Free The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard

shock.
    And then she heard his father tell a lie.
    “No, it wasn’t Billy.” He listened. “Of course I’m sure of that, or why would I allow him back on the ranch?”
    When he hung up, Annabelle said, “You lied to your son.”
    “Well, I had to. Hugh-Jay can’t lie worth beans, and I don’t want him giving the game away to Billy on the ride out here.”
    “What game are you playing?”
    “A serious one.” He leaned over to kiss her forehead.
    “What are you up to, my darling?”
    “Getting Billy to clean up his own mess, that’s what.”
    He then made another call, this time to the county sheriff’s office in Henderson City. “This is Hugh Linder Senior,” he said with easy authority to the deputy who answered. “I am reporting that Billy Crosby killed one of my cows last night … Yes, I’m sure. He also cut my fence lines and tried to set fire to one of my pastures. I have arranged for him to be away from his house for a few hours this afternoon. I want you to go there while I’ve got him safely out of your way. Talk to his wife about where he was last night. Look for evidence while you’re there. You should find the knife or some bloody clothes. Look for wire clippers. When you’ve done all that, then I want you to come out here to the ranch and arrest him.”
    “Speaking of misbehavior,” Annabelle said after he hung up the phone, “what about Colorado?”
    “What’s wrong out there, you mean? We’re getting overbilled on some things. It could be nothing but sloppy clerking. Or it could be that our man is lining his own pockets. Hugh-Jay should have caught it in the bookkeeping. It shouldn’t have had to wait for me to find. I’m sending him to clean up his own mess. It’s the only way either one of them will ever learn; it’s the only way anybody learns.”
    A little later Annabelle said, “He won’t appreciate that you lied to him.”
    Her husband’s reply was confident. “It won’t do him any harm.”

L AURIE AND J ODY accompanied Hugh-Jay onto the back porch after lunch. He set his suitcase—a battered old leather one that his grandfather had used—on the porch floor beside his feet.
    “I’ll be driving into rain tonight,” he predicted, observing the western sky.
    The clouds looked taller, darker, and closer now.
    Laurie squinted at his truck, which he’d parked under cottonwood trees at the rear of their driveway. The dogs came running over. When they pressed against her, she shoved them with her knee and said, irritably, “Go on! Get down from here, you hot, smelly things! Hugh-Jay, is there somebody in your truck?”
    “Billy Crosby, probably.” He took hold of the dogs’ collars and tugged the Labs down onto the gravel, away from her. “Didn’t you hear me call him on the telephone? I told him to walk on over.”
    Laurie saw Billy turn his face in their direction as if he knew they were talking about him. He lifted a hand and waved in a halfhearted way. Laurie didn’t return the gesture.
    “I can’t believe your dad would hire him for anything again.”
    She wasn’t trying very hard to keep Billy from hearing her.
    “A man gets to have a second chance, doesn’t he?”
    “But not a fifth and sixth,” she retorted sarcastically.
    “I didn’t know you disliked him so much.”
    “I don’t.” It sounded more defiant than convincing. “I don’t care about him.”
    Hugh-Jay bent over to kiss the top of her head, but she moved at that moment, so his affection only grazed her. He stood up straight again. “It’s hard for a man to support his family when he’s got a suspended driver’s license.”
    “Well, and whose fault is that?”
    “Okay. You’re right.”
    She looked up at him. “When will you be back?”
    “I don’t know. I might come home tomorrow, or I might have to stay a while longer. I won’t know till I get there.”
    “Well, call me and let me know what you’re going to do.”
    “All right.”
    Her expression turned fierce.