McKettricks of Texas: Tate (14 page)

Sure, there were few winners and a lot of losers, but that was life, wasn’t it?

On top of all that, this particular shindig was local, not a stopover on the pageant circuit. They were holding it at the
Blue River Country Club, a place as familiar to him as the post office or the feed store.

Maybe he’d been wrong, made the decision too quickly.

Audrey opened her eyes just then, smiled up at him. “Hi, Daddy,” she said sleepily.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, his voice coming out hoarse. This fathering business, he reflected, was not for cowards. You made one hard decision and there was another one coming along right behind it.

“Did you have fun at Libby’s house?” his daughter asked, stretching.

Ava, in the next bed, slept on, dead to the world.

“Sure did,” Tate told her.

“Esperanza cried all night,” Audrey confided, worried. “I don’t think she’s ever going to stop.”

Tate’s throat tightened, aching right along with his heart. He could only shield his daughters from the hard realities, like death, for so long. “She’ll probably do that for a while,” he said quietly, leaning to kiss her forehead again. “But things will get better in time, you’ll see.”

Audrey nodded, yawned and closed her eyes. “’Night,” she murmured.

Tate made as little noise as he could, leaving the room and closing the door behind him, assailed by the knowledge that while things
would
eventually get better, they might just get a whole lot worse first.

W
HEN
S
ATURDAY AFTERNOON
rolled around, every business in town was closed for Pablo’s funeral. Esperanza, Tate and both his brothers were among the first to arrive at the small Catholic church that would soon be bulging with mourners from every walk of life.

Since Cheryl had arrived home that morning, a day early and in a weirdly tractable state of mind, Tate had reluctantly allowed her to take the kids back to her place ahead of time. An open-casket funeral was no place for a couple of six-year-olds; they wouldn’t understand about Pablo lying there in a box, still and waxy in the suit he’d bought to wear to his daughter’s graduation from medical school.

A furious ache grabbed at Tate’s heart as he walked slowly up the center aisle to pay his respects before the service got started. He and his brothers, along with one of Pablo’s nephews and two of Isabel’s, would be the pallbearers when it was time to carry the coffin outside to the hearse parked squarely in front of the churchyard gate.

There would be no graveside ceremony. Pablo had long ago arranged to be cremated, and despite church regulations he’d left written instructions with Isabel that he wanted his ashes spread on the Silver Spur, where he’d lived and worked and raised his children. When she’d
shared that request with Tate, he’d called to make the arrangements.

Up close, Pablo fulfilled all the funereal clichés. He looked natural, as though he were merely sleeping, and his expression was strangely peaceful, but when Tate touched his friend’s hand, he felt a chill so cold it burned like dry ice.

“We’ll look after Isabel, Pablo,” Tate said, in a ragged whisper. “We’ll see that she and the kids have everything they need.”

A hand landed on Tate’s right shoulder, and he was startled, since he hadn’t heard anyone approaching. He turned to see Brent standing behind him, Denzel-handsome in a freshly pressed uniform.

“This isn’t your fault, old buddy,” Brent said. His intuition was a force to be reckoned with; sometimes it seemed to Tate that his friend could read minds.

“If only I hadn’t told Pablo I’d buy that stud if it went up for sale,” Tate answered. Isabel had just arrived, a small, veiled figure, surrounded by sons and daughters and sisters and cousins and solicitous friends. “I should have been out there to help unload that horse. Would have been, if Pablo had just called to let me know he was bringing him in.”

Brent dropped his hand to his side. “I’ve got some regrets myself,” he said. “Sooner or later, you’ve got to let go of the if-onlys, Tate, because you’ll go crazy if you don’t.”

Tate nodded; he was familiar with his friend’s regrets, most of which centered around his young wife, who’d been shot in a scuffle on the concourse of an outdoor mall. He left Brent beside the casket and made his way to the front pew, where the Ruizes were settling in. Nico, the eldest son, lithe and dark and intense as a matador, put out his hand in greeting. Back when they were all kids, Nico had spent a lot of
time at the main ranch house with Tate and his brothers, but over the years, they’d drifted apart.

“Thanks for being here, Tate,” Nico said, swallowing hard to control his emotions.

Tate would have traveled from any part of the planet to say goodbye to Pablo Ruiz, and Nico knew that. Saying thanks was just a formality.

Tate nodded, too choked up to speak.

Isabel, already seated, her face nearly invisible behind the layers of black netting comprising her veil, put out her frail hands to Tate, and he squeezed them with his own, felt her trembling. He nodded to Mercedes, who was weeping silently, and the younger boys, Juan and Ricardo. They were still in high school, Tate knew, and the luminous sorrow in their nearly black eyes tore at him.

