by Janet Dailey
When she placed the receiver back on its cradle, Trey pushed away from the window. “He’s carrying something real big, Mom,” he declared with big-eyed excitement.
“Maybe we should go see what it is.”
Needing no second urging, Trey galloped ahead of her to the entry hall. Jessy arrived as Monte walked in, toting a mammoth picnic hamper.
Trey stared at it. “Whatcha got in there?”
“As I understand,” he addressed his reply to Trey, but his sparkling glance kept sliding to Jessy, “your mother has yet to hire any kitchen help. So I thought I might treat you all to a special feast my cook prepared specially for you. Do you think I could persuade you to join me for a picnic supper?”
“Supper.” At last Trey heard a word that he understood. “Whatcha gonna have?”
“Fried chicken, potato salad, corn, a relish tray, and for dessert, I believe the cook said he included a chocolate cake.”
“Yum!” Trey proclaimed.
Monte laughed. “Is that a ‘yes’?” he asked Jessy.
“Avery definite one,” she replied, aware that her son’s reaction had left no room for refusal. She wondered if Monte had counted on that, then realized he couldn’t have known Trey would be on hand when he issued the invitation.
“I understand there is a picnic area down along the river,” he began.
“Yeah, it’s down where we go swimmin’. Is that where we gonna eat?” Trey asked, enthused by the idea.
“That was my plan, yes,” Monte told him, then said to Jessy, “In my opinion, a leisurely meal is best enjoyed far from the reach of telephones and the pressures of business. As beautiful as this home is, it has both.”
She wasn’t given a chance to reply as Trey pulled at her hand. “Let’s go, Mom. I’m hungry.”
“We need to get your sister first.”
“Do we have to?”
“Yes, we do. Why don’t you take Mr. Markham to the river while I get Laura.”
“Okay.” Quick to agree, Trey motioned to Monte. “Come on.”
As Jessy expected, the prospect of eating outside didn’t appeal to Laura. But she changed her mind when they reached the river and she saw the snow-white cloth that covered the picnic table near the gazebo. On top of it, china plates gleamed, reflecting the sparkle from the crystal tumblers. When Monte set out a half dozen votive candles, Laura was completely enthralled.
Trey’s mind ran along much more practical lines. “Why’d ya bring them? It won’t be dark for a long time.”
“I was told they would help keep the mosquitoes away.” Monte began lighting the votives one by one.
“They’ll bite ya anyway,” Trey declared and made like a mosquito, buzzing around Laura and reaching out to sneak little pinches.
As far as Jessy was concerned, the children were a godsend. For the first time she found herself unable to relax in Monte’s company. But the children’s lively presence eliminated any awkward lulls in the conversation.
She watched constantly for any change in Monte’s attitude toward her but he seemed exactly the same—friendly, considerate, and totally undemanding.
All too soon, Trey excused himself from the table and went off to look for frogs. Without her brother to torment her, Laura’s attention shifted to her doll. Suddenly it was left to Jessy to keep the conversation going. And she had never been adept at social chitchat.
Fortunately Monte took the lead. “Your children are a joy.”
“You haven’t seen them at their worst.”
“I suppose I haven’t,” he agreed. “Still, being around them makes me realize how much I have missed by not having a family of my own.”
Jessy recalled Laredo’s insinuations that Markham was interested in her. “Coming from a bachelor, it sounds like it’s time you started looking for a wife,” she remarked.
“That is much easier said than done,” Monte declared, turning thoughtful. “It is amazing how much we change as we grow older. When I was younger, a woman’s looks—the physical attraction aspect—counted for a great deal. Now I find it’s more important to actually like her—to enjoy her company. I would much rather have the warmth of that relationship than the fire of some grand passion. Yet I have discovered it is easier to find someone you love than it is to find someone you like.” A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. “I expect I sound very dull.”
