Calder Pride (21 page)

The afternoon sun stretched its burning light across the rough plains when Logan rode back from the patrol car, empty evidence bags and latex gloves tucked in a saddle pouch. Idly he noted the stock
trailer’s closed endgate and the four men gathered beside it, their glances swinging to him. The pickup’s passenger door stood open, revealing the sleeping figure of a boy curled on its seat. The child’s innocence tugged at a corner of his mouth.

At the mouth of the gulch, Logan reined in the buckskin again and stepped effortlessly to the ground. After tangling the reins in the branches of a low-growing bush and removing his gear from the saddlebag, he headed into the gulch.

The fast drumming of hooves pulled his glance to the west where a rider approached at a gallop, bypassing the trailer to make straight for the gulch. Halfway between the two, the rider pulled up with a suddenness that swung the horse sideways, giving a full view of the rider in profile.

It was Cat. Recognition jolted through him like a flash of lightning, pinning him to the spot. A man’s clothes couldn’t alter the shape of the woman’s body within them. With jaws clamped tight, he stared across the intervening space. For a moment, the air had that charged and sulky feel of storm-thick clouds weighted with thunder.

Restlessly tossing its head, Cat’s horse danced in place, revealing the indecision of its rider. A voice lifted, pulling her attention from him to the small group of men by the stock trailer. She threw him a last look, then swung away and cantered her horse to them, a single black braid hanging down the center of her back.

Regret knifed through him, slicing the tension that had held Logan motionless. He bit back a savage oath, angered to discover that even though she wasn’t for him, he still wanted her. The need was a deep ache that wouldn’t be reasoned away.

Nerves raw, Cat was out of the saddle the instant her horse came to a stop. Her glance flew to her
father, quickly noting the look of indulgent humor in his eyes—not censure or accusation, nothing that suggested any of her fears had been realized.

“Quint,” she began, then her searching glance saw him, curled up asleep in the truck. She smiled in relief.

“I caught him nodding off in the saddle,” Chase explained. “I managed to convince him that Molly needed a break. He dropped off to sleep about ten minutes ago. Too much excitement, I guess.”

“They told me back at camp about the cattle.” Her glance strayed to the gulch, but it wasn’t relief she felt when she discovered Logan was nowhere in sight. “When I saw your buckskin, I thought that’s where you were.”

“No, I loaned him to the new man that’s taken over for Blackmore. Echohawk’s his name. Seems to know his job, too.”

“You can bet Blackmore wouldn’t have spent more than ten minutes in there, as bad as those rotting carcasses smell,” Ty put in.

Cat listened to the exchange with only half an ear. Her thoughts were still on Logan, wondering how it was possible that a father wouldn’t instinctively recognize his own son—unless—“Did Quint see—” she began impulsively, then paused, unsure how to word the question without arousing suspicion.

“We kept him away from the gulch,” Ty said, as if that answered her question. “The scavengers had already been at work. It wasn’t something he should see at his age.”

She took that to mean Logan hadn’t met Quint yet. Tension raveled through her all over again. “I think I should take Quint and go back to the house. You can get by without me, can’t you?” she asked Ty.

“Sure.” He gestured in the direction of Shane
Goodman, lounging against the trailer’s slatted sides, a cigarette cupped in his hand. “Shane was just going to head back there with the wounded calf. You can ride with him. That will give Quint a chance to sleep a little longer.”

“I’m ready when you are,” she told Shane, eager to leave.

“Let’s go.” He pushed away from the trailer, taking a quick, last drag on his cigarette before crushing it under his heel.

Surrendering her horse’s reins to Ty, Cat climbed into the truck cab and gently eased Quint onto her lap. He stirred once fitfully, then snuggled against her, something he seldom did at the advanced age of five. Smiling, she slipped off her hat and laid it on the seat next to him while Shane climbed into the driver’s side and started the engine. Once the brake was disengaged, the truck rolled forward. The trailer hitch squealed as he swung the wheel toward the west.

Cat frowned. “I thought we were going back to the ranch.”

“We are.”

“But Three Mile Gate is just over there. Why are you going this way?”

“We can’t use that gate. That Echohawk fella found some tire prints there,” he explained. “He thinks they might have been left by whoever killed those cows. The guy’s sharp.”

That’s what worried her. Logan was neither blind or stupid. And he wouldn’t be pushed.

Five miles from the Triple C headquarters, Quint pushed up and looked around with heavy eyes. “Where are we going?”

