Chapter Twelve
The high and wide Montana sky was a startling
blue, lit by a bright morning sun. A twin-engine Beechcraft bearing
the Triple C insignia on its door sped down the runway. Buckled in
the passenger seat across the aisle from Cat, Jessy gazed out the
window at the rolling grassland whipping by.
Unlike Cat, she couldn’t summon any
enthusiasm for this shopping trip to Dallas. Logic told her it was
necessary, but as far as she was concerned, it was one of life’s
unpleasantries that had to be endured.
With the engines roaring at full power,
the plane’s nose lifted. A moment later the craft was airborne, the
land falling away beneath it. Somewhere around eight hundred feet
it began a banking turn to the south.
“I’ve been thinking,” Cat
said.
“About what?” Jessy asked when Cat
failed to continue.
“We will actually need two outfits. One
for the auction, and another for the open house the day
before.”
“What open house?” Jessy stiffened. “No
one said anything to me about having one at The
Homestead.”
“I don’t mean it literally. But a lot
of the buyers will want to come the day before the auction to look
over the sale stock and decide which they want to bid on. People
will probably be coming and going most of the day. In that sense,
it will be a bit less informal, but we still need to dress
appropriately.”
There was that word again, Jessy
thought with an inward sign, but she managed to joke, “I guess
jeans and a shirt wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Cat laughed, as Jessy knew she would.
“Don’t you wish.”
“Don’t I, though,” Jessy agreed with a
rueful smile and automatically glanced out the plane’s window
again. This bird’s-eye view of the land on which she was born was
one she never tired of seeing. And she had cow-boyed for too many
years not to instinctively watch for the unusual.
Intent on the ground, she almost missed
the aircraft sweeping across the eastern sky. But its movement
caught her eye. Leaning closer to the porthole, she took a second
look then hurriedly unbuckled her belt and scrambled out of her
seat.
“What’s wrong?” Cat
frowned.
Jessy didn’t bother to answer as she
made her way up the aisle to the cockpit. “Jack.” She tapped the
pilot on the shoulder and pointed to his left. “Do you see that
helicopter off your wing?”
He turned his head in that direction
and nodded. “Got it.”
“Try to raise somebody at the ranch and
tell them a helicopter is flying on a course toward the Wolf Meadow
range.”
“Will do,” he promised and glanced at
his copilot. “Get on the horn, Andy. Frank still might be in the
hangar area.” Over his shoulder, he said to Jessy, “If we can’t get
Frank, we’ll patch a call into headquarters.”
“Thanks,” she said and turned
away.
The minute she stepped into the cabin,
Cat’s eyes were on her, a mixture of curiosity and concern in her
expression. “What’s wrong?”
“I spotted a helicopter that might be
headed for Wolf Meadow,” Jessy explained, returning to her seat.
“Jack’s going to make sure Ty knows about it.”
A grimly determined look stole over
Cat’s features at the news. “Maybe at last we’ll find out who
bought the land.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about
this.” She hadn’t from the moment they learned the government was
not renewing their lease.
“We’ll get it back,” Cat stated.
“Whatever it takes, we’ll get it back. After all, what good is it
to anybody? We have it completely landlocked. Their only access to
it is by air.”
“Maybe whoever bought it wants to turn
it into a nature preserve.” That seemed to be the general consensus
of the attorneys.
“Do you believe that?” Cat eyed her
closely.
Jessy shook her head. “No.” But she
couldn’t put her finger on why she felt so certain about
that.
“Neither do I.” Cat replied then sighed
rather grimly. “With any luck, we’ll learn the identity of the new
owner before the day’s out.”
But something told Jessy that any
satisfaction to be gained from solving the mystery of the new
owner’s identity wouldn’t last long.
Up front, the copilot climbed out of
the right seat and stepped into the cabin doorway while the plane
continued to climb to its assigned altitude. “Thought you would
want to know we passed on the word about the helicopter. Ty is
going to check it out.”
“Thanks,” Cat said and glanced at
Jessy. “It won’t be long now.”
“We received word that there might be
some clear-air turbulence up ahead. Better make sure you keep your
seat belts fastened,” the copilot added in warning.
