Lone Calder Star (Calder Saga 9)

The kiss was languid and long, yet never quite losing its gently insistent quality and deepening into something more raw. Then her fingers were there, their pressure light near a corner of his mouth as she pulled her lips away from his, the moist warmth of a tremulous sigh feathering across his skin.

A part of him didn’t want the kiss to end, but Quint felt the heaviness of his limbs that warned of flagging strength. When she tipped her head down, he lightly kissed the top of it.

“Good night, Quint,” she murmured.

“Good night,” he echoed and moved reluctantly toward the door. He was halfway through the living room before he heard water gush from the kitchen sink’s faucets.

The noonday sky was clear blue, crisscrossed with slowly dissipating contrails left by high-flying jets. With the sun at its zenith, the temperature hovered at the seventy-degree mark. On the west side of the ranch house, a pair of white sheets and pillowcases flapped in the south breeze.

Another set of sheets, straight from the washing machine, filled the large wicker basket Dallas carried as she crossed to the kitchen door. Pausing, she shifted the basket to the side, propping it on her hip, and reached for the doorknob. She pushed open the screen door, glancing to see Quint and Empty coming up the walk.

“Lunch is on the stove,” she told them. “Hot beef sandwiches. You’re welcome to help yourself or wait until I come back.”

The phone rang in a shrill punctuation of her announcement. Automatically she swung away from the door to answer it.

“I’ll get it.” Quint loped up the porch steps, and Dallas stepped back to let him through.

With Empty not far behind him, Dallas held the door for him. Ten hours of sleep had removed the shadows from under his eyes and put some of the spring back in his step. Truthfully Dallas hadn’t expected him to bounce back so quickly, but she was glad he had.

“Cee Bar Ranch.” Quint’s voice followed when she stepped onto the porch with the basket. “Jessy. I didn’t expect to hear from you until tonight.”

Everything inside her tightened up. For an instant Dallas was torn between staying and going, pretending there was no significance to this call. But she knew better.

She set the wicker basket on the porch’s planked flooring and crouched down, going through the motions of rearranging the wet sheets for better balance and using the delay to eavesdrop on Quint’s phone call.

“I’m glad you agree with my suggestion, Jessy,” he said. “In the long run, I think it’ll be the wisest move we can make.” There was a rather lengthy pause, and Dallas gripped the basket by its handles while pushing to her feet. “I’ll work out all the arrangements on my end. If I run into any snags, I’ll let you know.”

There was a finality to his voice that signaled further discussion was at an end. Dallas immediately headed down the steps and struck out for the clothesline.

A gusting breeze snapped the sheets already hanging on the first strand of wire stretched between the tall posts. Dallas hauled the basket to an empty stretch of line and set it on the ground near her feet.

Clothespins in hand, she matched together two corners of one sheet, welcoming the mindless task that required little of her attention. It left her time to wonder how long it would take before she became used to this tension and the sense of duplicity that nagged her. Never once had she thought it would be easy or without some feeling of guilt. At the same time she’d never expected to have any type of close relationship with Quint.

The screen door slammed. Dallas cast an idle glance over her shoulder, but the front of the house was beyond her view. Quint came around the corner, heading in her direction. Self-conscious and uneasy, Dallas briskly resumed the task of pinning the wet sheet to the line.

“What happened?” Quint stopped beside her, a slight frown creasing his forehead. “Did the dryer quit on you?”

“No, it’s working fine.” She scooped up a trailing corner of the sheet before it could touch the ground. “It would have been quicker to throw the sheets in the dryer, but there’s nothing like the smell of sheets that have dried in the sun.”

A naughty gleam sprang into his eyes. “I could think of one or two things that might be better.”

Her pulse skittered with her own awareness of those things, but the need to protect herself from them was stronger.

“Spoken just like a man,” she

chided to keep him at arm’s length. “Was that Jessy on the phone just now? I thought I heard you say her name.”

“It was.” The frank admission only increased her unease. When she reached to pick up the next sheet, Quint bent down to the basket. “I’ll help you with that. It’s easier with two people.”

“So what’s the decision?” Dallas worked to inject a casual note to the question. “Did she find out where you can buy more hay?”

“She never tried.” He gathered up one end of the sheet and deftly fitted the corners together. “Jessy agreed with me. Buying more hay would only play into Rutledge’s hands. There’s no way we can maintain a twenty-four-seven watch over the hay and prevent him from burning it again. At the same time, it would be too costly to install a sophisticated security system around it.”

“But what’s the alternative?” Dallas frowned. “You need hay to feed the cattle. They won’t make it through the winter without it.”

“They could if we cut down the size of the herd and keep only what the remaining land can support.”

It was a logical solution, yet it raised more questions for Dallas. Questions that required answers.