Calder Pride (17 page)

“I guess,” Emmett agreed uncertainly.

“Well, I should hope to shout you do. And while you’re thinking about all those things that could go wrong, there’s something else you should think about, too, Emmett.”

“What’s that?” Stress threaded his voice, giving it a small waver.

“I’d like you to consider opening Ma’s credit again, seeing how both Rollie and me are back to look after her.”

“But the bill—”

“Now, Emmett, you just think about it for a few days,” Lath broke in. “You’re a smart man. I know you’ll do the right thing.”

There was a slight pause. “I see you got a customer at the pumps, so I won’t keep you from your business. Enjoyed the talk, Emmett. I surely did.”

In the silence that followed came the scuffle of heavy, plodding feet, then the jangle of bells. The threat—if that’s what she had heard—turned Cat vaguely angry. Yet a dozen other constructions could be placed on his words, all of them innocent. She picked up the second quart of strawberries without checking closely for bruised fruit.

Impelled by a sudden, inexplicable need to be out of this place, Cat moved away from the strawberries, striking out for the cash register. Too late, she real
ized the narrow aisle led her directly past the store’s refrigerated liquor section. Halfway to it, she paused just as Lath Anderson stepped into view, his attention momentarily on the selection of beer brands. She had two choices: continue on or turn around. To Cat, that wasn’t any choice at all; she continued on, her head up and her gaze coolly averted, determined to make no eye contact with either brother.

She knew the moment Lath Anderson noticed her. The rake of his glance was almost a physical thing, touching her even as she heard the low whistle of his indrawn breath.

“Aren’t you a looker.” He shifted, moving into her path, leaving only a narrow gap between himself and the refrigerated case. “Damn, Rollie, why the hell didn’t you tell me Blue Moon had beauties like this living here? I would have come back sooner.”

“Excuse me, please.” Changing course, Cat made to go around him, but his arm shot out, barring her way. Halting, she at last looked at him. His cocky grin had a reckless charm to it that might have been captivating if it hadn’t been for the wolfish gleam in his pale brown eyes. She returned it with a wintry directness. “Would you let me by?”

“The sight of you seems to have knocked my manners clear out of me.” His grin widened. “I guess you’ll just have to give me a minute to recover my wits.”

“I don’t think so,” Cat murmured dryly and made a half turn away before his hand caught her arm.

“Don’t go running off without telling me your name, honey.”

She looked down at the hand on her arm, then up at his face. Rollie stood uneasily behind him. “Lath, for God’s sake, that’s Calder’s daughter,” he muttered in near warning.

Lath’s eyes widened in mute surprise, then centered on her with new and wicked interest. “Cathleen Calder,” he murmured, remembering. “You always were a gorgeous little kid. Mom wrote that you got a kid of your own now, but it seems to be a kinda mystery who the father is. Turned a little wild, did you?”

Cat answered him with silence and a long, cool look. Briefly she toyed with the thought of attempting to twist free of his restraining hand. It was something she once would have done without hesitation. Wiser now, Cat recognized it was the sort of reaction a man like Lath Anderson would welcome. Still, some instinctive tensing of muscles must have given away that initial thought, and his fingers tightened their grip in response to it.

“She’s giving me the silent treatment, Rollie.” He directed the words over his shoulder, his pale brown eyes glittering with some new light. “I don’t know why it surprises me. You Calders never did have much to say to an Anderson—unless it was something against us. You never took the time to get to know us. We’re really right friendly folk.”

“In that case, you should be all too happy to let me by,” she countered smoothly.

He clicked his tongue in mock reproof as he moved closer, his other hand reaching out to slide up her arm in a stroking caress. “And I was just thinking we should get better acquainted.”

It took every ounce of will to keep from flinching away from his touch. She channeled the revulsion she felt into her eyes. “Do you miss prison that much, Mr. Anderson?”

