This Calder Sky (14 page)

“You little liar.” Chase smiled and pulled the reins from her hand to let them drop while he hooked her hat
on the saddle horn. Then his hands were on her shoulders, rubbing the rounded curve of her bones and feeling the soft flesh of her upper arms. “You know . . . now that you are here … I'm staying. And to hell with any work.”

There was nothing in her hands, and nothing to keep her from touching him. Her fingers felt the flatness of his stomach and the involuntary contraction of his muscles beneath them. Slowly, she let her fingers glide up his rib cage to his hair-roughened chest and shoulders, staying under the shirt. His hands tightened on her shoulders to pull her up on her toes so that she would meet his descending mouth halfway. His hungry kiss did such warm, delicious things to her. Sometimes Maggie felt there was a Fourth of July display going on inside her, with brightly colored stars shooting all through her, spraying their light and heat to every corner of her body.

She pressed closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and arching her body against his hard, rangy length, not satisfied until she was molded intimately to him and the heat of his flesh was burning its imprint on her. The crush of his encircling arms echoed the need for absolute closeness. When he began nibbling on the curve of her neck, Maggie couldn't contain the soft animal sound that came from her throat, but she tried to deny that he was equally empowered to devastate her.

“Sometimes”—her voice was a hoarsely disturbed whisper—“I think you're only interested in sex.”

His hands moved to cup her firm bottom and fit her hips tightly to the saddle of his so that she would know she was making him hard. “You did this to me deliberately. Now you're saying it's my fault.” He was amused, rather than angry.

Maggie lowered her head, wondering if such aggression by a woman was improper, yet unable to feel
ashamed of it if it was. She pressed her lips against the nakedness of his chest to taste his skin, liking its smooth texture and salty flavor.

“I can't help it, I guess,” she murmured and heard the groan he made deep inside.

“Maggie, haven't you discovered yet that neither one of us can?” he muttered thickly and scooped her up to carry her to a shaded stretch of grass where he put her down.

Once the primitive fires had burned themselves out, there was time to talk. Chase enjoyed Maggie's company as much as he enjoyed her body. She was bright and intelligent, easy to talk to. The responsibility of housework and family at an early age had made her mature beyond her years. Despite the stark difference in their backgrounds—Maggie coming from a poor family and a home that possessed few creature comforts, and Chase reared in an environment of wealth and power—they had both been raised with hardship: in his case, by his father's decree; and in hers, by reality. Life held few illusions for either of them. Nothing was free; there was a price to be paid for everything. Yet there was something special between them, given freely and without expectation for more than what was received.

With regret, Chase signaled he had to leave. He had allowed himself over an hour to be with her, but he'd used most of it waiting for her to come. The time they had spent together made him more than an hour behind schedule. He walked her to the grazing horse and gathered her into his arms for one last, lingering kiss. The tooting of a truck horn ended it before either of them was satisfied.

Chase straightened and cast an impatient glance over his shoulder. A ranch pickup was bouncing over the uneven terrain toward them, a trio of cowboys laughing
and hooting from the cab. The one with the grinning face stuck out the window was Buck. A grimness masked his features when he turned back to Maggie.

“You'd better go,” he said, wanting to protect her from any ribald comments that might be made.

He helped her into the saddle and passed her the reins, waiting until she had turned the bay into the trees before swinging around to face the approaching pickup. It slowed long enough to let Buck hop out, then made a wide arc to return the way it had come. The pickup Chase had driven was parked in the open ground between the two. Chase started toward it, and Buck did, also.

“In case you forgot, you were supposed to pick me up an hour ago so we could load that bull up at the Crosstree pasture,” Buck reminded him with a wide grin and approached Chase with a swaggering stride. “Clay and Jerry were headed this way. I hitched a ride with them to see if you'd broken down somewhere.”

“I hadn't forgotten.” Chase replied only to the initial remark.

