McKettricks of Texas: Austin (24 page)

“I didn't want it to be like this,” she said again.

“Like
what,
Libby?” Paige asked. “You love Tate and he loves you. In addition to becoming a stepmom to Audrey and Ava, you're about to have a
child of your very own.
What would you change about this?”

“Nothing,” Libby said with a watery smile. “I just wish
this baby had been conceived later on, that's all. On our wedding night, for instance, or any time
after
that.”

Paige's mouth twitched at one corner. “You
do
know what causes these things, don't you?”

Libby laughed at that, truly laughed, and it was a wonderful sound. She flung the enormous ball of paper towels at Paige.
“Yes, Dr. Remington,”
she answered, her eyes shining with tears and joy. “I
have
figured out that much. And we were, for your information, using birth control. But—things happen.”

Paige folded her arms and tried to look dour. “Well, I only have one thing to say about all this,” she said very solemnly.

“W-what?” Libby asked, looking wobbly again.

Paige leaped into the air and punched at the sky with one fist.
“Yes!”
she cried.

More laughing followed, along with more crying, and certainly more paper towels.

Libby and Paige were hugging each other, and Libby was getting the right shoulder of Paige's T-shirt all wet, when the door to the garage burst open and Calvin raced in, closely followed by Julie. Garrett brought up the rear.

Both Libby and Paige were startled to see Julie home so early. The rehearsals for her play often lasted until eight or nine at night, and here she was at three-fifteen.

“Mom's taking time off to be a chaperone when my class goes to Six Flags!” Calvin announced exuberantly just as Tate came back in from the barn and Austin wandered out from the guest apartment bedroom, pausing in the big arched doorway and looking curious.

As well as hot.

Julie smiled.

Calvin turned to look up at Paige. “I love you a lot,” he said. “But it will be cool to have my
mom
there.”

Paige grinned, mussed up his hair. “That's great, honey,” she said.

“You're not disappointed?” he asked, worried. “Six Flags is a
lot
of fun.”

Disappointed? To miss out on escorting twenty-three excited five-year-olds through a huge amusement park on the day before Thanksgiving?

“I'll recover,” Paige said, hiding her relief.

“You're taking time off?” Libby pressed, watching Julie closely. Her expression was mildly troubled.

“Come on,” Julie protested, feathers ruffled. “You make it sound like I'm some kind of—of
workaholic,
or something. Anyway, it's only one day.”

“Calvin,” Garrett interrupted, after clearing his throat, reaching out to catch the little boy playfully by the hood of his nylon jacket, “why don't you head on upstairs and take Harry out the back way.”

Calvin loved his dog, not to mention the man who was about to become his stepfather, so he didn't argue. He pounded up Garrett's stairs, shouting, “Harry! Harry, I'm home!”

In the distance, Harry began to bark in frenetic celebration of the news.

The adults stood around, still as a garden of statues.

Paige finally cast a sidelong glance in Austin's direction, noted that he was keeping his distance. His hair was sleep-mussed and Shep was at his side.

“I'd rather just get it out there,” Julie said after she and Garrett exchanged silent communiqués. “My sisters and I don't keep secrets from each other.”

“Much,” Paige whispered to Libby, giving her a light elbow jab.

“I was going to tell her,” Libby whispered back.

Alerted, Julie looked from Paige to Libby and back again. Shrugged out of her cloth coat, which Garrett automatically lifted from her shoulders and draped over the stair rail.

“What?” Julie demanded. “
What
were you going to tell me, Libby?”

Libby glanced at Tate.

Tate gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“Tate and I are—having a baby,” Libby said.

Julie let out a squeal of joy.

Tate, Garrett and Austin all winced, but they were grinning, too. With all three of them looking that good at the same time, Paige thought, it was a wonder the ocean temperatures didn't rise.

Paige, Libby and Julie met in the middle of the floor like cheerleaders after a big win and did a lot of jumping up and down and hugging and laughing and crying. Then, when things had calmed down to a moderate uproar, Julie went to the sink, washed her hands and brewed herself a cup of tea.

Garrett went outside to keep an eye on Calvin and the dog.

Tate ambled over to consult with Austin about something.

And so the three sisters were semi-alone when Julie returned to the table with her tea and sat down.

There was more coming, Paige was sure of it.

“You both knew I was planning to take a few years off from teaching,” she said, “so Garrett and I can give Calvin a brother or a sister as soon as possible.”

“Yes,” Paige said. “But you love teaching.”

Julie sighed. “Yes,” she agreed. “I do. But I love Calvin more, and I want more time with him. Things are already pretty hectic around here, and the momentum is building, and I don't want my son to get lost in the shuffle.”