“Home. I thought I’d get back early and give Jessy a hand with supper.” Cat gathered him onto her lap. He leaned his head against her shoulder, too
groggy with sleep to remember he was too old to be held.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, then stared out the window, silent for a long run of minutes. His head swiveled against her shoulder as he turned to glance at Shane. Seeing the cowboy behind the wheel seemed to jog his memory.

“Did Shane tell you some cows got killed?”

“Yes, he did.”

Again there was a lengthy pause. “I never got to see them. I think dead animals must look awful.”

“Not always.” Her response seemed to reassure him in some way.

“Grandpa gave me a job to do.”

“He did?” She smiled, moved by the importance he attached to that.

“Uh-huh,” he confirmed with a vigorous nod of his head. “I waited at the gate all by myself so the sheriff would know where to come.”

Stunned by his answer, Cat struggled not to show it. “You did? And all by yourself, too?”

“Yup.”

“What did you think of him?” Unconsciously she tightened the circle of her arms, gathering him closer to her.

“He was okay.” His slim shoulders lifted in an awkward shrug. “I gave him a ride on Molly.”

“I’ll bet he appreciated that.” An oddly poignant picture of the two of them riding the docile mare flashed in her mind. Cat knew she should have been relieved that neither of them had felt any connection to the other. After all, she wanted father and son to remain strangers to each other. So why this twinge of regret? She shied from the possible answer to that.

Instead she focused on the positive. It was becoming increasingly obvious that she was the only
one who saw Quint’s resemblance to Logan. No one else had noticed it. Certainly Culley hadn’t until she pointed it out to him.

Perhaps her secret was safe after all. It was ironic that she had been afraid all this time without cause. Logan was no threat to her whatsoever.

E
vening spread its thickening darkness across the high plains, blurring the dips and swells of the rolling terrain. Night’s first pale stars glittered dimly in the empurpled sky while below, twin headlight beams raced ahead of the speeding patrol car. Behind the wheel, Logan fixed his hard gaze on the halo of light in the near distance. He had been told the headquarters of the Triple C Ranch resembled a small town. It definitely threw the light of one.

He watched it grow brighter, his foot heavy, the speedometer hovering at seventy. Weariness pulled at him, adding its strain to his restless, irritable mood. He was conscious of the day’s grit on him and the hunger that gnawed at his empty stomach, reminders that what he wanted most was a hot shower, a cold drink, and a filling meal, not necessarily in that order. But all that would come later; he had a stop to make first.

It was the job that brought him to the Triple C. Nothing else. Naturally Cat would be there, he had no doubt. That knowledge hardened his features, turning them into an impenetrable mask.

The patrol car topped the last rising swell of land,
and the lights of the sprawling headquarters broke brilliantly through the deepening cloak of nightfall. Logan slowed the car and swung it toward the white-pillared front of the big house that rose head and shoulders above the rest of the buildings. It was a rangeland mansion, not as grand or elaborate as others he’d had cause to enter, but a mansion nevertheless.

Parking in front of it, Logan switched off the headlights and killed the engine, then stepped out, a high tension threading its way through his muscles. His gaze lifted to the two-story house and the fanlike gushes of light that spilled from its windows, giving its solidness a look of warmth and welcome.

He crossed to the front steps, impatience lengthening his stride. There was no bell to ring at the front door. He lifted the heavy brass knocker and brought it down solidly three times. The hard clanging shattered the evening’s hush and grated on nerves already made raw with tension and fatigue.

There was a warning turn of the knob before the door swung open and light flooded the porch. A tall, slender blonde stood in the opening, her classically strong features composed in an expression of warm interest tinged with curiosity.

Before he could utter a word, her glance flicked to his uniform and a smile lifted the edges of her wide mouth. “You must be Sheriff Echohawk.” She extended a hand in greeting. “I’m Ty’s wife, Jessy.”

“A pleasure, Mrs. Calder.” He had long ago found formality was best. It subtly established a boundary that the average person preferred.

“I expect you’re here on business.” Releasing his hand, she backed away to admit him. “Please come in.”

“Thank you.” He stepped inside and automatically removed his hat, combing a hand through his hair to lift its flatness.

In that same fractional second, he scanned the interior area, visually fixing the layout in his mind from habit. There, across the wide sprawl of the living room, stood Cat, poised at the bottom of the stairs, her shoulders bared by a pale blue sundress that softly draped her body. She lifted her head, showing him a pride that was like steel. He stared at her, knowing a hunger for which no word existed.

Then Jessy Calder spoke, and Logan clamped off his feelings and switched his attention back to the blonde. “Ty and Dad Calder are in the den.” She walked toward a set of double doors, indicating he should follow.

