“It’s time somebody did.” His voice lifted.
“Well, it isn’t going to be you!”
“I’m telling you to stay away from them,” Repp ordered again.
“No!” It was an angry refusal as she pivoted on her heel to stride away.
“You haven’t proved anything! If you go on, all you’re going to do is get yourself into trouble!” Angered by her stubborn disregard for his w
arnings, Repp refused to trail after her.
Cat paused long enough to hurl a salvo back at him. “Then that’s my problem, isn’t it? I don’t need any help from you!”
Snatches of their argument were carried on the lazy stillness of the afternoon air, but only one person was listening closely to the content. Dyson came around the car to stand beside Stricklin, both watching as Cathleen hurried to catch up with the others just cresting the knoll to the driveway.
“A lovers’ spat,” Dyson murmured in an amused aside to his partner.
“So it would seem,” Stricklin agreed. No more was said on the matter as the party reached them and the talk became taken up with greetings and social banalities. In a loose collection, they moved toward The Homestead. Stricklin lagged behind to follow Cat into the house. “I hope the quarrel with your boyfriend wasn’t a serious one,” he murmured.
She paused, briefly surveying him with a cool and assessing eye. “I wouldn’t let it concern you, Mr. Stricklin,” she replied coldly, disliking his probing into her private affairs. Instead of joining the others for the refreshments awaiting their return, Cat went straight upstairs to her room, nursing her hurt and wounded outrage at Repp’s criticism of her behavior.
The silence of the house pressed into the room. A pitch blackness outside made mirrors of the windowpanes in the study. Ty laid down his pen and wearily rested his elbows on the desktop to try to rub the tiredness out of his face and eyes. Then he paused, a hand covering his mouth and mustache, to stare at the summer-cold hearth of the stone fireplace. A fatigue that was both mental and physical pulled at him. Too many pressures from too many sides were crowding in on him, making him long for the contentment of other times. In his mind, Ty could see the leap of yellow flames on fireplace logs, and Jessy—the strong beauty of her features and that waiting look in her eyes. He ached to feel again that powerful, gentle emotion she aroused in him. It was no hot, fevered aching. It ran deeper than that.
“Ty?” The soft sound of his name was an intrusion. He looked to the source of it with a hard frown. Tara glided into the study, the thin silk of her cranberry robe and nightgown making whispering sounds as she walked. “It’s after one o’clock. I think you’ve worked late enough for one night.”
He pushed his arms off the desktop to glance at his watch, confirming the lateness of the hour. The tired lines in his face remained etched in a frown.
“I don’t have much to finish.” But he felt like neither working nor sleeping.
“It can wait,” Tara insisted and came around the desk to turn his swivel chair away from the paperwork. As he leaned back, she made a graceful half turn and slid onto his lap. Ty experienced conflicting reactions—a trace of impatience countering a silent appreciation of her beauty. She combed her fingers into his hair. “When I came in just now, you seemed to be mentally wrestling with some important problem. What were you thinking about?” Tara inquired in idle curiosity.
“The ranch,” he lied while he breathed in the perfumed scent of her body, conscious of the desires her physical presence was stirring.
“I wish you’d let Daddy help.” Quickly, she added, “But it’s your decision and we aren’t going to discuss it tonight.”
When her left hand came down to rest lightly on his chest, Ty caught the diamond glitter around the black opal of her engagement ring. It reminded him of the fevered anticipation he’d felt when he’d selected the mounting—years ago, it seemed. He held her hand, lightly fingering the ring and thinking of all it signified.
“Are you happy, Tara?” There was something troubled beneath his seemingly absent inquiry, a sense of knowing he hadn’t found what he’d been seeking with this ring and wondering if she had.
“I’ve never been happier.” There was an underlying fervency in her voice. “It’s all turning out just the way I hoped it would.” An avid light gleamed in her dark eyes, so confident and sure. “I know right now you’re having business problems. Your father left the ranch in such a financial mess. But we’ll work out of them. You already know there’s a way to solve them,” she said, carefully alluding to her father’s proposal. “I know you’re anguishing over the decision, but you’ll make the right one. Then you’ll see how wonderful it’s all going to be.”
“Yes.” But there was a lack of enthusiasm in his reply.
“You don’t sound very happy,” Tara chided him lightly.
“I haven’t had very much to be happy about lately.” Ty shrugged and continued to hold her ring hand, his thumb running over the smooth surface of the midnight-colored opal. It seemed to hold his attention more than their conversation. “What was wrong with Cat? She appeared very moody at the dinner table tonight.”
“She had some silly quarrel with Repp.” Tara dismissed it as unimportant. “So now she’s sulking. I’ve arranged for all of us to go riding tomorrow, late in the afternoon. Now she insists she isn’t going because she wants to visit that crazy uncle of yours instead. I don’t think you should let her go.”
“Culley’s harmless.” Ty saw no reason to object. “I wouldn’t worry about her.”
The lack of attention he was paying her began to bother Tara. He seemed more absorbed with his own thoughts than anything else. “Ty, what are you thinking about?” she finally insisted on knowing, a touch of apprehension in her voice.
When he looked up, one of the rare times he’d met her eyes since she’d entered the room, there was a hint of regret in the studied thoughtfulness of his gaze. “I was thinking about a man’s promise and what it means.” Just for a second, his thumb rubbed her wedding ring with added pressure.
“That sounds very serious.” Tara tried to laugh, but there was an instant when she was frightened by the specter of another woman. Yet there was reassurance in his comment, so she used the peculiar code of honor observed by the men of the ranch to tighten the wedding knot that bound Ty to her. “But I guess they are serious, because I meant the vows I made to you when we were married. I am your wife—for better or worse.”
“Yes.” His reply was slow in coming. “You are my wife.” Maybe it was finally coming to grips with reality. Maybe it was finally growing up and acknowledging that he had a responsibility to Tara . . . and to the marriage they had made. If he couldn’t find the comfort he desired in his marriage, he had no right to seek it elsewhere. He owed it to himself and to Tara to prevent their marriage from becoming a sham. If the soul and the spirit had gone out of their relationship, leaving only the fiery side, then so be it.