Calder Born, Calder Bred Read online

  She extended her hand to lead him back to the crowded, noisy room. It wasn’t the warmth of her small hand he wanted to feel. It was the heat of her body under his and the moistness of her lips beneath his mouth that he wanted. One kiss could not satisfy an appetite that had become ravenous. Just being with her aroused him, and no solace was offered for the hard, stony ache in his loins.

  The front door to the fraternity house swung open wide, aided by a gusting, cold wind that rushed the strands of silver tinsel on the foyer Christmas tree and swayed the brightly colored ornaments. Two of his fraternity mates came puffing inside, each carrying a case of cold beer on his shoulders.

  “Shut the door!” someone shouted, a protest endorsed by others.

  “One of those damn blue norther’s arrived,” a beer-toting Jack Springer explained as he kicked the door shut with his foot. Jack, like Ty, was a new pledge. “Blue norther” was the term applied to cold fronts that entered the Texas plains with a rush of wind that dropped temperatures to a chilling degree.

  “Yeah, and it’s all Montana’s fault,” his partner, Willie Atkins, decried with a look at Ty, who had been dubbed Montana by his mostly southern roommates. “You must have left a gate open on your way down here last fall.” His glance went past Ty and lighted on the raven-tressed girl with him. The case of beer came off his shoulder and was shoved into Ty’s middle. “Just for that, you have to forfeit your partner for the rest of the evening.”

  Instinctively, Ty grabbed for the heavy case of canned beer. In doing so, he released Tara’s hand. Willie Atkins immediately whisked her away in an exaggerated waltz that made her laugh.

  Ty watched them go, his jaw clamped rigidly shut. As a pledge, there was little objection he could raise against his senior frat brother. Yet he was enraged at Tare’s willingness to go with Atkins with no more regret than a careless smile and a vague shrug in his direction.

  It wasn’t the first time she had treated him this way, and he liked it less and less every time. What galled him most was the knowledge that he had no rights to her. She wasn’t his girl, and she had given him no cause to believe she would be. His ego was bruised and his body was one big physical ache.

  “Are you plannin’ on holdin’ that case of beer all night, Montana?” Jack Springer chided him from the arched doorway opening to the party. “We got a thirsty group in here.”

  Prodded into action, Ty adjusted the case to a more comfortable carrying position and followed the slim son of a Texas hill country rancher into the crowded room. A second after he had shoved the case onto the refreshment table, someone was pushing a cold beer into his hand. He took a swallow of it, then drifted to an empty space along a side wall and leaned against it.

  Although there was some pairing up as the hour grew later, there were plenty of singles of both sexes who hadn’t settled on a partner for the evening. The number of men vying for Tare’s exclusive attention was dwindling, but Ty was fully aware that she was still among the single group.

  His elbow was jostled, sloshing the beer in his can. He managed to avoid spilling any of it on himself as it splashed harmlessly onto the already stained carpet.

  “Ooops, I’m sorry.” The quick apology came on the heels of the elbowing.

  “No harm done.” Ty shrugged off the incident with barely a glance at the buxom girl with blond hair skillfully bleached the platinum color of flax.

  But she sidled closer, forcing his attention to her. “I’ve heard about you,” she declared with a sidelong look. “You’re Ty Calder, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” He absently studied her, noting the expensive look of her clothes and jewelry.

  “Your father is supposed to own some big ranch up north.” She pretended to recall the information.

  “In Montana.” The faint smile that touched his mouth was edged with irony. The elbowing had simply been a ploy to meet him, not an accident at all. She had likely checked him out thoroughly before coming over.

  “Montana, that’s right.” She nodded and continued to smile at him like a purring Persian cat, all feline and sexy. “I suppose that makes you something of a cowboy. I always did go for cowboys. There’s something earthy about them.”

  “Is that a fact?” His laconic reply merely deepened her smile.

  “You shouldn’t be standing here drinking all alone. My name’s Dott.” She leaned against the wall so her shoulder touched his and the plumpness of her full breast brushed the sleeve of his shirt.

