Calder Storm

by Janet Dailey

“Thanks,” Sloan murmured absently and set the camera case on a chair cushion, then slipped off her cap and shook loose her hair. “Your mother just told me that she was getting ready to organize a search party to look for me. I never realized everybody was so concerned when I didn’t show up at dinner time.”

  “We’ve had experience with people getting lost before.”

  She gave him a look of mild reproof. “I wasn’t lost, Trey. I just took a wrong turn.”

  He turned from the underwear drawer, eyeing her with cool challenge. “You not only didn’t know where you were going, but you didn’t know where you were. If that isn’t lost, what do you call it?”

  Stung by the sharp bite of his voice, Sloan glared at him in annoyance. “That isn’t true. I knew where I was going. Cat gave me directions. And I can assure you I would have made my way back if that tire hadn’t gone flat.”

  “That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it?” Temper claimed him, rooting him to the spot. “You don’t give a damn about who might have been worrying about you.”

  “Of course I do. How can you say that?” Sloan stiffened in indignation.

  “Actions speak louder than words. I noticed you managed to pack all your camera equipment.” He flung a hand in the direction of the case. “Yet you forgot to take your phone.”

  “You make it sound deliberate. I told you it was an oversight. Why are you so angry?” she demanded in frustration, upset and confused by his attack.

  “Why?” The word exploded from him, and Trey had to make a conscious effort to rein in his anger. But it lay tight in his voice. “It couldn’t be because you took off—with no good idea of where you were going—and ended up in the wrong place. And what do you do? You go driving across broken country—by yourself—without a soul knowing where you are. You ended up with only a flat tire, but you could just as easily have rolled the truck and been knocked unconscious or worse. And God only knows where-all you went with that camera. You could have been snakebit or stepped in a prairie-dog hole and broken a leg. Do you have any idea how long it might have taken us to find you?”

  “But it didn’t. I’m fine. So stop yelling at me!” Her voice broke on the last as tears blurred her vision. Turning away, she hurriedly wiped them from her eyes, furious with herself for crying. She tilted her head back, opening her eyes wide in an attempt to keep the tears from reforming and muttered in a spate of self-pity, “Why did I ever think I wanted to have your baby?”

  At first she didn’t hear the almost soundless tread of his bare feet. By the time Sloan sensed his presence, Trey was already behind her, his fingers encircling her upper arm and squaring her around to face him.

  “What did you just say?” His gaze bored into her, a dark, doubting scowl on his face.

  Struggling to control her emotions, Sloan pushed the words out, almost with defiance. “I said I’m pregnant.”

  “You’re…” He never finished it. The scowl lines were smoothed away, as a look of stunned wonder claimed his hard features. “Are you—?” he hesitated and started again, “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. It’s my body.” Anger wasn’t something she could let go of as easily as he had.

  “A baby.” A smile broke across his face, softening all its hard angles. A breath later, he let out an exultant whoop and caught Sloan under her arms, lifting her high in the air and swinging her in a half-circle.

  Sloan clutched at his shoulders for balance. “Trey Calder, you put me down.” But his joy was much too contagious for her to remain angry with him any longer.

  He let her toes touch the floor but kept an arm firmly around her, holding her close while he cupped a hand to her face, a look of inexpressible tenderness and pride in his eyes. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sorry.” His thumb wiped away the wet track of a tear on her cheek. “A baby. You and me.” That grin reappeared. “How long have you known?”

  “I’ve suspected it for close to a couple weeks,” Sloan admitted, feeling a bit smug and pleased with herself. “But I only found out for sure this morning.”

  “You’ve already been to a doctor,” he said with some surprise. “When?”

  “I haven’t seen one yet, but…I went to the dispensary this morning and got one of those test kits. Liz assured me they were ninety-percent accurate.”

  Holding her like this, seeing her sun-streaked hair gleaming in the room’s light and her lips lying softly together, Trey felt all his acute hungers revive. The look of her, the feel of her churned the depths of his emotions. The heat of something rash burned him. Trey worked to hold it in check as he nuzzled the smoothness of her cheek.

