by Janet Dailey
“I don’t want to hear any explanations, Ty,” she said with a shake of her head; then her chin came up. “I’m not as tolerant and understanding as you think I am. I’m not the cause of your problems with your wife, and I don’t want to know what they are. I can’t pretend she doesn’t exist, but I don’t have to listen to you talk about her. I’m more of a woman than she is, for all her pretty looks and frilly clothes—and I know that. So I’d say things about her that you wouldn’t like to hear.”
No matter how he was feeling now, Tara was the woman who held claim to his emotions. Part of it was her beauty, but the rest of it was Ty’s dream. It was something Jessy understood too clearly. Ty had made Tara into the image of his wishes. Men dreamed the things they wanted into a woman. Even if Ty was beginning to see Tara was not all he believed, he was not ready to give up his dream.
In the semidarkness of the room, he caught the determined light in her eye, that unshakable courage to face a situation no matter how unpleasant it was. He left the cigarette to burn in the ashtray on the bedstand and rolled out of bed to cross the room. She half turned, avoiding his eyes.
“You’d better get dressed,” she advised in a calm voice. “It’s late, and she’ll be wondering where you are.”
“To hell with Tara right now.” Ty used the name Jessy had avoided while unconsciously admitting he would be returning to his wife. “What about you, Jessy? Will you be all right?”
Jessy looked at him, and the desire to smile was strong. If she told him she wouldn’t be, she foresaw how Ty would respond. Men were so pragmatic in their dealings with life, until it came to women. There they became thoroughly impractical, always promising to make life easy for them and fully believing that they could do it. Despite all her romantic fantasies, she had a woman’s insight into life and knew there would be pain and loneliness in the years ahead as well as the blessings of times like this.
“I’m strong, Ty. I’ll do just fine.” She assured him instead of the other way around. She had made her bargain, and she was ready to pay for it. Tomorrow’s heartache didn’t frighten her.
He wanted to find something beneath that steadiness she showed him. It grated him slightly that she didn’t need him, that she had a sustaining strength which enabled her to be independent of him. It was difficult for him to come to terms with her equality in things he considered male.
Yet there was no game playing in Jessy, no strings for him to chase. He couldn’t help remembering that the one time Tara had been direct with him about her needs and demands, he had married her. The knowledge bothered him.
There was nothing he could say. He turned and walked slowly back to the bed where his clothes lay. There was no figuring Jessy out. There was no figuring women outt But he knew he’d be back to seek the high sense of ease she gave him, and the good feeling that lighted a warm fire inside him. But he didn’t say so. He didn’t need to.
There was a faint noise in the upper hallway. Tara paused, ceasing to impatiently flip through pages of the magazine to listen intently, stiff and poised, for the sound of Ty’s return. Another board creaked. She couldn’t tell whether it was caused by the pressure of a foot or if it was simply the groanings of an old house. Rising, she dropped the magazine on the long daybed, the fur-trimmed robe of heavy satin falling softly about her legs.
She went to the door and pulled it open, a surfeit of pride showing in the high carriage of her body. But it was Cat who was creeping stealthily toward the stairs, bundled in a heavy coat, her black hair tucked under a white woolen cap. She raised a silencing finger to her lips when she saw Tara in the doorway, green eyes silently pleading with Tara not to give her presence away.
“Repp’s waiting for me,” Cat whispered. “Don’t tell Daddy, please.” After the fight she’d caused, Cathleen had been forbidden any contact with her older beau as punishment. Tara was not surprised to discover the young girl was defying the orders to keep secret assignations with her cowboy. It was also the least of Tara’s interests, so she simply closed the door. Tensely lacing her fingers together, she paced to the window. The blackness of the huge night sky threatened to swallow her, and she turned back to the light.
When she reached the base of the stairs, Cat froze. There was a light in the den. Her heart seemed to trip over itself, unable to find its normal beat as she tiptoed past the light, peering anxiously into the room. She spied Stricklin clad in a high-necked burgundy sweater, standing at the bookshelves with his back to the door while he perused the titles.
