Calder Pride (31 page)

“It means he snores loud.” She flipped the pancakes, then lifted the crisp bacon out of the skillet, laying it on a plate lined with a paper towel to absorb the grease.

“Are you always gonna sleep on the sofa, Mom?”

“No.” That was an absolute. “There’s a spare bed in the attic at The Homestead. When we go back to pack our things, I’ll have the boys load it up.”

“There’s no need,” Logan said. “I planned on driving to Miles City on Saturday and pick up a bed.”

“Unless you want to experience the joy of sleeping on the sofa until then, you can save yourself the
trip.” Cat took the plate of bacon to the table. “Although I will be needing a dresser to put my clothes in.”

“There’s one in the spare bedroom.” Logan pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. “I’ll clean it out when I get home tonight.”

“Where do you want me to put all the boxes?” She dished up the pancakes and poured batter for three more.

“I’ll take care of those and set up the bed, too. You’1l have your hands full just getting your things packed and moved over here today, not to mention fixing supper. Remember you invited your uncle to join us.”

Actually, Cat had forgotten that, but she didn’t admit it. “Here. You can start with these.” She set the pancakes on the table between them. “The others will be done in a minute.”

“Mom makes the best pancakes.” Quint leaned over the table and forked one onto his plate.

“They are good,” Logan said after he’d taken a bite.

“Surprised?” Cat gloated a little. Light and fluffy pancakes had always been one of her specialties, one she prided herself on.

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t have been surprised if you didn’t know how to cook.”

“Thanks to my mother, I do,” she replied. “She enjoyed cooking and made certain that I knew my way around the kitchen.”

“In that case, I’ll look forward to supper tonight.”

C
at pressed Tiny Yates and the ranch electrician Mike Garvey into service to load and transport the spare bed. She pulled into the ranch yard just as they dragged the box springs off the truck bed. Quint and her father were on hand as well, to supervise the unloading.

“Where do you want us to put this?” Tiny asked when she climbed out of the Suburban, dressed in a red University of Texas T-shirt and fashionably tattered jeans, clothing more suitable for the rigors of moving than a blouse and slacks.

“For now, we’ll just put everything in the living room. I’ll sort out where it all goes later.” She walked to the back of the vehicle to start unloading it. “Quint, go open the door for them.”

When he ran to the porch, her father came to give Cat a hand. “Let me carry that bag.”

“Thanks.” She gladly passed him a suitcase. “I never realized Quint had so much stuff. I hate to think how many trips we would have if we brought it all. This is worse than when I was hauling all my things back and forth to college.”

“True.” He ran an inspecting glance over the house. “The house looks to be in good shape.”

“The house is fine.” Cat dragged a box out of the back end. “It just needed another bed.”

In short order, both vehicles were unloaded, the contents piled in the living room. “Do you want me to find my stuff and take it to my room, Mom?” Quint asked.

“No, I want you to go back to the ranch with Grandpa. You still have to get your saddle and gear from the tack room and make sure it’s in the trailer with Molly before they bring her over.”

“Grandpa can do that.”

“What if I picked up the wrong one?” Chase asked, with an indulgent smile.

“You can’t miss it, Grandpa. It’s the smallest one.”

“You’d better come with me just the same,” he said. “Besides, I think your mother will make a bigger dent in this if she doesn’t have you underfoot.”

“I wouldn’t be under her feet. I’d be in my room.”

Cat caught him by the shoulders and steered him toward the door. “Go. You can unpack your things when you come back.” She walked him across the porch and stopped at the steps. Head down, he plodded out to the truck.

Pausing beside her, Chase observed her half-worried look when she gazed after Quint. “You should be glad that he’s looking forward to moving in here.”

“I thought he’d miss the Triple C more,” Cat released a long breath of disappointment. “I guess this is still an adventure to him.”

“He also knows he still has his own room at The Homestead, and that he’s welcome to come stay in it any time he wants.”

“I guess.”

Chase glanced at his watch. “It’s two o’clock now. By the time we get back and get the horses loaded, we should pull in here a little after four.”

“I’ll watch for them,” Cat promised.

She waited until they drove out of the yard before she turned back to the house. A chipped cement block propped the screen door open. As she started to shove it aside, the telephone rang in the house. Leaving the block in place, she hurried to answer it.

“Circle Six Ranch.” Silence followed. Frowning, Cat tried again. “Hello. Hello?” There was a click on the line. A moment later she heard the distinctive hum of the dial tone.

Shrugging it off as a wrong number, Cat hung up the kitchen extension and went back to the living room. Her glance fell on the pile of hangered clothes draped across the platform rocker. Another stack lay on the sofa. Since it was an obvious and easy place to start, she grabbed up a handful of Quint’s shirts and pants, carried them into his room, and hung them in the closet.

