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Crissy chuckled as Grier gave her a meaningful look. “No, I’m not chickenhearted,” she agreed. “I worry sometimes, but not to excess. Judd can take care of himself. So can you, I imagine.”
“Well enough,” he said, nodding.
The crowd was growing as Crissy and Grier finished their pizza and drained their respective beverages. The music was nice, she thought, watching the couples try to do Western line dances on the dance floor.
“They give courses on that at the civic center,” Crissy told Grier. “But I could never get into it. I like Latin dances, but I’ve never found anybody who could do them around here, except Matt Caldwell. He’s married now.”
Grier was grinning from ear to ear. “Modesty prevents me from telling you that I won an award in a tango contest once, down in Argentina.”
She was staring at him breathlessly. “You can do Latin dances? Then why are you just sitting there? Come on!”
She grabbed him by the hand and tugged him onto the dance floor and up to the band leader.
“Sammy, can you play Latin music of any kind at all?” she asked the young man, one of her former schoolmates.
He chuckled. “Can I!” He and the band stopped playing, conferred, and the keyboard player grinned broadly as he adjusted his instrument and a bouncing Latin rhythm began to take shape.
The floor cleared as the spectators, expecting something unusual, moved to the edges of the dance floor.
“You’d better be good,” Crissy told Grier with a grin. “This crowd is hard to please and they don’t mind booing people who only think they can dance. Matt Caldwell and his Leslie are legendary at Latin dances here.”
“They won’t boo me,” he promised, taking her by the right hand and the waist with a professional sort of expertise. He nodded to mark the rhythm, and then proceeded to whirl her around with devastating ease.
She kept up with an effort. She’d learned from a boy at school, a transfer student from New York with a Latino background. He’d said she was good. But Grier was totally out of her class. She watched his feet and followed with a natural flair. By the time they were halfway into the song, she was keeping up and adding steps and movements of her own. As the band slowly wound down, the audience was actually clapping to the beat.
Grier whirled her against him and looped her over one arm for a finish. Everybody applauded. He pulled her back up, whirled her beside him, and they both took a bow. She was breathless. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
He led her back to their seats, chuckling. “Let Caldwell top that,” he muttered.
She laughed, almost panting from the exertion. “I’m out of shape,” she murmured. “I’ll have to get out of the house more.”
“Gosh, you guys were great!” the waitress said as she paused briefly at their table. “Refills?”
“Thanks. You bet,” Grier said, handing her his empty bottle.
“Me, too,” Christabel added, pushing her cup to the edge of the table.
“Back in a jiffy,” the girl said with a grin.
“Does Judd dance?” Grier asked her.
“Only if somebody shoots at his feet,” she returned, tongue-in-cheek.
“That’ll be the day.”
“That reminds me,” she said, and leaned forward. “I need your advice. I’m almost positive that somebody poisoned one of our young bulls. Judd won’t believe me, but I’m sure I’m right.”
He was all business. “Tell me about it.”
“We bought a young Salers bull in early September. The Harts have a two-year-old Salers bull, and Leo Hart was going to buy Fred Brewster’s young Salers bull, that came from the same batch ours did up in Victoria. But they found Fred’s bull dead in a pasture just recently, because Leo Hart called Judd about ours. Ours died before Fred’s, so we dragged ours out to the pasture behind the tractor and buried him with a borrowed backhoe.”
“You didn’t have him autopsied?” he asked.
She grimaced. “Cash, we were sitting pretty last year. But we had a drought in the spring and summer and cattle prices fell. Right now, it takes all Judd can make to keep me in school and pay his rent on his apartment in Victoria. We sell off cattle to pay for incidentals, and buy feed for the cattle when we don’t have enough grass for graze. He even works extra jobs just so we can make ends meet.” Her eyes were cloudy. “We’re having hard times. Once I graduate, I’m going straight to work to help out. I was a computer whiz already and I didn’t want to go on to vo-tech school in the first place. But Judd said I needed expertise in spreadsheet programs so that we could keep better records. He was right. It’s just hard to manage, that’s all. I imagine you know how that is.”
