you in such a good mood about?” Nick still sounded suspicious, his coffee cup suspended in his hand over his dish.

“I bought a ranch today,” the blond looked over to tell him. “Would ya’ pass the bread?”

Nick’s mouth fell open as his coffee cup slipped from his hand and clattered onto the plate beneath it. The look he directed at his younger brother was one of utter shock. After an achingly long minute of silence, Nick found his voice.

“YOU DID WHAT!” he exploded, standing up so abruptly that his chair tumbled over backwards. Hands on hips, he glared at Heath trying to decide if words or fists were the more appropriate course of action.

Chapter 35

“Nick! Nick, woulda ya’ listen to the rest of the story before ya’ lynch me!” Heath said as he tried to back further away from his irate older brother.

He hadn’t expected Nick’s reaction to be quite so explosive when he announced that he’d bought a ranch that day. He’d expected Nick to give him time to explain. Sitting next to the dark cowboy, though, he decided that the safest course of action once Nick knocked his chair over was to put a little distance between himself and his brother. He was out of his chair as quickly as Nick had been out of his. But Nick had grabbed his arm and it was hard to tell whether Heath had actually backed himself into the wall that was now giving him no place else to go -- or if Nick had given him a little help getting there.

Jarrod and Eugene had both scrambled to their feet when it was clear that Nick was going after Heath in a way that could lead to someone getting hurt. Jarrod got to them first and tried to position himself between his brothers but Nick pushed him away with his left arm even as his right kept Heath from moving away from the wall.

“Nick, before you turn him into wallpaper, you might want to hear all of it,” Jarrod tried to persuade him.

“You and I will get into it when I’m done with him,” Nick said with a threatening look at his older brother. “He bought himself a ranch ... AND YOU LET HIM!”

“He didn’t buy himself a ranch,” Jarrod said loudly. “He bought the Barkleys a ranch!”

“Well, I sure as hell don’t remember any family vote about buying another ranch!”

“In the legal sense, he didn’t need a family vote to buy it. He used his own money -- but only because the owner wouldn’t sell to Nick Barkley!”

“What --?” that got Nick’s attention.

“Would you like to explain,” Jarrod looked at Heath, “or shall I?”

“I don’t care who explains,” Nick said as the arm that had pinned Heath to the wall dropped to his side, “but one of you better do it pretty damn fast!”

“He bought the Shelby place,” Jarrod figured he’d better get the important part in without any further delay.

“What!” his gaze turned to Heath who just silently nodded. “How did you manage to buy the Shelby place?”

“Well...” Heath said when he realized Jarrod was going to let him provide the details, “turned out this Shelby fella was in Modesto buyin’ some horses from Sam Wilson when I got there. Said he was headin’ up this way to check on his property before goin’ back to Bakersfield. Seemed like a chore he might not mind givin’ up.”

“I’ve been trying to buy that ranch ever since he headed down to Bakersfield,” Nick stated. “Two years at least!”

“Soon as I figured out he was the same Nathan Shelby who owned those 800 acres that kept us from using the pass at Tower Rock to get up to that mountain lake -- well, I knew ya’ wanted the land -- so I offered to buy it.”

“And he sold it to you just like that?” he asked suspiciously. “What name did you use? You used Heath Thomson, didn’t you?”

“Nope,” Heath shook his head. “Woulda been kinda hard since Sam introduced me as Heath Barkley. That’s what got us talkin’. He wanted to know if I was a Stockton Barkley. When I told him I was related -- boy howdy, did I get an earful about you!”

“We DON’T need to hear about that right now,” Nick said emphatically. “How’d you come to buy his ranch?”

“He said that ya’ wanted to buy it but he wouldn’t sell it to ya’. Seemed to me he took a lotta pleasure in that,” Heath deliberately stalled knowing that Nick got more annoyed each time he said something that wasn’t directly related to what he wanted to know. “Anyway ... like I said, I knew ya’ wanted the land. Ya’ told me that ‘bout ev’ry ten minutes when we were runnin’ that last batch of horses down and had to use Twin Pines ‘steada Tower Rock. So I asked him why he wouldn’t sell it to the Barkleys,” he sort of shrugged.

“And --?” his brother prompted impatiently.

