Read Online This Calder Sky by Janet Dailey - Free Book Online

fire.
    Pulling on his pants, he didn’t bother to zip them yet and reached to pick up his nearly dry socks, standing on one foot to put them on. He was tugging his boots on when he noticed Maggie watching him, his jacket clutched in front of her for warmth, still naked beneath it.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Chase straightened, raising a puzzled eyebrow.
    â€œYou haven’t given me back my clothes,” she reminded him.
    The sound of his throaty laughter made her smile.The world had never been more perfect than it was at this minute. Maggie wasn’t sure what she was feeling, except that it was right. Which was why she didn’t examine it too closely, in case its beauty faded like one of her father’s elusive dreams.
    Chase’s horse had wandered under the cottonwoods to graze on the tender young stalks of grass growing at the base of their trunks. The trailing reins had kept it from straying very far. It shied when Chase approached. A softly spoken command had it standing quietly while Chase untied the bundle on the back of the saddle. Returning to the fire circle, he tossed the clothes to her.
    While she dressed, he walked to the river’s edge for his shirt, not staying to watch her, as she had watched him. Maggie supposed there were some people who would have considered it improper the way she had stared so openly at his physique. But she didn’t understand why it should be wrong to admire a man’s body. Men stared at women all the time. She was tucking her shirt into her jeans when Chase came back, still shirtless, to pick up his jacket.
    As he shrugged his shoulders into it, Maggie asked, “Where’s your shirt?”
    â€œIt must have been blown into the river and sunk.” He didn’t sound concerned about it, but she guessed he probably had a closetful of shirts. So what was the loss of one? He kicked gravel onto the fire and scattered the embers. “Are you ready to leave?”
    â€œSure.” She piled her hair under her hat as she walked to the log where she’d left her horse tied.
    Chase was in the saddle and waiting for her when she mounted. “I’ll ride with you part of the way,” he said.
    Maggie led the way through the trees and up the shallow ravine to the wide, open plains. Facing the broken ridges to the north, she set her horse at a canter. Chase moved his mount abreast of hers. Theycut the trampled trail the Shamrock cattle had left and turned onto it. It was a short mile to the boundary fence where strands of barbed wire forced them to stop.
    Dismounting, Maggie walked to a wooden post and kicked out the stone, wedging it in the posthole. Drooping wire permitted the post to sag flat on the ground. Chase stepped on it, holding it down while Maggie led her horse across the downed barbed wire. Together, they set the post in the ground again, Chase steadying it upright while Maggie stomped the wedging rock into place. When it was finished, they stood on either side of the fence, postponing the parting a moment longer.
    â€œI’ll be seeing you,” Chase stated, dissatisfied with the phrase, but finding none other that he was willing to say.
    â€œTake care.” She kept her response casual. Standing on tiptoes, Maggie took the initiative and leaned over the top wire, prompting Chase to kiss her one last time.
    She turned away from the fence before Chase did, gathering the reins to her horse and stepping into the saddle in a quick hop. As she reined her horse toward the sloping rise to the ridge top, she waved to him over her shoulder, and received an answering salute. She felt suddenly sad to hear the hoofbeats galloping away from the fence while she started her bay up the slope.
    Near the crest of the ridge, Angus O’Rourke sat silently on his horse, shadowed by a clump of pines. He had come back to see what was keeping Maggie and pulled up when he saw her approaching the fence, accompanied by none other than