McKettricks of Texas: Tate (22 page)

“The job—it’s a good one, Tate.”

“I’m happy for you,” he said, without sarcasm.

“Don’t ruin this for me,” she whispered.
“Please.”

“I’m not out to ruin anything for you, Cheryl,” Tate told her reasonably, and in all truth. “But we have a custody agreement, and I’m not willing to change it.”

Tears brimmed in Cheryl’s eyes. “Ava wants to live with you, on the Silver Spur. I thought Audrey could—”

Tate leaned forward in his chair, careful to keep his voice down. “You thought Audrey could
what?
” he asked.

“Stay here, with me,” Cheryl said. “Just during the week. Tate, Audrey loves New York, just like I do. It would be so good for her—”

“You want to split them up?”

Cheryl’s shoulders moved in a semblance of a shrug, but there was nothing nonchalant in her expression. She looked miserable. “I know it’s not an ideal situation,” she said. Then she bit down on her lower lip, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped to a desperate whisper. “I can’t stay in Blue River until our daughters are eighteen, Tate. I just can’t. I’ll lose my mind if I try!”

Tate felt sorry for Cheryl in that moment—she was a beautiful woman, with a law degree and a lot of ambition. She wasn’t cut out for the kind of life she’d been living in Blue River; she needed a career. She needed the throb and hurry of a city around her, subway trains rumbling under her feet, traffic lights changing, horns honking 24/7.

“I understand that,” he said, and he did. “But, as I said, we have an agreement, Cheryl. It would be wrong—
worse
than wrong—to separate the twins, have them grow up apart.”

Cheryl put her hands over her face and began to cry.

Tate loved Libby Remington—the time he’d just spent with her had left him more convinced of that than ever—but as bitter as his and Cheryl’s marriage and divorce had been, he didn’t like seeing her hurting the way she was.

“I’m going home later today,” he told his ex-wife quietly, even gently, “and I’m taking Audrey and Ava with me. If you really want to practice law again though, here in New York or anywhere else, you ought to do it.”

She lowered her hands. Her eyes were wet, puffy and a little red around edges. “Do you mean that?”

In the near distance, Tate heard his daughters approaching, engaged in some little-girl exchange that was part giggle and part squabble.

“Yes,” he said. “I mean it.”

“You wouldn’t hold it against me—think I was a bad mother—if I stayed here?”

Born and raised in the country, among old-fashioned folks, a mother willingly living apart from her children was a foreign thing to Tate. Times were changing, though—maybe not for the better—and Cheryl had worked hard to earn that law degree. Barely gotten to use it.

“I think,” he replied carefully, “that what you do with your life is your own business.”

Audrey and Ava burst into the kitchen, wearing jeans and short-sleeved cotton blouses with little red and white checks.

“All packed to go back to Blue River?” Tate asked.

Ava nodded.

Audrey looked less certain. That gave him a pang.

“I need to talk to your mom alone for a few more minutes,” he said. “Ava, maybe you could help your sister get her things together.”

Audrey glanced at Cheryl, then turned and followed Ava out of the room again.

Cheryl shifted in her chair, cupped her hands around her coffee mug, as though to warm them. “I know I was supposed to sell this apartment, Tate, but—”

“Let’s worry about that later,” Tate said, when her words fell away. “This is a big decision, Cheryl. It might be the right one, and it might be one you’ll come to regret someday. Possibly, it’s both those things, life being what it is.”

She swallowed, nodded. “What will you tell them?” she asked, her voice small. “When you take Audrey and Ava back to Texas, what will you tell them?” She glanced anxiously at the doorway, then her gaze swung back to Tate’s face and clung. “It isn’t that I don’t love the kids.”

“I know you love them,” Tate said gruffly, and he
did
know. Like most people, Cheryl was probably doing the best she could. The insight made him feel incredibly sad. “I won’t try to convince them otherwise, I promise.”

“Thank you, Tate.”

He pushed back his chair, meaning to stand, but Cheryl stayed him by touching his arm.

“Have another cup of coffee,” she said. “There’s no big rush, is there?”

