McKettricks of Texas: Tate (30 page)

In the end, there was no fish fry, though.

They threw back everything they caught.

The kids wanted mac-and-cheese, anyway. The boxed kind was Tate’s culinary specialty; when he felt like swanking it up, he added wieners.

He’d give Esperanza the night off, he decided—maybe she’d like to go to the movies or visit a friend.

By the time the mosquitoes were out and drilling for blood, Audrey and Ava were finally starting to run down. Hunger made them cranky, and they began to bicker.

“Seems like they’ve had all the fun they can stand,” Tate told Libby.

She nodded, grinned up at him. Her eyes looked dreamy; the quiet afternoon had been good for her.

If Tate had his way, the night would be even better.

For a while, it looked as though that was actually going to happen.

Once the kids had stowed their fishing poles, everyone checked out the progress the contractors had made on the house. The twins’ room was coming together, and so was the bathroom they would share. The kitchen and the master bedroom both had a ways to go.

Tate decided he might get back into the home-improvement groove after all. Delegate some of his duties as foreman—not that he was real clear yet on what those duties actually were.

He wished he’d spent more time riding with Pablo now, both on horseback and in the company truck. And not just because of the things he might have learned.

The man’s absence was still a persistent ache in Tate’s middle, a wind that sometimes abated and sometimes howled.

He saddled his horse and Libby’s, checked to see that the girls had gotten their cinches tight enough and wouldn’t be rolling off their ponies’ backs onto the ground.

Not that they’d have far to go, he thought, with a smile.

The ponies were about the size of a large dog.

Once Libby was on Buttons’s back and squared away, Tate handed Hildie up into her arms, made sure she had a
good grip. That dog looked as easy in the saddle as if she played polo on weekends.

Letting the kids get a head start, Tate took his time swinging up into the saddle and turning Stranger in the direction of the main house.

Sometimes I wonder who I’d be, away from here.

Libby’s remark had snagged in his mind, beneath all the sunshine and the fishing and the easy enjoyment of a sunny day.

If she thought he was going to let
that
one go, she should have damn well known better.

“So,” Tate began, as they rode slowly onto the range again, the big house towering in the distance, like the castle it was. “Who do you think you’d be, Lib, away from Blue River?”

She nestled her chin onto the top of Hildie’s head, her arms stretched around the dog’s ample body, holding on to the saddle horn for balance and letting the reins rest loosely across the mare’s neck.

After a long time, she replied sadly, “I don’t know. Maybe someone who’s accomplished things.”

Tate nudged his horse a bit closer to Libby’s, not to crowd her, but in case holding the dog got to be too much for her. He raised an eyebrow and shifted his gaze to the space between Stranger’s ears, though he was still watching Lib out of the corner of one eye.

“Like what?” he asked, very carefully.

If Libby truly believed she had something to prove, well, as far as Tate was concerned, that was cause for concern. Especially if she thought she had to leave Blue River to do it.

She sighed. She shook her head.

Gently, he took Hildie from her.

Their horses moved apart again.

Hildie tilted her head back to lick the underside of Tate’s chin.

He chuckled. The girls were too far ahead, almost to the fence, the pups weaving around them.

Tate gave a shrill whistle to get Audrey and Ava’s attention, signaled them to wait for him and Libby.

“Will you do me a favor, Lib?” he asked, when she didn’t say anything. “Before you decide to take off for parts unknown, so you can ‘accomplish’ things, will you give us a chance? You and me, I mean?”

Tears glistened in her eyes when she looked at him. “What kind of chance?”

“You know what kind of chance.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“What if it does?”

Libby bit down on her lower lip and looked away. “It didn’t before.”

“That was before. We weren’t living in the same town. And that was a long time ago, Lib.”

She met his eyes, with a visible effort. “Isn’t that what we’re doing now, Tate?” she asked quietly. “Giving things a chance?”

“I want to sleep with you every night, Libby. I want to shower with you and eat breakfast with you and do a whole lot of other things with you.” He paused, looked back over his shoulder. “The house isn’t finished, but it’s livable. I’ll rustle up some furniture, and we’ll move in. You, me and the kids and the dogs.”

