The Chisholm Brothers:Friends, Lovers... Husbands? Read online

  THE CHISHOLM

  BROTHERS:FRIENDS,

  LOVERS…

  HUSBANDS?

  JANIS REAMS HUDSON

  featuring

  The Daddy Survey

  The Other Brother

  The Cowboy on Her Trail

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  JANIS REAMS HUDSON

  was born in California, grew up in Colorado, lived in Texas for a few years and now calls central Oklahoma home. She is the author of more than twenty-five novels, both contemporary and historical romances. Her books have appeared on bestseller lists and earned numerous awards, including the National Reader’s Choice Award and Reviewer’s Choice awards from Romantic Times. She is a three-time finalist for the coveted RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America and is a past president of RWA.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Author

  The Daddy Survey

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  The Other Brother

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  The Cowboy On Her Trail

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  The Daddy Survey

  Chapter One

  When Sloan Chisholm pulled up across the street from the roadside café, thoughts of a chicken fried steak loomed paramount in his mind. He wanted a big one. Big enough to hang off the sides of the platter, with a whopping pile of mashed potatoes on the side, and both buried under at least an inch of thick, creamy-white gravy. He hadn’t had a chicken fry since a week ago Saturday, and he thought he might be suffering the early stages of withdrawal. It was time for a fix.

  Before he got the chance to harden his arteries, however, he ran smack into something that would change his life forever: The Daddy Survey.

  Actually, his life changed a couple of minutes before that, after he checked on the horse he was trailering and then crossed the street, stepped through the door of the café, and fell head over heels in love.

  Sloan had managed to live thirty-five years without falling in love. Not really. Not bone-deep, gut-clenching, breath-stealing love. Those other two times didn’t count.

  Funny, but even with all of his grandmother’s recent grumblings about wanting him and his two brothers to get married so she could spoil a batch of great-grandchildren, Sloan had never really expected his heart to take that slow, sweet slide into helpless delight. But he could feel it happening inside him now, and it stunned him. And even supposing that he had expected to fall in love, he sure never would have thought he’d be the type of man to fall for two females at once, but there was no help for it. There they stood, and he was a goner.

  They were the most adorable creatures Sloan had ever seen. Both were blond, although one’s hair was a shade or two darker than the other’s. Both had blue eyes and enough similar facial features to have him guessing they were sisters, but one had dimples and the other didn’t. One wore glasses, one didn’t. One was taller than the other.

  One was eight, the other about six.

  “Good afternoon, sir.” The oldest of the two girls pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of her pert little nose. She hugged a stack of menus and a notebook to her chest, with the eraser end of a pencil sticking up out of the notebook’s wire spirals. Behind the lenses of her glasses, her sky-blue eyes studied him closely. “Smoking or non?”

  “That’s nonsmoking,” the little one clarified.

  The elder frowned at her. “He knows what non means.”

  The younger merely flashed her dimples.

  Before an argument could break out—not that one appeared imminent, but Sloan wasn’t taking any chances—he slapped a hand to his shirt pocket. It was just as empty of cigarettes as it had been for the past year and a half. And he was just as surprised by it now as when he’d first quit. “Non, please, ladies,” he offered with a sweep of his hat.

  They led him to a booth next to the wide front window.

  Sloan had dined in fancier establishments, but he’d also eaten in worse. This one ranked somewhere below average. The red vinyl of his seat bore a split from front to back wide enough to show the white stuffing inside. A few feet from his table the worn carpeting curled up where the seam connecting two pieces was coming apart, ready to trip some unsuspecting customer or waitress and trigger a lawsuit.

  But the table was clean, and the staff, so far, was adorable.

  An instant later, when the waitress approached with a plastic tumbler of ice water, Sloan got his second kick in the gut. She wasn’t beautiful, in the movie-star sense of the word, but she was so damn pretty she nearly took his breath away.

  Dainty was the word that came to mind. Or maybe delicate. Not that either was a word Sloan had much experience with, considering he spent most of his time with cattle, horses and grown men who usually reeked of barnyard sweat. But the waitress was slightly built, and her short hair left her neck bare and looking vulnerable.

  Even her eyes, the same pale yet vibrant blue as the little girls’, spoke of vulnerability.

  The urge to protect her startled him. Sloan wanted, unreasonably, to take her in his arms and shield her, protect her from harm, from cold, from fear. And most of all, he realized when he saw the pale strip of skin where a ring had once been—but was no longer—on the fourth finger of her left hand, he wanted, desperately, to protect her from ever having to sleep alone again.

  He wanted to protect her from guys like him.

  Her smile was polite and friendly without being overly so. She placed the water before him. “I’ll give you a minute to look over the menu and decide what you want. Girls,” she said to the two little beauties, “you know you’re not supposed to bother the customers.”

