by Janet Dailey
“Cat, you’re not being reasonable. I admit I made a mistake in not discussing it with you first, and I’m sorry for that. But this last couple weeks haven’t exactly been easy for me.”
“I suppose you expect me to overlook this.”
“I wish you would.”
For a long second Cat didn’t say anything and simply stared at her. “I might be inclined to do that if it was the only thing I found out you had done.”
Jessy knew immediately what was coming. Culley had told her about fixing up the old line shack as well as about Laredo and Hattie.
“There is something else?” Tara asked, nearly smiling with pleasure over the prospect.
“Jessy decided to fix that abandoned line shack up in the foothills. So far she hasn’t run electricity to it, but I understand it now has running water.”
“It was something Ty and I often talked about doing,” Jessy repeated the lie she had told Culley.
“I wonder why you never did anything about it until after my father died,” Cat murmured coolly.
Put that way, it didn’t look right. Jessy scrambled to come up with an explanation. “Mostly because there wasn’t a reason to do it. But the Smiths needed work and a place to live. There weren’t any openings here at the ranch. Then I remembered the Boar’s Nest. I knew Laredo was handy at such things so I hired him to fix it up and make it habitable again.”
“Laredo, what an odd name,” Tara remarked. “Who is he?”
“The Smiths are presumably friends of my father. Supposedly they have a ranch in Texas. What happened to that?” Cat asked Jessy.
“They ran into some financial difficulties after”—for the life of her, Jessy couldn’t remember the first name of Hattie’s late husband, or if she had even heard it—“John passed away. They were forced to sell it. There wasn’t much left after the debts were paid.”
“So you took pity on them and came up with this scheme to repair the cabin so you could help them out.”
“They’re good people.” She found she could say that with conviction. “And the ranch isn’t paying for the repairs. The moneys are coming out of my personal account.” Mentally she crossed her fingers, vowing to do just that. “I know Chase would approve of my decision to help them even if you don’t.”
“Maybe he would, but I don’t think my father would slip off to the old cemetery to meet them.”
Alarm shot through Jessy that Cat should know about that. She managed to push out a surprised laugh. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Are you saying you didn’t?” Cat challenged. Suddenly Jessy remembered seeing Culley that morning, but it had been after she’d met Laredo at the cemetery. Had Culley back tracked her? Even if he had, it was only his word against hers. He had no proof she had been there—or that she had met anyone. Considering there was no rational explanation for her to be there, Jessy felt she had no choice but to bluff it out.
“That is exactly what I’m saying,” she insisted in denial. “Why would I meet Laredo or anyone else at the old cemetery? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Uncle Culley claims that you did. Are you suggesting he lied about that?”
“No, only that he was mistaken. If he saw me over there at all, it must have been when Laredo and his mother followed me out to the Boar’s Nest. The easiest way to get there is along that road past the cemetery.” Jessy could tell by the small flicker of uncertainty in Cat’s expression that she had succeeded in planting a seed of doubt.
“If you hired this Laredo Smith to repair the cabin, what is he doing at the feedlot? I saw him there this morning, carelessly letting water run on the ground.”
“I needed some extra help to run the feedlot, so I hired Laredo. He had already finished the bulk of the repairs to the cabin.”
“How convenient,” Tara murmured. “When he first shows up, you don’t have any ranch work for him, so you make work by deciding to fix up an old shack. Then you rush out and make a deal to lease the feedlot. And all of a sudden, you need extra help on the ranch. You seem to have gone to a great deal of trouble to make certain this Laredo Smith has a job.”
“It’s purely a coincidence,” Jessy insisted, growing more and more uncomfortable.
“Naturally.” Tara smiled. “Still, he must be a very close friend.”
“He is,” Jessy replied, then saw the trap in that and rushed to add, “They both are.”
“Isn’t it odd that I have never heard of them.” Cat hadn’t let go of her anger. It was still there, close to the surface.