Tate sighed. He liked New York well enough, but the walls of that apartment seemed to be creeping in on him, an inch or two at a time. “How are your folks doing at the assisted-living place?” he asked, while Cheryl hurried to the counter for the coffeepot.

Cheryl looked sad as she refilled his cup, then her own. It felt strange, her pouring coffee for him. “Not so well,” she said, setting the pot on the table and sinking into a chair. “Every time I call or visit, they beg to come back here.
When begging doesn’t work, they start accusing me of things, like
stealing
their home out from under them—”

Tate guessed it was a tough row to hoe, having aging parents, but from his point of view, it sure beat not having any at all. “That might pass, once they get used to the new place,” he said. “And if it doesn’t, well, you know they don’t really mean any of those things.”

Cheryl sniffled, nodded.

A silence descended on that kitchen. They’d never had much to say to each other, unless they were talking about the girls.

Half an hour later, Tate was in a cab with both his daughters, headed for LaGuardia. Ava fairly bounced on the seat, she was so happy to be going home, but Audrey was—subdued, he guessed he’d call it.

“You like the Big Apple, Shortstop?” he asked her, squeezing her small hand.

She looked up at him, nodded. “Mommy was going to let me audition for TV commercials,” she said wistfully. “And take singing and dancing lessons, too.”

“I see,” Tate said seriously, because to his daughter, these
were
serious matters.

“She thought you might let us live in New York with her for a while,” Audrey added. “So you’d have more time to get reacquainted with Libby.”

An acid sting shot through Tate’s stomach. “I do like spending time with Libby,” he confirmed evenly. “But I’d miss you way too much if you lived here.”

Audrey’s remarkably blue eyes widened slightly. “Then you still want us around? Wouldn’t we be underfoot?”

Tate turned in Audrey’s direction, tightened his arm around Ava’s shoulders at the same time. “Of course I
want you around,” he said. “And you can get underfoot all you want.”

Audrey smiled. “Okay,” she said, and with a little sigh, she rested the side of her head against his chest.

“She still wants to be in the Pixie Pageant,” Ava said righteously, folding her arms. “You don’t even know when you’re being
played,
Dad.”

Tate hugged Ava closer. “I’m smarter than I look,” he told her, and kissed the top of her head. Then he squeezed Audrey again. “Is that true, monkey? You really want to take on this Pixie thing?”

Audrey nodded. “I just want to
try,
Daddy. I’ll be okay if I don’t win.”

Sometimes the maturity of a six-year-old could take a man by surprise.

“Tell you what,” Tate said, when he’d mulled the insight over for a few moments. “When we get home, I’ll look into this pageant deal and see if it’s something we can both live with. Sound fair to you?”

The little girl beamed. “Sounds fair to me,” she said, putting up her right hand for Tate’s high-five.

O
NCE THEY
’
D CHECKED IN
, gone through security and boarded a plane bound for Austin, where Tate’s truck would be waiting in the airport parking garage, the twins, seated side by side across the aisle from him, flipped the pages of the catalogs and airline magazines like a pair of vertically challenged adults.

They were only six.

And they would be grown women long before he was ready for that to happen.

The girls each had a suitcase, so they had to wait in
baggage claim for a while, but soon enough they were in the truck and on their way to the ranch.

Ambrose and Buford were waiting when they arrived, barking their fool heads off and jumping as if they’d swallowed a bucket of those Mexican beans, but they stayed well clear of the truck—which meant that, between the two of them, they might have a lick of sense.

There was a big, blank spot in the yard where that ridiculous castle had stood, but if Audrey and Ava noticed at all, they didn’t react. They were too glad to see the pups again.

The feeling was certainly mutual.

Tate grinned and shook his head as he watched his daughters, in their expensive playclothes, kneeling in the grass to accept canine adoration in the form of face-licking and happy yips and impromptu wrestling matches on the ground.

Esperanza came out onto the patio, wearing yet another apron from her vast collection, waving.

Audrey and Ava and the dogs scrambled toward her, all but tumbling over each other, and as he watched, Tate’s throat thickened and his eyes burned.

He belonged on that land, and so did his children.