“Julie,” Libby said, “what are you saying?”

Julie looked both happy and sad, a condition Paige well understood. “There was a staff meeting today. There were some cuts made in next year's budget, and one teacher—if not several—will have to go. I wasn't coming back after summer vacation anyway—that's common knowledge. So I raised my hand and volunteered to be voted off the island, so to speak.” Julie's shoulders slumped slightly, but her eyes were clear and her smile was genuine. “Principal Dulles jumped right on that suggestion and generously informed me that I could be of further help to the cause by going part-time as soon as the play is over and the profits have been tallied up.”

“Oh,” Libby said.

“Yikes,” Paige added.

“All is not lost,” Julie said bravely. “I'll still be teaching part-time, and now I'll have time to help the kids develop the showcase.”

Over the previous summer, Julie had helped three of her best students, ranch hand Ron Strivens's daughter Rachel among them, to write and polish their own one-act plays. She'd planned to produce the three pieces and have them recorded on video, hopefully resulting in college scholarships for the young playwrights. The musical the drama club was about to stage had taken precedence, however, because it was a consistent moneymaker.

Julie looked hard at both her sisters. “Stop it,” she said.

“Stop what?” Libby asked.

“Stop looking as though somebody died,” Julie said. “You're going to have a baby, Libby. And if that doesn't call for a celebration, I don't know what does.”

Tate and Austin rejoined the group, and Garrett returned from the yard, accompanied by Calvin and Harry.

“Sister conference!” Libby declared, raising both hands.

“
Beer
conference,” Tate countered with a chuckle. He opened one of the refrigerators, extracted a six-pack and blazed a trail into the pool area.

Garrett followed with Calvin, after giving Julie a look of such exquisite love that Paige's heart danced just to see it.

Austin and the dogs brought up the rear.

When the men were gone, Paige, Libby and Julie all sat down at the table, Paige and Libby on one side, Julie on the other.

“You're
pregnant,
” Julie said to Libby.

“Yeah,” Libby said.

Paige studied both of them in turn, and marveled at how much she loved these sisters of hers.

“Oh, Lib,” Julie said, “that's wonderful.”

Libby swallowed visibly, nodded.

Julie's expression grew more intent and she folded her arms. “Libby Remington,” she said, “what's the matter?”

A little silence fell.

“How long have you known you were expecting?” Julie asked Libby.

“Since this morning,” Libby answered with a watery
smile, “when I locked myself in the bathroom and peed on one of those little plastic sticks from the drugstore.”

“So does all this mean I don't have to wear that stupid pink dress?” Paige asked. “I mean, if Tate wants to marry Libby right away, then you and Garrett might as well—”

Julie smiled with her eyes as well as her mouth. “I'm not missing out on the glam wedding, and that's final.”

“You don't think Tate and I should cancel?” Libby asked, her voice as soft as the look in her eyes. “Just have a small, private ceremony, so he can make an honest woman of me?”

Paige thought of Mary Kate, who was so looking forward to the holiday wedding, with all the bells and whistles. A lot of people would be let down if the social event of the year were canceled, or even reduced from a double to a single.

“I want a wedding,”
Julie said, and though her tone was pleasant, her eyes flashed. “Flying doves. Fireworks. The whole county in attendance.” She leaned forward a little. “And you should, too, Libby. Because, I don't know about you, but I'm only going to do this once. Garrett McKettrick is
it,
the one man I'll ever love and certainly the one man I'll be married to until the end of our lives. And there
will
be a magnificent wedding to look back on.”

Libby sighed. “I wanted a fancy wedding, too,” she admitted. “But Tate's pretty firm on the idea that we should make it legal right away, because of the baby.” She started to cry again, just like that. Such was the power of female hormones. “You know he had to get married the first time around, because Cheryl was pregnant with the twins—”

Julie was immediately on her feet, rounding the table, sitting down beside Libby, gathering her close. “Oh, honey,” she said, “this is different.”

“How?” Libby asked, pulling away.

“First,” Paige broke in, in a whisper, “where are Audrey and Ava?”

Libby reached for the roll of paper towels and tore off a sheet. “They're upstairs in their room, watching a movie. I kept them home from school today because they were coughing.” She paused, looked back at the staircase just to make sure the twins hadn't snuck up on them somehow. “And how is this situation different? Cheryl was pregnant, so Tate put a wedding band on her finger. And as much as he loves his daughters, he resented that woman every day of their marriage. Now
I'm
pregnant. And Tate wants to do the right thing. What if he decides I trapped him, just as Cheryl did, and his feelings change?”

