Diamond Spur (5 page)

"Oh, no." Red grimaced as Jason whirled and stalked toward the house with his face set in hard lines that the cowboy and Kate both recognized. "The Tanner place is five minutes away by truck," Kate coaxed. "You could drive past there on your way to move those heifers, and mention that Jason has loaded his rifle."

Red's eyes popped. "I could get the hell beat out of me, too. You know the boss in a temper."

"That's why I think you should warn Mr. Tanner that he's coming."

Red sighed. "The things I do for the Diamond Spur." He turned. "Okay. But I hope you'll take me in to the doc afterwards." "I'll sling you over Kip here and ride you the whole way all by myself," she promised. "Hurry!"

He walked quickly toward the pickup truck. Kate, taking Kip's reins, made a beeline for the house. Jason was already coming back out the front door with his Winchester under one arm and Sheila raging behind him.

"You'll end up in prison, I tell you!" she bellowed, her hair standing practically on end. "You can't go around

solving problems with a loaded gun! Henry Tanner is an Easterner! He's just learning about the beef business! He needs a helping hand, not blazing guns!"

He wasn't even listening. He was walking with the hard, measured stride that meant trouble, his hat at a dangerous angle over his eyes. Kate, leading Kip, intercepted him.

"I won't listen, so save your breath, Kate," he said shortly.

"I didn't say a word, Jason," she replied innocently.

"Well, you needn't," he murmured. He stared at her. "You aren't going to try and talk me out of it?" "Not at all." She smiled pleasantly. "I've never been to visit anyone in jail before. It sounds exciting."

"I won't go to jail."

"If you shoot Mr. Tanner, you will."

"I'm not going to shoot Mr. Tanner. I'm going to shoot his bull."

"He'll sue you."

"He's welcome, but his bull will still be dead."

"Jason, you'll be arrested."

"His bull is trespassing," he said. "Trespassing is against the law. I'm making a citizen's arrest, which his bull will resist. Resisting arrest is also against the law. I will pass sentence and enforce it with a bullet. And you and the boys can have a nice steak."

She lifted her eyebrows. "It will be the most expensive steak you've ever served."

He grinned. "Nothing's too good for my men." He tipped his hat pleasantly and walked past her. "You'll rot in prison!" Sheila was yelling from the front porch, her apron waving in the breeze. "Kate, for God's sake, stop him!"

"Sure. Have you got another gun and some bullets?" Kate asked.

Sheila threw up her hands and mumbled her way back into the house, slamming the door furiously. Kate mounted Kip with a heavy sigh and rode back down the driveway, pushing the incident in the field to the back of her mind until she had enough time to deal with it.

She hoped Mr. Tanner had his bull insured. It was a pity he hadn't listened when Jason asked him not to put that bull next to heifers in heat with only a double strand barbed wire fence between. It was Tanner's fence, and Tanner was a retired department store manager who'd moved here from back East and decided to raise cattle in his retirement years. Jason had even offered to reinforce the fence and Mr. Tanner had refused to let him. Now he was going to pay the
price.

Kate began to whistle as she turned Kip down the road toward home. It would be rather interesting to taste a purebred black Angus bull with a hundred thousand dollar price tag. She hoped Sheriff Gomez would let Jason have a plate of it in his jail cell.

Chapter Three

Kate had just taken a taco casserole out of the oven and was putting the unmatched plates and cups and utensils on the supper table when her mother came in the door.

"Something smells good," Mary Whittman sighed, as she kicked off her comfortable thick
soled shoes at the door. "Heavens, I'm tired. I can't remember doing so many bundles in one day."

"If you made production, you shouldn't complain," Kate grinned.

"I made over a hundred percent, in fact," her mother replied, "so I expect I'll get a better check this week than last. By the way, Mr. Rogers stopped me on the way out and said for you to come in tomorrow."

"Have they got some serging for me?" she asked.

"They probably will have. We got some new cuts in today for the pants line. But what Mr. Rogers wants to see you about is those designs you left with him" Mary said, her green eyes twinkling. "He's been calling people all week to stop by and look at them. I think he's made a decision."