“I guess I don't need to ask what kept you.” His gaze sought out the horse and rider disappearing over the hillside, then returned to sweep over Chase, a knowing gleam dancing in the blueness of Buck's eyes. “Or how you got them grass stains on your knees. That was the O'Rourke girl, wasn't it?”

Chase darkened in anger, his rough features hardening as he ignored his friend's comments and walked past Buck directly to the pickup. “Let's get a move on.”

Buck climbed across the open bed of the truck, rather than walk around the tailgate to the passenger's side. Both doors were slammed shut in unison and Chase turned the key in the ignition.

“Now I understand why you bought those rubbers a
couple of weeks back.” Buck was still grinning, his hat tilted to the back of his head, an arm resting on the frame of the opened window. He loved to tease, especially when he could get a rise out of his victim. “You don't want to get a young thing like that knocked up, but I don't know if I would trust those rubbers if I were you. You don't know how long they've been sitting on the shelf under Lew's counter. They're probably yellow with age now. They're liable to split on you just when you need them the most.”

“Lay off it, Buck,” Chase warned and shifted the truck into gear. It jumped forward as his foot tromped on the accelerator, then eased back with an effort at control.

“How come you never told me you had some action going on the side?” Buck persisted in a mock complaint. “We never had any secrets from each other before. We're practically brothers. You know I would never try to move in on your territory, so how come you never mentioned this hot little affair you have going with the O'Rourke girl!”

It was true. They rarely kept any information from each other, trading stories and experiences, bragging and joking about the women they'd had.

“Maybe I just didn't want to hear any of your crude remarks.” Chase's expression remained stern, his gaze not straying from the bumpy path through the grass.

“Come on, Chase,” Buck grumbled. “Where's your sense of humor?”

“I'll find it when you show some sense of decency.”

“Man, you're as testy as a bull on the prod.” Buck slouched in the seat, pulling his hat forward and low on his forehead, and stared out the side window for a sullen moment. “What you need is a few beers to loosen up,” he said finally. “It's Friday and I'm going into town. Why don't you come with me?”

“No, thanks.”

“Come on, Chase,” Buck urged. “You haven't sampled any of Jake's new entertainment yet. You need a wild night of whoring and drinking to get rid of that chip on your shoulder.”

“I'm not interested.” He repeated his refusal. A whore's sex didn't interest him, not when he'd just had the satisfaction of the real thing. As for the drinking, that didn't appeal to him, either.

“Then I'll go by myself.” Buck shrugged, paused a second, then glanced at Chase. “Loan me twenty dollars till payday.”

“Twenty?” He sliced an impatient glance at his buddy. “You already owe me thirty. That would make fifty you've borrowed this month.”

“So? I'll pay you back when I get paid.”

“Yeah, and then borrow it back the following week.”

“Hell, you can afford it,” Buck retorted. “I'm not the one next in line to inherit all this. What's the big deal, anyway? All I'm asking for is a lousy twenty-dollar loan from a guy who's supposed to be my best friend.”

Chase stretched his right leg stiff and lifted himself slightly off the cab seat to reach deep into the pocket of his jeans for his cash. All he had was four singles and a twenty. He separated the twenty from the dollar bills and handed it to Buck.

“Here.” His glance took in the sulky look on the usually grinning face, and a smile eased the stiffness of his own mouth. “Who is being the sorehead now?”

Buck met his glance, then slowly laughed at himself, and took the money, stuffing it into his shirt pocket. “Thanks, Chase. You'll get it back. I wish you'd change your mind about coming with me. We could have a high ole time, you and me.”

“I'll go next time.” He realized he'd been neglecting
his best buddy and felt obligated by friendship to do something about it.

Resting a heel on the running board of the truck, Nate Moore took the makings of a cigarette out of his shirt pocket while he watched the riders gathering cattle into a holding pen. Webb Calder stood beside him, an arm braced against the cab of the truck, his expression grim.