As far as Jessy was concerned, she
didn’t need to be warned of impending trouble. She sensed
it.
There were few curves in the dirt ranch
road as it followed the undulations of the rolling plains. With his
foot pressed hard on the pickup’s accelerator, Ty drove as fast as
he dared.
He ducked his head low to scan the sky
ahead of him, making sure the chopper was still in sight. Fighting
through the glare of the rising sun, he caught a glimpse of it
still some distance ahead of him but lower than before. It was
descending. A quick check of its angle confirmed Ty’s
suspicions—its landing point would be well north of the road on the
Wolf Meadow range.
But exactly where, he couldn’t tell.
The helicopter was too far away yet. Which made it all the more
important for him to keep it in sight as long as
possible.
As the helicopter swooped lower, the
land’s natural rise and fall soon made it difficult for Ty to keep
the craft in view. Then it disappeared completely. Cursing his
luck, Ty tried to gauge how far north of the road it had been at
his last sighting of it. Close to a mile was his best guess. Next
he attempted to triangulate where a line from that point would
intersect the road. It wasn’t an easy task without landmarks to
guide him.
As he approached the imaginary
junction, Ty spotted a fence gate just ahead. Slowing the pickup,
he pulled into it, stopped, hopped out of the cab, and dragged open
the gate. Back in the truck, he removed the binoculars from their
leather carrying case and laid them on the seat beside him then
switched the pickup into four-wheel drive and took
off.
Speed was no longer important; only
finding the helicopter was. At the crest of each rise, Ty pulled up
and made a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree sweep of the country
before him with the binoculars. It was a rough and broken land,
dotted with low mesas and gouged with wide coulees.
When that scan turned up nothing, he
traveled on to the next vantage point and glassed the area again.
Still nothing. On his third stop, he spotted the chopper on the
ground approximately a half-mile northeast of him. It had landed a
short distance away from windmill eleven near the base of Antelope
Butte.
With its location pinpointed, Ty drove
in an easterly direction until he reached the dim trail, used by
Triple C hands to service the windmill. After he turned onto it, it
was a more-or-less straight shot to the site.
Within minutes the butte face loomed
before him, but Ty’s gaze was centered on the two men standing near
the helicopter. Leaving the overgrown trail, he aimed the pickup
toward the two men, taking his measure of them. The taller of the
two, in shirt sleeves and aviator glasses, Ty quickly dismissed as
the chopper pilot and centered his attention on the second man,
dressed in jeans, a leather jacket, and a black cowboy
hat.
Observing Ty’s approach, he said
something to the pilot and split away from him, moving forward to
meet the truck. At a point of his choosing, the man stopped, dipped
his head down, and waited for Ty to stop.
With a grim kind of eagerness for the
coming meeting, Ty switched off the engine and climbed out of the
pickup. Rounding the hood of the truck, he walked toward the hatted
figure, mildly annoyed that the man had yet to look
up.
When Ty was only steps from him, the
man slowly raised his head, giving Ty his first good look at his
face.
Recognition splintered through Ty like
an electric shock. It was Buck Haskell.
“I expected either you or your pa to
show up,” Buck stated with a smile. “I’m kinda’ sorry it’s
you.”
“What are you doing here?” Ty demanded
and shot a quick look at the second man by the
chopper.
“My job.” Buck’s smile deepened, but
his eyes had a watchful look to them. “I told you last week I’d be
starting any day.”
“So you did.” Behind him, the windmill
groaned a protest as a stiff wind tugged at its tied-down blades.
Ty ignored it.
“You do realize you’re on private
property,” Buck reminded him. “Technically you’re
trespassing.”
Unconcerned, Ty smiled. “Technically,
maybe. And maybe I’m just doing the neighborly thing by coming to
meet the new owner.” He nodded in the direction of the man by the
helicopter. “Is that him?”
“Nope. That’s the pilot.”
“So where’s your boss?” Ty
challenged.
“Over there.” With a sideways bob of
his head, Buck directed Ty’s attention toward the
butte.
