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An outcropping of rock near the crest of the hill offered both concealment and an unobstructed view of the ranch yard. Culley hobbled the bay in a grassy hollow on the other side of the hill, removed the binoculars from a saddlebag, and climbed to the outcropping.
The yard light’s far-reaching glow touched on the front of a shed barn and made dark, distinctive shapes of the horses dozing in an adjacent corral. From memory, Culley knew that a set of stock pens for sorting and loading cattle stood somewhere in the night-thick shadows south of the barn. He skipped over the storage building and machine shop and focused the binoculars on the single-story house.
Logan’s pickup was parked alongside the patrol car next to the house. The presence of the two vehicles confirmed that Logan was at the ranch. Light gushed from a kitchen window, illuminating a section of the front porch that ran the length of the house. Culley’s angle gave him a limited view of the kitchen, but he could detect no movement within.
After watching it for a long run of minutes, he surveyed the rest of the house through the glasses, but no other light showed. Puzzled, Culley lowered the binoculars, then raised them again to scan the shadowed recesses of the porch. A pinpoint of light flared briefly, then vanished. Culley zeroed in on it and discovered the black shape of a figure seated just beyond the glow of the lighted kitchen window.
Logan sat idly in the sturdy rocker, his fingers loosely gripping the bowl of the pipe clamped between his teeth. He puffed on it, but tonight he found no pleasure in the sharp tang of smoke on his tongue. His restless gaze wandered over the ranch yard, probing the shadows from long habit. He had lived too long with the need for such vigilance to ever abandon it completely, even here on the ranch that was his haven from the pressures of dark alleys and human treachery.
The evening hour was his time to relax and regain some of his faith in human nature. But there was no ease in the winy air for him tonight. Somewhere to the south lay the headquarters of the Triple C Ranch, a fact that had never mattered much to him when he bought the Circle Six. But that was before he had learned Cat lived there.
Crowded by the thought, Logan pushed out of the rocker, setting it swaying. He crossed to the edge of the porch and knocked the hot ash from his pipe. It fell in a scattering of sparks that died seconds after touching the ground. But the fiery ache in his loins wasn’t so easily put out.
FOURTEEN
Mom, wait for me!” Quint’s voice carried across the quiet of the Sunday afternoon.
Halting, Cat turned, a bouquet of spring’s first wildflowers clutched in her hand. She smiled when she saw Quint running toward her, a hand clamped over his new straw Stetson, a birthday present from Cat and currently his most prized posses
sion. Out of breath, he skidded to a stop beside her.
“I didn’t think you’d hear me,” he declared.
Cat raised an eyebrow. “And I thought you were taking a nap.”
“I woke up.” He looked at the flowers in her hand. “Are you going to the cemetery?”
She inadvertently tightened her grip on the delicate flower stems. To Quint, her visits to Repp’s grave site were a common occurrence. Only she knew that twinges of guilt prompted this one.
“Can I come with you?” His request eliminated any chance of privacy, but Cat found it impossible to refuse him. “Of course you can.”
Automatically he reached for her hand, and they set out together, angling across the ranch yard toward the small cemetery. “Mom, do I have to take naps on roundup?” Quint asked after they had traveled several yards.
She hid a smile. “I guess you don’t think you should.”
“The guys would tease me.” The very glumness of his voice revealed the humiliation he would feel.
“They might,” Cat agreed with a straight face. “Maybe if you went to bed earlier at night, you wouldn’t need to take a nap.”
“Thanks, Mom.” He looked up, a smile bursting across his usually solemn face.
“You’re welcome.” Idly, she wished all of life’s problems were so easily solved.
Her visits to the cemetery followed a never-changing pattern. She always stopped first at her mother’s grave. After a moment of silent prayer, she left a spray of wildflowers at the base of the granite marker, then made her way to the Taylor plot.
Kneeling, Cat laid the remaining flowers on Repp’s grave and automatically traced the letters of his name, etched into the smoothly polished surface of his red granite marker, the old ache for what might have been rising up in her throat.
“Was he my dad?”
Quint’s question had the impact of a body blow. Cat turned with a sharp and silent indrawn breath, her glance racing to his quietly serious expression. Never once had Quint ever shown the slightest curiosity about his father or, to her knowledge, even wondered about his existence.
“What made you ask that?” Cat stalled, trying to decide what she should tell him.
His slender shoulders rose and fell in a diffident shrug, a look of uncertainty entering his gray eyes. His response forcibly reminded Cat that children were much more sensitive and observant than adults realized. His question had been forthright, but her response hadn’t been, and Quint knew it.
Determined to repair the damage, Cat captured his hand and drew him to her, gathering him into the loose circle of her arms. “Repp wasn’t your father, Quint, although I know he would have liked to be,” she told him truthfully. “You’re just the kind of son he would have wanted. I know he would have been the proudest dad to take you on roundup with him. And he wouldn’t have let the men tease you about taking a nap, either. He would have told them to keep quiet, that a person deserves to rest after they’ve worked hard. There’s no doubt he would have loved you a lot. And you would have loved him, Quint.”
He listened with solemn care, but Cat couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Nerves raveling, she braced herself for direct questions about his father. But it soon became apparent that she had been granted a reprieve. But for how long?