“’Steada tellin’ me why he wouldn’t sell it to us, he said he might be persuaded to change his mind ‘bout that. But he wouldn’t sell it to us if your name was on the contract. So I offered to buy it myself. He said he’d only sell it to me if I wasn’t usin’ your money to buy it. He even made Jarrod get a letter from the bank sayin’ the money came from an account with just my name on it,” Heath explained.

“Well, don’t that beat all...” Nick breathed out.

“Ya’ know, Nick,” Heath drawled, “it sounded to me like ya’ mighta rubbed that guy the wrong way.”

The anger of only a minute or two before was completely gone as Nick laughed at the comment. “I’m gonna let you get away with that,” he told his blond brother, “because right now I’m so happy I could kiss you.”

“Ya’ try kissin’ me, Nick, and I’m gonna hafta take a swing at ya’,” Heath backed into the wall again.

Nick reached out and tousled his brother’s hair then wrapped his arm around his shoulders to draw him away from the wall and towards the table. “So now you’re a land owner, huh?” he asked as he righted his chair and they all sat down to rejoin the ladies who’d remained at the table during what was really only a brief disruption.

“Leastways ‘til Monday,” Heath told him, watching as Nick started soaking up the coffee that surrounded the steak on his plate. “Then I’m selling it to the family.”

“Did Shelby know you were planning to do that when he sold it to you?”

“I told him I was gonna. He said he didn’t care what I did with it long as your name wasn’t on his bill of sale. Ya’ musta really done somethin’ to make him mad,” the blond commented.

Nick got up to replace his plate as he decided only the steak was salvageable. “Little brothers don’t need to know about their big brother’s romantic history,” he muttered as he placed his plate on the sideboard.

“He sure don’t seem your type, Nick,” Heath suggested innocently.

“HIS DAUGHTER!” Nick looked over at him, waving his arms for emphasis.

It was probably Heath’s poker face more than Nick’s wild gesturing that made the rest of the family laugh. Even Victoria found it hard to keep a straight face as Nick rejoined them at the table, flicking his finger at the back of Heath’s head as he passed by his chair.

“If you ain’t careful, boy, I might just change my mind about being glad you decided to stay,” he grumbled good-naturedly as he sat down.

That poker face served him well as Heath just sat there wondering what it was that had made Nick think he’d decided to stay.

* * * * *

He sat in his darkened bedroom, slouched in his chair, looking out at the night sky. On his lap sat the Pinkerton report that he hadn’t yet been able to open. He wanted to know what was in it; he wanted to know what the family had learned about him. At the very least he already knew there was nothing in it that would make them ask him to leave. So in that regard there was no reason he HAD to read it. But someday he knew he’d have to do it for his own peace of mind. Right now, though -- despite the fact that he’d pulled it from the desk drawer as he’d done on several other occasions -- he just wasn’t ready to do that and he knew he’d eventually put it back in the drawer, once again unread.

He knew if he ever DID read it, it would only be after he’d decided to stay. In the time since he’d returned from Strawberry, everyone had acted as though that decision had been made. And tonight at supper and during the time he spent with them afterwards, they all seemed to take it for granted that he WAS staying. He should have realized that buying a ranch that bordered the Barkley property would have given that impression. But he’d bought it knowing that the family would purchase it from him and he’d recover the money that he now knew was enough to buy his own ranch.

There had been a lot of time to think about that on his ride to and from Modesto. Not that long ago, he’d have thought that a job on the Barkley Ranch was about the best job a cowboy could find. But that was before he found out that Tom Barkley was his father and he was entitled to more than just a job on the ranch. He’d been prepared to fight for what he thought was rightfully his -- and then he’d gotten to know them. Now, as much as he wanted to stay, he no longer wanted to fight them for that privilege. It could tear the family apart if he and Nick fought for control of any of the Barkley holdings. The family would honor their promise -- Nick’s promise -- that he would share in the responsibility for running the ranch. Even Nick, he knew, wanted to honor that promise. But it wasn’t that simply done and if he insisted that they do so, it would be like asking them to turn against Nick -- and that was something he would never do.

So he’d decided that once he got back to Stockton he was going to find that ranch that he could make his own. The Shelby property was only a slight detour along the road to achieving that goal. He knew that Nick, especially, was going to be angry when he realized that he’d misunderstood Heath’s intent. But he hoped, with time, Nick would see that it was the right thing to do. He’d see that even if they weren’t partners, they could still be brothers.

