Shifting Calder Wind (17 page)
Read Shifting Calder Wind Online
Authors: Janet Dailey
“We’re all concerned about her.” But Jessy knew of nothing that would help the woman except time.
“Sally needs to openly grieve for Chase. Loving someone without being loved in return makes that difficult. It somehow forces you to hold in your grief. I know this from my own experience,” Tara stated. Jessy couldn’t recall Tara ever holding anything back, but she was too tired of trading barbs with the woman to point it out. “Sally understands this, I’m sure,” Tara continued.
“I think all of us are aware that Sally loved Chase. And we have made it known that we understand his death is a deeply personal loss to her.”
“No doubt you have, but coming from his family that can be embarrassing,” Tara said. “In its own way, it is a reminder that she doesn’t truly have the right to grieve. But I thought if I could persuade her to come to Dunshill and stay with me for a while, she would finally be able to speak freely about her feelings for Chase. I know her regrets must be enormous. Mine were. But she wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about them to you.”
“I’m not the one you need to convince that it might be good for her to go away. It’s Sally. I don’t know how successful you’ll be, but you are welcome to try. You’ll probably find her in the kitchen.”
“Not right now, I won’t,” Tara said with utter certainty. “When I drove in, Sally was on her way to the cemetery. I don’t know whether you are aware that she spends a great deal of time at Chase’s grave.”
“I know she makes sure there are always fresh flowers on his grave.” Jessy didn’t pretend to know more than that. “Obviously I have been busy.”
“Obviously,” Tara echoed in a voice dry with criticism.
“Aunt Tara!” Laura hollered as she peeked out the door of her upstairs bedroom. “Come see.”
Tara arched a jet black eyebrow in Jessy’s direction. “Is it allowed?”
In answer, Jessy called up to her daughter, “She’ll be right there.”
“Thank you,” Tara murmured. “I didn’t want to overstep my bounds.”
Jessy held her tongue with an effort and glared at Tara’s back when she crossed to the staircase. Every time she was around the woman she swore that she wouldn’t allow Tara to rile her. It was no use. The woman’s all-knowing, superior attitude rubbed her the wrong way.
Sighing, she turned toward the den. Before she had taken a step, Trey burst into the house. “Mom, Quint’s here! I’m gonna take him to the barn an’ show him Laura’s pony!”
Out he went, giving Jessy no chance to reply. But his exuberance was like a tonic that banished the bad taste Tara had left with her.
There was nothing forced or false in the smile she gave Cat when she walked in. “Hi—” she began but got no further before Cat attacked.
“Why did you do it?”
Jessy drew back in surprise. “Do what?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Cat challenged in full temper. “For your information, I just came from the feedlot. It happens to be full of cattle, but not a single one of them carries the Triple C brand.”
“I leased it to a group that Monte represents—”
“What right do you have to take it upon yourself to make a decision like that without first consulting me?”
“It was business. We agreed—”
“We agreed that you would have full say in running the ranch.” Cat impatiently waved off the words. “But this goes considerably beyond that and you know it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jessy protested, struggling to understand why Cat objected so strongly. “Financially you have to see that it’s a wise move. This will be the first time the ranch will see a return on the money it invested since the lot was built.”
“The Triple C has always been a cow-calf operation. It was a mistake to build the feedlot in the first place. Dad realized that. That’s why it has stood empty all this time. He would never have agreed to this, and neither do I.” Cat paused, green eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Something tells me you knew that. That’s why you were careful not to say anything to me about it.”
“That isn’t true. It simply never occurred to me that you might object.” Jessy felt trapped, unable to explain that Chase was the one who had made the decision to go ahead with the lease agreement.
“Well, I do object.” Cat was emphatic.
“Object to what?” Tara inquired from the staircase landing, her glance running between the two women with intensifying interest.
Cat never took her eyes off Jessy. “She leased the feedlot without my permission.”
“How could she do that when, technically speaking, you own half the ranch?” There was something in Tara’s voice that hinted at a delight in the news.
“That is exactly what I would like to know,” Cat stated.
“I didn’t do it deliberately. I simply didn’t regard it as anything major—”
“Not major?” Cat jumped on that. “How could you not think it was major when it changed the policy of this ranch?”
“I wasn’t looking at it that way.” Everything Jessy said sounded weak.
“But that is precisely what happened. Not for long, though,” Cat added. “I want those cattle gone, Jessy.”
She was flabbergasted that Cat would make such a demand. “That’s impossible. The agreement has been signed. It’s a legal document. Until Monte decides to ship those cattle to market, he has possession of the lot. Even if I could break it, I wouldn’t. I gave Monte my word.”
“But I didn’t give mine,” Cat reminded her. All the while Tara stood to one side, a very interested spectator. “I don’t care how you do it, but you get those trucks back here and ship those cows someplace else.”
“Cat, you’re not being reasonable. I admit I made a mistake in not discussing it with you first, and I’m sorry for that. But this last couple weeks haven’t exactly been easy for me.”
“I suppose you expect me to overlook this.”
“I wish you would.”
For a long second Cat didn’t say anything and simply stared at her. “I might be inclined to do that if it was the only thing I found out you had done.”
Jessy knew immediately what was coming. Culley had told her about fixing up the old line shack as well as about Laredo and Hattie.
“There is something else?” Tara asked, nearly smiling with pleasure over the prospect.
“Jessy decided to fix that abandoned line shack up in the foothills. So far she hasn’t run electricity to it, but I understand it now has running water.”
“It was something Ty and I often talked about doing,” Jessy repeated the lie she had told Culley.
“I wonder why you never did anything about it until after my father died,” Cat murmured coolly.
