“No, of course not.” He reacted with surprise. “I intended to, but I never quite got around to it. Why would you ask?” he added with a slightly puzzled frown.
“I ran across some notations Chase had made.” She gestured toward the desk. “It looked like he might have been weighing the pros and cons of either leasing it or starting it up himself.”
“Really.” His expression was one of curious interest.
“Naturally I thought you had been talking to him.”
“Of course you would.” Monte was quick to agree. “It’s the logical assumption. But, on my oath”—he automatically raised his right hand—“I never said a word to him about it.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. It’s probably nothing more than an odd coincidence.”
“Now I’m curious. You don’t still have his notes, do you? I would be interested to see what he wrote.”
Jessy shook her head. “No, I gave the paper to Cat. There was no reason for me to keep it, and it meant something to her since it was in her father’s handwriting.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it,” he murmured with a tinge of sadness, “how trivial items suddenly become treasured mementoes after the loss of a loved one.”
“It always seems to happen that way,” Jessy agreed.
“Speaking of trivial things,” Monte began, “how are you progressing in your search for a horse for Trey? I think I may have found a suitable mount for him if you are still looking.”
“As a matter of fact, Dad mentioned yesterday that he had one he wanted me to see.”
“It’s a good thing I asked, and saved myself a bit of embarrassment later. I shall never forget the shock I felt that day when Trey announced that the pony wasn’t big enough to ride.”
They shared their separate recollections about the incident. The passage of time allowed them both to have a good laugh over it. Privately Jessy marveled at how much more relaxed she felt now that she had delivered Chase’s note to Cat. She felt confident that it had achieved the desired result. Tara could do all the lobbying she wanted, but Cat had a mind of her own, one that Tara wouldn’t find easy to sway.
With that complication out of the way, Jessy hoped things might go more smoothly now. But it was a hope that turned out to be short-lived.
After the last of the guests had left The Homestead, her parents and two other ranch wives stayed behind to help with the cleanup. While making a sweep through the rooms, Jessy spotted a coffee cup that had been left on a windowsill in the dining room. She picked it up and glanced around for any other stray item. Her father came through the room on his way to the kitchen, a stack of sandwich plates in his hand.
He stopped when he saw her. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Jessy, how come Logan was asking so many questions today about that new man you hired, Laredo Smith?”
“What kind of questions?” she asked, her stomach suddenly churning.
“General things . . . where he worked before—stuff like that. ’Course nobody could tell him much because Smith hasn’t been here long enough for anybody to know much about him.” He gave her a half-worried look. “What do you know about him, Jess?”
“I know he’s a good man and a good worker. We’ve never asked any more than that at the Triple C.” It was another one of those old codes that was still followed on the ranch; nobody delved too deeply into a man’s background.
Stumpy Niles nodded in agreement. “Logan sure is questioning, though,” he said.
“Maybe, but I know Chase . . . thought highly of him.” Jessy almost forgot to put it in the past tense. “That’s all the recommendation I need.”
“You’re right there,” he said and headed for the kitchen.
Jessy knew that one of these times she would get tripped up by a little slip of the tongue. She also knew that if her father had noticed all the questions Logan was asking, other ranch hands had as well. Which meant they would be watching Laredo more closely than they might otherwise have.
She sighed, convinced that this entire situation had more knots in it than a green bronc on a frosty morning. It was going to require skillful riding to not get bucked off.
Dust motes danced in the shaft of morning sunlight that poured through the kitchen window. Culley observed their erratic movements, aware as he always was of all things around him no matter how small and insignificant. Cat belonged in neither category. Most mornings she gabbed away like a magpie, but this wasn’t one of them.
She stood at the counter, methodically spooning cookie dough onto a baking sheet. Culley poured himself another cup of coffee and lingered by the pot to watch her.
“Not many folks showed up fer Sally’s funeral the other day,” he remarked.
“No.” The single syllable answer did little to encourage conversation.
“I kinda thought that Laredo fella might be there, but he didn’t show.”
“No.” The flat pitch of her voice never changed, but there was something slightly savage in the way Cat dipped out the next spoon of dough.
“What’s Logan got t’say about him?”
After a vague movement of her shoulders, Cat replied, “He’s going to call someone in Texas he knows and see what he can find out about the Smith family.”
With the cookie sheet filled, she stuck the spoon in the remaining dough and checked on the batch baking in the oven. The opening of the oven door released a fresh bloom of vanilla and chocolate scents into the kitchen, but it was the edgy briskness of her movements that Culley noticed. Leaving the cookies to bake a little longer, Cat turned away from the stove, paused, and exhaled a troubled sigh.
“I don’t know, Uncle Culley. Maybe I was too quick to find fault with Jessy. It’s for sure Dad would hate it if he knew Jessy and I were at odds over the ranch. I’ve heard that anger is often a manifestation of grief.”
“Maybe,” Culley conceded, unconvinced, “but it don’t explain the Smiths.”
“No, it doesn’t, does it,” she said, a new awareness of that dawning in her green eyes. An instant later both heard the sound of a vehicle pulling into the ranch yard. Cat immediately groaned. “It’s probably Tara. When I talked to her yesterday, she said she might stop by this morning.” But when she looked out the window, it wasn’t Tara she saw coming up the walk. “It’s Monte,” she said in surprise and hurriedly brushed at the dusting of white flour on her blouse. “I wonder what he wants.” The rhetorical question was addressed to Culley, but when she turned to look, he had already slipped out the back door.
It was so typical of him to avoid casual contact with people he didn’t know well that Cat simply shook her head in amusement and went to the front door to welcome her unexpected visitor. Monte rapped lightly on the screen door just as she reached it.