“I went by here about ten days ago and noticed that one steer with the split ear wasn't at the salt block. He's always been there in the mornings. It got to where I looked for him automatically,” Nate explained. “At first I thought maybe he'd broken a leg or got bitten by a rattler, so I mentioned to Slim to keep an eye out for him when he checked the herd the first part of the week. A couple of days later he told me he hadn't seen hide nor hair of that steer. That spooked me and I rode out to take a look for myself.”

“How many do you think are missing?” Webb watched the riders bringing the cattle to the pen in small bunches.

“A conservative estimate would be forty to fifty head. It could go higher.” He returned the cigarette papers and tobacco pouch to his pocket, a rolled cigarette dangling from his lips, and raked a match across his jeans to light it.

“Any guess about when the rustlers hit us?”

“It's hard to say. More than ten days ago.” He squinted at the smoke. “Probably backed a semi up to the fence gate and loaded 'em in. That's the way it's usually done.”

Webb breathed in deeply and straightened from his leaning stance against the truck. “Right.” It was a terse agreement. Nate stepped out of the way as Webb reached for the door handle. “Let me know the final count as soon as you get it.”

“Will do.”

Driving out of the pasture, Webb took the ranch road back to the headquarters and stopped the pickup in front of The Homestead. He called to one of the ranch hands passing by: “Find Virg Haskell and send him up to the house. I want to see him.” A hand was lifted in acknowledgment of the order, and Webb continued on his way to the house.

Twenty minutes later, a slim, brown-haired man entered without bothering to knock. None of the employees observed that formality. A Calder was always accessible to those who worked for him. Virgil Haskell walked directly to the den that doubled as Calder's private office and removed his hat as he entered the room.

“Bevins said you asked to see me.”

“That's right.” Webb leaned back in his chair to look at the man. He'd never been impressed with Haskell, although he couldn't fault the man's work record. Virg had been Ruth's choice for a husband, and Ruth was a dear friend, closely linked to the family. Yet Webb had always suspected that Haskell trod on that relationship to advance himself at the ranch. There had never been any definite proof of that, and Webb had decided that it was a natural prejudice. No one would ever be good enough for Ruth. Although he'd never admitted it, not even to himself, Webb was half in love with her. After he'd gotten over his wife's death, he probably would have married Ruth if she had been free. But she hadn't been, so he had channeled his affection for her into a brotherly concern, his head ruling his heart with typical Calder discipline.

“We've had some cattle stolen, roughly fifty head from the north pasture,” Webb began.

“When?” Haskell frowned in surprise.

“Ten days to two weeks ago, as close as we can tell. The first thing I want you to do is organize a count of
the rest of our herds, starting with those pastured close to the main roads. Then I want you to take a couple of men and question everybody in the vicinity of the north range. Someone might have noticed a semi-trailer rig, or something out of the ordinary. Report back anything you find, immediately.”

“I'll get on it right away.” The hat was pushed onto the brown hair as Virgil Haskell left the den to begin carrying out the instructions he'd been given.

With his own inquiry begun, Webb reached for the telephone to notify the sheriff's department. It was strictly an afterthought that he observed the formality of letting the authorities know about the theft.

Maggie glanced at the wall clock to check the time. It was almost eleven-thirty. If she hurried, she'd be able to finish the dusting before she had to fix lunch. Lifting an ashtray, she ran the oiled cloth over the top of a magazine stand moved onto the desk. It was an old thing, badly scratched and scarred. The top of it was strewn with papers, mostly advertisements, which Maggie shuffled into a pile. As she lifted the cigar box of bills, she accidentally bumped the decorative stein. It teetered on the edge of the desk and fell to the hard floor—her saving grab missing it. The stein broke into three pieces.

“Damn!” She cursed her clumsiness as she knelt to pick up the pieces.

A section of the handle was broken, and the hinged lid to the stein had snapped off the mug. There was a vee-shaped chip broken from the body of the stein. As Maggie picked up the main body of the stein to see if the chip could be glued into place, she noticed something inside. She reached in, careful to avoid the
broken points on the lip, and took out the roll of dark paper.