Tara frowned, as if trying to recall. "He must have been. He rode the gray. That's why he decided to change the bridle bit." She looked up, her dark eyes frantically searching his face. "But that doesn't prove anything, Ty."

"It proves he had opportunity," he fired back.

"But the windmill is fixed," Tara argued.

"Assuming it was ever broken."

"But he wouldn't risk being sent back to prison and leave his father with no one to care for him."

"If you want to believe in his innocence, go ahead," Ty growled and struck out for the corral, leaving her standing there. This time Tara didn't attempt to accompany him.

Buck was inside the corral, standing by the head of the gray gelding, making a final adjustment on the fit of the bridle when Ty walked up. Ears pricked, the gray swung its head in Ty's direction.

Buck glanced over his shoulder, then unbuckled the throatlatch and slipped off the bridle. "What can I do for you, Calder?" Bridle in hand, he sauntered toward the rail where Ty stood.

"I understand you were fixing a windmill yesterday afternoon."

Buck's glance traveled past Ty, as if seeking the source of his information. "That's right." Bending down, he stepped between the rails and straightened.

"And I say you're a liar," Ty accused without emotion.

Buck shrugged it off. "It's a free country. You can say anything you want." He turned to face him and casually leaned a shoulder against a post. "Just what is it you seem to think I've done?"

"Shot out the tires on my truck."

Grinning, Buck reached up and scratched the back of his head. "You can't prove it, though, or you wouldn't be here. Your brother-in-law would be standing there instead, ready to haul my ass off to jail. That's just a guess, mind you."

"Here's something you don't have to guess about-don't try it again. I am only going to say that once."

Buck made a show of whistling silently as he pushed his hat to the back of his head. "You sound like a Calder instead of an O'Rourke. Maybe you've got more of your old man in you than I thought."

"I'll do what I say. Remember that," Ty stated and pivoted on his heel, the warning given. And a Calder only issued one.

"You're wastin' your breath," Buck informed. "You'd better start lookin' somewhere else 'cause I'm not after you."

Ty had expected a denial. "I suppose that's why you tried to make it look like an accident-just like the last time when you planned to make it appear like I had been thrown from my horse."

With firm, purposeful strides, Ty retraced his way to the pickup, ignoring Tara when she attempted to speak with him. She was still standing by the steps when he drove away.

Dark eyes ablaze, Tara wasted no time cornering Buck at the corral. "What do you know about this?" she demanded. "Was it an accident?"

"If Calder said it wasn't, he probably knows what he's talkin' about." Bridle in hand, Buck ambled toward the portable tack shed.

"Don't you walk away when I'm talking to you," Tara snapped in icy temper.

Buck paused and squared around to face her with an almost insolent lack of haste. "You bark out orders about as good as a prison guard."

His lazy smile infuriated Tara. Her palm itched to slap it from his face. "Did you have anything to do with it?"

"You've got a suspicious mind, Duchess. About as bad as Calder's."

"I want a straight answer, and I want it now!"

After a full beat of silence, Buck reminded her, "You know I was miles from here fixin' the windmill."

"I know that's what you told me. But I have no way of knowing whether it's true."

Buck easily met the hot, accusing glare of her eyes, his mouth still wearing its lazy curve. "I guess you'll just have to take my word for it."

"So help me God, if you're lying to me, I swear you'll regret the day you were ever released from prison." Tara's voice was low and thick with promise. "I have told you before-you do what I say and only what I say."

"Now, that's the second time I've been threatened today." Buck shook his head in mock amazement. "First Ty warns me that he'll bring the wrath of the Calders on my head, and now you."

Her look was hard and cold. "If anything happens to Ty, I wouldn't worry about the wrath of the Calders if I were you. If you think they can make your life hell, you haven't seen what I can do."

Stiff with controlled anger, Tara swung away and marched toward the construction office. Buck watched her, the smile fading from his face.

"It sure looks like you've got trouble ahead of you, Buck," he murmured to himself. "It surely does."

