Calder Born, Calder Bred

by Janet Dailey

  “Maybe you should call your wife and talk to her,” Jessy suggested, almost humbly. “You should be able to reach her at Dyson’s home in Fort Worth.”

  “No.” Ty rejected it absently. The warm pressure of her hand left his and he was conscious of its absence. The firelight wavered. “I’d better put another log on,” he said and rolled to his feet, stretching slightly to ease the tautness of his muscles.

  “I’ll pour some coffee,” Jessy said, rising also, her shoulders dropped, her head down.

  The fire blazed cheerfully, lightening the room and the atmosphere when Jessy returned to it with two fresh cups of coffee. Ty was standing by the raised hearth, a shoulder leaned against the mantelpiece. Jessy handed him one of the cups and stayed, standing in front of the blaze, watching the yellow flames crawling all over the bark of the new log.

  “The fire makes you forget there’s cold weather walking around outside,” Ty remarked idly and sipped at the hot coffee.

  “It does.” When a low chuckle came from him, Jessy glanced at him inquisitively.

  “I was just remembering a winter tale old Nate Moore told me once,” he said, smiling. The old cowboy had died a week before Christmas, joining Abe Garvey and other Triple C veterans who had gone before. It was the passing of an old order, making way for the new. It was with fondness rather than sorrow that Ty thought about these men and all they’d taught him.

  “What was that?” Jessy asked with interest.

  “As he told it, some greenhorn cowboy rode out to check cattle on a day that was about twenty below. A wind started blowing up snow, and he had a hard time seeing to find his way back to camp. When he finally rode in, he was frozen to the saddle. They had to use ice picks and chisels to pry him off; then they carried him into the bunkhouse and set him in front of the stove. According to Nate, when this cowboy finally thawed out, his legs stayed bowed like a wishbone. Every time he went outside, the cattle dogs would each grab a leg and try to pull him apart. He finally had to quit and go to work on a ranch that didn’t use dogs. . . . You don’t smile like that often enough, Jessy.” Ty studied the way it softened her face and broke through the composure that could hold a man off.

  Even after the smile faded, her lips lay softly together. “Nate was never one for idle conversation. He was either tale-telling or passing on some astute observation about life.” The coffee was too hot to drink. Jessy set her cup on the mantel and held out her hands to the fire’s warmth.

  Ty studied the picture she made in the bulky knit sweater of dark green, slim-hipped and long-legged in thread-worn Levi’s. “What is it you want in life, Jessy?” Everyone had ambitions and desires, and he wondered about hers.

  She grew thoughtful at his question, pulling her hands back and shoving them into her hip pockets while she stared into the leaping flames. “Nobody gets very much in this world, Ty—not really. Sometimes, maybe something happens and, for an hour or a week, it looks like the rest of your life you’ll be riding over smooth ground, with no coulees or high buttes in your way. They’ll be there, though. You just can’t see them for a little while. You’ll have rough times, and you’ll do your share of crying. You’ll get through it because of moments like this.” She turned her head to look at him, clear-eyed and silently strong. “What more can I want than I’ve got right now? A place of my own, a warm fire on a cold night, and someone to talk to. What’s better than this?”

  Her words, so simple and direct, moved him, cutting to the heart of life. Moving slowly, Ty set his coffee cup on the mantel next to hers, his gaze never leaving her face. There was an inner beauty shining through those strong features that was wholly woman.

  He murmured, “Jessy,” in a smooth, stroking voice and curved his hand to the back of her head, holding it gently.

  For a long, exploring moment, he looked at her and was drawn closer by this nameless, tender feeling that pulled at him. Jessy waited, realizing that she had gotten into his feelings. The pressure of his hand increased slightly as his mouth moved closer, his eyes continuing to study her features. She didn’t fool herself into believing she had awakened a love. He was lonely, and Tara was far away. Ty had his morality and strong sense of honor, but he was, after all, a man. And she was close by, sharing his troubles and listening to his talk. That nearness had worn through the restraint which normally would have checked him.