Put that way, it didn’t look right. Jessy scrambled to come up with an explanation. “Mostly because there wasn’t a reason to do it. But the Smiths needed work and a place to live. There weren’t any openings here at the ranch. Then I remembered the Boar’s Nest. I knew Laredo was handy at such things so I hired him to fix it up and make it habitable again.”
“Laredo, what an odd name,” Tara remarked. “Who is he?”
“The Smiths are presumably friends of my father. Supposedly they have a ranch in Texas. What happened to that?” Cat asked Jessy.
“They ran into some financial difficulties after”—for the life of her, Jessy couldn’t remember the first name of Hattie’s late husband, or if she had even heard it—“John passed away. They were forced to sell it. There wasn’t much left after the debts were paid.”
“So you took pity on them and came up with this scheme to repair the cabin so you could help them out.”
“They’re good people.” She found she could say that with conviction. “And the ranch isn’t paying for the repairs. The moneys are coming out of my personal account.” Mentally she crossed her fingers, vowing to do just that. “I know Chase would approve of my decision to help them even if you don’t.”
“Maybe he would, but I don’t think my father would slip off to the old cemetery to meet them.”
Alarm shot through Jessy that Cat should know about that. She managed to push out a surprised laugh. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Are you saying you didn’t?” Cat challenged. Suddenly Jessy remembered seeing Culley that morning, but it had been after she’d met Laredo at the cemetery. Had Culley back tracked her? Even if he had, it was only his word against hers. He had no proof she had been there—or that she had met anyone. Considering there was no rational explanation for her to be there, Jessy felt she had no choice but to bluff it out.
“That is exactly what I’m saying,” she insisted in denial. “Why would I meet Laredo or anyone else at the old cemetery? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Uncle Culley claims that you did. Are you suggesting he lied about that?”
“No, only that he was mistaken. If he saw me over there at all, it must have been when Laredo and his mother followed me out to the Boar’s Nest. The easiest way to get there is along that road past the cemetery.” Jessy could tell by the small flicker of uncertainty in Cat’s expression that she had succeeded in planting a seed of doubt.
“If you hired this Laredo Smith to repair the cabin, what is he doing at the feedlot? I saw him there this morning, carelessly letting water run on the ground.”
“I needed some extra help to run the feedlot, so I hired Laredo. He had already finished the bulk of the repairs to the cabin.”
“How convenient,” Tara murmured. “When he first shows up, you don’t have any ranch work for him, so you make work by deciding to fix up an old shack. Then you rush out and make a deal to lease the feedlot. And all of a sudden, you need extra help on the ranch. You seem to have gone to a great deal of trouble to make certain this Laredo Smith has a job.”
“It’s purely a coincidence,” Jessy insisted, growing more and more uncomfortable.
“Naturally.” Tara smiled. “Still, he must be a very close friend.”
“He is,” Jessy replied, then saw the trap in that and rushed to add, “They both are.”
“Isn’t it odd that I have never heard of them.” Cat hadn’t let go of her anger. It was still there, close to the surface.
“I don’t think it’s odd.” Jessy continued to convey calmness despite her chaotic jumble inside. “I imagine there are a lot of people Chase knew that you didn’t.”
“Smith, with a ranch in Texas.” Head down, Tara made a show of searching her memory. “Ty and I were in Texas dozens of times and I can’t recall a single time when he mentioned anything about wanting to visit a rancher named Smith. You would think if the Smiths were such close friends to Chase, Ty would have felt obliged to at least phone them.”
Jessy was quick to answer that. “Back then you cared so little about ranching, Ty wouldn’t have told you about them. He would have known that you couldn’t be bothered with such ordinary people.”
“I still find it hard to believe he never mentioned them at all. On the other hand, maybe they never were his friends. Maybe they were yours.”
“How would I have met them except through Chase or Ty?” Jessy reasoned.
“How should I know?” Tara dismissed her questions with an elegant shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t keep track of who you see or when. Perhaps someone should.” Holding her gaze on Jessy, she said to Cat, “If I were you, Cathleen, I would look into this.”
“I intend to.”
Jessy knew immediately that she would only weaken her position by arguing with Cat. Her only choice was to take a firm stand and bluff this through the whole way. “Look into it all you want. You won’t find anything different from what I have told you.”
“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it,” Tara murmured, clearly enjoying Jessy’s predicament. “Of course, there is a simple way to prove Cat’s suspicions are ill-founded.”
Jessy was instantly wary. “What’s that?”
“Get rid of the Smiths. Let them find a place to live in Blue Moon. I know for a fact the mine has several openings. If he needs work, he can get a job there. It would certainly eliminate the necessity of you supporting them.”
“I could do that,” Jessy agreed. “But I won’t. Because I don’t feel that I need to prove anything—to you or anyone else.”
“I think it’s rather obvious where her loyalties lie. Don’t you, Cathleen?” Tara cast a smug glance at Cat.
“My loyalty is to the Triple C. It always has been, and it always will be,” Jessy stated somewhat fiercely, angered that Tara would suggest otherwise.
“You have a funny way of showing it,” said Cat. Then she erupted in a mixture of anger and frustration. “How could you do this, Jessy? After my father fought his whole life to keep the Triple C intact, less than a month after he’s gone you sign a lease giving someone else possession of part of it. How could you betray him like that?”
“I didn’t,” Jessy insisted. Chase had made the decision, yet she was honor bound to keep that a secret.
“You certainly had no right to do it without Cat’s permission,” Tara inserted.
Jessy turned to her. “You’re wrong. I had every right. Chase named me to take over the ranch in the event anything happened to him. He made it clear that Cat was to have no say in the running of the Triple C. The decisions are mine to make, not hers.”
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