Chase Calder sat behind a huge desk, still every inch the range lord, yet shorn of some of life’s vigor now. Ty lounged beside the room’s massive fireplace, a shoulder braced against its stone face, a forefinger rubbing across his mustache in a thoughtful pose. He came erect when Logan walked into the room.

“Echohawk, good to see you.” Chase rocked back in his chair, but didn’t rise. “Ty and I were just talking about the dead cattle, and wondering what you might have learned?”

“One thing is certain, Mr. Calder. Somebody out there doesn’t like you very much,” Logan stated with an abruptness that was perhaps not politically wise.

Chase gave him an amused look, a metal-hard irony at the corners of his mouth. “The Triple C has always been a big target for people with stones in their hands. A lot of things have changed, but that hasn’t.”

“And probably never will,” Logan agreed with an answering glint of wryness. “I could be wrong, but this reads like more than a simple case of malicious mischief.”

“What did you find today?” Ty asked.

“A half dozen bullets that I dug out of the car
casses, the print of a bootheel near that pile of entrails, and only one shell casing, which tells me the rest were picked up. I also found a blood trail in the grass that ran about ten yards before it disappeared. It looks to me like they butchered one of the cows, then used a winch to drag it to their vehicle and load it up.”

No sound marked Cat’s entrance into the room, but Logan knew the minute she appeared in the doorway. It was an animal awareness he had of her. But he allowed no break in his talk to betray the fact her presence was in any way unsettling. “At this point, it’s only supposition. All the signs point to that, but I can’t say it as a hard and fast fact.”

“You said
they
,” Cat broke in, walking the rest of the way into the room.

“This is my daughter, Cat,” Chase began.

“We’ve met,” Logan acknowledged her with a curt nod, his expression falsely passive.

“Yes,” Cat confirmed with an aura of confidence and smooth self-assurance. “Sheriff Echohawk was at the Shamrock the other night when I went to visit Uncle Culley. It turns out that he’s our new neighbor. He bought the Circle Six.”

Chase raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. “I’d heard Henson had sold out. Welcome to the area.”

“Thanks.”

“Cat had a good point,” Ty interposed, bringing the conversation back to their previous topic. “By
they
, are you saying you believe there was more than one person involved?”

“If a cow was butchered and the carcass removed, as I suspect, it’s logical that—even with the aid of a winch—it would take at least two people to handle it.”

Chase idly rocked in his chair, studying Logan with thoughtful eyes. “You sound convinced that’s the way it happened.”

“Like I said before, the signs seem to point that way,” he replied. “And it would be easy enough for a truck to block the entrance to the gully and trap the cattle inside. We’ll have a better idea about whether I’m right when you finish your gather.”

“But to kill all those cattle and butcher only one, that makes no sense,” Ty said with a troubled shake of his head.

“Maybe they did it for the joy of killing, maybe to cover up the fact they had butchered a beef. Or maybe, they wanted to make certain you found out what they did. If you came up a cow short in your gather, you might not think much about it. But no one can ignore nearly a dozen dead animals.”

“You’re saying it was a calling card of sorts.” Chase studied him with narrowed eyes.

“I’m saying they wanted to throw it in your face,” Logan replied smoothly. “Any ideas on who might hate you that much? A former employee, maybe?”

“I can’t think of anyone. Ty?” Chase deferred the question to his son.

“Offhand, no.”

“Check your records. Make me a list of anyone you have fired in the last year.” He was conscious of Cat filling his side vision, but he kept his attention centered on the two men. The stiff control he placed on himself made him abrupt.

“The list will be a short one,” Ty replied. “We don’t have much turnover on the Triple C. Most of our hands were born and raised right here on the ranch.”

“Then that will make my job an easy one.” Logan paused, and that pause accented the rest of his words, giving them weight. “This wasn’t a random act. They weren’t just driving around, saw the cattle, and decided to shoot a few. This had to have been
planned by someone familiar with the area. If it’s someone with a grudge against you—as I suspect—maybe slaughtering some of your cattle will satisfy them. But I wouldn’t count on it. This kind of thing can feed on itself and escalate. I’d have your men keep a lookout for anything unusual and anyone with no business being around.”

“We’ll get the word out tonight.” Chase looked to his son, silently passing the chore to him.

Satisfied, Logan said, “Get that employee list to me as soon as you can. And if you think of anyone whose toes you might have stepped on, inadvertently or otherwise, add their names to it.”

“Of course,” Ty said.

“If there’s nothing else you can add, I’ll be going,” Logan said and proceeded to take his leave of the two men.