  Maybe she should have stopped him. Jessy knew he was on the edge of kissing her—kissing her, Jessy Niles. But she had meant it when she said that she might never have more than this moment. Too soon, Tara would return, and Jessy would once again have nothing. With a sweet and pure rush of defiance, she brought her hands to his middle and lifted her head that last inch to meet his mouth.

  It was a long, slow warmth that gradually took possession of them. Jessy swayed into him, her body growing heavy against his while his enfolding arms gathered her in. Her heartbeat quickened, her blood running sweet and fast. There was something earthy and stimulating in the kiss that never lost its gently insistent quality. He was solid and strong, the smell of him mingling with fire smoke in her livening senses.

  There was no hesitation on either side, no testing of the ground to see if it could support what was being built on it. It was the coming together of two equally strong forces, and in their seeking probe of each other, they touched depths of feeling where passion was not required to create intimacy.

  It was too new, invading their systems too quietly for either to recognize its power. They came apart as slowly as they had come together, each seeking a reaction in the eyes of the other. Jessy turned again to the fire, feeling a wonderful calm and a steady glow within.

  Neither spoke of the kiss, treating it as if it had never happened. Ty reached for his coffee cup, resuming his leaning stance against the mantel, and contemplated the fading flames of the fire. Taking her cup, Jessy moved to the armchair previously occupied by Ty and curled her long legs onto the cushion to sit crosswise. She, too, looked at the fire, completely comfortable, following her own track of thoughts.

  After a long length of time, Ty straightened and drained the last of the coffee from his cup. When his idle glance swung to Jessy, she was watching him. “More coffee?” she offered.

  “No.” He shook his head, then looked at her with a steady, slightly curious regard. “How come you suggested I should call Tara and talk to her?”

  “It seemed logical that you’d want to discuss what had happened with her,” Jessy said, glancing briefly at her cup, then back to him.

  “If I had wanted to talk it over with her, I wouldn’t have come here.” Ty sounded irritable, overtaken by a restlessness and agitation.

  The moment of ease was destroyed. Something got between Jessy and her comfortable feelings. There was a hard, puzzled look in his eyes. The loneliness of the cabin pressed in on her again, abetted by the chilling wind that seeped through the walls and whistled through the crack in the door. She felt her spirits sinking.

  That intense closeness between them was broken. All the uncertainties that had never entered her mind earlier returned now. Jessy watched him, knowing his mannerisms and silences and their meaning. His thoughts were heavy on his mind, shadowing his features.

  “Jessy—” Ty began in a tone that was much too serious and loaded.

  “I hadn’t realized how dark it was in here,” Jessy interrupted him, sounding casual but inwardly frightened by what he might be intending to say. Rising from the chair, she walked to the standing lamp and pulled its chain.

  It was a calm exterior she showed him when she turned. She didn’t want to hear any apology from him or an expression of regret—nor some false statement of his feelings toward her. They would only hurt. She didn’t want his gratitude or his sympathy—nothing that might bind him to her. He was in love with Tara, whatever their problems. The shared closeness of that kiss might make him feel obligated to say something. And anything he said would only wound her.

  Across the space, now illuminated by
the lamp, he seemed to be measuring her, trying to judge something. Jessy moved, striving for resiliency.

  “Ty ... I told you once that you were always free to come here,” she said quietly. “And you’re always free to go.”

  As she met his eyes, Ty saw none of that deep feeling that had so oddly sprung between them. There was only that level-eyed calmness that seemed to attach little importance to what had passed. Yet he was relieved, too, that she’d given him an out. He had not meant for that kiss to happen—just as he’d not meant the other one, although the circumstances were completely different.

  With a lifting of his shoulders, he seemed to gather himself and walked to the hook by the door where he’d left his hat and coat. “I guess it is time I was going to my own home,” he admitted and shrugged into his coat. While he pushed his hat onto his head, Ty spared her a glance. “Thanks for the coffee, Jessy.”

