This Calder Sky (Calder Saga 3)

“Busy time of year.” The senator spoke in short, clipped sentences. He slapped Chase on the shoulder in a comradely fashion. “You remind me more of your father every day. Doesn’t he, George?”

“Yes, he does. He’s more handsome, though.” George Bidwell rose from the leather armchair to greet him. “Hello, Chase.”

After shaking hands with the sparrow-faced man, Chase made the rounds, renewing his acquaintance with the senator’s assistants. When that was accomplished, Chase found himself standing next to the senator once more.

“Have a cigar. My own special brand.” The politician placed it in Chase’s hands, not bothering to see if he wanted it or not. “Wes, fix me another whiskey.” He directed the order to an aide, then raised an interrogating eyebrow at Chase. “You’ll join us for a drink? Make it two, Wes.”

“If you don’t mind, Senator”—Chase raised a hand to veto the drink order—“I’d like to wash off this dirt and cattle smell before I join you in that drink. If you’ll excuse me?” The last was a polite request encompassing the entire group.

Leaving the den, he started to cross the living room to the staircase, his spurs jingling with each stride. He’d barely gone halfway across the room when a woman’s voice stopped him.

“Chase Calder, don’t you dare walk on those beautiful oak floors with those spurs!”

A woman stood at the far end of the room where a hallway led to the kitchen; her blonde hair appeared lighter with the accumulating additions of gray-white strands. The stern expression on Ruth Haskell’s face was reminiscent of his childhood days, when she was as quick to scold him for wrongdoing as she was her son, Buck. Chase had never fully understood how she always knew when he was doing something he was not supposed to.

“Sorry.” A reckless smile proclaimed his guilt as Chase bent to unbuckle his spurs. She was gone when he straightened, returning to the kitchen to continue the preparation of the evening’s meal.

With his hat and the spurs in his hand, he climbed the stairs, divided in the middle by a landing. The top of the stairs faced the south, and his bedroom was in the northwest corner, the only one outside of the master suite that had a private bath. All the guest rooms shared adjoining baths. Entering his room, he tossed the hat and spurs atop the quilted coverlet on his bed and started unbuttoning his jacket.

In the den, Webb had heard the reprimand Ruth Haskell had issued and waited until he heard Chase’s footsteps on the stairs before excusing himself from his guests on the pretext of checking on dinner. He climbed the stairs after his son and knocked once on his door before opening it without waiting for permission to enter.

Bare-chested, Chase was standing in the center of the room just taking his arm out of his jacket sleeve. The incongruity of wearing a jacket without a shirt unconsciously registered in Webb’s mind, but his thoughts were concentrated els

ewhere at the moment.

“What kept you?” Webb didn’t bother with the preliminaries, but went straight to the point.

“I have no excuse, sir.” Chase walked to the closet to hang his coat on the knob.

“I’m glad we agree on that point.” Webb followed him with his eyes, watching him closely. “Do you realize how long I waited for you at the gate? What took you so long?”

There was an expressive lift of naked shoulders. “I just lost track of the time.” He crossed in front of Webb and stopped at the chest of drawers.

“You were just having so much fun that you didn’t pay any attention to what time it was getting to be,” Webb concluded with a lack of patience. He noted the grimming set of his son’s mouth.

“Something like that,” Chase murmured stiffly and opened a drawer to take out a clean pair of shorts and socks.

Muscles flexed along his shoulders. The movement drew Webb’s attention to the small, half-moon marks on his son’s shoulder, four in a row. His gaze narrowed on them in sharp curiosity. The only thing he could visualize leaving such an imprint were fingernails. His mind clicked with the memory that Chase hadn’t been wearing a shirt under his jacket. There was no indication that the fingernails had attempted to scratch. It was as if they had dug into Chase’s skin to hold onto him.

Then Webb put together the ingredients of the scene—a teen-aged girl swimming naked in a river, and a virile young man with almost three weeks of enforced celibacy behind him, the two of them alone on an empty stretch of river. He could guess the result of that situation. He stared at the marks on Chase’s back, not wanting to jump to the obvious conclusion.

Shutting the drawer, Chase glanced at his father to see why he had become so silent. The frowning concentration being paid to his shoulder caused Chase to twist his head around in an effort to see what his father was studying so intently.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, reaching back and breaking his father’s concentration.

Webb’s gaze lifted sharply. “I was trying to remember how old the O’Rourke girl is.” The slight jerking of Chase’s head told Webb his question had struck a nerve, but his son recovered quickly.

“Sixteen.” Chase fell into the same trap Maggie had, trying to add those few months to make her seem older than she was. “Why?” He was uncomfortable with his father’s probing questions, but he didn’t let it show—uncomfortable because of his strong need to protect Maggie, to shield from eyes that might judge her by accepted standards—wrong standards.

Examining his son’s closed expression, Webb kept his suspicions to himself for the time being. “No reason.” He turned to leave. “Hurry up with your shower. Ruth is serving dinner in forty-five minutes.”

“I’ll be down directly,” Chase promised, but didn’t move until his father had left the room.

At the sound of footsteps retreating from his door, Chase entered the bathroom and paused in front of the mirror. Twisting to one side, he was able to make out the red marks on his shoulders where Maggie had dug her nails into him. Obviously, his father had noticed them, too. Had he guessed what had caused them? A heavy sigh broke from Chase as he turned to the shower.

Throughout dinner and the serving of coffee and brandy in the den afterward, Chase tried to appear to be paying attention to the various discussions, but most of the time his mind was wandering.

The senator had passed out more of his cigars. This time Chase smoked his, the richly fragrant tobacco smoke rising like a cloud above his head. He rolled the butt between his teeth and watched the white smoke.