by Janet Dailey
“You haven’t given me one reason why I should agree to this preposterous marriage.” She was motionless and strained, still listening to the run of his voice, and its repressed feelings.
“You want your son, don’t you? If we fight over him, Maggie, we’ll both lose. And Ty will be the biggest loser of all, because he will be confused, torn between the two of us. By marrying me, you will maintain your role as his mother, live here in this house with him, and be an integral part of his life. In addition, you will be the mistress of this house and have all the attached importance of the name Calder.”
“I’m not interested in your name, or your bed.” She didn’t argue about the part concerning Ty.
“I don’t care whether or not you share my bed. That’s entirely up to you. I would suggest that you live here without the benefit of marriage, except for the first two reasons I gave you, and … the gossip it would create. And you know people would talk if you came back to live in the area, let alone in this house. It wouldn’t matter whether there was any truth to the stories; the talk would get back to Ty. I don’t think you’d like that. The marriage is a formality. As soon as it has accomplished its objective of establishing Ty as my legitimate heir, you can file for a divorce. I only make one stipulation—Ty stays with me.”
“That isn’t fair,” she said shortly.
“Sooner or later, you’d have to let him go, anyway … when he marries or goes off to see the world. You can stay here as long as you like—until he’s eighteen, twenty-one—or you can divide your time between here and California. Or stay in California and come here to visit. It’s immaterial to me. If you have a better solution, I’ll gladly listen.”
His statement mocked her. There was no other solution that would meet his terms. And if his terms weren’t met, he’d take her to court to get Ty. It didn’t matter if she eventually won the case. He made that clear. She could well imagine Ty’s reaction to this ranch. It would seem the fulfillment of any boy’s romantic dreams about the West, complete with a hero figure as a father. She could never win against a boy’s dreams, even if she could win legal custody.
“Ty has a natural affinity for the land, a feeling for this country,” Chase went on when she failed to fill the silence. “You couldn’t repress it, although I know you tried. It’s something he inherited from both of us, Maggie. I’m appealing to your maternal instinct. We are both interested in the same thing—Ty. At least our marriage can start out with that as a common ground.” He studied her quietly. “I don’t expect you to give me an answer now. You’ll want to talk to Ty. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”
Tomorrow? She was stung. “How generous of you to give me so much time!”
“Enough time has already been wasted.” He pushed out of his chair. “I’ll take your luggage to your room.”
“I haven’t said I’ll stay,” Maggie reminded him.
He looked at her, running an unamused glance over her face. “You’ll stay.”
“No.” She was not going to bend to his will. “If I must stay overnight, I prefer to do it in my brother’s house.”
He frowned. “From what I’ve heard, a rat wouldn’t sleep there. The place has deteriorated badly since you left. So has your brother.”
Maggie left the dining room and made directly for the front door, her steps quickening in haste. Chase made no attempt to stop her as she left the house and descended the steps to the rental car. Maggie made the long drive to her brother’s in a numbed state, not sure what she’d find when she got there.
But Chase’s description hadn’t prepared her for the sight of the dilapidated buildings that looked ready to collapse with the first strong wind. It didn’t look as if there had been an attempt to repair anything in years. The house, her childhood home, looked abandoned.
It had never been much to begin with, but now windows were broken, half of the steps were gone, and the porch floor was rotted and partially caved in. Maggie gingerly picked her way to the door, standing open. The smell that greeted her was nauseatingly rotten. Covering her mouth, she took a cautious step inside. It was dark and dirty. She reached for the light switch by the door, but nothing happened. Cautiously, she moved sideways, feeling her way until she found a lamp. No light came on when she pulled its chain. There was no electricity in the house. Something scurried in the shadows and Maggie recoiled from the sound. This wasn’t a home; it was a pest-hole. She shuddered and retreated to the door, sickened because her brother lived in this.