From there, she made a detour into the spare room to make sure its closet was empty. It wasn’t. There were a dozen shirts, an equal number of jeans and slacks, three suits, and two sets of uniforms hanging on its rod.

“Aren’t you the clotheshorse, taking up two closets,” Cat muttered under her breath. “I can fix that.”

She snatched the shirts off the rod and charged into the hall straight to his bedroom. She yanked open the closet door, determined to cram the shirts in with his other clothes.

The closet was empty.

Dumbfounded, Cat stared at the bare shelves and clothes rod, every inch wiped clean of dust. She
turned slowly from it, her glance straying to the walnut-stained bureau. Crossing to it, she pulled out a drawer. Empty.

Still carrying the shirts, she went back to the spare room, skirted the neatly stacked boxes and stopped in front of the oak dresser. Almost hesitantly she opened one of the drawers and looked inside at the folded undershirts and white briefs. A second drawer held socks and two sets of thermal underwear. Sweaters and sweatshirts were in a third.

Cat didn’t bother to look any farther. There could be only one reason Logan had moved all of his clothes in here—he planned to sleep in this room. Which meant he had intended for her to have the other bedroom.

She remembered the vase of flowers—and promptly sat down on the nearest box. Had the bouquet been nothing more than a thoughtful gesture on his part? More than that—why had she been so ready to think the worst? Cat shied away from the answer to that.

Very carefully, she hung his shirts back in the closet, taking pains to shake out any folds so they wouldn’t end up wrinkled, then left the spare room, closing the door behind her. Still mulling over the implications of the discovery, she walked slowly back to the living room. She looked thoughtfully at her clothes, hesitated, then gathered up an armful and carried it into the bedroom she had previously regarded as Logan’s.

After hanging up the clothes on hangers, Cat tackled the luggage and boxes, separating hers from Quint’s and carting them to their respective rooms. Before unpacking any of them, she stopped to fix the roast for their evening meal.

In the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator door, then noticed the radio on the counter next to it and
flipped it on. Ten minutes later she was standing at the sink, peeling potatoes and absently singing along with the radio.

“She ain’t only purty to look at, she can sing, too.”

Startled by the drawled comment, Cat whirled around. Alarm shivered through her, turning her dry-mouthed when she saw Lath Anderson lounging in the kitchen doorway, an arm idly braced against the casing, his hat tipped to the back of his head.

Recovering, she demanded, “How did you get in here?”

“The door was standing open. I took that as an invitation to come in,” he said with a taunting grin. Too late Cat remembered she had left both doors propped open. “That ain’t a very smart thing to do. It tends to let the flies in.”

One buzzed around him. He watched it a moment, then his hand flashed, snaring it out of the air. The lightning speed of it carried a warning all of its own.

“See what I mean?” He dropped the dead fly on the floor and ran his hand down the side of his jeans in a cleaning motion.

“What is it you want here, Lath?” She had a partially peeled potato in one hand and the paring knife in the other. She tightened her hold on the knife.

“Someone told me you had married Echohawk.” He sauntered into the kitchen. “But I had to see it for my own eyes. Kinda sudden, wasn’t it?”

“It happens that way sometimes.”

“It was one of them—your eyes meet and before you know it, you can’t keep your hands off each other—was it?” His leisurely pace kept bringing him closer.

“More or less.” Cat wondered whether Lath knew that he blocked her from both the living room and the
side door to the utility room. She had the uneasy feeling that he did. She was suddenly furious with herself for not moving away from the sink when she first saw him, instead of allowing herself to be trapped.

His glance wandered around the kitchen. “Where’s the kid?”

“With his grandfather. They should be pulling in any minute with another load of our things,” Cat lied, well aware it would be a good hour or more before they returned.

Lath’s eyes laughed at her, as if somehow he knew the truth. “How’s he like his new daddy?”

“He likes Logan just fine. Look, I’m really busy now. Why don’t you come back another time?” If she hadn’t been so leery of turning her back to him, she would have resumed peeling the potatoes.

“Yeah, I see you’re fixing dinner.” He paused to peer into the long enamel roasting pan on the counter. “Is that Calder beef there?”

“I wouldn’t know.” She was curt, wanting him gone and uncertain how to accomplish it.

Lath looked past her into the sink, eyeing the raw vegetables still sitting in the colander. “Potatoes, carrots, onions. Looks like it’s gonna be a real tasty meal. How does a fella go about wanglin’ an invitation to supper?”

“You aren’t welcome here, Lath.”

Shaking his head, he feigned a hurt look, his hands hooking themselves on the hips of his low-riding jeans. “Now, that ain’t a very neighborly attitude to take. An’ we are neighbors, you know. I live just up the road a few miles. Ma didn’t like it in town, so Rollie rented the old Simpson place.”