  “Anytime.” After the door had closed on the taunting howl of the cold wind, Jessy repeated her response, very softly. “Anytime.”

  19

  The vision of Tara that Ty carried in his mind when they were apart was never as vibrant and stunning as the sight of her gliding toward him after another separation. So dark and compelling was her beauty, garbed in ermine against the late-winter Montana cold, that he could forget the loneliness of his nights and the hunger she always aroused.

  Ty was impatient with the presence of her father and Stricklin, wanting her all to himself and knowing that moment had to be postponed until they were alone. His arm stayed possessively around her petite frame, keeping her at his side, while he turned to greet her traveling companions, her fragrance stirring him. He was too conscious of the constraints he placed on his own feelings to notice the trace of reserve in her attitude.

  “Hello, E.J.” He shook hands with his father-in-law. “To be truthful, Tara caught me by surprise when she phoned the other night to say she’d be flying back with you. I was under the impression you hadn’t scheduled any trip north until April.”

  “That’s true; I hadn’t,” Dyson admitted smoothly. “However, there was something I wanted to discuss with your father. I probably could have handled it by phone, but since Tara was returning, I thought I’d come along and speak to him in person.” He sounded very casual about it, although the matter was obviously serious enough to bring him all this distance. Ty was too preoccupied with Tara’s nearness to experience more than a passing curiosity over the possible subject.

  “It’s good to see you again, Ty,” Stricklin greeted him with more warmth than he usually mustered.

  While they stood on the unprotected flats beside the airstrip, the luggage had been unloaded from the twin-engine plane so it could be pushed into the shelter of an empty hangar shed. The mesa top offered a bleak landscape of snow-crusted brown grass beneath a massive sky. Its big blueness, icy and unforgiving, had its effect on Tara, making her feel even smaller in stature. A raw March wind was beating at her. She was glad of Ty’s arm around her, stopping that wind from flattening her. She could not cope with these wild elements that cared nothing about who stood before them, nor that terrible feeling of inadequacy they evoked within her.

  “Must we stand here to talk? It’s brutally cold.” Everything about this land seemed brutal to her whenever she was out of sight of The Homestead. There, at least, the stately structure was proof that someone ruled.

  “I’d forgotten you aren’t used to it after being in Texas.” Ty smiled warmly, not realizing that she had learned to accept many things but she had never gotten used to them. He bundled her protectively against his side and led her to the car, the motor idling so the interior would be warm for its passengers.

  Maggie Calder was on hand to welcome her arriving guests, relieving Ty of the obligation to act as host to Dyson and his assistant. Instead, he gave the cowboy a hand carrying Tara’s luggage and packages to their suite of rooms on the second floor. She’d barely said anything to him, but her silence wasn’t that unusual in the company of a third party, especially when that party was hired help.

  Ty observed the silence, breaking it only to inquire where she wanted the packages left. “Anywhere is fine,” she returned indifferently while she slipped out of her full-length ermine coat and took the time to hang it up in her bedroom closet. Ty gestured to the cowboy to leave them in the sitting room.

  As soon as he’d left, Ty went into the bedroom. Tara was standing at the vanity mirror, removing the matching ermine hat and shaking out her long, silken black hair. He came up behind her and let his hands settle onto the soft points of her shoulders while he buried his face in the fineness of her hair.

  “I’m glad you’re home.” His muffled voice was husky with need.

  “I’m not.”

  The blunt, harsh answer stunned him. When she turned around to face him, Ty made no effort to maintain his hold on her. She must have seen the hard anger in his eyes. Her hands came up to rest lightly on his chest. There was an earnest, almost insistent edge to her expression.

  “Ty, what are you going to do about what’s happened?” It was almost a demand.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, brusque with his answer. The hunger was still in him, but he wouldn’t show it to her now.