How well he remembered the ache of that bleak and fathomless loss of a parent—he still felt it sometimes, when he was riding alone on the range, along trails he’d traveled so many times with his dad, or when he saw women around his mother’s age, dressed up for church or some luncheon out at the country club. Sally McKettrick had dearly loved any occasion that gave her an excuse to wear a splashy hat, a pastel suit and high heels.

Some change in the atmosphere made Tate scan the pews as he left the Ruizes, intending to take his place alongside Esperanza and his brothers and brace himself to get through all that was to come.

His gaze settled on Libby—he hadn’t seen her since the night they’d skipped supper to make love—and even in those grim circumstances, she warmed something inside him. Her dress was navy blue and her hair swept away from her face, caught up in back with some kind of clip. Julie stood next to her, clad in dramatic black, and Paige was there, too,
wearing a dark brown pantsuit, her short cap of glossy black hair catching colored light from the stained-glass windows.

Tate took a step toward the three sisters, his attention focused solely on Libby, but the aisle was already crowded, and he couldn’t get through.

“Tate,” he heard Esperanza whisper. “Here we are.”

He looked to his right, saw the housekeeper sitting in a nearby pew, between Garrett and Austin, who appeared to be supporting her with the pressure of their shoulders. Garrett studied the Remington women as they found places and sat down, but Austin stared straight ahead, with determined disinterest, toward the altar and Pablo’s gleaming casket.

Just before Tate joined the others in their pew, Libby’s gaze found and connected with his. Nothing in her expression changed—he might have been a total stranger instead of the man who had so recently shared her bed—but an invisible cord seemed to stretch between them, drawing taut and then snapping back on Tate with an impact that made him blink.

He took a seat next to his family.

Other mourners crowded into the church, and it got so warm, even with the laboring air-conditioning system, that people began to sweat. The organist took her place and sonorous music joined with the oppressive heat, creating a humid stew of sound.

Tate longed to loosen his tie, but out of respect for Pablo and the Ruiz kin, he refrained.

Altar boys appeared, carrying lighted candles, followed by Father Rodriguez, a slight, trundling man who moved like one carrying an enormous weight on his narrow shoulders.

A pregnant woman toward the front fainted, and there was a brief flurry while she was revived with smelling salts and led out of the sanctuary by a side door. Esperanza, who
had been weeping for days, sat dry-eyed now, all cried out except for the occasional sniffle. Although she had liked Pablo, as had everyone else for miles around, Tate knew the bulk of her grief was reserved for Isabel, left a widow with two children still at home.

Esperanza had lost a husband, too, before she left Mexico as a relatively young woman, but if she had kids of her own, she had never mentioned them to Tate. A woman of benevolent and unflagging faith, she believed both her own lost love and Pablo Ruiz were safe in heaven, and that those forced to go on alone were the ones to be pitied.

Although Tate wasn’t sure there was such a place as heaven, he hoped so. Hoped his folks and Pablo and Crockett, his old dog, were all together somewhere, in some bright and painless place where there were horses to ride and plenty of green grass for their grazing.

Father Rodriguez conducted Mass in solemn Latin—no doubt Pablo, an old-fashioned Catholic, had wanted it that way—and then various people took their turns going up front to say a few words about Pablo. Tate was among them, as were Garrett and Austin. He was never able to remember, after that day, exactly what he’d said—only that he’d gotten through the brief speech without losing his composure.

It had been a close one, though.

After him, Libby rose, made her way to the microphone, and told the sweltering congregation, her voice trembling, how Pablo had come to the Remington house faithfully, every single week after her father got sick, how he’d mowed the lawn and weeded and raked the flower beds and fixed whatever needed repair, from the rain gutters to the washing machine. She honestly didn’t know, she said, what they would have done without him.

The story stung Tate in some deep and tender place, one he’d never explored.

The townspeople had rallied to help the Remingtons in every possible way. Had
he
done anything?

His gut roiled with the guilt he’d never been able to shake.

Oh, yeah. He’d done something, all right. Far from home, overwhelmed by the demands of law school and, most of all, missing Libby, he’d gotten drunk at a party and wound up in bed with Cheryl. Gotten her pregnant, for good measure.

Tate lowered his head.

Garrett, sitting beside him, nudged him back to the here-and-now with a motion of one elbow.

Having completed her short eulogy, Libby returned to her pew and sat down, and someone else got up to speak.

The service ended after two full hours, and Tate, Garrett and Austin joined Pablo and Isabel’s nephews up front.