A breeze stirred across The Homestead's front porch. Jessy felt its soft breath move over her face. Like the rest of the rain-starved plains, it carried the scent of dust. From the corral came a flurry of hoofbeats, followed by a protesting squeal. Jessy paid no attention to the dust kicked up by squabbling horses. Her eyes were on the powdery tan cloud tracking along the road to the Triple C headquarters. Some inner sense told her it was Ty long before she had a clear view of the truck. She pushed out of the high-backed rocker and crossed to the top of the steps to wait for him.

When Ty climbed out of the pickup and headed for the steps, Jessy was quick to detect a heaviness in his movements. She studied the look of stoicism that covered his face, hiding the tension beneath its angular surfaces. Below the thick brush of his mustache, a certain grimness had pulled in the corners of his mouth. He made an effort to turn them up in a smile when he saw her.

"What are you doing out here?" The inflection of his voice was light, but his gaze was quick to make a visual examination.

"Waiting for you," Jessy replied easily. Up close she could see the troubled darkness within his hooded eyes. On impulse she reached out to slip an arm around his waist, seeking to draw some of that trouble from him and absorb it into herself. "How'd it go?" she asked, suspecting that was the source of his heavy thoughts but giving the question an air of idle interest. "Did you see Buck?"

"I saw him." Ty draped an arm around her shoulders, fitting her to his side as they moved toward the door. "Naturally he denied he had anything to do with it."

"You expected as much, though."

"I know. So how are you feeling? You are supposed to be resting," he admonished lightly, "not sitting out here waiting for me."

"That was resting. Besides, being home is the best medicine." Jessy was careful not to mention the throbbing pain in her head. Its level was one she could tolerate. "How are your ribs after that rough road?"

His mouth twisted in a wry grimace. "Sore as hell," Ty admitted.

"That's what I thought." But she sensed that wasn't what weighed on his mind.

"We're a banged-up pair, aren't we?" Almost the minute his smiling sideways glance touched her face, Ty halted, his mood turning serious. He angled himself toward her and reached up to brush the blunt tips of his fingers over the gauze bandage. "Ever since the accident, I keep remembering my father's reaction when he learned my mother had been killed in the plane crash." His low-pitched voice vibrated with rawness. "And those moments right before I told him, when he was so wild and frantic. For one stark, cold second, when you were so limp against me, I knew exactly how he felt. I can't bear the thought of losing you, Jessy."

Moved by the dark and tortured look in his eyes, she cupped a hand to the granite line of his jaw. "But you haven't, Ty. It will take more than a knock on the head to get rid of me."

"I know." He managed a brief smile before that somber moodiness returned to claim his expression. "There's something about this business that gives me a bad feeling. I can't seem to shake it."

She wanted to say something to reassure him, but she suddenly felt the cold grip of it, too. It chilled her.

"Whatever comes, we'll make it through, Ty." She grabbed hold of that thought and held on. "It may not be easy. But we'll make it."

It was that rocklike strength that he relied on. It steadied and calmed him, filled him with a high sense of ease. As long as she was at his side, he could face whatever lay ahead. It was the thought of doing it alone that filled him with dread.

Chapter Eighteen.

June was usually the wet month on the vast Montana plains, but nary a drop fell on the Triple C. Day after day, the sun reigned over that big Calder sky, baking the ground to hardpan and fracturing its surface with long cracks. River levels dropped and several of the smaller creeks ran dry, not entirely an unusual occurrence.

Come July, the drought deepened with no relief in sight. The land was now in its second year of receiving rainfall amounts well below average. The effects were visible everywhere.

During his long tenure as head of the Triple C, Chase had lived through many a dry cycle, but he hadn't seen the land this parched. He remembered the stories his father had told him of the Dust Bowl years when everything was tinder-dry and wind whipped the powdery dirt into walls of fast-moving clouds that hugged the ground, pummeling everything in its path.

Although the ranch had yet to experience the dust storms, its overall condition wasn't much better and rapidly getting worse. And all the precautions his father had taken years ago to make sure the ranch didn't suffer as badly again seemed to be failing one by one.

An aging and weary Stumpy Niles slumped in the chair facing the desk, the bearer of more bad news. "That well is drier than a bleached-white bone, Chase. That's the second one on South Branch in two weeks."

"We'll have to move the cattle," Chase concluded.

Stumpy gave a small harrumph and challenged bleakly, "Where?"

Ty studied the framed map on the wall. "What's the range like around Hazard Creek?"