After all, they were McKettricks.

L
IBBY WAS MOWING
her lawn, sweat-soaked and bug-bitten, even after the streetlights had come on, determined to finish the job come hell or high water. Hildie sat on the front porch, head tilted to one side, ears perked, watching her mistress with pitying curiosity.

A light rain began, a mist at first, then a sprinkle, cooling Libby’s overheated flesh and at the same time causing her to grit her teeth.
Here’s the high water,
she thought,
so hell can’t be far behind.

She stopped at the edge of the flower bed below the front porch, turned the mower grimly in the opposite direction, and saw Tate McKettrick pull up to the curb in his big truck.

The rain made his dark hair curl at the ends and dampened his white shirt.

At once embarrassed to be caught looking like the proverbial drowned rat and delighted to see Tate, no matter what, Libby froze.

Tate opened the gate, came through, shut it again.

Hildie gave a welcoming woof and started down the porch steps, but Libby neither moved nor spoke. The rain came in fat droplets now, spiking her eyelashes and blurring her vision.

Tate bent to ruffle Hildie’s ears in greeting, then straight
ened to face Libby. He pried the handle of the push-mower from her fingers and leaned in to land a kiss on her right temple.

Damn, but he smelled good.

“Hey,” he said.

Libby waited, her heart pounding, full of both delicious relief because he’d come back from New York and potential misery because he might have brought his ex-wife home with him.

Nobody knew it better than Libby did: This man would do
anything
for his kids, including marry a woman he’d never claimed to love. He’d done that once already, and she had no doubt whatsoever that he’d do it again, if he thought it was best for Audrey and Ava.

Tate smoothed Libby’s soggy bangs back off her forehead, his touch light and, at the same time, electric. “You do realize,” he began, in that easy and oh-so-familiar drawl of his, “that lightning could strike at any time?”

Libby stared up at him, baffled. As far as she was concerned, lightning had
already
struck, way back in second grade, when she’d suddenly looked at Tate McKettrick, that pesky ranch kid with all the freckles and the lock of dark hair forever falling into his blue eyes, in a startling new—and
old
—way. Barely seven at the time, Libby wouldn’t have been able to articulate the feeling then, except to say it was like remembering—without the actual memories.

Heck, she wasn’t sure she could articulate it
now,
and she was all grown up. Love? Lust? Some combination of the two?

Who knew?

All grown up into a pesky ranch
man,
sans the freckles but still with an impish glint in his too-blue-to-be-legal eyes, Tate chuckled and steered Libby up the porch steps, Hildie following.

Libby stood just out of the rain, watching as Tate went back down the steps, easily hoisted the heavy push-mower off the ground, carried it onto the porch and set it in a corner, where it would stay dry.

She finally found her voice. “Did you bring the twins home?”

Tate nodded, opened the screen door, laid his hand on the small of her back and gently pushed her into the lighted living room.

“They’re sound asleep in their own beds, and Esperanza is looking after them,” he said, his eyes traveling the length of her, from her sturdy hiking boots to her jean shorts to the blouse with the tie front. He frowned as he closed the door behind him. “What’s with the all-weather yardwork?” he asked. “You didn’t hear the thunder? See the flashes of lightning? On top of all that, it’s
dark.
”

Libby had been jumpy all day—and some of the night, too. She’d been so busy over the last five years, looking after her dad, starting the Perk Up, and now helping out with Marva, too. Her life had been hectic, yes, but now it seemed things happened at warp speed; one moment, she was in bed with Tate, the next, she was trying to mow the lawn in the rain.

“I guess I just have too much energy,” she said.
I’m going crazy, and it’s your fault. For so long I could pretend you didn’t exist, that we didn’t have a history. Now I can’t pretend anymore, because you won’t let me.

Tate folded his arms, and she saw a muscle bunch in his jaw, then relax again. “You need to warm up, Lib; your lips are blue and your teeth are chattering a little. Take a hot shower, and while you’re doing that, I’ll warm up some milk for you.”

Warm milk?
Not what she would have expected from a confirmed cowboy like Tate. And she got the clear impression that he wasn’t planning to strip out of his own rain-dampened clothes and join her in the shower, either.

