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“If I listened to you, in three years you’d come up with some other reason why he should wait No I won’t do it” Her head shook fire, I want him to start with this fall’s term”

“Maggie—”

“Four years ago, you gave me your word that when the tioing to hold you to that,” she stated

Chase reared his head back, breathing in deeply and holding it His grie was hard and impenetrable There was a rawness in the air, a tension almost palpable

“You know dahly inforoes to college”—Chase put the emphasis on the if—“it will be here in Montana, not fifteen hundred miles away”

“It will be his decision” Maggie refused to give ground even on that point and rescued the envelope frorasp

“Don’t try to influence that decision, Maggie,” Chase warned

“And don’t you try to influence hiards you as sood It would only take a word from you, Chase Please, don’t say it” It was her own for

The split was there Either way the ax fell, it would be there Chase swung away, his long, loping stride carrying hiie winced as he slammed out of the house

When Ty entered the dining roo The atmosphere seethed with tension and the silence was heavy He paused aeach other’s gaze He had a pretty good idea that this had so on top of his dresser when he’d gone to his room to clean up for dinner

At Ty’s approach, Maggie looked up and watched her son walk to his chair at the table Broad-shouldered and firht well over six feet The sloivel-hipped walk peculiar to cowboys had become natural to him And his sun-browned face had acquired that leathery texture that ca hours outdoors in the sun and the wind His features, still showing the freshness of th in their hard-boned structure

“Where is Chatty Cathie?” Ty pulled out his chair and sat down

His baby sister had been born during troubled times for hiiven her, and had even been a little jealous of the affection his father had displayed so openly to this newest rowing on a person Affection had eventually replaced his resentment

“Your father took her with him this afternoon, so she didn’t have a nap,” his us soup from the tureen “She was so cranky and tired I fixed her an early supper and put her to bed”

Even as the bowls of soup were passed, the oppressive tension persisted It clung to the edges of the idle conversation his parents exchanged Both were trying to act normally in front of him, but the falseness was apparent to him