Shifting Calder Wind

by Janet Dailey

  “Did Markham ask about him?” The question came from Laredo.

  “No, not a thing. As a matter of fact, other than making an offhand comment—wasn’t that George Seymour—he never really said anything.” An absent frown clouded her expression. “You would think that if he was worried about whether George had said something to me he would have tried to find out.”

  “You would think so,” Chase agreed. “But he also might be smarter than that. Questions might arouse your suspicions, while a lack of interest in what was said wouldn’t.”

  “Do you realize how devious that sounds, Duke?” Hattie declared.

  “I’m only trying to think the way Markham might,” Chase countered, matter-of-fact in his pronouncement.

  “But you don’t know that Markham has done anything wrong,” Hattie said in a kind of protest, then went still for a split second. “Or do you?”

  Jessy immediately picked up on the thought. “Do you remember something about Monte?”

  “I know there is something. I get flickers of it, but nothing definite enough that I can actually say I remember anything specific. Yet I have this certainty in my gut that Markham is involved.”

  “How frustrating,” Hattie murmured in empathy.

  Jessy felt it, too. “So,” she said, releasing a sighing breath, “what do you think? Should I call Seymour and see if I can find out what information he gave you?”

  “I don’t think so.” Chase was slow in his answer, mulling over their options. “There’s always a chance George might mention your call to someone else and word of it would get back to Markham. I don’t want Markham to start wondering whether you are a threat to him. Call Brewster and run Markham’s name past him, find out if he has had any dealings with him.”

  “But Brewster will want to know why. What do I tell him?” Jessy frowned, uncertain of her approach.

  “Make up something,” Chase replied. “Or use the feedlot lease as a reason.”

  Laredo straightened from the cabinet. “Maybe I should make the call. Making up convincing stories isn’t exactly Jessy’s forte. And Brewster might be more forthcoming talking to another man. No offense, Jessy, but it can work that way.”

  “None taken,” she replied. “You are more than welcome to talk to him.”

  “Better make the call from The Homestead,” Chase instructed. “There will be less chance of a bystander catching part of your conversation.”

  Laredo nodded and glanced at Jessy. “Is there a problem if I come by tomorrow morning, say, between nine and ten?”

  “Make it closer to nine. I told Jaspar I would swing by the east camp tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll be there right at nine,” Laredo stated.

  “In the meantime, Jessy,” Chase began, “I think you need to have a private talk with Cat and make peace with her. Explain that there is nothing you can do about the current lease, but if she still feels strongly about it, you won’t renew it under any circumstances. If she challenges you about Laredo, simply tell her that without cattle in the feedlot, you won’t have any work for him so you’ll have to lay him off. With any luck Cat will be satisfied with that—and hopefully she’ll call Logan off.”

  Nodding in agreement, Jessy said, “I’ll run by the Circle Six and talk to her before I pick up the twins. Anything else?”

  “I don’t think so,” Chase said. “If there is, Laredo can tell you about it tomorrow.”

  “If I’m going to stop at Cat’s I’d better be going, then.” She pushed out of the chair.

  “Let Laredo know what she says,” Chase told her.

  “I will,” Jessy promised.

  “I’ll walk you to your truck.” Unhurried, Laredo set his empty coffee cup down before following her outside.

  Jessy headed straight for her pickup without pausing, yet all the while conscious of Laredo ranging alongside of her. She tried to ignore the faint sizzle of tension she felt.

  “Did you want something?” she asked when Laredo failed to break the silence.

  “Not really.” He kept his gaze to the front. “Although I am curious about something—am I wrong, or has Markham spent more time at the Triple C than usual?”

  “Between the feedlot and Sally’s funeral, he probably has,” Jessy admitted. “Why?”

  “Because I think he’s leading up to something.”

  Jessy suspected she knew exactly what he thought. “Are you back to that crazy notion that Monte is interested in me?”

