Calder Pride (Calder Saga 5)

“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.