  “But, Mother—”

  “They’re not bothering me,” Sloan claimed, interrupting whatever the oldest girl had been about to say. “In fact, I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed prettier company.”

  The youngest girl giggled and blushed; the older one smiled shyly.

  “All right, but don’t make pests of yourselves,” their mother warned softly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.

  Sloan watched the waitress walk away, admiring the gentle sway of her hips and giving thanks for Levi Strauss and his denim tents that nobody wanted all those decades ago during the California gold rush.

  “That’s our mommy,” the littlest girl said.

  Sloan pulled his gaze back to the girls and smiled. “Yeah?”

  “Uh-huh. Her name’s Emily. Emily Nelson. Do you think she’s pretty?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with feeling. “I surely do.”
Emily. Emily Nelson. “She’s every bit as pretty as the two of you.”

  This was where he could logically say something stupid, like Your daddy is one lucky man. But that would be pumping the girls for information, and he couldn’t bring himself to sink that low. Besides, if their daddy was out of the picture, mentioning him could hurt these two little innocent angels.

  So, instead, he smiled and asked if they would like to join him for lunch.

  “Thank you, sir,” said the oldest one, all serious and grown-up, “but we’ve already eaten.”

  “That’s too bad.” And he meant it. It would be a kick to sit across the table from them for half an hour or so. Especially considering that he usually spent his days staring at the south end of a northbound steer. “Maybe you could just keep me company while I eat?”

  “Wellll…” The older girl stole a quick glance at her sister, then looked back at him. “We could do that, and maybe you’d like to take our survey while you wait for your order.”

  “Survey, huh? What kind of survey?”

  “Oops.” The little one nudged her sister. “Mommy’s coming.” Then, to him, “Do you know what you want to eat yet?”

  Sloan tracked the waitress’s progress toward him like a starving man waiting for a feast. With a coffeepot in one hand and a pitcher of iced tea in the other, she moved like a dancer from table to table, filling a mug here, a tumbler there, with a smile, a question, a comment for each customer.

  When Sloan caught himself wondering if she moved that gracefully, smiled that beautifully, while beneath a man in bed, he forced himself to look away.

  Man alive, forget about protecting her. Who was going to protect him?

  She came and stood beside his table. “Do you know what you want?”

  Oh, boy, honey, he thought. That is one loaded question.

  She must have seen something in his eyes, for she cleared her throat then blinked slowly down at her order pad and rephrased her question. “Are you ready to order?”

  Without looking at the menu, Sloan kept his gaze on her face and ordered a chicken fried steak with all the trimmings.

  Without looking up at him, she scribbled on her pad and said, “I’ll get that out to you as soon as it’s ready.”

  She is so damn pretty, he thought again as she went to turn in his order.

  “Sir?”

  Sloan turned back to the girls. “Sloan,” he said. “Call me Sloan.”

  “Okay.” The little one beamed. “I’m Libby and this is my sister, Janie. Do you wanna take our survey?”

  “Why not? What kind of survey is it?”

  “It’s a da—”

  But Janie interrupted her younger sister. “We’re taking a survey of single men between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-five. Is that you?”

  Hearing such grown-up language coming from such a young child made him want to smile. “Twenty-one and sixty-five, huh? That’s quite a range, but, yeah, I fit in there.”

  “And you’re single?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  Janie frowned.

  “Yes,” he clarified. “I’m single.”

  Her face cleared.

  “Oh, goody,” Libby said, grinning.

  Janie cleared her throat. “Okay.” She pulled the spiral notebook from her small stack of menus and flipped it open. “On a scale of one to five, with one being not at all and five being very, very much, how well do you like little girls?”

  Sloan grinned widely. “That’s easy. I’d have to give that one a five, if that’s as high as I can go.”

  Libby giggled.

  Janie marked his answer in her notebook, then looked at him out the corner of her eye. “On a scale of one to five, do you believe in spanking?”

  Sloan’s eyes widened. “Of little girls? I’d have to give that a zero. Nobody should spank little girls.”

  Both girls smiled hugely as Janie wrote down his answer.

  “How much do you like liver and onions?” Janie asked.

  “I’d have to give that a three.”

  “How much do you like ice cream?”

  “That’s a big five.”

  Janie paused and studied him carefully, such a serious look in those bright blue eyes. Then she took a deep breath and plunged on. “Yes or no, does Santa Claus know where you live?”

  Sloan lost all urge to laugh over their cute questions. It was becoming obvious that what Libby had been about to say earlier was that this was a daddy survey. These girls were surveying café customers in search of a new daddy. The very idea broke his heart. He wanted to grab them and pull them onto his lap and hold them close and promise them—

  Promise them what? That he would be their daddy?

