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Logan turned to Laredo. “So why didn’t you tell me any of this on the way here? You could have saved us both a lot of time.”
Laredo nodded toward Chase. “It was his play to make. Not mine. I just follow orders. He said to bring you here alone, and that’s what I did.”
In order to do that, Logan realized that Laredo had made himself a suspect in O’Rourke’s death. It spoke loudly of the loyalty and trust Laredo had in Chase. And it had Logan looking at him with a new respe
ct.
He brought his attention back to Chase. “So what’s your next move?”
“You are going to help me stage my return to the Triple C,” Chase replied calmly. “No one else must know that I’ve been staying here at the Boar’s Nest, and that includes Cat. We can’t afford to have anyone think that Laredo was a part of this. Will you do it?”
“Count me in,” Logan agreed without hesitation.
Laredo spoke up, “I hope that means you won’t object if I start carrying again.”
Logan’s pause was a deliberate one. “I didn’t hear you say that.”
Laredo’s smile was slow and lazy. “Thanks.”
“So, when do you want to return, Chase?”
“The sooner the better,” he replied. “Later on today you can tell Cat that I called you and that I will be flying into Miles City tomorrow. Explain as much of the truth as she needs to know—that I was mugged, suffered from amnesia, and finally remembered who I was. Laredo can drop me off at the airport in the morning, and I’ll wait there until you come to pick me up.”
“Sounds simple enough.” Logan nodded. After a pause, he added, “Although, to be honest, Chase, it’s not clear in my mind why I’m sitting here now. You don’t really need my help to stage your return. You could have done it on your own and kept me in the dark.”
“I considered it,” Chase admitted. “But you wouldn’t have known there was a possibility Cat was in danger. That wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.”
“I should have guessed,” Logan murmured.
“Laredo will call you sometime late this afternoon. The two of you can decide what time would be best. That will be the alleged call from me. Whatever you do, don’t keep the call a secret. The sooner Markham gets word that I am still alive, the less likely he’ll be to look at anyone else until he deals with me.”
Chapter Eighteen
All over the Triple C there was a kind of electricity in the air. The range telegraph buzzed with it. People everywhere seemed to walk with a lighter step. The name that had rarely been mentioned since the day of his premature burial was on everyone’s lips.
Chase Calder was alive.
Rumor and fact spread from one end of the ranch to the other. And no one seemed to care if one masqueraded as the other. They welcomed any excuse to call someone else and pass on the latest.
By midmorning Jessy had fielded dozens of calls. Regardless of their initial content, each ended with the same question: when would Chase arrive? All were frustrated by her inability to be more specific than somewhere around noon or one o’clock.
Even her own mother found it hard to believe she couldn’t be more exact. Judy Niles had arrived at The Homestead shortly before nine o’clock in the morning, ostensibly to give the house a thorough cleaning so everything would be neat and tidy when Chase arrived. She spent almost as much time chattering at Jessy as she did cleaning.
Finding it difficult to maintain the pretext that she knew little more about Chase than anyone else, Jessy left her mother to answer the phone while she made her escape from the house. With no particular destination, Jessy struck out toward the corrals.
She was halfway across the ranch yard when she recognized Laredo’s pickup coming down the lane. She stopped and waited for him to arrive. He pulled up alongside her, an arm draped over the open driver’s side window.
“Good morning.” His smile was warm and faintly intimate.
“Good morning.” Jessy stepped closer and casually laid a hand on the pickup’s sun-warmed metal skin. “Did you drop him off at the airport?” she asked, referring to Chase.
“Delivered him safe and sound,” Laredo confirmed.
“The telephone hasn’t stopped ringing all morning. Did you know that Chase has been in a coma until a few days ago?” she asked, passing on one of the many rumors making the circuit.
“I didn’t know that.” Laredo grinned.
“Somebody else told me that they had heard he had been in Mexico all this time.”
