They washed up, then took their meal to the table over by the wall of windows looking out over the dark range. The boy ate a few bites and then started blinking rapidly, like he had something in his eyes.
Garrett hid a smile, aware that Calvin was having a hard time staying awake.
“You tuckered out?” he asked the little guy.
Calvin yawned widely, set down his fork. “Yeah,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to go to bed yet, because my mom isn’t home and Esperanza isn’t either, and this is a big house to be alone in.”
He was there, and Austin probably was, too, which meant that, technically, Calvin wouldn’t be alone, though he might as well have been, Garrett supposed, considering the size of the place.
“I guess you could stretch out on my sofa till your mom gets back,” Garrett offered.
“Would the lights be out?” Calvin asked. “Would you be right there?”
“I’d be right there,” Garrett confirmed.
“In the living room, where I could see you?”
“In the living room, where you could see me.”
Calvin looked relieved. “I guess that would be all right, then,” he decided.
Then, “You wouldn’t tell anybody that I’m scared of the dark, would you?”
The earnest expression in the little boy’s face touched something in Garrett, caused another shift, one he couldn’t begin to describe. It roughened his voice, the strange emotion he felt then.
“I wouldn’t tell,” he promised.
Calvin pushed his plate away. “I’m full,” he said.
“No need to keep eating, then,” Garrett replied.
He got a soft blanket and a pillow from the linen closet in the hallway, and made a bed for Calvin on the sofa. Lamps burned at either end, dimmed down to a yellow glow. Garrett switched on the TV, with the volume low, and kicked back in his favorite chair.
The dog immediately started trying to jump up onto the sofa with Calvin. It was a pitiful sight, given that the poor critter was missing a leg.
Garrett got up, hoisted the mutt onto the couch with Calvin and sat down again.
As usual, TV didn’t have much to offer, but Garrett had made a promise—he’d stay with Calvin until his mother came home—so he flicked through the channels until he found a rodeo-retrospective on ESPN and settled on that.
His brain immediately divided itself into three working parts.
One level focused on the rodeo unfolding in front of his eyes.
Another, the lovely problem of Julie Remington, her boy and her dog, and all the ways they might change his life.
Still another went over and over that day, out on the range. They’d fixed fences, he and Tate and the other cowboys, but they’d found nothing that might lead them to the rustlers.
Or the sons of bitches who’d shot those six cattle and left them for the flies. The recollection sickened Garrett; it was hard to fathom why anybody would kill a living thing for no reason.
Nan’s call had complicated everything, of course.
Fired or not, he knew he’d have to help her straighten out the mess Morgan and the pole dancer were stirring up. Not only had Garrett worked for her husband since law school, his mother and Nan had been college roommates and very close friends.
As far as he knew, Morgan hadn’t hired anybody to replace him as yet—the august senator from the great state of Texas had been too busy romancing the pole dancer to do anything about the sudden vacancy on his staff, other than ask other staffers to cover the responsibilities that had been Garrett’s.
It was only logical for Garrett to take up the slack.
Besides, he liked Nan. She was mentally, emotionally and physically sound. She knew the issues. She knew the people, cared about what they wanted and what was best for them, not only in the present, but generations hence.
Looking back over the years he’d worked for Senator Morgan Cox, Garrett was astounded at how many dots he hadn’t noticed, let alone connected.
Nan was the strong one, not Morgan.
Nan was the force of nature, the skilled politician, the one with A Plan.
Why hadn’t he seen that?
The thing Nan hadn’t wanted to discuss over the cell phone? She was planning to call in all her markers and run for Morgan’s Senate seat when the next election rolled around in a little over two years.
She meant to hire him, Garrett, as her right-hand man.
McKettrick, Garrett told himself, glowering at the TV screen above the fireplace, not much gets by you. You have the political instincts of a pump handle.
On the couch, Calvin stirred, made a soft, kid-sound in his sleep.
Garrett’s heart actually seized.
He closed his eyes, just to shut out the light for a few moments.
