Lone Calder Star (2 page)

"If that's what you want, I can be packed and ready in an hour," Quint stated, then cocked his head at a puzzled and inquiring angle. "But why me? We all know there are any number of men here at the Triple C who have more ranching experience than I do."

The question was directed at Jessy, but it was Chase who answered, "Back in June, Max Rutledge offered to buy the Cee Bar. I turned him down flat. Shortly after that, Evans started having trouble keeping help. It could be just a coincidence. But my gut tells me it isn't."

Max Rutledge. Quint knew the name well. He had met Max's son and heir, Boone Rutledge, during Boone's very brief engagement to Quint's cousin Laura, but he knew Max mainly by reputation. And it was a ruthless one.

The Texan was reportedly worth millions, thanks to his vast petroleum and banking investments.

And numbered among his many holdings was the Rutledge family ranch, which just happened to border the Cee Bar.

Quint understood that it was a troubleshooter they wanted more than someone with ranching skills. In that he was uniquely qualified, considering that until a few months ago, he'd been an ATF agent for the Treasury Department. And it was that background in law enforcement they wanted.

"I'll have the twin-engine fueled and waiting for you," Jessy said and reached for the phone.

Winter pressed an early darkness over the Texas landscape. The cold front had passed on through the area, taking the clouds with it and leaving a bright glitter of stars in the evening sky.

The headlight beams on Quint's rental car illuminated the twolane highway in front of him. At this hour there was little traffic on it, and nearly all of it headed in the opposite direction. As he rounded a bend in the road, Quint noticed a cluster of lights in the near distance that looked to
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be a mixture of streetlamps and partially lit buildings. According to the directions Jessy had given him, he was to pass through the small town of Loury, Texas, before he reached the Cee Bar.

Within minutes, the city limit sign loomed along the shoulder and Quint reduced the car's speed to match the posted number. The two-lane road cut straight through the center of town. Block buildings, some with brick facades and others with modern awnings, marked the town's business district. Most of the buildings stood empty, a few of them with optimistic FOR LEASE signs displayed in their dusty storefront windows.

In all there weren't more than a half dozen vehicles parked along the street, and a majority of those were in front of well-lit building on the corner. A large sign above its long windows aptly named the place as the Corner Cafe. In big, hold letters painted on the glass, it advertised HOME COOKED MEALS.

Knowing that it was unlikely there would be anything edible at the ranch, Quint decided to grab something to eat now and save himself a trip back to town. He found an empty parking slot in front of an adjacent building and pulled into it.

There were only five other customers in the restaurant when Quint walked in. Out of habit born of his previous training, he let his glance touch each of them, automatically committing their faces to memory. An elderly couple sat in a side booth, sharing sandwich, while a rear table was occupied by three men dressed in cowboy hats, pearl-snapped shirts, and faded jeans. Two of them were hunched over their coffee both noting his arrival with idle glances, while the third was busy making short work of a cream pie.

All the stools along the short counter were empty except for the one on the far end. A girl in a waitress apron was perched on it, an opened textbook on the counter in front of her along with a spiral notebook.

Quint opted for one of the tables closer to the front of the cafe, pulling out a chair that gave him a view of both the door and his fellow customers. As Quint took his seat, the waitress threw him a distracted glance, reluctantly pushed the book back a notch, and slid sideways off the stool, giving Quint a glimpse of her long hair, fastened together at the nape of her neck with a tortoiseshell clasp. Under the glow of the fluorescent lights, it was the same shiny color of a new penny. He didn't see anything to change his opinion when she approached his table, an attractive girl, on the young side, not over seventeen.

She placed a glass of water on the table and looked him in the eye, studying him with the idle curiosity of a local toward a stranger in town. For the first time Quint noticed the unusual light brown color of her eyes, neither hazel nor golden, but a startling tan.

"Would you like some coffee while your looking the menu?" There was an automatic quality to the question that came from frequent usage.

"I'll take coffee and tonight's special."

