Reaching the barn door, Tate smiled to himself, albeit sadly. Most of the bounty from that garden had gone to the ranch hands and their families and to the little food bank in town. And what he wouldn’t give to be sweating under a summer sun again, with his mom just a few rows over, working like a field hand and enjoying every minute of it.
He switched on the overhead lights.
The good, earthy scents of horse and grass-hay and manure stirred as the animals moved in their stalls, nickering and shifting, snorting as they awakened.
Tending the horses wasn’t new to Tate—he’d taken the job over from a couple of the ranch hands when he and Cheryl split and she moved into the house in town—though he rarely got to the barn this early in the day.
The work went quickly, divided between the three of them.
Austin turned his childhood mount, Bamboozle, out with the other, larger horses, since the little gelding was used to them and they were used to him, but Audrey’s and Ava’s golden ponies had to be kept in a special corral, for their own safety.
In the meantime, Tate saddled Stranger, the aging gelding, a strawberry roan, that had belonged to his father. Garrett chose Windwalker, a long-legged bay, while Austin tacked up a sorrel called Ambush.
In his heyday, Ambush had been a rodeo bronc, and he could still buck like the devil when he took the notion.
Austin, being Austin, probably hoped today was the day.
Tate grinned at the thought, shook his head.
His little brother was stone crazy, but you had to love him.
Most of the time.
The paint stallion kicked and squealed in his holding pen, scenting the other horses, wanting to be turned loose.
“What are you planning on doing with that stud?” Garrett asked, as the three of them rode away from the barn, toward the range.
“Brent said we might have to put him down,” Tate answered. He hated the idea, knew Pablo would have hated it, too, but there had been a death—and that meant the authorities had a say in the matter.
“And you’re just going to go along with whatever he says?” Austin wanted to know.
Tate bristled. “The law’s the law,” he said. “I’d rather not shoot that horse, but I might not have a choice.”
“You could just let him go,” Garrett suggested. “Say he got out on his own somehow.”
“And lie to Brent?” Tate asked. “Not only the chief of police, but my best friend?”
Garrett went quiet.
Austin didn’t seem to have anything more to say, either.
So they rode on, the purple range slowly greening up ahead of them.
The herd bawled and raised dust in the dawn as cowboys converged from all directions, some coming from the bunkhouse, which had its own rustic but sturdy stables, and from the various trailers along the creek. Some of the men were on horseback, while others drove pickups with the Silver Spur brand painted on the doors.
Tate and his brothers fell in with the others as easily as if they had never been away from the work, driving cattle between different sections of land to conserve the sweet grass, rippling like waves under a rising wind.
Resting the roan, Stranger, at the creek’s edge, Tate nodded as Harley Bates rode up alongside him. Harley had ridden for the McKettrick brand almost as long as Pablo had, though Tate didn’t know him as well. Married when he signed on, Bates lived in one of the coveted trailers, although his wife had long since boarded a bus out of town, never to be seen again.
“It ain’t the same without ole Pablo,” Harley said, resettling his hat, which, like the rest of his gear, had seen better days.
“No,” Tate agreed.
Bates shifted in his saddle, and the odor of unwashed flesh wafted Tate’s way. “I see you’ve been fixing up that house by the bend in the creek.”
A beat passed before Tate figured out what the man was talking about. He nodded again. “So I have,” he said.
“Guess it’ll go to the new foreman,” Bates speculated. All the men were probably wondering who would replace Pablo Ruiz, and they’d either put Bates up to finding out, or he’d come up with the idea on his own, maybe hoping for a raise in pay and more spacious quarters than the one-bedroom single-wide he banked in now.
“Yep,” Tate answered, standing in the stirrups to stretch his legs a little before turning to meet the other man’s gaze. “You’re looking at the new foreman,” he said. “For the time being, anyway. I’ll be moving into the Ruiz place myself, as soon as the renovations are finished.”
Whatever Harley Bates had expected to hear, it wasn’t that. His small eyes popped a little, and his jaws worked as though he were chewing on a mouthful of gristle. “You’re the new foreman?”
