by Janet Dailey
“The infection has spread through her system, then,” Cat murmured more to herself than to Wyatt. She glanced at the swollen area near the mare’s hock, the site of the small cut that had initially seemed so harmless.
Wyatt nodded once, somewhat grimly. “Doc Rivers is coming out to look at her. There isn’t going to be any choice, though. We’ll have to start pumping some heavy doses of antibiotics into her.”
“She could lose the foal.” For the first time Cat thought about the new life growing inside her own body.
“More than likely,” Wyatt agreed.
At that instant, the instinct surfaced to place a protective hand over her stomach. Cat knew then, with total and absolute certainty, that she wanted to have this baby—not because of any personal moral beliefs, but because she wanted it. In the face of that revelation, all the problems and ensuing scandal of her decision seemed suddenly unimportant.
The veterinarian arrived at the same time that the crew returned from moving the horse herd to its winter pasture. Ty waited at the stables to help unload the half dozen stock horses that would be kept at headquarters through the winter. Cat noticed him, but her attention was quickly claimed by the vet, Andy Rivers. The instant he saw the mare, he skipped the usual pleasantries and went directly into the pen. Cat held the mare’s headstall while he examined the horse, plying both Cat and Wyatt Yates with questions. As expected, he administered a large dose of antibiotic, advised them to closely monitor the mare and notify him immediately of any change in her condition, then checked on a calf they were treating for pneumonia.
After he left, Cat tended to the other patients in the hospital. It was nearly suppertime when she finished with the last one. She stopped to look in on the mare, then lingered, postponing the moment when she would have to face her father again.
Jessy joined her, echoing the question Cat had asked earlier, “How is Sandstone?”
“Doc Rivers thinks she’ll pull out of it, but she’ll probably lose her foal. Even if she carries it to term, as high as her fever has been, he thinks it will be stillborn.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” Jessy murmured, detecting something more than simple regret in Cat’s voice. If Ty hadn’t talked to her, she might not have noticed it. “Cat,” she began and saw her stiffen, instantly on guard and defensive.
“Ty told you about me, didn’t he?” she stated, her eyes never leaving the mare.
“Yes.”
Turning, Cat looked but found neither pity nor censure in Jessy’s expression. It lessened some of her tension, but she remained wary. “Let me guess—Dad and Ty are hoping you’ll be able to pump more information from me about the baby’s father.”
“They love you. Did you really expect them to react any other way?” Jessy reasoned gently.
The question surprised a dry laugh from Cat. “Not really, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let them take over and start deciding what’s best for me. It’s my life and they have no business running it.”
“I agree, but you’ll never convince them of that.”
The unshakable truth of Jessy’s statement brought a reluctant smile to Cat’s lips. “Probably not,” she said on a suddenly weary note. “It was all such a crazy mistake, Jessy. I missed Repp. I wanted to recapture the way it felt when we were together. I wanted to feel the way it should have been for us. I thought I could find Repp in another man’s arms. Instead, I lost him. Now, every time I summon Repp’s image, I see gray eyes.”
The pain of regret was in her voice. Jessy reached out and laid a comforting hand across the back of Cat’s glove.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” Cat managed a wan smile and turned from the fence.
“What will you do now?”
“Do?” Cat didn’t follow the question.
“Ty thought you might want to go away for a while—until after the baby is born.”
“I considered it, but it felt too much like cowardice. Besides,” Cat paused and lifted her gaze to the sweep of rolling plains beyond the ranch buildings, a warmth entering her eyes, “I want my child to be born here.”
“It won’t be easy,” Jessy warned. “There will be a lot of talk, some of it ugly. Not so much because you’re having a child out of wedlock, but because you’re a Calder.”
Cat smiled wryly. “Calders have always given people a reason to talk—Ty, my father and my grandfather before that, maybe even Benteen Calder for all I know. I’m just carrying on the tradition.”
Jessy laughed in spite of herself. “And another chapter gets added to the Calder legend.”