  “I’ll bet the whole ranch knows by now,” he murmured.

  “Only that I purchased a kit,” Sloan reminded him. “We’re the only ones who know the result. No one else.”

  He drew back an inch, his gaze making a caressing study of her face. “Did I mention that I love you?”

  She spread her hands over his bare chest, thrilling to the feel of its muscled flesh and a little stunned that she felt so thoroughly aroused. “Didn’t you just tell me a minute ago that action speaks louder?”

  He went still for a split second, a glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  With Eve’s wisdom, Sloan laughed. “You won’t.”

  Already growing hard for her, Trey needed no more encouragement. Once again he scooped her up and carried her to the bed. Working together between hungry kisses, they managed to remove her clothes and discard his towel.

  As one, they stretched out on the bed, their bodies eagerly intertwining. He kissed her, moving his mouth over her lips and parting them with the hard insistence of his tongue. His hand took the weight of a full breast, shaping itself to its plumpness. He bent his head to taste its erect nipple.

  Her hands pressed and urged him as her body writhed in need, eager to satisfy and be satisfied. She was warm and giving, hot and taking, all at the same time. When he finally mounted her, her nails raked his back—and a gasp of pleasure came from her throat

  “Love me, Trey,” she demanded.

  He shuddered, and his flesh’s need became entangled with his soul’s need. It was a combination that wrought grace and perfection out of something that was otherwise bestial. They were joined, two parts alternately thrusting together until the pressure left them and they lay in a tangle of contentment.

  Trey moved his hand onto the flatness of her stomach where the life they had created now lived. “It’s going to be a boy,” he stated.

  “You don’t know that,” Sloan chided at the certainty in his voice.

  “Yes, I do. It’s a Calder tradition,” he informed her. “The firstborn is always a son.”

  Sloan released a sigh of mock regret. “I guess all that will have to change when our little girl is born.”

  “Why do you always have to be so contrary?” Trey eyed her with amusement.

  “It’s a woman’s right. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?” Her smile teased him.

  The remark had the ring of something his sister would say, but Trey chose not to dwell on that. “One thing’s for sure, we aren’t going to name the little guy after me when he’s born. He’s likely to get tagged with some nickname like Four-Bits or Quatro.”

  “I don’t know. I kinda like Chase for a girl’s name.” Sloan worked to keep a straight face, but the shock and dismay that leapt into Trey’s expression made her laugh “Just kidding.”

  “I should hope so,” he murmured. “I don’t think it would sit too well with Granddad to have a girl named after him.”

  “Girl or boy, I think the poor thing is starving. I know I am.” Sloan rolled away from him to the edge of the bed, then paused and looked back at him. “It just hit me. Do you realize how ironic it is? We no more than get all the work done in here and now we have to start thinking about a nursery.”

  “That’s easy. We’ll just set up a crib right here in our bedroom,” Trey re
plied.

  “It takes a bit more than a crib, Papa.” Sloan informed him, then made her way into the bathroom.

  Trey remained on the bed, hands clasped behind his head while he gazed at the ceiling, smiling as that word “Papa” played around in his mind.

  Chapter Fifteen

  An August wind, laden with the last of summer’s heat, swept across the plains, word of the new Calder bride being with child traveled almost as fast. In less than three days, the news had reached every corner of the Triple C and gone beyond its boundary fences to Blue Moon.

  An hour after he confirmed the rumor, Donovan was on the telephone to his boss. “Just thought you’d want to know,” he began with no preamble, “you’ll soon have another Calder to deal with.”

  “What do you mean—another Calder?” Rutledge demanded. “Is somebody getting married? Jessy? The daughter?”

  “No.” Donovan smiled. “The new bride’s expecting a child.”

  “A child.” His tone changed.” Are you sure about this?”

  “I got it from three different sources. The last one claimed she’d been to a doctor and—as the old saying goes—the poor rabbit died.”