This was both a disappointment and a relief.

Libby swallowed, just to keep from sighing. She hated warm milk unless it was liberally disguised with chocolate.

“Okay,” she said, and her voice sounded tinny in her ears, as though she were one of those old-fashioned talking dolls, and someone had just pulled the string in her belly.

Resigned, she headed for the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, Libby joined Tate in the kitchen; by then she was wearing cotton pajamas, her unsexiest robe, and furry slippers from the back of her closet. As hot and muggy as that Texas night was, she felt oddly chilled.

Tate sat at the table, ruminating as he sipped instant coffee from a mug, but he rose to his feet when he spotted Libby, the chair scraping back behind him as he stood. “Sit down,” he said.

His serious tone, on top of all that thinking, worried Libby.
Had
Tate and Cheryl reconnected somehow, while he was in New York, as she had secretly feared they would? Decided to give their marriage another try, if only for the children’s sake?

“Why are you here?” she asked, crumpling a little on the inside.

Tate drew back a chair for her, waited in silence until she sat. Then he poured hot milk for her, added a dollop of brandy from a dusty bottle stored on the shelf above the broom closet, brought it to the table.

“We need to talk,” he said.

Libby’s heart began to thrum.
Here it comes,
she thought,
the part where he says he still has feelings for Cheryl, or the kids need him 24/7 or we’re just plain moving too fast and need to take a breather…

“Okay,” she replied hoarsely, glad he couldn’t see her hands knotted together in her lap because the tabletop was in the way. Then she squared her shoulders, raised her chin, looked him right in the eye, and waited.

“Drink the milk,” Tate said. “It has to be hot to work.”

Libby unknotted her hands, picked up the cup, took a sip.

It wasn’t half bad—but it wasn’t half
good,
either.

She made a face.

Tate grinned, reached across to smooth away her milk mustache with the pad of one thumb.

Libby set the cup down, felt some of the tension drain from her muscles.

Tate’s expression changed; he leaned slightly forward, his dark brows lowered but not quite coming together. “What do you know about this Pixie thing?” he asked gravely.

Libby blinked, mystified. And almost dizzy with relief, because he hadn’t said he and Cheryl were getting back together.

“‘Pixie thing’?” she echoed.

Was he asking if she believed in fairies, little people?

Tate looked deep into her eyes and a grin broke over his face. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I should have laid a little groundwork before I threw that question at you. I’m talking about the Pixie Pageant. It’s some kind of shindig they’re holding at the country club, for charity. Like a beauty contest, but for little girls.”

“Oh,” Libby said, vaguely remembering a piece she’d skimmed in the
Blue River Clarion,
the town’s weekly newspaper, “
that
Pixie Pageant.”

Tate’s jaw tightened. “Audrey is real set on signing up for the thing,” he said.

Libby smiled. “What about Ava?”

“Ava thinks it’s silly and wants no part of it. I happen to agree. But, like I said, Audrey is determined.”

“A determined McKettrick,” Libby mused, grinning. “Just
imagine
it.”

Tate gave a wan grin at that, relaxed a little. “I’ve been dead set against this—Audrey joining up with this Pixie outfit, I mean—from the first. There are so many ways she could get hurt—”

Libby chuckled, took another sip of the milk-brandy mixture, and set her cup down. “As opposed to some
safe
activity, like rodeo?” she teased. Tate, Garrett and Austin had all been involved in the sport from earliest childhood.

Tate sighed, shoved a hand through his hair, leaving moist ridges where his fingers passed. “I get your point,” he said, and sighed again. A pause followed, long and somehow comfortable. Tate finally ended it with, “What do you think I should do? Let Audrey sign up for this thing, or stand my ground?”

“I think,” Libby said carefully, “that this is a conversation you should probably have with Cheryl, not me.”

“I know what Cheryl thinks. I want to know what you think, Libby.”

Her heart beat a little faster. She drew a fast, deep breath and huffed it out. “Why?” she asked.

“I need an unbiased opinion.”

“Did you ask Esperanza?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Tate answered. “I did. And she’s biased.”