“I don’t think it’s odd.” Jessy continued to convey calmness despite her chaotic jumble inside. “I imagine there are a lot of people Chase knew that you didn’t.”
“Smith, with a ranch in Texas.” Head down, Tara made a show of searching her memory. “Ty and I were in Texas dozens of times and I can’t recall a single time when he mentioned anything about wanting to visit a rancher named Smith. You would think if the Smiths were such close friends to Chase, Ty would have felt obliged to at least phone them.”
Jessy was quick to answer that. “Back then you cared so little about ranching, Ty wouldn’t have told you about them. He would have known that you couldn’t be bothered with such ordinary people.”
“I still find it hard to believe he never mentioned them at all. On the other hand, maybe they never were his friends. Maybe they were yours.”
“How would I have met them except through Chase or Ty?” Jessy reasoned.
“How should I know?” Tara dismissed her questions with an elegant shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t keep track of who you see or when. Perhaps someone should.” Holding her gaze on Jessy, she said to Cat, “If I were you, Cathleen, I would look into this.”
“I intend to.”
Jessy knew immediately that she would only weaken her position by arguing with Cat. Her only choice was to take a firm stand and bluff this through the whole way. “Look into it all you want. You won’t find anything different from what I have told you.”
“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it,” Tara murmured, clearly enjoying Jessy’s predicament. “Of course, there is a simple way to prove Cat’s suspicions are ill-founded.”
Jessy was instantly wary. “What’s that?”
“Get rid of the Smiths. Let them find a place to live in Blue Moon. I know for a fact the mine has several openings. If he needs work, he can get a job there. It would certainly eliminate the necessity of you supporting them.”
“I could do that,” Jessy agreed. “But I won’t. Because I don’t feel that I need to prove anything—to you or anyone else.”
“I think it’s rather obvious where her loyalties lie. Don’t you, Cathleen?” Tara cast a smug glance at Cat.
“My loyalty is to the Triple C. It always has been, and it always will be,” Jessy stated somewhat fiercely, angered that Tara would suggest otherwise.
“You have a funny way of showing it,” said Cat. Then she erupted in a mixture of anger and frustration. “How could you do this, Jessy? After my father fought his whole life to keep the Triple C intact, less than a month after he’s gone you sign a lease giving someone else possession of part of it. How could you betray him like that?”
“I didn’t,” Jessy insisted. Chase had made the decision, yet she was honor bound to keep that a secret.
“You certainly had no right to do it without Cat’s permission,” Tara inserted.
Jessy turned to her. “You’re wrong. I had every right. Chase named me to take over the ranch in the event anything happened to him. He made it clear that Cat was to have no say in the running of the Triple C. The decisions are mine to make, not hers.”
“As long as you make the right ones,” Tara added with false sweetness. “Otherwise there is such a thing as malfeasance. If the actions you take are deemed not to be in the best interests of the ranch, as owner, Cathleen has a legal right to step in and take over.”
“None of this is really any of your business, Tara,” Jes
sy snapped, her patience exhausted. “Why don’t you just stay out of it?”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you,” Tara countered smoothly. “Without me around, you think you have a better chance of talking Cat into accepting your decision.”
“Cat knows I would never do anything to jeopardize the Triple C. It represents my children’s future. I would do whatever it takes to protect both.”
“I always thought you would,” Cat said. “But I also thought I knew you, Jessy. Now I wonder if I ever did at all.”
Fighting back tears, Cat whipped around and headed for the door. Tara lingered a moment, a pleased look in her eyes. Then she hurried after Cat. Jessy’s first impulse was to go after Cat, but she sensed she would just be giving Tara another chance to fan Cat’s distrust.
Chapter Eleven
In the den, Jessy went through the motions of comparing the invoice total against the check amount before adding her signature, but the numbers didn’t register. Just outside the window, Cat and Tara had their heads together. Jessy could imagine the sympathetic noises Tara was making while adding a few sly insinuations.
