McKettricks of Texas: Austin (13 page)

“I think I'm in the market for some competent medical care,” he said.

She smiled, but a tear slipped down her perfect cheek. “At your service,” she replied.

A
USTIN HAD A FEW NEW STITCHES
in his hide, along with a wad of medicated packing, a bandage over that, and a sling to support the whole mess. After two long days and three even longer nights confined to the inpatient section at the Blue River Clinic, he was finally headed home.

It was a quiet ride, just him and Paige, now officially his keeper, rolling along in her ugly little car. Shep sat silently in the backseat, with his head up, as if he were on the lookout for a fresh batch of attackers.

At least, Austin thought, cranky from the pain and the enforced immobility and all the rest of it, Paige wasn't asking questions. He had flat-out had it with questions.

How many times did he have to tell Tate, Garrett and Chief Brogan that he didn't remember anything that would help their investigation? He'd seen something out there on the oil fields and gone to check it out. Then he'd been shot.

That was the whole story.

Although the chief and the state police had gone over the oil field looking for some kind of evidence, they hadn't found anything they could use to identify the bad guys. Going by the terse reports Austin had basically pried out of Tate and Garrett, there had been an attempt to uncap one of the wells. Possibly the intruder had meant to set it afire.

As the current theory went, Austin had interrupted the process by showing up at the wrong time and, in a panic, the sneaking, chicken-shit sons of bitches had taken a shot at him when their two vehicles met on that narrow road. He'd seen nothing but that dazzle of headlights coming at him before the bullet splintered the windshield and lodged itself in his shoulder.

According to the doctors who'd treated him that night, if he hadn't leaned to the right in an attempt to protect Shep, the bullet would have gone right through the middle of his heart.

Fate was a peculiar thing, he reflected with a twinge of bitterness. Of course he was glad to be alive, but where was the lucky fluke—the wrong turn, the flat tire, the impulsive stop for Mexican food—that would have saved Jim and Sally McKettrick that night?

When that semi had jumped the median, they'd been directly in its path.

No reprieve, no mercy.

“Hello?” Paige broke into his thoughts. “Austin? Are you in there?”

He cocked a puny grin at her, slunk low in the seat and rubbed his bristly chin with one hand. His shoulder hurt, and the muscles in his lower back twitched in a vague but ominous threat of locking up. “Thanks,” he said.

“Thanks?” she echoed. She was looking directly ahead, keeping her eyes on the road, and she sounded puzzled.

“For springing me from the clinic,” Austin said. “And for bringing Shep along for the ride. I really missed that dog.”

Paige gave an odd little chuckle, slid one brief glance in his direction before fixing her attention on the road
again. “And the dog missed you,” she replied in a tone meant to convey more than Austin was able to pick up on at the time.

“How about Molly?” he asked.

“Molly,” Paige told him, in that same get-a-clue voice, “is healing nicely. Doc Pomeroy has stopped by twice to check on her. Calvin and I have been keeping the wounds clean and applying plenty of that special ointment Doc prescribed. Turns out my nephew has a real way with horses.”

“I'm not surprised,” Austin said gruffly, grinning at the thought of the boy studiously doctoring the little paint mare. “Calvin is a world-class kid.”

“At last, something we can agree on,” Paige said with what might—or might
not
—have been a smile. In profile, it was hard to tell. Plus, his gaze kept getting stuck on the perfect curve of her right breast.

By then, they'd reached the gates of the Silver Spur. They were open wide, and to Austin, it was like a welcoming embrace.

“When did we not agree?” Austin asked, figuring that, since they'd only been alone together for the fifteen minutes or so it took to drive from the clinic in Blue River to the ranch, they hadn't had time to get on each other's nerves.

Paige headed up the long driveway. “Just about every time we've tried to have a conversation?” she jibed, but there was a twinkle in her eyes when she looked his way.

Austin felt as though he'd been away from home a lot longer than the three days since the shooting, and maybe, at least from an emotional standpoint, he
had
been. Seeing the place again distracted him, even from
the banter with Paige, and he felt things lift up inside him as he took in the barn, the outbuildings, the palatial house.