“For or against?”

“For,” Tate admitted. “She thinks the whole thing is harm
less and if Audrey gives it a try, she’ll lose interest. Get it out of her system.”

“Makes sense,” Libby said, still careful. This was dangerous ground; Cheryl was the twins’ mother, Esperanza had been the family housekeeper forever. But
she,
Libby, was what to them? Their father’s girlfriend?

Not even that.

She was someone he slept with when they weren’t around.

“Come on, Lib,” Tate urged.

“What makes you so sure
I’m
unbiased?” Libby asked, more than a little hurt, now that she thought about it. The term merely meant “impartial,” she knew that, but it sounded so indifferent in this context—she might have been someone stopped by a survey taker, on the way out of a supermarket, for heaven’s sake.
Did she prefer laundry detergent with or without bleach?

Tears scalded her eyes.

“I’m overreacting,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Tate looked as though he wanted to touch her, rise from his chair and pull her into his arms, or tug her onto his lap.

But he did none of those things.

He cleared his throat. Looked away from Libby, then looked back. “Tell me something,” he said.

Something tensed in the pit of Libby’s stomach. “What?”

“If we get together, you and I,” Tate ventured quietly, “you’ll be around the kids a lot. Does that bother you?”

“
Bother
me?”

“If they hadn’t been conceived—”

Adrenaline stung through Libby’s system. “You’re
not
suggesting that I blame
those precious children
for
our
breakup?”

“It would bother some women,” Tate said, sounding a little defensive and a lot relieved.

“I’m not one of those women,” Libby told him, her voice tight. While it was true that she didn’t know Audrey and Ava very well, she had always loved them, albeit from afar, because they were Tate’s.

“Good,” Tate said. “Now, how about giving me an opinion on the Pixie Pageant?”

She laughed. “You never give up, do you?”

“Never,” he answered, but he wasn’t laughing, or even smiling.

Libby was quiet for a while, thinking. Finally, she said, “Okay, here’s my opinion—you should check the pageant out, talk to the people putting it on, find out exactly what’s involved. If it’s something you can live with, let Audrey compete if she still wants to.”

Tate sighed. “What if I miss something?” he asked.

Libby smiled uncertainly. “Miss something?”

“I’m a man, Lib. I don’t know squat about this Pixie thing. They’ll probably need tutus and stuff—”

Libby pictured Tate shopping for tutus and put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Then, seeing that he was truly concerned, she sobered. “Can’t Cheryl take care of that kind of thing?”

“Cheryl,” Tate said, “is staying in New York for the time being. Right now, she plans on coming back here every other weekend, to be with the kids, but I don’t suppose that will last long.”

Libby stared at him. “Cheryl is staying in New York,” she repeated stupidly.

“I didn’t mention that before?”

“You didn’t mention that before.”

“Oh.” Tate pushed back his chair, stood. “Well, she is. Will you help me, Lib? With the Pixie Pageant, I mean?”

Libby stood up, went to him, rested against his chest. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

He grinned down at her, sunshine bursting through a bank of dark clouds. “Do you have any idea how sexy you look in those pajamas and that worn-out bathrobe?”

Libby made the time-out sign, straightening the fingers of her left hand and pressing them into the palm of her right.

“What?” Tate asked, sounding innocent, though the twinkle in his eyes was anything
but
innocent.

“No sex,” Libby was surprised to hear herself say. “Not tonight, anyway. I’m still recovering from last time.”

“Recovering?” Tate asked, pretending to be hurt. The twinkle remained, though.

“Yes,
recovering,
” Libby said, blushing. “It’s not just sex when we’re together, Tate. Not for me.”

He raised a questioning eyebrow, looked intrigued.

Ran his hands down her back and cupped her bottom.

“Lib?” Tate prompted, when she didn’t say anything else.

She caught her breath, found her voice, lost it again.

Sex wasn’t just sex to Libby, not with Tate McKettrick. But how the hell was she supposed to explain that, without coming right out and saying that she still loved him? That, like a fool, she’d never
stopped
loving him, even while he was another woman’s husband?