“Oh, for Pete's sake,” Julie scoffed. “Tate was going to marry you
before
this baby was conceived, Lib. The man adores you.”

Libby took that in, nodded reflectively. Sat up a little straighter. Still, she wasn't through playing devil's advocate. “People will talk,” she said, and her eyes were wide.

“People are
already
talking,” Julie said. “Get real, Lib. The gossips in and around Blue River marked their calendars
weeks
ago. Two sisters marrying into the fabled McKettrick clan at once? It's too juicy
not
to talk about. Heck, I'd probably be in on it myself if I weren't directly involved.”

The blunt honesty of Julie's remark definitely lightened the mood.

Out by the pool, the men were laughing about something.

Libby gnawed at her lower lip. She'd always been the worrywart in the family, in Paige's opinion. Both her sisters, of course, would have awarded the title to
her
instead, but that was just because she was the most practical of the three.

No other reason.

Was there something Austin hadn't told her, after his visit with Dr. Colwin that morning?

“Won't I be
showing?
” Libby fretted, looking from Julie to Paige. “Looking like a pillow smuggler in my wedding dress wasn't part of the fantasy, ladies.”

Paige laughed. “You won't show,” she assured her sister. “Not unless you're way more pregnant than you seem to think.”

“If necessary, you could have the dress let out a little,” Julie speculated.

Paige sighed inwardly. “So the wedding is still on?”

Libby, warming up to the idea, nodded distractedly. “What if Tate insists that we go ahead and get married right away?” she asked. “He's pretty stubborn, you know.”

Julie laughed. “A stubborn McKettrick? Now
there's
a concept.”

Libby blushed. “You know what I mean,” she said.

“If Tate insists on tying the knot, fine,” Julie told her. “We all go down to the courthouse and watch the two of you get hitched and then we do it all over again, on a much grander scale, on New Year's Eve.”

Libby began to smile, albeit tentatively. “I guess that would work,” she said.

Paige waved a hand between her sisters' faces to get their attention. “So does this mean I still have to wear that god-awful pink dress?”

T
HE HOUSE WAS QUIET
, now that Garrett and Julie and Tate and Libby had retreated to their private quarters.

Paige and Austin were sitting at one of the tables by the pool, sharing one of the many delicious entrées the housekeeper, Esperanza, had whipped up and frozen before leaving for her niece's place. Shep, as usual, was resting at Austin's feet.

“Is it just me,” Austin asked casually, and with a mischievous twinkle in those insufferably blue eyes of his, “or are you starting to feel like a slacker, too?”

Paige felt as though she'd been put through an emotional wringer, and a moment or two passed before she picked up on his meaning. “No,” she said, leaning in a little and widening her eyes at him for emphasis. “I am
not
feeling like a slacker. I have no wish to be part of this—
rash
of weddings.”

Like hell you haven't,
countered some inner voice.

“I'd say it was more of a plague than a rash,” Austin remarked lightly. “Seems to be running rampant around here.”

Paige pretended to be affronted, but she knew she wasn't very convincing. “A
plague?
” she repeated. “Hardly what I'd call marriages between my sisters and your brothers.”

“No,” Austin said, all droll now as he leaned back in his chair. “Your word was
rash
.”

“So it was,” Paige admitted, trying not to notice the thin strand of sorrow woven through the genuine joy she felt for her sisters. Not only had they found the right men, now Libby was pregnant and, pretty soon Julie would be, too.

Being only human, Paige couldn't help wishing something wonderful would happen in her
own
life, as well as Libby's and Julie's. Trust Austin to notice what she didn't
want
him to notice. If she'd been
trying
to get his attention, skywriting probably wouldn't have been enough.

“Why so sad?” he asked.

Paige averted her gaze, let one shoulder rise and then fall again, in a semblance of a shrug. “I wouldn't say I'm sad exactly,” she said.

“Well,” Austin pointed out, still settled back in that chair like he had all the time in the world, “you're not exactly kicking up your heels, either.”

“Of course I'm happy. Libby is expecting. I'm going to be an aunt again.”

An aunt. Again. But not a mother. Maybe
never
a mother.

“Actually,” Austin observed, “I wouldn't put it past Tate and Libby to come across with a set of twins. Exhibit A—Audrey and Ava.”

Paige laughed, even though there were tears stinging her eyes. She grabbed a paper napkin and swabbed up the spills.

“Hey,” Austin said gruffly when she didn't speak.

She sniffled, straightened her shoulders and looked right at him. “I was hoping to get out of wearing that
damn pink dress,” she said, and then wondered at herself, because she hadn't intended to say that
at all.