He didn’t know how long he sat in that chair, gazing out at the stars. However long it was -- and whatever time he finally went to bed -- he knew he wasn’t going to get nearly enough sleep. At least Nick rarely expected a full day’s work on Saturday. They always cut the day short so the men could get ready to go into town. He figured he’d pass on that in favor of a quick nap before supper. He couldn’t help chuckling at that thought as he drifted off to sleep. He’d worked on far less sleep in the past and knew there were many days to come when he’d do the same. But, he reminded himself, he WOULD be a ranch owner. That would make it all worthwhile.

* * * * *

The family was already eating when he joined them for breakfast the next morning. Nick gave him barely ten minutes at the table before he was hurrying him along.

“Come on, little brother,” Nick reached over and hit Heath’s shoulder as he stood up after excusing himself. “We’ve got things to do.”

“Nicholas, let your brother finish his breakfast,” Victoria admonished even as Heath was folding his napkin and setting it on the table next to his plate.

“I ain’t really that hungry,” he breathed out. “’Scuse me,” he pushed his chair back and got up to follow his brother. It wasn’t so much that he wasn’t hungry. He just wasn’t sure that anything he ate was going to settle very well. Something had been jumping around in his stomach ever since he decided that he had to tell Nick -- today -- that he was planning to buy his own ranch. And the Shelby Ranch had nothing to do with those plans.

“Duke has already got the crews assigned for the day,” Nick told him as they walked out to the stable. “I thought you and me should go take a look at the new property. The papers ARE all signed and everything, right?”

“That’s what I was doin’ in town yesterday,” Heath nodded.

“I just wanted to be sure Shelby wasn’t gonna be waiting for me with a shotgun.”

“Boy howdy, Nick, what did you do to his daughter!”

“Nothing!” Nick protested. “I danced with her a couple times at the July 4^th social about three or four years ago. And you know the effect I have on women.”

“Legendary,” Heath agreed with a nod.

Nick looked over to see if Heath’s expression gave a clue as to how he should take that comment. As was the case most often, there was nothing to be read from his expression. So Nick continued, “Well, after that, she started coming around with little gifts or a picnic basket or to leave notes for me and I finally had to tell her I wasn’t interested in being more than friends.”

“I’m sure ya’ let her down easy, Nick.”

“I had to! She was getting in the way of me and ... well ... anyone else! And I don’t know what she told her father but Shelby practically knocked down our front door to tell me to stay away from his daughter. And he threatened to shoot me if he ever found me on his property.”

“And that’s what kept ya’ away from Tower Rock?” Heath sounded like he found that hard to believe. “A man with a shotgun down in Bakersfield?”

“No...” Nick said disgustedly. “I was respecting the man’s rights. Can’t expect anyone to respect yours if you don’t respect theirs.”

“Ya’ had me fooled on that one. Didn’t sound much like respect when ya’ were complainin’ ‘bout havin’ to use Twin Pines.”

“I didn’t say I respected the man,” Nick corrected him. “Just his rights.”

They swung up onto the backs of the horses Nick had saddled before breakfast and headed out of the yard towards the northeast. Nick didn’t find it unusual that Heath was being quiet as they rode the six or seven miles to where the newly purchased property began. He was more often quiet than talkative -- and Nick had just as often wished he were privy to the thoughts that were running through his younger brother’s mind. On this particular day, although Nick didn’t know it as they rode, Heath intended to share those thoughts and was just trying to figure out how to begin.

“You wanna do the honors,” Nick broke into his thoughts when they reached the fence that separated the Barkley Ranch from what had been the Shelby Ranch.

Heath looked over to see a pair of wire cutters in Nick’s hand. “Wouldn’ta bought it ‘ceptin’ ya’ wanted it,” he shook his head. “Your privilege.”

“My PLEASURE,” Nick laughed as he got down from Coco. He snipped the three strands of wire, wrapping each around a post to keep the passageway clear before he remounted and they continued onto the new addition to the Barkley Ranch.

Eight hundred acres didn’t begin to compare to the size of what the Barkleys already owned. It amounted to a bit more than a square mile and they didn’t have to ride far before they saw the small house that Shelby, his wife, and his daughter had occupied. There was a barn that was about twice the size of the house and a single corral.

