Needing to confirm it for herself, she started to push past him, but Sebastian caught her by the arms. “He’s gone, Laura. You can’t bring him back. No one can.”
She stiffened, wanting to deny it, but her throat knotted up, hot and painful. When Sebastian folded her silently into his arms, Laura didn’t resist. Just for a moment, she let her head dip against his chest, accepting his attempt to comfort, but she couldn’t stop the whirl of thoughts in her mind.
One was foremost among them. “I’ve got to call home.”
Wrapped in an emotionless calm, she turned out of his arms and went back inside the store. When she stepped behind the counter, there was a low moan from the woman on the floor. Laura bent down to her.
“Marsha, it’s Laura Calder. Can you hear me?”
“My head,” she mumbled, raising a hand to her temple.
“Just lie still,” Laura ordered. “There’s an ambulance on the way.” The words only reminded her that Logan would have no need for it.
The woman was still too dazed to offer any objection. Still, Laura kept an eye on her as she straightened and picked up the phone again. She automatically started to dial The Homestead, then remembered her mother would be at the ranch office, and punched in the digits to her personal extension.
“Mom, it’s Laura,” she said the minute her mother answered. She thought she sounded calm, but something in her voice must have given her away.
“What’s wrong?” her mother demanded with instant concern.
“It’s Logan. He’s been shot.” Laura heard the quick intake of breath on the other end of the line, and something squeezed her own heart. “He’s dead, Mom.”
There was a moment of shocked silence, followed by a slightly addled burst of questions. “How? Why? Where are you?”
Laura briefly described the events that took place, ending with, “Aunt Cat.” Her voice tightened up. “She’ll have to be told.” And there was Quint, too, so far away.
“I’ll go to her right away. Laura,” she began on a worried and questioning note.
“I’ll be fine, Mom,” she assured her, knowing that at the moment all she felt was numbness.
Chapter Eighteen
I
t was ten minutes later when Laura heard the first siren, and another twenty minutes before the ambulance arrived. By then Marsha Kelly had fully regained consciousness and told Laura and Sebastian how Mitchell had walked up to the counter with a sixpack of beer and wanted to charge it.
“He claimed he had an account here. I don’t know where he got that idea, because he’s never had one. But he kept insisting that he did. I could tell he’d been drinking,” she recalled. “And he just kept getting angrier. It didn’t do any good to argue with him. Finally I told him if he didn’t leave, I’d call the police. I was reaching for the phone and—I remember seeing him swing the sixpack at me. After that, it’s all blank.”
Nothing was missing from the register’s cash drawer, but the handgun she always kept under the counter was gone. Laura could only surmise that after Mitchell knocked the woman out, he saw Logan, grabbed the gun from behind the counter, and fired in a blind panic.
As soon as the crime scene was secured, the patrol officers turned their attention to Laura and Sebastian. There were questions to be answered and statements given. More than an hour passed before they were free to leave.
News of the shooting had spread quickly, drawing the curious. Laura was conscious of their eyes on her as she slid into the passenger seat of Sebastian’s rental car, but she was beyond caring. A dullness encased her.
As they turned onto the highway, she had a brief view of the stretcher being loaded into the ambulance and the body bag that lay on it.
“My father died when I was small. I always imagined, though, that he would have been like Logan if he had lived.” Her voice thickened. “It’s hard to believe he’s really gone.”
A solitary tear slipped down her cheek. Sebastian saw it; there was only one. Laura Calder wasn’t the kind of woman to wear her emotions. Behind all that chic sophistication, she was essentially a private woman.
Saying nothing, Sebastian reached across the seat and placed a hand over hers. Laura was surprised by the comfort she drew from such a simple gesture. With a coaxing tug of her hand and a signaling nod, Sebastian invited her to sit next to him. Laura obliged, discovering that she wanted the warmth of human contact. He curved an arm around her shoulders and fitted her against his side.
They rode like that all the way back to the Triple C headquarters, neither speaking; it wasn’t a time for words. The grasslands of the Calder range rolled away from them, and the sun shone brightly in the immense sky. It seemed that nothing had changed, yet for each of them, some things had changed forever.
Journey’s end came when they reached the big white, columned house that stood alone on its island knoll. Three other vehicles were already parked in front of it. And they were only the beginning, Laura knew; there would be many more before the day was over. Some people would come before they went to her aunt’s house at the Circle Six, and others afterward.