Outside, she inhaled the blessed freshness of the air and looked around. The high heels she wore made an investigation of the other buildings impractical unless she wanted to risk twisting an ankle on the rough ground. She called her brother’s name, but didn’t expect an answer. She waited in the car for over an hour before she finally gave up. She didn’t want to be here when it got dark.
As she drove away, Maggie was appalled by the state of the house. First her mother, then she, had slaved to make it habitable, although neither her father nor brother had ever seemed to appreciate the effort. There were a few home truths to be faced about her family, but she wasn’t prepared to face them head-on just yet.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the cemetery and stopped the car to reverse it to the turn-in. Getting out of the car, Maggie climbed the grassy knoll and paused beside her mother’s grave. No conscious thought crossed her mind. A cold wind finally stirred her awareness of the lengthening shadow cast by the headstone. It was late and Ty would be returning soon.
Moving stiffly, she began descending the narrow pathway between the graves. The ground was fairly smooth, but she watched where she was walking until an inner sense warned her that she was being watched. Maggie paused, lifting her gaze.
A pickup was parked beside her car. Chase was leaning against the bed of the truck, smoking a slim cigarillo. Something told her that he had been waiting there a long time. Pushing away from the truck, he crushed the smoke under his heel and came forward to meet her. Without saying a word, he turned to walk beside her, curving a large hand under her elbow to support and guide her. Numb and somewhat robotlike, Maggie let him escort her to the truck.
The touch of his hand on her hip when he helped her inside the cab burned away her apathy. She turned her head to look at him. He stood in the doorway, one hand on the truck frame and the other holding the door. His look was quietly assessing and astute.
“It hasn’t been much of a homecoming for you, has it?” he murmured.
Gazing into that hard, virile face, Maggie was swept away by the memory of their days of joyful abandonment. She wanted to reach out and grab a piece of that careless joy she had once known, recapture the brilliant sunshine that had lightened her world. Something flickered in his eyes, as if he could read the thoughts in her expression. It brought her back to reality.
“Leave me alone.” Her voice was flat, dead.
With an indifferent lift of his shoulders, he closed the passenger’s door and walked around to climb behind the wheel. As he started the motor and began to turn onto the highway, Maggie noticed the rental car parked beside them.
“The car—” she began.
“I’ll send one of the boys to get it.”
As they drove through town, Maggie noticed the restaurant sign at the refurbished Jake’s Place. “When did Jake open a restaurant?”
“Jake sold the place four years ago. The new owner remodeled it into a restaurant.”
“Who owns it?” When there wasn’t an immediate answer to her question, she glanced at him, wondering if there was some significance to his hesitation.
“A woman named Sally Brogan.” He sounded preoccupied with other matters.
Maggie let the silence ride for a few miles. “What were you doing at the cemetery, waiting for me?”
“I saw your car parked there, so I stopped. I was on my way to your brother’s to get you. It crossed my mind that you just might be stubborn enough to stay there, and it isn’t a fit place for a lady.” He
let his gaze stray from the highway to briefly rest on her, skimming over her. “Yes, you did achieve your ambition of becoming a lady: elegant, sophisticated, contained, hardly a hair out of place.”
“You don’t sound impressed.” His tone had almost been insulting.
“Maybe I’m wondering if there’s anything left of the girl I knew, or whether she’s been polished out of existence.” He stared down the road, his head tipped to the side. “I remember one time when I got carried away while I was making love to you and got a little rough. You started nipping me—hard. When I complained, you told me that if I wanted to play rough, so would you.” Cynicism curled the corners of his mouth. “I wonder what you would do today. Yawn?”
Maggie turned away. For the rest of the drive she stared out the passenger’s window, her elbow resting on the windowframe and her fist pressed against her mouth.
That night at the dinner table, Maggie faced Chase across the length of the table, while Ty sat, symbolically, halfway between them on the right side. At the moment he was wearing a clean white shirt and dark dress pants, and looked like her son. But when he’d walked in the door that evening, he had seemed almost a stranger, outfitted in dusty Western garb. Initially, Ty had been ill at ease with her, aware that he had hurt her when he ran away, but when she failed to mention anything about it, he began to eagerly relate his adventures of the last two days. Chase sat complacently at the head of the table while Ty proved all his points, letting the boy’s enthusiasm beat at her.
