Calder Born, Calder Bred (Calder Saga 4)

“I suppose you do.” He lowered his head and pushed the empty shot glass to her. “Fill it again, then sit down and finish your coffee.”

This time he sipped at the whiskey while she settled onto the stool beside him. “How have things been at the ranch?”

“Fine.” Chase studied the golden-brown liquor, then lifted it to take another small swallow. “I just got back from putting Ty on the plane to Texas.”

“I’ve heard he’s doing well.”

“He’d do better staying at home.” His sun-browned hand tightened around the glass, the bones showing white through his skin. “I can’t make Maggie understand that, Sally. Everything’s gone so smoothly since she’s been back. She wasn’t here during the rough times. I’m not just talking about the drought we had. There was the time when the small ranches on the north cut the fences and drifted their cattle onto our graze . . . and the hassle I had getting title to those ten thousand acres of federal land sitting almost smack in the middle of the ranch. There’s always something or someone.” Chase sighed heavily.

“It will work out,” Sally murmured.

“Will it?” His glance ran over her face, his lip corners lifting with grim amusement. “I want Ty home, and Maggie thinks I’m being selfish.”

“No two people see eye to eye on everything. You are bound to have something you disagree about.”

Chase released a heavy breath. “That disagreement is becoming hell.” He gazed into her serene eyes. “You’re a woman, Sally. Tell me how I can get through to her.”

“Is that why you came here?” There was a glimmer of regret and a little hurt in her look. “I’m not any good at giving advice, Chase.”

His mouth went thin. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Sally. I guess I just needed to talk to someone and”—a remembering was in the darkness of his eyes when he looked at her—“I thought of you.”

There was a mute shake of her copper-red hair as her throat worked convulsively before she could finally get the words out. “I think you’d better go home, Chase.”

“Yeah.” He grimly concurred with her suggestion and reached for the change from his second drink.

Through the course of that fall and winter, he found several more reasons to make the drive to Blue Moon. Each time, he stopped in at Sally’s—just to pass the time of day. No mention was made again of his problems at home. And Chase kept telling himself that Sally was just an old friend.

The ancient gravestones stood in silent order, tall blades of grass sprouting around their bases. There was a stillness in the old cemetery, with its big shade trees protectively spreading their branches over the chipped and weathered stones.

“When you asked me to come with you this afternoon, I didn’t realize you were going to take me on a tour of an old cemetery.” Tara looked around her with a mixture of wide-eyed curiosity and unease. “I feel as if I should be whispering.”

Ty just smiled and increased the pressure of his grip on her hand. An old, gnarled oak tree stood to one side of the pathway ahead of them.

“This way.” He led Tara toward it.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you would tell me what it is you’re hoping to find,” she protested.

Next to the spreading trunk of the oak tree, Ty spied the tilted headstone and lengthened his stride in anticipation. It was a plain marker, no designs carved on it. Years of exposure to rain and wind, heat and cold, had smoothed its surface, but the name etched into it could still be read: Seth Calder. It was undated, initialed with Rest in Peace.

“Here it is,” he said to Tara and stepped aside so she could view it. “He was my great-great-grandfather.”

“I didn’t know you had any family buried here in Fort Worth.” Covertly she let her eyes stray from the gravestone to study the tall man, in many ways so much more mature than others his age.

“Neither did I,” Ty admitted. “I didn’t find out about him”—he indicated the grave of his ancestor with a nod of his head—“until this past Christmas. Dad was telling Cathleen the story about the first Calder to settle in Montana. He started the ranch with a herd of cattle he’d driven north from Texas. It’s her favorite story. I’ll bet I’ve heard Dad tell it to her a hundred times at least. But this time Cathleen asked about Benteen Calder’s mommy and daddy and why they didn’t come to Montana with him. My father explained that

Seth Calder had died a couple months before they left for Montana and had been buried here in Texas.”

“What about his wife?”

“Supposedly she ran away with some Englishman when Benteen Calder was still a small boy. As far as Dad knows, she was never heard from after that. Ever since I found out this old cemetery was still here in Fort Worth, I’ve been meaning to come and look for his grave.”

It was difficult to explain this need to know more about his family, a kind of seeking of identity. As he stood at the foot of the grave, looking at the Calder name etched into the headstone, Ty felt a closeness to the past, a sense of belonging. The Calder name was both his heritage and his future.

Tara moved a little restlessly beside him. His attention had strayed, and she drew it back to her. As Ty looked down at her, he observed the hint of impatience in her eyes.

“I suppose this seems crazy to you,” he murmured. He couldn’t say why he’d brought her, except that this was important to him, and because it was important to him, he wanted her to be a part of it.

“No, I don’t think it’s crazy.” She knew it was what he wanted her to say, but she had no insight into the significance of this for him. “It isn’t odd to want to pay your respects to a member of your family.”