Tate nodded. He couldn’t blame the other man for being surprised, even skeptical. After all, the foreman did real work, especially on a spread the size of the Silver Spur. Although Tate could ride and brand and drive post holes with the best of them, he couldn’t claim that he’d filled his dad’s boots.
And that was why he’d decided to take on the job. If he was going to run the Silver Spur, he had to get serious about it. He had to learn all there was to know about every aspect of running the ranch.
Although it stung, he knew Garrett had been at least partly right, accusing him of playing at being a rancher.
Bates took off his hat, slammed it once against his thigh, and slapped it on again with such force that it bent the tops of his ears.
Tate suppressed a sigh. “Tell the men there’ll be a meeting tonight,” he said. “Six o’clock, at the new place.”
“You mean, the Ruiz place?” Bates all but snarled.
“I mean, the new place,” Tate answered evenly. “Six o’clock. I’ll provide the chicken and the beer.”
Bates scowled, nodded once, wheeled his horse around and rode away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TATE APPEARED at the Perk Up at four-thirty that afternoon, with his daughters and their dogs, though Buford and Ambrose waited in the truck.
Julie stayed in the kitchen, but Calvin stood at Libby’s side, watching as Audrey and Ava bounced into the shop. They were wearing jean shorts and matching cotton blouses, blue and white checked.
“It was nice of you to give us your castle,” Calvin said, very solemnly. “Thanks.” Although he had yet to be elected king, he apparently considered himself a spokesperson for the community.
And by us, of course, Calvin meant the town of Blue River—the wonder toy was now installed on the lawn at the community center, and according to Julie, so many kids wanted to play in and around the thing that parents had been recruited to supervise. A few people even wanted to sell tickets.
Audrey and Ava looked at each other, then up at Tate, then at Calvin.
“You’re welcome,” Ava said, with great formality. She was definitely the more serious twin, Libby noted, though no less confident than her sister.
“Daddy made us do it,” Audrey added forthrightly. “But we still have our ponies.”
“You have ponies?” Calvin said, with wonder in his voice. Then, again, as though such a thing were almost beyond the outer reaches of credibility, “You have ponies?”
Audrey nodded at him. “Three, if you count Uncle Austin’s. His horse is Bamboozle, but we call him Boozle for short, and he’s really old, and we haven’t named our ponies yet—they’re twins, like we are, or at least they look like twins. They’re not, really, but they’re the same age and the same color and—” She paused, though not for very long, to haul in a breath. “Are you a friend of Libby’s?”
Tate and Libby exchanged amused glances.
“She’s my aunt,” Calvin replied, with a note of pride that warmed Libby’s heart.
Audrey smiled at him. “Maybe you can come out to our place sometime, and ride Boozle. He’s old, like I said. Uncle Austin got him when he was ten. Uncle Austin was ten, I mean, not the pony.”
“How come you weren’t at our birthday party?” Ava
asked. “We know you from daycare at the community center. Your name is Calvin.”
Calvin was unfazed. “I don’t think I was invited,” he said reasonably.
“Oh,” Ava said.
“How old are you?” Audrey wanted to know.
“Four,” Calvin admitted, squaring his little shoulders.
“Well, that’s probably why,” Ava said matter-of-factly. “You’re practically a baby.”
“I am not a baby!” Calvin asserted indignantly.
Libby rested a hand on his shoulder.
“You talk like a grown-up,” Audrey allowed, and after surveying Calvin thoughtfully for a moment or so, she graciously conferred her approval. “He’s right, Ava. He’s not a baby.”
“Guess not,” Ava agreed, with the barest hint of reluctance.
Calvin was clearly mollified. Grinning toothily and adjusting his glasses yet again with the poke of one slightly grubby finger, he said, “It was probably a real girly party, anyhow. Lots of pink stuff.”
Tate chuckled, subtly steering the girls toward the stools at the short counter. Libby had noticed, and appreciated, the way he’d paid careful attention to the exchange between the three children but hadn’t intervened.