“It’s a surprise to see you out and about this morning, Monte.” Cat pushed the door open. “Please come in.”
He hesitated. “I haven’t come at an inconvenient time, have I?”
“Not at all.”
With an idle lift of his hand, he motioned in the direction of the barn before entering. “Is that Quint I see at the corral?”
“Yes. He’s doing some groundwork with our Appaloosa colt. It’s his summer project.”
“Isn’t he a bit young to do that by himself?” A slight frown creased Monte’s high forehead.
“Usually I supervise, although he doesn’t really need anyone. Besides, my father would tell you a child is never too young to assume responsibility.” Her nose told her the cookies were done. Cat moved toward the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “Excuse me a minute. I have a batch of cookies in the oven that need to come out.”
Monte sniffed the air. “Ah, that’s what that delectable aroma is.” He trailed after her into the typically large and roomy ranch kitchen. “It reminds me of my schoolboy days when I used to snitch biscuits from the cook’s larder.”
“Biscuits are what you Brits call cookies, aren’t they? I almost forgot that.” Cat went directly to the stove and slipped on the insulated mitt she had left on the counter.
“Indeed they are.” Monte bypassed the long wooden table with its ladder-backed chairs and wandered over to the old rolltop desk in the alcove off the dining area. “What a marvelous old desk. Is it a family heirloom?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I think Logan told me he found it at a used-furniture store in Miles City.” Cat removed the baking sheet from the oven and set it atop the stove. She smiled when she noticed Monte examining the desk’s many pigeonholes. “When Quint was younger, he was fascinated by all its little nooks and drawers.”
“Does it have any hidden compartments?” he wondered. “I know many of these old desks do.”
“None that I know about.” With a spatula, Cat removed the hot cookies from the sheet, one by one, and placed them on a wire rack to cool. “I have some coffee made if you would like a cup. Or I can brew you some tea.”
“Regrettably I can’t stay that long. I have an appointment in town. I only stopped to see if you have any plans for this coming Sunday. So many things have happened lately that forced the postponement of the dinner I planned to host for all of you. Perhaps it isn’t appropriate now, so soon after Sally’s funeral, but I concluded there may never be a proper time so I have decided to have it Sunday—assuming everyone is available, of course.”
Tensing a little, Cat kept her back to him. The prospect of spending a social afternoon in Jessy’s company still wasn’t a comfortable one. She had said some harsh things to her, and Cat hadn’t yet decided that she wanted to retract them.
“I don’t think we have anything on the calendar, but I probably should check with Logan before I commit to coming.” She bounced a glance off Monte as she slipped another sheet of cookies into the oven. “Is it all right if I call you tomorrow and let you know?”
“Tomorrow will be fine.” He drifted away from the desk. “I have yet to speak to Jessy, but I plan to phone her this afternoon. Therefore, nothing is definite yet.”
“I understand.” Privately Cat hoped Jessy wouldn’t be available.
“Your . . . uh . . . cookies . . . smell delicious.” His hesitation over the word choice was deliberate, edged with a smile. “As much as I would like to stay and indulge in such a treat, I really must be going.”
“I hope you stop by again when you can stay longer.” In preparation for walking him to the door, Cat slipped off the mitt and laid it on the counter.
But when she started toward him, Monte lifted a detaining hand. “There’s no need for you to accompany me. I can find my way out.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know about the dinner,” Cat promised.
He inclined his head in acknowledgement and exited the kitchen. Listening to his footsteps make their way to the front door, Cat swung back to the counter, slipped the mitt on again and picked up the still-warm cookie sheet to spoon more dough onto it. By the time she had the next batch ready for the oven, Monte’s vehicle had pulled out of the yard.
When she turned to check on the ones in the oven, she was startled to see Culley standing there. “Good Lord, you scared me,” she said with a half-laugh. “I thought you had left.”
“I didn’t go far.” The hardness in his eyes was a little disconcerting.
In that instant Cat realized he had stayed close to protect her, unwilling to leave her alone with a man he didn’t know. “You were in the utility room, weren’t you?” she guessed.
In former days it had been a small back porch that had since been closed in to house the washer and dryer. The door that opened from the kitchen into it was still the old door, the top half of it a glass window.
“Thought I should stick close by in case he took a notion t’try somethin’ with you,” Culley said in an indirect admission.
Warmed by his deep-caring gesture, Cat smiled. “It wasn’t necessary, but I’m glad you did.”
“He didn’t stay long.”
“No. He only stopped to invite us to his place on Sunday.” After checking the cookies on the rack, Cat decided they were cool enough to stack, and provide room for the new batch from the oven.
“You goin’?”
“I haven’t decided. I told him I would call tomorrow and let him know.”
“What was he doin’ snoopin’ around that old desk?”
“He was just admiring it.”
“He poked around it like he was figurin’ on buyin’ it,” Culley observed.
A small smile deepened the corners of her mouth. Cat couldn’t help being a little amused by the proprietary attitude Culley took toward anything he regarded as hers. “Some people are fascinated by old furniture, Uncle Culley.”
He responded with a disdainful snort. “He probably likes paintings an’ statues, too. He looks like the type.”
This time Cat laughed out loud. “Coming from most people, that would be a compliment. But something tells me you just insulted him.”
Culley didn’t deny it. “To my way of thinkin’, he strikes me as bein’ a bit too dandified.”
Cat suspected that Culley based his opinion on the patrician fineness of Monte’s features and upper-crust British accent, but she didn’t say so. “The cookies are still warm from the oven. Would you like a couple with your coffee?”