Shock flickered in his eyes. “What?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that sexual assault is a felony?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed, a hotly brilliant light burning
in them. Behind him, Rollie muttered, “Jeezus, Lath. Grab the beer and let’s go. Ma’ll be wondering where we are.”

He stepped back, a shrewd slyness in the quick smile he sent her, his hands falling away. “I’ll be seeing you again, honey,” he said with a wink.

Cat squeezed past him, his low laugh burning in her ears. Her glance swept over Rollie Anderson, but there was no sympathy visible anywhere in his hard expression, not that she had expected to find any.

At the cash register, she wasted little time paying for the strawberries. As she crossed to the door, a patrol car, bearing the sheriff’s insignia, pulled up to the store. Cat walked outside, half-irritated that it had not arrived earlier.

A man stepped out of the patrol car, tall and leanly muscled, the tan of his uniform pointing up the bronze of his skin, the blue-black ends of his hair visible beneath the brim of his western hat. Cat gave him a polite but dismissive nod, then faltered, her shocked glance racing back to the high, hard cheekbones and a pair of smoke-gray eyes that momentarily mirrored her own surprise. Then pleasure warmed them, and a smile crooked his mouth in that familiar way Cat remembered all too well.

Frozen in place, she was unable to move or think, only feel the crazy rocketing of her pulse and the enveloping heat of that night.

Memories she had blocked for almost six years came rushing back, vivid and sharp as yesterday, replete with all the churning hunger and need.

An interval of three feet separated them, every inch in it electrified. His low voice broke the silence, the sound of it stroking her like a caress.

“I wondered if I would ever see you again.”

“How—why—” Shaken by the memories and feelings he had awakened, Cat paused a beat to regroup.
Automatically she shifted the packages in her arms, holding them in front of her, using them as a barrier to break the force of his presence. “What are you doing here?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded remarkably calm and level, considering the chaos going on inside.

He stood before her, exhibiting that same quiet competence and latent strength, his steady gaze absorbing every nuance of her expression. “There was an opening in the sheriff’s office. I took it.” His smile lengthened a little. “It’s a far cry from Fort Worth.”

She looked at the badge he wore, and the name below it—Logan Echohawk. How had he found out she was here? Did he know about Quint? These and a hundred other questions raced through her mind, bringing Cat to the edge of panic. She had rebuilt her life, her reputation; people had begun to respect her again. Now—fear licked through her.

“Fort Worth was a long time ago.” She was deliberately curt, determined to have him know that she wanted nothing further to do with him. “Good day.”

She walked off, resisting the urge to run, conscious of his gaze following her. The faint jingle of bells reached her, and the tingling sensation of being watched left her. Cat dragged in a shaky breath of relief, but even as she did, she knew this wouldn’t be her last encounter with him. Blue Moon was too small and the area too sparsely populated.

With an effort, Logan dragged his gaze away from her, still struggling with the riptide of feelings the sight of her had unleashed, each one as potent and fresh as it had been that night. The desire was there to go after her, but he didn’t—just as he hadn’t stopped her that night in Fort Worth when she slipped out of the hotel room.

Instead he swung his attention to the two men
coming out of the store, his gaze centering on the shorter of the two brothers, watching the flare of recognition and the instant thinning of his lips.

“I see the bus got in a few minutes early. And here I planned to be on hand to meet you when you got off, Lath.”

Ignoring that, Lath swaggered two steps closer. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Agent Echohawk.” His glance flicked to the deputy’s badge pinned to his shirtfront. “My mistake, it isn’t Agent anymore, is it? Looks like you took a couple steps down.”

“I decided I wanted a bit more peace and quiet in my life.” His smile was as cool and unrevealing as his level gaze.

Lath grinned. “Yeah, I heard you got shot up pretty bad last year. I don’t wonder that you decided to take early retirement. There’s nothing like taking a couple of bullets to make you lose your stomach for the wild side of the street.”