  “Maybe not you in particular, but in a rich widow with a ranch almost as big as some eastern states. It’s bound to be a tempting package for a man with ambition.”

  “What makes you think he’s ambitious?” Reaching the truck, she opened the door and planted a foot on the running board.

  Laredo caught hold of the door. “The cattle in the feedlot. He indicated to you that some of his English friends wanted to get into the cattle business. But he brought a man by the feedlot the other day who was supposedly one of the investors. The man was a Texan.”

  Jessy didn’t see what that proved. “So?”

  “So, I don’t think he put the deal together as a favor. He did it to make money.”

  “And we leased the feedlot to make money. That isn’t a crime. It’s business.” Jessy maintained her own grip on the door, her hand inches from his.

  “But you are up-front about your reason. Markham likes to pass himself off as a gentleman rancher, someone who isn’t in it for the money. It makes me wonder if he isn’t hard up for cash. How is he at paying his bills? Have you heard any talk?”

  “No, but I probably wouldn’t, though. It isn’t something people would talk about to a Calder. If somebody’s slow about paying their bills, word would go through Blue Moon pretty fast. One of the hands might have heard something. I’ll ask around.”

  “Better not. They would wonder why you’re asking. Let me nose around Blue Moon instead.”

  “You’re a stranger. They may not tell you.”

  Laredo grinned crookedly. “It depends on how convincing my story is.”

  “You are good at feeding people stories, aren’t you?” The thought made Jessy oddly angry.

  Suddenly he was no longer smiling as his gaze pinned her with a new intensity. “I haven’t fed you any. Or Chase.”

  She flashed back to his statement in the barn when he admitted he was attracted to her. She felt a mixed rush of heat and uneasiness.

  His expression hardened with a kind of anger. “Don’t worry, Jessy. I have no intention of pursuing it.”

  It never occurred to her to be coy and pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. She told herself she was glad there would be no repeat of that scene in the barn, but she had trouble believing it. As fleeting as the kiss had been, she remembered how alive she had felt inside after so many months of feeling dead and empty.

  “Good,” Jessy lied and turned to slide behind the wheel.

  But she got no farther than that as Laredo grabbed her and hauled her against him, blue eyes blazing. “Just what the hell is so good about it,” he challenged, then gave her no opportunity to answer. “There isn’t one damn thing about it that’s good. But it’s necessary. Do you know why?”

  Jessy shook her head, made mute by the ferocity of the emotion she saw in his face, a staggering combination of raw yearning and need.

  Jaws clenched, he ground out the answer to his question. “Because the hell of having you and walking away would be worse than the hell of never having you at all.” He held her an instant longer, fingers digging into the flesh of her upper arms. Then he was shoving her away from him. “Now get going.”

  It wasn’t fear but wisdom that kept Jessy silent. She knew that if she was going to say anything to him at all, she had better know exactly what it was she wanted from him—whether it was to be left alone or to feel the heat of the passion he had let her see. It wasn’t a decision she was ready to make yet.

  Without a word, she climbed into the pickup and pul
led the door shut. She was careful not to look in his direction as she started the truck and reversed away from the cabin. When she drove away, the reflection of him standing by the track, watching her leave, was there in her rearview mirror.

  Indecision had never been a problem of Jessy’s. From the time she was old enough to know her own mind, she had known what she wanted. As a child it had been to cowboy for the Triple C. After that, it had been Ty she wanted. After he had been killed, she hadn’t expected to want anything else except the health and happiness of her children.

  Then Laredo had come along and disrupted the calm and settled path of her life. By the same token, Jessy knew that no man could do that unless she allowed it. But this didn’t feel like something she could control.

  Promptly at nine o’clock the next morning Laredo’s truck pulled up to The Homestead. Jessy had been watching for it, expecting it, but everything inside her quickened just the same. She listened to the even tread of his footsteps across the front veranda and into the house. The instant Laredo walked into the den, her tension went up another notch. But she was too skilled at hiding her feelings behind a mask of calmness to let it show.

