Shifting Calder Wind (Calder Saga 7)

So Tara was some sort of relation to Calder as well, Laredo filed away that piece of information.

“Good,” Cat stated. “Because I simply don’t have the strength to argue.”

Tears welled in her green eyes, and her lower lip quivered with the strain of holding her emotions in check, but she kept her chin high. Maybe she didn’t resemble her father in looks, but she had clearly inherited some of his grit.

To Laredo’s surprise, a delicate teardrop slipped down Tara’s cheek. Gracefully she wiped it away, showing him a flash of her discreetly manicured nails.

Smiling in a forced show of composure, Tara asked, “Have you been to the funeral home yet?”

“No,” the man answered. “We came straight to the hotel from the airport.”

“In that case, I have my car here. Let me take you.” When she saw their joint hesitation, she rushed, “Please. I would like to help in some way. You and Ty were here for me when my father died. Let me return the kindness you showed me.”

“Of course.” The woman named Cat seemed to regret her initial hesitation in accepting the offer. “It will be much more convenient than relying on taxis.”

“I’ll have the valet bring my car around.”

The man stopped her. “Not just yet,” he said. “First Cat and I need to go to our room and freshen up a bit. It was a long flight. We’ll meet you down here in, say, forty-five minutes to an hour.”

“Of course. I’ll wait for you in the bar,” Tara replied, then hesitated, a look of grief sweeping over her expression. “Oh, Cat.

I just can’t believe Chase is gone.”

Briefly the two women embraced in a moment of shared pain and loss. The wetness of tears glistened on the cheeks of both women. With his arm circled around her, the man led Cat to the elevator bank. Tara watched them for a moment, then pivoted in a graceful turn and headed toward the hotel bar.

After allowing a span of seconds to pass, Laredo followed her. Tara sat on a tall stool at the bar, managing to project a certain aura of innate elegance. At this hour there were few customers. Laredo picked a seat a few stools away, closer to the bartender.

In a low voice intended for the bartender’s hearing only, Laredo said, “I’ll pay for the lady’s drink. I’ll have a beer, whatever is on tap.” He withdrew a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and laid it on the counter.

The bartender glanced at the money and nodded. When the man set a glass of chilled white wine in front of Tara, she said, “How much do I owe you?”

“The gentleman paid for it already, ma’am.” He nodded in Laredo’s direction.

She stiffened, throwing him a cool look of suspicion. Laredo lifted his beer glass in a salute to her. “My sympathies, ma’am.”

His remark dissolved her coolness in an instant, leaving her puzzled and uncertain. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

“No, ma’am. But I happened to see you out in the lobby a minute ago with some of the Calder family.”

“Do you know the Calders?” she wondered with the beginnings of curiosity.

“Only Chase Calder,” Laredo answered truthfully. “The news of his death was a real shock.”

“To everyone,” she agreed and sighed deeply.

“Are you related to them?” He injected an idle note into the question.

“I was married to his son.” She lifted the wineglass and took a dainty sip.

He caught her use of the past tense and guessed that at some point they had gotten a divorce. “To tell you the truth, I half expected the son would be the one who came to claim the body.”

“Don’t you know?” Anguish deepened the velvety darkness of her eyes. “Ty was killed nearly two years ago.”

“Killed?” He made no attempt to mask his surprise. “How?”

“He was murdered.” Her voice trembled with a tightly controlled anger tinged with bitterness.

He thought immediately of the attempt on Chase’s life. “Did they ever catch his killer?”