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“Sally.” Tara moved to the woman’s side, placing both hands on her arm in silent supplication. “You, of all people, should understand why I did it.”
Ignoring her plea, Sally declared, “Chase should have thrown you out. Why he ever agreed to this is beyond me.”
“But, Sally—”
“Don’t you but Sally me.” She turned on her, the brightness of angry tears burning in her eyes. “I trusted you. I honestly thought—” She clamped her mouth shut on the rest of the sentence and pivoted away, shoulders rigid.
“Every word I told you was true,” Tara assured her. “That’s why I bought the land—so I could be near him.”
“But to buy that land.” Sally kept her back to Tara. “How could you buy that piece? You know how much Chase has wanted it.”
“Of course I know. But don’t you see, now that I own it, it’s practically the same as if he did. In a manner of speaking, it’s in the family now.”
Half turning, Sally searched Tara’s face, her own expression wary yet hopeful. “Are you saying that you intend to deed it over to him?”
“Not right away, I can’t,” Tara replied. “They are both so upset with me now that they would never allow me to build a home on it. And I have already broken ground for it. Wait until you see it. It is going to be beautiful. Spacious, but not too large or imposing, just a cozy little retreat on the Montana plains.”
“But later,” Sally persisted, seeking a more definitive answer to her question, “you will turn it over to them?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?” Tara said with a warm and easy smile. “It will obviously take some time before I can do anything, but it will all work out perfectly in the end. You’ll see.”
Sally wanted desperately to believe her, but it wasn’t easy. When she had learned that Tara was the mysterious buyer, she had never felt so betrayed in all her life. Even worse, she felt she had betrayed Chase by befriending Tara, only to realize the woman had used her.
Tara pressed both hands on Sally’s arm once more and looked at her with earnest and imploring eyes. “Please tell me I still have one friend in the Calder household.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Sally nodded. “You do.”
But she wouldn’t be nearly as trusting as she was before.
Although the atmosphere at the dinner table that evening was far from amiable, Tara seemed to be impervious to the heavy undercurrents. If anything, she seemed perfectly at ease with the situation.
Naturally the antics of the twins occupied much of the spotlight, both as a diversion and a safe topic for conversation. If Tara noticed that any responses tended to be coolly civil, she didn?
??t let it show.
But Jessy felt the strain of having the enemy in their midst. It evoked a kind of quiet, simmering anger toward Tara. She knew exactly what the woman had achieved by being there: Tara was in a position of power and she had forced them to acknowledge it. And that was one more thing Jessy held against her.
It was with a trace of relief that Jessy rose at last to help Sally clear away the dessert dishes. “I will be right back with the coffee,” Sally promised.
“We’ll have ours in the den.” Chase pushed his chair back from the table and glanced pointedly at Tara. “You do plan to join us, don’t you?”
“Of course.” Rising, Tara retrieved her oversized shoulder bag from the chair back and smiled lightly. “To be honest, I feel a bit like Daniel. Only I’m about to enter the den with two Calder lions.”
Unable to suppress her resentment any longer, Jessy countered smoothly, “I’m sure you are very experienced at catfighting, Tara.”
Jessy had the satisfaction of seeing a flicker of annoyance in the woman’s eyes before Jessy departed for the kitchen, a stack of dessert plates in each hand. Sally was already there, busily arranging the coffee service on its tray.
She looked up when Jessy entered. “I’ll help you with the twins just as soon as I take coffee in to Chase.”
“For two cents, I would put poison in her cup.” Jessy shoved the dirty plates onto the sink counter.
After a moment’s hesitation, Sally suggested, in an attempt at offhandedness, “Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.”
“I am not going to hold my breath.”
As far as Jessy was concerned, Tara and trouble were synonymous. She had a history of bringing it, and the uneasy grumblings among the Triple C riders bothered Jessy.
Much of the ranch’s success was predicated on a combination of strong leadership, loyalty, and a guardianship of the land. Every blade of grass had long been held to be precious. When Tara obtained legal title to those ten thousand acres that had been considered Calder property for years, she had rocked its foundation.