  Conscious of the searching probe of his glance, Jessy offered no greeting. “Good, you’re right on time. Brewster’s phone number is right here.” She touched a slip of paper on the desk and rose from the chair. “You can use this phone.”

  “Thanks.” But he hesitated before approaching the desk, waiting to see which way she went so he could move in the opposite direction.

  His action somehow reassured Jessy that Laredo shared the same wariness of any close contact. Bypassing the wing-backed chairs that faced the desk, Jessy headed toward the door.

  Laredo’s voice stopped her before she reached it. “You better stay while I make this call. If someone walks in and sees me here alone behind the desk, it won’t look right, especially with all the questions Echohawk has asked about me.”

  “I’m only going to the kitchen to get us both some coffee. I’ll be back,” she told him and continued on her way.

  By the time Jessy returned with an insulated carafe of coffee and two cups, Laredo was on the phone with Brewster. She poured a cup for each of them, set his on the desk, and carried hers to one of the wing-backed chairs.

  There was little Jessy could glean from Laredo’s side of the conversation. He did more listening than talking, and the few questions he asked weren’t particularly informative. Twice he jotted something on the paper with Brewster’s phone number.

  When he hung up, an absent frown cut a single furrow of concentration across his forehead. He waited a second or two, then gave her a thought-filled glance.

  “Does the name Ben Parker mean anything to you?” he asked.

  “He has a big ranch in Wyoming. Chase has known him for years,” Jessy replied without hesitation. “In fact,” she recalled, “he was the one who brought Monte to our registered stock sale. Why?”

  “His name came up in my conversation with Brewster.”

  “Did Brewster know Monte?” Given the mention of Ben Parker, Jessy didn’t expect Laredo’s answer to be anything other than an affirmative one.

  As she expected, he nodded. “He knows him—and spoke very highly of him.”

  “Now what?”

  “I think I’ll call Parker. Do you have his number somewhere?”

  “I believe so.”

  Rising, Jessy set her cup aside and stepped to the desk, turned the Rolodex around, flipped through the cards, and removed the one bearing Ben Parker’s address and telephone numbers. She passed it across the desk to Laredo and sat back down. He punched out the numbers and waited through several rings.

  Trey galloped into the den just as she heard Laredo identify himself as a lawyer and rattle off the name of a fictitious firm. Jessy quickly pressed a forefinger to her lips, asking her son for silence. For once Trey didn’t announce his arrival and simply threw himself against her legs.

  “Hi, Mom,” he whispered.

  “Hi.” She rumpled the top of his hair. Catching sight of someone behind the desk, he turned to look. “ ’Redo’s here.”

  “I know,” Jessy replied softly. “He’s making an important call. That’s why we have to be quiet. What did you need?”

  “Can I go to Timmy’s house and play? Beth said I had to ask you.”

  “Where’s Beth?” She glanced toward the hall.

  “Her an’ Laura are colorin’.” He wrinkled up his nose, making a face to show his opinion of that pastime. “That’s boring, Mom.”

  “I know.” Jessy smiled. “You can only sit still so long, can’t you?”

  “Can I go to Timmy’s?”

  “I think we should ask Timmy’s mother whether it’s all right first.”

  “She won’t mind,” Trey hastened to assure her.

  “Just the same, I think we should call and ask. We’ll use the phone in the living room. Come on.”

  Taking him by the hand, Jessy led him into the living room and dialed the number for the Rasmussens who lived in one of the houses at headquarters that were provided for married ranch hands. She stood by while Trey made his request.

  Still holding the receiver, he looked up at her. “She said I could come. I told you it would be okay.”

  Taking the phone, Jessy confirmed the answer and made sure Connie Rasmussen understood that Trey was to come back to The Homestead for lunch. Instead of bolting for the door to race to his playmate’s house, Trey waited until she had hung up.

