McKettricks of Texas: Austin (17 page)

That one hurt so badly that Paige, who was no wimp, almost cried.

Austin, noting her reaction, lifted the appendage, and blew lightly on her sole, cooling the burning sensation down a little.

It was the sort of thing her dad would have done, once upon a time. As kids, Libby, Julie and Paige were forever falling off bicycles, skinning their knees and elbows, and all the rest.

Will Remington always applied iodine, once the wound was clean, and he always blew on the sore place until the stinging stopped.

Austin, Paige thought sorrowfully, as he stood and set the first aid kit aside, would make an excellent father someday.

How would she stand it, she wondered, when the Right Woman came along, and Austin finally settled down, got married and started a family?

How in the world would she stand it?

A
S SOON AS HE'D FINISHED
medicating Paige's feet, she slipped them into her slippers and boogied for her part of the house, blushing and avoiding his gaze.

Austin waited, sipping coffee at the kitchen table, until she'd had plenty of time to shower and get dressed and all the rest of it. Once she surfaced, he'd find a way to get into his clothes without her help—if she thought he was going to carry on like some invalid, which in Paige's mind probably meant lying around in pajamas and sipping fluids through bent straws, she was sorely mistaken—and get on with his day.

When Paige finally resurfaced, looking delicious in crisp blue jeans and a gray pullover shirt, she was doubly careful not to look at him. She got real busy fussing over Shep, who had curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace nobody ever lit up anymore, patting his head, filling his water dish and the like.

Then Julie appeared at the top of the stairway leading to her and Garrett's place, also wearing jeans and the same kind of pullover as Paige, except in a purplish color.

“Paige,” Julie called to her sister, “come and join Libby and me for breakfast. We
have
to settle on your bridesmaid's dress.”

Paige rolled her eyes at that, but then she nodded,
because there were some battles that couldn't be won, and said, “Okay. Be there in a sec.”

Julie gave Austin a cheerful wave and vanished from sight.

Paige washed her hands at the sink and then turned to face Austin, leaning back against the counter. “You should probably eat something before you take your medication,” she said. Her tone and manner were so coolly professional that they might have been strangers instead of two people who'd been lovers as teenagers and gotten pretty chummy just the night before on top of that.

“Yeah,” he grumbled, his mood souring a little, mainly because he wanted things to be different between him and Paige and they weren't.

She was his one-time lover, and so much more.
And
she was Libby and Julie's baby sister, the one he wouldn't be able to avoid, at least not gracefully, after the shindig on New Year's Eve.

Once his brothers and their soon-to-be-wives started having kids—it wouldn't be long, that was for sure—he'd be an uncle God only knew how many times over, and Paige would be an aunt to the whole brood.

The things that had happened between them the night before didn't have to upset the balance at family gatherings—as long as the shenanigans didn't continue. After all, he and Paige already
had
a history, didn't they? And so far they'd been able to cope with living under the same roof, hadn't they?

Paige broke into his thoughts. “Do you want me to whip up some scrambled eggs or something?”

“No,” Austin said. Then, “Thanks.”

“You need food if you're going to take your pills.”

“I know that, Paige,” he replied with exaggerated
patience. “But right now I'm okay, and I'm not ready to eat.”

“Suit yourself, then,” Paige said, snipping off the words.

After giving a great sigh, intended to sound long-suffering, Austin rose and retreated to the bedroom where, to hear her tell it, he and Nurse Remington had most definitely and absolutely
not
had sexual relations.

Could have fooled me,
Austin thought, remembering the way she'd pitched and moaned and squirmed before finally exploding in trembling satisfaction.
Oh, lady, you could have fooled me.

 

C
ALVIN AND THE TWINS
were gathered in Garrett and Julie's living room, watching cartoons on TV, still in their pajamas and munching cold cereal from colorful plastic bowls, when Paige arrived.

Paige waggled her fingers and smiled in greeting, then drifted into the kitchen, where her sisters were sitting at the table, conferring over yet another goony dress, in yet another bridal magazine.

“What do you think of this?” Julie asked, jabbing at an image with one manicured index finger. The model wore something that resembled a pink cloud.

“I'd look like a giant wad of cotton candy,” Paige said, meaning it.