When Sebastian parked near the veranda steps and climbed out, Laura was slow to move. By the time she slid across the seat, he had the passenger door open for her. Weighted by some invisible heaviness, she stepped from the car. Sebastian lightly rested his hand on the ridge of her shoulder as they made their way around the car to the front steps. The front door opened, and Boone came out, long strides carrying him quickly across the veranda and down the steps.
Sebastian’s hand fell away from her shoulder as Boone’s arms reached to gather Laura into his embrace. “I’m sorry about your uncle, Laura,” he said, holding her tightly to him. “I wish I had been there.”
“There was nothing you could have done. No one could have. It happened too fast.” It was the same thing Laura had told herself a dozen times since it had happened.
“Just the same, I wish I had been there.” Boone kept her wrapped tightly to his side as he guided her up the steps.
She was halfway to the top before she realized Sebastian wasn’t following them. Halting, she turned and saw him walking back to the car.
“Where are you going, Sebastian?” She said, frowning.
He opened the car door and turned to face her. “It’s even more important now that Mrs. Mitchell and the children have a safe place to stay.”
Laura had forgotten all about the Mitchell woman. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised that Sebastian hadn’t.
“Let’s go inside,” Boone urged. “Your grandfather wants to see you.”
Once more she started up the steps, accompanied by the sound of the rental car reversing away from The Homestead. Already Laura was conscious of the vacuum that was created by Sebastian’s departure.
Trey met her in the entryway when she walked in. There was no touching, no hugging. Such expressions of sorrow weren’t necessary between them.
“Are you all right?” Trey studied her with a twin’s sensitivity.
“I’m fine. What about Quint?” Laura asked, voicing the concern that was foremost in her mind. “Has he been told yet?”
Trey nodded. “Mom called him shortly after she talked to you. She chartered a private jet to fly him back. He should land some time early afternoon.”
A slight smile lifted the edges of her mouth, but it had nothing to do with Quint’s imminent arrival. “That’s how she knew.”
A frown flickered across Trey’s forehead. “Who are you talking about.”
“I always call her Mother,” Laura explained. “But when I phoned about Logan, I said, ‘Mom, this is Laura.’ And she knew right away that something was wrong. I didn’t understand how she knew . . . until now. I haven’t called her Mom in years.”
“She doesn’t miss much,” Trey said.
“Where’s Gramps?”
“In the den with Laredo. He decided to wait until Quint gets here before he goes over to Aunt Cat’s.”
Without so much as a glance at Boone, Laura accompanied her brother to the den. It wasn’t a deliberate snub. She simply forgot he was there.
It was shortly after two o’clock when the chartered jet carrying Quint landed at the Triple C’s private airfield. Trey and Laura waited on the concrete apron while the aircraft completed its shutdown procedures. The hot wind gusted, blowing dust across the hangar area and whipping Laura’s long blond hair. She held it out of her eyes as the cabin’s hatch door swung open and one of the pilots lowered the steps. Then Quint took his place in the opening.
As one, she and Trey moved to the bottom of the steps to meet him. Encumbered by the walking cast on his leg, Quint made a slow descent from the plane. Seeing him, Laura was haunted by the strong resemblance to his father, both sharing the same blue-black hair, sharp cheekbones, and smoke gray eyes. Only this time, Quint’s eyes were shadowed with the deep pain of grief.
Tightly jawed, Trey was the first to speak. “Dammit, Quint, I wish . . .” But the right words wouldn’t come.
Quint eliminated the need for them. “You don’t have to say it. I know how you both feel. It isn’t something you can put into words.”
A small smile curved Laura’s mouth. “You always manage to make things easier for others, Quint,” she said and kissed his cheek.
No further reference was made to Logan’s death until they were on their way to The Homestead. Then Quint turned to Laura. “Aunt Jessy said you were there.”
She had known all along that he would want to know the details. Aware that his interest was both personal and professional, Laura told him about the shooting and its aftermath as well as the circumstances surrounding it.
When she finished, Quint didn’t say anything for several long seconds. Finally, as he stared out the window at the grassy plains, he said, “I can’t remember a time when my dad wasn’t aware of everything going on around him, whether off-duty or on. I’d be willing to bet he saw the truck parked outside and knew this Mitchell guy was in there. But he wasn’t expecting trouble when he walked up to that door—at least not the shooting kind. He was in uniform, though. That’s probably all Mitchell saw.”