Gradually, Maggie worked their California home into the conversation, mentioning Ty’s friends and the jumping horses he showed. His replies became briefer until he wasn’t talking at all. That’s when she began asking him directly if he was prepared to give up his friends, his home, his life in California.
“I’ll miss all that for a while,” Ty admitted and shifted uncomfortably in his chair before he continued. “Mom, I don’t want to hurt you. I know you want me to come back, but … I want to stay here.”
“You don’t want to hurt me, but you would, wouldn’t you?” Maggie realized. “If I insisted that you—”
“Don’t do it, Mom?” Ty requested tightly, his voice cracking with stress.
If her battle had been only with Chase, she would have fought tooth and nail for her son, but she couldn’t fight Ty, too. She knew when she was defeated. She began pushing the peas around on her plate with a fork.
“What would you say, Ty, if I told you that Chase and I have talked about getting married?” she asked, lifting her eyes as she felt the probing thrust of Chase’s gaze.
“Have you?” Ty asked warily, not committing himself until he knew if it was true.
“Yes,” she admitted and held the level gaze of the man at the head of the table, a mature Chase Calder, laconic and hard to fathom.
“Then we’d live here? Both of us?”
“Yes.” She nodded, continuing to return the steady regard of the brown eyes.
“Is that your answer, Maggie?” Chase asked coolly.
“It’s what my son wants,” she replied. “Yes, that is my answer.”
“I’ll get the marriage license and the minister. We’ll be married here at the house—with no fuss,” he said.
Chapter XXIX
The decision to stay and marry Chase left a multitude of loose ends in California. There was her resignation to be submitted as an executive of the charity organization. Arrangements had to be made to sell the show horses. Naturally, there were all her clothes and Ty’s, and their personal belongings, which had to be packed and shipped to the Triple C. That part was handled with a telephone call to her Aunt Cathleen. Her aunt was an incurable romantic, so she was delighted that Maggie was finally marrying the man who had fathered her child.
Pamela was another matter. First she was angrily incredulous when Maggie relayed her decision. Then she cried and pleaded with Maggie to reconsider and bring Ty back. Maggie was not about to confide in her sister-in-law and explain why she had no choice. Before the conversation ended, Pamela was livid, accusing Maggie of being unfaithful to Phillip’s memory—of never having loved him—marrying him only for his money, and threatening to go to court to have his will reversed, striking both Maggie and Ty from the list of beneficiaries. The vindictiveness of her sister-in-law was enough to convince her that she never wanted to go back.
After that conversation, Maggie had gone outside to walk off her anger. Chase was nowhere around, but then, he rarely was. With the spring roundup in full swing, he was usually gone from daybreak to dusk. She was past the barns and halfway to the bunkhouse before her steps finally slowed and she took the time to look around.
Her eye was caught by a clumsy-looking vehicle parked in front of one of the buildings ahead. It took a minute for her to recognize the motorized chuck-wagon for what it was. She strolled closer to look inside the mobile kitchen, complete with a butane cook-stove, refrigerator, and water tank. It had returned to the ranch headquarters to load up on supplies and fuel.
When a hulking figure emerged from a building, a bullet-shaped head was nearly hidden behind the fifty-pound potato sack carried on his shoulder. Maggie blinked at the man incredulously as a smile broke out across her face.
“Tucker!” she cried in delight. The cook swiveled his torso to see who had called his name. He stared at her blankly and she laughed. “It’s me! Maggie!”
He swung the sack to the ground as if it were a feather. “I heard you was back, but I wouldn’t have recognized you.” There was pride in the way he looked her over, taking in the chic hairstyle, the silver-gray designer blouse, and the slim-fitting black slacks. “Welcome home, Maggie.”