“You mean scandal,” Cat corrected and pushed from the fence, turning toward the house. “At least the worst is over now that Dad knows. I still have to tell Uncle Culley, though. The rumors will start flying before long, and I don’t want him to hear about it from someone else.”
“Are you worried what he’ll think?” By mutual consent, they started for The Homestead.
“A little,” Cat admitted. “He’s convinced I can do no wrong.”
“That’s why he’ll understand.” Jessy’s mouth curved in a small smile that warmed her eyes. “Actually, I’m going to enjoy being an aunt almost as much as I’ll enjoy being a mother someday.”
Cat seized on the chance to change the subject. “Have you and Ty talked about how many children you want?”
“Are you kidding? I scared him to death.” Jessy grinned. “I told him I wanted to fill that house with children.”
“Really?” Cat was surprised. For too many years she had watched Jessy on horseback, doing a man’s work and doing it better than most. This was a side to her sister-in-law that she hadn’t considered before. But she found it amazingly easy to picture this tall, slender blonde with a towheaded child on her lap. “You will make a wonderful mother, Jessy.”
“So will you.”
“I hope so.” Suddenly Cat was awed by the responsibility she was assuming. It turned her sober and thoughtful.
NINE
Stalks of grass poked through the thin layer of snow that covered the eastern Montana plains. The cycle of freeze and thaw had hardened the snow’s surface to a glittering crust that sparkled in the morning sunlight as if scattered with millions of mica flakes. The white and gold beauty of the land stood in stark contrast to the dirty slush and mud of the ranch yard, frozen hard as a rock by night and turning greasy slick by day.
The calendars were turned to the first week of December, and already The Homestead wore its holiday finery. Garlands of greenery, strung with twinkle lights, wrapped the pillars of its front porch. More garland draped the front door, drawing attention to the large wreath that hung in the center of it.
Bells on the wreath jingled musically when Cat pushed the front door open and stepped onto the porch. She paused to pull on her gloves, recognizing the sound of her father’s footsteps following her outside, the invigorating crispness of the air sharpening all her senses. Her eyes glowed with it when she lifted her gaze to the high blue sky.
“There’s a chinook coming.” She glanced to the west where the warm, dry wind always came sweeping off the eastern Rockies. “You can almost feel it in the air.”
“We’re due for one,” her father replied, then said for the fourth time in the last hour, “I wish you would let one of the boys drive you into Blue Moon. I don’t like the idea of you going by yourself.”
“Dad, I am perfectly capable of driving myself to the doctor for a simple checkup.” Cat turned a chiding smile at him. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid. And not very pregnant, at that. See?” She smoothed a hand down the front of her coat, showing him that there was almost no bulge to her abdomen. “If I ever get too big to fit behind the wheel, I promise I’ll take you up on your offer, but not until then.”
Truthfully she couldn’t imagine anything that would be more miserable and awkward than being driven by one of the ranch hands. Not one critical word had been said to her, but the sudden silences had proved to b
e more condemning. The silences, the quickly averted glances, the new and cool politeness and the low, murmured exchanges behind her back, no matter how much she had expected it, still hurt.
The fall from grace had been a long one. Cat had been the ranch’s darling; the staff had taken pride in her beauty and intelligence and spoiled her every bit as much as her parents had. On the occasions when she had lost her temper, they had shaken their heads, clicked their tongues, and smiled at what a little firebrand she was. They could have forgiven her anything but this.
In a land where the old codes lingered, respect was important for a woman. For a Calder, it was vital. And Cat had lost theirs. Somehow she had to get it back—if not for her own sake, then for the child yet to be born.
Turning, she raised on her toes and planted a kiss on her father’s cheek. “Stop worrying about me. I’ll be fine.” The air’s cold temperature turned her breath into a frosty vapor. “See you later.”
When she crossed to the porch steps, the red wool muffler slipped off her shoulder. Cat slung it back over and reached for the hand rail.