A silence followed, weighted by a mix of undirected anger, regrets, and grief. It lasted the rest of the way to The Homestead.
Boone was in the entry hall when they walked in. “We haven’t met before,” he said to Quint, extending a hand in greeting. “I’m Boone Rutledge, Laura’s fiancé.”
“I’ve heard about you,” Quint replied, but in a tone that had Laura studying the impassive set of his features as he briefly gripped Boone’s hand. “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”
“So am I,” Boone stated, as Quint leaned on his cane for balance.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to see my grandfather.” He pushed off the cane, taking that first step around Boone before he moved aside.
Boone fell in beside Laura, accompanying her as she followed Quint to the den, the walking cast giving him an uneven, hobbling gait. When they arrived, Chase had already moved around to the front of the big desk. Quint walked up to him. The moment he was within reach, Chase pulled him close.
Laura watched the emotional meeting, only vaguely conscious of Boone’s arm possessively along her shoulders. For a long minute the two men embraced, heads bowed into each other, each hugging the other tightly. Laura had always been aware of the special bond that existed between the two, but it had never been more evident than now.
When they separated, Quint’s cheeks were wet with tears, but Laura found nothing unmanly about the sight of them.
“It should have been me, son.” The husky tremor in her grandfather’s voice had Laura blinking back tears of her own.
Quint shook his head. “You’re wrong if you think it wouldn’t hurt as much to lose you.”
The front door opened, but Laura paid little attention to it. People had been stopping by for most of the day, ranch hands and neighbors alike. Then something triggered an awareness within her. Perhaps it was something familiar in the tread of those footsteps that pulled her glance to the doorway, but she knew it would be Sebastian even before he walked in.
His eyes cut a path straight to her, and something quickened within her at the contact. Almost with irritation, she felt Boone’s fingers tighten their grip on her upper arm.
Her grandfather was the first to openly recognize Sebastian. “There you are, Sebastian. I don’t believe you’ve met my eldest grandson, Quint Echohawk.”
With that smooth grace of his, Sebastian stepped forward. “I regret I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“This is Sebastian Dunshill from England, Quint,” he said, finishing the introduction.
Quint smiled as they shook hands. “Trey’s talked about you.”
Sebastian responded with a droll slant to his mouth. “Yes, your cousin has been most intelligent in his efforts to teach me the cowboy way—without much success, I’m afraid.”
“Mrs. Mitchell and the children,” Laura began, unable to suppress her curiosity any longer.
“They are tucked away in a safe place,” Sebastian assured her. “And I stopped in town to inform the police where they could be found when it becomes necessary.”
“I take it Mitchell hasn’t been caught yet,” Quint guessed, his features hardening a little.
“Not to my knowledge,” Sebastian answered. “Roadblocks have been established on all the major arteries around Blue Moon, and helicopters are making a sweep of the side roads. I expect it’s only a matter of time before he will be apprehended.”
“With any luck, he’s drunk all the beer he took,” Trey said. “and they’ll find him passed out on some back road.”
“There’s no point standing around here speculating about it,” Chase stated. “It’s time we headed for the Circle Six. I don’t have to tell you, Quint, how anxious your mother is to have you home. She’s going to need to lean on you a lot these next few days.”
Quint nodded. “I know.”
They started for the door together, one young and one old, but each requiring the balancing support of a cane.
“Are you going over to your aunt’s?” Boone asked.
“For a while,” Laura replied.
“Then I’ll come with you.”
“If you want.” She was cool to him, but it was the way she felt.
He remained smotheringly close to her as they passed Sebastian and followed the others into the hall. Laura was tempted to say something, but this was neither the time nor the place to make a scene.
In the entryway she stopped to collect her purse from the side table. “I’ll drive the Suburban, Trey. That cast on Quint’s leg will make it too crowded for all of us to ride together.”
Trey never had a chance to answer her as the front door burst open and Mitchell lurched into the house, all wild-eyed and holding a gun. Half-drunk, he reeled to a stop when he saw them. The barrel of the gun made an arcing sweep of all of them.
“Where are they?” he demanded, then spotted Boone and advanced toward him. “You took ’em, didn’t you? I’ll give you two seconds t’tell me what you did with m’wife an’ kids!”
“You’re crazy.” Boone’s gaze jumped from the gun to Mitchell’s angry face and back again.