“I …”—Chase turned away to walk back to his leather chair—“… have no ill feelings toward her.” Absently, he rubbed his left forearm where his shirtsleeve covered the long, diagonal scar.
Ty sensed there was more. “What happened to break you and Mom up?” He remembered his father had said earlier that it had been beyond their control. His father’s closed expression made him uneasy—that, and the long, measuring look he was receiving.
“That”—a lazy veil seemed to fall over his father’s features, dispelling the impression as he rose from the chair—“is another long story, and it’s getting late. I’ll show you which room will be yours. You must be tired.”
“Yeah,” Ty admitted. “I haven’t slept in a bed for two days. Mostly, I slept bouncing around in a truck cab.”
“You’ll sleep tonight, then.”
Chase paused in the living room while Ty retrieved his backpack, then led him up the stairs to the bedroom that had been his father’s. All the rooms were kept in readiness for guests, so there were plenty of towels in the bathroom and clean sheets on the bed. When he was satisfied that Ty was settled in, Chase took a notepad and pencil from his jacket pocket and handed it to him.
“Write down your mother’s telephone number,” he instructed.
“You aren’t going to call her?” Ty protested with an anxious frown. “Not for a few days yet, please?”
“You know she’s worried about you.” The statement held a subtle criticism.
“Yeah, but—” He pressed his mouth together grimly. “She’ll just want me to come home. And I don’t want to go home.”
“I’ll handle that,” Chase stated. “You just give me her phone number and I’ll talk to her.”
“Okay.” Ty wrote down the number and handed the pad and pencil back to him. “Be sure to tell her I’m all right.”
“I will.” Chase moved to the door, opened it, and paused. “Some advice for you to sleep on. City life breeds weakness into a man. Out here we don’t have any traffic lights telling you when to stop and when to go, when to walk or when to wait. There aren’t any streets with arrows telling you that you have to go one way. In the city, everything is orderly—soft—governed by a woman’s idea of the way it should be. Out here, it’s still a man’s country, where you’re expected to keep your word and never ask for favors. It will be harder on you, not just because you are new to our ways. People are going to expect more from you because you’re my son, so”—Chase smiled faintly because the next words were so familiar to him—“you’re going to have to work harder, be smarter, and fight rougher than any man in the state. If you haven’t got what it takes, then you’re better off to go back to California and be with your mother, because otherwise this land will break you. You might want to think on that these next few days.”
“Yes, sir.” It was a sobered sound, tinged with just a hint of skepticism.
Chase smiled, bemused, because he’d always believed his father had exaggerated a lot, too. “Good night, Ty.”
“Good night.”
Returning to the den, Chase sat down in the chair behind the desk and reached for the phone, dialing the number Ty had given him. It was answered on the third ring.
“Gordon residence.” It was a woman’s voice, stiff and haughty, not Maggie’s.
“I want to speak to Elizabeth Gordon,” Chase requested.
“I believe she has retired for the evening. This is her sister-in-law, Pamela Gordon. May I help you?”
“Would you check to see if she has? Tell her I’m calling in regard to her son.”
“Ty? Have you found him? Is he all right?” The woman threw a flurry of anxious questions at him.
“Tell Mrs. Gordon that I want to speak to her.” He stressed the last word to make it clear he would speak to no one else.
“Just a moment.” There was a clunk of the telephone receiver being laid down. In the background, he could hear the woman calling to “Elizabeth.” Chase waited, fingering the slip of paper with the phone number on it.
The sleeping pill Maggie had taken in an effort to get some rest after so many sleepless nights worrying about Ty made her uncoordinated. She felt groggy when she came to the phone and pressed a hand to her forehead to eliminate the dullness.
“This is Elizabeth Gordon.”
Her voice had changed slightly, a variation in the accent, but it stirred his memory. For an instant, the years rushed away and he could see her green eyes, green as the lush Calder grass, and her hair black as midnight. His hand tightened on the phone, as if to bring her closer to him.
“Hello, Maggie.”
No one ever called her that anymore except Culley. It didn’t sound like him, yet telephones sometimes distorted people’s voices. Maggie clutched the receiver with both hands. “Culley? Thank God, you called. I tried to call you, but the operator said your phone had been disconnected and I—Ty has run away. I think he’s—”
“Maggie, this is Chase,” he interrupted. “Ty is here with me. He wanted you to know he was all right.”