"Vern left with him." That closed the subject as far as Chase was concerned.

"Maybe that's best," Ty said as Chase walked around the desk and sat down in the big chair. "Logan left, did he?"

Chase nodded. "I invited him in for coffee, but he said he had a mountain of paperwork waiting for him. Anything in the mail?"

"Bills mostly." Ty resumed sorting through it, then paused when he came across an envelope bearing the return address of the federal government. "Here's one from the BLM." He idly passed it to his father. "I asked Sally to bring us some coffee."

"Good. I could use some." Chase tore open the flap and pulled the letter out of its envelope as approaching footsteps echoed from the outer hallway.

It was Jessy, not Sally, who walked into the den, carrying a tray with an insulated coffee carafe and three cups. "Who wants coffee?" she said brightly and set the tray on the occasional table between the two wing-backed leather chairs in front of the desk.

Ty glanced at the three cups. "Are you joining us?"

"Actually the third cup was for Logan, but-since he's not here-I thought I would have a cup with you." Jessy proceeded to fill all three cups.

"What the hell!" The near roar of outrage from Chase whipped Ty's attention back to him.

"What's wrong?"

Chase looked up from the letter in his hand, eyes blazing. "They revoked our grazing permit. We have three days to remove all our livestock. Here. Read it for yourself." He shoved the letter to Ty and picked up the phone, angrily punching in a series of numbers.

The coffee forgotten, Jessy was at Ty's side in an instant, needing to see the words for herself. There they were, plain and blunt and final.

"They can't do this," Jessy murmured.

"The government can do anything it damn well pleases," Ty replied, the anger in his voice tightly leashed.

"But-why?" Jessy frowned in confusion. "Why would they do it after all these years?"

Behind the desk, Chase spoke into the phone, his voice hard and clipped. "Get me Justin Farnsworth." After a small pause, he erupted, "I don't give a damn if he's in a meeting. You tell him Chase Calder is on the line. I need to talk to him, and I need to talk to him now!"

Distracted by the contents of the letter, none of them heard the front door open or the approaching thud of booted feet. Not until Ballard walked into the den did they become aware of his presence in the house.

"There you are, Ty," he said. "I'm glad I caught you before you headed to the calving sheds. You never told me what you decided about using a concrete stain on the floor. If you're-"

"Later," Ty abruptly cut across his words. "I'm tied up right now. Before I leave, I'll swing by the barn and go over it with you."

Darting one quick glance at Chase's grim face with the phone to his ear, Ballard immediately picked up on the room's charged atmosphere and nodded, backing toward the door. "I'll talk to you then."

"Wait. There was a phone call for you early this morning," Jessy remembered and retrieved the message slip from the desk. Taking it to him, she explained, "It's from the supplier of the light fixtures that were back-ordered."

"Justin. It's Chase Calder here," Chase said behind her, finally making the connection with the lawyer.

Jessy smoothly steered Ballard out of the den. "The supplier promised that the shipment would go out yet this week. We should have it by the first of next week at the latest."

"We better." Ballard glanced briefly at the message before tucking it in his shirt pocket. "Until they get here, the electrician is pretty much at a standstill."

"I know." Jessy kept walking, escorting him to the front door.

Ballard lagged a bit and threw a glance over his shoulder when he caught the sound of Chase Calder's raised voice. "It sounds like somebody is on the receiving end of a chewin' out from the Old Man. It takes a helluva lot to make him blow, which tells me there's some big trouble somewhere."

Jessy felt the curious probe of his gaze and knew Ballard had an ear tuned to the one-sided telephone conversation coming from the den. She had little doubt that he had gleaned enough from it to make an accurate guess. And with the order contained on the letter, to remove any and all livestock within three days, its contents would soon become common knowledge of necessity.

"We lost the grazing lease on Wolf Meadow," Jessy admitted. "We have three days to remove all our cattle."

"Three days," Ballard repeated, then whistled softly. "There's something like ten thousand acres in that chunk, isn't there?"

"That's right."

"That'll take some doin' to comb that much country in only three days," Ballard mused aloud. "A lot of it will have to be done from the air."

"More than likely," Jessy agreed.