“Not at all.” But Jessy couldn’t help thinking that no more than a couple weeks ago she would have said that it described their relationship perfectly. She had liked being with him. More importantly, he had been good with the children, showing unbounded patience with their endless questions. Now she wondered if that patience had been sincere or merely an attempt to ingratiate himself.
“You would be surprised by the number of women who have their feelings hurt by such talk. But you are different, Jessy.” He gave her a long, deep look that was meant to say so much more than words could.
She suddenly felt chilled. “No, I’m not,” Jessy replied, determined to deflect his attention. “You just haven’t met the right woman. I’ll see what I can do to change that. Here,”—she stood up and began gathering the dishes—“I’ll help you put all this away.”
“There’s no rush, surely,” Monte said in mild protest.
“I wish there weren’t, but I have some phone calls to make. Right before you came, I talked to Cat. She’s worried that she hasn’t seen her uncle in nearly two days.”
“Is that unusual?”
“A little. Enough that Cat’s worried. I promised I would alert everyone on the Triple C to watch for him. Now I’ve passed the word to you, too.”
“Actually I did see O’Rourke. Yesterday morning, it was.”
“Where?” Jessy instantly gave him her full attention.
“In Blue Moon. I stopped at Fedderson’s for some petrol and he was there. He seemed fine,” Monte added. “Although with a gentlemen of his years, I expect health is always an issue.”
“Yes, but Culley is a tough old guy.” Jessy went back to scraping any remaining bits of food from the plates into an empty container. “People have tried to kill him off before, and he survived.”
Monte reacted with surprise. “You surely don’t suspect there is foul play involved in his disappearance, do you? I assumed you thought he might have had a heart attack. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt a harmless old man like that.”
“Neither do I. Actually it never crossed my mind that someone would,” she admitted. “I suppose I mentioned it simply to point out his resilience.”
“Sorry, I seemed to have placed a literal interpretation on your previous remark.” Monte set the hamper out. “I should think it’s much more likely that he had a heart attack or took a fall.”
“Probably. But I can’t imagine that old brown horse he rides ever trying to throw him.”
“As rough as some of this country is, it may have been the horse that took the fall and pitched him. Or his horse may have gone lame, and that is the cause for his delay in returning home.”
“It’s possible,” Jessy agreed.
A breeze sprang up, rustling through the leaves of the cottonwoods and whipping at the ends of the tablecloth. A corner flipped dangerously close to one of the votive candles.
When Jessy leaned over to blow it out, Laura said, “Put the candle by me so I can see my dolly better.”
Jessy suddenly noticed the premature darkness that had nothing to do with the cool shade of trees. To the west, black clouds had blocked out the setting sun. From within them came flashes of lightning. She studied the clouds for a moment, watching them build and expand.
“We have a storm coming. And it’s traveling fast by the looks of it.” When she turned back to the picnic table, she caught sight of Laredo’s pickup parked by the barn. In that instant she knew he was somewhere close by, watching, but she didn’t attempt to locate him.
Chapter Seventeen
Despite the dusty film on the barn window’s gl
ass, Laredo had a good view of the picnic site by the river. Taking no chances that he might be seen, he stood to one side of the frame and watched the family-like scene.
He couldn’t honestly say that he was there because he anticipated Markham would make some move against Jessy. While there was a remote possibility of it, he told himself that he merely wanted to learn what Markham had to say. But the twistings of resentment and envy he felt inside seemed to make a mockery of that idea. It did no good to remind himself he had no claim on Jessy. The building tension within him remained rough and raw.
There was a slight lessening of it when he observed them stowing the picnic items back in the hamper. Laredo stayed by the window until he was certain they were bound for The Homestead. Then he made his way out of the barn to his truck. He raised the hood and pretended to tinker with the motor, all the while watching to see if Markham went inside. But Jessy said her good-byes on the steps, surrounded by the twins.