“Of course it was girly,” Ava said, looking back at Calvin over one shoulder. “We’re girls.”
“Orange smoothies all around?” Libby piped up, figuring it was time to change the subject.
“Yes, please,” Ava said, speaking like a miniature adult.
“Please,” Audrey echoed, scrambling up onto a stool.
“Me, too, Aunt Libby,” Calvin chirped, getting into the spirit of the thing. “But I want strawberry, please.”
Julie stuck her head out of the kitchen. Nothing wrong with her hearing, Libby thought, with an inward smile. It was probably a mother thing.
“No way, José,” Julie told Calvin. “You’ll spoil your supper.”
“It’s not even five o’clock yet,” Calvin complained.
“Grandma’s coming over for meat loaf,” Julie reminded him, “and she likes to eat early, so she can get back to her condo in time to watch her TV shows. We’re picking her up in a little while, and we have to run a few errands first.”
Calvin sighed his weight-of-the-world sigh. It rarely worked with Julie, and this instance was no exception, but with Calvin, hope sprang eternal.
“You’d be welcome to come out to the Silver Spur sometime soon and ride Bamboozle,” Tate told the little boy quietly, his gaze shifting to Julie’s face. “If it’s all right with your mom, that is.”
Julie smiled. She liked Calvin to have new experiences, and riding horses on the McKettrick ranch certainly qualified. As kids, Julie, Paige and Libby had been to lots of parties on the Silver Spur, but those days seemed long ago and far away.
In fact, Libby hadn’t been on a horse since before she and Tate broke up over Cheryl.
“That would be nice,” Julie told Tate. “Thank you.”
He nodded. He looked ridiculously good in his dark blue T-shirt and battered jeans, and the shadow of a beard growing in only added to the testosterone-rich effect. “My pleasure,” he drawled.
The timbre of his voice found a place inside Libby and tingled there.
She shook off the sensation and finished brewing up the orange smoothies, setting them in front of Audrey and Ava and smiling.
“There you go,” she said.
They smiled back at her.
Several moments of silence passed.
“Audrey needs a tutu,” Ava announced, without preamble, after poking a straw into her smoothie and slurping some up. She rolled her lovely blue eyes at Libby and giggled. “She’s pixilated.”
Tate took the third stool, next to the cash register. Rested his muscular forearms on the countertop and intertwined his fingers loosely. He had an easy way about him, as if it were no trouble to wait around.
Not every man was that patient, Libby thought.
“Pixilated?” she asked, to get her mind off Tate’s patience and his muscular forearms and his five-o’clock shadow.
She was only partly successful.
“Ava’s talking about the Pixie Pageant,” Tate said easily.
Libby liked the way he could just sit there, not needing to fiddle with something to keep his fingers busy. There was a great quietness in Tate McKettrick, a safety and serenity that reached beyond the boundaries of his skin, big enough to take in his daughters, the old dog, Crockett, his family and the whole of the Silver Spur Ranch.
And maybe her, too.
Libby met his eyes, an effort because she felt shaken now, as though something profound had just happened between her and Tate. Which was silly, because the situation couldn’t have been more ordinary, nor could the conversation.
“I guess things checked out okay, then? The Pixie Pageant is a go?”
Tate nodded, looking beleaguered but mildly amused. Females, his manner seemed to say: Sometimes there’s no figuring them out.
“Yeah,” he said. “It checked out, and it’s a go. A lot depends on your definition of okay, though.”
She smiled, resisting an impulse to pat Tate’s shoulder, and poured him a cup of coffee. “On the house,” she said.
Libby realized she’d lost track of her sister and her nephew, shifted her focus.
“Julie?”
Julie, it turned out, was ready to leave; she’d gathered her belongings and her son and was standing almost at Libby’s elbow, a knowing and slightly bemused smile resting prettily on her mouth.
Of course Libby knew what was going through her sister’s mind; Julie and Paige could stop worrying about their big sister if Libby and Tate got back together.
“See you tomorrow?” Libby asked, wishing Julie would stay just a little longer.