  “Has ’Redo seen my new horse?” he asked with undisguised eagerness.

  “I don’t believe he has.”

  “Should I take ’Redo to see Joe when he’s finished talkin’?” It was a prospect that clearly appealed to Trey.

  “Maybe another time.”

  “But we could go ridin’. This time he wouldn’t have to share his horse.”

  “I’m afraid he has to go back to work at the feedlot when he’s done with his call.”

  “Me and Joe could help him,” Trey suggested. Jessy frowned in surprise. “I thought you wanted to play with Timmy.”

  “But if ’Redo wanted me to help him, I could do that instead.”

  It didn’t seem to matter to Trey that Laredo was essentially a stranger. He still wanted to spend time with him. She blamed it on the absence of any other male figure in his life. But it still didn’t explain why he had picked Laredo when there were so many other ranch hands, most of whom he had known his entire, albeit short, life.

  “Timmy is expecting you. I think you should go there this morning,” Jessy told him.

  He accepted her decision without argument. “Okay. See ya, Mom.” He took off at a run.

  When Jessy returned to the den, Laredo had vacated the chair behind the desk. He stood next to the coffee tray, the carafe poised above his cup.

  “Did you learn anything from Ben Parker?”

  “Quite a lot, but I don’t know how useful it is.” Finished refilling his cup, Laredo tightened the lid on the carafe and set it back on the serving tray, then hooked a leg over the corner of the desk and reclined against it. “This isn’t the first cattle deal Markham has put together. As near as I can tell, he’s acted as a cattle broker for the last five, maybe six years. Parker invested in several and has nothing but good things to say about Markham’s reliability and honesty. And the banker echoed just about everything Ben Parker said.”

  “That’s a relief,” Jessy declared, once again taking a seat in one of the wing-backed chairs. “It was uncomfortable not knowing whether I should trust Monte.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be any blots on his reputation,” Laredo admitted, showing no pleasure in it. “According to Parker, Markham has investors waiting in line. I can see why, though. It’s a helluva deal he offers them, too.”

  “What do you mean?” Observing his troubled expression, Jessy guessed it came from Laredo’s unwillingness to let go of Monte as a suspect.

  “I mean it’s one of
those sweet deals without any risk to the investor,” Laredo replied. “The purchase price of the cattle is established. Markham guarantees to fatten them for market for a set amount per hundred weight. The cattle are sold on the futures market to be delivered in four or six months, establishing their sale price. Which means the investor knows exactly what his profit will be. If there is any increase in grain costs during that time period, Markham has to absorb it, not the investor. Maybe he’s had to absorb a few too many losses lately.”

  “Even if he had, what would that have to do with Chase?” Jessy reasoned.

  “Maybe he knew Markham was financially in hot water.”

  “I don’t think that’s a motive to kill someone.”

  “I know.” Laredo sighed in frustration. “There’s a reason, though. We just haven’t discovered it yet.”

  “Maybe it isn’t Monte at all.” The minute the statement was out of her mouth, Jessy knew why Laredo was convinced it was. “But the banker in Fort Worth knows him.”

  “Chase must know something specific,” Laredo concluded. “Something that he either didn’t want to discuss over the phone with Brewster or something that he couldn’t, something that required a face-to-face meeting. Whatever Chase knew, it had to be very damning.”

  “He seems to remember more every time I see him.”

  “But nothing so far about why he went to Texas,” Laredo reminded her.

  “He will, in time,” Jessy stated with confidence.

  “Let’s hope time stays on our side,” he declared and downed a swallow of coffee.

  “Were you able to find out anything in Blue Moon about Markham?” she wondered.

  “Not really. He doesn’t seem to do much business there.” Laredo eyed her with quiet speculation. “There’s a lot of talk, though, about the amount of time he’s been spending at the Triple C. Quite a few people are convinced it’s the beginnings of a romance.”