  At the same moment, Ty noticed Tara being guided to a darkened area of the large room where there were less than a handful of couples swaying to some slow music. A hard physical need crowded his insides as he watched her being enveloped in the muscular embrace of the bullnecked Schroeder.

  “Let’s dance.” His arm hooked the blonde around the waist and drew her along with him to the dance area. They left their beer cans at the first table they passed.

  It was to assuage the throbbing soreness of his want that he gathered the amply curved Dott tightly to his length—and maybe a little to show Tara there were other girls available to him. While their feet shuffled an indifferent rhythm to the music, the platinum blonde took the initiative and began nuzzling the corded muscles in his neck. With so much passion held in check and needing a release, it didn’t take Ty long to forget Tara and follow the lead of his partner’s long, starkly hungry kiss.

  His hands moved over her firmly packed bottom and pressed her against his grinding hips. Her full breasts were mounds of ripe flesh pushing against his chest. Dragging in a breath, Ty pulled away from her lips a fraction of an inch.

  “What did you say your name was? Pat?” At the moment, he didn’t give a damn who she was. He only wanted the satisfaction her eager flesh promised.

  “Dott.” Her moist and shiny lips parted, waiting for him to reclaim them.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here, Dott.” His tongue felt thick and hard in his throat.

  “Whatever you say, cowboy.”

  When Tara observed Ty departing with the buxom blonde hanging on his arm, she seethed with anger. Dott MacElroy’s reputation was well known to her, since she was both a sorority sister and a member of Tara’s social sphere. It came as no surprise to see the two of them together. She remembered too well the look of longing that had been in Ty’s gaze. It was half the reason she had kept her distance from him. He stirred her more than most men did.

  In certain regards, her upbringing had been very strict. This was her first real taste of freedom, and she intended to savor every minute of her four years at college. Only in numbers was there safety from serious, possessive relationships. She could be just as ruthless and single-minded as her father when it was necessary, so Tara was determined that Ty would never be more than one of many boyfriends.

  She knew she had aroused him sexually and driven him into Dott MacElroy’s arms. Knowing this didn’t upset her. However, she was affronted by Ty’s crudeness in so blatantly letting his intentions be displayed to her. A gentleman would have arranged to meet Dott somewhere, rather than be seen leaving the party with her. Everyone knew it was only the MacElroy oil that spared Dott the label of tramp. Considering her father’s comments on how primitive the Calder attitude was at times, she should have anticipated such crude behavior from Ty.

  It was doubtful that she would see him until after the Christmas vacation was over, since he wouldn’t be coming to the house this weekend. She’d straighten him out then. There were subtle ways a woman could make her displeasure known, and Tara knew them all.

  * * *

  While Ty was home for the holidays, nothing on the ranch seemed to have changed except his little sister. Her vocabulary had expanded, and with it her talkativeness. She’d grown a couple of inches and lost some of her chubby baby fat.

  Other than that, he could have been coming home from school instead of college. Every day his father had a list of ranch chores for him to do. After the mildness of a Texas winter, it had taken him a couple of days
to adjust to the brutal cold of Montana.

  There had been no big welcome for him, no indication that he had been missed—except by his mother, and Ty expected that. But it was from his father that he wanted it. Four months of college hadn’t changed anything.

  Maybe that was the cause of his depression, Ty reasoned. He was sprawled in the big armchair in front of the stone fireplace, slowly turning a snifter of brandy in his hand. Or maybe it was the huge pile of Christmas presents under the tree in the living room, a long-needled pine cut and brought down from the mountains on the edge of Calder land. Little Cathleen was finally old enough to understand what Christmas and Santa Claus were all about. Virtually all the gifts under the tree were for her, thanks to a toy-shopping splurge his father had in Denver. His mother had laughed and told Ty all about it when he remarked on the number of presents under the tree.