Making a half-turn toward it, Ty stared
in surprise at the couple seemingly intent on studying the stretch
of land at the base of the bluff some distance from the windmill.
For a moment he was stunned that he had failed to notice them
before now, then realized that he had been too intent on the
helicopter to look far beyond it. Coupled with the fact that both
the man and the woman wore tan-colored clothes, his oversight was
understandable. The man was hatless, exposing a head of iron-gray
hair. But the woman wore a beige scarf that fluttered in the wind.
With their backs to him, there was little more that Ty could
discern about either of them.
“I’ll go introduce myself,” Ty said to
Buck.
“I think I’ll come along.” Buck’s smile
had an amused quality that Ty didn’t like.
“Suit yourself,” Ty replied and struck
out across the grass toward the couple, indifferent to whether the
older Buck could keep up with the pace Ty set.
Buck remained only a half a stride
behind, saying nothing, his smile never faltering. When they were
less than twenty feet from the couple, Buck called ahead, “Sorry to
interrupt, but you’ve got a visitor.”
As one, the man and woman turned and Ty
had his first glimpse of Tara’s raven hair and jet-black eyes. Ty
stopped dead in his tracks, a fury surging through
him.
“You bought this land,” he thundered
the accusation.
Contrition swept her expression. “Ty,
I’m sorry. I tried a hundred times to tell you—”
Without waiting to hear more, Ty
pivoted on his heel and headed back toward his truck, anger
vibrating through every muscle.
“Ty, please.” Tara ran after him. “Let
me explain.”
“I’m not interested in your
explanations.” He pushed the words through his teeth, his voice low
and curt.
“It’s not what you think,” she insisted
and moved into his path, forcing him to stop. “Just listen to me
for one minute please. Then if you still want to leave, I won’t
stop you.”
He studied her with cold eyes, his
attitude hardened by her act of betrayal. “I suppose you’re going
to tell me that you don’t own the land.”
“Technically, I don’t, but in fact I
do, since I am the sole shareholder of the corporation that holds
the title to it.”
“Then there is nothing more you can say
that I care to hear.”
When he started to move by her, Tara
reached out to stop him. “You don’t understand,” she protested, her
eyes dark with entreaty. “The whole thing began as nothing more
than a lark. Your father has tried for years to get title to this
land without success. It became a challenge of sorts. I wanted to
see if I could do it.”
“Then you must be feeling very proud of
yourself about now.” Ty looked at her with nothing but contempt in
his eyes.
“How can I when it has made you so
angry.” Her own expression was full of pain, but Ty was unmoved by
it. “Don’t you see—I always knew you were going about things the
wrong way. The days when the government sold land to individuals is
gone. It’s no longer interested in divesting itself of property,
regardless of the price that might be offered for it.”
“You didn’t seem to have any difficulty
buying it,” Ty reminded her.
“I didn’t buy it, at least not with
cash. I traded for it.”
In spite of himself, her answer snagged
his interest. “You traded?”
“It wasn’t exactly an even swap either,
considering the exorbitant sum I had to pay for the other tract of
land adjacent to one of the national parks. But I knew there were
certain officials in positions of authority who wanted to see it
come under government control. From there, it wasn’t difficult to
get them to agree to an exchange.”
“Very clever. But then you have always
been clever.” There was nothing in his tone of voice that made it a
compliment.
“But not clever enough to keep you.”
The look of abject regret Tara gave him failed to tunnel through
his defenses as it had done little more than a week
ago.
“Fortunately.” Ty had no pity for
her.
She dropped her glance. “I had that
coming.”
He wasn’t about to refute that. “How
much do you want, Tara?”
Her head came up, her dark eyes wide
with confusion. “For what?”
“For Wolf Meadow, of
course.”
“I . . .” Tara faltered and looked
away, running her gaze through the broken land. “I’m not sure I
want to sell it.”
His eyes narrowed with a new wariness.
“Exactly what do you plan to do with it then?”
The wind whipped a corner of her silk
scarf onto her face. Reaching up, Tara pushed it off her cheek and
turned imploring eyes on him. “I know you aren’t going to believe
this. It’s hard for me to believe it when I remember how much I
hated this empty country with its suffocating sky. But this past
year I have come to realize how much I miss it.”
