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“Your father is alined he would be,” she admitted “But I was surprised to find your ht she’d be one of those dowdy, meek women who bake a lot”

“I told you she was special,” Ty reminded her

“Sons can be very prejudiced about their mothers,” she countered, then studied hie”

“She was very young when I was born, still in her teens” It wasn’t the tio into details about the past

A slight frown irls who beco They miss so much” Her expression se and softening its i to be a few more years before I tie myself doith children or a husband There’s too much out there I want to see and do first”

“Did it ever occur to you that a husband could see and do those things with you?” There was a taut edge to his question She was a part of all of his drea him in hers

“A husband? Just one !”

8

The needle on the gasoline gauge was flirting with the eas purocery store and post office of Blue Moon Another dusty pickup Chase recognized as belonging to the ranch fleet was already parked at the pumps

As he stepped fro his head to light a cigarette Chase had a second to study his son unobserved, and he liked what he saw The dusty and sun-faded jeans, the scuff-toed boots with run-down heels and black marks where the spurs usually rode, the worn-soft chambray workshirt, and the sweat-stained cowboy hat on his head, all were the clothes of a working cowboy Ty’s hair had grown too long in back, but Chase was overlooking that

Ty looked up as he shook out the match There was a split second of hesitation when he saw his father; then heseemed different about his father’s attitude, as if for the first tiround They had been silently at odds ever since he’d announced his decision to attend college But, a second ago, he thought he’d caught a glimmer of approval in his father’s eyes

“Did you just couely re about going there to look at so horses

“Yeah I didn’t have enough gas to make it to The Homestead” He paused as Emmett Fedderson squeezed his rotund body between the puasoline nozzle into the truck’s gas tank He lifted a hand in silent greeting to the operator of the establishment, then let his attention return to Ty “It’s your day off, isn’t it?”

“Yeah” Ty narrowed his eyes against the cigarette s hoet cleaned up and have a bite to eat Soht”

“A e” His father smiled absently “It used to be the only action for miles”