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“Actually, it’s been three,” Logan corrected.
“Two, three, it doesn’t matter,” Cat declared impatiently. “He’s still weak. You can sit there if you want, but I’m going to see if he needs any help.”
She had that angry, determined look that Chase recognized well. “No, you’re not,” he barked, startling her to a stop. “Quint’s a grown man—too old for you to be barging into the men’s room to wipe whatever needs wiping.”
“Just the same,” Cat began in protest.
Logan spoke up, “I’ll go check on him, just to be on the safe side.”
As Logan got up to leave, Chase locked his gaze on his daughter. “You can stay here with me.” Cat glared at him for a rebellious moment, then sat down on the very edge of the lawn chair, her body straining forward in its desire to go with Logan. “You do know, Cat, that there is a difference between mother love and smother love,” Chase said in warning.
She flashed him an impatient look. “I can’t help it, Dad—”
“You’d better.” His voice had the ring of command and the experience of his eighty-odd years.
As Logan drew level with an end corner of the barn, he noticed a dark green Suburban coming toward him. He was quick to recognize the vehicle as the one Jessy usually drove. The sun glare on the windshield made it impossible for him to see the driver until the vehicle made a right turn toward the front of the barn. That’s when he saw it was Laura behind the wheel.
Logan didn’t think much about it other than to absently recall the sundress and flimsy sandals he’d noticed her wearing earlier—reason enough for her to drive back and forth to the picnic area rather than walking.
When he rounded the front corner of the barn, he saw the Suburban parked in front of it, both doors on the driver’s side standing open. Even though Trey had his back to him, Logan had no difficulty recognizing the husky-shouldered, narrow-hipped frame of Jessy’s tall son. Laura stood just beyond him, partially obscured by Trey, who was busy stowing something in the backseat.
That was when Logan caught a glimpse of a bulky white cast. It didn’t require any great deductive powers to realize that it was his son the two were helping into the backseat. The thought of Cat’s reaction to this had Logan frowning when he walked up. “What’s going on here?”
Laura gave him a laughing look. “Really, Logan,” she said in mock reproach, “You’re a lawman. I should think it would be obvious to you that Trey and I are kidnapping the guest of honor.”
From his crosswise position in the backseat, Quint looked at him, his eyes the same shade of gray as Logan’s. “I just want a break from all the commotion and hoo-ha, Dad. We’re gonna go somewhere quiet, grab a beer, and talk. Make it right with Mom, will you?”
As a boy, Quint had never sought to be the center of attention, and manhood hadn’t changed that about him. Logan smiled in understanding and nodded. “It won’t be easy, but I will.”
“Tell Aunt Cat that we’ll take good care of him,” Laura said as she climbed into the driver’s seat.
“You’d better, or she’ll have your hide,” Logan countered.
Laura just laughed and turned the ignition key. As the engine rumbled to life, Trey laid Quint’s crutches on the floor of the backseat and closed the door.
“We’ll have him home before dark,” Trey promised, his voice had the same deep, commanding tone as his grandfather’s. One look at those rugged, rawboned features and it was impossible to mistake him for anyone other than a Calder. Those features were like a tribal stamp.
Logan watched the three of them drive off, just as he had done so often during their growing-up years. There was a rightness to it.
Chapter Nine
A wind tunneled through the Suburban’s open windows and tangled its fingers in Laura’s long blond hair. As usual, she welcomed the feel of it—and the memories it brought back of riding through the streets in Rome in the Porsche with Sebastian. This time, though, the wind filled the vehicle with the earthy smells of the land instead of the intriguing scents of the Eternal City.
Beside her, Trey sat sideways in the front seat and leaned over the back of it to face Quint. “How long before you get rid of that thing?” He flicked a finger at the cast that completely immobilized Quint’s leg from the upper thigh down.
“If everything is healing all right, they should put me in a walking cast in a couple weeks. I’ll probably have to wear that for at least a month.”
“By the time you get out of it, you’ll have a closet full of one-legged pants to throw away,” Laura teased and slowed as she approached the east gate. Its highway access had long ago made it the main entrance to the Triple C.
“I hope not,” Quint replied and twisted his head toward the front, catching sight of the massive stone pillars that curved out into wings and supported the wrought-iron sign that hung between them, spelling out in block letters the name: TRIPLE C RANCH.
“I miss the old sign,” Quint said.
For years the original entrance gate had been an unimposing structure consisting of two tall poles and a sun-bleached sign with faded letters that said THE CALDER CATTLE COMPANY, with the Triple C brand burned into the wood on either side.
“Now you sound like Gramps,” Laura chided, as she pulled onto the highway and headed north toward the town of Blue Moon. “It’s called advertising. You have to let people know where you are, especially the ones with fat checkbooks coming to one of our private livestock auctions.”
“I know. It was a business decision to change it,” Quint conceded. “But I still like the plainness of the old one better.”