“It can't be that bad,” Austin answered, smiling a little as he refilled Paige's wineglass—for maybe the third time since the meal began. “The pink dress, I mean.”

“Easy for you to say,” Paige retorted. “You don't have to wear it.”

He laughed. “Now, that's a fact. Up until you said that, I figured the monkey suit I'll have to get into to do my best-man number was pretty much a fate worse than death. Now I know the experience would pale by comparison to flitting around in a dress—pink or otherwise.”

The image his words brought to mind—Austin McKettrick
flitting
in any way—brought a giggle bubbling up from Paige's very core. She nearly choked on the sip of wine she'd just taken to steady her nerves.

In fact, Austin got worried and stood up to slap her back a couple of times.

A few hiccups came next, but Paige finally managed to breathe normally again, and Austin sank back into his chair, looking relieved.

Paige's thoughts shifted naturally to Calvin. Although his asthma flare-ups were fairly rare, this was his reality—that panicked, desperate sensation of gasping for air. Her eyes stung again.

This time, Austin didn't speak. He simply pushed his chair back from the table a little way, took Paige by the hand and pulled her easily onto his lap.

She didn't resist—which probably meant she'd had a smidge too much wine. She laid her head on Austin's good shoulder and allowed herself to let go a little.

His neck smelled so good. Things began to stir inside her, to expand and melt.

Definitely too much wine.

“I couldn't stand it if anything happened to Calvin,” she heard herself say. Where had
that
come from? Lots of people lived with asthma, and Calvin was healthy in every other way.

Austin's lips were warm at her temple. “Calvin will be fine,” he said. He shifted beneath her, and she realized that he was dealing with the erection of the century.

Fire shot through her. And so did common sense. If she let things go any further, it would be a repeat of last time.

Or worse.

Paige pulled free and got to her feet. Straightened her clothes and splayed her fingers to fluff out her hair. Sucked in a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh.

Austin, breaking the McKettrick rule, did not stand up. He just sat there, watching her, looking amused. There was a sleepy ease in his blue eyes that said the game wasn't over.

“You're right,” Paige said in businesslike tones, “Calvin
will
be fine.”

Austin still didn't speak. He did reach out and trace the length of Paige's right forearm with the tip of one index finger.

Goose bumps rose on every part of her body, and there was more heating and spilling and spreading out inside her.

“Do you still want kids, Paige? Like you did when we were—” He paused, swallowed. “Like you did?”

She retreated a step—a victory of sorts—but ducking into her bedroom and locking the door behind her would
have been a better move, because this was dangerous emotional ground.

Austin wouldn't force her to do anything, she knew that. But then, she'd never been afraid of Austin. It was herself she feared, the desperate physical need he could so easily arouse in her.

“We don't have condoms,” she blurted out, without planning to, and she was appalled at herself for saying such a thing.

“Yeah, we do,” Austin replied, standing up. His hands came to rest, ever so lightly, on the sides of her waist. “I bought a box after lunch today, when we stopped to fill my prescription.”

“Oh,” Paige said.

He hooked a finger under her chin, lifted. “Yeah,” he teased. “Oh.”

“We can't, Austin.”

“Why not?”

“We agreed not to, remember? Because we're going to be running into each other a lot over the next—oh, say,
fifty years?
”

“Seems to me we already crossed that particular line, Paige.”

She looked up at him. “We didn't—”

But Austin laid a finger to her lips. “We
did,
” he said. “For all practical intents and purposes,
we had sex.
”

“I'm not having this argument with you again, Austin McKettrick,” Paige said, substituting bravado for dignity and hoping to get away with it.

“Because we didn't ‘go all the way'?” Austin asked, his voice husky, his breath tingly warm and wine-scented against her mouth. “Come on, Paige. We're not kids any
more, screwing in haylofts and fields and the backseats of cars. We're consenting adults.”

“Is that what it was to you?” Paige shot back, desperate for something—
anything
—to throw between them as a barrier. “Screwing?”

The tactic didn't work. Austin kept her close, and rested his chin on the top of her head. She felt his heart beating, strong and steady, under her right palm.

“Let's take a swim,” he surprised her by saying. “Like before.”

“You shouldn't get your bandage wet,” Paige said, and then wished the statement hadn't had the tone of a lecture.

“That's easy to remedy,” he replied, tightening his embrace a little and kissing the place where his chin had been propped. “I'll take it off.”

