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“Is that why he went to Texas?”
Brightening visibly at the question, Trey gave him a wide-eyed look of new anticipation. “Maybe.”
A searching call came from the barn area, the wind carrying it away from them. Laredo looked up and saw the widow poised in a stance of alertness. “Does your mom know where you are?”
“No,” Trey replied with a glimmer of defiance.
“I think she’s looking for you.” Straightening, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “He’s over here!” He waved his hat over his head until she started toward the cemetery. When he glanced at the boy, he noticed the glumness that pulled down the corners of his mouth. “Mothers worry a lot, don’t they?”
“Yeah,” Trey agreed without enthusiasm.
“I guess that’s their job.”
“I guess,” Trey sighed the words and threw a glance over his shoulder to observe his mother’s approach.
Laredo pretended not to notice the sharp study of her gaze when she joined them. At the last minute she glanced down to Trey. “I wondered where you went.”
“I’m okay,” he muttered in response.
“I didn’t know that, though.” She lifted her gaze to Laredo, a look of unspoken demand in her eyes. “I don’t believe we have met,” she challenged.
“His name’s ’Redo,” Trey inserted, puffing up a little that he knew something she didn’t.
“Laredo Smith.” Supplying the rest of it, Laredo touched a finger to his hat brim. “I guess I have the advantage because I know you’re Jessy Calder.”
She didn’t respond in kind to his lazy smile. Neither was she cold or hostile, but rather regarded him with a steady calm. “How do you do.” She extended a hand with a forthrightness that had a hint of masculine ease in it.
Her grip was firm and sure and brief, but the warm sensation of it lingered in his palm. “Trey was just telling me about the horse his grampa is going to buy for him.”
An indulgent smile touched her wide lips when she glanced at her son. “Yes, he’s crazy about horses.”
“I’m gonna be a cowboy,” Trey asserted importantly. “I got a lasso and everything. And I’m real good at catchin’ stuff with it. Aren’t I, Mom?”
“You are definitely getting better.”
“Can I go get m
y rope?” he asked hopefully, then made a slight face. “I don’t want’a go back in the barn.”
“You can if you want, but you have to stay close to the barn,” she said and he took off at a run. “And don’t try to rope any of the horses in the corral,” she called in warning.
“I imagine boys can be a handful at that age,” Laredo remarked when she turned back to him.
“He’s easily bored,” she admitted.
“I saw him down here by himself. With the river being so close by, I thought someone should keep an eye on him.”
She seemed to appreciate the gesture. “That was kind of you, but O’Rourke is somewhere among the cottonwoods. He would have made sure Trey didn’t fall in the river.”
Startled, Laredo made a quick scan of the tree-lined bank, observing the silhouette of a horse and rider that he had previously overlooked. “Who’s O’Rourke? One of your ranch hands?” His first thought was that she had someone standing guard.
“No. He’s Maggie’s brother.” She tipped her head toward the gravestone of Chase’s late wife. “Whenever Cat is out and about, you can count on O’Rourke being somewhere close by—Laredo, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Are you from Texas?”
“I’ve spent some time there,” he replied, deliberately noncommittal. “This is my first time in Montana. It’s a big, wide country. It reminds me a bit of Texas the way it rolls into forever. I can understand why everybody says the Triple C is prime cattle country.”