As if the present situation wasn’t complicated enough, now Cat had put this new twist on it. Something had to be done before this rift between them became any wider. But what that could be Jessy didn’t know.
Not until both women had climbed into their cars and left did Jessy lay the pen aside and reach for the ranch phone directory. With a finger on the number for the feedlot, she dialed it and waited. After a dozen rings, Laredo answered.
“It’s Jessy. We have trouble.”
“I thought we might. She was in a temper when she came by here.” He didn’t bother to refer to Cat by name, confident she was the source. “I figured she would unload on somebody, and it seemed very likely you would be that person. What’s the problem?”
On the off chance someone might walk in, Jessy kept her voice pitched low and gave him a bare-bones answer. When she mentioned Tara’s role, Laredo responded with a soft whistle.
“I didn’t figure on the ex sticking her nose in,” he admitted thoughtfully. “She doesn’t like you, you know.”
“It’s mutual,” Jessy replied grimly, then suddenly wondered, “How do you know that?”
“I talked to her once.”
“When?” She felt more uneasy than before.
“Down south.”
She heard the front door open, followed by the sound of boots. Speaking at a normal level, Jessy said, “It’s impossible for me to get away right now. Explain it to Duke for me,” she added, using Hattie’s name for Chase. “Let me know what he says.”
“Got company, do you?” Laredo guessed. “In that case, why don’t we meet tonight at the old barn. Is ten o’clock too early?”
“That will be fine.” She looked up as Jobe Garvey walked into the den. “I’ll talk to you then.”
All the windows at the Boar’s Nest were propped open, allowing a welcome breeze to flow through the interior. Chase sat in a wooden chair, a towel draped around his shoulders, his fingers clutching it tightly together at his throat. Hattie stood behind him, a pair of scissors in one hand and a comb in the other.
“I can’t believe how fast your hair has grown.” She ran the comb down the back of it and held the ends flat with its teeth. “Do you know it’s almost long enough to cover your scar? Which, by the way, is healing nicely.”
When she made the first snip, Chase asked warily, “Are you sure you know how to cut hair?”
“I did my husband’s for years.”
“I saw a picture of him at your place. He was bald.”
“Only on top. He still had to have the sides trimmed.”
As the scissors made steady progress along the nape of his neck, Chase warned, “Watch my ear.”
“Look on the bright side,” Hattie told him. “If it should accidentally get nicked, you have a nurse right here. Now keep your head down.”
Chase tucked his chin lower and grumbled, “Something tells me you are a better nurse than a barber.”
“Are you always such a grump?” she chided. That sobered him. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Now, that isn’t entirely true,” Hattie admonished while deftly switching from comb to scissors, snipping, and switching back again. “You’ve remembered a few more things.”
“Yeah, from when I was child,” he admitted, unimpressed. “It’s not exactly important to remember that one time I caught a fish with my bare hands when Buck and I were skinny-dipping in the river.”
In his mind’s eye, he could see again the dappling of sunlight on the water, feel the fish’s firm but slippery sides, hear Buck’s gleeful shouts, and smell the odor of the river. It was a happy memory, but one that didn’t bring him any closer to knowing who tried to kill him or why.
Caught up in the past, Chase almost missed the faint humming noise carried by the breeze. The instant he became aware of it, his head came up, his body stiffening.
“Will you hold still,” Hattie said in exasperation.
“Wait a minute.” He held up a hand. “I hear something.”
Hattie paused to listen. “It’s a vehicle.”
“Coming this way.” He let go of the towel and stood up.
“Maybe it’s Jessy.” Hattie darted him an anxious glance.
“Maybe.” But it was that uncertainty that had him moving toward the corner of the cabin where they had rigged up a hiding place for him, under a bunk bed, disguising it to look like a set of storage drawers.
Before he had taken three steps, a horn honked twice. After a short pause, it sounded again.
