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“That was no damned reason to hit me,” he muttered and gripped the open truck door to steady himself, wiping at his bloodied lip again. Then he pushed off, weaving toward the front steps with a staggering stride.
“You could say thanks,” Jessy shot out. “I did get you home in one piece.” Which was more than she could say for herself.
Ty stopped with one foot on the steps, his tongue loosened by the beer he’d consumed. “I could have driven home by myself.” He resented being beholden to the tall, self-sufficient girl. “Why don’t you wait until someone asks you for help instead of always buttin’ your nose in where it isn’t wanted? I never asked for your help—an’ I never wanted it.” In a sober moment, he would have been more tolerant of her solicitous actions on his behalf.
Jessy paled at this rejection of all she had ever done for him. But she had been schooled by the most poker-faced cowboys in the outfit not to let her feelings show in her face. Only the whitening of her flesh revealed that his words had made any effect at all.
In a pain-choked silence, she watched him start up the steps, trip on the edge of one, and stumble forward, cracking his knee and knocking himself sideways to land hard on one hip. Cursing savagely, Ty attempted to get his feet under him again, but they kept getting tangled. He was on all fours, trying to walk and climb up the steps all at the same time.
The ludicrous sight of him, clambering like a drunken fool, pulled Jessy to the steps. Her hands were rigidly clamped to her hips, refusing to make any gesture of help. His momentary shock of sobriety was wearing off. When Ty saw her standing at the foot of the steps watching him struggle, he flared in drunken irritation.
“Dammit, give me a hand,” he snapped or tried to, but it came out with slurring force.
Smiling thinly, Jessy went up three steps and reached down to help him up. “It’s a pity your precious Tara isn’t here to see you like this.” She didn’t check the bitterness that curled through her voice.
“Tara.” Ty looked around, as if expecting to see her appear. “I thought she was here.” His head swung around to Jessy as he leaned heavily on her shoulders to negotiate the steps. “Wasn’t she here?”
“No.” It was a hard, flat answer.
A melancholia seemed to droop itself over him. “No. She had a date tonight. . . with somebody else. Always with somebody else.” He was muttering to himself, unmindful that he was speaking aloud, or that Jessy could hear. “I must be drunk. It seemed ... so real.”
Jessy walked him across the wide porch to the front door, laboring slightly under the increasing weight on her shoulders. Listening to him and knowing what she knew, it hurt bitterly.
The front door was unlocked. With a kick of her foot, Jessy pushed the solid-core door to swing inward, then tried to squeeze sideways through the opening with Ty. He bumped a shoulder against the door’s twin and careened off it. Unbalanced, he went staggering loudly into the foyer, dragging Jessy with him. It was several feet before she managed to dig her heels in and check their forward rush.
“You bumbling idiot!”
“I’m so damned tired,” Ty mumbled, then turned to look at her, his tall body swaying as he pressed a silencing finger to his lips. “Mustn’t wake Cathleen.”
A light came on upstairs, throwing a track of light down the stairwell that opened to the living room. Chase Calder came down the steps and paused on the landing to survey the scene. He hadn’t bothered to button his shirt or tuck its tails inside his pants. As he came down the last flight of steps and approached them, his craggy face was creased with puffy sleep lines. A hoary frost silvered the mat of hair on his chest, although this sign of graying hadn’t yet reached his thick head of hair.
His disapproving glance slid off Ty to center on Jessy. “What happened?” Without pausing, he alleviated Jessy’s burden by hooking one of Ty’s arms around his neck and supporting him with an arm around his middle.
“He was too drunk to drive himself home from Sally’s, so I brought him.” She did not explain why she had volunteered instead of allowing one of the Triple C cowboys to bring him.
It seemed to take Ty several seconds to realize what had happened. “Well, if it isn’t the mighty Chase Calder.” He swayed backwards as if trying to bring his father into focus.
“That will be enough, Ty.” He gave his son a hard, impatient look, then turned to Jessy to ask her something, but he was interrupted before he had a chance to speak.
“What’s the matter?” Ty demanded. “Did I break some precious code of yours by getting drunk? I suppose a Calder isn’t supposed to get drunk and have fun. He’s got to be a man and hold his liquor.” He made a mockery of standing up straight and tall.
“You’re drunk,” Chase stated flatly.
“Yeah?” The response was a taunting challenge. “You ain’t so almighty righteous yourself.”
Jessy glimpsed movement on the stai
rcase. Ty’s mother was silently gliding down the steps, hurriedly belting her robe. “Chase, what is it? Is Ty all right?”
The sound of her voice brought an instant change in Ty’s attitude. The belligerence disappeared without a trace as he turned his head to watch her approach, a slack smile curving his mouth.
“He’s fine.”
“Don’t worry about me, Mom,” Ty inserted. “I’m just a little drunk.”
“I was just going to get him up to bed,” Chase said and nodded his head in Jessy’s direction. “Make sure Jessy has a way to get home.”
Maggie Calder glanced uncertainly after her husband and son before she looked back at Jessy. “I’ll drive home in Ty’s pickup and have someone bring it back in the morning,” Jessy stated.
