McKettricks of Texas: Tate (13 page)

An uncomfortable silence ensued.

More Scotch was poured.

“I’m not letting
that one
drop,” Tate said.

Austin sighed, glanced in Garrett’s direction.

Evidently, no help was forthcoming from the future president of the United States, who was already three sheets to the wind. If he ever made it to the White House, the tabloids would have no trouble at all digging up dirt on him.

Resigned and even a little regretful, Austin said, “I was in Vegas, for the finals. Cheryl showed up, told the desk clerk at the hotel that we were married. She must have shown him ID—her last name was McKettrick at the time, remember. Anyhow, when I got back to my room, after the ride and the buckle ceremony at South Point, Cheryl was waiting.”

Tate and Garrett were both watching him, Tate with tight-jawed annoyance, Garrett with pity.

“And?”
Tate prompted.

“And she was naked,” Austin admitted.

“Good God,” Garrett told his younger brother, “you
are
stupid, admitting a thing like that. Are you
trying
to get those perfect white teeth knocked out of your head?”

Austin flushed. “She was naked,” he insisted.

“So you said,” Tate observed.

“And crying,” Austin added.

“Boo-hoo,” Garrett said.

“God help America,” Tate said, “if
you
ever get your name on the ballot.”

“The press would make hash out of him,” Austin remarked to Tate, cocking a thumb at Garrett, “before he ever got the nomination.”

Garrett scowled, but said nothing. He could have bullshitted a lot of people, but his brothers weren’t among them. They knew him too well.

“Cheryl was naked and crying in your hotel room
and—
?” Tate prompted, glaring at Austin.

“And,” Austin said, with drunken dignity, “she said you didn’t even ask for a divorce, you just told her you were filing for one. Did I mention she was in my bed?”

There had been more to Tate’s decision to end the marriage, of course, but Cheryl, indignant that he’d refused to overlook her one-night stand with a prominent judge in Dallas and go on as if nothing had happened, wouldn’t have included that part of the story.

Nor did Austin and Garrett need to know it.

“No,” Tate said evenly. “You skipped that part, but you did say she was naked, so I guess it figures.”

“She was in his bed,” Garrett said, with portent. Where the hell had he been for the last minute or so?

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Tate said. “And shut the fuck up, will you?”

“Listen to him,” Garrett remarked to Austin. “I think I’ll establish a national committee on casual profanity. Too many people swear. We need to get to the bottom of this, nip it in the bud, cut it off at the pass—”

“One more word,” Tate told Garrett, “and I’m stuffing that whiskey bottle down your throat.”

Garrett belched again.

Tate turned back to Austin. “Cheryl was in your bed,” he reminded him.

“She was?” Austin said.

Tate reached across the table and got his kid brother by the shirt collar. “She was,” Tate agreed. “And the next thing you did was—?”

Austin grinned. “Well, first, I wished you weren’t my brother, and her husband, because mega-bitch that she is, Cheryl is one hot woman. I didn’t ask her what she was after, because that was pretty obvious. She wanted to pay you back for divorcing her, in spades. I told her she needed therapy, and then I picked up my gear, walked out and slept on the couch in my buddy Steve Miller’s suite.”

“The buckle guy?” Garrett asked, evidently determined to be part of the conversation, even though he’d long since lost track of it.

“Yeah,” Tate said tightly, “the
buckle guy.
”

Miller, a representative of the company responsible for designing and constructing the fancy silver belt buckles winning cowboys were awarded at various rodeos around the country, was familiar to all three of them.

“I think I’ll go to bed now,” Garrett announced.

“Hell of an idea,” Tate agreed. “That will save me the trouble of kicking your ass.”

Garrett got out of his chair and stumbled in the general direction of his part of the house. The place was Texas-big, which meant they each had their own private wing, and it was not only possible but common for them to live for months under the same roof and still keep pretty much to themselves.

“He’s drunk,” Austin confided drunkenly.

“Ya think?” Tate asked.

Suddenly, Austin was sober. His blue eyes were clear. “I didn’t sleep with Cheryl,” he said.

Tate gave a great sigh. “I believe you,” he said. And it was true.

“Hallelujah,” Austin said, with some bitterness.