  He rubbed a hand across his forehead. All the holiday festivities seemed to be for Cathleen’s benefit, and he resented it. He was the one who’d been away, but no fatted calf was being killed on his return. Damn, but she didn’t realize how lucky she was to grow up in these surroundings—to be a part of it from the beginning. He’d never had that head start. Instead, he’d come to the ranch as a teenager, completely green to the ways of the western land and its people. He’d been struggling to catch up ever since, and it worried him that maybe he never would. Sometimes he couldn’t help envying his sister. She’d have an easier time of it than he had.

  When he lowered his hand, his glance ran to the telephone. Maybe his dejection was caused by neither of those things. Maybe it was Tara Lee. Lord knew, her image haunted him, his mind doing cruel things to him, recalling too vividly her loveliness, the pride and strong will she showed him. Ty didn’t want to be in Texas with her, but he damned sure wanted her here with him.

  The party at the fraternity house hadn’t ended right. Although he’d found the sexual gratification his flesh had craved, it had left a bad taste in his mouth. It was Tara he’d wanted, and Ty was irritated with himself for settling for less. Somehow it seemed to have cheapened his feelings toward her. If he could just explain to her, maybe he could make it right. The memory of her soft, cultured drawl made the urge stronger.

  Ty pushed out of the armchair and walked to the black telephone on the desk. With the receiver in one hand, he started to dial the operator, then hesitated. The approach of footsteps made his decision, and he grimly replaced the receiver.

  “There you are, Ty. I thought you were still upstairs,” his mother exclaimed as she entered the room. “We were waiting until you came down to open the presents.” When he turned to face her, she noticed his hand come away from the telephone. “I’m sorry. Were you on the phone?”

  “No.” The quick negative response sounded false. “I was going to call someone, but I changed my mind.” He picked up the brandy snifter and swirled its contents, studying the action with grim interest.

  There were only a few things that could put that troubled look on a person’s face, and Maggie took a mother’s guess at the reason. “A girl?”

  His head lifted, wary and aloof; then a sudden, slanting smile gave a wryness to his expression. “Yes, a girl.”

  “If you were considering calling her on Christmas Eve, she must be someone special.” She felt a twinge of apprehension, mixed with a little bit of amusement.

  “She is.” His smile lost its wryness to become warm and soft. A determination was running through him. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to marry her.”

  “What?” Maggie stiffened in vague alarm.

  “Not to worry, Mother.” Ty laughed softly at her. “It won’t be any time soon. We both have college to finish.”

  “What’s her name?” There had been no mention of a steady girlfriend in his letters home. Of course, his letters had been few and far between, and typically short epistles at that. “I suppose she’s one of those Texas beauties E.J. is always bragging about.”

  “Yes, she is,” he admitted without telling her the girl was E. J. Dyson’s daughter. He downed the small amount of brandy that remained in his glass, then set it on the desk and crossed the room to put an arm around his mother’s shoulders. “Do you know she’s just about your size? Her hair is dark, too, the color of mink. But her eyes are brown, almost black—not green like yours. She’s darn near as pretty as you are, too.”

  “That last part I don’t believe.” She laughed, finally put at ease by his flattering comments. They came so glibly from him anymore. Yet it remained difficult for her to regard him as a grown male. He would always be her son, so she would probably always see the child in him. With a mother’s eye for detail—like dirt behind the ears—Maggie reached up and smoothed the shaggy ends of dark hair at the back of his neck where his shirt collar had pushed it up. “You need a haircut.”

  “It’s right in style, Mom,” he assured her with a teasing wink. “Some of the fellas on campus wear their hair shoulder-length.”

  “You’d better not come home with it that long, or your father will have a heart attack.” It was meant as a joke, but neither of them could manage a smile. Both knew such an incident would only harden his bias against college.

  “Speaking of Dad”—Ty tactfully changed the subject—“we’d better go into the living room before he and Cathleen start opening the presents without us.”