  “This business with your father,” she retorted impatiently. “Why didn’t you tell me about it before? I wish you wouldn’t keep things like that from me. It’s very embarrassing to find out about them from someone else. It puts me in a very awkward position, and I don’t like it.”

  While there was some consolation that she wanted his confidences, her complaint also touched a sore nerve. “Is it my fault that things come up while you’re gone? Maybe if you stayed home more, you’d know what was going on.”

  “Why should I spend every day of my life here when you spend most of your time in some godforsaken corner of this ranch?” Tara flared at his criticism of her absences. “Just so I can be at your beck and call?”

  “Yes!”

  Temper claimed him, made quick by the hunger that sharpened his nerves. He caught her by the shoulders and hauled her roughly into his arms. Her protest was shut off by his hard kiss. For a moment, his passion had its way with her and she responded to its demands, kissing him back. But Tara wouldn’t give in to it, not hers nor his.

  Her arms pushed him back, stiffening to keep him there. “TV, we have to decide how we’re going to handle this,” she insisted, despite the uneven rush of her own breathing. “I don’t think you realize how important it is—what a problem it can become.”

  “You’re awfully concerned about the ranch all of a sudden, aren’t you?” Many things lay hotly and threateningly between them; not the least was Tara’s strong will and ambition that could take precedence over the feelings in her heart.

  “It’s my home as much as it is yours!” she asserted, then instantly softened. “Ty, let’s not quarrel over something as silly as this. We have to do something about your father before he ruins everything.”

  “How can he ruin everything by fighting to regain title to land he believed he rightfully owned?” Ty demanded, then wondered, “And what’s your father doing here?”

  “It was Stricklin’s idea—not mine.” Her disapproval was evident. “It was my opinion he should stay away and avoid being tainted by any of this.”

  “Tainted?” Ty found that to be an odd choice of words, but he had no opportunity to pursue the discussion as the door to their suite was opened.

  “Tara!” Cathleen came breezing into the master suite, not regarding it as essential that she knock before invading their privacy. “I came to see what-all you bought this time. How was your visit? I’11 bet it was warm down there. You beast, you have a tan,” she accused enviously when she finally came to a stop in their bedroom. She would be turning sixteen soon. Beneath that youth, there was a woman’s desires ready to make riot in her.

  “Cat, would you mind clearing out?” Ty ordered. “I’d like some time alone with
my wife. You can find out all about her trip later.”

  I have plans for later,” his sister replied, nonplussed by his attempt to evict her. “And I have to go back to school in the morning.” Her green eyes took on a wickedly knowing gleam. “Besides, it’s too early for what you’ve got in mind.

  You’ll just have to wait until it’s time to go to bed to have your . . . time alone . . . with your wife.”

  “Cat’s right.” Tara sided with her. “There will be more time after dinner.” She smiled at Ty and moved away. “All the packages are in the sitting room. Two of them are for you.”

  Overruled, Ty was forced to accept the decision and postpone the discussion until after dinner. He was brooding as he left their suite, the sound of Tara’s voice and Cat’s mingling in excited conversation over the purchases.

  The dinner conversation that evening skirted controversial subjects and focused on safe topics. Since Dyson had started his coal-mining operations, the relationship between the Texan and Chase Calder had become strained. Chase still had reservations on the role Dyson might have played in this recent reversal of land title. He was suspicious, but without proof, so he’d kept them mostly to himself. Each time he looked at Stricklin’s immaculately clean hands and manicured nails, holding the silverware, Chase was reminded of Potter’s remark about not trusting the man.

  “While the women are clearing the table, why don’t we take our coffee to the den?” Dyson suggested. Chase hesitated, and Dyson took note of it. “I’d like a word with you in private, if you don’t mind, Chase.”

  “Of course.”

  Ty folded his napkin and placed it on the table. “Unless you need me, I have a mare due to foal that I want to check on.” It was a difficult line of loyalty to walk now between his father and Tara. Ty left it to his father’s judgment whether or not it was necessary he participate in a discussion that might become heated.