Calder Pride (Calder Saga 5)

Too furious to speak, Cat glared at him, but her anger left no mark on him. She recalled all her fine resolutions to control her feelings as he did. Pride and self-will surfaced, cooling her temper in an instant.

“I have no wish to defy you, Father, but I am going on the roundup,” she informed him, matching his direct tone. “Short of locking me in my room, you can’t stop me. And I wouldn’t advise you to try that, unless you want to see me crawling out of a second-story window.”

The change from blazing anger to cool control was so swift and so complete that it momentarily stunned Chase. But only a flicker of it showed in his eyes. For a long second, he studied this woman before him, clad in boots and hat and a cowboy’s long black duster, splattered with mud. Her dark hair was drawn loosely back from a face devoid of makeup. But her rough man’s clothing couldn’t disguise the womanliness of her or her natural beauty.

In so many ways, Cat was the image of her mother, but not in this. Maggie would have continued to storm and rage at him, and—more than likely—searched for something to throw at him. Now the smoothness of her expression and the steadiness of her gaze showed Chase that Cat was his daughter as well. She was a Calder. This was not a challenge; it was a statement of her intentions, issued as a Calder would do it.

Chase hadn’t thought it possible to love his daughter more than he already did. He saw now, he was wrong. The knowledge of it roughened his voice when he spoke, “If anything happened to you out there, Cat—” He left the rest of it unsaid.

“I understand.” And it showed in the soft curve of her lips and the sudden warmth in her eyes. “But I could as easily fall down the stairs as off a horse.”

There was no more discussion. She was going.

ELEVEN

The bawl of calves and the bellow of cows filled the wide hollow in the plains where encircling riders kept the herd bunched. The cattle were a cross of Hereford and Angus with enough longhorn thrown in to create a colorful patchwork of rust, black, roan, and brindle. At the far end of the hollow, ground crews waited by branding fires while other riders, working in pairs, walked their horses into the herd and separated the unbranded calves, their ropes snaking out swift and sure to ensnare hind legs and drag them gently to the fire.

Roundups on the ranch had been conducted in this manner for more than a hundred years. The cowboys of the Triple C wouldn’t have it any other way, showing the same disdain for holding pens and squeeze chutes that they did for rattlesnakes and politicians, insisting that the old way was faster and less stressful on man and beast. It was the same reason they gave for sleeping on the hard ground under a big, open sky—unless it rained. Then they grumbled, hunched their shoulders, and cursed the mud that sucked at the feet of anything that walked.

But the only clouds visible this morning were puffy white ones—the innocent kind that intensified the turquoise blue of the sky. Chase automatically scanned them and, just as automatically, brought his gaze back to the slight-built rider on the herd’s edge, one of the group that kept the cattle bunched for the roping teams. Cat seemed to be fine. She sat relaxed and easy in the saddle, yet fully balanced, ready to turn back any animal that tried to break from the herd. Her black duster was tied behind the saddle, not needed on this warm spring morning. The flannel shirt she wore, of green and black plaid, hung loose, drawing no attention to the small, round belly it covered.

Reassured once more, Chase shifted his weight in the saddle, seeking a more comfortable position, the leather creaking a little, his teeth clenched against the sharp and almost constant arthritic pain in his back and hips, resulting from the injuries he suffered in the plane crash that had taken Maggie’s life. He knew he was lucky even to be able to sit a horse. But two hours in the saddle and he was more stove up than a man half again his age. Judging by the grinding ache, he had almost reached that limit.

He gathered up the chestnut’s reins, thinking to ride back to the motorized cookshack, have some coffee, and stretch the kinks out of his back and legs. The drowsing chestnut, a veteran

of countless roundups, heaved a weary sigh of resignation and lifted its head, then paused and swiveled its ears in the direction of an approaching rider. Chase saw him as well and let his hands settle back on the saddle horn when he recognized his son. Ty cantered his horse the last few yards up the sloping side of the grassy bowl and reined in alongside Chase.

“How’s Cat?” Ty pushed his hat back and rested a forearm on his saddle horn while his gaze skimmed the other riders, circling the herd until finally locating his sister.

“She seems to be fine.”

Ty watched her a moment. “The boys aren’t too happy about her being here.”

“Neither am I,” Chase replied, then added somewhat grudgingly, “At the same time, I have to admire her for what she’s doing.”

Ty nodded with equal reluctance. “She set out to pull her own weight and prove how tough she is, and she’s certainly doing that. Although why she is, I don’t know.”

“Because toughness is a quality men respect out here, and Cat knows that.”

“Not in women.”

“In women, too,” Chase stated, with a decisive nod. “We just don’t want them to be less of a woman because of it. That makes for a fine line to walk.”

“A very fine line,” Ty agreed dryly.

Chase smiled at that. “We have always expected more from women—set higher standards for them than we ourselves are willing to meet. It isn’t fair, but it’s a fact.”

“I guess you’re right.” A freshly branded calf, sporting a shiny new ear tag, ran toward the herd, bawling for its mother. Idly Ty observed the reunion. “Arch tells me we’ve got about twenty head of Shamrock cattle in our gather.”

“Sounds like O’Rourke is up to his old tricks of wintering his cows on Calder grass,” Chase remarked in a voice arid with disapproval.

“Probably couldn’t afford the hay to feed them,” Ty guessed. “I swear I don’t know how he makes a living off that ranch.”

“He doesn’t need much, just enough to pay property taxes and put food on his table. He certainly doesn’t spend anything on keeping the place up.” Which was another strike against him, in Chase’s book.

“That’s true enough.” Straightening in the saddle, Ty cast a searching glance toward the cookshack. “I’m surprised he hasn’t shown up here yet, as close an eye as he keeps on Cat.”

“More than likely he’ll ride in around noon—in time to eat.”