  The branding iron gleamed white-hot, with a red glow showing in the heart of the C-shaped iron. Even through her gloves, Jessy could feel the heat traveling up the rod and into her hands. But she was used to it—just as she was used to the choking dust, the bawling noise, and the milling confusion of riders and animals. There had been too many roundups in her young life for her to find anything unusual about this one.

  The dusty red flank of the Hereford calf was exposed for the iron. There was a trick to making a clean brand. Jessy had finally got the hang of ii two years ago, and now she wielded the iron like an expert. Hair sizzled and stank up the air already ripe with the smell of manure, blood, and sweat. She didn’t even wrinkle her nose.

  She pressed the hot iron firmly onto the flank, not deep enough to injure the flesh but deep enough to burn a clear print into the hide. Anything less, and the hair could grow back and obscure the brand. The action was repeated twice more to make three C’s on the calf’s flank. Jessy stepped back and nodded to the man holding the bawling, frightened calf on the ground.

  “You can let ’im up,” she said.

  At a trot, Jessy headed for the branding fire, dodging horses and riders and swinging ropes, as well as other members of the hustling ground crew. When she reached the fire, she jabbed the iron into the hot coals to reheat and took another that glowed white-hot tinged with red.

  Individual members of the ground crew converged on a roped bawling and bucking calf, each with a task assigned. One man flanked the calf and put it on the ground while another man ear-tagged it and a third jabbed it with a vaccinating needle and castrated the bull calves. Lastly, the brand was burned onto its hip. They worked slickly and efficiently, putting a calf on its feet almost before it had recovered from the terror of being half strangled by the rope around its neck.

  The number of calves seemed unending as Jessy trotted to the next. A hefty bull calf was giving the men trouble, kicking and refusing to lie out straight. In deference to Jessy’s supposedly delicate ears, most of the cursing was muttered under the breath, although she had long since heard every swear word imaginable and used a few herself, but not in front of her father. It would have been the surest way to be banished to the house, and Jessy loved the ranch work no matter how physically demanding it was.

  She stood back, waiting until the others had finished their tasks and were ready for her to wield the iron. She listened absently to the run of conversation between the men, interrupted by grunts of exertion and muffled curses.

  “Heard Ty’s due home next month,” one offered and swore at the calf when it kicked him in the shin. At the mention of Ty Jessy
was all ears.

  At thirteen, she was at the age to think about boys, and Ty was the ideal choice, since he was older and roughly handsome—and absent, which enabled her to weave little fantasies about him. Her ideas of what was romantic were naturally colored by her personality. She imagined Ty and herself riding the range and working cattle together. He would be impressed with how skilled she was. So far, her dreams hadn’t taken her past the point of holding hands and a small, chaste kiss.

  “Be home for the summer, won’t he?” Les Brewster held a red ear and snapped the tag in place. Jessy caught the affirmative nod of the first.

  At the other end of the calf, a castrating knife was being wielded. “Heard he let his hair grow.” He didn’t look up from his task as he made a slicing incision to remove the testes. “Probably come back here lookin’ like Jesus.”

  “Ty wouldn’t do that,” Jessy was shocked into protesting.

  “Hauled hay to some cattle with him over Christmas,” Les inserted. “Didn’t seem to me like college had given him any uppity notions.”

  “We’ll see if he needs a haircuttin’ party when he gets home.” He rocked back from the calf, a bloodied knife in his hand, and glanced sharply at Jessy. “You just going to stand there or are you goin’ to slap that iron on this calf?”

  Usually no one told her what to do or when to do it. She reddened slightly under the implied criticism and made a quick job of applying the brand.

  At home that night, Jessy penned a short letter to Ty, telling him about the spring branding at South Branch. As soon as the niceties were written, she bluntly asked him if he’d grown his hair long and warned him against such foolishness. She phoned The Homestead and got his address, put the letter in an envelope, and mailed it when she returned to school on Monday.

  When Ty read the letter from Jessy, he smiled to himself. It was so typical of the kid to cut straight through the rumors and go to the source to find out the answers. He doubted it ever occurred to her that she was being nosy and butting into something that wasn’t any of her affair.