When he opened them, Julie was sitting on the arm of his chair, smiling down at him.
“So,” she whispered, keeping her voice down so Calvin wouldn’t wake up, “what happened to your eye? Remember, you promised you’d tell me.”
Garrett chuckled hoarsely. Julie Remington had no idea how down-home sexy she was. No idea at all.
“Either Tate or Austin punched me,” he said.
Julie’s wonderful, changeling eyes widened. She moved to smooth his hair back from his forehead, hesitated, then went ahead and did it.
Electricity shot through Garrett; all of a sudden, he was wide awake, every nerve reporting for duty, ready for action.
“‘Either Tate or Austin’?” She smiled. Her fingertips rested lightly on his bruises, and he felt some kind of sacred energy surge through him. “You don’t know which one?”
Garrett grinned. If the boy and the dog hadn’t been sleeping on the couch, just a few feet away, he would have tugged Julie onto his lap. “Could have been either one,” he said. “They were about to go at it, and I was fool enough to get between them.”
She laughed, and the sound was silvery and pure, almost spiritual, like Christmas bells ringing out over miles of unmarked snow.
“Did Calvin behave himself?” she asked.
God, she was so beautiful. There are perfect moments in life, he thought, and this was one of them.
“He’s a good kid,” Garrett answered presently, and somewhat hoarsely, with a nod. “Did you know he’s scared of the dark?”
“Most kindergarteners are,” Julie said.
“I guess you’ve got a point.”
Julie looked over at her son, curled up on the couch with his dog. The perfect moments just kept on coming, and that was fine with Garrett. “Would you mind carrying him downstairs for me?”
Garrett was on his feet. He would have carried the whole sofa downstairs, kid, dog and all, if she’d asked him to. He’d have staggered under the weight of just about anything, in fact, just for the light in her eyes and the way she held her mouth, as if she wanted to smile but wouldn’t let herself do it.
“Sure,” he said. He scooped the boy up, blanket and all.
“Is my mom home?” Calvin asked sleepily.
Julie fetched the boy’s glasses from the end table where he’d left them. “Your mom is definitely home,” she told her son.
Harry jumped down to follow.
“Keep the dog here,” Garrett said, at the top of the staircase leading down into the ranch-house kitchen. “I’ll come back for him.”
Instead, Julie brought Harry downstairs herself.
The kitchen was dimly lit, and Garrett had no trouble navigating it.
When he laid Calvin down on his bed, his arms ached, objecting to the letting go.
Garrett waited in the sitting room while Julie settled her son in for the night, murmuring mother-words.
Garrett McKettrick marveled.
All his life, he’d wanted to be a U.S. senator and, eventually, president.
Now, incomprehensibly, he couldn’t seem to think beyond being a husband, a father and the master of a three-legged dog.
What the hell was wrong with him?
She was pleased to find him still in the apartment when she returned from Calvin’s room.
“Now,” she said, “let’s have a better look at that eye.”
“I’m all right,” Garrett said, though not with a lot of certainty.
She took his hand—where had her bone-deep tiredness gone?—and led him into the big kitchen.
“Sit down,” she said.
Garrett dropped into a chair.
Briskly—just call me Nurse Julie, she thought, with a silent chuckle—she found a plastic bag with a zip-top, filled it with ice and approached him.
Garrett winced when she touched the ice pack to his eye, then relaxed with a long sigh.
Julie smiled, overwhelmed by tenderness.
Garrett took hold of the ice pack, lowered it and buried his face in her middle, just long enough to start a wildfire blazing through her veins.
“I’ll be going away in a few days,” he said, very quietly.
Time itself seemed to stop the instant Garrett spoke those words.
At least, for Julie it did.
Why was she so shocked, so shaken? Garrett McKettrick was—Garrett McKettrick. He had another life, away from the ranch, away from Blue River.
Away from her.
“Julie?” Garrett’s hands rested on her hips, holding her in place. Not that she could have moved to break away; she was in statue-mode. Frozen.
