Calder Born, Calder Bred (Calder Saga 4)

Maggie sat stiffly on the edge of the sofa. “I’m not going to let you go back there.”

There was a sad smile on his face. “If I stayed here, what would I do with myself? Sit around. I might as well be in the hospital. I need to work at something that’s my own. The doctors call it therapy.”

“I don’t care what they call it.”

“Do you have a ranch?” Cathleen was intrigued by the discovery.

“Yes. It’s called the Shamrock Ranch.”

“Is it as big as ours?”

“No. I don’t think there’s anything as big as the Triple C,” admitted O’Rourke.

“I’ll bet you wish it was,” she stated.

“No, I don’t think so, because I’d always have to worry about someone trying to steal part of it from me. Now, my ranch is so small, no one would bother trying to steal it,” he explained.

“You can’t make a living off of it,” Maggie reminded him. “If it’s work you want, Chase can hire you to work here.”

“Let Culley decide for himself what he wants, Maggie,” Chase advised quietly.

“But he isn’t—” She didn’t finish the sentence, stopping gui

ltily and looking apologetically at her brother.

“I’m not well enough. Is that what you were going to say?” he asked.

“Culley, I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean it that way. It’s just that it’s been a long time since you’ve done physical labor. You’re older and—”

“I want to go home, Maggie.”

Chase took the matter out of her hands, knowing she would never agree. “We’ll drive you over to the ranch tomorrow morning. In the meantime, you’ll stay the night with us.”

“Is your ranch far away? Can I come visit you sometime?” Cathleen wanted to know.

“We’re practically next-door neighbors. You can come see me any time you want.” Too long deprived of it, he seemed to feed on Cathleen’s blithe innocence and ready attention.

“He sure has changed,” Ty remarked idly and lit a cigarette. O’Rourke was upstairs, washing up before dinner.

“So it seems,” his father murmured, but he appeared contemplative. “Just the same, I don’t want your mother or Cathleen alone in the house with him. So I want you to stay here tonight while I drive up to the north camp and let Arch Goodman know that O’Rourke’s moving into the Shamrock.”

“Why?” Ty questioned the order. “The doctors released him, so they must be convinced he’s harmless.”

“No one and nothing is harmless, Ty.” Dryness rustled through his voice. “There could be two reasons why he doesn’t want to live here. One, he could know that the past can be forgiven, but rarely is it forgotten. The thought might have choked him to sleep under a Calder roof, eat Calder food, and drink Calder water. Two, he might be smart enough to know I’d have someone watching him all the time.”

“Don’t you trust him?”

“I’m just being cautious,” his father said. “He’s going to need help making that shack habitable again, so I want you to give him a hand.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because I thought you might like to get off by yourself for a couple of weeks.” No response was expected, and Ty didn’t offer one. But it was true he needed time alone to come to terms with the broken engagement to Tara. And he suspected O’Rourke would keep pretty much to himself, so it would be the same as being alone. “We’ve been running Shamrock cattle on our graze, so I want to let Arch know he’ll have to plan on separating them from our herd. O’Rourke never had much for saddle stock, so we’ll see what we can spare as soon as he’s got a corral built to hold them. He’ll need tools, lumber, provisions.”

“He’s bound to know all this is coming from us,” Ty pointed out. “What if he won’t accept it?”

“He’ll accept it. He’s an O’Rourke, so he’ll consider it his due.”

The last of the cows carrying the Shamrock brand was separated from the herd and driven into a smaller holding pen. Jessy swung her sock-legged sorrel away from the gate as one of the ground men clanged it shut behind the animal. She pulled off her hat and wiped the sweat from her brow on a sleeve, then pushed the hat back onto her head. The sorrel gelding blew out a rolling snort, clearing the pen dust from its nostrils, and pricked its ears at the main body of the north herd being urged out the gate to scatter and graze. A confused calf darted the wrong way, and Jessy waved her coiled rope at him to chase him back with the herd.