The coffin’s bright brass handles gleamed. The lid was lowered, and one of the Ruiz women cried out then, a piercing, anguished sound—and the organist began the recessional.

Red, yellow and blue light from the stained-glass windows played over the mounds of white flowers draped across the top of the casket as the six men carried it down the aisle, toward the dazzle of afternoon sunshine at the open doors.

The casket, surprisingly light, was loaded carefully into the back of the hearse. People streamed out of the church, milled in the yard and on the sidewalk, talking in quiet voices, some of them wiping their eyes with wadded handkerchiefs, others hugging, consoling each other. Some smiled through their tears, perhaps remembering how Pablo had loved to tell stupid jokes, or share the produce from his garden, or drop off a pan of Isabel’s fine enchiladas when they were sick or out of a job or mourning the loss of a loved one.

Isabel, Nico and Mercedes and the boys accepted hugs and handshakes and exhortations to call if they needed anything at all, and looked profoundly relieved when the funeral director steered them toward a waiting limousine. They were settled quickly inside, and then gone.

Tate looked around for Libby, the way a man might look for water when his throat was parched, found her standing under an oak tree, dappled in sun and shadow, Paige and Julie close by as always. They spoke quietly to friends, and though they bore little resemblance to each other, Tate knew it would have been clear even to a stranger that they were related. Something indefinable bound them together, made them a unit.

The heat was oppressive, but somehow, Libby looked cool as a mountain spring in that dark blue dress. Once in a while, her gaze strayed to Tate, only to bounce away again when their eyes met.

By tacit agreement—because that was the way things were done in places like Blue River, Texas—folks waited and foot-shuffled and fanned themselves with their simply printed programs, giving Isabel and her brood plenty of time to get home and get settled before they began stopping by with the ritual salads and spiral-cut hams and bakery goods. Personal condolences would be offered and graciously received, along with sympathy cards containing checks of varying size.

However much Isabel and the others might have preferred to be alone with each other and their memories of Pablo, the gathering at the modest house beside the winding creek was as important as the funeral. There would be a guestbook, and sooner or later, when she’d emerged from the haze of bereavement, Isabel would examine it, page by page, taking in the names of all those who’d cared.

With the throng still clogging the path between himself and Libby, Tate saw no way to get to her without shouldering his way through. So he shook hands with neighboring ranchers, kissed the cheeks of his mother’s friends, and waited.

Finally, when he’d decided that enough time had passed, Father Rodriguez got into his dusty compact car to drive out to the Ruiz house, with Esperanza to keep him company on the way.

Maybe, Tate thought, he’d get a chance to talk to Libby over postfuneral coffee and a paper plate heaped with food he didn’t want. On the other hand, she might have written their encounter off as a lapse of judgment and decided to steer clear from there on out.

Nobody would have blamed her for that, least of all Tate himself.

J
ULIE TOOK THE WHEEL
of the pink Cadillac, while Libby claimed the passenger seat and Paige slipped into the back.

“For God’s sake,” Paige said distractedly, “turn on the air-conditioning. It’s hot as hell’s kitchen in here.”

Julie complied, casting a brief glance in Libby’s direction.

An understanding passed between them, no words necessary.

Paige, as upset over Pablo Ruiz’s death as any of them, had spent most of the service trying not to look at Austin McKettrick and failing visibly.

Libby rolled down her window and fluttered the church bulletin under her chin. “Austin looks good,” she commented, keeping her voice light, “for somebody who tangled with a bull not all that long ago.”

“He’s an idiot,” Paige said, with a dismissive tone that didn’t fool either of her sisters. They well remembered that,
although Paige had been the one to end things with Austin, she’d grieved for months afterward.

Libby and Julie exchanged glances again, but Julie had to navigate the after-funeral traffic, so she quickly turned her attention back to the road.

“If only all idiots were that good-looking,” Julie contributed. “How many guys have a whole calendar devoted just to pictures of them?”

“Shallow,” Paige retorted, though she owned the calendar in question. “A Year of Austin,” it was titled—she kept it pinned to the laundry room wall at her place, even though it was out of date, open to July and the image of her favorite cowboy riding a wild bull and wearing a stars-and-stripes shirt. “Austin McKettrick is
shallow.
And he’ll never grow up.”

“He looks pretty grown up to me,” Libby observed, with a slight smile.

Julie made an eloquent little sound, part growl and part purr.

“Shut up,” Paige said, peevish. “Do we have to go out to the Ruizes’ place? It will be jammed, and it’s so hot. I’d rather go back to your house and keep Calvin and the dog company.”