“Are you saying that you plan to live
here?” Ty demanded.
“I do,” Tara admitted, then added in
appeal, “Is that so terribly wrong?”
“Not on this land, you aren’t,” Ty
stated, flat and hard.
For the first time there was a snap of
anger in her dark eyes. “You don’t really have any control over
that, do you?”
It didn’t sit well that she was
absolutely right. There was very little he could do to stop her. He
looked away, his glance briefly landing on Buck Haskell, standing a
short distance away but within earshot.
“What’s your game, Tara?” His stony
gaze sliced back to her.
“Please don’t take that attitude, Ty,”
she murmured in hurt protest. “Not everything I do is a
game.”
“That has been my experience.” It was
not in him to relent.
“You can’t have forgotten how well we
worked together this past year. Not so quickly. We are good for
each other,” Tara insisted in an attempt to appeal to his reason.
“Don’t ruin our relationship because of this.”
“You ruined it yourself when you went
behind my back and bought this land.”
“Why does that make you so angry?” Tara
demanded in frustration. “Why aren’t you congratulating me for
finally getting clear title to it from the government? Does it
bother you so much that I succeeded where you and your father
failed? This is all about that stiff-necked Calder pride, isn’t
it?”
“No, it’s about you and the way you
kept your acquisition of it such a deep dark secret. Even though
you knew I would eventually find out, you still didn’t have the
guts to come tell me. You let me show up here
instead.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you. Can’t
you understand that?” Tara said.
“I might buy that from anyone else, but
not from you.”
“Don’t you see—when I started out, I
didn’t say anything in case I wasn’t successful. By not saying
anything in the beginning, it made it harder to tell you later. And
it became even more complicated when I realized I wanted to make my
home here. I never guessed I would come to feel that way, but I do.
Is that so wrong?”
“I don’t give a damn whether you live
in Montana or Marrakesh, just as long as it isn’t on this land.”
His gaze sharpened on her. “But you are bound to know that so why
are you doing it?”
Her lips curved in a smile of
beguilement. “Isn’t it obvious? I want to be near you.” Tara
stepped closer and slid her hands onto his shirtfront, spreading
them across his chest. “Even if we aren’t married anymore, that
doesn’t mean we still can’t be close.”
Grim-eyed, Ty grabbed her wrists and
shoved her away from him. “Goodbye, Tara.” He strode toward the
ranch pickup.
“Not goodbye, Ty,” she called after
him. “We’ll see each other again. If you have any hope of getting
this land now, you will have to deal directly with me. I’ll be
flying back to Fort Worth this afternoon. Talk it over with your
father then give me a call in the next day or two and we will
arrange a time when the three of us can sit down and
talk.”
Offering no response, Ty climbed into
the pickup and slammed the door. An instant later the engine roared
to life. After a reversing turn, the truck charged down the dim
track toward the south fence line.
Buck waited a beat then sauntered over
to Tara, his side glance inspecting the smooth satisfaction in her
expression. “Reckon he’ll call?”
“He doesn’t have a choice,” Tara
replied with certainty.
With a push of his thumb, Buck tipped
the brim of his hat back. “I guess you haven’t learned a Calder
always has a choice.”
“Not this time.” There wasn’t even the
smallest trace of doubt in her voice.
Buck wasn’t so sure of that, but he
didn’t say so as the wind carried to him the distinctive
chop-chop of a helicopter’s rotating
blades. Looking up, he spotted the big workhorse chopper lumbering
out of the eastern sky, a piece of machinery suspended beneath
it.
“Here comes the backhoe,” he told Tara
then cautioned, “You might want to move back a ways. The dust is
gonna be flyin’.”
“That’s fine. The architect and I need
to decide on a final building site anyway.” Taking his suggestion,
Tara moved away to rejoin the other man, studiously pacing off a
section of ground, oblivious to everything else.