"You mean the meat loaf?" She gave him a look that clearly questioned his judgment. "Bad choice. You can't pour enough ketchup on Tub's meat loaf to make it taste good." There wasn't a trace of malice or derision in her statement. On the contrary, it came across as a good-natured warning.

Quint couldn't help smiling. "What would you suggest then?" She responded with a wide tipped smile of her own. "The safest thing is a hamburger and fries."

"Sold."

"I'll be right back with your coffee," she said, and moved away from the table.

When she returned, Quint used the opportunity to ask some questions and pick up any information he could about the Cee Bar. "Are there any job openings around here?"

"Guy Chalmers is looking for somebody to pump gas on the weekends." Even as she answered, her gaze was making an assessing study of him, exhibiting a maturity that went beyond seventeen. "But I don't imagine you'd be interested in that kind of work."

"Not really. What about the Cee Bar? Somebody mentioned they were hiring."

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"You're a cowboy then." Something flickered in her expression that resembled disappointment.

"Is that bad?" Quint countered, amused and curious at her reaction.

"No. You just didn't strike me as one," the girl admitted while a skimming glance took new note of the hat, jeans, and cowboy boots he wore. "After all, half the people in Texas wear boots and hats, but they aren't all cowboys."

Before Quint had a chance to respond, one of the men in back lifted his cup in the air and called, "Hey, Dallas, how about some more coffee. "

" Be right there," she promised, and let her glance ricochet off Quint as she retreated to the counter area.

Coffee pot in hand, she crossed to the table and refilled all three cups. One of them asked her something that produced a shrug before she went to check on the couple in the booth. To Quint's regret she didn't return to his table when she finished. Instead she climbed back on the counter stool and began reading her book again.

Quint wasn't sure why he wanted to talk to this Dallas girl some more. She certainly hadn't given him any useful

information. None, in fact. He couldn't tell whether that had been calculated or completely ingenuous on her part. Considering her age, Quint suspected the latter.

Just the same, something about her intrigued him. He couldn't remember the last time a female had aroused more than his sexual interest. It was ironic that it should turn out to be a teenager.

Any other time such a thought would have drawn a smile from him. Tonight, it left Quint feeling dissatisfied and oddly restless.

His glance strayed to a restroom sign with an arrow pointing to a rear hall. The sight of it offered him the ideal excuse to stretch his legs. Quint straightened from his chair and went to wash up before his food arrived.

A stocky cowboy at the back table tracked Quint's progress across the cafe and waited until he had pushed open the door to the men's room, then got up and ambled over to the end of the counter where the waitress sat. He gave his hat a push to the back of his head, revealing a shock of wheat-colored hair, and propped an arm on the counter.

"Just about every time I see you, you got your nose stuck in a hook. Your eyes are gonna wear out, Dallas." He waited, but she gave no sign of having heard him. "Heard you and your granddaddy rented the old, run-down house trailer from Andy Farrell. I figured you'd head to the city."

"You figured wrong, as usual, John Earl," Dallas replied with no visible break in her concentration.

"What did that stranger bend your ear about?"

"Nothing." She scribbled something on a page of the spiral notebook lying next to the book.

"Sure looked like he was asking you a lot of questions. He was coming on to you, wasn't he?"

The accusation had a possessive ring to it, enough that Dallas threw him a quelling look.

"No, he wasn't. He was asking about work around here."

"What kind of work?"

"Cowboying."

John Earl Tandy released a short derisive breath. "It's the wrong time of year for any of the outfits around here to be taking on extra hands."

Rankled by his smug, know-it-all certainty, Dallas couldn't resist taking a jab at it. "Is that right?"

Her chin came up in challenge. "I wonder where he got the idea the Cee Bar was hiring."

Her response only brought a big grin to the cowboy's face. "He can forget about working there."

"Why?" There was a hard heat in her voice. "Does Rutledge have his eyes on that ranch, too?"

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He ducked his head, briefly breaking eye contact with her. "I figured you'd still be sore. But you gotta know there was nothin' I could do about it."

