Authors: Janet Dailey

Green Calder Grass (4 page)

BOOK: Green Calder Grass

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An intermittent flash of light made a track across the studded blackness, catching her eye. A second later she recognized the red and green glow of navigation lights and knew it was an aircraft banking southward, not a shooting star. Too few planes flew across this empty stretch of the state. At that altitude, logic insisted that the aircraft had to be Dyson’s corporate jet—with Tara on board.

The view somehow marred, Jessy turned from the window just as Ty entered the room. He saw her by the window and paused briefly in mild surprise.

“I half expected you to be in bed.”

“I was headed in that direction, then stopped to do a little star-gazing. It’s a beautiful night out there.”

“To be honest, I’m too tired to care.” He crossed to the brass-edged bootjack and used it to pry out of his boots, one foot at a time. “It feels like it’s been a very long day.”

“Mmmm,” Jessy made an agreeing sound, then she watched while Ty began the laborious, one-handed task of shedding his clothes, something he insisted on accomplishing without assistance. It was a case of male independence and pride.

“You know, I’ve always known we had an exceptional herd of registered Red Angus, but every time I think about one of the bulls we bred walking off with the Grand Championship at the Denver show—” Ty stopped and shook his head, as if the feeling it gave was beyond description. “I think I’ll look up Ballard in the next day or two and make sure he wasn’t feeding your dad a line.”

“Why would he do that? The facts are much too easy to verify.”

“And I’ll do that, too.” Ty scooped his jeans off the floor and tossed them over the arm of a plush chair upholstered in gold damask. “Everybody knows Ballard has shown a tendency to exaggerate in the past.”

Jessy hid an amused smile. “You never have liked Dick Ballard very much, have you?”

Her smile deepened at the way Ty took such pains to avoid looking her way. “I wouldn’t say that. He’s a good hand, fast and sure with a rope, steady and reliable, willing to turn his hand to any work, and sits deep in a saddle.” Ty ticked off the man’s good points, but in his mind, he kept remembering all the times he had seen Ballard sitting at Jessy’s table in the past. “But he’s too quick to chase anything in a skirt.”

“You still hold it against him for making a pass at Cat at the Christmas party a few years ago, don’t you? Good heavens, the man had been drinking, Ty.”

“I know. Just the same, Ballard has always been a little too full of himself.”

“He was that way when he was young,” Jessy agreed. “But all males are in their youth.”

Ty stripped off the last sock and added that to the pile of discarded clothes, then arched her a skeptical look as he stood there in his shorts and undershirt. “Really? I don’t ever recall being that way.”

Her wide mouth curved into a smile. “That’s because you were too busy trying to figure out what it took to be a Calder.”

Ty chuckled in remembrance. “You’ve got that right.”

“At least you finally got the hang of it.” Jessy crossed to the four-poster, canopied bed and began folding back the satin coverlet into a neat bundle at the foot of it.

Ty stared at the flashing gold material for a second, then flicked a glance around the rest of the room. The line of his mouth thinned with displeasure at its look of sleek elegance. “Next month when you and Cat go to buy all the baby things, you need to pick out some different furnishings for in here. It’s time we got rid of all this slick satin and gilded furniture.”

“That suits me,” Jessy replied, and wondered if Ty had noticed she had already removed some of the daintier feminine pieces. But the rest of the master suite was much the way it had been when he and Tara had shared it.

After their separation, he had moved back into his former bedroom and the master suite had sat empty. But with the twins coming, it was clear they were going to require larger sleeping quarters, hence the move into the master suite. But Tara’s hand was visible everywhere Jessy looked. She was never more aware of it than tonight.

With the satin coverlet stowed safely out of the way, Jessy turned back the top sheet and slipped between the covers. Meanwhile Ty turned off the light switch, leaving only the bedside table lamp to illuminate the room.

“One of the first things I want you to do,” he said as he crawled into the wide bed, “is to get rid of this king-size monstrosity. I’m tired of having to search for you when I climb into bed.”

“Is that right?” Jessy scooted closer and rolled onto her side to face him, always careful of his shoulder.

She reached up to caress a fingertip over the black brush of his mustache with its first few strands of gray showing. Jessy had never been one to avoid issues. It was her nature to confront them. All this talk about redoing the master suite was an oblique reference to Tara. The woman was on both their minds, and it was time they faced it.

“She still wants you, Ty,” Jessy murmured and studied him with knowing eyes.

He caught hold of her caressing fingers and pressed them to his lips, then held them against his chest. “Anything that’s out of reach, Tara has always regarded as a personal challenge. And I’m taken. Remember?”