“Watch where you’re going,” her father warned. “There might be ice on those steps.”
“Yes, Dad.” The wooden planks were desert-dry under her feet. Cat skipped down them and struck out for the Blazer.
“And be careful on those roads,” he called after her. “As muddy as they are, they’ll be slick. I don’t want you ending up in a ditch halfway between here and town.”
“Neither do I.” She reached for the door handle, then paused, catching the distinctive drone of airplane engines. Shielding her eyes with a gloved hand, she scanned the sky and quickly spotted the twin-engine aircraft. She watched it a moment, long enough to realize it was lining up to land at their airstrip. “Are you expecting company, Dad?”
“Phil Silverton is flying one of his associates in. He’s bringing some paperwork that has to be signed right away. You know how lawyers are,” he said with a grin, “they always make even the simplest thing sound like a life-or-death situation.”
“That’s why they charge the big bucks.” Cat grinned back, then glanced at the plane as it turned on its final approach. “If you want, I can pick them up for you. I have time, and it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
“There’s no need,” he said. “Ty’s already at the strip waiting for them.”
“He is?” She looked in the direction of the hangar, suddenly puzzled that neither of them had mentioned any of this at breakfast. Suspicion rose, sparking a wary anger. “Dad, you didn’t hire an investigator to—”
“Do you honestly think I would tell you if I did?” A trace of amusement showed in an expression that was otherwise unreadable.
“No, but…” Uncertainty had her voice trailing off, leaving the thought and the sentence only half-formed.
“Drive careful.” He waved and headed back inside.
Cat threw another glance toward the airstrip, then climbed into the Blazer and set out for town, her thoughts troubled by a man with blue-black hair and gray eyes.
Flames crackled and crawled over the split logs loosely stacked in the study’s massive stone fireplace. Ty stood near it, an elbow resting on the mantelpiece while he idly rubbed a forefinger across the blunt ends of his mustache, his body angled toward the man seated in front of the desk. Dressed in a dark suit and striped tie, Ed Talbot looked more like an accountant than the ex-cop and crack investigator that he was.
“I’m afraid I haven’t been much help.” Ed Talbot flipped his report closed. “Other than the motel bill in Roanoke, no other charges have turned up on your daughter’s credit card. The desk clerk says she checked in around five in the morning and checked out an hour or so later. Her friends claim they last saw her around midnight at Booger Red’s Saloon, but nobody there remembers her.”
“Nobody?” Ty questioned that.
“Nobody,” the investigator repeated, then recalled with a tired smile. “According to half the people who worked there, only two memorable things happened in August—a cocktail waitress got mugged in the parking lot after her shift ended, and a treasury agent spent two nights next door at the Stockyards Hotel.” He paused and looked across the desk at Chase. “I’m sorry, but there was too little to go on and the trail was too cold by the time we got on it. If you have any new information, I’ll be glad to see where it might lead.”
“No, we have nothing new at all.” None of Chase’s inner frustration showed on his strong-lined face. Like Ty’s, it was masked. “You have been very thorough, Mr. Talbot.”
“I’m paid to be.” The investigator recognized the note of dismissal and returned his copy of the report to the briefcase at his feet. “I’m only sorry the results weren’t what you had hoped.”
“We knew it was a long shot going in.” He gestured to Ty. “My son will drive you back to your plane.”
After they left, Chase gathered up the report and carried it to the fireplace. Page by page, he fed it to the flames, letting each one burn to white-hot char before adding the next. When Ty returned, Chase was stirring the blackened and brittle sheets with a poker, crumbling them into bits of ash.
Ty dropped his hat on a chair seat and glanced at the pile of black ash atop the glowing logs. “You burned Talbot’s report.” It was what he would have done. Only a fool waves his hat at a wild bull.
“I didn’t want Cat to accidentally come across it.”
“What now?” Ty leaned against the side of the desk, hooking a leg over the corner of it.
