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“Where are you heading now?”
Ty paused, gathering the effort to answer. “I’m going to swing past the camp at Juliana and check on things there on my way up to the north camp.”
“To see Jessy Niles?”
Ty’s spine stiffened. He looked hard and direct at his fatter. “Arch has been having problems with the generator. I’ve got a crew up there, repairing it.”
“Then stop by Jessy’s place for coffee on your way home. Isn’t that the routine?” Again that level tone, speaking calmly and saying volumes.
“Since Jessy has pulled the day shift and will be working at the calving sheds when I leave there, I’m not likely to stop by her cabin.” Ty responded indirectly to the implied charge, neither confirming nor denying it.
“You’re very familiar with her hours, aren’t you?” his father challenged, closely observing Ty’s reactions. “I’ve never made it a practice to pry into your personal affairs.”
His temper frayed. “Then butt out of them now!” It exploded from him in a low rush, the anger barely checked.
“This talk about you and Jessy has gone too for when it’s reached me,” his father stated. “There’s never this much smoke without some fire somewhere. You’ve made your bed, Ty. You’re a married man. You’ve made promises to your wife, and you’re going to keep them. I don’t care how much of this is smoke and how much is fire. Just stay away from Jessy Niles. I won’t tolerate any cheating.”
“My God, that’s the pot calling the kettle black!” Rage vibrated inside him at the righteous-sounding order. “Don’t do as I do, do as I say—is that it?”
“You’d better explain yourself,” his father warned.
“I’ll explain myself, all right,” Ty promised in a rough-pitched voice. “In two words—Sally Brogan. Or don’t you recall all those times you spent with her cheating on your wife?”
The backhanded swing of his father’s gloved hand struck him full on the cheek, and Ty staggered backwards to crash against the upright posts of the stall. His hand was at his jaw, working it, while he glared at his father. Anger and resentment smoldered hotly in his blood. It drove him from the stall in a headlong charge that took both of them to the floor of the foaling barn, threshing and scuffling about like two giants locked in mortal combat, one in the prime of his manhood and the other wisened in battle.
Shouts came from some other part of the barn, followed by the thudding of running feet. A pair of hands grabbed at Ty, then two more, pulling and tugging. His blurred vision began to register other forms, stablehands getting into the fray to break it up and forcibly separate the two men.
Sanity returned slowly to him, and with it bitter remorse. His lungs dragged in air as Ty stopped struggling in the grip of the two men who held him. His lip was cut and bleeding slightly. He wiped at it with his glove, licking the inside with his tongue, while he glanced watchfully at his father. The older Calder shrugged off the hands with an impatient lift of his shoulders. He, too, was breathing hard and steadily eyeing his son. Then he looked around at the stablehands.
“Leave us,” he ordered in a rough, winded voice.
There was an uneasy shifting of feet and exchanged glances before the men began a slow exodus from the scene of the fight. They were well away before either man moved or broke the heavy silence.
“Sally Brogan is a friend.” A gloved finger was aimed at Ty to stab home his point. “Don’t ever suggest again that I have been unfaithful to your mother. Sally was a friend when I needed one. And there was never anything more than that.”
“I thought . . .” But it didn’t matter what he thought, so Ty didn’t finish the sentence. Reaching down, he scooped up his hat that had been knocked off in the scuffle and slapped it against his thigh to throw off the wisps of straw it had collected. Then he jammed it low on his head, tilting his head back slightly to meet his father’s look. “I guess I was wrong,” he admitted grudgingly.
“You sure as hell were.” The force remained in his words, but there was a faint gentling of his father’s stern expression. “You don’t handle yourself too bad in a fight.”
The near compliment seemed to break through the constraint. Ty came close to smiling, but the cut on his lip made him wince from the pulling action. “For an old man, you don’t do too badly yourself.” He pressed a finger at the cut, testing the degree of pain it inflicted, and winced again.
There was a slight pause, then: “About Jessy—”
“Don’t ask.” Ty shook his head. Right now, she was a kind of anchor for him, steady and calm, and he needed that.
“You’re not fair to her,” his father said. “You can only afford to have one mistress outside your marriage, ify. And that mistress is the land. She’ll give you all the satisfaction, and heartache, that you can handle.”
They walked from the foaling barn together, long stride matching long stride. The stablehands watched
and nodded approvingly to one another, their own anxieties eased now that the rift had been healed and there was harmony again between the head and heart of the Triple C Ranch.
Outside the barn, they parted to go their separate ways. “Let Tara know I’ll be home tonight in time for dinner,” Ty said and lifted a hand. “Have a good trip.”
The sleek, fast single-engine aircraft made a banking turn and headed west into the gray gloom of a low overcast. The drone of its motor penetrated the walls and windows of the rebuilt house. Culley heard it and paused in the act of slicing a slab of roasted beef to combine a late lunch with an early supper. His keen senses recognized the sound of that motor. Leaving the half-sliced meat, he walked to the back door and stepped outside.
He looked up, searching the iron-gray sky. Finally he spied the plane, its markings barely visible at this distance. It was Calder’s plane, all right. Once he’d sighted the plane, a certain indifference came over him. He turned and walked back into the house.
It wasn’t until he’d set his plate down on the freshly laundered tablecloth that a thought started nagging him. He thrashed on it through the silent meal, cleaned and dried his dishes, then hauled out of the house and caught up a horse from the corral to saddle it.