Cat opened the front door a crack and squeezed through the narrow slit—the trickiest part was slipping outside without being heard. She winced at the small click the door made when she closed it. Then she waited, holding her breath and listening for the sound of footsteps coming to investigate the noise. A minute longer, and she expelled the breath in relief. The cold air turned it into a gray-white vapor that swirled and vanished on the night wind.
Moving silently, she traveled the length of the veranda and jumped to the ground, wrapped in the house’s dark shadow. In a crouching run, she angled across the snow-crusted grass behind The Homestead, heading for the flat plateau and the isolated airplane hangar that had become their meeting place, far from observing eyes and chance discoveries. The cold air stung her lungs as she hurried to keep the rendezvous.
Hunkered down in a small pocket, Culley O’Rourke held the cigarette cupped in his hand, concealing the glowing red tip so its light wouldn’t give away his presence. One by one, the lights had gone off in The Homestead, until only an upstairs light was burning. A minute before, he’d been about to steal away to where he’d left his horse tethered. Then a light had unexpectedly appeared in the den downstairs. He stayed to see if this stirring of activity was the beginning of something more.
Intent on the big house, he almost didn’t see the dark shape moving furtively away from it. Motionless, Culley waited until it had passed his shadowy pocket of ground, catching a recognizable glimpse of Cathleen’s oval face, and he trailed silently after her.
When she reached the hangar, Cat was out of breath, her face numb from the cold wind. The planes in the open shed stood silently in a row, looming shapes in the night’s shadows. She walked swiftly between them, cutting through to the small office and storage area in the back. She opened the door and slipped inside, at last sheltered from the numbing wind. Her eyes searched the darkness as she paused.
“Repp?” Her whispered call brought the sound of movement from her right. Cat turned toward it as a dark form separated itself from the shadows.
“I had almost decided you weren’t going to show up.” The long wait had brought an edge to his voice.
“I know. I was afraid you might have left. I swear no one in that house goes to bed at a decent hour anymore.” Impatience was in her voice, too. Her face was pasty and white in the office shadows, but they didn’t dare turn on a light. “Tara was still up, waiting for Ty to come home, when I slipped out of the house. And Stricklin was prowling around in the den. Sometimes I wonder if he’s human. I get the feeling he’s a robot and doesn’t need to eat or sleep like the rest of us.”
“Are you sure you weren’t seen?” Repp demanded, then muttered in a dark kind of irritation, “I must be crazy to let you talk me into meeting like this.”
At last realizing that he would not bridge the space between them, Cat took the necessary steps and unashamedly wrapped her arms around the turned-up collar of his coat. She felt the pressure of his hands on her hips, neither pulling her closer nor pushing her away.
“I don’t care how or where we meet as long as we can see each other.” It was a dramatic declaration, but it was true. She would risk anything, even her father’s wrath, to be with Repp.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” The low protest was almost groaned, the rashness of his urges threatening to overwhelm his control of them. “You are too young, Cat.”
“I’m just as old as my mother was when she got pregnant with Ty.”
Cat tormented him with the knowledge.
“You oughta be spanked for goading a man with such talk,” he accused roughly, more disturbed than he cared to admit, and she knew it. “You’re just spoiling for trouble, aren’t you? Someday you’re going to say that to the wrong man and he’s going to take you up on it.”
“But I’ve never said it to anyone but you. You’re the only one I ever want to say that to,” she insisted and arched herself closer. “It’s bad enough that my parents treat me like a child. I’m a woman, Repp. And I love you.”
The soft declaration, coupled with her nearness, was too much. His hard-fought caution lost the battle with his driving impulses as his mouth came hungrily onto hers. The heated contact soon chased the numbing cold from their skin. The eager response of her lips broke through his restraint as he used her roughly, man to woman, without thought for her inexperience. She drew back, suddenly tense, then came again with her own rush of feeling. But he caught a breath of cold sanity.