“Well,” Nick surveyed the buildings and land before them, “it’s gonna take some work but I can see it happening.”

“Ya’ seein’ things, Nick,” Heath looked over at him with a raised eyebrow, “’cause I don’t see nothin’ but a coupla buildin’s and a corral.”

“Okay, so it’s all in my mind.”

“I ain’t goin’ there, Nick,” Heath laughed slightly.

“You know, there’s something you need to learn about being a little brother,” Nick muttered. “Sometimes it’s best NOT to say what’s on your mind. I can see that I’ve got a real job ahead of me teaching you all these things.”

“I think we might have a problem with that,” Heath decided this was as good a time as any to get it over with. “Fact is ... I ain’t plannin’ to stay.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nick, the only reason I bought this ranch is b’cause I knew ya’ wanted it. Soon as I sign the papers sellin’ it to the family, I’ll have the money again that I need to buy my own place.”

“Well, then, we ain’t buyin’ it from ya’!” Nick stated firmly.

“Ya’ think ya’ can force me to stay that way?” Heath asked his brother.

“I don’t wanna force you to stay. I want you to stay because you want to. Because you’re a Barkley and this is your home,” the dark cowboy stared into the blond’s eyes. “Because you’re my little brother.”

“I hope bein’ a Barkley -- and your brother -- won’t change. But there’s gotta be more to it than waitin’ to find out from ya’ each mornin’ what I’m gonna do that day. If ya’ think ya’ can stop me by not buyin’ this ranch -- I’ll find another way. I’ve had a dream to own a ranch and raise horses for as long as I can remember. And I’ve had enough of a taste to know that I can’t give that dream up,” Heath shook his head. “I won’t fight ya’ for my dream, Nick. I won’t break up this fam’ly. I might not’a cared about that when I first rode in here but I do, now. I won’t fight ya’. I’ve spent my whole life fightin’. I’m tired of it.”

“Then don’t fight me,” Nick said. “Stay here and be my partner. I spent all night thinking about it. This is the perfect place for you to work and train our horses. I’ll stay away from here if that’s what you want. I’ll even put it in writing.”

“Brothers shouldn’t hafta write down their promises,” Heath shook his head, “and I don’t want ya’ to hafta do that. I thought about it a lot on the ride to Modesto, Nick. This is your ranch and ya’ shouldn’t hafta give up any part of it that ya’ don’t wanna give up.”

“But THIS...” Nick spread his arms wide, gesturing at the land around them, “...was NEVER part of my ranch! THAT’S why it’ll work! Don’t you see? We can build you a large paddock out back in the field. Some smaller corrals up close. A better stable than that barn would ever be,” he pointed at the structure that had seen better days. “You can have part of the ranch crew -- the ones who are good with horses -- and you can pick ‘em. Or you can hire your own crew. The house could be used as a bunkhouse so there’s always someone out here near the horses. And you got my promise -- even if I try to tell you what to do some morning when we’re sitting there having breakfast -- you can just ignore anything I say and I won’t even get mad.”

“I’ll believe THAT when I see it,” Heath muttered intentionally loud enough for Nick to hear.

“Well, you’d have to stick around for that to happen,” Nick said quickly. “Heath, this is the perfect place for you to set it up. Most of the wild horses you’ll be bringing in could be brought straight through Tower Rock and run into a paddock right here. Why go somewhere else and start with nothing when everything you need is right here? Including your family,” he pointed out. “I know it’s not everything we talked about -- but it’s a start. We’ve gotta start somewhere -- right? Why not here?”

Heath looked around him at the land that, for a couple days at least, was his alone. He looked out at the hills that marked the edge of the property -- the trees that shaded its house and defined what was once the boundary between it and the Barkley Ranch -- the green pasture across which he could almost see horses galloping. It truly was the ranch he’d always wanted. Nick was right. Everything he needed was spread out right in front of him. Of course, if he changed his mind about leaving now ... well, it would be the same as telling Nick he was right. And those words just might stick in his throat.

“What do you say, Heath? Can we make this work? Can we start right now -- right here?”

Blue eyes met hazel eyes as Heath looked over at his big brother. He tried to answer Nick’s question -- but the words stuck in his throat.