“That’s Laredo,” Hattie said with surprise, recognizing their prearranged signal. “What’s he doing back here in the middle of the day?”
“I doubt if he’s coming to bring good news,” Chase replied, his mind already racing to anticipate what it might be.
Of all the potential problems he had considered, none of them were even close to what Laredo told him. The set of his jaw hardened when he heard about Tara’s part in the confrontation between Cat and Jessy.
“Good God,” Chase muttered in disgust. “And my son was once married to a woman like that.”
“She is a looker, Chase,” Laredo said in Ty’s defense.
“She is a divisive bitch,” Chase declared and shot a skeptical glance at Laredo. “Would you have been taken in by her?”
“I don’t know.” Laredo thought about it. “When I was younger, if she had turned those dark eyes on me . . . maybe. But I’m older now, and a little wiser. I expect that’s what happened with your son.”
“That’s beside the point. Right now our problem is with Cat,” Chase stated as his thoughts turned inward to examine his options. “The last thing we need right now is a battle for control of the ranch.”
“Jessy gave me the impression that’s exactly what she thinks will happen if she can’t get Cat settled down soon.”
“Who would have thought leasing the feedlot would cause such an uproar?” Chase muttered to himself.
“I didn’t understand myself why your daughter would consider it a betrayal,” Laredo admitted. “But on the way here, I remembered some gossip I picked up at your funeral. From what I gathered, you spent most of your life fighting to gain title to ten thousand acres of rangeland within the ranch boundaries. Tara was mixed up in it somehow, but I never got the straight of that. I do know that shortly after your son was killed, she deeded the land over to you, but kept the right to live in the house she built there.”
“Wolf Meadow. Dy-Corps had leased the mineral rights to it from the government so they could strip-mine the coal on it,” Chase recalled in a sudden flash of memory. “I can remember Ty telling me about it.” He had an image of a hospital room, of being surrounded by tubes and monitors, and of a tall, broad-shouldered man with a dark mustache standing by the bed—the same man he had seen lying dead in the coulee. His son. He felt a deep swell of tenderness and pride and a su
dden tightening ache in his chest.
Hattie laid a hand on his shoulder. “You see, it is coming back, Duke.”
“I wish you could remember your daughter.” Laredo helped himself to some coffee. “She seems to be the passionate kind. Everything is black and white—you’re either for me or against me. Proud was the word people kept using at the funeral.” Cup in hand, he returned to the table, swung a chair around and straddled it. “Jessy didn’t give me a blow-by-blow account of all that was said, so I’m just guessing. But most daughters think their dads can’t do any wrong. In your case, it’s probably more true than in others. Cat wants everything to stay the way it was. Suddenly Jessy isn’t doing the things Cat is convinced you would. On top of that, it’s happening too fast after your funeral. More than likely she believes being in charge has gone to Jessy’s head. I’d be willing to bet that’s what Tara is telling her.”
“I can’t fault Cat for fighting for what she believes is best for the Triple C.” While he could admire her reason, Chase was still irritated by her actions.
“It will take some tall convincing to make her back down,” Laredo warned. “Personally I don’t think it can be done short of you stepping forward.”
“There might be another way.” He turned to Hattie. “Do you have a paper and pencil?”
“I’ll get it.” She moved away from the table.
“You said you were meeting Jessy tonight?” Chase glanced at Laredo.
“Ten o’clock.”
“Good. I’ll have a note for you to give her—one that she can show Cat. Hopefully I can word it in such a way that Cat will be convinced Jessy has acted as I would.” His mouth curved in a dry smile. “Presumably my daughter will recognize my handwriting.”
Laredo lifted his cup, speaking against its rim. “Our luck, she’ll think it’s a forgery. Especially if Tara hears about it.”
“If nothing else, it should gain us some time,” Chase said as Hattie returned with a writing tablet and ballpoint pen.