“Sure,” Julie replied hastily, barely looking back. “Tomorrow.”
“Bring scones,” Libby called after her.
Julie laughed, gave a comical half salute and left the shop. The bell jingled over the door, and Calvin looked back, one hand smudging the glass, his eyes full of yearning.
The sight gave Libby a pang. She knew the feeling: on the outside, looking in. It grieved her to see the knowledge in Calvin—he was so young, and she loved him so much.
“We just came from the country club,” Tate told Libby, when Julie and Calvin had left, and she’d snapped out of the ache over her nephew’s little-boy loneliness. He watched with an expression of mystified fondness as his daughters giggled over their drinks. “The pageant is a one-day thing. As far as I can tell, it’s no big deal.”
“You have to have a talent to win,” Ava interjected.
Audrey elbowed her. “I have a talent,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?” Ava countered. “What talent?”
“That’s enough,” Tate said, though he seemed as still and as calm as ever. “Both of you.”
“I do too have a talent,” Audrey insisted, as though he hadn’t spoken. What were these two going to be like as teenagers? “I can sing. Mom says so.”
Tate tried again. “Girls,” he said.
“If you call that singing,” Ava said, with a little shrug and a flip of her ebony hair. “I think you sound awful. Anyhow, you know how Mom is about this pageant thing. Her eyes get all funny when she talks about it.”
Although the reference to Cheryl made her mildly uncomfortable, Tate’s expression made Libby want to smile. But since that might have undermined his parental authority, she didn’t.
For all his calm, he was obviously at a loss, too. What to do?
The answer, Libby could have told him, was nothing at all. This was simply the way sisters related—twins or not. She and Paige and Julie still bickered, but it didn’t mean they didn’t love each other. There was nothing Libby wouldn’t have done for Paige and Julie, and she knew the reverse was true, as well.
Libby opened her mouth to make a stab at explaining, realized she didn’t have the words, and closed it again.
“One more word,” Tate told the children, “and nobody rides horseback, swims in the pool, goes to the library or plays a video game for a whole month.”
Two sets of cornflower blue eyes widened.
“Okay,” Ava breathed, looking and sounding put-upon. She adjusted her glasses, though not by shoving them upward at the bridge of her nose, the way Calvin did.
“That’s a word,” Audrey pointed out triumphantly. “Okay is a word!”
“You just said a whole bunch of words!” Ava cried.
“Let’s go pick up the fried chicken and beer,” Tate said, shoving off his stool to stand, and the girls scrambled off their stools, too, orange smoothies in hand.
He paid for the drinks.
“Daddy’s having a cowboy meeting at the house where Mr. and Mrs. Ruiz used to live,” Ava said to Libby, her tone and expression serious. “He’s going to tell them where the bear shit in the buckwheat.”
Tate flushed, the color throbbing in his neck and then pulsing briefly above his jawline and darkening his ears a little. “Ava.”
“That’s what you told Uncle Austin,” the little girl retorted. “I heard you.”
“Esperanza’s going to take care of us while Daddy’s at the cowboy meeting,” Audrey explained, rapid-fire. “Because cowboys cuss and we shouldn’t be around to hear things like that. So we get to have tacos for supper and make popcorn and spend the whole night in Esperanza’s suite and watch as many movies as we want to, even if it’s a hundred!”
“Wow,” Libby said, very seriously, widening her eyes a little for emphasis, “a hundred movies?”
“More like one movie, a hundred times,” Tate said dryly.
Libby laughed.
Ava spoke up again. “I don’t see why it takes a whole meeting just to tell people where a bear—”
Tate cupped a hand around the child’s mouth. “Maybe I could stop by your place later, so we could talk about the tutu and stuff?” he said, his eyes practically pleading with Libby to agree.
The image of Tate McKettrick shopping for a tutu was beyond funny. She could hold back another burst of laughter, but not the twinkle she knew was sparkling in her eyes as she enjoyed the mind-picture.
McKettricks of Texas: Tate Page 23