“I’m not sure I want to know what it is,” Keith said, picking up his coffee cup and drinking some of the lukewarm liquid. With a scowl, he reached for the pot and added some hot coffee to the tepid fluid in his cup.
“You probably don’t.”
He poured more coffee into Tory’s empty cup and set it on the wooden counter, near the sink. “So what happened?”
“There was some other nasty business yesterday,” Tory said, ignoring the dishes for the moment and wiping her hands on a dish towel. As she picked up her cup she le
aned her hips against the edge of the wooden counter and met Keith’s worried gaze.
“What now?” he asked as he settled into the cane chair near the table and propped his boots on the seat of another chair.
“Someone clipped the barbed wire on the northwest side of the ranch, came in and shot one of the calves. Three times in the abdomen. A heifer. About four months old.”
Keith’s hand hesitated over the sugar bowl and his head snapped up. “You think it was done deliberately?”
“Had to be. I called the sheriff’s office. They’re sending a man out this morning. Rex is spending the morning going over all of the fence bordering the ranch and checking it for any other signs of destruction.”
“Just what we need,” Keith said, cynicism tightening the corners of his mouth. “Another crisis on the Lazy W. How’d you find out about it?”
“One of Len Ross’s men noticed it yesterday evening. Len called Rex and he checked it out.”
“What about the rest of the livestock?”
“As far as I know all present and accounted for.”
“Son of a bitch!” Keith forgot about the sugar and took a swallow of his black coffee.
“Trask thinks it might be related to that,” she pointed to the blackened letter.
“Trask thinks?” Keith repeated, his eyes narrowing. “How does he know about it?”
“He was here when Rex came over to tell me about it.”
Keith looked physically pained. “Lord, Tory, I don’t know how much more of your cheery morning news I can stand.”
“That’s the last of the surprises.”
“Thank God,” Keith said, pushing himself up from the table and glaring pointedly at his older sister. “You’re on notice, Tory.”
She had to chuckle. “For what?”
“From now on when I decide to stay on the ranch rather than checking out the action at the Branding Iron, I’m not going to let you talk me out of it.”
“Is that so? And how would you have handled Trask when he showed up on the porch?”
“I would have taken your suggestion yesterday and met him with a rifle in my hands.”
“This isn’t 1840, you know.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You can’t threaten a United States senator, Keith.”
“Just you watch,” Keith said, reaching for his Stetson on the peg near the back door. “The next time McFadden trespasses, I’ll be ready for him.” With those final chilling words, he was out the back door of the house and heading for the barn. Tory watched him with worried eyes. Keith’s temper had never had much of a fuse and Trask’s presence seemed to have shortened it considerably.
It was her fault, she supposed. She should never have let Keith see the books. It didn’t take a genius to see that the Lazy W was in pitiful financial shape, and dredging up the old scandal would only make it worse. But Keith had asked to see the balance sheets, and Tory had let him review everything, inwardly pleased that he had grown up enough to care.
* * *