Calder Pride

by Janet Dailey

  “Who’s filling in for him? Jim Atchison?”

  “No, Jim resigned last November and took a job on the police force in Lewiston. The new man they hired to replace him this past winter has taken over for Blackmore. I don’t think Don Hubble liked that very much. But Don is one man that, I swear, doesn’t know ‘come here’ from ‘sic ’em.’”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “How’s Jessy?”

  Chase smiled, recalling, “I never knew a woman could be so sick—and so happy about it at the same time. She’s wanted a baby for a long time.”

  “When’s it due?”

  “Early December.”

  Quint hopped off his stool and walked back to the table. “I’m all finished, Grandpa.”

  “Pull up a chair and join us, then.” Chase nodded.

  “Okay.” Quint climbed onto the chair he had previously vacated, and settled back to listen with spongelike attention to their talk.

  Leaving the Michels dry goods and hardware store, Cat walked back to the pickup, deposited the sacks of party favors on the floor of the cab and headed over to Fedderson’s. A semi trailer rig barreled past her on the highway, its diesel engine at a full-throated roar. Dust swirled in its wake. Cat turned her face away from it and blinked to clear her eyes of its stinging particles.

  Distracted by the dust cloud, she was slow to notice the man idling outside the entrance to the gas station and grocery store, his hand cupped around a cigarette, his back propped against the building, one leg bent. His hair was a dirty blond color, worn long and pulled back in a ponytail. The blue marks of a tattoo adorned a forearm that bulged with muscle, like the rest of him.

  But it was the coldness of his eyes that had Cat averting her gaze and walking straight toward the door. He pushed away from the wall and turned, planting his bulk close to her path. “Don’t tell me that you don’t remember me, Miss High and Mighty Cat Calder?” he taunted. “I figured I’d run into you one fine day, but I didn’t think it would take almost a year.”

  She stopped, her gaze snapping back to him, taking in with a rush his broad, blunted features and ruddy complexion. With an effort, Cat managed to conceal her surprise as recognition flashed in her mind.

  “Rollie Anderson. I heard you were home.” But little remained of the big, strapping farm boy she remembered except the husky shell. Somewhere in the last five, almost six years, he had lost that fresh-faced innocence, the ready grin and boisterous humor. There was a new hardness about him now, tinged with something sullen and cold.

  “I didn’t come home to much, did I?” His mouth twisted in an unpleasant smile. “My mother says I have you to thank for that.”

  “She’s wrong, of course, but I don’t expect you to believe me. It’s too easy to blame someone else, and the Calders have always been handy for that,” Cat replied without heat.

  He looked at her for a long second. “It was an accident. I never set out to hurt anybody.”

  “Repp died just the same.” But it was the image of a man with smoke gray eyes that lived in her mind, not her fiancé’s face. It was a secret she kept to herself.

  With the cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, he took a last drag on it, his eyes squinting at her through the smoke. “I heard how much you mourned him,” he said with a knowing smirk. “Where’s your kid?”

  Stiffening, Cat raised the angle of her chin fractionally higher.

  “With his grandfather.”

  The squeal and hiss of air brakes pulled his attention from her. Glancing around, Cat saw a bus slowing to make the turn off the highway into Fedderson’s. With the diesel engine throttled down to a growl, the bus swung into the station. When she turned back, Rollie Anderson wore a look of expectancy.

  “See you around.” He moved off toward the bus, obviously meeting someone.

  Idly curious, Cat lingered a moment. The bus door swooshed open, and a man in a jeans jacket and cowboy hat clumped down the steps, a grin splitting his face as he grabbed for Rollie’s hand. The edges of his hair showed blond beneath his hat, and his face had the same broad, blunt features, but etched with more lines.

  “Damn, but it’s good to see you, Lath.” Rollie’s voice was gruff with pleasure as he hugged the man to him in a rough, back-pounding embrace. “It’s been too damn long since you were home.”

  Lath was his older brother’s name, Cat remembered, and took a closer look at the man, who stood a good inch shorter than Rollie.

  “Hell, if I’d come back any sooner, the old man would have worked me to death on that hellhole of a place he called a farm,” Lath declared in a voice liberally tinged with a Texas drawl. “Believe me, little brother, there are a lot easier ways to make money.” The bus driver swung down behind him and walked to the vehicle’s baggage compartment, opening it up and dragging out a green duffel bag. Cat turned away and crossed the last few feet to the store’s entrance. Behind her, Lath asked, “Where’s Mom? I figured she would be here.”

  “She’s had her fill of town. She never did cotton to it, and no one cottoned to her. She’s back at the trailer, cooking you up a feast,” Rollie replied and added something else, but the jangle of bells triggered by Cat pushing the door open drowned out his words.

  Inside, she nodded a greeting to the bored-looking woman at the cash register and went straight to the post office window in a rear corner of the store’s expanded grocery section. After collecting two packages destined for the ranch, Cat paused in the fresh produce section to inspect the shipment of ripe red strawberries, one of Quint’s favorite treats. As she reached for a shopping basket, the bells above the outside door jingled again.

  On the heels of its musical clatter came Lath’s drawling voice, in midsentence, “—is thirsty business. A six-pack ought to hold me till I get home.” Rollie mumbled something in response, but Lath Anderson made no attempt to lower his voice or hide the sharp edge to it. “What do you mean, we don’t have credit here? Since when?”

  Cat slipped the packages in the shopping basket and glanced toward the front of the store, catching a glimpse of the two brothers but unable to hear Rollie’s murmured reply. The body language of his turned-aside head and hunched shoulders hinted of embarrassment. A second later, Emmett Fedderson plodded into view, looking wary and nervous.

  Lath spotted him at almost the same time. “Emmett, you’re just the man I wanted to see,” he declared and draped an arm around the old man’s shoulder in pseudo-friendliness. “Rollie just told me some news that really hurt me. He said you cut off Ma’s credit after Pa died. I gotta tell you, I don’t take kindly to that. No, sir, I don’t take kindly to that at all.”

  “The bill got too big.” Emmett attempted to ease away from the younger and bigger man, but Lath tightened his grip, his fingers applying pressure to keep him close. “I didn’t like doing it, but it got to be more than I could carry, business being what it is and all.”

  Cat turned back to the strawberries, selected a quart and looked for another, still listening to the run of conversation, uneasy without being sure why.

  “Business is something I understand, Emmett,” Lath told him. “A man running a business has got a lot of hidden costs and worries that most people don’t even think about, more things than just an unpaid bill or two. Things like shoplifting and vandalism, fires and robberies—why, I guess you’d even have to worry about a runaway vehicle crashing into the front of your store. Yup, a fella’s got to think about all those possibilities, don’t he?”

  “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, Em
mett, 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 realized 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? Look
s 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.”