It was never her memory that Jessy questioned, but she played along with him and pretended to give his question heavy thought. “It gets a little faulty at times. Maybe you need to refresh it.”

“With pleasure.” Ty cupped a hand to the back of her head and drew her lips to his mouth.

Drawn against his hard-muscled length, the heat of his body flooded over her, warming the bareness of her long legs. She wound herself closer, responding to the hungry demand of his kiss, understanding it. Like him, she had a desperate need to blot out the past. And this was the way to do it—together, in the darkness.

She pulled away long enough to switch off the lamp and peel off the long T-shirt, then she came back to him, all slim-hipped and naked, her stomach swollen with child as were her once-flat breasts.

In the skies far to the south, the corporate jet continued to wing its way into the night, on course for Fort Worth. In the lushly appointed cabin, E.J. Dyson sat huddled with his chief financial officer, poring over a set of quarterly reports.

Free at last from the necessity of making conversation, Tara slipped off her high heels and settled back in the plushly cushioned seat, delicately curling her legs beneath her. Briefly her glance strayed to her father, noting his drawn and haggard look. She made a mental note to urge him to slow down, then turned her face toward the porthole window by her seat and gazed into the blackness beyond the panes.

Finally there was time to let her thoughts dwell on that fateful meeting with Ty. A meeting that had been full of such horrible irony.

Tara had never wanted the divorce. Never. At the back of her mind, she had always planned, one day, to win him back, convinced that it would require only a reasonable passage of time in order for her to achieve that goal.

A near sob caught in her throat. Dear God, she had waited too long. She balled a hand into a fist, long nails digging into her palm.

But the truth was—she never truly realized how very much she loved Ty until that shattering moment when she learned he had been shot. It all had become crystal-clear to her in that instant.

For a time, Tara had reveled in the role of the gay, Texas divorcee. But not a single man she met had ever measured up even close to Ty. A discovery she had made too late.

The bitterness of that disappointment didn’t last, giving way almost immediately to an overwhelming rage at the knowledge that Jessy was going to have Ty’s child. Even worse, she was going to have twins.

Ty would never walk away from the mother of his children. That stupid code he lived by wouldn’t allow him to do it.

Not for the first time, Tara cursed herself for not giving Ty a child. She had always known he wanted one, but she had been too worried about the damage it would do to her figure. Now she had lost him forever.

Every ounce of her body screamed that it wasn’t fair.

Suddenly her life stretched before her as miserable and empty as the sky behind the plane’s window.

How could Ty do this to her? Surely he knew how much she loved him. Then came the cold, killing realization that he knew and didn’t care. As disgustingly trite as it sounded, he had dumped her for another woman. Tara couldn’t let him get away with that, not without making him pay. Dearly.

Chapter Three

T
he bawl of cow and calf traveled across the rolling grass plains mixed in with shouts from ranchhands and the clang and rattle of iron chutes and headgate. High in the vast blue sky, the sun looked on, indifferent to the noisy activity below.

It was preg-check time on the Triple C, a time when every cow was palpated to verify whether she was pregnant or not. It was one of many thankless tasks on the ranch that was completely bereft of glamour. At the same time it was necessary to the operation’s ultimate financial success. No rancher could afford to winter over a cow that remained barren more than two years, or a bull that couldn’t service all his cows. Nor could a rancher afford to wait until the following spring to learn the outcome.

Astride a dun-colored buckskin, Jessy slapped a coiled rope against her leg and herded the last cow out of the holding pen into a long narrow chute that led to the head gate. A cowboy on the ground swung the pen gate shut, trapping the cow in the chute. Outside the pen, a calf bawled a lusty protest over the temporary separation from its mother. The cow answered with an angry bellow of her own.

Ignoring both, Jessy reined her horse away from the scene, her work done for the time being. In past years, she would have been taking her turn on the ground, down there in the thick of the action. But there was too much risk of getting kicked by a range-wild cow. The decision wasn’t prompted by any fear of personal injury to herself, but rather by a concern for the safety of her unborn twins.

As she walked her horse to the main gate, Jessy was joined by the second rider who had worked the penned cattle with her. “That’s the last of this bunch,” Dick Ballard announced, more as a conversation opener than a passing-on of information.

The sandy-haired cowboy liked to talk to anyone about anything. Tall and strong he might be, but not silent. There was nothing braggy in his voice. It had a lazy, conversational pitch to it, and a distinctly cowboy cadence that was warm and friendly.

It was rather like his face, which was otherwise ordinary in its features. Over the years, his sand-colored hair had thinned until he was almost bald on top, but few people noticed that, and not because he wore a hat most of the time. It was because of his eyes, Ballard’s most compelling feature. They were kind eyes, the dark blue color of new denim, always with a sparkle of dry humor lurking somewhere in their depths.

