“Do we have to go over this again? Walt’s life has always been about the ranch,” Josh murmured. “But he can’t run it alone or do a fraction of the work needed to keep the place afloat. He just won’t accept it.”
“Now we’re back to whether you run the ranch or not.”
“Everything is connected.”
“No doubt.”
The song ended, with Josh ensuring they were on the opposite side of the barn from where his grandfather was sitting.
They muttered polite, insincere platitudes, and Tara walked away, the soft fabric of her dress shifting and flowing around her figure.
Josh sighed, wondering if his nephew wanted to play another softball game. That was one option. The other was running to his house for a cold shower.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A FEW DAYS AFTER the Boxing N party, Tara blinked at the yellowed sheaf of papers she’d unearthed from an old bureau in the back room of the office. She’d planned to put it with the rest of the historical records for future review, but something had caught her attention—the word sapphires.
The pages were loose, but had once been part of an ancient record book. They’d fallen behind one of the drawers and must have gone unnoticed for an undetermined length of time.
Sapphires found on south ridge.
Following the notation was a series of numbers and letters that didn’t mean anything to Tara but were probably intended as directions or coordinates.
Weeks earlier she’d searched the internet for sapphires and Montana. Sapphires had been found in Montana during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The various articles were full of descriptions about alluvial deposits and other things that didn’t mean much to her.
Trembling with excitement, Tara typed everything from the yellowed pages into the computer and emailed it to the address she’d set up for Walt. Next she scanned the pages and printed additional copies. That way she could be sure the information would be preserved.
Walt was at another doctor’s appointment, or she would have gone to tell him immediately.
As she returned to her other work, she couldn’t stop thinking about all the questions that had occupied her since she’d first learned there could be sapphires on the Boxing N. Could those be the mysterious source of cash that Walt had mentioned? Yet the Nelsons had arrived in Montana before sapphires had been found in the state.
And would the average rancher of the 1800s have recognized a raw sapphire if he found one? The pictures on the internet didn’t look impressive, and it would be hard to determine gemstone quality without proper training.
With the self-discipline she’d learned over the years, Tara forced herself to focus on her work and was startled when Walt came through the door a short while later.
“Walt,” she exclaimed, excitement flooding back, “look at what I found today.”
She picked up the pages inside their protective sleeves and brought them to him.
Walt sat reading and rereading for several minutes. “Holy cow,” he murmured. “You found it. My great-grandfather claimed he’d found sapphires, but he was an old man by then and nobody believed him. Granddad said his father had written it all down, but he thought the records were lost when the old homestead burned.”
“Instead they were stuffed behind the bottom drawer of the old bureau in the back room.”
As she’d hoped, there was a sparkle of boyish enthusiasm in Walt’s eyes. He pored over the papers again and again.
“I wasn’t sure what all those numbers and letters and so on meant,” Tara said.
“I’ll have to study the old deeds and plat maps.” He glanced at her. “Let’s go through the rest of that stuff right now.”
She collected the two boxes of records from more than a century ago and sat next to Walt. She slipped a page into a protective sleeve, handed it to Walt, did the same with another and started reading.
Hours later, Tara glanced at her watch. “I hate to say it, but I have to leave. It’s past seven and I promised Lauren I’d come over.”
“Can we pick this up first thing in the morning?”
“Absolutely.” She grinned. “This is much more fun than payroll records.”
Walt headed for his house while Tara locked up the office. She half waved at Josh when she saw him on his porch, and he half waved back at her. They’d been on stiffly polite terms since the party. She thought about stopping to tell him about the journal but decided it was Walt’s news to share. Josh had resisted the sapphire story before, but now they had evidence.
* * *
JOSH WATCHED TARA’S Toyota Camry leave. She’d stayed later than usual, probably because she and his grandfather had been talking together in the office. Tara and Walt had formed an inexplicable friendship and he couldn’t understand how a globe-trotting princess had connected with an elderly, self-contained Montana rancher.
Then realization suddenly struck.
Tara had grown up in foster homes without anyone to count on. She was probably looking at Walt as a sort of father or grandfather figure.
The humor was hard to escape. Walt had hardly been a grandfather to his own grandchildren.
Josh shook himself. He was being ungrateful. The old guy was hard to know, but there had been plenty of good times on the Boxing N when Josh was growing up.
The next morning he worked near the office, keeping watch, and was able to meet Tara when she arrived. Her eyes were sparkling.
“Hi,” he greeted her. “I guess yesterday was a full day.”
“Yes.” She seemed to be brimming with some sort of inner delight. “What did you think when Walt told you the news?”
For the first time in ages Josh had gone to bed early. He hadn’t spoken to his grandfather the previous evening.
“We didn’t talk last night,” Josh explained. “What’s up?”
“No, it’s his baby.” Her face brightened as she glanced at the main house. “Oh, good, here he is.”
Josh was surprised his grandfather was already up and around. In days past, he’d begun work by 5:00 a.m., but things had changed since the accident. There must have been something he found exciting to get him out so early.
