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“I am glad you feel that way,” he said, then paused. “I don’t quite know why, but from the very first, I have always felt comfortable with you. If I said such a thing to most women, they would be insulted, but I think you know that I mean it as a compliment.”
“I do.” Thinking back over the last three days, Jessy realized that Monte had spent considerable time at The Homestead, a quiet presence somewhere in the background, never asserting himself, never seeming to be in the way, turning his hand to anything useful whether it was answering the telephone or accepting delivery of a telegram. Even the night when Logan had brought them the news of Chase’s death, it hadn’t seemed intrusive for Monte to be there. In those first few moments afterward, she remembered the touch of his hand on her arm, the sensation of it as a kind of steadying force. And the look in his eyes had been one of recognition for the change in status Chase’s death meant for her. At the time she had given it little thought.
“I find it easy to be with you, Monte,” Jessy admitted freely.
“Gracious,” he dryly arched an eyebrow over twinkling eyes, “we sound like members of some mutual admiration society. Why does it feel so awkward to express honest emotions?”
“I don’t know.” With typical unconcern, she shrugged away the question. Such things had never troubled her. “You can drive yourself crazy trying to analyze the reason. Even if you figure it out, what does it change?”
Monte threw back his head and laughed. “What does it change, indeed,” he declared. “You are a marvel, Jessy, always so straight and direct, yet somehow so difficult to fathom.”
“I’m not a well,” she said dryly, finding such talk ridiculously fanciful.
Monte just smiled. “If you were, you would likely be a bottomless one. But,” he paused and seemed to gather himself, “I have kept you long enough. I merely wanted to make certain that you knew I understood the unique position you now hold, and that I am available if you ever want company.”
“Thank you.”
He didn’t press for a more definite answer. “I’ll see you later at the funeral.” He brushed a hand over her arm in farewell and moved down the steps toward his Range Rover.
Jessy didn’t linger to watch him leave. She had a dozen different tasks to accomplish before the hour of the funeral arrived. She didn’t bother to dwell on the offer he had made, not even to wonder if the day would come when she would want such company and, if it did, whether she would call Monte.
A huge throng of mourners crowded the small cemetery by the river that had long been the repository for the ranch’s dead. It was a notable group who gathered to pay their last respects to Chase Calder, numbering among them the governor as well as senators and congressmen at both the state and national level.
Strains of the old hymn “Shall We Gather at the River” filled the silence, sung by a local church choir. On Jessy’s left, Laura sang along, la-la-la-ing the numerous words she didn’t know. Trey was slumped in the chair on her right, swinging his legs back and forth, thumping them against the chair in a discordant tempo to the music. A quiet and solemn Quint sat next to him, his hands folded in his lap, his gray eyes fixed on the flower-draped casket. Beyond him were Logan and Cat, who was dry-eyed and pale, her
hand spread across the Bible she held.
A sniffling sound drew Jessy’s glance to Sally Brogan, the former proprietor of Blue Moon’s lone restaurant and bar and current housekeeper at The Homestead. Her snow-white head was bowed in grief as she blotted at the tears on her cheek with a lace-edged handkerchief. With the recent loss of her own husband, Jessy well understood the pain of Sally’s grief. For years Sally had nurtured a quiet love for Chase. There was a time when Jessy had thought the two might marry, but that hadn’t come to pass. Now he was gone. And any hopes Sally might have had of one day becoming his wife were gone with him.
Jessy let her gaze wander over the solemn faces of the assembled mourners. She knew just about everyone there. She couldn’t recall the names of a few of the out-of-state ranchers, but their faces were familiar.
Then her roaming glance touched on a stranger standing a few rows back from the gravesite. He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a tieless white shirt and brown sport coat. A cowboy hat was pulled low to shade his eyes from the bright morning sun. But it didn’t prevent Jessy from getting a good look at his strong, clean-cut features. His face had a youthful freshness about it that was belied by the deep etching of character lines. Jessy guessed his age at somewhere in his late thirties or early forties—a contemporary of herself. Which only made her more curious about who he was.
She checked out the people on either side of him, thinking the stranger might be kin to one of them. But she knew both families. If he was related to either of them, it had to be a shirttail connection.
Her curiosity waning, Jessy started to pull her glance away. At that moment he made eye contact with her, and she found herself gazing into a pair of steady blue eyes. Ever so slightly, he dipped his head in acknowledgement of the exchange. She felt a flicker of something. With a trace of self-consciousness, she broke the contact and reached over to still Trey’s swinging legs.
Beside her Laura sang out the hymn’s closing word with confidence, “Ah-men.”
In the hush that followed, the portly Reverend Pattersby stepped forward, his voice lifting to intone, “Let us bow our heads in prayer.”
There was a stirring of movement throughout the crowd as the men removed their hats and ran quick, combing fingers through their hair. Jessy threw a fast look at the stranger, catching a glimpse of sun-streaked brown hair, before she, too, bowed her head in an attitude of prayer.
After the service, food and refreshments were served at the huge timbered barn located not far from the cemetery. Laredo joined the throng inside where a lavish spread awaited them, a series of strategically placed buffet tables groaning with food.
Laredo sampled a few items and drifted among the guests, eavesdropping on conversations as people swapped stories about Chase Calder. He deliberately steered clear of the family, although he was careful to keep track of their whereabouts, especially the son’s widow.
He hadn’t figured out what to make of this tall, slender woman. He covertly studied her again from a distance, taking in the classic purity of her strong, clean jawline and the prominent ridging of her cheekbones. Her long hair, the color of spun-dark caramel, was pulled back from her face, secured at the nape with a tortoiseshell clasp. She exuded a calm confidence and quiet strength that seemed a match for the job before her.
But Laredo remained a little wary. With control of the ranch passing to her, she was the obvious one who stood to gain the most from Chase’s death. Yet from the snippets of information he had managed to glean, Chase had been grooming her for the position ever since his son’s death. Which would seem to indicate she had his full trust.
Someone jostled him from behind. Laredo glanced back as a man said, “I’m dreadfully sorry.”
The man’s distinctly British accent briefly caught Laredo’s interest, out of place as it was among the western drawls around him. He encountered the dismissing flick of the man’s glance before he continued past him, providing Laredo with no more than a glimpse of a finely sculpted aquiline profile.
Laredo nudged a cowboy in a black armband standing next to him. “Who’s the Englishman?” he asked curiously.
The cowboy threw a glance at the man’s back. “That’s Markham. He bought the old Gilmore ranch last spring. His brother’s a baron or duke or something over in England.”
