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Looking back, he knew now that he had never truly loved Tara, his first wife. He had been so dazzled by her dark beauty, he had mistaken infatuation for love and completely ignored the fact that they shared neither the same values nor the same loyalties—until Jessy opened his eyes.
“Later, I want to run into Blue Moon and take a look at the pickup,” Chase said. “According to the highway patrol, it was totaled.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ty said, then something—some movement, some whisper of sound, pulled his glance to the side hall that ultimately led to the rear of the house.
A lanky, dark-eyed man with metal-gray hair stood in the hall’s shadows two steps back from the arched opening to the living room. Culley O’Rourke had a coyote’s stealth, always somewhere around but rarely showing himself. And when he did, he was always silent, like now.
“Hello, Culley.” Although the man was his mother’s brother, Ty had never felt comfortable enough with Culley to address him as his uncle. He still remembered when Culley’s hatred toward the Calders had been all-consuming. Even now, after twenty years, it made him wary of trusting Culley too much.
“I heard the plane.” Culley fingered the brim of the battered hat in his hands, his sharp gaze darting between the two men. “Where is Cat? Didn’t she come home with you?”
“Yes. She’s upstairs in her room.” Whatever personal doubts he had about Culley O’Rourke, Ty never doubted that he adored Cat as much as he had once adored Ty’s mother.
“I’d like to see her.” He looked directly at Chase.
“I don’t know if you heard that Repp was—”
Culley cut in before the sentence was finished. “I heard about the boy dying. I’d like to see Cat,” he repeated.
“Go ahead.” Chase granted the request.
Without another word, Culley crossed the room on silent feet, skirting the area where they sat and heading straight for the oak staircase. No one had to tell him the location of Cat’s room, even though he’d been in the house no more than a dozen times in his life.
He had long ago figured out which of the bedrooms belonged to Cat, and spent many a night watching for a light to shine from its window. He didn’t take lightly the vow he had made at the foot of Maggie’s grave to look after her daughter and keep her safe from harm.
Unerringly he stopped outside her bedroom, hesitated, then rapped lightly on it and waited. But no sound came from inside. Concern for the girl who was his sister’s image overrode any further hesitation. He gave the doorknob a turn, found it wasn’t locked and opened it far enough to slip inside.
The bedroom was bright and young-girl feminine with floral-patterned wallpaper in tones of mauve, pink, and green. But Culley didn’t notice it or the wide ruffles that ringed its old-fashioned vanity table. His gaze went straight to the dark-haired woman standing at the window. She was motionless, her arms hugging her elbows and her face in profile, her gaze fixed in a sightless stare at the world outside.
He studied her for a long minute, seeing again the strong resemblance to his sister and recalling the time their father had been killed. Maggie’s face had been just as deathly pale as Cat’s was now, and her green eyes had burned with the same bottomless pain that no amount of tears could ease.
Culley had thought she was unaware of his presence. Then Cat spoke. “Repp is dead. Did they tell you?” she asked in a voice completely devoid of emotion.
“I knew.” Culley walked over to her. He longed to hold her and ease some of her suffering. But he had lived too many years without that kind of contact. Made self-conscious by the sudden wish to offer it now, he kept his hands at his side. “You’re hurtin’ bad, but in time, it’ll get better. I swear it will, Cat.”
Time. Cat almost laughed at him, but she didn’t. There would have been too much bitterness in the sound, and she knew her uncle had offered the empty platitude out of a sincere desire to console her. She nodded and kept silent.
“I wish there was something I could do,” he said after a moment.
She caught the note of anguish in his voice. “Thank you, but there is nothing anyone can do.”
As she continued to gaze out the window, she noticed a movement below. Focusing on it, she saw her father and Ty walking to the ranch pickup. They climbed into the cab, with Ty sliding behind the wheel. A moment later, the vehicle reversed away from the house. Cat half expected to see the truck head either toward the barns or toward the Taylor house. Instead it swung onto the road that led to the cast gate.
“I wonder where they’re going.” She frowned.
“Who?” Culley stepped closer to the window.
“Dad and Ty.”
He spotted the pickup traveling down the east road. “Probably headed for town. They were talking about seeing how bad the truck was wrecked.”
Culley had already seen it. Knowing that Cat was coming home, he had slipped into town early that morning to pick up some chocolate doughnuts and brownies to have on hand in case she came to see him. He had just pulled up to Fedderson’s convenience store when the tow truck arrived with the wrecked pickup. His sharp eyes had instantly spotted the Triple C brand stenciled on the vehicle’s passenger door. One look at the rest of the smashed and mangled cab told him no one could have survived the crash.
For a fleeting moment, he had thought Chase Calder might finally be dead. Although he was no longer gripped by hatred for the man, Culley would have felt no regret at his passing, only sorrow for the grief it would have caused Cat. But he had quickly learned Repp Taylor had been behind the wheel, the man Cat loved—something Culley had never quite understood, believing as he did that she deserved better.
“The pickup was totaled,” he told Cat. “Ain’t nothin’ left of the cab but a bunch of twisted steel and crumpled metal.” A low, horrible moan came from her as she wheeled from the window, eyes tightly closed against the grisly image. Culley realized what he’d done and hurried to rectify it. “It had to have killed him outright, Cat, without ever feeling nothing, without even knowing what hit him. You’ve got to think of it that way.”
“I wish I couldn’t think at all.” Her voice was little more than a thready whisper.
