Calder Storm (Calder Saga 10)

Sighing in grim resignation, Trey glanced in Sloan’s direction, but she appeared oblivious to his conversation. “Give me an hour,” he told the bartender.

“That’s all you got,” the man replied and hung up.

Trey pushed down the disconnect button, then released it, and punched in Johnny’s phone number. Sloan continued to ignore him. Trey waited for the phone to ring. Instead, the intermittent buzz of a busy signal came over the line.

Turning, he said to Sloan, “That was the bartender at The Oasis. I guess Tank passed out. I have to run into town and get him. There and back, it’ll probably take me a couple hours—maybe longer with this snow.”

“Be careful.” The phrase sounded more like a perfunctory statement than an expression of concern.

“I will.” He was almost irritated enough to leave it at that. But Sloan was pitting her will against his. As much as he had always admired her strength and determination, this was something he couldn’t allow to continue. “While I’m gone, you can think about this,” he told her. “You’re my wife, Sloan, even when I totally disagree with you. So get that damned chip off your shoulder.”

Her eyes flashed to him in surprise, but he was already striding toward the door. Downstairs, Trey paused long enough to inform his mother where he was going and why, then headed to the door and collected his coat and hat from the rack.

Snow covered the windows of the pickup. While he let the engine warm up, Trey brushed the snow from the windshield and side mirrors, then took a few swipes at the side windows as well before he slid behind the wheel.

The ranch yard was blanketed in white, all previous tracks obliterated by the new-fallen snow. And more flakes continued to fall when he reversed away from The Homestead. On impulse, he pointed the pickup toward the Taylor house.

Johnny’s mother came to the door when Trey knocked. Rather than track snow into the house, Trey waited on the porch while she went to get Johnny.

“Something wrong?” Those were the first words Johnny spoke when he came to the door.

“I got a call from the bartender at The Oasis. Tank’s drunk,” Trey explained. “I’m headed into town to go get him. Somebody will have to drive his pickup back. Want to ride along?”

“He’s drunk?” Johnny said in surprise. “Hell, it ain’t even half past nine. ’Course, he did take off right after he picked up his paycheck. It’d be just like that fool to try to drink it up in one night. Let me grab my coat and I’ll be right with you.”

Taking

him at his word, Trey retraced his footsteps to the pickup. Johnny climbed into the truck only seconds after Trey did. The minute the door closed after him, Trey set off, aiming for the east lane that would take them to Blue Moon.

“Can’t help wondering why he called you,” Johnny mused. “Tank knows you’ve got a wife with a little one on the way.”

“The bartender asked for you when he called.” Snowflakes swirled in the pickup’s headlight beams, and the wipers maintained a fast, steady cadence to prevent the flakes from accumulating on the windshield. “I figure Tank got the phone numbers mixed up and gave him ours instead of yours.”

“More than likely,” Johnny agreed. “I don’t imagine your little woman was too happy about you going out on a night like this, though.”

“She was fine with it.”

Trey’s somewhat clipped response suggested something entirely different to Johnny. He ran a considering glance over Trey’s profile, noting the closed-up expression on his rawboned features, visible in the dim glow of the dashboard lights.

“Glad to hear it,” Johnny replied. “I know some women can get real emotional when they’re carrying and fly off the handle at the smallest thing.”

“When did you become such an expert?” Trey mocked.

“I remember how touchy my mother was when my little brother came along so unexpected-like. Dad always claimed that no matter what he said, it was the wrong thing. She’d either bust into tears or blow up like a rank bull out for blood. I learned real quick to walk soft around her. ’Course, after little Joey was born, she was fine again. Kelly tells me it’s a hormone thing that makes their emotions get all out of whack. So it wouldn’t surprise me if your wife’s a bit testy.”

“She’s a little more sensitive, but that’s about all.” Trey wished he could blame hormones for their current rift, but there was more to it than that.

“You’re lucky, then,” Johnny said and lapsed into silence.

Not in a mood for idle talk himself, Trey made no attempt to break the silence. Instead, he focused his attention on the snow-covered road ahead of them, its track delineated by the fence posts that ran parallel to it.

A few miles from the Triple C’s east gate, Johnny remarked, “The road crews are gonna be busy tomorrow plowing off all this snow. It sure won’t melt in a hurry, not as deep as it’s getting.”

“According to the forecast, we could get as much as a foot.”

“Let’s just hope that wind don’t start howling,” Johnny murmured.

Snowplows had already been at work on the highway, exposing the bare pavement when they reached it. With a cleared road ahead of him, Trey increased the pickup’s speed. It wasn’t long before he spotted the lighted canopy over the gas pumps at Fedderson’s. The lights of The Oasis were a fainter glow on the opposite side of the highway.