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“Yes and no. She gets some crazy ideas in her head sometimes, and nothing I say seems to make any difference.”
Trey didn’t volunteer more information than that, but Laredo was certain he knew what kind of crazy notion Sloan had. “You mean like you’re cheating on her.”
Trey abruptly reined up, his gaze shooting to Laredo, a dark anger in its depths. “Good God, don’t tell me she’s spouting off to others about it.”
“Not that I’ve heard.” Laredo halted as well.
“Then how did you know?”
“I picked it up in Blue Moon when I was there the other day. Rumor has it that you’re seeing someone on the sly and it’s causing problems at home.”
Trey made a small, disgusted movement of his head and kneed his horse forward again. “I’d like to know when I’m supposed to be doing this. I’ve been home every night for months,” he muttered.
“Easy. “Laredo relaxed the pressure on the bit, letting his mount move alongside Trey’s gelding. “An afternoon here. An afternoon there.”
“You’re serious,” Trey realized.
“That’s the talk.”
A grimness settled around his mouth. “Let’s hope Sloan doesn’t hear it.” Yet it was something Sloan was smart enough to figure out by herself.
“It does make you wonder how the rumor got started, though,” Laredo remarked with seeming idleness.
Wise to his ways, Trey studied him. “Any ideas?”
“It seems the rumor started circulating not long after we learned about her connection to Rutledge. I suppose that could be another coincidence,” he added dryly.
“Tongues wag all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.” Yet Trey couldn’t totally dismiss his words.
“This time the tongues are drawing comparisons between you and your father—and the poor choice he made in his first wife.” Laredo paused, then spoke with a note of caution. “There are more Taras in this world that we’d like to believe.”
“You still think Sloan might be some tool of Rutledge’s,” Trey muttered in irritation. “And I still say you’re wrong.”
“Maybe I am. But something about all this doesn’t smell right.”
“It isn’t Sloan.”
“I hope to hell you’re right. You two have enough troubles without throwing that into the mix.”
“The only problems we have are in her mind,” Trey stated flatly.
“Really? What about her career?”
Trey stiffened. “What about it?”
“Talk is that you’re insisting she give it up.”
“I’ve never said a word to her about it.” That was the truth. Yet it didn’t alter that vague resentment he felt nearly time he saw her with a camera. “It hardly matters, though, considering she’ll soon have a baby to look after.”
“Makes me wonder where the Triple C would be if your mother thought like that. And you can’t say you didn’t know Sloan was a professional photographer when you married her.”
Amusement was in the look Trey gave him. “You can’t seem to make up your mind about Sloan. One minute you’re talking against her, and in the next you’re taking her side.”
Laredo grinned. “Kinda sounds like I’m riding the same horse you are.”
The discussion, already near its end, came to a quick close when Trey spotted a cow standing well apart from her herd-mates. Her raised tail and anxious air were sure signs she was in the initial stage of labor, making her a prime candidate for the calving shed.
A few notches past its zenith, the sun was a big yellow ball of light in a freeze-dried sky. Below it, the two-lane highway stretched like a gray ribbon across a winter-brown landscape. Here and there, old snow could be seen clinging to the shady sides of its flanking ditches.
