Calder Born, Calder Bred (Calder Saga 4)

The man who walked through the door with his mother seemed a shy shadow of the man Ty remembered. His shoulders appeared permanently bowed in a protective hunch, and the lank black hair that had covered his head was now shot full of gray. He wasn’t as thin as Ty’s image of him, but the added weight gave him a soft, puffy look—or maybe it was the paleness of his white skin, so long shut away from sunlight. The nervousness, the hair-trigger energy that always seemed poised on the edge of violence, was gone. There was something subdued about the way he allowed himself to be guided into the living room.

A look of surprise flashed across his mother’s face when she saw him standing behind Cathleen, but she didn’t question his unexpected presence. That would come later. At the moment, her chief concern was to smooth the path for her brother’s return to the world. There was tension on both sides.

“Hello, Culley.” His father spoke first, neither offering false words of welcome nor offering to shake hands.

“Hello.” His head bobbed in an abrupt acknowledgment.

Ty noticed how blank O’Rourke’s eyes were, as if he were trying to shut out the identity of the man he greeted. His mother didn’t press for more conversation than that, instead directing her brother’s attention to him.

“This is Ty,” she said in a bright and reassuring tone. “He’s grown so much since the last time you saw him that you probably don’t recognize him.”

“He’s taller, older—but I recognize him.” His voice was clear and steady, hesitating only in its choice of words. While those shuttered eyes picked out the things he remembered about Ty, Ty was reminded of the old, grizzled man in the pickup truck who had remarked that Ty had the look of a Calder. “Hello, Ty.”

“Hello, Culley,” he returned and kept both hands on his sister’s shoulders, like his father not offering to shake.

Cathleen twisted her head around to look up at him and hiss a correction. “You’re supposed to call him Uncle Culley.”

A dim sparkle appeared in the flat eyes as they fell to the little girl. O’Rourke crouched down, letting one knee touch the floor.

“You must be Cathleen.” There was a softening that came to his mouth, almost a smile.

“Hello, Uncle Culley.” Cathleen did not feel bound by the reticence of her father or brother. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. Mommy said you were sick for a long time. It isn’t fun being sick.”

“No, it isn’t.” The innocent reference to his prolonged illness did not seem to bother him. Uncertainly, O’Rourke reached out and gently curled a hand under her fingers, being very careful, as if she were made of fragile bone china. There was something wondering about the gesture, hinting that it might have been a long time since he had touched another human, especially a child. “You are very pretty.”

“Do you like my dress?” Cathleen took her hand away to hold out both sides of her green underskirt to show him. “I wore it for you. I would have worn it for Ty, but I didn’t know he was coming home today. We got cookies. Would you like some?”

“I think that’s a good idea, Cathleen.” Maggie smiled, silently pleased at how much her daughter had achieved with her chatter. Her brother had been so ill at ease, watching everything he said so carefully. Culley had been used to his own company so long he had never learned how to relate. “Why don’t we all sit down?” Maggie suggested, then said to Ruth, “Would you have Audra bring us some coffee and a plate of cookies?”

Over coffee, O’Rourke gradually started to loosen up, and Ty observed the slow emergence of the gray-haired man, old yet only in his early forties. Some of his initial impressions remained, but some altered.

“Wait until you see the room Mommy and I fixed for you,” Cathleen declared. “Want me to show it to you?”

“You can take him upstairs a little later,” Maggie inserted.

“It’s nice,” she promised. “You have your own radio, and a big chair, magazines, and everything. And it will be your room forever and ever.”

Something flickered across his pale face, and he turned to look at Maggie, who sat on the sofa beside him. “Is something wrong, Culley?” she asked.

“Is this what you meant when you said you were taking me home?” he asked.

“Yes.” She was puzzled by his question. “As Cathleen said, we have a room all fixed up for you—your own private place where you can be by yourself if you want or—”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to stay here, Maggie.” He swung a level glance at Chase. “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Culley, I want this to become your home, too,” Maggie insisted and appealed to her husband to support her. “Chase and I talked it over and he agreed that you could stay here with us.”

“I. . . appreciate that,” Culley nodded, “but—it wouldn’t work.”

“Where else can you go?”

“Where I thought you were taking me—home to Shamrock,” he said simply.

“But no one’s lived in that old house for years,” she protested. “There isn’t any heat or lights . . . there hasn’t been for seven years. You can’t go there.”

“I can fix it up—at least one room of it. Maggie, that’s where I belong. I don’t belong here.” He looked around the big mansion-sized house. “There’s too many rooms—too many people coming in and out.”