They waited as Walt slowly made his way from the house to the office. Josh was impatient, wondering what was coming next. Did his grandfather have an idea that would further derail his plans for the ranch? Hell, what if it was something about that sapphire myth?
It didn’t help that a fresh, sweet scent was coming from Tara, a faint combination of floral and mint, as though she’d just stepped from the shower with her teeth freshly brushed and her hair wrapped in a towel. It wasn’t the most comfortable image for a man who’d been celibate for so long.
Somehow, the thought made Josh feel better. Tara had simply shown up in his life at the moment his libido was waking up and asserting itself again. It explained why he sometimes thought about her in the middle of the night or out riding fences.
“Morning, Josh.” Walt flashed a smile at Tara. “Did Tara tell you what she found?”
“She’s saving it for you,” Josh told him, deciding that staying calm and disinterested was the best approach.
They all stepped inside.
To avoid Tara, Josh hadn’t been in the office since signing checks for the last payroll. Now he glanced around in reluctant appreciation. Rather than the familiar magpie’s nest of papers and miscellaneous junk, it was clean and organized, clearly a working office. It might even be the first time it had ever looked that way.
Walt settled into an easy chair with a grunt of relief, and Josh sat opposite.
“There’s coffee?” Josh asked in surprise, catching the scent of a freshly brewed pot.
“I started setting the timer,” Tara explained. She filled three mugs, handing one to Wal
t and another to Josh. “There’s cream and sugar,” she told him.
Josh hesitated. The truth was, in the morning he preferred his coffee both sweet and creamy. Walt had always given him a hard time about drinking it that way. But he was an adult now, not a teenager looking for approval.
“Thanks,” he said, fixing his mug the way he liked it.
“Tara makes darned good coffee,” Walt told him.
Josh took a swallow and had to agree. It was considerably better than the crap he brewed each morning.
“Take a look at this,” said his grandfather, pulling a sheet of paper from the envelope Tara had removed from a locked file drawer.
It was a photocopy, and Josh read the old-fashioned writing in silence. So it was about the sapphire goose chase. “Interesting.”
“It’s astounding,” Walt exclaimed. “We might have sapphires on the Boxing N, just the way my great-grandfather claimed.”
“Unlikely. He wrote this after gems were found in other parts of Montana. I’m sure he believed he’d found them, but it was probably wishful thinking. No sapphires have ever been discovered around Schuyler.”
Josh didn’t repeat that he’d looked into it as a kid, and when he’d gotten old enough to go off on his own, he’d searched the Boxing N from one end to the other. After that he’d focused on collecting less valuable specimens, such as Montana agates and smoky quartz. It would be great to share Walt’s excitement, but the chance of there being gems on the ranch was exceptionally slim.
“Just because none have been found, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” Walt insisted.
“Sure,” Josh agreed, not wanting to argue the point; he didn’t want Walt to get his hopes up. “I’ll order another geological survey if we ever figure out where your great-grandfather thought he found them. But there’s absolutely nothing to go on in the survey from ten years ago.”
He glanced at Tara; it wasn’t hard to see her anger on Walt’s behalf. A thread of amusement went through Josh. When he got right down to it, her staunch defense of the old man was admirable.
“Believe what you want, which is nothing. I’ll believe Granddad’s stories about his dad,” Walt declared stubbornly.
Tara stood abruptly.
“Do you have something else to show me?” Josh asked.
She regarded him coolly. “It’s just time to get my day started. I’m sure you’re eager to do the same.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed the last of his coffee and looked at his grandfather. “We can get geologists to check it out again. Perhaps someone from the university might be interested when classes start this fall.”
Walt simply nodded.
Josh thought about Tara and Walt’s excitement, and was uneasily aware that he’d been the one to puncture the balloon.
When had he turned into a dull grown-up?
* * *
TARA DROVE TO Lauren’s apartment that evening, hoping her sister would understand what she wanted to do.
Once Josh had left that morning, Walt had spent hours poring over the old maps and records.
“Let’s not wait,” she’d said in the midafternoon. “Let’s look for the sapphires. Just the two of us.”
His face brightened. “I’d like that. I’m sure the spot my great-grandfather described is near where Evelyn and I used to camp. We can bring supplies on pack horses and stay as long as it takes.”
Although Tara had suggested the idea weeks earlier, she’d thought they’d go out and look for an afternoon, not take an extended camping trip. But why not? Ultimately, it was no different than exploring the Australian outback or mountain climbing in Switzerland, and she’d enthusiastically pursued those undertakings.
Besides, Walt’s face had been eager, energized by the prospect, and Tara wanted to support his new interest in life. He’d quickly assured her that he felt able and willing to take on the discomfort of camping.
“I’ll go alone, if you can’t,” he said. “There’s no one else I’d want to take.”
Having a friend was new to Tara, but she had the feeling this could be the difference between remaining a pleasant companion and something deeper. Even so, she hadn’t given him a final agreement, explaining that she needed to discuss it with her sister since the search would be longer than she’d anticipated. After all, getting to know Lauren was the reason she’d come to Schuyler in the first place.