He didn’t. Nobody knew how much money he had in foreign banks from the early days in his profession, when he was doing highly skilled black ops jobs for various governments. He didn’t advertise it. But he could have retired any time he felt like it. Holding a conventional job kept his skills honed and people in the dark about his true financial situation. And his true skills.
“Anyway,” she continued, “he says that I didn’t check the pasture before I put the bulls in it, and they binged on clover and got bloat. Since we don’t use antibiotics as a preventative—and we certainly can’t afford to use vegetable oils for that, either—Judd said the tannins in the clover caused the bloat.” She sighed impatiently. “Listen, I know pasture management as well as he does, and I’m not stupid enough to stick susceptible young bulls in a pasture without feeding them hay or grass first. And the Hereford bulls were in there at the same time, all four of them. They didn’t get bloat!”
“Didn’t you tell Judd that?”
She nodded. “I guess he thinks there’s a special Salers gene that attracts bloat,” she muttered irritably.
He tried not to laugh and failed.
“Anyway, it happened right after we fired that Clark man,” she added. “Jack Clark. He’s got a brother, John. They’re unsavory characters and they get fired a lot, I hear. We fired Jack for stealing on purchase orders. I suppose he didn’t realize we check purchase orders to make sure they’re not being abused. He bought himself a two-hundred-dollar pair of boots at the Western Shop and charged it to us with a photocopied purchase order. He gave back the boots, and we returned them, so we didn’t press charges. But we fired him, just the same.”
“He’s working for Duke Wright now,” he told her. “Driving a cattle truck.”
“Duke had better watch him” was all she said. “One of our new cowboys said that the Clark boys had been suspected of poisoning cattle someplace that one of them was fired from a couple of years ago. Our guy was working with them at the time.”
Grier was watching her closely. “This is serious. Are you sure Judd didn’t believe you?”
“I didn’t tell him all I’ve just told you, because I didn’t find out about the Clarks being suspected of poisoning cattle until a few days ago,” she said. “I didn’t tell him that we found a cut in the fence there, either.”
“You should tell him about that, and the other information. A man who’ll poison helpless bulls will poison people, given a chance.”
She nodded with a sigh. “I’ve told the boys to keep a close eye on our other stock, and I ride the fence lines myself when I get home from school.”
“Alone?”
She stared at him blankly. “Of course, alone,” she said shortly. “I’m a grown woman. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he replied. “I don’t like the idea of anybody going out to distant pastures alone and unarmed. You don’t pack a gun, do you?”
She grimaced. “I guess I should, shouldn’t I?” She laughed self-consciously. “I have this crazy nightmare sometimes, that I’ve been shot and I’m trying to get to Judd and tell him, but he can’t hear me.”
“Take somebody with you next time you ride fence,” he coaxed. “Don’t take chances.”
“I won’t,” she promised, but without agreeing to take along an escort. She did have that .28 gauge shotgun that Judd had given her. She could take that with her when she rode fence, she supposed. Cash made sense. If a man wouldn’t hesitate to poison a helpless bull, he might not stop at trying to kill a young woman. Fortunately, the waitress came back with coffee and beer in time to divert him, and they waited until she left before they resumed their conversation.
“Do you want me to talk to Judd about the bull?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It won’t do any good. He makes up his mind, and that’s it.” She touched her cup and noticed that it was blazing hot. She pulled her fingers back. “He’s distracted lately, anyway. Those film people are coming this weekend, including the stars.” She glanced at him. “I guess everybody’s heard of Tippy Moore.”
“The Georgia Firefly,” he agreed. His face grew hard and his eyes were cold.
“Do you know her?” she asked, puzzled.
“I don’t like models,” he said, tossing back a swallow of beer.
She waited, not liking to pry, but his expression was disturbing.
He put the bottle down, saw the way she was looking at him, and chuckled. “You never push, do you? You just wait, and let people talk if they want to.”
She smiled self-consciously. “I guess so.”
