My Dearest Cal Read Free

way Cal knew about investing and making money. Unfortunately he didn’t have an answer that made much sense. He’d been drawn to this place the first time he’d seen it. He hadn’t been able to explain it then and he still couldn’t. He settled for evasion.
    “I picked a winner once at Santa Anita,” he said. “A real long shot. Paid pretty decent money. I guess I got hooked.”
    Chaney snorted with disgust. “Big deal. I’ve picked a bundle of surefire winners. Don’t have to mean I know diddly about breeding.”
    “But you do,” Cal noted matter-of-factly.
    “I do, indeed.”
    “Which is why I need you.”
    “That’s the danged truth. I still don’t get it, though. This operation didn’t come cheap, even the way they’d been lettin’ it go. If you got enough money to buy this place and that new stallion you picked up over in England, you could do just about anything you wanted to. There’s things a whole lot less risky than breeding race horses.”
    “And I’ve already done most of ’em,” Cal said. “Every one of them required that I sit indoors all day long. No matter what the business, it was getting to be dull and predictable. I was driving around out here one day, thinking about the future, when I saw this place was for sale. I decided a good risk was just what I was looking for.”
    Even in the shadowy light, Cal could see Chaney’sdisbelieving expression. “Just like that? You bought a whole danged farm just like that?”
    “Just like that.” It hadn’t been quite that simple, of course, but pretty darned close. It had taken days of cutthroat negotiations, and even then his accountant had very nearly had apoplexy. If Joshua hadn’t been his closest friend, he’d have fired him. Instead he’d tolerated the nonstop arguments, then ignored them. Joshua still refused to set foot on the farm, preferring to mutter his comments about follies and muleheadedness via long-distance.
    The ability to make decisions that seemed whimsical and impractical to others was one of the few real pleasures his wealth gave him. Maybe too much thinking would have made him overly cautious, would have kept him from the riskier ventures, which were often the ones that proved to be the most exciting challenges. He wasn’t much into introspection, but one thing he knew about himself: he did dearly love a challenge. Once the challenge faded, he knew it was time to move on.
    Chaney rocked, staring thoughtfully toward the horizon. Cal waited, rocking rhythmically beside him and wondering why he’d never realized before that endless peace and quiet didn’t necessarily equate with boredom. If he’d had to analyze the way he felt right now, he would have said he was contented. It surprised him. Contentment wasn’t a state of mind with which he was all that familiar.
    “A man like you, impulsive and all,” Chaney began,giving him a curious, sideways glance. “You must get yourself into a hell of a mess with women.”
    Cal chuckled at the understatement. Whole gossip columns from Dallas to New York had been devoted to
that
subject. “I’ve been known to, my friend. I’ve been known to.” There wasn’t a whit of regret in his tone, though sometimes in the darkest hours of the night he had a few.
    The old man’s gaze narrowed, and the rocking chair creaked to a stop. “You ain’t gonna have some woman coming chasing after you here, are you? Not that it’s any of my business, of course, but I’m not crazy about working at a place where some woman’s fussin’ and changin’ everything. Old man Courtney and I, we did okay here the last few years. Can’t say I was happy about the way he let business slide after his wife died, but we settled into our routine. I kinda got used to the way things were with just us menfolk around, you know what I mean?”
    “I know, and that’s definitely not something you need to worry about,” Cal promised, thinking of just how good he was getting to be at severing ties. He