She helped herself to a cup of coffee and stood at the counter to sip away, instead of joining her sisters at the table. She was afraid to get too close to the pink dress, even in printed form.

Libby and Julie exchanged glances and sighed in perfect unison. It reminded Paige of the dream where the
two spooky brides had chased her down a dark country road, waving horrible travesties of fashion at her.

“Well, what do
you
suggest?” Libby inquired archly. “Something tasteful and form-fitting, maybe? Say, a black sheath and a rope of pearls?”

Paige imagined the outfit, drank more coffee and finally replied, “You know, that doesn't sound half-bad.”

Verbally, Libby sprang. Physically, she remained in her chair. “You are
not
wearing a black dress at my wedding, Paige Remington!”

“Mine, either,” Julie agreed, all huffy.

“How about red?” Paige suggested. With her dark hair, she looked especially good in most shades of red.

“If we were getting married in a
brothel,
maybe,” Libby said.

The hopelessness of it all made Paige sag on the inside. She hated wearing pastels—with few exceptions, they washed her out, made her look like a plague victim.

Her sisters, on the other hand, looked wonderful in pinks and baby blues and cheery lavenders. And this was
their
big day, after all.

“Okay,” she said bravely, “I'll wear the dress.” She indicated the magazine, still open on the table, with a motion of one hand. “Even if it
does
make me look like something from the snack bar at the circus.”

Having said that, Paige surprised not only her sisters but herself, too—she burst into tears.

Libby and Julie, both used to mothering her, immediately scooted back their chairs, got to their feet and advanced on her. Each one gripping an elbow, they ushered her to the table and sat her down, with rather more force than was strictly necessary, in a chair.

“I knew it,” Libby told Julie fitfully. “We shouldn't
have brought up the bridesmaid's dress so soon after the latest Austin crisis.”

“You're right,” Julie agreed with a big sigh, propping her elbow on the tabletop and cupping her chin.

Paige was momentarily distracted from the subject of the hour: the gown of her nightmares. “What do you mean, the
latest
Austin crisis?” she asked as Libby shoved a box of tissues at her.

Julie watched with concern as Paige wadded a tissue and scrubbed at her eyes.

“There was Buzzsaw, the bull,” Libby ventured.

“And then whatever happened in that bar in San Antonio and the shooting in the oil field,” Julie added.

“And now
this,
” Libby concluded.

“This
what?
” Paige wanted to know.

“All that excitement last night, with the gun and everything,” Julie said, using the same tone of over-the-top patience she might have chosen to address a four-year-old learning to tie his or her shoes. “Garrett told me all about it.”

“And Tate told
me,
” Libby threw in. Her blue eyes rounded. “He said there was this huge dog, and Austin had to shoot it.”

All three of the Remington sisters were animal lovers, but Libby was passionately protective of critters. She'd fostered dozens of dogs and cats over the years, until good homes could be found for them, and before their mother had leveled the Perk Up Coffee Shop in Julie's tank of a Cadillac, she'd kept a donation jar for the shelter right next to the cash register.

Would she think less of Austin for using the rifle?

Paige gulped hard, but before she could figure out a way to find out, Libby went right ahead and answered
her. “I know he had to do it,” she said softly, squeezing Paige's hand. “Austin was defending Shep.”

Another tear strayed down Paige's cheek; she wiped at her face with the back of one hand. The salt made her skin sting, and she thought she'd better get a grip and cut out all this crying before she turned into a chronic sniveler.

“How do you stand it?” she asked, looking deep into Libby's eyes and then, in turn, Julie's.

Libby frowned, clearly puzzled. “Stand it?”

“Stand what?” Julie wanted to know.

“Loving McKettrick men,” Paige burst out, in what might have been called a stage whisper, spreading her hands for emphasis. “They act as though they're immortal, all three of them.”

Her sisters were smiling at her. Knowingly, too, as if she'd just inadvertently revealed some deep, dark secret.

“Stop it,” she said. “It's not what you're thinking.”

“What are we thinking?” Libby asked lightly.

“Who knew you were psychic?” Julie threw in, still smiling. “From now on, when I need a glimpse of the future, I'll just dial 1-800-PAIGE.”

