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It galled her to let Boone have the last word on the subject, but Dallas had no counter to his statement. “Can we get to the point of this meeting?” she challenged instead.
“You know you really should be nicer to me,” he murmured.
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” she reminded him coolly.
“It can always be changed.”
When his hand moved toward her cheek, Dallas struck it aside before it could reach its target, her eyes ablaze with temper. “It’ll stay just as it is, thank you,” she snapped and moved a cautious step back.
Anger flickered in his expression, then faded into something vaguely cunning and determined. “As smart as you are, you’ll change your mind once you’ve had time to think about it.”
“Don’t count on it.”
Boone smiled and turned to face the stall, stacked with square bales. “This hay isn’t going to last Echohawk up a short hill. He’ll have to buy more. The question is, where and from whom? I’ll expect a call from you as soon as you know.”
“You’ll get it,” Dallas stated, all too conscious of the bad taste the words left in her mouth.
Chapter Thirteen
The sun sat atop the western horizon. The red glare of it poured through the driver’s-side window when a dusty and ash-coated pickup pulled up at the fence gate. At the cessation of movement, Empty Garner roused himself and groped to locate the door handle on the cab’s passenger side.
“Where is the damned thing?” Empty grumbled in annoyance.
Quint took one look at the old man’s face, hollow-eyed with fatigue, and threw the gearshift into Park. “I’ll open the gate.”
Empty subsided against the seat back without protest, a statement in itself of his bone-tiredness. Quint’s own legs felt wooden beneath him when he stepped to the ground. As he advanced to the gate, his gaze made an automatic sweep of the charred landscape, empty of any living creature. It was an all-too-familiar sight.
He unlatched the gate and dragged it open wide, then climbed back in the idling pickup. Without turning his head, Empty sent him a weary look.
“I wouldn’t bother to close it if I were you,” he said. “No cow’s going to venture across all that burned ground to get to it.”
“You’re probably right,” Quint agreed and drove through the opening, but the habit of closing a gate behind him was too deeply ingrained. He stopped the truck, got out, and shut the gate.
When he parked in front of the low ranch house, Empty declared, “It’s been a long damned day. I don’t mind telling you I’m glad to see the end of it.”
Quint switched off the engine and reached for the door. “I keep telling myself it could have been worse, but it was bad enough.”
As he swung out of the cab, the door to the kitchen opened and Dallas stepped onto the porch. A moment ago Quint had been so tired that he felt half drunk, but the sight of her standing there, tall and slim, coppery pale hair catching fire in the sun’s waning light, lifted some of the weariness from him.
“There’s someone on the phone for you, Quint,” she called. “It’s Jessy Calder.”
“Coming,” he said in answer and forced his legs to quicken their pace.
Behind him, Empty called to Dallas, “Did you get the chores done?”
“All done,” she confirmed and moved to one side of the doorway, allowing room for Quint to pass.
Once in the kitchen, Quint walked straight to the corner desk and picked up the receiver lying next to the phone. “Hi, Jess. It’s Quint.” Knowing the conversation could turn into a long one, he sat down in the old wooden office chair.
“You’re working late tonight.” Her familiar voice sounded in his ear, registering above Empty’s grumbling voice as he trooped ahead of Dallas into the house.
“I guess you could say that,” Quint replied and let out a sigh. “We’ve had some trouble here.”
“It’s the hay, isn’t it?” she guessed. “Chase has been worrying about it.”
“He had cause,” Quint admitted and absently watched when Dallas took her grandfather’s jacket and hat from him and hung them on the iron hooks near the door. “It’s gone. Burned. Every bit of it. Along with nearly five hundred acres of grass.”
“How? When?” The questions came rapid-fire.