The breeze stiffened, bringing the smell of rain to him. A distant rumble of thunder was lost in the growl of the Range Rover’s powerful engine turning over. Laredo left the pickup’s hood up until Markham drove out on the ranch lane. He lowered the hood, double-checked the latch, and took a step toward The Homestead. But then he thought better of it. He wanted to talk to Jessy alone, without any interruptions from the twins, which meant waiting until they were in bed.
Briefly Laredo considered making the trip to the line shack and returning later in the evening. But if he did that, he would be driving into the teeth of the approaching storm. Common sense told him to wait until after the storm had passed.
Instead he drove to the cookshack, where evening meals were provided for unmarried ranch hands. The first fat raindrops plopped on his windshield as he pulled up to the building.
Halfway through Jessy’s third reading of Trey’s favorite bedtime story, she stole a glance at her son. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open, drawing in slow, even breaths. A sharp clap of thunder rattled windowpanes. Trey shifted slightly and snuggled deeper under the covers.
Satisfied that he was asleep, Jessy closed the book and laid it on the nightstand. After tucking the blanket around him and making a final check on Laura, she tiptoed from the room. The steady drum of the rain masked any sound she made.
As she descended the wide oak staircase, the brilliance of a lightning flash reached into the house. Jessy couldn’t help wondering if Culley was out there somewhere in the storm. On the off chance he might have shown up at the Circle Six, Jessy crossed the living room and picked up the phone to call Cat.
“No. She would have let me know,” she murmured absently to herself and replaced the receiver. A phone call now would only add to Cat’s concern.
Jessy headed for the kitchen. Earlier in the evening, Trey had informed her that they were out of cookies, something Sally had never allowed to happen. Jessy knew that a single phone call to her mother would correct the deficiency. But stirring up a batch of cookies appealed to her, much more than the paperwork that waited for her in the den.
She pushed through the door into the kitchen and froze at the sight of the back door opening. The breath of alarm she had caught back sailed out of her when Laredo stepped inside, drenched to the skin, water pouring from the rolled brim of his hat.
“That door was locked,” Jessy remembered. “How did you get in?”
“It’s an old lock. Those kind are easily opened.” He took off his hat and gave himself a shake. “If you want to make it hard for somebody to break in, you need to install a dead bolt.”
“I will.” But it was the sight of his shirt plastered against his muscled torso that sent Jessy to the laundry basket. She came back with a clean towel and pushed it into his hands with the admonition, “You’re soaked.”
“It’s raining,” Laredo replied in a wry statement of the obvious.
“No kidding.”
“I thought you might not have noticed,” Laredo mocked, a mischievous sparkle in his blue eyes.
It was a look that warmed her. “I noticed earlier that your pickup was gone. I thought you had gone to the Boar’s Nest.”
“I went over to the cookshack for supper.” He used the towel to absorb the excess moisture, slowing down the drips. “I wanted to give you time to put the twins to bed before I stopped to find out what Markham had to say.”
“He didn’t really have anything to say—at least nothing important.” She crossed to the sink. “I’ll put on some coffee.”
“You don’t have anything stronger, do you?”
Jessy hesitated. “There’s whiskey in the den.”
But one look at the slim, woman’s shape of her warned Laredo that whiskey wasn’t a wise choice, not when there were too many raw needs tumbling inside him.
“Coffee is good enough,” he told her. “So Markham only came over to take you on a picnic?”
“He didn’t ask any questions, if that’s what you’re wondering.” She scooped fresh grounds into the coffeemaker’s basket. “He did mention that he saw O’Rourke in town yesterday morning, but that’s about it.”
But O’Rourke was the least of Laredo’s interests. “Have you talked to Cat again?”
“No. I thought about calling to let her know Monte had seen Culley. But there didn’t seem much point since it was yesterday he saw him. Why?”
“I thought she might have said something more about the missing note.” A troubled frown dug a line between his sandy eyebrows as Laredo continued to absently move the towel over his wet clothes. “Who else knows of the note’s existence?” he wondered aloud.