"Just about everybody in town has told us that." Dallas stared at the book's printed page, but her thoughts were on the gray-eyed stranger and the trouble he'd be letting himself in for if he took that job at the Cee Bar. She reminded herself that was his problem, and not hers.

"You've had a rough time of it lately, that's for sure. But things'll get better," John Earl declared with his typical cocksure confidence. "Why don't you let me take you out Saturday night?"

"Is that your idea of things getting better?" Dallas scoffed.

Stung by her caustic retort, John Earl stood up straight, rigid with anger. "I figured you might not think so much of yourself after your granddaddy lost his ranch, but you still act like you're too good for anybody around here."

The accusation was so ridiculous Dallas wanted to hit him, but she attacked with sarcasm instead. "Of course I do. That's why I'm living in an old, run-down house trailer."

John Earl faltered, certain he'd been insulted, but not sure how. "You can't blame me for that.

Your granddaddy was a fool to think he could stop Rutledge from getting what he wants.

Nobody can go against him and win."

Dallas caught a movement in her side vision and turned as the stranger emerged from the rear hallway and headed back to his table.

"Y"ou'd better tell the new guy," she suggested.

"No need to," John Earl replied. "He'll find out for himself soon enough."

Dallas was quick to detect a tone that hinted at inside information. "What do you mean?" she demanded and fought to contain the sudden sense of rage that swept through her.

"Nothin' really." But John Earl's smug smile was back. "Just that he won't find anybody there to hire him."

"You mean " it took her a second to remember the name of the man in charge of the Cee Bar-"Evans left? I hadn't heard that."

"You didn't expect him to put a notice in the paper, did you?" John Earl grinned.

"But why did he leave? No, let me guess. It had to do with his health, didn't it?" Anger seethed just below the surface of her words.

"His health," John Earl repeated in amusement. "Guess you could say that."

Dallas had no doubts that the threats had been subtle, yet very clear. It was almost enough to make her sick. Worse, though, was that feeling of being utterly powerless to do anything about it.

A hamburger platter mounded with fries was shoved onto the serving side of the kitchen's pass-through window and a corpulent hand punched the counter bell, the sharp ding of it signaling to Dallas that her food order was up.

The timing couldn't have been better as far as Dallas was concerned. It gave her a ready excuse to break off the conversation with John Earl. She slipped off the stool and went behind the counter, circling around the cowboy. She collected the hamburger platter from the window shelf, scooped up some ketchup and mustard, and carried all of it to the stranger's table.

"Thanks," he said with an upward glance when Dallas set it before him.

She had trouble meeting his eyes. John Earl was the cause for it -and the things he'd told her about the Cee Bar. She reminded

herself that it was the stranger's had luck and therewas absolutely nothing she could do about it.

Instead she glanced at his nearly empty cup. "I'll bring you some more coffee."

When she returned with the pot, the elderly couple were waiting at the cash register to pay. She left Quint's table to take their money, eliminating that chance to strike up another conversation with her.

Quint idly watched as she chatted with the pair. He had the distinct impression that the couple didn't have her whole attention; her thoughts were somewhere else. He decided that was hardly a surprise considering the sizable gap in their ages. By the time she climbed back on her stool, the
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cowboy had rejoined his friends at the table. Once again the girl immersed herself in the book's printed words.

The trio of cowboys engaged in desultory conversation, the low, lazy drawl of their voices providing a backdrop to Quint's meal. Occasionally the easy quiet of the cafe was broken by the clink and clatter of glasses and pans coming from the kitchen.

As Quint chewed the last bite of his hamburger, the cowboys pushed their chairs back from the table in ragged order. One dug some coins out of the side pocket of his jeans and tossed them on the table for a tip. Together they ambled toward the cash register counter near the door, their glances sliding curiously to Quint.

One of them abruptly came to a decision and swung toward his table. Quint was quick to recognize him as the same cowboy who had been talking to the waitress earlier.