And the moving trucks.

There were two of them, parked in the massive portico.

“What's up with that?” he asked Paige, indicating the rigs with a nod of his head.

She smiled, clearly pleased to know something he didn't. “Tate and Libby and the girls are moving back into the main house,” she said.

“Why?” Austin wanted to know, frowning a little but secretly happy to hear it. Tate had been so all-fired determined to create a different home for himself and Libby and the kids that he'd set up housekeeping in the old Ruiz place and started renovating like crazy.

Paige shrugged as she swung the car around the side of the house, buzzed up one of the garage doors and whisked them inside. “He's not saying,” she replied, shutting off the engine, “but Libby and Julie and I figure it's the McKettrick equivalent of circling the wagons. Tate's protecting his family. What with all that's been happening on this ranch lately, he may have a point.”

Whatever his oldest brother's reasons for returning to the homestead, where there was plenty of room for all of them yet with enough privacy to suit a hermit, Austin was glad. A house ought to have kids and dogs running around in it, it seemed to him, and if he and one or the other of his brothers occasionally crossed paths in the main kitchen or something, what harm could that do?

Paige parked the car, shut off the engine, closed the garage door and, finally, unsnapped her seat belt. Just as Austin was about to protest that he didn't need any help
getting out of the car, he realized she didn't intend to offer any.

She stepped out onto the concrete floor of the garage, opened the rear door on her side and stepped back so Shep could leap nimbly down.

Paige didn't even glance in Austin's direction, in fact, but simply retrieved her purse, slung the strap over one shoulder and walked inside.

At least the dog waited for him.

Both amused and annoyed—a common phenomenon with him when it came to Paige Remington—Austin grinned to himself and struggled out of the car. Paused to—carefully—stretch his legs before going on.

He still had a flight of stairs to climb, and he wasn't looking forward to it.

After that, he'd have nothing to do but lie around watching TV, listening to the radio or trying to read. This last had proved frustrating since his back had gone to hell; reading was a challenge for him anyway, but the pills he had to take made concentration even more difficult, and sometimes impossible.

He wasn't looking forward to the boredom, either. Too much time to look back on things he couldn't change and regret them just the same.

All hell broke loose when he stepped into the kitchen.

Streamers flew and things popped, the dogs barked in chorus, Shep joining right in like he'd been practicing his part, and Calvin and the twins whooped,
“Surprise!”

For one confused moment, Austin wondered if it was his birthday or something.

But Julie and Libby both approached, each of them planting a sisterly kiss on his cheek. Julie laughed,
probably at the confounded expression on his face, and said, in a tone she might have used to prompt one of her drama students when they needed a cue, “Welcome home, Austin.”

He looked around the big room, saw Tate opening the first of a stack of pizza boxes on the center island. Garrett, meanwhile, was calling off the kids and the dogs.

Paige was nowhere in sight.

Austin tugged at Audrey's dark ponytail, then Ava's. He ruffled Calvin's blond hair and walked into the heart of that house, and that family.

His family.

 

P
AIGE STOOD IN THE LARGER
of the two bedrooms in the guest apartment, enjoying the billow and scent of a freshly laundered, snow-white sheet as she flung it open and then watched as it settled slowly over the bed.

Until further notice, Austin would be sleeping here; Paige had carried the few belongings she'd brought from home into the smaller room that had been Calvin's, before he and Julie moved upstairs to share Garrett's place.

Until Austin's shooting, she'd been ambivalent about accepting the job as his private nurse. The moment she'd seen him lying on the ground out there in the oil field, however, losing blood at an alarming rate and more concerned about his dog's well-being than his own, there had been a seismic shift in Paige, one she couldn't fully explain, even to herself.

She was still wildly attracted to Austin McKettrick.

At the same time, she was scared to death of the things he made her feel. She wanted to run the other way, as fast and as far as she could.

She also wanted to run
toward
him.

