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“I wish you could remember your daughter.” Laredo helped himself to some coffee. “She seems to be the passionate kind. Everything is black and white—you’re either for me or against me. Proud was the word people kept using at the funeral.” Cup in hand, he returned to the table, swung a chair around and straddled it. “Jessy didn’t give me a blow-by-blow account of all that was said, so I’m just guessing. But most daughters think their dads can’t do any wrong. In your case, it’s probably more true than in others. Cat wants everything to stay the way it was. Suddenly Jessy isn’t doing the things Cat is convinced you would. On top of that, it’s happening too fast after your funeral. More than likely she believes being in charge has gone to Jessy’s head. I’d be willing to bet that’s what Tara is telling her.”
“I can’t fault Cat for fighting for what she believes is best for the Triple C.” While he could admire her reason, Chase was still irritated by her actions.
“It will take some tall convincing to make her back down,” Laredo warned. “Personally I don’t think it can be done short of you stepping forward.”
“There might be another way.” He turned to Hattie. “Do you have a paper and pencil?”
“I’ll get it.” She moved away from the table.
“You said you were meeting Jessy tonight?” Chase glanced at Laredo.
“Ten o’clock.”
“Good. I’ll have a note for you to give her—one that she can show Cat. Hopefully I can word it in such a way that Cat will be convinced Jessy has acted as I would.” His mouth curved in a dry smile. “Presumably my daughter will recognize my handwriting.”
Laredo lifted his cup, speaking against its rim. “Our luck, she’ll think it’s a forgery. Especially if Tara hears about it.”
“If nothing else, it should gain us some time,” Chase said as Hattie returned with a writing tablet and ballpoint pen.
With agonizing slowness, the minute hand ticked its way closer to ten o’clock. Five minutes before the hour, Jessy rose from the big desk, a high tension running through her nerves. Leaving the den, she made her way to the living room. As expected, she found Sally sitting in Chase’s favorite chair, watching television.
“I’m going for a walk and to get some air, Sally,” Jessy said, trotting out her carefully rehearsed excuse. “Will you listen for the twins just in case they wake up while I’m gone?”
“Of course.” Sally managed a wan smile of assurance that didn’t even come close to reaching her pain-filled eyes.
“Thanks. I won’t be long.” Jessy’s glance touched briefly on the wadded-up tissue in Sally’s hand, a sure indication she had been crying again.
She was almost sorry that Tara hadn’t followed through with her plan and spoken to Sally about staying with her. The woman was breaking her heart over Chase.
Outside The Homestead, Jessy paused at the top of the steps and skimmed her glance over the ranch yard. Ten minutes earlier she had heard a vehicle and assumed it was Laredo. But there was no sign of his pickup.
She descended the steps and struck out for the old timbered barn, adopting what she hoped would be perceived as a strolling pace by anyone who might see her. Tall yard lights cast wide pools of light at intervals, their brightness dimming the twinkle of stars in the night sky.
When she reached the barn, Jessy had to force herself not to glance guiltily over her shoulder. She didn’t think anyone was about, but she couldn’t be certain of that.
Striving to make every action appear normal, she stepped into the barn and immediately flipped the wall switch, turning on the lights that ran the length of the barn’s wide alley. Her heightened senses immediately registered the rustling of straw and the slightly musty odors of hay and horse. Pausing, she scanned the interior, paying special attention to the many shadowy areas made even darker by the overhead lights. The Welsh pony thrust its nose over the top of its stall and blew softly. It was the only movement she detected.
Nerves taut and at a loss as to how to kill time until Laredo arrived, Jessy walked over to the pony’s stall. “How are you tonight, Sundance?” The pony lipped at the hand she extended to it. “Sorry, no carrots. I’ll make sure Laura brings you some to morrow.”
“Down here.” The low-voiced call came from her left.
Her pulse instantly rocketed, an indication of the jumpy state of her nerves. She gave the pony a parting scratch and wandered down to the next stall. It was empty, the door open, a bed of fresh straw on the floor. When she glanced inside, she saw Laredo perched on the feed bunk, chewing on a stalk of straw.
“Right on time.” He pushed off the bunk, coming soundlessly erect. His lips parted in a grin that showed the whiteness of his teeth and the straw clenched between them. He removed it, a devilish twinkle in his blue eyes. “I like a woman who doesn’t keep a man waiting.” He observed the flicker of annoyance in her expression that told him she was not amused by his trite remark. “Smile, Jessy,” he admonished lightly. “You don’t do it enough.”
“Find me something to smile about.” The line of her mouth thinned in grimness.
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “I may have an answer for your problem right here.”
“What is it?” she asked with a sudden lift of interest.
“Duke wrote it.” He passed it to her and watched the eager way she shifted into the stall opening to allow the light to fall on it. “Basically it indicates he intended to explore the possibility of leasing the feedlot. The idea is that you show it to Cat, tell her you came across it in one of the desk drawers. With any luck it will go a long way in convincing her that her father was thinking along the same lines.”
Propping her back against the stall’s door frame, Jessy studied the note. It looked like idle jottings, listing the pros and cons of leasing the feedlot. “It doesn’t really say he planned to lease it.”
“No. It might have looked a tad too convenient that you found it if it did. We don’t want Cat to become even more suspicious. We just want her to concede that he could have been considering it. It should make it harder for her to be against it.”
“I suppose I should wait a day or two before I find this.”