“You’re free to think that if you want, but I wouldn’t take any bets on it.” Humor slid into the hard angles of his face, a humor that held some acid and some iron. He glanced at the plastic sack Lath carried, marking the telltale bulge of a six-pack. “I hope you’re planning on drinking that beer after you get home. There’s a law against driving under the influence.”

“Rollie and me wouldn’t think of driving and drinking,” Lath declared with a great show of innocence. “We’re reformed citizens. We won’t be breaking out any beer until we get home.”

“See that you don’t,” Logan said and walked past them into the store.

The woman at the cash register looked up and brightened visibly. “Hi, Logan.”

“Mary.” He responded with an absent nod and crossed to the tobacco counter. “How’s business?”

“Tuesdays are always slow,” she said with a shrug. “If you’re looking for Emmett, he’s over in the garage, probably jawing with Bill Ruskin.”

“No, just stopped by to pick up some pipe tobacco.” He carried a tin of it to the register, his glance straying out the glass storefront to the two men climbing into an old pickup. “Did those two give you any trouble?” he asked, but his thoughts were already traveling along another track.

“Not really.” She rang up the purchase. “The older one ragged Emmett a bit for cutting off his mother’s credit, asked him to reconsider opening it, but that’s about all.”

“The brunette who was in here earlier, who is she?” He handed her a ten-dollar bill and waited for his change.

“The brunette?” Her frown disappeared with the dawn of understanding. “Oh, you mean Cat Calder.”

“Cat,” he repeated, thinking that it hadn’t been that far from the truth when she called herself Maggie the Cat.

“Cathleen, actually, but everyone calls her Cat. Her father owns the Triple C,” she said, then laughed at herself. “Look at me explaining that to you, like you haven’t been here long enough to have heard all about the Calders and their ranch.”

“Hard not to,” Logan agreed. The ranch was the largest in the state, practically a country all by itself. In a community as small as this, the ranch and its owners were popular topics of conversation. Truthfully, he hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it beyond garnering the simple facts that Calder was a widower with a son and a daughter. It had never crossed his mind that the daughter might be the woman who had haunted him all these years. He tried to remember some of the things that had been said about her, then pushed such thoughts away.

“Thanks.” He pocketed the change the clerk handed him, and gathered up the tobacco can to head for the door.

“Take care of yourself, Logan,” the woman called after him.

He answered with a wave. Outside the store, he paused, lifted his hat and settled it back lower on his forehead, brim tilted down. Shaking his head, he laughed at himself with a kind of twisted humor. “You do know how to pick ’em, Logan.”

As simply as that, he put aside any hopes he might have had in Cat Calder’s direction, and walked back to his patrol car. Experience had left him with few illusions about his place in today’s world. Lawmen of every kind were treated as a breed apart, hated by a lawless few, needed by the respectable many, and welcomed in the home of almost none.

Cat had looked at his uniform and walked away. If he had any doubts, she had removed them. Sending no more glances to locate her whereabouts, Logan slid behind the wheel, turned the key and reversed away from the store, then swung north onto the highway, needing the release speed could give him.

A
mile north of Blue Moon, Lath dug a cold can of beer from the plastic sack and popped the top on it, the sound sharp and distinctive in the truck cab. Rollie threw him a startled look, then darted an anxious glance at the rearview mirror, scanning the road behind them.

“Jeezus, Lath, are you crazy?” he blurted. “What if Echohawk comes along and pulls us over?”

Undeterred, Lath chuckled and chugged down another long swallow. “I thought prison might have changed you, but you’re still the cautious one, always careful not to get into trouble.” His sidelong glance glittered with amusement.

Rollie’s mouth tightened at the jibe. “Lord knows, you got into enough trouble for both of us.”

“Yeah, the old man was always on me for settin’ such a bad example.” He nodded at the memory. “Like workin’ himself from dawn to dusk on that farm with nothing more to show for it than a bunch of calluses and aching bones was a better one.” He took another swig of beer, then drained the can, crumpled it, and tossed it out the window, then reached in the sack for another one. “Do you want one?”