“It wouldn’t hurt you to hit the sack, either,” Tate told him. “You’re going to have one bitch of a hangover tomorrow, if there’s any justice in this world.”

Austin laughed. “Lucky for me there isn’t,” he said, and poured himself more Scotch. “You were with Libby Remington tonight, weren’t you?”

“Officially none of your damn business,” Tate proclaimed.

“Might as well admit it. Somebody turned you inside out tonight, big brother, and I’m betting it was Libby.”

“Okay.” Tate sighed, his energy flagging now that he and Austin had settled the Cheryl incident. “It was Libby.”

Austin grinned. “You’re a couple again? That’s good.”

Tate’s jaw clamped, and he had to take a second or so to unstick the hinges. “It’s not that simple,” he said.

“Because—?”

“Because I sold her out,” Tate rasped. Basically, he thought, he was no better than Cheryl. He hadn’t been married to Libby when he’d gone swimming in the romantic equivalent of a shark tank, letting things go way too far with the wrong woman, but they’d had an understanding. She’d trusted him completely, and he’d betrayed that trust.

He’d wounded her on a deep level, and he wasn’t naive enough to think that had changed, just because Libby had wanted sex. Libby had always enjoyed sex, and unless he missed his guess, she’d been doing without for quite a while.

On the other hand, maybe that was just wishful thinking.

She was a beautiful, desirable woman, and he wasn’t the first—or the last—man to notice.

“Sounds to me,” Austin observed dryly, after taking a few moments to mull over Tate’s grudging admission that he had indeed been with Libby that night, “like all must be forgiven. Lib’s nobody’s fool—none of the Remington women are. If she took you into her bed, big brother, she’s willing to forget the past, and that’s a rare thing, especially for a woman.”

The summer after he’d graduated from high school, Tate recalled, Austin had dated Libby’s youngest sister, Paige. For a while there, things had been hot and heavy, if any part of the rumors flying around town had been true, but in the end, Paige had had the good sense to throw Austin over when she’d enrolled in nursing school that September and he’d gone right on risking his neck at the rodeo.

“At what point,” Tate rasped, irritated, “did I say that Libby and I went to bed together?”

Austin chuckled. The sound, like the expression in his eyes and the set of his shoulders, was different somehow. His little brother had changed in ways Tate couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“You didn’t need to say it,” Austin replied. “Your shirt was still half out of your pants when you came through the door a little while ago, your hair’s furrowed from her fingers, and I’d bet money you’ve got a few claw marks under your clothes, too.” He paused, obviously savoring Tate’s silent but furious reaction to his blunt observations. “Even without all that, I’d know by the look in your eyes.”

“You’re wasted on rodeo,” Tate all but growled. “You ought to be with the CIA or something.”

Austin smiled. “Is all this going somewhere?” he asked. “You and Libby, I mean?”

Tate sighed. “Damn if I know,” he said. “It could have been just one of those things.”

“Or not,” Austin said.

“While we’re reading each other’s minds,” Tate ventured, “I see by my crystal ball that you haven’t been in rehab most of these long months, as you led the rest of us to believe. Who is she and how serious is it?”

Austin wore a muted version of his old devil’s grin while he decided whether he wanted to answer or not. “She’s a waitress in San Antonio,” he revealed, after considerable pause, “and it’s over.”

“You still think about Paige Remington every once in a while?” Tate knew he was pushing his luck, but that was a McKettrick family tradition, so long established that it was probably hereditary by now.

Austin looked away. “Yeah, sometimes,” he admitted, and Tate thought they were getting somewhere, for a moment or two. As if. “When that happens, I wear garlic around my neck and nail the doors and windows shut at night.”

Tate decided to let the subject drop. Shoved a hand through his hair, pushed back his chair. “Guess I’ll look in on the kids and then turn in for the night. You’d better do the same, because with Pablo’s funeral coming up in a few days and people coming from half a dozen states to pay their respects, things are bound to get wild around here.”

Austin nodded, stood up, ready to head for his wing of the house. “What about the stud, Tate? Why’s he still on the place, after he trampled Pablo like that?”

Tate thought of his little girls, asleep upstairs, and wouldn’t let himself imagine the things that could happen
if the devil-stallion ever got out of that pen. “The state vet took blood samples. He’ll decide whether the stallion ought to be put down or not when the paperwork comes back.”

