“You can ignore it, but I won’t,” she snapped and started to rein her horse away from him, but he grabbed the reins, stopping her horse.
His brown eyes were hard as they bored into her. “Stay out of it, Maggie. I mean it. If you intervene, Ty will look like a fool in front of the men.”
“Then you do something!” she demanded.
“It may look cruel to you. You’re a woman. But the boys and their hazing are teaching him some lessons he needs to learn.”
“They don’t have to be taught that way.” She rejected the code of toughness, a code she had forgotten in the intervening years she had been away. She no longer saw the value of it, especially not when her son was the object of the hazing.
“If he can’t take the hazing, he won’t be any good running this ranch. He has to have the respect of the men. Without that, he’ll fail. This is nothing compared to some of the things he’ll have to face when he’s older. Believe me, Maggie, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been through it.”
The argument became moot as Ty regained control of his horse, bringing the bucking to a stop and riding it across the stream. His success brought an end to the hazing, but the incident had created a rift between Maggie and Chase.
That evening Maggie saw the red welts on Ty’s right hand and seethed again that Chase had permitted him to be treated in such a manner. When she had finished the evening dishes and returned to the living room, Chase was in the den and Ty was on his way upstairs for an early night. She cornered her son on the landing, determined to find out his feelings.
“What is it, Mom?” he asked impatiently. “I’m really tired. Can’t it wait?”
“I—” She studied his listless, exhausted look, the leanness of his chest and shoulders that physical labor had turned into hard muscles. “I just wanted to know if you are happy her
e.” She offered him the chance to confide in her.
Indecision and uncertainty raced through his expression as he returned her searching look. Suddenly her manly fifteen-year-old son appeared no older than eight and confused by the adult world. Just as suddenly, the impression was gone as his features hardened in a way that reminded her of Chase.
“Yes, I am.” He turned to ascend the stairs.
That glimpse of another contradicting feeling made her persist. “Then you want to stay here?”
“More than ever,” Ty stated and climbed the steps. “Good night, Mom.”
“Good night,” she echoed, aware that Ty had denounced his need for her moral support, intending to fight his battle alone. He was growing up fast, just as she had at fifteen. It wasn’t what she had wanted for him.
When Chase finished his paperwork a little after ten o’clock, the rest of the downstairs was dark. Only the stairwell light had been left on. He hesitated, then started up the steps.
Sitting at the vanity table, Maggie heard him climbing the stairs and picked up the hairbrush to begin running it through her dark hair again. She didn’t look up when he entered the room. Her hair crackled with static electricity. She listened to the sounds of Chase undressing and heard the bedsprings squeak under his weight.
“Are you coming to bed?”
His question snapped her silence. “Men always think that will solve everything,” Maggie retorted and ran the brush more briskly through her hair.
“What can you solve sitting there brushing your hair?” he countered.
Her hand returned the brush to the vanity top with a quick thud as Maggie rose and hugged her arms in front of her chest. She crossed the room, avoiding the bed where he was sitting in his undershorts.
“It isn’t going to work,” she announced, then realized it was a statement that required explaining, and she continued in a quick, hard rush. “For you, everything revolves around this ranch. You don’t care that a whole world exists outside of it. It isn’t the same for me—or Ty. I’ve become used to a different life—attending the theater or a symphony or going to a museum. I haven’t missed those things yet, but I will.”
“When you do, then we’ll fly to New York or Dallas or Denver, spend a weekend.” Chase watched her, aware that she was skirting the real issue of Ty and the incident this afternoon. “This ranch isn’t a prison, Maggie. I usually take several trips a year. Granted, it’s usually ranch business that takes me away, but we can combine business with pleasure. You’re taking a steer and trying to make a bull out of it. There is no validity in that argument, so you might as well say what is really on your mind.”
She turned to meet his calm, challenging look. “Very well.” She faced him without backing down. “When Ty finishes school, I want him to go on to college.”
His mouth thinned. “This ranch will give him a better education than any university—with majors in animal husbandry, agriculture, accounting, land management, and human psychology. Four years on the Triple C will make him better equipped for the future than any college graduate would be.”
“I want him to have a college degree,” she stated, unmoved by his argument. “I don’t want him to be like you when he grows up—callous and caring more about this ranch than anything else.” Chase was hurt that she could actually think that was true. Yet that wasn’t the point to be debated.
“You know it will only make things harder for him, don’t you?” But he could see that she didn’t. He sighed heavily. “All right, we’ll compromise. If Ty wants to go to college, I won’t try to stop him or change his mind.” When he saw her hesitation, Chase added, “You don’t expect me to agree when I believe college would be wrong for him. But I promise, I will stand aside and let it be his own decision. We’ll work it out, you and I.”
She knew he was referring to their marriage in general, and she felt the sudden pull of his love, softening all her resolve. “Sometimes I really believe we can,” she murmured.
“Now, are you coming to bed?” His gaze roamed over her nightgown-clad form, conscious of the mature shape it revealed, but more interested in what it concealed.