Kate stopped breathing. "You think they might be interested in using one?"

"Definitely. There's been a rumor about a new line of sportswear, and he loves your Indian designs, especially those bold turquoise colors you've used," Mary added. "It seems that one of the buyers found a market forecast that predicted blue was going to be big next year. And your styles went over in a big way. I'm just guessing, honey, and I don't want to get your hopes up too high. But, I have a good feeling about this."

"I hope you're right. Oh, I hope you are," Kate laughed. "Mama, I'd be over the moon if they used anything of mine!"

"Well, don't mention that I said anything to you. I overheard Mr. Rogers asking Gwen about some accessories." She flopped down on the couch, her slender body slumping. Her thin, graying, dark hair was limp, and there were bits of cloth sticking to her brown stretch pants and her brown and green over blouse. The pants had come from a garage sale—Mary had brought them home, practically new, for two dollars. The blouse was one that the ladies at the plant had given her for her birthday last month. The shoes had come from a sale at a local department store; they were a little loose, but Mary's feet stayed swollen after walking around on the plant's concrete floors all day, so that was kind of a fringe benefit. She was no fashion plate, but she was decently covered and for a bargain price.

Mary had handed down that instinct for financial conservation to her daughter. Kate had learned to shop for the best fabrics at the lowest prices, and most of her apparel she made herself, even her jeans. She hand-embroidered each pair on the pockets and hems, and had more sewing than she could do for other people producing them after-hours. That was one reason she'd gone to Mr. Rogers with her designs in the first place. She was getting more orders than she could fill, and not only for jeans. And thank God for the sewing machine Jason had given her last Christmas because the old one she'd been using would never have stood the strain.

Kate's original skirt and blouse designs produced even more income. But not enough to pay the bills, keep up a car, and buy food. Her salary and her mother's combined barely did that, even with the spare money Kate made sewing.

"I'll get rich," Kate promised. "Then we can both give up working in the plant and you can parade around in mink and diamonds."

"I'm allergic to fur and I don't like diamonds." Mary grinned. "Give me a new rod and reel and some bass flies instead." "I'll give you a lake stocked with bass, too." Mary closed her eyes with a weary smile. "You're a good daughter." "Yes, I know. Uh, did you come home by way of the Tanner place?" "Every day." "Hear any shots?" Kate asked innocently as she took a pan of green beans off the stove and set them on a cold burner. Mary sat up. "Shots? Why would I?" "Mr. Tanner's bull got in with Jason's cows. He went over that way with his Winchester."

The older woman leaned forward to light a cigarette, ignoring Kate's disapproving gaze. "I'll

die of something one day," she said before her daughter could protest. "Turn on the fan and

it won't bother you. Jason took a gun after Henry Tanner?"

"After the bull. It was on his land." Kate pursed her lips. "We've been invited to a steak dinner. Guess who's providing the steak." "Mr. Tanner, no doubt. Well, Jason's attorneys have had a slack month, they need the business." "Mother!"

Mary studied her daughter curiously. "How do you know about all this?"

"Jason got hurt and they sent for me. I got him to the doctor and patched up, and the bull was discovered about the time I was getting ready to leave." She shook her head as she poured iced tea into thick glasses, taking time to sip one so that it didn't overflow. "Sheila was screaming her head off. It didn't even slow him down."

"That's nothing new. Poor Sheila. Poor Mr. Tanner." She stood up and stretched. "I wonder what Jason's going to do when you go off to be a famous designer?" she wondered aloud. "I expect he'll die from lack of medical care because everybody else around San Frio is scared to death of him."

"You could take over for me," Kate teased
.
Mary's eyes bulged. "Not me. I like living. I hope you didn't put too much cumin in that tac
o

casserole." "Only half a cup, isn't that what you put?" Kate asked with a blank smile. "If you poison me, I'll tell Mr. Rogers to throw your designs out the window." "Okay, I'll behave. Sit down and eat something. You're going to blow away." "I'm a good size. I can walk through a harp sideways." Kate turned away to flip the switch on the old rusted table fan that her father had bought

when she was just a baby. There was no money for a new one, not even a cheap new one. But money, Kate reasoned, had never made anybody happy by itself. She'd rather have her mother and friends like Jason any day than a bankroll.