Austin huffed out a breath. “You know what Dad would have done,” he said. “Taken a rifle out there and dropped that horse in his tracks with a single bullet to the brain.”

“Granddad, maybe,” Tate answered, shaking his head. “But not Dad. What happened to Pablo was an
accident,
Austin. Something spooked the stud, just as Pablo went to lead him down the ramp from the trailer and through the corral gate. Anyhow, you know Pablo wouldn’t want him destroyed.”

Austin reflected a few moments. “You know I hate to see any animal put down if there’s a choice, Tate,” he said, his eyes clear as he met his brother’s gaze, “but sometimes it has to be done.”

“I know that,” Tate said, though maybe he sounded a little peevish.

Austin’s grin flashed; mercurial changes were a way of life with him. “I could ride that paint,” he said. “Settle him down a little.”

“The hell you will,” Tate snapped, because grin or no grin, he knew the chances were 80 percent or better that his brother wasn’t kidding. “Buzzsaw damn near killed you, and now you want to give that crazy stud a shot at breaking your neck?”

“Good ole Buzzsaw,” Austin replied. “If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll ride that son-of-a-bitch to the buzzer. I’ll trail him from rodeo to rodeo if I have to, but I’ll draw him and I’ll ride him.”

Tate went cold, through and through. “You can’t be serious,” he marveled. “You get on that bull again, and it
will
be the last thing you ever do.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Austin said.

“Like hell it is,” Tate argued, with more heat than he thought he had in him after all those go-rounds with Libby. “It’s your dumb-ass McKettrick pride. You’re a world champion, several times over, so there’s nothing more to prove. Every cowboy gets thrown sooner or later, and Buzzsaw isn’t the first bull to pitch you into the dirt, so why not let well enough alone?”

“There
is
something to prove,” Austin countered quietly. “To myself.”

Tate shook his head. “What? That you’re certifiable?”

Austin looked Tate directly in the eyes. “I’ve never been scared of anything much in my life,” he said. “But I’m scared of that bull. And that’s something I can’t live with, Tate. You know what Dad always said—if you get thrown from a horse, you’d better get right back on, because if you don’t, the chances are good you never will.”

Tate’s gut clenched. He was the eldest; he’d always been the protector. Austin had just announced that he planned to commit suicide, and short of using some kind of unlawful imprisonment, Tate wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Still, he couldn’t let it drop. “Dad was talking about cow ponies, Austin,” he reasoned, “not devil-bulls with blood in their eye.”

Austin shrugged one shoulder. “Buzzsaw will be in the finals in Vegas this December, and so will I. There’s got to be a showdown. And I’ll draw him for my ride, because it’s meant to be that way.”

“Unless you don’t enter,” Tate said, chilled. “And you’re a damn fool if you do.”

“I’ve been called a lot worse,” Austin answered. And then he turned and walked away from Tate, on his way to the stairs leading to his private living space on the second floor.

For a long time, Tate just stood there, his jawline tight, his fists bunched at his sides. At the moment, unlawful imprisonment looked like a viable option.

Then he shut out the lights and went upstairs.

Audrey and Ava were asleep in their beds, with one dog each curled up at their feet.

Quietly, he approached, straightening Audrey’s covers and then Ava’s, kissing each of them lightly on the forehead, so they wouldn’t wake up.

Cheryl would be back in a few days, he thought, trying to resign himself to giving up his daughters again. Renewed by her time away from Blue River, she’d have rearmed herself, come up with new arguments for why the twins ought to compete in the Pixie Pageant. She’d work hard to wear him down; she probably knew the effort was destined for failure, but that would only inspire her to get sneaky.

And Cheryl was real good at sneaky.

Audrey stirred in the midst of some dream, gave a soft sigh.

Her mother’s daughter, she’d been working on him over the past few days, angling for his permission to enter the pageant, just as Ava had warned that she would.
Was
he just being bull-headed, refusing to sign, as Cheryl said?

Little-girl pageants offended him—he hated the costumes and the emphasis on looks—but surely they weren’t
all
bad. Otherwise-sensible people—he did not include Cheryl in that category—allowed their kids to participate. Seemed to view it as a confidence builder, like playing on a soccer team or something.