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Instead he drove to the cookshack, where evening meals were provided for unmarried ranch hands. The first fat raindrops plopped on his windshield as he pulled up to the building.
Halfway through Jessy’s third reading of Trey’s favorite bedtime story, she stole a glance at her son. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open, drawing in slow, even breaths. A sharp clap of thunder rattled windowpanes. Trey shifted slightly and snuggled deeper under the covers.
Satisfied that he was asleep, Jessy closed the book and laid it on the nightstand. After tucking the blanket around him and making a final check on Laura, she tiptoed from the room. The steady drum of the rain masked any sound she made.
As she descended the wide oak staircase, the brilliance of a lightning flash reached into the house. Jessy couldn’t help wondering if Culley was out there somewhere in the storm. On the off chance he might have shown up at the Circle Six, Jessy crossed the living room and picked up the phone to call Cat.
“No. She would have let me know,” she murmured absently to herself and replaced the receiver. A phone call now would only add to Cat’s concern.
Jessy headed for the kitchen. Earlier in the evening, Trey had informed her that they were out of cookies, something Sally had never allowed to happen. Jessy knew that a single phone call to her mother would correct the deficiency. But stirring up a batch of cookies appealed to her, much more than the paperwork that waited for her in the den.
She pushed through the door into the kitchen and froze at the sight of the back door opening. The breath of alarm she had caught back sailed out of her when Laredo stepped inside, drenched to the skin, water pouring from the rolled brim of his hat.
“That door was locked,” Jessy remembered. “How did you get in?”
“It’s an old lock. Those kind are easily opened.” He took off his hat and gave himself a shake. “If you want to make it hard for somebody to break in, you need to install a dead bolt.”
“I will.” But it was the sight of his shirt plastered against his muscled torso that sent Jessy to the laundry basket. She came back with a clean towel and pushed it into his hands with the admonition, “You’re soaked.”
“It’s raining,” Laredo replied in a wry statement of the obvious.
“No kidding.”
“I thought you might not have noticed,” Laredo mocked, a mischievous sparkle in his blue eyes.
It was a look that warmed her. “I noticed earlier that your pickup was gone. I thought you had gone to the Boar’s Nest.”
“I went over to the cookshack for supper.” He used the towel to absorb the excess moisture, slowing down the drips. “I wanted to give you time to put the twins to bed before I stopped to find out what Markham had to say.”
“He didn’t really have anything to say—at least nothing important.” She crossed to the sink. “I’ll put on some coffee.”
“You don’t have anything stronger, do you?”
Jessy hesitated. “There’s whiskey in the den.”
But one look at the slim, woman’s shape of her warned Laredo that whiskey wasn’t a wise choice, not when there were too many raw needs tumbling inside him.
“Coffee is good enough,” he told her. “So Markham only came over to take you on a picnic?”
“He didn’t ask any questions, if that’s what you’re wondering.” She scooped fresh grounds into the coffeemaker’s basket. “He did mention that he saw O’Rourke in town yesterday morning, but that’s about it.”
But O’Rourke was the least of Laredo’s interests. “Have you talked to Cat again?”
“No. I thought about calling to let her know Monte had seen Culley. But there didn’t seem much point since it was yesterday he saw him. Why?”
“I thought she might have said something more about the missing note.” A troubled frown dug a line between his sandy eyebrows as Laredo continued to absently move the towel over his wet clothes. “Who else knows of the note’s existence?” he wondered aloud.
“Tara, of course. And I imagine Cat showed it to Logan, but that’s”—Jessy stopped, recalling with a touch of guilt—“Monte knows about it.”
“Markham!” Laredo exploded. “How the hell did he find out about it?”
“I told him.”
“You what? Dammit, Jessy, you were supposed to watch what you said around him.” His voice was tight and ominously low.
“For your information, I told him about the note before you warned me to be careful of what I said,” she fired back just as hotly. “Monte came into the den shortly after I had given it to Cat. When he asked me about it, I told him exactly what I had said to Cat. It isn’t like the note was something I actually found. Chase made it all up for Cat’s benefit.”
“But Markham didn’t know that!” Laredo was in her face, temper blazing.