"It's grazed about as low as you dare. If you throw more cattle on it now, you'll risk killing the roots," Stumpy replied. "Until it rains and the grass can grow back, you can write it off."

Water and grass had long been the two most valuable resources on the Triple C. Many a grassland in the West had been turned into a desert by overgrazing. The Calders had managed to keep their land from suffering that fate through careful husbandry and an awareness that grass was a precious and irreplaceable resource.

Dry years were part of nature's cycle. And the tactics to survive them had changed little over time.

"Check out the north range," Chase said. "The best grass is usually there, and Cat mentioned they received a quarter of an inch a couple weeks ago."

"That grass won't last long," Stumpy warned.

"You're right. It won't," Chase agreed and swiveled his chair to glance at Ty. "I think we need to take a long tour of the ranch ourselves and get a firsthand look at the shape it's in. I have a feeling we'll have to start the fall roundup early-like next week."

"The fat cattle market isn't very good right now," Ty reminded him.

"Right now they have weight on them. If we don't get some good soaking rains, they'll walk it off come fall searching for grass and water. We'll take a loss, but if we hold off, hoping for rain, we'll take a bigger one." And possibly do irreparable damage to the land in the process. Chase didn't say that. But it was there in his mind. He swung his chair back toward Stumpy. "You might as well have your boys start the gather at South Branch first thing in the morning."

Stumpy nodded and wearily pushed out of the chair. "It'll be a hot and thirsty one. You better truck over some water to fill the tank at the Connors windmill. It's so low now they can barely reach it."

Engrossed in the map, Ty didn't notice when Stumpy exited the den. A snaking line marked the course of one of two free-flowing rivers that ran through the Triple C, rivers that had never been known to run dry.

"I'll let Sally know we won't be here for lunch, then we can leave." Chase rose from his chair, then paused, quick to notice Ty's absorption with the map. "Is there a problem?"

Pulling in a deep breath, Ty shook his head and made a slow turn away from the old map. "No. I was just thinking."

"About what?" Chase studied him slowly, probing for the cause of his distraction.

"About all the grass and water on the Wolf Meadow range, and how much we need it right now."

"No." The flat, hard statement came out of nowhere.

Ty frowned. "What are you talking about? No, what?"

"No, we are not making any deal with Tara to lease it-just in case your thoughts were headed in that direction," Chase replied in a voice that brooked no opposition. "There will be no Triple C cow on that land until we have free title to it."

"I don't disagree, but that may be a long time from now," Ty warned.

"Maybe. It all depends on how soon Tara tires of flying in and out of it. She has never struck me as a patient woman."

Catching a movement in his side vision, Ty turned just as a black Range Rover pulled up to The Homestead. "Speak of the devil," he murmured to Chase, "Tara's here."

"An apt phrase," Chase concluded, a wry twist to his mouth. "God knows, she's bedeviled us lately."

"I'll see what she wants." Ty moved toward the door.

"Is Buck with her?"

Ty nodded. "It looked like he was driving-as usual." A part of him would have preferred that Tara fire Buck. Another part of him liked the idea that he knew exactly where the man was. He certainly wasn't foolish enough to believe that his warning had scared Buck off.

It was possible, but Ty wasn't counting on it.

When he walked out the front door, Tara came up the steps, her dark hair unbound and swinging about her shoulders. Her lips parted in a smile of pleasure when she saw him.

"Ty, darling, I was just coming to see you."

"You should have called first." His glance skipped briefly past, locating Buck still seated behind the wheel. "I was just leaving."

"This won't take but a minute," she promised with a coy dip of her head and upward glance of her dark-shining eyes.

"A minute is about all you'll have," Ty warned.

"What on earth is so important that you have to rush off?" Tara issued the protest in a chiding tone.

"It's ranch business."

"I should have known. It's always ranch business." Her smile retained its hint of amusement of mock exasperation.

"What is it you want?"

"I'm here to issue an invitation-one that's much too important to be given over the telephone," she replied.

"An invitation to what?" Ty asked, then glanced over his shoulder when he heard the front door opening behind him.

"Your timing couldn't be better, Chase," Tara declared, quickly drawing him into the circle. "I was about to issue a very special invitation."