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Ty was by the fireplace, a shoulder leaning against the wooden mantel, his stance loose and relaxed as he idly sipped at a glass of bourbon and water. Reclining on the age-softened leather couch, Tara held her wineglass by its stem and swirled the fine port it held. Dressed in a black cashmere sweater and matching slacks, she wore her hair down in a softly rumpled style. In addition to the black opal ring that never left her finger, her only other concession to jewelry was a strand of baroque pearls interspersed with long onyx beads. She fingered them absently as her gaze strayed to the map on the wall, only half interested in Noah’s discourse on the merits of some new coolant system.
“It costs more, but it should save you money in the long run. I have some brochures on it upstairs. I’ll go get them,” the architect said, rising from the wing-back chair in front of the desk. “That way you can look them over and let me know in a few days if you want to go that route.”
As he exited the den, Jessy walked in, a twin on each hip. “We just finished our baths. I thought we would come in and say good night before we headed off to bed.”
Young, dark-haired Trey spotted his father by the fireplace and immediately stretched out his arms, babbling excitedly, “Da da da da.”
Leaving his drink glass on the mantel, Ty walked over to take the wiggling toddler from Jessy’s arm. Rising, Tara slipped her wineglass onto the coffee table and glided across the room to claim the tow-haired girl.
“Aren’t you the precious one.” Tara lifted the child into her arms with an effortless ease. “Look at all those beautiful golden curls.”
But little Laura had eyes only for one thing—the pearls around Tara’s neck. Her fingers fastened around them with greedy quickness.
“Laura, no.” But Jessy’s protest came too late.
Tara laughed. “It’s all right,” she insisted and cooed to the child, “It’s a smart girl who knows her jewelry.”
“Maybe, but she’s teething.” Jessy stepped forward to rescue the necklace from her daughter, but not before Laura managed to get them in her mo
uth. “I better take her,” Jessy said after she managed to extricate the necklace from her daughter’s grasp. When Laura was safely in her arms again, she apologized, “I’m sorry. I should have warned you.”
“No harm done,” Tara assured her. “Besides, just think—when she grows up, she can brag that she cut her teeth on pearls.”
Unimpressed, Jessy smiled a nonanswer. “Come on, Trey.” She reached for her son. “Time for bed.”
“Wait.” Tara held up a detaining hand. “Before you go, I just want to thank you—all of you”—she included Chase in her sweeping glance—“for letting me help in the planning for all this.”
Jessy couldn’t recall being given a choice, but she refrained from saying so.
“It’s meant more to me than you can possibly know,” she went on. “After Daddy died, I was completely lost. I didn’t know what to do with myself. My life seemed totally without purpose. If it wasn’t for that chance remark Ty made when he came for the funeral—” Pausing, Tara gave him a misty-eyed look that Jessy didn’t believe for one minute. “But he did, thankfully. Because I needed the work—the challenge of a project like this.” She paused again to shift her focus to Jessy. “Heaven knows, it’s been an awkward situation at times, considering I am the ex–Mrs. Calder, but I will always be grateful that you have been magnanimous enough to look past that. We do all want the same thing—for this auction to be a huge success.”
And Tara was going to be there, claiming her share of the glory for it—if not all of the glory—while Jessy stood on the sidelines, completely eclipsed by her husband’s first wife. Tara clearly had a need to show how inferior Jessy was. It was obviously an ego thing, childish and silly, something to be ignored. Except, it was also a matter of pride. Jessy had never bowed her head to any man; she wasn’t about to bow it to a woman—and never to Tara.
Chapter Seven
Ablustery wind came out of the north, a nip in its breath that signaled the approach of winter. In the open plains, there were no trees to break it, only the occasional cutbank or coulee. But there were none in sight at the spot of the Wolf Meadow gather.
The wind rolled, unchecked, across the herd of red-coated Herefords, held closely bunched by a circle of riders. Bawling their discontent, the cattle milled in confusion, the thick grass underfoot muffling the thuddings of their hooves. The sound underscored the rolling snorts of horses, the creaking saddle leather, the jangle of spurs, and the chomp of bridle bits.
From his vantage point on a crest of the plain, Ty looked on while a pair of riders walked their horses into the herd, quietly working in tandem to single out a cow that had been deemed too old to be productive.
Fall roundup was the time when the herd was culled of the old, the infirm, and the inferior stock, as well as the occasional steer that had escaped the spring gather. After the cull was finished, the herd was reevaluated to determine whether the numbers needed to be further reduced.
In a good year, the range could winter over only a certain number of cattle. During a bad year, that number was reduced, sometimes sharply. And the year’s scant rainfall qualified it as one that had been considerably less than good.
Ty’s thoughts weren’t on that, however. At the moment, his attention was focused on the long, slender rider working the cut, her honey-gold hair hanging down her back in a single braid. Jessy sat deep and easy in the saddle, balanced and ready for any dip or spin her cat-quick horse made as it worked to separate the cow from the herd and frustrate its every attempt to rejoin it.
Suddenly an animal on the outer circle made a break from the herd and bolted for the open grassland beyond it. Immediately a pair of flanking riders gave chase.
Ty felt the light pressure of a small, gloved hand on his arm. “Ty look,” Tara said, her voice low and musical. “It’s Noah.” She nodded to one of the riders giving chase, his arms flapping like a chicken as he raced his horse after it. “He’s having the time of his life.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t go airborne with all that wing flapping,” Ty remarked dryly.
Tara’s amused laugh had a low and throaty sound, innately sensual. “His horsemanship does leave something to be desired. But you have to admit, he has been positively enthralled by all this.”
“City boys usually are. Give him a few more hours, and he’ll discover that there is a lot more sweat and grime than glamour.”
“You used to be a city boy.”