So after dinner, she sat and told the story to Lauren, whose eyes grew wide with amazement and a touch of wonder.
“He says he’s going regardless,” Tara finished, “but I’m afraid to let him be out there alone.”
“You have to go,” her sister agreed. “For his sake and yours. It’s the kind of thing you love.” She laughed. “Actually, I wish I could go with you.”
“Walt wouldn’t mind. Can you get some time off?”
“Not on such short notice,” Lauren said regretfully.
“That’s too bad. I’m going to stay in Schuyler longer, to make up for my absence. That way we’ll have the full three months together that we’d originally planned.”
Lauren looked pleased, but also wistful. “That’s nice. I just hate to think of you leaving at all.”
“Emily is here,” Tara reminded her. “Besides, it’s easy to stay in touch these days. And there’s all my frequent flyer miles. We can both use them.”
The assurances seemed to cheer Lauren, and Tara went home to pull out her rough-terrain clothing, assessing what else she might need for a horseback camping trip into the mountains. Walt wanted to leave in four or five days, so there wasn’t much time to get ready.
Josh crossed her mind. There was no question he’d disapprove of what they were doing. But since it would get his grandfather out of the way for a while, maybe he’d take the opportunity to make a few of the changes that were so important to him.
Tara conditioned the leather on her boots. Admittedly, she was starting to sympathize with Josh. He cared about Walt and worried about him. Even so, this trip was Walt’s decision, and Josh’s potential reaction shouldn’t bother her...except it did.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU WANT, an invitation?” Carl snapped at the cat he’d recently adopted.
Samson sat on the floor, tail flicking in disapproval. He couldn’t have said it more plainly: You’re lousy company and I’m not sure I want to be near you.
Carl released a heavy breath. “Okay, buddy, I’m sorry.” His temper was wearing thin, mostly because he hadn’t slept well since the Boxing N party. He held out a handful of cat treats. “Come on, you deserve ’em, fella.”
Carl had already discovered the six-month-old kitten was generally mellow, and unlike some felines, he didn’t hold a grudge. Samson also ate voraciously, growing in leaps and bounds.
As Samson gobbled the treats out of his hand, Carl thought about Lauren’s childhood desire to be a professional kitten holder. She’d like Samson.
He rubbed behind the cat’s huge ears and listened to his rumbling purr, reminiscent of a rusty motorboat. Much as Carl appreciated felines, they weren’t a substitute for human company.
* * *
Later that afternoon Carl saw Lauren’s car in the grocery store parking lot and convinced himself that he needed milk.
They ran into each other in the produce section...after he’d walked around the store to locate her. They chatted about the growing trend toward organic and the fact that Schuyler was slow in joining the movement.
“Emily says organic is considered too ‘new age’ in Schuyler,” Lauren said. “But I can usually find the basics, and the store is great about ordering stuff for me.”
“I never thought of asking.”
“You should. The manager is quite cooperative.”
Carl knew Jeff Browning. Aside from the town’s eag
erness to make Lauren happy, Jeff was a single man in his thirties with a lively interest in the opposite sex.
“That’s good to know,” Carl murmured. “I haven’t seen your sister for a few days. She hasn’t left, has she?”
“She left today to go camping in the mountains with Walt Nelson.”
“Really?” Carl was surprised. Walt had a reputation for not getting along with people, so it was hard to imagine him taking anyone camping.
“Yes. Well, it’s was nice to see you.”
With a polite smile Lauren headed toward the bread aisle while a harsh breath hissed from Carl’s lungs. He’d invented an excuse to see her and hadn’t even made it meaningful. But after all, they had agreed to be friends and, aside from a slip at the party, they could surely manage it. Friends saw each other from time to time and even did things together.
As he strode from of the store, without any milk, he saw Lauren loading groceries into her car. His automatic reaction was to offer assistance, but he stopped, knowing it was ridiculous; she only had a few bags and would have them loaded by the time he arrived.
Feeling like a lovesick puppy, Carl waved at Lauren and drove out of the parking lot.
* * *
JOSH REMOVED A handwritten message that had been taped to his door and stared at it in disbelief.
We’ve gone to look for the sapphires. Don’t go fussing about the payroll checks. Tara put them on the top shelf of the locked cabinet, ready to sign and she says you know what buttons to push for the next set. See you when we get back. Grandpa
We?
His grandfather could only have meant him and Tara.
The paper crumpled in Josh’s fist. How could she have agreed to such a thing? Despite everything he’d said, Tara clearly didn’t have a clue how fragile his grandfather’s health had become. Walt’s limp alone should have told her it was a bad idea.
Besides, it was a wild-goose chase in the first place.
Thoughts raced through Josh’s head. Ten years ago, with Walt’s permission, he’d arranged for the geologist’s survey and had specifically asked to be notified if there was any potential to the family legend. After finishing, the geologist had said that although nobody could be a hundred percent certain, no evidence of sapphires had been found. Walt had seen the report, so why was he doing such a crazy-ass thing?
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