need to slice it,” he said, nodding his head toward the pantry.
Holt frowned, his thumb in his mouth. “What? You don’t like rye bread?”
Shilah laughed. “First you rant about her not taking care of you, then you’re talking about helping her cook and then waxing poetic on how well she treats her man. ABCs of how to treat her man, my ass.” Shilah laughed. “You’re so whipped it ain’t even funny, man.”
Holt shrugged, humor lighting his pale blue eyes. “If I don’t grouse every once in a while, y’all will think I’m getting soft.” He winked. “Can’t have that. My babe likes me … hard.”
“Whoa!” Shilah threw up his hands. “I’m a man. And your brother. That doesn’t get me excited, the thought of you getting hard,” he said, tossing the sack holding the bread toward Holt. Which his ex-NFL brother easily caught, an ever-present half grin on his face. “In fact, it makes me wanna hurl.”
With both of his brothers, Nate and Holt, engaged, for the first time in a long time Shilah felt alone, in a way he hadn’t felt in longer than he wanted to remember.
Not that he wasn’t happy for them; it was just that at times lately it hit him that soon his brothers would start families of their own, and the thought was unsettling.
He lifted a bag of chips he’d found on the shelf and walked toward the island-style counter in the middle of the kitchen and placed it alongside the bread.
“You’re a lucky man. Nothing wrong with appreciating what you’ve got.”
He felt Holt’s curious gaze on him as they quickly made sandwiches for their makeshift lunch.
Holt sat next to him on a barstool, took a healthy bite of his sandwich and swallowed. Around the bite, Holt began, “You know, Yaz has this friend—”
“Has Nate returned from Cheyenne yet?” Shilah interjected. There was no way in hell he was going to let his brother finish that particular train of thought. Damn, was he so pitiful that Holt thought he needed fixing up?
Shilah was perfectly happy remaining the single man in their family. Besides the yearning he’d felt when he’d watched his brothers with their brides-to-be, sharing secret smiles or going to bed early, eyes only for each other, Shilah knew that love and happily-ever-after wasn’t in the cards for him.
He’d known that from the time he was a young boy. He was too … flawed, for any woman to ever love him.
Immediately the image of Ellie Crandall came to his mind, as unexpected as it was sudden.
He forced away the conflicting feelings he felt at seeing her again.
Although he’d chosen to go to a local college when he wasn’t working at the ranch, he’d often spent his free time at the library, studying and cramming four years of college into two. Soon after graduating, he’d devoted his time fully to the ranch, working long, hard days. At that point the ranch had begun to grow—he and his brothers as well had worked alongside Jed to see to that.
Although his brothers had gone on temporarily to pursue other interests, it had been for the betterment of the ranch. Nate, the oldest, had been involved in a lucrative stint of bull riding, and Holt in the NFL. The money they’d earned was used to improve and expand the ranch.
Within a short time, their profits had skyrocketed as they’d diversified, adding breeding of thoroughbreds to their menu, the money that earned allowing them to expand even more.
It had taken the death of Jed for all three brothers to come home and work the ranch full-time, dedicating themselves to seeing it become the vision Jed had for it.
Ellie’s arrival on the ranch had brought back memories, memories of a special time in his life, some painful, held deep in his subconscious, but all of them close to his heart.
“Not yet. He and Althea should be home by the weekend,” Holt replied, answering his question about Nate, bringing Shilah’s attention back to the present.
Recently, a national food conglomerate, Rolling Hills. had begun to buy … or consume, as he and his brothers had come to believe, many of the family-owned ranches at an alarming rate, leaving Wyoming Wilde as one of the last in the area.
Less than a year ago, a representative from Rolling Hills had approached him and his brothers in an offer to buy out the ranch. They hadn’t considered the offer, although lucrative, but their refusal to sell had fallen on deaf ears.
“Any word yet on anything? Did Nate find out anything more about who, if anyone, is behind this shit?” Shilah asked, in disgust.
Not only had Rolling Hills been after their ranch relentlessly, over the last year freak accidents had been accruing at an increasing rate, from isolated fires breaking out, to animals being misplaced on their way to slaughter.
Some were minor, some more serious in nature. As the “accidents” increased, more and more the brothers suspected someone was out to get them. And the only “someone” that came to mind was Rolling Hills.
The latest incident was by far the most serious. It could prove disastrous for the ranch’s continuation and was the reason Nate and Althea had made a trip to Cheyenne.
“Thank God our brother has friends in high places, or we would have been up the proverbial creek,” Holt said, a hard edge entering his voice.
Nate had been tipped off by a friend who worked for the USDA that a someone anonymous had made accusations that Wyoming Wilde Ranch was knowingly selling tainted meat.
With that, the men now knew that all the previous accidents hadn’t been coincidences. Someone … more accurately, Rolling Hills, had taken the game to a whole new level, and the threat could prove fatal for Wyoming Wilde.
“I spoke with Nate this morning. Before any of this goes further, Nate’s friend has arranged an outside contractor to come to the ranch and review our facilities.”
Shilah frowned, thoughts of Ellie momentarily placed in the back of his mind.
“Review our facilities? What the hell for?”
Holt shook his head. “Hell, at least they didn’t shut us down. Actually, it’s a good thing. This way we can prove no tainted meat is coming from Wyoming Wilde.” Before Shilah could comment, Holt continued. “Speaking of which,” he said, standing and carrying his plate to the sink. “I don’t know if you remember Doc Crandall’s daughter, Ellie?” At that, Shilah’s gaze flew to his brother’s, narrowing.
Blithely, Holt continued, “Check this out. This could either be a good thing for the ranch or bad. Depending on how it all pans out. Anyway,” he said, wiping his hands on a dishrag after cleansing the plate and placing it in the drainer, and with only a raised brow accepting Shilah’s plate as well. “Turns out she followed in her old man’s footsteps and became a vet.”
Shilah hid his surprise at the announcement. He realized that during his earlier exchange with her he never asked Ellie what she did for a living, or what had brought her to the ranch. The thought that he might be seeing her on a more regular basis, that she might be helping her father out, filled him with a heady anticipation.
“Damn, no, I didn’t know,” he said, hiding his reaction.
“Gets better than that.”
Shilah impatiently waited for Holt to continue, gritting his teeth when his brother frowned over the plate he’d just cleaned and tsked at himself, before wiping away a smudge of food he’d missed.
“When the hell did you become Betty Homemaker? Give me the damn plate!” Shilah said, snatching the plate and placing it in the drainer.
“Hey, what’s up with you?”
Shilah exhaled a breath, knowing his behavior was odd and not wanting his brother, known for his … unusual sense of humor, to discern the reason.
“Just nerves, man.