Jessy caught a glimpse of it when she started to reply to his idle remark, but Ballard held up a hand, checking her words.

“Don’t say it. I already know. We’ve got three more bunches to go.”

The line of her mouth softened into a near smile. “This is a cow-calf operation,” she reminded him.

“That’s why I like my job.”

As the pair approached the pen’s gate, it was apparent to both that Jessy was in a better position to maneuver her horse around to open it. And it never occurred to Ballard to do the gentlemanly thing and alter the circumstances. Long before Jessy had married Ty Calder, she had worked as a cowhand. No deference had ever been shown to her, and none was expected. Drawing a man’s wage meant doing a man’s work, regardless of the gender.

Jessy unlatched the gate, swung it open and walked her horse through, then gave the gate a push for Ballard to catch. He caught it, gave it another push, and trotted his horse through.

“I worked one long winter at a feedlot,” Ballard remarked. “The wages were high, plus a full range of benefits. But when spring thaw hit, the mud was so deep in that lot it was halfway up to a horse’s belly. It was nothin’ to wear out three horses doing one morning’s work. It’s the kind of job that’s probably good for a guy with a wife and family, but I couldn’t call it cowboyin’.”

“Isn’t it about time you got married, Ballard?” Jessy let the dun-colored gelding come to a stop by the pen’s fence rails.

“Me? Get married?” He drew his head back in feigned surprise and flashed her a wry grin. “That’s not likely to happen.”

“Why not? I heard you’ve been seeing Debby Simpson.” Jessy had spent too many years of her life razzing cowboys about their love lives, or lack thereof, to quit now just because she was the boss’s wife.

“I’ve two-stepped around the dance floor with her a couple of Saturday nights,” Ballard acknowledged. “But marriage just isn’t likely to be in the cards for me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to turn into a confirmed bachelor like old Nate Moore was,” Jessy retorted in an absently teasing fashion as her glance strayed to the activity at the headgate.

Old Doc Rivers, the paunch-heavy veterinarian, had completed his examination of the cow. Stepping back, he motioned to one of the hands to release the animal from the stanchion-like gate then turned to wash the fecal matter from the OB glove that sleeved his hand and arm.

“I don’t know about the confirmed part.” Ballard, too, glanced at the vet. “But it’s true, I am a bachelor. Don’t misunderstand, though. I don’t have anything against marriage myself.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“My horse does,” he replied with a straight face, and only the smallest hint of a laughing gleam in his eyes.

Jessy just gave him a look and shook her head. Although Ballard wasn’t among the descendants of families long associated with the Triple C, she had known him for years, certainly enough time to be comfortable with him, and with his attempts at humor.

Years ago, they had gone out together a few times. But Jessy had never regarded it as dating, although others had. In her mind, Ballard had simply stopped by her cabin a few times to shoot the breeze and have some coffee. On a couple of other occasions, he had given her a ride into Sally’s on a Saturday night. There definitely had never been anything remotely romantic about their relationship.

As the last cow was prodded into the headgate, Ballard observed, “Looks like I’ll have time for a smoke.” He reached inside the breast pocket of his yoked-front shirt, pulled out a thin packet, and extracted an even thinner square of paper from it. After returning the folder to its pocket, he reached in the other and came out with a flat tin of loose tobacco.

Jessy’s eyes rounded in amazement as he proceeded to tap a line of tobacco into the crease of the paper square. “When did you start rolling your own cigarettes?”

“About a month ago.” None too deftly, Ballard slipped the tobacco can back in his pocket and began rolling the paper around the tobacco, losing a good bit of it.

“I knew you were tight with a dollar,” Jessy declared. “But I never realized you were so cheap that you wouldn’t buy ready-mades.”

“It’s isn’t the money.” He licked the edge of the paper in an attempt to seal the roll, then began digging in his pocket for a lighter. “I’m trying to quit.”

“So you’re rolling your own?” Jessy wasn’t impressed with his logic.

“Well, you’ve gotta admit—a fella has to want a cigarette really bad before he’ll go through all this rigmarole.” With a snap of his thumb, the lighter flared to life. Ballard held the flame to the tip of the cigarette. The paper end blazed briefly.

Jessy grinned. “One of these times you’re going to burn your nose.”

“There’s that problem, too,” he agreed and puffed experimentally then pulled in a deep drag. “Ty looked me up the other day. Did he tell you?”

“He mentioned it.”

“Did he pass on what I told him?”

“About what?”

“About all the money the Triple C is leaving on the table when you sell registered stock.” Range-wise to the fire hazards of such dry conditions, he kept a hand cupped around the cigarette and deposited its ash in his shirt pocket.