  “And when is this new Calder due to arrive?”

  “Late February, early March is what I’m hearing.”

  “I see. By the way, it seems likely that your Laredo Smith cowboy is a nephew. Hattie Ludlow’s first husband came from a large family—nine children, I believe it was. One of his sisters married a man named Smith. Of their six children, five are boys. We haven’t tracked them all down yet. I’m not sure it’s necessary, since he appears to be who he says he is.”

  “That’s up to you. I was just giving you my read on the man.”

  “Keep me posted. On everything. I don’t care how trivial the information sounds to you,” Rutledge stated and abruptly hung up. His hand remained on the receiver a moment longer as the beginnings of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “A baby,” he murmured, a scheming light in his dark eyes.

  The moment of reflection was a brief one. Briskly, he pulled his hand from the phone and hit the controls on the armrest, pivoting the wheelchair away from the desk and sending it rolling away.

  “Harold!” he barked the summoning call.

  Almost immediately the burly manservant and nurse appeared in the study’s doorway. “I’m right here, sir.”

  “Get me a cigar and a glass of bourbon.”

  Bennett hesitated a second, surprised by the request for a cigar, but not so surprised that he didn’t know the order in which Rutledge wanted the two items. He delivered the drink first, then returned with the humidor, opening the lid to allow Rutledge to select his own. Using the tool designed for its specific purpose, Bennett then snipped off the end of the cigar, waited while Rutledge dipped it in the liquor, and held the lighter the proper distance from the tip.

  Taking a chance that he wasn’t misreading the supremely pleased look on Rutledge’s face, he indulged his own curiosity. “Something to celebrate, sir?”

  “Indeed.” The word rumbled from Rutledge like a lion’s purr. “It appears there will be a great-grandchild in the Calder house come spring.”

  Startled, Bennett stared. “You mean—”

  “Yes, the new bride is with child.” A craftiness was in his employer’s smile. “That could open up a whole new avenue.”

  No more was offered than that. In silence, Rutledge puffed on his cigar, losing himself in thought.

  Two days into fall roundup, the rain came. In some sections of the Triple C, it fell in a steady, soaking drizzle. Over the rest, it came down in sheets. Soil that had been little more than layers of dry powder quickly turned into a tawny-yellow gumbo that made treacherous footing for both man and beast.

  Downpour or drizzle, no halt was called to the roundup. As long as no deadly lightning came out of the clouds, work would continue, though at a pace dictated by the inclement weather. There were no breakneck pursuits after escaping steers, no fancy rollbacks or quick cuts, not in that mud-slick terrain.

  During those times when the rain fell in buckets, visibility was reduced to mere yards, forcing some areas to be worked two and three times in an attempt to ensure that no cattle were missed. And there was no slicker made that could keep a cowboy dry. Water always managed to seep inside and add its wetness to the bone-chilling damp air.

  Yet the need for the life-giving rain had been so great that few grumbled about it—least of all Jessy. She was present because it was an unwritten rule on the Triple C that no culling of the herd would take place without the ranch boss there. Riders, working in pairs, quietly walked their horses into the gathered herd and went about the business of separating the steers destined for market. Any cow deemed too old or too weak to survive the winter was also cut out of the herd. It was hard, slow work for both horse and rider.

  Partnered with Laredo, Jessy pointed her horse’s nose at a young steer. The wild-eyed animal snorted in alarm and swung in the opposite direction, only to be confronted by the sight of Laredo and his horse. It made an attempt to bolt past Jessy, but her horse jumped into its path, stumbled slightly, and righted itself. Laredo was there to fill the momentary void, blocking the animal’s escape. In seconds they had the steer trotting to join the gather.

  Jessy followed, but only partway, pulling up when she felt an unevenness in her horse’s stride. She reined him toward the makeshift camp located some distance beyond the pocket of ground where the herd was gathered. Having spotted Trey sitting astride a claybank stallion at the lip of the rise, she angled in his direction. His hat was pulled low, and the collar of his slicker was turned up, but she recognized him instantly just the same.

