Calder Storm (Calder Saga 10)

Once more Laredo picked up the questioning. “So, when was the last time you saw your dear old Uncle Max?”

For a split second she said nothing. “Understand that I have called him Uncle Max since I was old enough to talk. It’s become a habit. Who knows? Maybe it was some subconscious way of pretending I actually had a family. But we were never close. I barely spent any time at all with him after his wife died. He was always busy or gone somewhere. As for the last time I saw Uncle”—Sloan caught herself and immediately rephrased it—“I saw Max, I had dinner with him—it must have been somewhere around the last of February or the first of March.”

“And you’re saying you haven’t talked to him since?” Laredo’s voice was dry with disbelief.

“I never said that at all!” Sloan snapped in answer. “You asked when I saw him last, and I told you.”

“Then you have talked to him?” Laredo made it a question.

“Probably two or three times. No, it was definitely three times.”

“Obviously he knows about your marriage to Trey,” Laredo guessed.

“As a matter of fact, I talked to him shortly after we became engaged. He called me in Hawaii about some papers I needed to sign. While I had him on the phone I told him the good news.”

“I’ll bet he congratulated you, didn’t he?”

“And why shouldn’t he?” Sloan fired back. “He was happy for me.”

“I’ll bet he was,” Laredo agreed, then slanted a look at Chase. “Want’a bet the prenuptial agreement was his idea?”

Sloan rushed to his defense. “He was trying to protect my interests. It’s what he’s always done.”

“I’m curious, Sloan,” Cat inserted. “Why didn’t you invite him to the wedding?”

“There wasn’t any point. He had already told me there was some business trip he had to make that couldn’t be postponed.”

“He did send us a wedding present,” Trey volunteered.

“That sculpture thing,” Cat remembered.

“So you talked to him twice more since he phoned you in Hawaii,” Jessy said, shifting the discussion back to Sloan’s contact with Rutledge.

“Yes, I called to thank him for the wedding present, and the second time was to let him know about…our baby.” She paused a beat and her gaze raked the table, her posture defiantly stiff and proud. “Regardless of what you think, I never deliberately tried to conceal my association with…Max…from you. If I had wanted to keep it a secret, I never would have left the envelope with his name and address on it out for Trey to see. I would have hidden it.”

Trey was the only one other than Sloan who knew the card had been buried in the middle of a stack. He couldn’t help wondering if she had forgotten that detail.

“Let me make sure I understand this right,” Laredo said. “During those phone calls you had with Rutledge, he never mentioned that he had any dealings with the Calders in the past?”

“No, he didn’t. For that matter, none of you have said a single word about him until now,” Sloan retorted.

“Until now, there wasn’t reason to,” Laredo replied smoothly.

“And there isn’t one now!” Sloan insisted, the volume of her voice raising in proportion to her anger. “Trey told me that all of you think Uncle Max was behind the problems you had in Texas. But you’ll never convince me that he had anything to do with it. It makes absolutely no sense at all. The man has a multibillion-dollar empire to run. He wouldn’t stoop to something like that. That was Boone’s style.”

“I admire your loyalty, Sloan,” Chase told her “But in this case I think it’s misplaced.”

“Well, I don’t. He’s no more guilty of anything than I am.” There was a betraying quiver of her chin as Sloan looked around the table, daring anyone to say differently. “You know, it’s really a shame you didn’t do a background check on me before I married Trey. Then you could have made sure I was a suitable mate.”

“That’s enough of that talk, young lady,” Chase said sharply. “Here at the Triple C we don’t judge people based on their past.”

“Really?” Sloan looked at him in hot challenge. “And just what do you call this?”

Laredo answered for him. “It’s an attempt to get at the truth. After all, you’re asking us to believe an awful lot of coincidences.”

“I don’t particularly care what you believe! Everything I said was the truth, and I know it. That’s all that matters to me. And if you don’t like it, that’s just too bad.” Angrily, Sloan shoved her chair back from the table and stood up. “Excuse me, won’t you?” she said tightly. “I seem to have lost my appetite.”

Head high, she walked out of the room. Trey pushed his chair back and threw a dagger-sharp glance at Laredo. “You didn’t have to be so hard on her,” he muttered.