Epilogue

Three months later...

“MOTHER!” Nick bellowed as he followed his brother into the house and let the front door slam shut behind them. “MOTHER! JARROD! IS ANYONE HERE?”

“Nicholas!” his mother sounded mildly exasperated as her voice came from where she sat in the parlor. “I’m sure I’d faint from the shock if you didn’t enter the house so boisterously,” she suggested, getting up and joining them in the foyer as they dropped their saddlebags on the stairway. “Welcome home,” Nick got the first kiss. “How was your trip?” she asked as Heath got the second.

Before Heath could respond, his brother spoke up. “Mother, you should have seen him,” he laughed. “I don’t think that Major had any idea what he was dealing with. He asked if the horses were gentled or rough broke and Heath told him to try putting a saddle on and find out for himself. Well, you can imagine his surprise when he had one of his men try -- and they did just that with no trouble at all. Well, Heath looked at him all innocent-like and said ‘we’ll give ya’ that for nothin’ this time but if ya’ want ‘em gentled in the future, it’ll cost ya’ extra and I’ll want it in the contract’.”

“Does that mean you got the contract?” Jarrod asked as he came from the study.

Again Nick beat Heath to a response. “Three years! With options beyond that!” he said as proud as if he’d negotiated it himself. “He’s gonna have to build another stable and a bigger paddock at least. Probably hire a couple more men on. The first year they wanted three times what we just delivered to them! Heath told ‘em he’d contract for twice as many the first year and wanted a bonus for anything he delivered over that!”

“And they agreed to it?” Jarrod sounded surprised.

“Wrote it all down and had it signed before we left Sacramento,” Nick laughed.

“Well, congratulations, little brother,” Jarrod said as he reached out to shake Heath’s hand.

Nick started to reach out and respond to Jarrod’s gesture then realized it was directed at Heath. With a slight laugh, he said, “Fine. Younger little brother first.”

They both got a congratulatory handshake from Jarrod and a second kiss from Victoria before excusing themselves to go upstairs and clean up.

“And don’t expect us here for supper tonight, Mother,” Nick called as he tried to beat Heath up the stairs to be the first in the bathroom. “We’re going into town to celebrate and won’t be home ‘til ... Heath -- that’s cheating! You’re supposed to drop your saddlebags in your room first!” they heard Nick yell as a door slammed shut upstairs. “Don’t start thinking you’re ever gonna get away with THAT again! I AIN’T gonna fall for it a second time!”

Another door slammed and all was quiet. At least for the moment.

* * * * *

As Nick and Heath left their rooms simultaneously about an hour later, Heath took the opportunity to tell his brother, “I wanna start out at Lottie’s. She’s got...”

“Oh, no!” Nick cut him short. “We’re NOT going to Lottie’s!”

“Why not? She’s got some new...”

“We CAN’T go to Lottie’s,” Nick rephrased his statement. Then he admitted, “I got thrown outta there just before we headed up north with the horses. I was invited not to come back.”

“How did you get thrown out of Lottie’s? That lady’ll welcome just about anyone into her place!”

“She said I insulted one of her girls.”

“Did ya’?”

“Well ... in a manner of speakin’.”

“And what does that mean?” Heath demanded. “What did ya’ say to her?”

Nick took in a deep breath that he let out loudly before saying, “It might explain itself if I just tell you her name is Sally. And she’s from Nevada. AND...” he added the clincher, “she’s got red hair and green eyes ... just like you said.”

“Oh...” Heath breathed out, feeling the sudden nervous pounding of his heart, “...and ... what ... exactly did ya’ say to her? Or ... about her?”

“I told ‘em she shot up some place in Carson City and got thrown in prison. And then I told her she’d better leave my little brother alone or I’d see that she got the same here.”

“Um ... Nick, there’s ... somethin’ ya’ should know ... ‘bout that whole story.”

“OH, DON’T TRY TO TELL ME IT WAS JUST A STORY!”

“No! It happened just like I said it did,” Heath said quickly. “’Ceptin’ ... when I told ya’ Sally had ... flamin’ red hair and emerald green eyes ... well ... that ... wasn’t exactly ... true,” he admitted as he edged towards the stairway.

“And how ... exactly ... wasn’t it true?”

