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“I still have some of my things there that I’ll need to go get,” she said. “I plan to leave in a day or so, pack them up and come home.”
Chase tried again to talk her out of it, but Cat was adamant in this. In the end, he accepted her decision.
FIVE
The rear of the Blazer was jammed with boxes, framed pictures and assorted odds and ends, the accumulation of three years at the University of Texas. Cat had only one stop to make, the result of a phone call to her friend and sorority sister Kinsey Davis Phelps.
The instant Kinsey had learned of her decision to drop out of college, she had wailed, “Cat, honey, you can’t do this! I know you’re all broke up about your fiancé dying, but this will be our last year. You’ve got to come back.” After thirty minutes of trying to talk Cat into changing her mind, Kinsey had finally given up. “To tell you the truth, honey, I thought we Phelps were good at digging in our heels, but you Calders have cornered the market on stubborn. But you can’t break up the gang like this. Have you told the other girls yet?”
“I haven’t had time, and I don’t now. I’ll get hold of them once I’m back home. Which brings me back to the reason I called you—I’ll be pulling into Waco around suppertime. If you’re free tonight, we could get together.”
Kinsey groaned in regret. “J.J. asked me to spend the weekend with her in Fort Worth. Daddy’s flying me up there this afternoon. Wait a minute,” she said with sudden excitement. “We’re getting together with Babs and Debby Ann tonight at the White Elephant Saloon, probably go over to Billy Bob’s later—You know there’s talk that Billy Bob’s might be closing,” Kinsey had added as an aside. “Why don’t you meet us there? Then the whole gang will be together again. If we can’t talk you into staying, then we’ll have one big blowout of a party to send you on your way back to Montana.”
Cat had quickly agreed. It was the one regret she’d had, coming back before fall classes resumed: she wouldn’t see any of her college friends. Now that had been handled.
By the time Cat reached the city limits of Fort Worth, the sun had slipped below the horizon, leaving long streaks of red in the sky to form a vivid backdrop for the concrete and glass towers of downtown. She followed the north-south freeway that bisected the city.
But it wasn’t the coming reunion with her college friends that occupied her thoughts. It was pieces of her own family’s history, the stories that had been passed down about her great-grandfather Chase Benteen Calder. Texas-born, he had been raised on a ranch somewhere south of the city and had fallen in love with the daughter of a local store owner. Fort Worth had been his last stop before heading north with a herd of cattle, his young bride at his side, to build a permanent home in Montana.
Cat was struck by the parallel that Fort Worth was to be her last stop before going to Montana for good. The difference was, she was making the journey alone, without the one she loved. The loss of Repp twisted through her, sharp enough to bring the sting of tears to her ears and blur her vision. Cat almost missed seeing the exit sign for the historic Stockyards District. Hurriedly she switched lanes and took the off-ramp, then turned west on Twenty-eighth Street.
As Cat made the swing onto East Exchange, the Blazer’s tires rumbled over the street’s old-time paving brick. Directly before her, the famous FORT WORTH STOCK YARDS sign hung above the street. More pickups than cars were parked along the street, and the wooden sidewalks, covered with shed roofs, were crowded with pedestrians, tourists, and locals alike, all garbed in western gear.
By some miracle that Cat didn’t question, she found a parking place only two doors from the White Elephant Saloon, her rendezvous point with her sorority sisters. The twang of guitars and the rhythmic pound of piano keys from a honky-tonk band filtered into the street from one of the bars.
Before locking the Blazer, Cat took her credit cards, cash, and identification out of her purse, pushed them all deep in the side pocket of her Wranglers and shoved her purse under the driver’s seat, then locked the vehicle and tucked the keys in the other pocket. August’s sweltering heat still clung to the air, bringing beads of perspiration to the surface of her skin.
Yet, standing there, surrounded by the flavor of the Old West, Cat felt the infectious spirit of the place swirl around her—something reckless and carefree, something that grabbed the moment and squeezed every drop of enjoyment from it, the devil with tomorrow. It was a feeling that said a night on the town was a time to put aside your woes and celebrate something, anything. Suddenly that was exactly what Cat wanted to do.
“Cat! Cat Calder!” A familiar voice yelled her name. It came from the White Elephant.
Cat turned and saw a long and lanky Kinsey Davis Phelps running to greet her, turning heads as she came, with her model-like mane of long brown hair, lavishly fringed western shirt, skintight jeans, and real lizard-skin boots.
“Honey, when I saw that Blazer go by, jammed with boxes, I knew it was you.” Kinsey wrapped her in a girlish hug, then hooked an arm around her and swept her toward the saloon. “Everybody’s inside waiting for you, except Debby Ann. She won’t be off work for another hour yet. You’ve lost weight, haven’t you?” she said with a quick, assessing look. “Babs is going to kill you. The poor girl has put on another five pounds this summer, and the way she’s gobbling down nachos she’ll add another five pounds tonight. J.J. has just about convinced her to go to a spa for a week before classes start. Personally, I think she should go for two weeks. But you know J.J.—she would never tell Babs that for fear of hurting her feelings.”
“While you spare no one’s,” Cat chided in a laughter-laced voice.
Grinning, Kinsey lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. “As my daddy always says, the truth only hurts for a little while.”
“Maybe, but with you, truth tends to be a blunt instrument. You keep hitting people over the head with it.”
“Little ol’ me?” Feigning innocence, Kinsey pressed graceful fingers to her throat.
Cat laughed, then forced herself to ask, “So, how is J.J.? Is her wedding still on for Christmas?”
Kinsey stopped and drew Cat aside before they walked into the saloon. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you.” She dropped the pitch of her voice to a conspiratorial level. “The wedding’s off. It seems Donnie Paul got another girl pregnant, somebody in Houston, and he’s going to marry her instead. J.J. is just devastated. Personally, I think she’s well rid of him. Men are not worth half the tears we cry over them—” Kinsey stopped abruptly and cast a guilty look at Cat. “I just put my foot in my mouth again, didn’t I? I honestly wasn’t thinking about Repp when I said that. I’m sorry, honey.”
“I know that. Believe me, if I didn’t, I would be pulling that lovely hair of yours out by the roots,” Cat replied. This time Cat was the one who took Kinsey’s arm and led her inside the crowded saloon. Kinsey directed her toward a rear table where the two girls waited.
Blond and apple-cheeked Babs Garvey greeted Cat with a warm hug and an immed
iate, “You rat, you’ve lost weight.” Behind Babs’s back, Kinsey gave Cat an I-told-you-so look. “J.J. has, too. Grief does that to you, I guess.”
“I guess,” Cat replied with deliberate vagueness, then turned to J.J. Richardson. Freckled and sandy-haired, J.J. was the plain one of the group, average in height, build, and looks. Like Cat, she came from a ranching dynasty, except that her ancestors had discovered a huge pool of oil beneath their West Texas spread. Instead of stepping forward to welcome Cat, J.J. hung back, eyeing her with a mix of hesitation and dread.
Cat guessed at its cause. “Kinsey told me about Donnie Paul.”
“Thank God,” J.J. murmured and caught Cat’s hands in her own, squeezing them tightly.