A thick and heavy silence hung over the
den, weighted by the news Ty had brought back with him. Chase sat
behind the desk, grimly contemplating its many ramifications. Ty
stood at the window, one hand braced against its frame, a thumb of
the other hooked in his back pocket while he stared blindly at the
sprawl of ranch buildings beyond its glass. A high and angry
tension ridged the muscles along his jaw and darkened his eyes to
blackened pinpoints of suppressed rage.
The big leather chair creaked as Chase
rocked forward. “It won’t be long before the range telegraph gets
wind of this and flashes it to every corner of the ranch. We won’t
be able to ignore it.”
Ty slammed his hand against the window
frame, the sharp hard sound of it shattering the room’s stillness
like a clap of thunder. “She wants something. What the hell is
it?”
“We won’t know that until we meet with
her,” Chase stated.
“I hate playing into her hand.” Ty
swung from the window, no longer able to contain the simmering
energy inside.
“At least we know the stakes are Wolf
Meadow.” Chase settled back in his chair, turning thoughtful
again.
“And she isn’t bluffing about building
a house on it or that chopper wouldn’t be flying in a
backhoe.”
“So it would seem,” Chase murmured in
absent agreement. “But what is she doing with Buck Haskell on the
payroll?”
“I didn’t ask. More than likely it’s
pure spite on her part.” Too impatient to sit, Ty wandered over to
the front of the desk.
“You do realize that Jessy will be
calling the minute they land in Fort Worth to see what you found
out,” Chase said, then added, “I wouldn’t tell her anything
yet.”
Ty’s head came up, a questioning frown
knitting his brows. “Why not? It won’t come as any great surprise
to her. Jessy has been convinced Tara was up to something for more
than a year.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Jessy,” Chase
replied, a touch of grimness about his mouth. “It’s Cat I’m worried
about. She’s always looked up to Tara. This will be a blow to her.
Why ruin her shopping trip if it can be avoided.”
“You don’t know Jessy.” A dry smile
tugged at one corner of Ty’s mouth. “She isn’t going to buy the
idea that I didn’t learn anything.”
“Admit that you did, but explain that
it looks like you won’t be able to tell her the new owner’s name
until they get home tomorrow. Which will be the truth, as far as it
goes. You can explain later about Cat. She’ll
understand.”
Knowing his wife, Ty couldn’t argue
with that logic.
Late on Sunday afternoon the
twin-engine Beechcraft taxied toward the hangar apron where the
welcoming committee of Ty, Logan, and Quint waited for it. Upon
reaching its tie-down area, the pilot slew the craft around and cut
its engines.
Frank came out of the hangar shed at a
waddling trot, toting the wheel chocks. Grunting with the effort,
he jammed a set around each wheel, then scrambled around to slap a
hand on the cabin door. As soon as it swung open, he latched it
back and pulled the steps down.
When Cat came into view, Quint broke
from his father’s side and ran to meet her. “I’m glad you’re home,
Mom. We missed you a lot.”
“I missed you, too.” She crouched down
to wrap him in a hug and smack a kiss on his cheek then
straightened, tipping her head up in anticipation of Logan’s
welcoming kiss.
He didn’t disappoint her as Jessy
emerged from the plane. Her glance ran straight to Ty in an
unspoken question. Ty didn’t need to hear the words to know what
she was asking—whether he had learned the identity of the new
owner. He responded with a barely perceptible nod then moved
forward to greet her.
“Welcome home.” He dropped a light kiss
on her lips.
“You have no idea how glad I am to be
back,” Jessy murmured.
“An ordeal, was it?” Ty smiled at this
rare woman who was his wife.
“And then some,” Jessy answered with a
mock roll of her eyes.
“Did you two succeed in buying out the
stores before you left?” Logan teased.
“We made a gallant effort at it,” Cat
responded in kind.
“Did you find a new jacket for me,
Mom?” Quint asked, his gray eyes alight with hope.
“I certainly did.”
“Where is it?” Quint wanted to
know.
“Yes.” Logan picked up the question.
“Where is this haul you made? I expected you two to be loaded down
with packages.”
“They’re in the baggage compartment.
Get your arms ready,” Cat warned. “You have some heavy-duty
carrying to do.”
Frank opened the hatch to the luggage
compartment, paused, and shot a wide-eyed look at Cat. “Good Lord,
Miss Cat, you did buy out the stores there.”