  “It feels like my horse lost a shoe,” she said when she was almost to him. “I’ll have to switch to another.”

  “Grab a cup of coffee while you’re there. I’ll take over.” Lending action to his statement, he nudged his horse forward, moving past her toward the waiting herd.

  That moment stayed with her all the way to camp. Taking Trey’s advice, Jessy left her horse at the picket line where the extra horses were tied and trekked across the muddy ground to the motorized chuck wagon. A heavy tarp, supported by upright poles, offered some shelter from the falling rain. Jessy helped herself to coffee from the never empty pot and wandered over to the fifty-five-gallon drum and the small fire that blazed inside it.

  Behind her came the stomping sound of someone trying to dislodge clumps of mud from his boots. Jessy looked back to see Laredo duck his head under the tarp and head for the coffeepot. A mug of steaming coffee in his gloved hand, he joined her at the barrel, his hat pushed to the back of his head.

  “Horse threw a shoe, did it?” he challenged. “You could have told me. One minute you’re there, and the next you’re gone. I thought the rain had swallowed you up. Good thing Trey told me where I could find you or I’d have been searching the puddles.”

  “Right,” she said in a voice dry with disbelief, but the mention of her son switched the direction of her thoughts. “Do you know I didn’t have to tell Trey to take over? He told me. I don’t know if it’s getting married or having a baby on the way that’s done it, but he seems to have matured a lot over the summer.”

  “You always hear, blood tells,” Laredo remarked idly. “Taking the lead comes natural to him, I’ve noticed.”

  “You must have seen it more than I have.”

  “Only because you’re stuck too much in that office.” An impish gleam lit his eyes. “Just look at what you’ve been missing—mud up to your eyeballs, rain pouring down your neck, and your clothes soaked to the skin.”

  “I’ll take this over choking dust and heat any day, and you know—” Distracted by a set of headlight beams slashing through the rain curtain, Jessy never finished the sentence. “Who could that be?”

  Five feet from the corner upright of the tarpaulin roof, the ranch pickup rolled to a stop and the headlights and engine were switched off. A figure in a hood
ed slicker emerged from the cab and hurried, head down, to the tarp’s shelter at a running walk. The head came up, and a hand pushed the hood partway back to reveal Sloan’s smiling face.

  “Hi, Jessy, Laredo.” She crossed to them and cupped her wet hands over the barrel to absorb some of the fire’s warmth. “It is pouring. There’s two inches in the rain gauge at The Homestead, but I’ll bet more than that fell out here.”

  Her easy chatter eliminated Jessy’s initial concern that some problem had come up at headquarters. If there was any, she sensed that Sloan was unaware of it.

  “With all this rain, I know you aren’t here to get your first look at a roundup.” Jessy smiled. “So I’m guessing you’re here to tell Trey about your doctor’s appointment this morning.”

  Sloan’s quick laugh was an admission of sorts. “I knew he’d be late coming home tonight, and I didn’t want to wait. Cat said he’d probably be grabbing a cup of coffee sometime around the middle of the afternoon, so I thought I’d talk to him then.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Laredo began, “he’s due for a break about now. I’ll go get him.”

  “You don’t have to,” she rushed.

  “That’s all right. It’s time we headed back out anyway.” He downed a final drink of his coffee and dumped the remainder on the ground.

  “He’s right,” Jessy agreed. “We’ve had our break.”

  Sloan watched them disappearing into the rain and waited in eager anticipation for that first glimpse of Trey. A good five minutes passed before she spied his familiar shape approaching the cook shack on foot.

  The minute he stepped beneath the tarp’s roof, his hands came up to catch hold of her upper arms while his eyes drank in the sight of her upturned face. The radiance of her smile reached out to him and gripped his throat with an aching tightness. Not for the first time, Trey was reminded of the old claim that pregnancy made a woman seem more beautiful and more desirable. And the soft drape of her raincoat’s hood only seemed to enhance the Madonna-like quality she possessed.