"You're very quiet tonight," Mary remarked as they fin
ished off the small casserole and homemade Mexican corn-bread Kate had cooked with it. Kate linked her hands around her coffee cup. "Well, I've been thinking." "About what?" About Jason, she could have said, and that he almost kissed her today. But that was a memory too precious to share, even with her mother. Smiling, she tilted the cup and watched the ripples move with the overhead light that hung from the ceiling. The kitchen was worn, like the rest of the house. The walls needed painting. They were a dirty unpleasant yellow, and the gold and green linoleum on the sloping floor was torn in places and cracked in others. The stove was almost as old as Kate, and the sink had stains that nothing would get out. Faded yellow curtains hung over the windows, their miserable condition reflecting the stains on the ceiling where a leaking roof had left its mark before its haphazard repair. The house was falling apart, and there was no money for maintenance. Kate wondered sometimes what she and Mary would do if the roof fell in or the floor gave way. She'd seen some winged ants just yesterday. If they were termites, even now the house could be under a death sentence. The only new thing in the place was the new zigzag sewing machine that Jason had given her last Christmas, and it was the first thing she'd have saved if the house had caught fire. "I said, what are you thinking about?" Mary prodded as she flicked an ash into the cracked glass ashtray with Phoenix, Arizona in faded letters in its gray-caked center. Kate looked up. "About if the house is going to fall around our ears." Mary's thin shoulders lifted and fell. "It's lasted fifty years already. I guess it's got a few more in it. And we can always cry on Jason's shoulder if things get desperate. God bless him, he'll do something." "We shouldn't depend on him too much, Mama," Kate said, her tone hesitant. "Why not? He doesn't mind, honey."
"I mind."
Mary grimaced. "Katy, pride won't satisfy hunger or fix leaking roofs." "I know that." She sipped coffee. "But it's not right, to always be asking him for things." "Did something happen today? Did the two of you argue?" Mary probed. Kate laughed nervously. "When have Jason and I ever argued?" That seemed to be a relief to the older woman. She smiled. "Silly thought, wasn't it? It amazes me, the things he'll let you get away with."

"Like taking him to the doctor?" Kate smiled back. "He likes me."

"You like him, too, don't you?"

"Stop digging, Sherlock Holmes," the younger woman said firmly and got up to wash the supper dishes. "You won't find romance. I'm not Jason's type. He'll want a society girl who can organize business dinners and act sophisticated for his rich friends. I'm just his late foreman's daughter and he feels sorry for me."

"Rich men have married poor girls before," Mary said doggedly. A match between Kate and Jason was the dream of her life, and the source of the only arguments she and Kate ever had. Mary had been poor since childhood. She wanted a way out of the rut, at least for Kate.

"I don't want to marry Jason," Kate replied. She ran water in the sink. It wasn't the whole truth, but she didn't dare confess to Mary that she was madly in love with their rich neighbor and would give her left arm to live with him.

There was some truth in what she'd said about Jason's future bride, anyway—that he'd want a society girl. She'd never thought about Jason getting married, but inevitably, he would. He'd want an heir for the Diamond Spur. And, although it hurt to admit it, a poor girl like Kate would never fit into his world.

"If only we could afford some fancy clothes for you," Mary moaned. "I'm sure he'd noticed you if you had pretty things to wear. Not that these things you sew yourself aren't pretty," she was quick to add. She was proud of her daughter's accomplishments, but some nice store-bought things would catch a rich man's eye even better.

Mary couldn't know that Jason had noticed Kate. Her eyes went dreamy as she relived that unexpected and exciting interlude in the field, felt his arm around her, felt the warm and vibrant urging of his hard mouth, his body. She was aware of a new, nagging hunger that made her restless, and hoped that she could hide it from her mother. The last thing in the world she needed was to have her ambitious mother pushing her at Jason. He might be her best friend, but he'd already said that he didn't want commitment. Her mother could easily cost her his company forever by making it look as if Kate were trying to trap him into marriage.