He hauled box after box out of the rear
compartment—long boxes, tall boxes, fat boxes, shoeboxes, and
hatboxes. Cat sorted through them as they came out, identifying
what belonged to whom. When she had finished, all but two were in
her own stack.
Ty stared from the two lonely boxes to
Jessy in disbelief. “Is that all you bought?”
“Don’t you wish.” Cat laughed. “That is
merely what your wife brought home with her. Jessy has the most
incredible eye for what looks great on her.”
The compliment was so unexpected that
Ty couldn’t keep from sliding a skeptical glance at his wife. Jessy
had a kind of natural beauty that was simple and strong, but she
had never been one to spend much time worrying about what to wear.
He had counted on Cat’s fashion sense to guide Jessy in purchasing
the appropriate clothes for the auction.
“I’m serious.” Cat caught the doubt
that had flickered in his eyes. “On Saturday, I must have had her
try on twenty different outfits that looked sensational on the
hanger but didn’t suit her at all. Finally, we were in this one
shop and I had already selected two or three things for Jessy to
try on when she walked over to a rack, pulled out a short jacket in
a brick-red wool, and grabbed a pair of black jeans off the shelf
and a high-crowned black hat with a concho band. Then she said to
me, ‘I’ll try this on first.’ When she walked out of the changing
room, my chin hit the floor. Except for the blond hair, she looked
exactly like one of those cowgirls in a Doreman Burns painting.
It’s a perfect outfit for the open house.”
“What did you buy for the auction?” Ty
asked, his curiosity aroused, taking more interest in the subject
than he might have before this weekend’s turn of
events.
“A pair of suede jeans and a matching
shirt.” Even now, Jessy had lost interest in the
subject.
“Sounds plain, doesn’t it?” Cat said.
“But Jessy is striking in it. I guarantee heads will turn. She
found the set in the men’s side of the store, tried it on, and the
search was over. Of course it didn’t fit properly. But fortunately
it was the work of a local designer. Rather than do a lot of major
alterations to the outfit, a new one is being made just for her. It
should be here in a couple of months, complete with matching boots
and hat. Believe me, she will be sensational in it.”
“I believe you.” There was satisfaction
in the thought that Jessy would be the one making the fashion
statement, something that had always been Tara’s
province.
“Enough about clothes.” Jessy said with
her usual bluntness. As far as she was concerned, the subject had
been exhausted long ago. There were more important matters at hand.
“Were you able to learn who the new owner is?”
“Actually I knew it when I talked to
you yesterday, but Dad and I decided to wait until you were back to
tell you,” Ty admitted, watching as Jessy mentally braced herself.
He slid a glance at his sister, aware that she would be the one
shocked by the news. Logan shifted closer to Cat. “It’s
Tara.”
“No.” Cat stepped back from him,
bumping into Logan, her green eyes round with denial and disbelief.
“She wouldn’t do that. You made a mistake.”
“There is no mistake, Cat,” Ty stated
with a gentle firmness. “I talked with her myself.”
“But . . . why? Why would she do it?”
Cat looked at him with heart-touching bewilderment.
“Her reasons don’t really matter,” Ty
replied. “She owns it and we have to deal with that.”
It was on the tip of Jessy’s tongue to
throw it in Ty’s face that she had warned him all along that Tara
wasn’t to be trusted. But she was wise enough to know that
indulging in I-told-you-so was a waste of precious energies when
they needed to concentrate their efforts on dealing with this new
circumstance.
“What does she plan to do with it?”
Jessy asked instead, every inch of her intent on his
answer.
“She claims she wants to live on it.”
Ty was obviously not completely convinced of that. “But we’ll have
a better idea of her intentions after Friday.”
“Why Friday?” Cat frowned.
“She’s coming to dinner—at her
suggestion,” Ty added with dry emphasis. “Afterwards we will sit
down and talk.”
“She’s after the coal, Ty.” It was the
only explanation that made sense to Jessy. “It was what her father
wanted. Now she intends to fulfill his dream for it.”
“If it is, she will play hell getting
it out.”