“How nice for your mother.”

“Yeah.” His glance drifted down to the front of her T-shirt, his eyes stripping her. “University of Texas, huh?”

Revolted by the almost physical touch of his gaze, Cat worked to keep her breathing slow and even. “I think you should leave. Right now.”

“That’s a pity, ’cause I was just thinkin’ about stayin’.” His eyes continued their downward focus. “Is that all Echohawk gave you—just that plain gold band?” Lath gestured toward the ring with a small lift of his hand.

Cat made the mistake of glancing at her wedding ring. In a flash, his hand snaked out and plucked the potato from her gasp as easily as he had snatched the fly moments ago. Grinning, Lath tossed the potato in the air a couple times, then took a crunching bite out of the peeled end.

“I always did like raw potatoes,” he said between chews. “Course, they’re better with some salt on ’em.”

Not trusting him, Cat retreated a step, moving sideways along the sink counter. “Get out of here, Lath.” She held the knife in a low, threatening position, her fingers tightly circled around it.

“If I don’t, you ain’t thinkin’ about cuttin’ me with that puny little knife, are you? ’Cause if you are, I’ll tell you right now that ain’t the way you hold a knife in a fight.”

“Just get out.” This time she kept her eyes on him and ignored the gesturing flick of his hand.

“You aren’t scared of me, are ya, little kitty-Cat.” Grinning cockily, Lath moved another step closer.

Cat retreated again, then sensed the closeness of the corner area and stopped. His grin lengthened as he began tossing the potato again.

Cat had the eerie feeling he was only toying with her.

“Feeling trapped, are you?”

“Stay away from me,” she warned.

“Catch.” Lath flipped the potato at her face.

Instinctively she blinked and pulled back from it. In that split second, his fingers closed around the wrist of her knife hand. Before she could strike out, he twisted her arm behind her back, turning her and slamming her against the counter, bending her forward over it and pinning her there with his hips. Cat tried to kick back at him and banged her knees into the cupboards. With her free hand, she groped the air behind her, trying to grab him. But he was out of reach.

Chuckling, he increased the pressure of his hips, wanting her to feel the hard outline of his erection. “Kinda hard to fight somebody when they’re behind ya, ain’t it?”

“Damn you, let me go!” She fought the terror that clogged her throat, a terror that came from discovering she was utterly helpless.

“Better quit that squirming. You’re getting me all excited.”

Cat froze, terror striking deep, but the instant he started grinding his hips against her in a suggestive way, she grabbed at the edge of the cupboard above her head and pushed with all her strength, straining to get the needed leverage to throw him back. He simply jerked her imprisoned arm higher, drawing a pained cry from her.

He kept up the pressure until her fingers released their grip on the cupboard and fell back to the counter. Even after he eased off, her shoulder continued to throb from the wrenching. She hunched from it, battling tears.

Her reprieve was short-lived as his hand slid under her T-shirt and wormed its way around to her breasts, pushing up her bra to release them. When she tried to grab at his hand, he simply twisted her arm again.

“Oh, baby, you got a great set of jugs,” Lath murmured, fondling them roughly. Revulsion rose
like bile in her throat. “I’ll bet Echohawk loves wallowin’ in ’em at night.”

“You’ll go to prison for this.” Cat all but spat the words.

“I could,” he agreed in a smiling voice and rubbed himself against her. “But only if you talk. And you ain’t the kind that would tell. As proud as you are, you’d die of shame before you’d get up on a stand and say all the things I did—especially when I get up there and tell them how you teased me, showin’ me your breasts and flauntin’ your body, sayin’ that you wanted a little brother to go with your other bastard baby. It’d be too humiliatin’ for a Calder, wouldn’t it?”

Cat was all too afraid he was right, that a trial would be more degrading than her pride could stand. When she felt his fingers tugging at the snap of her jeans, she vowed he would not take her without a fight.

As she began to gather herself for it, the distinctive double click of a lever-action rifle sounded above the radio music.

“Let her go now,” came the low-growled threat.

At the first sound, Lath had wheeled off of her, his grip on her wrist loosening enough that with a quick jerk, Cat was free of it. Both feet were once more on the floor. On shaky legs she staggered backward, clutching at the counter. But Lath only had eyes for the old man holding the cocked rifle on him.

“Get away from him, Cat,” Culley ordered.

“Don’t go doin’ somethin’ stupid, O’Rourke.” Lath held up a cautioning hand. “You’d be shoo tin’ an unarmed man. That’s murder one.”

“But you’d be dead, and that would suit me just fine.” Culley’s finger caressed the trigger.

“But think of the mess she’d have to clean up.”

“Let him go, Culley.” Cat gripped the side of the
refrigerator, unable to look at Lath, her skin still crawling from the sensation of his hands, his body.