He leaned back. “My mother died when I was about nine,” he mused. “I stayed with her in the hospital as long as they let me. My brothers were too young, and my father...” He hesitated. “My father,” he began again with loathing in his tone, “was absolutely smitten with another woman and couldn’t stay away from her. He used to taunt my mother with how young and beautiful his mistress was, how he was going to marry her the minute my mother was out of the way.
“She was ill for a long time, but after he began the affair, my mother gave up. When she died, he was too busy with his mistress to care. He only came to the hospital one time, to make arrangements for her body to be taken to the funeral home. His new woman was a minor-league model, twenty years his junior, and he was crazy for her. Three days after the funeral, he married her and brought her home with him.” He picked up the beer and took another long swallow. His eyes stared into space. “I’ve never hated a human being so much in my life, before or since.”
“It was too soon,” she guessed.
“It would always have been too soon,” he said flatly. “My stepmother threw out my mother’s things the minute she set foot in the house, all the photographs, all the handwork—she even sold my mother’s jewelry and laughed about it.” His eyes narrowed. “That same year, my father sent me off to military school. I never went back home, not even when he finally wised up, eight years too late, and tried to get me to come home again.”
Some men hated physical contact when they recounted painful episodes. But she slid her hand over Cash’s anyway, something she’d never have done with Judd. Grier glanced at her hand with a start, but after a few seconds, his fingers curled around it. They were strong fingers, short and blunt, with a grip that would have been painful if they’d contracted a centimeter more. She noticed that he wore no jewelry except for a complicated-looking silver metal watch on his left wrist. No rings.
“I lost my mother the year I graduated from high school,” she recalled. “I was older than you were, but it hurt just as much. But I had Judd, and Maude,” she added with a smile. “She came when I was just a baby, to help Mother, because she was so frail. Maude’s been like a second mama to me.”
“She’s a card,” he mused, turning her hand over to examine the tiny scars. “What do you do with your hands?” he asked curiously, noting short nails and cuts.
“Fix broken fences, mend tack, use calf pulls, get bitten by horses, climb trees...” she enumerated.
He chuckled. “Tomboy.”
“I’m not made for a mansion or a boardroom,” she said with a grin. “If women are really liberated, then I’m free to do anything I like. I like livestock and planting gardens and working around the ranch. I hate the idea of an office and a nine-to-five lifestyle. I’m a country girl. I wouldn’t mind being a cattle baroness, of course.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Of course, I’m a full partner in the ranch,” she said thoughtfully. “And I keep the books and make decisions about breeding and diet and upgrades of equipment. When I get through this computer course, I’ll be able to rewrite spreadsheet programs and keep up with my breeding program better.”
“And Judd doesn’t mind giving you that authority?” he asked, puzzled.
She smiled curiously. “Why would he? I’m good at what I do, better than he is, and he knows it. Besides, I don’t have a clue about marketing. That’s his department. Oh, and he pays bills.” She grimaced. “I don’t mind keeping bank statements reconciled and doing projection figures, but I draw the line at writing checks.”
“I don’t like that, myself,” he had to admit. He chuckled. “I had you pictured as a nice little kid who went to school and let Judd do all the hard work.”
“Fat chance,” she scoffed. “No man’s supporting me while I sit back and read magazines and paint my fingernails. I’m a hands-on partner.”
“Judd never seemed like the sort of man who’d tolerate a female partner,” he murmured dryly.
“You don’t know him well, do you?” she asked, smiling. “He fought really hard to get women into the Jacobsville police force, and he won’t put up with men who denigrate the worth of women in business or law enforcement. Besides, he can cook and clean house better than I can. If he ever gets married for real and has kids, his wife will be lucky. He loves kids,” she added absently, hating the thought that he was determined to get an annulment the second she turned twenty-one, next month, and just about the time that Tippy Moore would be on hand.
“You look worried.”
She shrugged. “Tippy Moore is world-famous and beautiful,” she said without thinking. “Judd really perked up when they mentioned she was starring in this movie. He’s never been around women like that. He’s a minister’s son and rather unworldly and conventional in some ways.”
“You think she’ll captivate him.”
She met his gaze evenly. “I’m no beauty,” she said flatly. “I’m backwoodsy and I know computers and cattle, but I can’t compete with an internationally famous model who knows how to act seductive. She’ll draw men like flies, you watch.”