Ty hadn’t said anything at all about that. But knowing how little stock Ty put in anything Ballard said, Jessy wasn’t surprised by the omission. Just the same, she kept her gaze fixed on the headgate and remained silent, fully aware that Ballard would fill the void.

He did. “Whenever the Triple C has registered cattle to sell, they get sold through livestock auctions that are restricted to registered animals. Granted they bring high dollar, for the most part. But they could bring more. You see,” he went on, warming to his subject, “if there’s one thing I’ve learned knocking around the country during the winter months, it’s that people like to brag about the things they own, especially that breed of gentlemen ranchers with more money than brains—at least when it comes to ranching. And as much as one of these guys likes to brag about what a fine bull or pen of cows he just bought, he likes to brag even more about who he bought them from. It’s like these collectors who go in debt over their heads just so they can buy a car once owned by Elvis.”

“Our cattle are always sold as Triple C–bred stock at the auctions,” Jessy reminded him.

“The buyers are told that,” Ballard agreed. “But being told something doesn’t make nearly the impression as buying that stock at a production sale held right here on the Triple C.”

Stunned by his suggestion, Jessy turned in her saddle to stare at him. “You’re not serious?”

“I’m dead serious.” He repeatedly licked his fingers to pinch out the fire in his cigarette before tucking the crumbling butt into his jean pocket. “You’d have to do a lot of advertising and make a big event out of it, but if you did, these bigwigs would fly in from all parts of the country with their checkbooks open.”

“You’re crazy, Ballard.” Now she understood why Ty hadn’t mentioned his wild scheme to her.

“Crazy smart,” he replied with unshaken confidence.

She made a snorting sound of disagreement and turned her head away, facing the front again.

For a long run of seconds, the silence was thick. “I’m right about this, Jessy,” he stated quietly.

“I’m sure you think you are.”

“You’ve got the same problem Ty has—and nearly every single man, woman, and child on the Triple C.”

“I suppose I might as well ask what that problem is, because I know you’re going to tell me anyway,” she stated, letting her impatience with him show.

“First, answer me one question,” Ballard challenged.

“What’s that?”

“How many times have you been off the Triple C? And I don’t mean going into Blue Moon.”

“I’ve been to Miles City a couple of times,” Jessy replied, feeling oddly defensive.

“If you add them all up, I’ll bet you can count all the trips on one hand.”

Unable to deny it, she went on the offensive. “What’s your point.”

“Simple. In ranching circles, every time the conversation gets around to big ranches in the country, Triple C’s name always comes up. But nobody knows much about it. So any talk is always full of rumors and speculations.”

“So?” Jessy prompted, not following him.

“It’s created an aura of mystery about the ranch, made the Triple C into kind of a legend. And no one is sure what is myth and what is reality.”

“Why would they even care?”

“Because it’s big. Over the years, Old Man Calder hasn’t invited more than a dozen people to come here. And none of them were people who mattered. But the few who have been here—when they drop the name ‘Calder’ in a conversation, they have everybody’s attention.”

Jessy didn’t say anything. She was too busy trying to absorb all this new information. She had always known the Calder name carried considerable weight in this part of Montana. But in the rest of the country, too?

“Is this true, Ballard?” she asked, dead serious.

“It’s true. But don’t take my word for it. Ask Ty. Have him tell you what it’s like when he attends regional meetings of the livestock associations. He’s bound to have noticed the stares and whispers when he enters a room, the deference that’s shown him. If he showed up in Texas, it would be the same.”

“I see.” At least, she was beginning to see.

“Your registered cattle are among the best in the land, Jessy. As for your strain of cutting horses, I’ve never forked my leg over better in all my years of competition. And I’ve ridden champions. Ranching is a precarious business nowadays. To be successful, a rancher’s gotta make money any way he can. For years, Chase has done things the old way. I’m not saying that’s totally wrong,” Ballard added quickly. “But if there’s gonna be a Triple C in the years to come, you and Ty might want to take a harder look at the things that are done now, in the New West.”

“Like this production sale you suggested,” she murmured.

“That, and all the marketing and publicity that go with it.”

Jessy didn’t have the first clue how to do any of that. Give her a sick cow and she could doctor it; a broken fence and she could mend it; a rank horse and she could ride; a pair of babies and she could raise and care for them. But production sales, marketing, publicity, those were completely out of her realm of knowledge. Did Ty know?

“You need to take the Triple C name and make it one people shout, not whisper about,” Ballard concluded.

“That’s easier said than done,” Jessy replied, speaking more to herself than to the sandy-haired cowboy.

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