She was quiet for a long time. So long that Tate started to get nervous.

“You’re suggesting that we
live
together?” Libby finally asked. “In the same house with your children?”

The scandalized note in her voice made Tate chuckle. “Hello? The parents of half the kids in their kindergarten class ‘cohabitate.’”

“There’s cohabitation,” Libby said, “and there’s
shacking up.
”

“You know, for someone as sexually responsive as you are, Lib, you can really be prudish.”

Her cheeks glowed with pink splotches. “You’re not concerned that Audrey and Ava will be—confused?”

Tate huffed out a sigh. “No,” he said. “Did Ava seem ‘confused’ this morning, when she found us in bed together? For better or worse, it’s a different world, Libby.” He watched her for a long moment, trying to gauge her reactions. They had almost caught up with the girls, so he lowered his voice. “If it really bothers you, though—
living in sin,
I mean—we could go ahead and get married.”

“Married?”

“Well, wouldn’t that be better than ‘shacking up,’ as you put it?”

“What about—” She stopped, swallowed so hard that Tate felt the dry ache in his own throat. “What about love?”

“Love isn’t our problem,” Tate replied quietly. “
Trust
is our problem.”

Libby didn’t affirm that assertion, but she didn’t deny it, either. So he still had a fighting chance.

For now, though, the conversation was over.

Deftly, Ava reached, without dismounting, to work the gate latch.

In the distance, the stud kicked and squealed like he’d tear that pen apart, rail by rail and bolt by bolt. The sound of that animal’s rage sent a shiver tripping down Tate’s spine.

As soon as he’d ridden through the gate, Tate got down
from the saddle, set Hildie on the ground and strode toward the pen, leaving Stranger to go into the barn on his own.

“Shut that gate,” he called over one shoulder, “and go on into the barn.”

Through the gaps between the steel rails, Tate saw the stallion bunch its hind quarters, put its head down and send both its back legs slamming into the pen’s gate with enough force to shake the ground.

The gate held.

Tate swore under his breath. Fumbled for his cell phone and called Brent Brogan’s direct line.

“Hey, Tate,” Brent said, affably distracted, like he was doing paperwork or something. “Everything okay out there on the Ponderosa?”

Tate answered with a question of his own. “You heard a decision on what Animal Control wants to do with this stud?” he asked. “Because he’s in a foul mood—fixing to kick his way out of the pen and kill somebody else.”

Brent sighed. “I’ll make a few calls,” he said, “and get back to you.”

“Thanks,” Tate said. Call waiting clicked in his ear. “Later.” Then, after pressing the appropriate button, “Tate McKettrick.”

“It’s Julie Remington, Tate. I need to speak with Libby.”

So much, Tate thought, for loving the “kinks” out of Libby’s delectable little body later on, when they would have been alone. He grabbed hold of the pen gate with his free hand and gave the thing a hard shake, making sure the stud hadn’t sprung it.

“Sure,” he said glumly. “Hold on a second.”

Libby had gone into the barn, along with the twins, and when Tate reached the doorway, she and Audrey and Ava
were all in separate stalls, unsaddling their horses and getting ready to brush them down. Stranger stood in the breezeway, waiting his turn, although Libby must have removed his saddle and blanket and bridle.

The old horse ambled toward Tate, nudged him good-naturedly in the chest.

Leaving Buttons’s stall, Libby was smiling, dusting her hands together.

Job well done.

“For you.” Tate held the cell out to her, and she took it.

“Julie,” he added, opening the door to Stranger’s stall and stepping aside so the animal could precede him.

Libby nodded, looking mildly troubled, and headed for the open door at the end of the breezeway.

Tate closed the stall door and began brushing down his horse.

“I’
M
NOT
KIDDING
,” Julie said. “Marva is leaving. For good. The movers will come in a few days and clear out her apartment.”

Libby rounded the corner of the barn, keeping to the shade, and gazed at the stallion in its big metal cage. The creature had quieted, but its flanks and sides were lathered as though it had run for miles and miles. It stood with its head hung low, its sides expanding, drawing in, expanding, drawing in again.