Even if Chase was eventually successful in getting the order rescinded and the grazing permit reinstated, it was highly unlikely he could accomplish it within the three-day deadline. And a failure to remove their livestock within that time frame would result in the imposition of stiff fines for every day they failed to comply with the order. Payment of the fines would be demanded, regardless of the final outcome. She stood by the front door, the full ramifications of the letter sinking in.

"Say," Ballard began, his forehead creasing in a thoughtful frown. "Isn't that the same piece of land Dy-Corp had its hands on a few years ago?"

"Yes, but Dyson relinquished all rights to it a long time ago."

"Maybe he did, but now that he's dead, that's not to say that whoever heads up his company now didn't decide to grab control of it again. And there was a time when they wanted the coal under it pretty bad."

His suggestion stunned Jessy into a protest. "They wouldn't."

"Why?" Ballard countered with a scoffing tone. "Because of what happened the last time? Corporations don't have a conscience, not where money and profits are concerned. And there's a lot of both to be made from all the coal under that ground."

Jessy stiffened, horror-stricken by the thought of that rich grassland being ripped open by bulldozers to expose the coal beneath it, destroying its productiveness forever, leaving it scarred and ugly.

"Good god, Jessy, you're white as a sheet." Ballard gripped her shoulders as if expecting her to crumble any second.

Lowering her head, she gave it a small shake to dismiss his concern while she struggled to throw off the sick fear that gripped her. "I'm all right."

He bent his head, trying to get a look at her face. "You don't look all right."

"They can't be allowed to get their hands on that land," Jessy said with the force of conviction.

"Hey." He crooked a finger under her chin and lifted it, his mouth curved in a coaxing smile. "I never said they would succeed. We both know the Old Man would fight that to his last breath."

"Take your hands off my wife." Ty's ominously low voice sliced between them like a knife.

Ballard stepped back in surprise, his hands automatically falling away from her when Jessy turned to stare at Ty. She was stunned by the look of icy rage in his expression.

"Ty, it's not what you're thinking," she began.

But he didn't allow her to finish. "If it was, Ballard would never set foot again on the Triple C," he stated and shifted his gaze to Ballard. "You have work to do. Go get it done."

For a long, cool second, Ballard held his gaze. "You're makin' a mistake, Calder," he said easily. "But I reckon you'll find that out for yourself."

Stepping past Jessy, he went out the door, pulling it closed behind him. She waited until she heard the clump of his boots on the front steps, then let her own temper fly.

"Don't you ever do that again, Ty Calder!"

Ty came right back with equal heat. "If you think for one minute that I am going to stand by and watch while that Romeo puts his hands all over my wife, you can think again!"

"You don't own me." Jessy's voice vibrated with anger. "I am your wife, not one of your possessions. I am the only one who has the right to say who touches me, and who doesn't! You better remember that."

"And you better remember that I run this ranch and the people who work on it," Ty fired right back. "I decide what behavior is acceptable and what isn't. Ballard was out of line."

"You are the only one who is out of line here."

When she started past him, Ty caught her arm. "Dammit, Jessy-"

"Let go of me." The demand was calmly voiced, but as determined as the look Jessy gave him.

Male pride wouldn't allow him to release her. Instead, Ty turned Jessy toward him, catching hold of her arm. "What are we arguing about anyway?" he demanded in exasperation.

"This isn't an argument. It's a fight. And you started it."

"Dammit, Jessy, I don't want to quarrel with you. I had enough of that with Tara."

But that was the wrong thing to say. New sparks snapped in Jessy's eyes. "Don't you ever compare me with Tara."

"You couldn't be less like her if you tried," Ty replied. "But understand this, Jessy-I can't and I won't apologize for what I said to Ballard. You think I was too harsh. Maybe I was." That was the only concession he was prepared to make. "But we have enough problems right now. This isn't the time for there to be trouble between us."

"I suppose you expect me to simply overlook it."

His gaze narrowed at the heat that remained in her voice. "I don't expect anything." Ty could see there was no reasoning with her when she had her back up. He left her standing there and walked to the front door.

Irritated that he had left with nothing finished between them, Jessy demanded, "Just where are you going?"

