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This time she looked at him and frowned. “Repp? How’d you know about him?”
“Did Tara let something slip that she shouldn’t have?” he countered. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to know.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She shrugged, then became curious. “What did she tell you anyway?”
“Nothing, really, I assure you,” Stricklin promised. “I believe she merely mentioned once that you liked a particular cowboy but your father didn’t believe you were old enough to be dating. I think she hinted that she occasionally helped the two of you meet.”
“I did see him a couple of times that my father doesn’t know about,” Cat admitted, underplaying the number of times she’d slipped away to meet Repp. “He thought I shouldn’t date until I was sixteen, and I didn’t want to wait that long.”
“That’s typical of young love, I understand.” There was a very faint curve to his mouth. “Secret meeting places. All very romantic—that sort of thing.”
“I guess so,” she agreed, able to look back on that time with a somewhat amused eye at the high drama she had given to those stolen moments. Of course, she was sixteen now and able to date Repp openly.
“Did you have secret meeting places?” he queried.
“Now, that would be telling,” Cat chided, reluctant to reveal that their special place had been the office shed at the hangar. It was a private thing between her and Repp, not to be shared.
“I’m sorry. I was prying, wasn’t I? Naturally you wouldn’t want to divulge the location.” A smoothness seemed to overlay his voice, so little feeling ever expressed in it. “Did you ever get caught?”
“No, or it wouldn’t still be a secret.” But she remembered the time Repp had thought he’d heard someone outside. It had turned out to be the wind blowing the access door to an airplane engine that had been left unlatched.
Somewhere close by, a horse snorted. Cat turned toward the sound, then caught the almost muffled thud of hooves softly swishing through thick grass. Her sudden alertness to something in the night attracted Stricklin’s attention. It was difficult to make out anything in the immediate darkness of the land surrounding them. Saddle leather creaked.
“Who’s out there?” Cat demanded. For a long minute, there was nothing but the rustle of the breeze in the tail stand of grass. Suddenly a dark shape loomed, and Stricklin stiffened at the man’s silent approach. “Uncle Culley.” She laughed softly at the start he had given her. “I didn’t know it was you.”
“You okay?” he asked while his dark gaze flicked suspiciously to Stricklin.
“Sure. We were just walking off a big dinner,” Cat explained. “You’ve met my uncle before, haven’t you, Mr. Stricklin?”
“Of course. How are you, Mr. O’Rourke?” His mouth curved into a smile, but there was no more than that to it.
“Fine.” Culley nodded his head, but his gaze never wavered from the man for a second.
Cat sensed an awkwardness in the air, a kind of tension that made her uneasy. “Are you going to be home tomorrow, Uncle Culley?” She spoke to ease the strain of the brittle air. “I was thinking about riding over to the Shamrock.”
“If you’re coming, I’ll meet you by the river and ride with you,” he said.
“I’ll leave you two to make your plans,” Stricklin said, taking a step to move away toward The Homestead. “I enjoyed the walk, Cathleen.”
“Good night, Mr. Stricklin,” she said and absently turned to watch him retrace his steps to the house.
“How come you were alone with him?” her uncle questioned.
“Alone?” She hadn’t even considered that she had been alone with the man, not in the kind of context he seemed to be indicating. “We just went for a walk after dinner. That’s hardly being ‘alone’ with someone.”
“Maybe not,” he gave in grudgingly. “But you’d best stay away from him. I don’t trust him.”
“Stricklin? I’ve never seen him take a second look at a woman in all the times I’ve seen him.” Cat scoffed the idea that he might get amorous ideas about her. “Besides, he’s too old. And I’m dating Repp anyway.”
“Just keep in mind what I said,” Culley insisted. “Are you really coming tomorrow?”
“Sure. I’ll meet you at ten o’clock by the river.”
27
It was one of those hot, lazy summer afternoons that didn’t encourage much physical activity. It was a time for slow moving and slow talking. When Jessy climbed out of the pickup she’d parked in front of the ranch commissary, there was a raucous group paying no heed to the warning of the broiling sun overhead. The noise of shrieking laughter and mirthful shouts echoed from the river that wound through the headquarters. It came from the current group of houseguests frolicking in the clear-running water.
The sun had baked the metal of the pickup door. It burned her hand as Jessy pushed it shut and walked around the truck to the screened entrance to the commissary. The opening swing of the screen disturbed the flies crawling on the dark mesh. They buzzed noisily as she slipped inside the building.