“You two are just so hilariously funny,” Paige said, keeping her voice down because of the kids in the next room, “that it makes me want to
puke.
”

“Touchy,” Julie said, sipping coffee.

Libby's tone was prim, though her eyes danced. “To answer your question,” she said to Paige, “loving Tate McKettrick isn't hard. It comes as naturally to me as my breath and my heartbeat.”

Julie sighed contentedly, her expression dreamy and faraway all of a sudden, and smiled mysteriously.

“That isn't what I mean,” Paige insisted, “and both
of you know it. It seems to me that Tate and Garrett and Austin
all
take a lot of risks, compared to normal people. On top of that, they seem to have acquired some dangerous enemies. How can you sleep at night, thinking of all the things that might happen to them?”

Libby giggled. “I sleep just fine. Tate and I make love and then we both conk out until morning. It's really very healthy.”

Paige blushed hard. Told herself there was no way her sisters could know what she and Austin had done the night before.

“Lucky you,” she said, and there might have been
some
acid in her tone.

“Jealous?” Julie teased. These days, she always had a twinkle
and
a glow, and she made no secret of the fact that the physical part of her relationship with Garrett was working out just fine.

“Maybe,” Paige admitted. She made a sweep of one hand to indicate the tabletop, which was empty except for their coffee cups and the bridal magazine opened to the hideous cotton-candy dress. “I thought you said we were going to have breakfast. Where's the food?”

 

A
USTIN MADE THE CLIMB
to his own rooms, after shutting Shep up in the pantry downstairs so he wouldn't try to follow on his splinted leg, and raided his dresser drawers for shorts and a pair of jeans. He'd planned on wearing a T-shirt, but the plan proved too painful to carry out, even after he'd temporarily removed the splint.

Carefully, and with no small amount of difficulty, he managed to get into a blue chambray work shirt, leaving the left sleeve to dangle empty.

The word
awkward
didn't do justice to the way it felt to wear half a shirt, Austin thought glumly.

He did manage to get into a pair of beat-up old boots, probably because he'd had them so long that they were starting to fall apart.

As accomplishments went, it was pretty pissant, but a man had to take what he could get.

A smile curved Austin's mouth as he thought of Paige, gasping and flexing and crooning with pleasure during the night. In that case, it hadn't been about what a man could get, but what he could
give.

Since he didn't need a hard-on in addition to his other woes, Austin turned his thoughts in another direction: his mental to-do list.

After gathering his shaving gear, some extra clothes and the book he'd been trying to read before he'd been prescribed all those pharmaceuticals, Austin headed back down to the first floor.

He let Shep out of the pantry, put the clothes away and then stood in front of the bureau, looking at the cover of the book. Reading was a chore for him—he'd been diagnosed with ADD as a kid—but he wanted to
like
books, the way his brothers did, and he had no intention of giving up before that happened.

Even if it took until he was a hundred.

With a sigh, he set the paperback Western down and returned to the kitchen. After putting on half a jacket, Austin stepped out into the cold, sunny morning and Shep peg-legged along behind him.

Reese and Tom were working in the barn again, along with Ron Strivens, the father of one of Julie's favorite students. Garrett had personally hired Strivens on as a ranch hand, moving the widower and his three kids into
a trailer on the Silver Spur. The guy was quiet, mostly kept to himself, but he more than earned his pay.

In fact, Tate was planning to promote Strivens to an assistant foreman's job after the first of the year. In the meantime, he seemed thrilled to have grocery money coming in steady, along with a home and health insurance for his family.

Reese nodded abruptly to Austin and went on shoveling horseshit.

Tom was in the loft, throwing bales of hay down into the bed of a truck backed up to the barn. Although there was plenty of grass on the range in spring and summer, it started to go a little sparse in places in the late fall, and that meant feed had to be hauled to different parts of the ranch on a rotating basis.

Strivens, standing in Molly's stall and applying ointment to her rapidly healing hide, had cleaned up pretty well, as Garrett had once remarked. The man had cut his hair and shaved off his beard the same day he was hired, and he showed up every day, rain or shine, sick or well, not just on time, but early. His clothes were mended in places, but always clean, and while he seemed shy, he was friendly enough.