There was a crazy lump in her throat as she laughed again, this time softly. “Do you know you are the first person who has told me that?”
“I’m glad. I thought about ya and how ya were getting along,” he said. “I’ve seen your boy. Is he Chase’s son?”
“Yes.” She watched his reaction, remembering the respect he’d always shown her and wondering if this would change that.
“The boys say you’re going to marry him.”
“Yes.” He didn’t appear to pass judgment on her behavior those long years ago. Yet she felt obligated to explain to this man her reason for marrying Chase after what the Calders had done to her father. “I don’t have any choice. Ty is under his spell. If I don’t want to lose my son, I have to marry him so I can stay close to Ty.” She drew in a shaky breath and glanced toward the far horizon. “Have you seen Culley lately? I’ve been over to the ranch a couple of times, but he hasn’t been there and I—” She couldn’t finish the sentence, unable to express her reactions to the changes there.
“I know.” Tucker’s comment said she didn’t have to tell him. “Culley isn’t around there very much. It’s haunted for him. He should have left with you and not tried to keep the place. It was too much for a man, let alone a boy. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen—said the Calders had got to me.”
“He wrote to me that you were here, but I thought you would have left by now.” She looked at him, trying to understand why he had stayed. “They burned your place down. I would have thought you’d get out of this place as quickly as you could.”
“I thought Calder burned it. Maybe it was a grease fire, like they said.” He shrugged. “I’ve been treated fair here. And I’m my own boss. I guess Webb Calder put the fear of God in me. Chase still keeps a wary eye on me.”
“Then you have forgiven both of them for what they did to my father?” It seemed another betrayal.
“Haven’t you?” Tucker countered, with a slanting look of his small eyes.
“No.”
“Do you believe a son has to pay for the sins of his father?” When she started to answer, he interrupted her. “Be careful what you say, because if you’re going to make Chase pay for what his father did, don’t forget that your son’s father is Chase Calder.”
A tiny shockwave went through her, his words
reverberating in her mind—pay for the sins of his father. She was trembling inside, not certain why. There was a sudden confusion in her head that she couldn’t sort through. Her thoughts were all whirling too fast.
“Well—” Tucker hefted the potato sack onto his shoulder. “I gotta get to work. The boys will be hungry soon.” Then he paused. “I’ll get word to Culley that you want to see him.”
“Thanks, Tucker.” It was an almost absent reply as she turned to walk slowly toward The Homestead.
The wedding ceremony was quick and painless, held in the evening so it wouldn’t interfere with Chase’s work schedule. Ruth and Virgil Haskell acted as their witnesses. Ty was the only other one in attendance. There had been only one awkward moment, which occurred when it was time to exchange the plain gold wedding bands. Maggie had forgotten to remove the interlocking diamond solitaire wedding set that Phillip had given her. Looking back, she couldn’t be sure whether it was an oversight or subconscious design. Either way, when Chase saw them, his mouth had tightened as he deftly removed them and slipped them into his pocket, returning Phillip’s wedding band and ring to her after the ceremony. Later, his kiss had been cool and impersonal, hardly a kiss at all.
Afterward, Chase had fixed drinks in the den while the license was signed and witnessed. The minister had offered a toast to their future happiness together before leaving. The Haskells hadn’t lingered, and even Ty discreetly slipped away to leave them alone. Chase had promptly excused himself to finish some paperwork, leaving Maggie with the feeling that it had all been a farce.
What had she expected? Lying in the bed of the master suite, she stared at the moon patterns on the ceiling. Her ego was suffering. She had wanted to be the one who did the ignoring. She was disgusted with her childish reaction. What did it matter which of them set the mood of quiet civility?
She listened to his footsteps climbing the stairs to the top and the unhurried stride that carried him past her door without any hesitation. His bedroom was located in the northwest corner of the second floor. He had dryly pointed it out to her when he’d given her the master suite her first night. The door to his room opened and closed. Then there was silence.