“Tara, of course. And I imagine Cat showed it to Logan, but that’s”—Jessy stopped, recalling with a touch of guilt—“Monte knows about it.”
“Markham!” Laredo exploded. “How the hell did he find out about it?”
“I told him.”
“You what? Dammit, Jessy, you were supposed to watch what you said around him.” His voice was tight and ominously low.
“For your information, I told him about the note before you warned me to be careful of what I said,” she fired back just as hotly. “Monte came into the den shortly after I had given it to Cat. When he asked me about it, I told him exactly what I had said to Cat. It isn’t like the note was something I actually found. Chase made it all up for Cat’s benefit.”
“But Markham didn’t know that!” Laredo was in her face, temper blazing.
“Of course not! No one did, except us. At the time, we didn’t have any more than a suspicion against him, with absolutely nothing to back it up!”
Laredo was untouched by her argument. “I wish to God I had never told you Chase was alive. I had the ridiculous idea you knew how to keep your mouth shut.” He spun away from her, muttering, “God only knows what else you’ve blabbed.”
He hurled the towel aside and grabbed his hat off the counter on the way to the door. It took Jessy a full second to realize he actually intended to leave. Furious, she went after him and jerked the door out of his hand when he tried to close it behind him.
“I never told anybody anything,” she stated, her voice flat and hard.
Laredo paused on the steps, standing sideways to look back at her, the rain pelting him. “Yeah, just like you didn’t say anything to Markham,” he mocked.
“What difference does that make?” She stood in the doorway, indifferent to the wind-driven drops that reached her. “I didn’t tell him anything he couldn’t have found out by asking Cat.”
“But he wouldn’t have asked Cat if you had made up some story to throw him off the track. You could have told him that note was anything, and he would have believed you. Stop being so damned proud, and admit it, Jessy: you blew it, big time!” Laredo swung away and walked down the last two steps.
Jessy hesitated and glanced at the curtain of rain, then ran down the steps after him. She caught him by the arm and turned him back to face her.
“Explain what you meant. How did I blow it?” she demand
ed.
He stared at her for a long second, moisture glistening on the tautly ridged line of his jaw. “When Markham found out about that note, he must have started worrying that Chase might have written down whatever it was he knew about him. Five will get you ten that Markham took that note. I don’t know how or when, but it doesn’t matter. For all we know Chase could have unknowingly scribbled something damning in it. Even if he didn’t, I’m betting Markham is wondering if there are any more lying around. And he knows that if there are, you would be the one who would know about them.”
“But there isn’t,” Jessy protested. “I looked and couldn’t find anything. Oh my God.” She bowed her head with the sudden stirring of a memory.
“What!” Laredo grabbed her arms, giving her a stiffening shake.
“Before the funeral, someone sat with the coffin around the clock. Monte took one of the predawn shifts. He would have been in the den by himself for two or three hours. He could have easily gone through the desk and destroyed anything damning.” The wetness of the rain lost any meaning in the face of this new realization.
Laredo took her thought a step further. “Then you produce a note that Markham knows he never saw in the desk.” His fingers tightened their grip on her arms. “Are you certain he hasn’t asked . . . No, he wouldn’t do that,” he said, answering his own question. “He wouldn’t want you to start wondering why he wanted to know where Chase kept his personal papers. Markham is too smart for that. I have a feeling that you are going to see a whole lot more of him from now on, Jessy,” he warned.
“Why?”
“For starters, he’ll be wondering if there are more notes like the one you supposedly found. And he’ll be watching you, looking for any change in your attitude toward him. Hell, he may not do that at all. He may have already decided you are too big a risk.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jessy brought her arms up to break free of his hold.
“This isn’t a man who takes chances.” Thunder rolled under Laredo’s words. “Look at how quickly he acted to get Chase out of the picture. He didn’t give any warning. If he had, Chase would have told you what he knew—or suspected.” His fingers dug into her flesh. “From now on, you stick close to the house, Jessy.”
