This Calder Sky (Calder Saga 3)

She hesitated, then shook her head in refusal, not looking at him. “Virg is waiting for me at home.” Regret flickered in the faintness of her smile. “I hadn’t better dawdle over the dishes.”

“No, of course not.” The gruffness of his answer held understanding and a vague irritation with himself for making the suggestion. He rose from his chair. “I’ll finish my coffee in the den. I have some paperwork to do.”

As he crossed the foyer that separated the dining room and den, Chase and Buck descended the stairs to the living room. He glanced at his son, aware that this was the time in Chase’s life to be wild and carouse with the boys. Soon enough these days would be behind him and he would have to assume a man’s role in the ranch operation.

“Behave yourselves, boys,” Webb advised, using the plural, but looking at his son.

“Yes, sir.” Buck sketched him a salute while Chase nodded. “Don’t you be worryin’ about Chase. I’ll look after him like he was my little brother.”

“If you’re looking after me, who is going to keep you out of trouble?” Chase mocked.

“Hell, I am trouble!” Buck bragged with a laugh as he opened the front door and motioned Chase to walk ahead of him to the pickup parked in front.

“Who’s driving?” Chase wanted to know.

“I am, since I may not be sober enough to drive home,” Buck declared and hopped behind the wheel. “That’s going to be your problem. I’ll get us there and you can bring us home.”

“Okay.” That was the way it usually worked out.

“Man, am I glad we didn’t pull patrol duty tonight.” Buck started the engine and revved it to a roar before shifting into gear, spinning the tires. “I thought it might be exciting riding shotgun on those roads at night, but it is boring as hell! I’ll be glad when the Old Man calls it quits. Those rustlers are probably clear into the next damned state by now.”

“They could be,” Chase conceded.

There were already a dozen Calder riders, as well as a few other local customers, at Jake’s when they arrived. A poker game was in progress in the back room. Chase took a beer back to watch, and eventually sat in for a few hands, but he couldn’t concentrate on the cards, and luck was against him, so he wandered into the main saloon again.

Through the room’s dim, smoky haze, he spotted Buck sitting at one of the tables with his arm around the neck of a sultry brown-haired “niece” named JoBeth. Buck was smiling, nuzzling and whispering things in her ear while his hand wandered inside the plunging neckline to fondle a heavy breast.

Aware that his buddy would not welcome his company at this point, Chase strolled over to watch a couple of Triple C riders playing pool. He dropped some quarters in the jukebox and punched a selection of records to add to the raucous din of cowboys letting loose. Dolly came around with a tray of beers and Chase paid for another.

It was half-gone when he noticed Buck walk to the end of the bar closest to the staircase, the dark-haired girl pressing herself all over him, scarlet lips always upturned. Buck shouted for Jake and slapped his hand on the bar top to gain the man’s attention. Jake was a spare, big-boned man with thinning hair bushing into tufts at the sides.

“We need the key to the upstairs room,” Buck demanded. There was an exchange of folded money for the key.

“Don’t be too long. We’re busy tonight,” Jake informed his “niece.”

Buck laughed and squeezed the girl. “As long as it takes, Jake. Only as long as it takes.” Then the two of them were mounting the stairs to the second floor.

Chase watched them go and downed the rest of his beer. His gaze swung slowly around the dirty, smoky place, taking note of the laughter and bantering voices. Something was wrong with him. Here he was in the middle of a bar and bawdy house, and he was bored.

The beer tasted flat so he walked over to the bar to have a fresh one drawn from the tap. Clay Vargas, a cowboy who had drifted from Colorado to work at the Triple C, was standing at the bar, talking with two other non-native ranch hands. They made room for Chase to join them. It was a silent invitation issued out of deference to his position as heir, a respectful gesture which Chase accepted for the same reason.

Hooking a boot heel over the brass footrail, he ordered a beer and listened to the trio trying to top each other with wild stories of past places of employment. Jake set a glass in front of Chase and took his money, all in the same motion. Although Chase laughed in all the right places, his mood didn’t improve with either the beer or the company of tall-tale tellers.

Albert was the drifter with two chipped front teeth, broken when a horse kicked him in the mouth a year ago. He lowered his head to whisper to Clay Vargas. “Do you see the way that Dolly gal is giving me the eye?”

“You? Hell, she’s looking at Chase!” Clay laughed.

Albert looked again and considered that he could have been mistaken. “I wish she’d look at me that way.”

Chase glanced around as the brassy blonde slowly looked him up and down, and turned away, unaffected by the obvious invitation. “She will … for a price.”

“Yeah, but you’re getting it for nothing,” the drifter protested. “Aren’t you going to take her up on it?”

“Not interested.” He lifted his glass to take a swallow of beer.

“Chase has hisself a little Lolita who gives him all he can handle,” Clay Vargas drawled. “This must be his night of rest. What happened, Chase? Wouldn’t her daddy let her come out tonight?” Clay slapped him on the shoulder and laughed.

All in one motion, Chase set the glass down, turned to knock the man’s hand off his shoulder, and swung his fist into the relaxed midsection. The air whooshed from Vargas’ lungs, doubling him up and throwing a look of stunned shock into his expression. Blood sang through his veins. The jarring, violent contact was just what Chase needed. He felt good for the first time all night. As he started to finish off Vargas with an uppercut to the jaw, the drifter on the other side of him grabbed his elbow.