“No.” Rollie shot another look at the rearview mirror.

Lath noted it and laughed derisively. “Quit worrying about Echohawk. He won’t be following us. His kind counts on intimidating you.” He snapped the tab on a second can.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” Another check of the rearview mirror showed an empty road behind them.

After taking a short sip, Lath held the can in his lap and stared thoughtfully into the middle distance. “I swear you coulda knocked me over with a toothpick when you told me Echohawk was here. I wonder what made him pick a godforsaken part of the country like this?” he mused. “Nothin’ ever happens here. Maybe that’s what he was counting on—handling nothin’ more serious than an occasional drunk, a rustled cow, or some domestic dispute.”

This prompted Rollie to recall, with a curious frown, “Back at Fedderson’s you said something about Echohawk getting shot up?”

“It was about a year or a year and a half ago. Echohawk and some of his ATF buddies got into an old-time shoot-out with a paramilitary group down in southwest Texas. He got hit in the leg and took another bullet in the chest. It punctured a lung. It was touch-and-go for a while, I heard. I know of a few boys who were pulling against him.” Lath paused, turning thoughtful again. “He must have decided to call it quits after that. Probably figured he had used up all his luck.” He grinned suddenly. “It just could be that he has. Yes, sir, it just could be.”

Rollie didn’t like the sound of that. He started to ask what Lath meant by it, then decided it was better if he didn’t know. Ahead the highway began its climb into the broken country, leaving the flatness of the prairie behind it. A scattering of pine
trees marched along the stony footslopes of this Rocky Mountain outlier, joined here and there by clumps of aspen.

Uneasy with the silence that had fallen, Rollie sought to break it and direct his brother’s thoughts away from any scheming he might be doing. “I told you, didn’t I, about meeting up with Buck Haskell while I was in prison.”

Lath responded with a disinterested nod. “You mentioned he took you under his wing, so to speak.”

“Yeah, he said he was paying back a debt he owed the family.”

“A debt? How’s that?”

“You’re gonna like this one, Lath,” Rollie said with a stretching smile. “It seems the old man got drunk one night, and Buck knocked him over the head and rolled him, took every dime he had.”

“He rolled the old man?” Lath barked out a laugh. “When the hell was this?”

“Before he married Ma, I guess.”

“If that don’t beat all,” Lath murmured, still grinning at the thought. “As tight as he was with a nickel, don’t you know he must have been crazy mad when he came to?”

“Every time I think about how dead set he was against drinking, it makes me smile.”

“By God, we owe Buck one,” Lath declared.

“That’s what I told him.”

“Haskell must be getting up there in age now.”

“Must be.” Rollie shrugged and negotiated the curve in the road. “He told me he was born just a few days before Chase Calder.”

“I just realized, you two had something in common,” Lath remarked. “You both wound up in prison thanks to Chase Calder. I gotta tell ya, Rollie, I never thought you got a fair deal. Maybe you did have too much to drink, but it was still an accident.
You’re sure as hell no criminal. They shouldn’t have sent you there.”

There was little about those years that Rollie wanted to remember. He moved his big shoulders, trying to throw off the thought of them. “Prison wasn’t so bad.”

Lath gave him a knowing look, then faced the front again and offered a succinct comment, “Shi-it.”

After an instant of silence, Rollie broke into a somewhat sheepish laugh. Lath joined him. In that moment of laughter, a thousand unspoken experiences were shared, everything from the humiliation of a strip search to the ominous and echoing clang of lockup. Rollie felt closer to his older brother than he ever had in his life.

A lodgepole gate marked the entrance to the former S Bar Three Ranch. The long cross-member that had once connected the two posts hung drunkenly against the farthest one. Catching sight of it, Rollie slowed the truck to make the turn onto the rutted track that wound away from it, curling back into a crease in the broken hills.