She thought about Pablo; how startled and afraid he must have been when he fell under the stallion’s hooves. The pain, though probably brief, would have been horrendous.

“Julie, what do you want me to say?” Libby asked, backing away from the stallion now, resisting a strange and probably suicidal desire to reach between those steel slats
and try to comfort it somehow. Speak softly and stroke its sweat-drenched neck. “If Marva wants to leave, she can leave. Hitting the road is her forte, after all, isn’t it?”

“Nobody’s denying that she left us, Lib,” Julie said so quietly and so gently that Libby was ashamed of herself. “We were little girls. We needed her. She abandoned us and she abandoned Dad. But—”

“But?” Libby snapped.

On some level, she was still that terrified, heartbroken and
furious
kid who wanted her mother.

“Look,” Julie went on, when Libby was silent for a long time, “she wants to see all three of us, tonight. At her place. She says it’s important.”

Libby wanted to scream, though of course she didn’t. That would have alarmed the kids, and Hildie, who had followed her out of the barn and sat looking up at her now, pink tongue lolling.

“Why does it have to be tonight?”

“Because she’s flying out of Austin tomorrow,” Julie said. “Libby, I know you have issues with Marva—valid ones. We all do. But the woman
is
our mother, and I think we can do this much for her.”

Libby’s head began to throb. She dug into her right temple with three fingers and rubbed.

Returning to town meant she couldn’t pretend the Perk Up was still standing.

It probably meant no sex with Tate.

And she’d been looking forward to that, to getting naked in the shower with him. To soaring outside herself.

Love isn’t our problem,
he’d said. Trust
is our problem
.

Did that mean he still loved her?

Dammit, she wanted to know. She
needed
to know.

“Just come,” Julie said. “Please, Lib. Six-thirty, Marva’s place.”

Libby looked at her wrist, realized she wasn’t wearing her watch, and asked, “What time is it now?”

“A little after five,” Julie answered. “You’re with Tate, aren’t you?”

“Not for long, it would seem,” Libby lamented.
We were starting to get somewhere, Tate and I.

“I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Of course he will.
I’m
the one having a hard time understanding.”

“Well,
that
was certainly cryptic,” Julie remarked. Then, barely missing a beat, “You’ll be at Marva’s, then?”

Libby nodded, glummer than glum. “Yes.” She looked up, and Tate was standing maybe a dozen yards away, waiting, looking pensive.

And so deliciously hunky.

“See you at six-thirty,” Julie said.

“See you,” Libby answered, and closed the phone.

Walking up to Tate, she handed the device back to him.

“I have to go back to town,” she said. “It seems my mother is leaving Blue River again—her work here is done now that my business is in ruins—and she wants to say goodbye. Tonight.”

Tate sighed, took Libby’s shoulders in his hands. “You’re okay with this? Her leaving, I mean?”

“It’s not as though she’s been an integral part of my life, Tate.” Libby spoke without bitterness; she was simply stating a fact she’d accepted long ago. Mostly.

He drew her close, as she’d hoped he would do, and held her, resting his chin on the top of her head. “Let me make
sure Esperanza can look after the kids tonight, and then I’ll drive you to town.”

She nodded, wanting to cling to him, forcing herself not to clutch at the fabric of his shirt. “I don’t want to go.”

“Then don’t.”

“I
have
to, Tate.”

She felt the motion of his jaw; knew he was smiling even before he held her a little way from his chest so he could look down into her face.

“This was a good day,” he said.

“It was a good day,” Libby agreed.

But the best part was over.

Fifteen minutes later, they were in Tate’s truck, headed for Blue River. Hildie rode in the rear seat, but she wasn’t any happier about leaving the Silver Spur than Libby was, evidently. The dog sat backward, looking out the window over the truckbed, and every few moments, she gave a small whimper.

Libby wanted to reassure Hildie that they’d be back, but she was strangely hesitant to make such a promise.

At home, she took a quick shower and put on a simple cotton sundress. She tracked Tate to the kitchen, where he was leaning calmly against the counter, arms folded, watching Hildie gobble up her kibble. He’d refilled her water dish, too, and even brought in the newspaper and the mail.