“You can't do that,” Paige argued. “I'm serious, Austin. Your wound could become infected, or any number of other things could happen—”

He rocked her a little, ran his strong hands along the length of her back. Sort of settled her against him. “Shhh,” he said. “I'll follow your orders, Nurse Remington. No swimming. No making love. But it's early and I've already had a few hours of shut-eye and I need something to do.”

She had to laugh at his reasoning. “That's why you suggested having sex?” she asked, leaning back to look up at him. “Because you need something to do?”

Austin McKettrick didn't lack for audacity—or for much else. He ground his hips against hers, letting her know how much he wanted her.

His size, coupled with the hard heat of him, made
Paige think of wild stallions out on the range, courting their mares. And her knees nearly buckled.

“I didn't suggest having
sex,
” he told her, about to take her mouth now, teasing her with a couple of nibbling, ricochet kisses, making contact and then bouncing off. “I said ‘making love,' Paige, and there's a big difference.”

Paige felt as though she were drowning—and what a way to go.

By enormous effort, she stepped back out of Austin's arms. Emotionally, it was like bolting from a warm house to run naked through a snowstorm.

“I'm going out to the barn to look in on Molly,” she announced in a shaky voice, dragging in deep breaths and letting them out as if she'd been running. “If you still ‘need something to do,' you can come along.”

“Gee, thanks,” Austin drawled. “My horse, my barn. Nice of you to invite me.”

Nice?
Not hardly.

And not very smart, either.

The barn was pretty private at this time of day.

And they'd had sex—made love—
whatever
—in the hayloft of that barn, more times than Paige could count.

“You go by yourself,” she said, waving him off.

“Not a chance,” Austin answered. “It was your idea to pay Molly a visit, and a fine idea it is, too. We'll
both
go.”

Paige sighed. Looking in on Molly
had
been her idea, and she wanted, even needed, to follow through. “Okay,” she said. “But keep your hands to yourself, Austin. I mean it.”

He grinned and held up both those hands, palms out, like some misguidedly jovial old-West bank teller facing an armed robber and expecting matters to turn out well
for everybody. “Your low opinion of my character,” he drawled, “wounds me deeply.”

Paige pretended to put a finger down her throat, and that only amused him more.

They bickered all the way to the kitchen, where they both donned jackets—his denim, hers nylon and way too big because, of course, it wasn't hers at all.

Shep stumped along happily behind them, stopping once to lift his leg against one of the posts supporting Esperanza's clothesline.

It was dark out by then, of course, and Paige's courage faltered a little as she remembered how Austin and the dog had both been hurt, not fifty feet from where they were walking right now.

Austin must have sensed her trepidation, because he slipped an arm around her shoulder. “Don't worry,” he told her cheerfully, “Shep and I will keep you safe. Besides, there's nobody around anyhow.”

“How can you be so sure?” Paige asked with a little shiver.

Austin's grin flashed like bright moonlight in the heavy twilight. “Because Shep would go ape-shit if there was,” he said.

“Oh,” Paige said, looking down at the dog with his hind leg bandaged, and feeling a little dubious.

They made it to the barn without being attacked by some snarling creature or shot at by a varmint of the two-legged variety.

Austin flipped on the lights and moved from stall gate to stall gate, greeting all the sleepy horses, one by one. Stroking their long faces, sometimes giving one of their ears a gentle tug.

Paige strode straight past him, headed for Molly.
Reaching the little mare's stall, she murmured a soft greeting and stepped inside.

Molly was already filling out. Her coat seemed shinier, her eyes brighter. Best of all, the marks left by the halter were healing beautifully.

Paige stroked the animal, found an old brush balanced on one of the boards framing the stall, and began, very gently, to groom her.

Molly snuffled happily and shook her head once, causing Paige to smile.

“How long since you've ridden a horse?” Austin's question startled her a little; she had been too absorbed in brushing Molly down to notice his approach.

“A while, I guess,” Paige said, as a lump formed in her throat.

The last time she'd been on a horse had been on this ranch, a decade before, when she and Austin were still together. Back then, she'd believed with all the naive innocence of a young girl's heart that he loved her, just as she loved him, and that one day, the Silver Spur would be her home, as well as his.

His voice, like his manner, was very quiet. “Come morning,” he said, “I mean to saddle up and cover a little ground.”

“Your back—” Paige began, but then she bit her lip.

“I'll be careful,” he said.

“That will be the day,” she scoffed, well aware that she was acting like some kind of fidgety, overprotective grandmother. The fact was, Austin, like both his brothers, had been riding since he was a toddler, first with his dad and then on his own. The fresh air, the freedom and the exercise, provided it wasn't too strenuous, would be good for him.