This time Rollie’s glance at the rearview mirror was an automatic one, born out of driving habit. Shock froze the half smile on his face when he saw the reflected image of a vehicle rounding the curve behind him, the familiar light bar of a patrol car on its roof.

He threw a look over his shoulder, needing to confirm it with his own eyes. “Jeezus, it’s Echohawk. I told you he’d follow us.”

Lath wheeled around in the seat to look, his eyes agleam as if it were some kind of game. “I figured him wrong. That’s one for him.”

He checked to see how close they were to the gate, and looked back to measure the distance to the
approaching patrol car, then squared around in the seat. “We’ll make it.”

Sure enough, the patrol car was still a quarter mile distant when Rollie swung the pickup onto the rut-riddled lane. Grinning widely in secret triumph, Lath turned sideways and waved at the vehicle, silently watching to make sure Echohawk drove past the gate. When he did, Lath laughed softly and settled back in the passenger seat, lifting the can of beer to his mouth. Rollie eyed him warily, unable to remember a time when his older brother hadn’t enjoyed flirting with danger. It was clear he hadn’t changed in that.

The dirt track snaked a three-mile long path into the rugged foothills and culminated at the site of the old ranchstead. After years of standing empty, scoured by the elements, the buildings stood on the verge of collapse, their rotting boards weather-bleached an ancient gray. There was a huge hole in the barn roof, and one side of the house had caved in. The stumps of old posts marked the former location of a corral. Near it, repairs had been made to an old lean-to, and a milk cow grazed inside an electric fence beyond it.

In the midst of all this decay and neglect stood a mobile home, its base skirted with bales of straw to block the tunneling of winter’s cold. The area around it had been shorn of weeds, giving the chickens a place to scratch and peck. One flew out of the pickup’s path, squawking a protest.

“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Rollie said, seeing the place through his brother’s eyes. “But I got the trailer cheap, and Littleton is renting us the land for practically nothing. Ma’s got her milk cow and chickens, and the ground behind the barn was pretty fertile, so I plowed that up so she could plant some vegetables.”

“As long as Ma’s happy, I wouldn’t care if it was a hog lot.” Lath reached over and pushed the horn on the steering wheel. The blare of it scattered more chickens as the pickup rolled to a stop just yards from the front steps. “We need to pick up some guinea hens. As much as I hate their racket, they’re the best damn watchdogs a body could have. If anybody comes sneakin’ around, they’ll let you know about it.”

The door to the house trailer popped open, and out stepped Emma Anderson, an apron tied around the plain housedress she wore. Her long gray hair was wound in its habitual coronet of braids atop her head. A smile of welcome rearranged the lines that seamed her thin face.

“Lath. I mighta known it was you making all that noise,” she declared with mock sternness before descending the steps.

“Hey, Ma. How’s my best girl?” Long, loping strides carried him to her. He promptly picked her up and spun her around, laughing at the protest she made.

“Latham Ray Anderson, you put me down this instant,” she scolded, but for all the sharpness of her voice, the sparkle in her dark eyes was that of a young girl.

Seeing it, he laughed again and gave her a big smack on the cheek, then set her down. A little breathless, she pulled primly at the dress his hands had hitched up, and raised a smoothing hand to her hair.

“You are such a scamp,” she admonished, then succumbed to the upswell of affection and clasped his face between rough and liver-spotted hands. “It is so good to have you home, Lath. Why didn’t you come sooner?”

“Now, Ma, you know I was on parole and couldn’t
leave until now,” he chided gently, capturing her hands and pressing a kiss against them. “But that’s all over with and I’m as free as the wind.”

“That wind better not be blowin’ anywhere but right here,” she informed him, then stepped back and waved a hand toward the pickup. “Now, you go get your things and bring ’em in the house while I see to dinner. From the looks of you, you haven’t had a decent meal in months.”

Turning, she grabbed onto the handrail and climbed the wooden steps to the door, without directing a single word to Rollie. He wasn’t surprised by that; he had always known Lath occupied a special corner of her heart. The years he’d been away had only solidified it.