“No, Cat.” His fingers dug hard into the sleeves of her coat to stop her from coming against him. “That’s enough!”
“Why, Repp? Why does it have to be enough?” she protested.
“You can’t have everything you want,” he told her.
Her shoulders sagged and she swayed toward him, nestling her head on his shoulder. After a long moment his arms went around her and he let his mouth come against the woolen cap covering her black silk hair.
“I don’t want everything, Repp. I just want you,” she said very simply without any dramatic elaboration. “Sometimes I just get to feeling desperate. Two years seems such a long time to wait.” It seemed an agony of time.
“They’ll go by fast,” he lied. Something clanged outside in the hangar, and Repp stiffened. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” She lifted her head from the comfortable and intimate pillow of his shoulder.
“I think I heard somebody outside,” he murmured and began untangling his arms from around her. “I’m going to check.”
“There’s no one out there,” Cat protested. “You probably just heard the wind rattling the tin roof.”
He ignored her explanation to glide silently to the office door. “Wait here,” he whispered.
“No. I’m coming with you,” she insisted. She spoke louder than she intended and it carried through the door Repp had opened.
“Sssh,” he warned.
Cat kept a hand on him so she wouldn’t lose contact as they stole out of the office into the darkened shed. A coyote wailed a lonely call from some distant hillside. A haze of stars barely cast enough light to make silhouettes of the planes hangared in the shed. Repp picked his way through the shadows, looking and listening.
Another faint sound came to them, unidentifiable. It seemed to have come from one of the ranch planes, the one Cat’s father usually flew. They moved up alongside it.
“There.” Cat pointed at the access door to the engine compartment. It was open. “It must not have been latched properly and the wind blew it open.”
“I guess so.” He left her to shut the door and make sure the latch caught. When he came back, he looked around, not completely satisfied, instinct telling him someone else had been in the hangar or was there still. He started worrying about Cat. “It’s late, nearly midnight. You’d better go back. FU walk you partway.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue with me, Cat.” His voice was firm, but he couldn’t say why he felt this sudden urgency to get her safely away from there.
Something in his tone checked any further argument from Cat. His hand gripped her elbow to guide her out of the shed and across the short stretch to the knoll where The Homestead sat, its white exterior rising from the darkness.
After he’d left her, Repp couldn’t explain what made him double back, taking a roundabout route. Halfway to the hangar, the wind carried to him the sound of hoofbeats. Briefly a rider was skylined on a crest against a dusting of haze stars. O’Rourke. It had to be. The bunkhouse gossip was full of talk about his restless wanderings over the Triple C. Even if he was Cat’s uncle, the man gave him the willies. But at least his suspicions were satisfied. Repp turned and headed for the bunkhouse.
As Ty made the turn onto the driveway by the front steps, he saw a figure dart into the shadows of the house and recognized the white knitted cap. It didn’t take much guessing to know where his sister had been and with whom. He didn’t say anything until he was on the wide porch that ran the width of the front.
“There’s no point in hiding, Cat. I already know you’re there,” he said quietly and heard a rustle of movement as she emerged from the shadows to haul herself onto the porch. “Sneaking off to meet Repp again? You’re going to get caught one of these nights.”
“Dad’s too old-fashioned and too strict,” she said with a resentful flash of her green eyes.
“You’ll think he’s too strict if he finds you going behind his back,” Ty warned, but he wasn’t really in the mood to be stern with her himself, so he let the matter lie. There were too many other things on his mind. He held the front door open for Cat to enter ahead of him, then walked in. “Looks like someone left a light on in the den.” He started across the foyer.
“I think Stricklin is in there,” Cat said, but she altered her course to accompany him and find out.
A book was opened and lying facedown on the armrest of the chair where Stricklin was seated. He had a pocket knife out and was meticulously cleaning beneath his nails. When Ty appeared in the doorway, he looked up with mild interest.