In silence, Cat looked on, aware of Logan Echohawk as she had been of few men in her life. He stood with a balanced straightness, as though ready to whip into action at the first hint of danger. For the first time, she realized that he had a capacity for violence, sharply controlled, but present just the same. In profile, his bronzed and angular features were chiseled in unsentimental lines, vaguely tinged by a distant bitterness. She briefly wondered at that, then pushed that curiosity aside. She had other, more important matters on her mind.

During those initial moments after he first arrived, the old fear had rushed back that he had learned the truth about Quint. It had driven her to the den where Cat discovered again that her fear was groundless. He didn’t know, and there was no reason to believe he ever would. She had overreacted before. She was determined to correct that now.

When he turned to leave, Cat said calmly, “I’ll see you out.”

His eyes briefly locked with hers, setting off a small tingle along her nerve ends. It was, Cat thought, the dangerous gray color that made his glance feel like a jolt of electricity.

“That isn’t necessary,” he told her, his voice cool in its rejection.

Cat didn’t answer, instead simply turned and headed for the door, asserting her will through action. The accompanying sound of his footsteps was an echo to her own. She continued through the door and onto the porch, then paused near a white column and gazed into the night. Moonlight sprayed its frost-glow over the ranch buildings and silvered the vast sweep of prairie beyond them. Familiar as it was to her, the scene pulled at her, stirring up again the deep attachment she had to this land that was her home.

Drawing level with her, Logan halted and faced the front, for a moment looking into the night as she did. Then he angled his head toward her, and she felt the force of his gaze tunneling into her.

“There is obviously something you wanted to say before I leave.” The challenging dryness of his voice held a faintly sardonic note.

She squared around to face him, coolly composed and serious. “Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I tend to be too impulsive and quick-tempered, traits that I have worked hard to control. But recent events have shown that I haven’t succeeded all that well,” she said. “The things I said to you the other night at my uncle’s—I was out of line. What you do or don’t do, who you see or don’t see, is really none of my concern. I had no business talking to you the way I did.”

“You don’t apologize very often, do you?” A whisper of her perfume reached him, emanating from the smooth curve of her neck and conjuring up
unsettling images of sultry nights and satin sheets.

“Probably not as often as I should,” she admitted, then asked, slightly defensive, “Why?”

“Because you don’t do it very well.” Logan turned a sidelong glance on her and felt the instant play of electricity between them. “It’s all that pride you wrap yourself in, like armor.”

“And you don’t, I suppose,” she murmured with some heat.

Something that passed for amusement slanted the line of his mouth. “We weren’t talking about me.”

Cat chose to ignore that. “I should explain that I never expected to see you again. In fact, I hoped I never would. That night in Fort Worth was a mistake, one that I have tried very hard to forget—”

“It seems you were no better at it than I was,” he observed.

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “As far as my family is concerned, they think you are a complete stranger. I prefer that they never find out otherwise. Unfortunately, I can no longer control that.”

“Am I supposed to take an oath of silence now?” he mocked, then turned serious. “If I did, would you believe me?”

Cat hesitated, stung by how vulnerable she was. “I would want to,” she said at last, lifting her chin a notch.

“It goes against your grain for someone else to hold your reputation in their hands, doesn’t it?” Logan observed and watched her eyes turn stormy. He didn’t fault her for that. Pride and honor were two things he understood. Sometimes they were all a man had, especially when he lost his faith in things like the goodness of his fellow man.

“Naturally, it does,” she replied, very cool and controlled again.

He could feel the invisible barriers she threw up
to keep him at a distance. It rankled. Logan had little respect for barriers; he had battered in too many of them in his job. The impulse was there to do it again.

“I’m curious about something.” Almost leisurely Logan swung toward her, his glance skimming the bareness of her shoulders and the shadowed hollow of her throat before rising to the green of her eyes. “Are you still mourning your dead boyfriend?”

Resentment flared, turning her voice frigid. “That is none of your business.”

“I never said it was.” His mouth crooked. “I thought it was supposed to be ‘until death do you part,’ and here you are still sleeping with a ghost.”

“I happen to love him,” she insisted stiffly.

“He’s dead, Cat. That’s why you were so eager to crawl into bed with me. Remember?” he taunted.

“I told you that was a mistake I would like to forget.”

“It’s impossible, isn’t it?”

“You have no idea how impossible it is.” She looked away, pain thickening her voice and bringing the bright sheen of tears to her eyes.

Angered by the sight of them, Logan cupped a hand to her face, his thumb capturing her chin and turning it back toward him. “Who are you crying for, Cat? You or him?” he challenged.