“Not me,” he said easily. “I’m immune.”
“Judd won’t be,” she said worriedly.
“Judd’s a grown man. He can take care of himself.” He was remembering, and not wanting to disillusion her by admitting, that Judd had very little trouble attracting beautiful women in the old days. The man was no Romeo, but he was handsome and confident and aggressively seductive with women he wanted. He was also successful. He didn’t mention that to Crissy. It would have crushed her. He wondered if she knew how much her feelings for Judd showed when she talked about him.
“I suppose he can,” she murmured. She picked up her cup and sipped her hot coffee. “I wish we didn’t have to have film people climbing all over the ranch,” she added impatiently. “But they’re offering us a small fortune to use it for location shooting, and we need the money so badly that we can’t refuse.” She sighed. “That old saying’s right, isn’t it, that everybody has a price. I didn’t think I did, but I do want to replace that Salers bull.” She smiled doggedly. “We don’t insure against cattle losses, but at least he’ll be a tax deduction as a business loss.” She shook her head. “I paid five thousand dollars for that bull. If Clark did poison him, and I can find a way to prove it, I’m going to take him all the way to the Supreme Court. I might not get my five thousand back, but I’ll take it out in trade.”
He chuckled. “I like your style, Crissy Gaines.”
She smiled at him over her coffee cup. “If I can get proof, will you arrest him for me?”
“Of course.” He sobered. “But don’t go looking for trouble alone.”
“Not me. I’m the cautious type.”
He doubted that, but he wasn’t going to argue about it. “Are you game to get back on the dance floor?”
“You bet!”
He grinned and took her hand, leading her back out. The band leader, noticing them, immediately stopped the slow country tune they were playing and broke out with a cha-cha. Everybody laughed, including the couple of the evening out on the dance floor.
* * *
Saturday morning, bright and early, the director, the assistant director, the cameraman, the cinematographer, the sound man, two technicians and the stars of the movie came tooling up the dirt driveway to the ranch in a huge Ford Expedition.
Judd had just driven up in the yard a minute ahead of them. Christabel and Maude came out on the porch to meet them. Maude was in an old housedress, with her hair every which way. Christabel was wearing jeans and a cotton shirt, her hair in a neat braid. But when she saw the redheaded woman getting out of the big vehicle, her heart fell to her boots.
It didn’t help that Judd went straight toward the woman, without a single glance back at Christabel, to help her down out of the high back seat with his hands around her tiny waist.
She laughed, and it was the sound of silver bells. She had a perfect smile—white teeth and a red bow mouth. Her figure was perfect, too. She was wearing a long swirly green dress that clung to the long, elegant lines of her body. Judd was looking at her with intent appreciation, a way he’d never looked at plain little Christabel. Worse, the model looked back at him with abject fascination, flirting for all she was worth.
“She’s an actress,” Maude said with a comforting hand on her arm. “She’d never fit in here, or want to, so stop looking like death on a marble slab.”
Christabel laughed self-consciously. “You’re a treasure,” she whispered.
“And I’m cute, too,” Maude said with a wide grin. “I’ll go make a pot of coffee and slice some pound cake. They can come in and get it when they’re ready.”
“Christabel!” Judd called sharply.
She glanced ruefully at Maude and hopped down the steps with her usual uninhibited stride and stopped beside Judd as he made introductions.
“This is Christabel Gaines. She’s part owner of the ranch. Christabel, I’m sure you remember Joel Harper, the director,” he said, introducing the short man in glasses and a baseball cap, who smiled and nodded. “This is Rance Wayne, the leading man.” He nodded toward a handsome tall man with blond hair and a mustache.
“This is Guy Mays, the assistant director,” he continued, introducing a younger man who was openly leering at the model. “And this is Tippy Moore,” he added in a different tone, his eyes riveted to the green-eyed redhead, who gave Christabel a fleeting glance that dismissed her as no competition, and then proceeded to smile brilliantly up at Judd.
“I’m very glad to meet you,” Christabel said politely.