Paige smoothed the sheet, spread a blanket on top. Fluffed up the pillows.

“Paige? Are you okay, sweetie?”

She turned, knowing Julie would be standing in the doorway. “Of course I am,” she said, smiling. “Why wouldn't I be ‘okay'?”

Julie rested a shoulder against the doorjamb and folded her arms. Her head was tilted to one side, and she was wearing that look of benevolent suspicion she usually reserved for Calvin. Dressed in jeans and one of Garrett's old flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up, she'd obviously been helping Libby unpack over in Tate's part of the house.

“Well,” Julie drawled in reply, “the rest of us are in the kitchen, celebrating Austin's return and about to have pizza, and you're in here, all by yourself—”

Paige turned, plunked down on the side of the bed she hadn't quite finished making. “Maybe,” she admitted, somewhat testily, “I just needed a moment. Did you ever think of that?”

Julie laughed softly and crossed to sit next to Paige. Looking around the room, she sighed and, instead of answering Paige directly, mused aloud, “Who would have believed my life could change as much as it has since Calvin and I were staying in this apartment?”

Any reminder of Julie's happiness—or Libby's—made
Paige
happy, too. Smiling, she took Julie's hand and squeezed it lightly. “Garrett's a lucky man,” she said.

Julie flushed. “And I'm a lucky
woman,
” she replied. Their hands still clasped, the two sisters touched the sides of their heads together briefly, then Julie got back on her feet. Smiled at Paige with genuine understanding. “I know it's awkward,” she said. “Living here, I mean. Helping
out with Calvin before and after school is one thing, but being in close contact with Austin, after everything—”

Paige uttered a raw chuckle and put up one hand to silence Julie. “It's good practice,” she said.

Julie looked confused. “What is?”

Paige laughed. “If you could see your face,” she teased. Then she stood up, and left the bed semimade behind her. In the hallway, she linked her arm through Julie's, and they both headed toward the kitchen, the pizza and those incomparable McKettrick men.

Julie smiled, but she wasn't going to let Paige off the hook. “
What
is ‘good practice'?” she insisted, in a whisper.

“Being in the same room with Austin McKettrick and one, not killing him,” Paige whispered back, her tone mischievous. “And, two, not jumping his bones.”

Julie chuckled and shook her head.

“So far,” Paige went on, still keeping her voice down because now they were almost in the kitchen, where the family had gathered to welcome one of their own back from the brink of death, “Austin and I have found two things we can agree on. The first is that Calvin is one terrific kid.”

Julie beamed in obvious agreement. “What's the second?”

“That we—Austin and I—have no choice but to learn to get along, because
my
sisters are in love with
his
brothers, and vice versa, and we have to deal.”

Julie gave her a one-armed hug just before they entered the kitchen. “That's right,” she said. “You have to deal.
Both
of you.”

With that, they stepped into the party.

By the time everyone had their fill of pizza, Austin was starting to show definite signs of exhaustion.

Paige felt a tender sting in her heart, just watching him interact with his adoring nieces, and with Calvin.

Tate and Garrett went back out onto the range, while Libby and Julie tidied up the kitchen, talking quietly about the wedding, the food and the music and—horrors!—Paige's bridesmaid's dress.

Paige found a broom and a dustpan and began sweeping up crumbs, being very careful to avoid getting sucked into the talk about the Big Event.

“We're out of school,” Ava was telling her uncle Austin in a joyous tone,
“because it's Saturday!”

“Guess I lost track of time for a while there,” Austin told his niece. His gaze flicked to Paige's face, flicked away again.

His beard was growing in, his hair was shaggy, and Paige thought she'd never seen a more attractive man in her life.

Another danger signal, of course.

She finished sweeping, emptied the dustpan, put it away, along with the broom. Grabbing a jacket from the row of hooks where a variety of such garments were kept, she shrugged into it and announced, without looking at Austin, that she was going out to the barn to see how Molly was doing.

Austin got to his feet, wan but determined. “I think I'll come along,” he said, and nothing in his voice or his manner left room for disagreement.