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“If I listened to you, in three years you’d come up with some other reason why he should wait. No. I won’t do it.” Her head shook firmly, her eyes glittering with defiance. “If he goes to college, I want him to start with this fall’s term.”
“Maggie—”
“Four years ago, you gave me your word that when the time came, you would abide by Ty’s decision about college. I’m going to hold you to that,” she stated.
Chase reared his head back, breathing in deeply and holding it. His grim visage was hard and impenetrable. There was a rawness in the air, a tension almost palpable.
“You know damned well I keep my promises,” he roughly informed her. “And I’ll keep that one, too. But if he goes to college”—Chase put the emphasis on the if—“it will be here in Montana, not fifteen hundred miles away.”
“It will be his decision.” Maggie refused to give ground even on that point and rescued the envelope from his crumpling grasp.
“Don’t try to influence that decision, Maggie,” Chase warned.
“And don’t you try to influence him either,” she flashed. “You know that he regards you as some sort of god. It would only take a word from you, Chase. Please, don’t say it.” It was her own form of warning.
The split was there. Either way the ax fell, it would be there. Chase swung away, his long, loping stride carrying him to the front door. Maggie winced as he slammed out of the house.
When Ty entered the dining room that evening, he knew something was wrong. The atmosphere seethed with tension and the silence was heavy. He paused a minute, studying the man and woman so steadfastly avoiding each other’s gaze. He had a pretty good idea that this had something to do with the letter he’d found lying on top of his dresser when he’d gone to his room to clean up for dinner.
At Ty’s approach, Maggie looked up and watched her son walk to his chair at the table. Broad-shouldered and firmly muscled, he had grown to a height well over six feet. The slow, swivel-hipped walk peculiar to cowboys had become natural to him. And his sun-browned face had acquired that leathery texture that came from long hours outdoors in the sun and the wind. His features, still showing the freshness of manhood, had the Calder look about them, raw strength in their hard-boned structure.
“Where is Chatty Cathie?” Ty pulled out his chair and sat down.
His baby sister had been born during troubled times for him. For a while, he had envied the absence of discipline given her, and had even been a little jealous of the affection his father had displayed so openly to this newest member of the family. But the jabbering tyke had a way of growing on a person. Affection had eventually replaced his resentment.
“Your father took her with him this afternoon, so she didn’t have a nap,” his mother replied and began ladling creamed asparagus soup from the tureen. “She was so cranky and tired I fixed her an early supper and put her to bed.”
Even as the bowls of soup were passed, the oppressive tension persisted. It clung to the edges of the idle conversation his parents exchanged. Both were trying to act normally in front of him, but the falseness was apparent to him.
This moment had been coming for a long time. Nothing was going to make it easier. If he had learned anything in his life, it was that postponing something unpleasant didn’t make it go away. Ty let his spoon settle to the bottom of his soup bowl.
“I had a letter from the University of Texas today.” His voice sounded level and calm, but a hush fell over the room, as if someone had walked in with a loaded gun. “I’ve been accepted there this fall.”
“We . . . saw the letter and wondered what it said,” his mother admitted as her glance ricocheted off his father’s face.
Ty’s glance moved over both of them, fully aware they were poles apart on this issue, which put him awkwardly in the middle.
“I know you’ve always wanted me to go to college, Mom,” Ty admitted. “It’s always been very important to you.” There was little expression on his father’s face, except for a twitch in the muscle running along his jaw when Ty addressed him. “You told me once that I had a helluva lot to learn if I expected to run this ranch someday. At the time I didn’t realize how much. But even if I learned for a lifetime, there are men here on this ranch that would always know more than I do.”
“I’m glad you realize that,” his father murmured in satisfaction.
“I think some of them were born knowing it.” There was a faintly wry twist of his mouth as he expelled a long breath. “I’ve thought about this a lot before I got that letter today. I’ll never know as much about ranching and cattle and this land as most of the men on the Triple C. Since I can’t, I’ve decided that I should learn things they don’t know. I’m going to enroll at the University of Texas this September.”
“That’s your decision?” his father asked in an unbearably flat tone.
Ty wondered if his father realized how difficult it had been for him to reach that decision. He fought the feeling that he was letting his father down, because he felt his decision was the right one even if his father didn’t. So it was with a grim determination that Ty met his father’s hard look.
“Yes, that’s my decision,” he stated and managed not to let his gaze falter under the probing eyes of his father.
Then Chase looked away. “Pass me that basket of crackers, Maggie.” With the terse request, he closed the subject to further discussion. Wisely, his mother had not voiced her approval of Ty’s decision. It would have only increased the feeling of estrangement at the table.
After dinner was finished, his father didn’t linger over coffee, as was his custom. Ty listened to the footsteps advancing toward the den and pushed his chair away from the table to follow him.
“Ty.” His mother made a quick protest.
He paused short of the door and turned. “I’ve got to talk to him.” Ty couldn’t stand the silence that had come between them. His father’s acceptance was too important to him.
His mother’s expression told him she disagreed, but she only cautioned him, “Don’t let him talk you out of going.”
