Green Calder Grass by Janet Dailey Page A

spoonful of cereal to feed her son. Trey immediately grabbed for it, interested not in the spoon, but in getting his fingers in the cereal. There was more cereal smeared over his face, hands, and hair, not to mention the high chair, than had made its way into his mouth.
    She caught at his grabbing hand and held it out of the way while she carried the spoon to his mouth. Straining, he turned his face away from it, babbling a protest.
    Jessy drew the spoon back. “You do realize that your sister has already gotten her bottle, don’t you, Trey?” She made another attempt to feed him, but it was no more successful than the first. “Not hungry, huh.” Setting the baby spoon and small cereal bowl on the table, she picked up a wet washcloth and wiped his face and hands, then lifted him out of the high chair. “What you really need is another bath, little boy,” she chided and tickled his tummy. He squirmed in her arms, gurgling with laughter.
    “Hellooo!” The seeking call came from the entry hall.
    “I’m in the kitchen,” Jessy yelled back, and shifted Trey onto a hip while she set about wiping up the worst of the cereal from the high chair before it hardened into concrete.
    The big house echoed with the approaching jangle of spurs and the heavy clump of booted feet on the hardwood floors. Jessy looked up from her work when they reached the kitchen doorway. Dick Ballard stood in the opening, a simple canvas duffel bag hanging from a shoulder strap and two, huge expensive suitcases weighing down his hands. Jessy knew immediately that the suitcases were Tara’s. From that, it was easy to surmise that Tara was spending the night.
    “I was told to bring these suitcases from the plane,” Ballard began, then stopped and frowned. “What’s she doing here anyway?”
    It was a direct question he wouldn’t have put to either Ty or Chase. Jessy may have married into the Calder family, but in the eyes of the ranch hands and their families, she was still one of them. They felt comfortable saying things to her that they would never dream of uttering in front of Ty or Chase.
    Jessy’s glance flicked to the two suitcases bearing the Gucci label. “At a guess, I’d say she’s spending the night.”
    “Are you okay with that?” The gentle concern in Ballard’s voice was almost her undoing.
    Turning away from the probe of his kind blue eyes, Jessy retrieved the bottle from its warming pan on the stove. “Why shouldn’t I be?” she countered in a deliberately careless tone. “She isn’t married to Ty anymore.”
    “But she had him wrapped around her finger for a long time. And something tells me she’s pulling the strings again.”
    It smacked of it to Jessy, too, but she didn’t say so. The ranch grapevine would be buzzing with the news of Tara’s arrival. She wasn’t about to add any grist to the rumor mill.
    “I was on my way upstairs to give Trey his bottle. Follow me and I’ll show you where to put the luggage.” As she crossed the kitchen, Ballard pivoted out of the doorway to let her pass, then followed her down the hall to the living room. “Why has it taken so long to bring the bags to the house? The plane landed over an hour ago,” Jessy remarked, her own curiosity getting the better of her.
    “You got me,” Ballard said from his trailing position. “I was at the corrals working with one of the young horses when the big boss,” which was the affectionate title the ranch hands had given Chase to differentiate between father and son, “told me to get the bags from the plane and take them to The Homestead.”
    “Where are they now?” Jessy wondered aloud.
    “When I left them, they were still at the old barn. They showed up there shortly after the plane landed, and they’ve been there ever since,” Ballard replied. “She’s got some young kid with her. He’s been crawling all over that barn like a termite inspector.”
    The old barn. Jessy slowed her steps, trying to make sense of that, as