This Calder Sky (Calder Saga 3)

something else, then changed his mind as he looked at Ruth. Donning a cream-colored Stetson, he turned and walked to the door. As it closed behind him, Maggie released the breath she had unconsciously been holding and bent to finish dusting an end table.

“Have you quarreled?” The question from Ruth stiffened Maggie.

“No, of course not,” she denied, deliberately casual.

The small silence that followed revealed that Ruth Haskell did not fully believe the marriage was without problems. “Try to be understanding, Maggie,” she said finally. “Running the Triple C is a lonely job, with an enormous amount of pressure and responsibility. I recall that Lillie—Webb’s wife—used to tell me it demanded that Webb be more than a man. And the only time he could be ‘just a man’ was when they closed the bedroom door at night.”

The intimacies—the confidences that a man and wife shared—were something that made Maggie uncomfortable. Chase was her husband. Despite her slip yesterday, that was the way she thought of him. It was this that compounded her fear about what Culley might be planning.

“Chase is the heart of the Triple C. He pumps life to the farthest reaches of the ranch, ties it all together, and keeps it healthy,” Ruth continued quietly. “The heart has to be strong and good. A Calder is a special breed of man, Maggie. And it takes a special breed of woman to stand at his side. I wasn’t sure at first, but you are that kind.” There was a gentle curve to her mouth. “I know you know about Sally Brogan. A woman always knows about the other woman in her husband’s life. She is a gentle, loving person who served a need in his life—gave him a quiet place to go and an undemanding affection. But she is like me, a shadow destined to remain in the background. You are like Chase, able to stand in the sunlight, letting it glare on your flaws and shine on your assets. You belong in this house the same way Lillie did.” She suddenly realized how much she had talked while Maggie remained silent. Her expression became rueful and apologetic. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t be saying all this, but Chase is like my own son. I raised him and … I want him to be happy. I know you have what it takes to make him very happy.”

Maggie murmured a suitable response and tried not to think about what the woman had said, but the words lingered as she continued with the housework, instilling her with an unconscious pride of possession that hadn’t existed before. She found herself rearranging furniture, letting her personality assert its influence on the house. It didn’t occur to her that, in effect, she was allowing her role as mistress to assume certain permanence. Too many of her conscious thoughts were spent worrying about the miniature noose and what kind of threat it might signify. That afternoon she rode the hills of the Shamrock Ranch searching for her brother without success, her hope to dissuade him from carrying out his unknown plans unrealized.

Chase wasn’t home by seven that evening. When Ty came downstairs after showering and changing clothes, he noticed the table was set for only two, and the place at the head of the table was bare.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He said not—” Maggie faltered, realizing how automatically Ty had referred to Chase as his father—and how automatically she had known to whom he was referring. “He said not to wait for him for dinner. He had business away from the ranch today, so he could be late.”

“He’ll probably eat at Sally’s,” Ty decided and pulled out his chair to sit down.

The mention of the other woman hit a raw nerve. Maggie suddenly remembered the desire that had been in Chase’s eyes that morning before he’d left. He had needs that she, as his wife, hadn’t fulfilled. She was suddenly tormented with images of Chase in the arms of the red-haired widow. It was crazy, but it was true, nevertheless. She was jealous.

Chapter XXXII

It was nearly ten o’clock in the evening when she went upstairs to her bedroom. She wasn’t tired, but Chase hadn’t returned yet and she didn’t want to give him the impression that she was waiting up for him. So she tossed and turned sleeplessly in her bed, watching the luminous hands of the clock on the bedside table tick off the minutes.

A little before eleven, Maggie heard the car drive into the ranch yard. She knew it was Chase—just as she knew where he had been all this time and who he’d been with. The hurt that caused her was disguised as the anger of disgust.

Tired from the long session with the attorneys and the long drive, Chase was rankled by the sight of the darkened house; not a single light shone. Maggie could have at least left a light on for him. There was a flatness to him as he climbed the porch steps and crossed to the door. He hadn’t eaten, but the prospect of raiding the refrigerator and eating alone in the kitchen didn’t appeal to him.

He entered the house and didn’t bother to turn on a light. He could find his way to the stairs in the dark. Two steps into the living room, he crashed into a table, cracking his kneecap on the corner of a leg and tipping the table over. Whatever was on top of it clattered to the floor. Grabbing his knee and cursing, Chase lurched sideways and bumped into a chair that had no business being where it was, either.

The racket from below brought Maggie out of bed. It sounded like someone was down there knocking things over. Grabbing her robe in alarm, she rushed out of the bedroom and paused at the head of the stairs to flip the wall switch that turned on the light above the staircase. She heard the muffled swearing, but she didn’t see Chase crouched over in the living room shadows until she reached the landing. Her first thought was that he was drunk. Then he looked up and saw her, poised on the landing.

“What’s going on down here?” she demanded in icy anger, viewing the table and broken vase in front of him.

“I ran into that damned table!” He released his knee long enough to gesture at the fallen table.

“Why didn’t you turn on a light so you could see where you were going instead of crashing into things and waking up the whole house?” she snapped.

“I didn’t think I needed a light!” His voice was just as tight and just as angry. “What the hell was the table doing in the middle of the floor?”

“I re-arranged the furniture—that’s what it’s doing there!” Maggie retorted.

“There was nothing wrong with the way the furniture was arranged! That table and chair had been sitting in that corner for more than thirty years!”

Her hand moved to her hip in challenge. “Then it’s time it was moved!” The robe whirled about her ankles as she pivoted to climb the steps.

“Come back here!” he ordered, but Maggie just went up the stairs more quickly. “Don’t you walk away from me!” He started after her, tripping over the table leg and swearing savagely.

Maggie had never seen him so angry before. She was suddenly alarmed at what he might do if he caught up with her. She heard him coming after her and ran the last few steps to her bedroom door, hurrying inside and turning the lock. Then she stepped away from it and held her breath. She didn’t want him near her. She didn’t want to smell another woman’s perfume on his skin or know that his hands had touched someone else earlier that night. Every part of her rebelled at the thought.

There was no thought in his mind beyond catching her and putting down this insurrection in his home. He grabbed the doorknob, but it wouldn’t yield to the pressure of his hand. The realization that she had locked the door ran through him like a white-hot knife. There were enough barriers between them without a locked door added to them.

His fist pounded on it. “Maggie! Open this door!” The command was a low roar.

“Go away!”