Shifting Calder Wind (Calder Saga 7)

Fifteen minutes later, the pickup bounced onto the relative flatness of the hill’s wide shoulder and rolled to a stop next to Laredo’s truck. Jessy climbed out of the cab, stepped to the rear of the pickup, and lifted a duffel bag out of the back, then headed for the cabin where Chase stood with Laredo.

“Hi.” Her smile of greeting was wide and warm as she ran her glance over Chase, noting the changes in him. “The bandage is off and your color is back. You must be feeling better.” Without waiting for him to reply, she set the duffel bag on the ground. “I threw some clothes and a pair of everyday boots in here. I thought you would be needing them. Sorry I couldn’t come any sooner, but I’ve been busy.”

“With what?” Chase asked, faintly annoyed that he had no idea about what was going on.

“Actually it was ‘with whom,’ ” Jessy replied. “I spent most of the last two days with lawyers and accountants, handling all legal loose ends that hadn’t been tied up. Talk about something that was a total waste of time, that was it. I can’t imagine what we’ll have to go through to get you declared legally alive.”

“That won’t be for a while yet,” Chase stated.

“You still don’t remember anything.” Jessy’s gaze remained steady on him.

“No.” Chase didn’t mention the few disjointed items that rattled around in his mind, names that were either meaningless or made no sense.

Jessy shifted her attention to the cabin, taking note of the new windows, the rehung door, and new screen door before glancing at the partially repaired roof. “Why didn’t you finish the roof before you installed new windows?” She turned a wondering look on Laredo.

“Hattie was tired of battling flies. Fixing the roof was low on her list of priorities,” he explained. “Getting the well pump fixed and running a water line into the cabin were first on her agenda, with the windows coming a close second.”

As if on cue, Hattie appeared on the other side of the screen door. “Hello, Jessy. I don’t mean to be rude, but I am up to my elbows in dirt. There is some lemonade in the ice chest. Tell Laredo to pour you some.”

“I don’t care for any right now, thanks anyway,” Jessy said.

“It’s there if you decide you want some. I’d love to visit, but it will take me the rest of the week to make this place habitable. Have Laredo show you the shower he put in out back. It’s very ingenious. Of course I still have to heat the water for it, but it’s a shower.”

“A shower?” She glanced curiously at Laredo as Hattie moved away from the door to return to work.

“It’s a little contraption I rigged up—a canvas bucket with a shower-head attachment. You pull the rope and water comes out. It stops when you let go of the rope.”

“Sounds practical and efficient,” Jessy remarked, impressed by his ingenuity.

“It is,” Laredo agreed without any brag in his voice.

With a touch of impatience, Chase interrupted, “What have you been able to learn about the phone calls I made in Texas?”

“Not a lot, unfortunately,” Jessy said with regret. “The man you went there to see was Tom Brewster. Some business came up and he had to postpone his appointment with you until the next day. When you didn’t show up for that meeting, he said he was more than a little upset. It wasn’t until the next day that he learned you had been killed in a traffic accident.”

“What does he do? Did he know why I wanted to see him?” Chase felt certain that Tom Brewster was an important key.

“He’s a vice president at the Blanchard Bank, and you didn’t say why you wanted to see him, just that it was something you preferred to discuss in person. Since he’s in the loan department, he assumed you had a project that you wanted to have financed.”

“Do I?” Chase couldn’t remember.

“Not that you ever mentioned to me,” Jessy replied.

“And if you did, why would you go to a bank in Texas?” Laredo inserted. “I don’t think you were after a loan.”

“Not unless my regular bank had turned me down.”

“After spending much of the last two days with accountants and bookkeepers, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the ranch has more than a sufficient amount of operating capital. There isn’t any need for a business loan,” Jessy told him. “There was one other thing Brewster said that might be important. You told him that you had obtained his name from a mutual friend, but you didn’t identify the man by name.” She paused, another possibility occurring to her. “Maybe it wasn’t a man. Maybe it was Tara. It would be logical. After all, she’s from Fort Worth. Should I ask her about it?”

“It might not be wise for you to start asking questions. The wrong person might find out that you are getting suspicious about what I was doing in Texas. He might decide you know whatever it is that I am supposed to know—assuming that’s the reason someone tried to kill me.” It was all a big, confusing puzzle to him.

Suddenly the horn in Jessy’s pickup began honking incessantly, its stridency shattering the quietness. “That’s the mobile phone.” She ran to the pickup and picked up the telephone, silencing the horn.

“Yes, this is Jessy.” She mentally braced herself for news of an emergency somewhere on the ranch.

“Jessy. Monte here,” came the cheerful reply. “At last I have succeeded in running you to ground.”

“Hello, Monte.” Jessy relaxed. “What do you need?”