  Whoa, pal. Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?

  “Mr. Sloan?” Janie prodded.

  “Oh, sorry. And it’s not Mr., it’s just Sloan.”

  “Oh, no,” Libby said. “We have to call all grown-ups Mr. or Ms.”

  “It’s a sign of respect,” Janie said.

  “It’s a rule,” Libby added.

  “Well,” Sloan said. “We wouldn’t want to break any rules, so I guess you can call me Mr. Sloan. Now, where were we?”

  “Santa,” Libby told him.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, sure. We’ve even got a chimney for him, and every year we put up a tree with lights and the works.”

  Both girls let out a big breath and grinned at each other. Then Janie got back down to business.

  “One to five again. How much do you like puppies?”

  “Oh, I like puppies a whole lot.”

  “Is that a five?” Janie asked.

  “I’d have to say so. A definite five for puppies.”

  “What about kittens?” Libby asked.

  “That’s not on the survey,” Janie protested.

  “Well, it should be.” Libby gave an emphatic nod, making her pale yellow curls bounce.

  Janie frowned. “Okay, kittens. But it’s not fair, because the other men didn’t get to answer that one.”

  “Maybe we can ask them if they come back in,” Libby offered.

  Janie brightened. “Maybe we can.”

  “So, kittens?” Sloan asked, his stomach tightening at the thought of their asking these questions of every stranger who came in. “Kittens are a definite five. We have lots of kittens at our ranch.”

  Libby’s eyes widened. “You do?”

  “You have a ranch?” Janie asked in awe. “With horses and cows and everything?”

  “Sure do. With horses and cows and everything.” He pointed to his rig across the street. “See that pickup? It’s got the name of our ranch right there on the door.”

  “Cherokee Rose,” Janie read.

  “Cherokee?” Libby’s eyes nearly swallowed her face. “Are you a Indian?”

  Janie frowned. “Not Indian, silly. Native American.”

  “He is?” Libby breathed, staring at Sloan in awe. “You are?”

  “Indian’s fine,” Sloan said. “And yes, I’m part Indian.”

  Libby still stared at him wide-eyed. “Which part?”

  Sloan couldn’t help it—he broke out laughing. He was saved from having to explain anything more to Libby by the approach of her mother with his order.

  Emily Nelson heard the cowboy’s deep laughter long before she reached his table with his order. Whatever her daughters were saying to him, he was obviously enjoying himself.

  He had a nice laugh. A nice face, too.

  Well, maybe nice wasn’t the right word for those chiseled, coppery features, but attractive certainly fit. And compelling.

  The thought startled her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had even bothered to notice how a man looked. The last man—the only man—she had ever looked at or noticed in her entire life was Michael.

  The expected ache at the thought of him came, as she knew it would. But it was a poignant ache these days, not the stabbing, crippling agony it had once been. Two years since his d
eath, and she could now think of Michael with as much love and gratitude for the years they’d had together as regret for his loss.

  He had been the love of her life, and he’d given her these two precious daughters who liked to entertain strangers while she worked to earn the money to get the three of them to a promised job in Arkansas. If her car hadn’t broken down in the middle of nowhere she wouldn’t have had to take this job merely to get the car fixed. If she had to pay a baby-sitter for the girls, she would never earn enough to fix the car. She was grateful her boss was so tolerant as to let the girls stay in the café while she waited tables.

  “Mommy, Mommy!” Libby practically jumped up and down beside the man’s table. Her voice carried clear across the dining room. “Mr. Sloan has a ranch with horses and kitties and everything and he’s part Indian and he thinks you’re real pretty.”

  Oh, Lord, Emily thought as fire stung her cheeks. Please open a hole in the floor and let me fall in.

  But, as was usually the case, no convenient hole appeared. She had no chance of falling out of sight. No chance that the man wouldn’t notice the heat flushing her cheeks.

  He chuckled, and so did several other customers at nearby tables.

  Emily’s face burned hotter.

  “Ladies,” the man said. “I think we’ve embarrassed your mother.”

  “Did we, Mommy?” Libby asked, fighting a giggle. “Did we embarrass you?”

  Deciding there was no graceful way to ignore her youngest daughter’s comments, Emily rolled her eyes. “I’m usually embarrassed whenever you blab everything you know to the entire world.”

  “Ah, Mommy.” Libby snickered. “But it was true. Wasn’t it, Mr. Sloan?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the man said as Emily set his plate down before him.

  Emily hadn’t meant to look at him again, but the good-natured laughter in his voice drew her gaze.

  “Every word of it.” And he winked. Not at her daughters, but at her.

  Good grief. Did men still do that? Wink at women? It seemed more like something she would see on television rather than have it happen to her.