“I’ll miss all that for a while,” Ty admitted and shifted uncomfortably in his chair before he continued. “Mom, I don’t want to hurt you. I know you want me to come back, but … I want to stay here.”
“You don’t want to hurt me, but you would, wouldn’t you?” Maggie realized. “If I insisted that you—”
“Don’t do it, Mom?” Ty requested tightly, his voice cracking with stress.
If her battle had been only with Chase, she would have fought tooth and nail for her son, but she couldn’t fight Ty, too. She knew when she was defeated. She began pushing the peas around on her plate with a fork.
“What would you say, Ty, if I told you that Chase and I have talked about getting married?” she asked, lifting her eyes as she felt the probing thrust of Chase’s gaze.
“Have you?” Ty asked warily, not committing himself until he knew if it was true.
“Yes,” she admitted and held the level gaze of the man at the head of the table, a mature Chase Calder, laconic and hard to fathom.
“Then we’d live here? Both of us?”
“Yes.” She nodded, continuing to return the steady regard of the brown eyes.
“Is that your answer, Maggie?” Chase asked coolly.
“It’s what my son wants,” she replied. “Yes, that is my answer.”
“I’ll get the marriage license and the minister. We’ll be married here at the house—with no fuss,” he said.
Chapter XXIX
The decision to stay and marry Chase left a multitude of loose ends in California. There was her resignation to be submitted as an executive of the charity organization. Arrangements had to be made to sell the show horses. Naturally, there were all her clothes and Ty’s, and their personal belongings, which had to be packed and shipped to the Triple C. That part was handled with a telephone call to her Aunt Cathleen. Her aunt was an incurable romantic, so she was delighted that Maggie was finally marrying the man who had fathered her child.
Pamela was another matter. First she was angrily incredulous when Maggie relayed her decision. Then she cried and pleaded with Maggie to reconsider and bring Ty back. Maggie was not about to confide in her sister-in-law and explain why she had no choice. Before the conversation ended, Pamela was livid, accusing Maggie of being unfaithful to Phillip’s memory—of never having loved him—marrying him only for his money, and threatening to go to court to have his will reversed, striking both Maggie and Ty from the list of beneficiaries. The vindictiveness of her sister-in-law was enough to convince her that she never wanted to go back.
After that conversation, Maggie had gone outside to walk off her anger. Chase was nowhere around, but then, he rarely was. With the spring roundup in full swing, he was usually gone from daybreak to dusk. She was past the barns and halfway to the bunkhouse before her steps finally slowed and she took the time to look around.
Her eye was caught by a clumsy-looking vehicle parked in front of one of the buildings ahead. It took a minute for her to recognize the motorized chuck-wagon for what it was. She strolled closer to look inside the mobile kitchen, complete with a butane cook-stove, refrigerator, and water tank. It had returned to the ranch headquarters to load up on supplies and fuel.
When a hulking figure emerged from a building, a bullet-shaped head was nearly hidden behind the fifty-pound potato sack carried on his shoulder. Maggie blinked at the man incredulously as a smile broke out across her face.
“Tucker!” she cried in delight. The cook swiveled his torso to see who had called his name. He stared at her blankly and she laughed. “It’s me! Maggie!”
He swung the sack to the ground as if it were a feather. “I heard you was back, but I wouldn’t have recognized you.” There was pride in the way he looked her over, taking in the chic hairstyle, the silver-gray designer blouse, and the slim-fitting black slacks. “Welcome home, Maggie.”
There was a crazy lump in her throat as she laughed again, this time softly. “Do you know you are the first person who has told me that?”
“I’m glad. I thought about ya and how ya were getting along,” he said. “I’ve seen your boy. Is he Chase’s son?”
“Yes.” She watched his reaction, remembering the respect he’d always shown her and wondering if this would change that.
“The boys say you’re going to marry him.”
“Yes.” He didn’t appear to pass judgment on her behavior those long years ago. Yet she felt obligated to explain to this man her reason for marrying Chase after what the Calders had done to her father. “I don’t have any choice. Ty is under his spell. If I don’t want to lose my son, I have to marry him so I can stay close to Ty.” She drew in a shaky breath and glanced toward the far horizon. “Have you seen Culley lately? I’ve been over to the ranch a couple of times, but he hasn’t been there and I—” She couldn’t finish the sentence, unable to express her reactions to the changes there.
“I know.” Tucker’s comment said she didn’t have to tell him. “Culley isn’t around there very much. It’s haunted for him. He should have left with you and not tried to keep the place. It was too much for a man, let alone a boy. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen—said the Calders had got to me.”
“He wrote to me that you were here, but I thought you would have left by now.” She looked at him, trying to understand why he had stayed. “They burned your place down. I would have thought you’d get out of this place as quickly as you could.”
“I thought Calder burned it. Maybe it was a grease fire, like they said.” He shrugged. “I’ve been treated fair here. And I’m my own boss. I guess Webb Calder put the fear of God in me. Chase still keeps a wary eye on me.”
“Then you have forgiven both of them for what they did to my father?” It seemed another betrayal.
“Haven’t you?” Tucker countered, with a slanting look of his small eyes.