He paused in the doorway and turned back, his tall broad-shouldered frame filling the opening, his expression hard and unrelenting. "I don't have time to stand around and thrash this out with you. In case you forgot, we have cattle to move and not much time to do it in. It will take every hand I can spare from the calving sheds and then some. That includes you. So you better give your mother a call and see if she can help Sally look after the twins for the next few days."

His statement left no room for protest, which perversely angered Jessy all the more. Pivoting on her heel, she stalked to the telephone in the living room as Ty closed the door behind him.

Neither mentioned the incident again. But it simmered between them, unspoken and unresolved.

Chapter Nine.

The area known as Wolf Meadow had a large stretch of broken country, crowned with flat tablelands and riven with wide coulees. In every direction it sprawled, vast and primitive, in endlessly stretching miles of more of the same.

A red-and-white Cessna aircraft swooped low to the ground, flushing a pair of cows with calves from their hiding place. Spooked by the low-flying plane, they bolted into the open, tails high. The minute they saw the waiting riders, they swerved.

Closest to them, Jessy reined her tired horse after them, spurring it into a gallop. She chased them for nearly a quarter of a mile before she succeeded in turning them. Once the little group was headed toward the bunch that had already been gathered, her weary horse slowed to a rough trot that jarred every bone in her body.

It had been over two years since Jessy had spent this many hours in the saddle. She was out of shape; every stiff and sore muscle in her body attested to it.

To her relief, the sun hung low in the western sky, its rays already painting the undersides of the scattered clouds with a fuchsia brush. Soon it would be too dark to continue the search for more cattle. There was just enough daylight to get this bunch to the holding pens that were better than a mile distant.

When she reached the small herd, Jessy took up her former flanking position and called to the other two riders, "Let's take these home."

High overhead, the Cessna flew by and wagged its wings in a signal that it was heading to the landing strip. Jessy watched it with a trace of envy, knowing it would reach the headquarters long before she would. As beat as she was, the end of the day couldn't come soon enough.

When they topped the last rise and finally saw the portable holding pens near the fence line, the setting sun bathed the entire scene in a golden light, giving it the look of an old tintype. But Jessy was too tired to admire the picture it made.

As soon as they had driven their cattle into the first pen, Jessy peeled away to head for the picket line. Her legs felt a little rubbery when she dismounted. She blocked it out and loosened the cinch on her saddle, then rubbed down her horse.

Convinced that a jolt of range coffee would revive her, she headed for the cookshack. As she neared it, seven-year-old Quint came running up, displaying a great deal more energy than Jessy possessed.

"Hi, Aunt Jessy. I saw you ride in," he told her, his gray eyes shining with excitement. "I've been helping with the roundup."

"You have?"

"Yup. Grandpa said I did a good job, too."

"Is he here?" Jessy scanned the handful of riders gathered around the cookshack. She spotted Cat by the coffeepot, but there was no sign of Chase.

"He's over by the pens." Quint flung an arm in their direction. "They're getting ready to load some more cattle."

As if on cue, Jessy heard the rumble of a diesel engine, the whoosh of air brakes, and the grind of shifting gears as a semi maneuvered its slatted stock trailer up to the loading chute. But her attention was on the cup of coffee Cat extended toward her.

"You look like you could use this," Cat said.

"It shows, does it?" Jessy wasted no time taking a quick sip of the strong brew.

"Not really," Cat replied. "But I figured you had to be as tired as I am."

"I'm so tired I'm dragging." Which was something Jessy would never have admitted to a man.

"A good long soak in the tub is what we both need. You can tell that brother of mine he owes me a massage and a manicure for drafting me into this."

"I'll tell him," Jessy promised.

"Whoops, there's Logan." Looking past her, Cat waved at the patrol vehicle that had pulled up along the roadside. "Come on, Quint. Your dad is here. It's time to go home."

"I'll see you tomorrow," Jessy said.

Cat grimaced wryly. "Let's don't think about tomorrow until it gets here."

"I'll drink to that." Jessy lifted her tin cup in a mock toast and called a goodbye to Quint when he raced off to meet his father.

Convinced that her muscles would stiffen into stone if she didn't keep moving, Jessy made her way to the pens and joined Chase by the loading chute. Cup in hand, she propped a foot on the lower rail.

"How's it going?" she asked.