“She had blonde hair and blue eyes,” Heath blurted out quickly and then turned and ran down the stairs.

“Why you little...” Nick took off after him.

Victoria was entering the foyer with a vase full of flowers as the two came racing down the stairs. As she approached the table to set them down, Heath took up a position on the far side of it and waited to see which direction Nick was going to choose.

“YOU’D BETTER HOLD STILL SO I CAN BELT YA’ ONE!” Nick threatened as he got to the bottom of the stairs.

“Nick, it was a joke!” Heath moved to his right to keep the table between them as Nick did the same.

Victoria set the flowers down and calmly began arranging the bouquet as Heath moved back towards her in response to Nick’s similar movement. She seemed not to notice the two men glaring at each other over her head.

“I swear, if you don’t stop movin’, I’m gonna have to shoot you!” Nick warned. “Just like you shot me up on that mountain!”

“I DIDN’T SHOOT YA’!”

“Nicholas!” Victoria finally spoke up, her attention still on the flowers. “I won’t have gunplay in the house. If you have to shoot your brother, please do it outside.”

“MOTHER!” Heath’s mouth fell open.

The word echoed in the two-story foyer as all three reacted to the name Heath had never before uttered in Victoria Barkley’s presence.

Nick was the first to speak. Even after clearing his throat, his voice still choked up as he tried to sound gruff in saying, “You WOULD say something like that. She ain’t gonna let me shoot you now. I’ll just have to do it some other time.” He leaned close to give his mother a kiss. “Good-bye, Mother. Don’t wait up for us.”

He knew she’d want a moment alone with Heath, so he told his brother he’d bring the horses around to the front of the house then left to give his mother that time.

Victoria looked at Heath, who still seemed surprised that the word had slipped from his mouth. While it was true that she’d suggested he was welcome to call her that if he wanted to, he hadn’t yet felt comfortable enough to do it. Finding the right time to start doing so was something he’d thought about on numerous occasions -- but he’d never figured out what was an appropriate time and setting. Circumstance seemed to have figured it out for him and Victoria’s eyes glistened with unshed tears at the unconscious expression.

Neither said a word until she stepped closer to hug him. The kiss on his cheek was accompanied by a softly spoken, “Thank you.”

He smiled that slightly crooked grin she’d come to love and echoed her words as he returned the kiss. “Thank YOU.”

She rested her hand on his arm for the briefest of moments then let it slide down to hold his hand. “I think Nick is probably waiting for you,” she told him, reaching up to brush away a tear that rolled from the corner of her eye.

“Yeah,” he agreed with a nod as he leaned close to give her another kiss. “Good-bye, Mother,” he squeezed her hand then turned and departed, not wanting the moment to become awkward.

Victoria went to the door and stepped out onto the porch, watching as Heath swung up onto Charger’s back then checked his watch -- the one that had belonged to his father -- as the two men headed their horses for town. She couldn’t help but think how natural it seemed to see them riding side-by-side. No one, Heath included, had known what to expect when he’d ridden in through their gate five months before. The first two months it could have gone either way. Heath could have easily left and she’d thought on more than one occasion that he was about to. But something had happened around the time they’d acquired the Shelby Ranch and she still didn’t know exactly what that was. She’d sensed that, even after buying the ranch, Heath was as close to leaving as he could possibly be. But then he had stayed. He’d never actually said that he would -- at least not in words -- but he HAD stayed. At the same time, the way he related to the rest of the family had begun to change. It was as though he’d decided he was no longer a visitor and it was okay to settle in for a while. And now -- well, negotiating a three-year contract with the army suggested that he planned to be around for at least that long.

She smiled as she watched her sons ride out through the front gate. Her sons. She didn’t know when she’d first started thinking of Heath as her son. Nor when he first started thinking of her as his mother. And it didn’t really matter, she realized. He’d stopped being ‘Tom Barkley’s son’ quite some time ago. He was now her son. Her children’s brother. A member of the family who seemed to have been there all his life. His journey to find his place in the family hadn’t been an easy one for any of them. They’d all taken an occasional detour along the way. But as the two cowboys, different as night and day, disappeared from her sight, she knew without a doubt that riding side-by-side with his brother was exactly where Heath Barkley was meant to be.

THE END