Inside the house trailer, Rollie helped himself to a cup of coffee and sat down at the old Formica-topped table. After stowing his gear in a back bedroom, Lath sauntered into the trailer’s compact kitchen and dining area. Emma stood at the range top, laying pieces of batter-dipped chicken in an iron skillet, the hot oil sizzling and popping in the stillness of the room.

“Is that fried chicken you’re fixing?” Lath stopped to grab a can of beer out of the refrigerator.

“Yes, and it’s fresh chicken, too,” Emma replied. “I killed and dressed it myself this morning.”

“There’s only one thing I know that would taste better than your fried chicken and that would be a big juicy steak.” He crossed to the table and pulled out a chair.

“A steak.” She paused in her task, considering the word, then shook her head and laid another piece of chicken in the skillet. “I can’t recall the last time I had fresh beef to put on the table. Not since we lost the farm, that’s for sure.”

“Guess we’ll have to do something to change
that.” Lath leaned back in the chair, hooking an arm over a corner of it as he grinned at Rollie. “Seems to me, Calder owes us a beef or two for all the hardness he showed this family.”

“They owe us a lot more than that,” Emma snapped, making no secret of the ill will she bore them.

Rollie stared at the black surface of his coffee, aware he should have seen this coming. It wouldn’t be the first time his family had butchered a Calder steer. And from the sounds of it, it wouldn’t be the last.

The late spring sun sat well up in the western sky, lengthening the hours of daylight into early evening. With tackle box and fly rod in hand, Ty waited at the bottom of the steps to take advantage of the light and get in some fishing. Jessy was beside him, a little pale after her day’s bout with nausea, yet lit with an inner glow that gave a radiance to her face. The Homestead’s galleried front porch echoed with the thud of cowboy boots as Quint ran to join them, a child-sized fly rod clutched in his hand.

At the top of the steps, Chase smiled at his grandson’s haste, but a more sober look entered his eyes when his glance shifted to a trailing Cat. These last two days he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was bothering her. She seemed unusually quiet, preoccupied with her own thoughts. Lately, her smiles had seemed a little too stiff to him, her laughter a little too forced, and her silences too frequent.

“Wait a minute. Don’t I get a hug?” Her call stopped Quint.

Chase watched as she crouched down and held
her arms open. Quint ran into them, and she hugged him close. For an unguarded moment, her eyes were tightly closed and a look of near desperation pulled at her face, strengthening Chase’s closely held suspicions.

Quint pulled back, forcing her arms to loosen. “You can come fishing with us, too, Mom.”

“I know, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen Uncle Culley,” she said, her hands busily adjusting the lay of his denim jacket and straightening its collar, finding reasons to touch him. “I think I should go visit him. You have fun, now, and mind your Uncle Ty.”

“I will,” he promised and off he went, clattering down the steps.

Rising to her feet, Cat watched the trio set off toward the river. She stood there for a long minute, and Chase observed the troubled light that stole into her eyes.

“I guess I’d better be going, too.” When she turned, the light was gone. But Chase was certain it hadn’t been a trick of the sun.

“What’s wrong, Cat?”

“Wrong?” Alarm flickered briefly in her eyes before she managed to laugh off his question. “Nothing’s wrong. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Something’s bothering you,” he insisted.

“I don’t know what it would be,” she countered with a very convincing shrug, “other than wondering if I have everything ready for Quint’s birthday party tomorrow. With so many children coming, there’s bound to be something I overlooked. I just hope it isn’t something important.” Without giving him a chance to question her further, Cat moved to the steps. “I should be back in time to tuck Quint into bed.”

“Drive careful,” Chase admonished.

“Always,” Cat replied, instantly picturing in her mind the uniformed officer she had faced three days ago. Quint’s father now had a name—Logan Echohawk. Again she was gripped by a terrible sense of foreboding.