“Now”—Chase returned the poker to its stand—“we have to accept the fact that we may never know the identity of her baby’s father.”
“As usual, Cat has gotten her way in this,” Ty muttered, an irritation sifting through his nerves.
“She’s going to have a rough time of it, Ty. There isn’t much we can do about that,” Chase stated. “But when the baby comes, others will follow our lead. The child will be a Calder. A Calder born and bred, and I want him—or her—accorded the respect of one.”
Love was a word that didn’t come easily to Chase Calder’s lips. Ty had learned that about his father and understood that he was expecting him to treat the child with more affection and pride than might be customary under ordinary circumstances.
“The baby will give me a chance to hone my fathering skills for the time when Jessy and I have our own family.” A smile gentled his rawboned features.
“You’ll be a good father-figure to him. A child needs one,” Chase added, his glance straying to the fire and the ashen remains of the investigator’s report.
Every single parking place within a block of the Blue Moon Clinic was already taken by the time Cat arrived. She wasn’t surprised. Dr. Daniel Brown came to the clinic only once a week, and his day was always crammed with patients to be seen. Cat parked across the street from the sheriff’s office and walked the block and a half to the one-story building that housed the clinic.
The December-brisk air had rosed her cheeks, giving her a healthy glow as she entered the small anteroom that doubled as a reception area and waiting room. Chairs lined three walls, nearly every one of them occupied. Heads lifted automatically to glance at the new arrival, then froze to regard her with narrow-eyed speculation.
Ignoring the not-so-subtle elbow nudging that went on, Cat turned to the wall-mounted coat rack, pulled off her gloves and the red knit cap on her head and stuffed them all in the pockets of her black wool coat, then unwrapped the red muffler from around her neck, shaking her hair loose, and shrugged out of her coat. Shoving the scarf in a sleeve, she hung the coat on a vacant hook and crossed to the reception counter, tensely conscious of the many eyes inspecting the bulky cable knit sweater she wore in hopes of determining how much was sweater and how much was baby.
The strong scent of cinnamon wafted from the crystal bowl of dried flower petals and seeds on the counter, but no amount of potpourri could mask completely the clinic’s antiseptic odors. “Good morning, Sa
ra,” Cat greeted the nurse on the other side of the counter, Sara Battles, a gray-haired widow with a sharp nose and a life-soured mouth.
The woman raked her with a disapproving glance and shoved a clipboard toward her. “Sign in,” she said and proceeded to flip through a pile of folders.
Cat picked up the pen and added her name to the list, noticing five signatures ahead of hers that hadn’t been crossed off yet. “How long do you think it will be?”
“We’ll get to you when we get to you, Miss Calder, and not before.” The woman was by nature a rude and snippish sort. Today she seemed to take an inordinate pleasure in informing Cat of that fact.
More sensitive than usual to such remarks, Cat took instant offense. “I don’t recall asking you to take me ahead of anyone else, Mrs. Battles,” she replied.
“It wouldn’t do you any good if you did.” Sara Battles snatched a folder from the pile and bustled off toward the examination rooms.
Cat turned, catching a few smugly amused looks before they were smoothed away. Two people nodded to her, but the rest ignored her. With her temper still simmering just below the surface, she walked over to the low table in the middle of the room. A spindly, artificial Christmas tree stood atop, strung with bubble lights, beaded garland, tinsel and a scattering of red and gold plastic balls. Ragged and well-thumbed magazines were strewn around the base of it like the discarded wrappings of presents on Christmas morning. Cat picked up one of the magazines less tattered than the others and sought out a chair along the wall, smiling a stiff acknowledgment to her seatmate, then doggedly leafed through the year-old periodical.
During the interminable wait for her name to be called, the silence in the waiting room was loud; any conversing that took place was done in whispers.
The connecting door between the waiting area and the series of examination rooms swung open. The gray-haired nurse stepped out to announce in a sharply ringing voice, “We are ready for you now, Miss Calder.”