“Hello, TV, are you just getting in?” Then the expressionless blue eyes looked past him. “I didn’t realize Cathleen was with you.”
“Yes. We have a brood mare that’s due to foal,” he said dryly, aware he was providing a mutual alibi. “I hope we didn’t disturb you.”
“Not at all,” Stricklin assured him.
“Good night.” Ty moved out of the doorway and headed for the stairs with Cat tagging along.
“That man is strange,” she murmured.
“Why?” Ty was used to Stricklin’s detached attitude.
“Who ever heard of cleaning your nails with a dirty knife?” she countered with a vague shrug.
At the top of the stairs, he noticed the sliver of light showing beneath the door to the master bedroom. He felt the tightening of his nerves, an alertness that ran through him and chased out the last vestiges of spinning tenderness. He didn’t hear Cat’s low-voiced “Good night” as he reached for the doorknob.
The sitting room was empty, darkened except for a lone lamp that laid its light on the door. Ty walked straight through to the bedroom, where Tara sat in front of a vanity mirror, rubbing a moisturizing cream into her smooth facial skin. Her eyes met the reflection of his in the mirror, coolly confident.
The satiny fabric of her nightgown exposed her white shoulders and enticingly outlined her round, firm breasts, erect nipples making a button pattern under the material. It was a feminine sexuality so understated that it was blatant. It irritated him that she had not doubted he would return to it. But it always seemed to be there—this heat that burned all the good feelings.
Her calmness had convinced him that she hadn’t been waiting up for him. Ty believed it until he picked up the satin robe on the bed to move it so he could sit down and pull off his boots. The robe still held the warmth of her body, which indicated it had only been removed in the last few minutes. She hadn’t wanted it to appear that she had been waiting up for him—another of her games.
“I’m glad you came home before I went to bed, Ty,” she said and fixed the lid on the jar of cream. She straightened from the bench to walk toward him, all grace and slink. “I wanted you to know that I’m sorry for some of the things I said tonight. I was upset and spoke rashly.”
Ty barely looked at her while she made her carefully rehearsed speech, reciting the lines so well. He pulled off his boots and set them on the floor at the foot of the bed.
“What would you like me to say?” He stood up and began tugging his shirttail out of his pants to unbutton it. “I’m sorry about a lot of things, but that doesn’t change them.”
“I hate it when we quarrel, Ty.” She moved in and began unbuttoning his shirt, so expertly coy and alluring. “Let’s kiss and make up,” she coaxed.
The heat of her kiss burned at the edges of his memory and taunted him with its closeness. It was always like this; he only had to be close to her to remember the fire of possessing this dream image. There was something blind about this desire.
And there was something about loving a person for so long a time that couldn’t be stopped. Seemingly of their own volition, his hands curved onto her silken-smooth shoulders, absently caressing them. When he kissed her, Ty felt the start of a response; then she pulled back and swung away from him.
He hesitated, but in the end he didn’t pursue her. Maybe she had tasted Jessy on his lips. Women had a knowledge of such things, he’d learned. He let out a sigh and raked a hand through his hair.
Inside, Tara was seething with rage. She didn’t understand this instinct that told her he’d come to her from the arms of some other woman, but she knew it. It was something in the way he kissed her, as if comparing. Only one woman came to mind—that she-bitch Jessy Niles.
“Ty—” She fought down the anger, smoothing out her voice.
“What?” She heard the heaviness in his voice.
“I—” Tara pivoted and watched his gaze travel down her. There was reassurance in seeing she still moved him. “I love you. This difficulty with your father ... I know somehow we’ll work it out.”
“I won’t go against him,” he stated flatly.
“No.” She could see that no amount of persuasion would make him do that. It was better if he didn’t, now that she’d had time to consider it. An estrangement between father and son might not bode well for the future. Chase Calder was just stubborn enough to leave this mini-empire to his daughter instead of his son. “I can’t ask you to do that, any more than you could ask me to defy my father. I realize that. But you don’t have to become involved in the fight—not in a public way.”