She didn’t answer.
Garrett pulled her down, onto his lap.
She did her best not to look at him; that was all the resistance she could muster at the moment, it seemed.
She’d worn her hair up that day, in what Paige called her “schoolmarm do,” secured by a sterling silver clip.
Garrett opened the clip, and all those spirally curls tumbled down.
“So go,” she finally managed to croak out. “Nobody expects you to stay.”
“Will you look at me?”
“Actually, no. I’d rather not.”
He took her chin in one hand, gently, and turned her head. Short of squinching her eyes shut like a child, there was no way to avoid meeting his gaze.
“Senator Cox is about to resign,” he said, very quietly. “That’s a very big deal, Julie. I have to be there.”
“Okay,” Julie said.
“I’d like you to come with me.”
She blinked, startled. “I can’t,” she managed, after a long moment of wild consideration. “There’s Calvin, and my job—”
“We’re talking about one or two days, max,” Garrett reasoned. Splaying the fingers of his right hand, he combed them through her hair. “Think about it, Julie.”
“I couldn’t,” she said.
“Just the two of us,” Garrett drawled, his voice dreamlike, almost hypnotic. “You and me. Together. Naked a lot of the time.”
Julie swallowed hard. “Think about it,” Garrett repeated.
As if she could help thinking about it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NAN’S PHONE CALL WOKE GARRETT in the middle of the night.
He sat up, grumbling, and groped for the receiver beside his bed.
“Yeah?” he growled.
“You’ve got to come,” she said.
Sleep still fogged Garrett’s head. He’d been dreaming about Julie, the sort of erotic—and thwarted—dream it wasn’t easy to leave behind.
“What? Where—?”
“There’s been an accident, Garrett,” Mrs. Cox replied, and now he could tell that she was struggling to maintain control. “Morgan and the—the woman, Mandy? They were skiing at some resort in Oregon—”
He felt a sickening sense of déjà vu. He couldn’t help remembering another call, in the middle of another night, about another accident, of a different kind. That time, the caller had been Tate, and the news was beyond bad.
Their folks had been airlifted to Houston, after a car crash.
Neither was expected to live.
And neither had.
Garrett swore silently and swung his legs over the side of the bed, groping for the jeans he’d tossed aside earlier, after tearing himself away from Julie. God, he’d wanted to share her bed, spend the whole night loving her, wake up with her beside him. But there was Calvin to consider. He was not quite five years old; he couldn’t be expected to understand.
She hadn’t said Morgan was dead, he remembered. She’d said there had been an accident. “Exactly what happened, Nan?” he asked. “And how bad is it?”
“As I understand it, Mandy is all right,” Nan answered woodenly, sounding detached now, as though she were watching the event unfold on a movie screen no one else could see. Of course she must have been in shock. “Morgan—Morgan is in bad shape. You know what a good skier he was—is—but—”
“Nan?” Garrett broke in, firmly but not unkindly. “What happened?”
She gave a strangled little laugh, void of humor and hard to hear. “He was probably showing off for that—that pole dancer. Skiing too fast—on a trail too advanced for a middle-aged man, out of shape—” Nan stopped. Made that sound again. Then, “Morgan collided with a tree, Garrett. He’s—he’s comatose.”
Bile scalded the back of Garrett’s throat. Comatose. He struggled into his pants, wedged the cordless receiver between his shoulder and his ear.
“But he’s alive,” Nan choked out. “People do come out of comas—sometimes.”
Garrett closed his eyes, but the images wouldn’t be shut out. Morgan Cox had been a brilliant man, a Rhodes scholar. Now, it seemed, he had been reduced to a vegetative state.
“Where are you?”
She named a hospital in Austin. “I asked them to bring him here,” she said. “I just hope he makes it, so I can say goodbye, tell Morgan I f-forgive him—”
Nan broke down then.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Garrett told her, aching inside. “Hold on, Nan.” He paused. The question had to be asked. “Are there reporters?”
Another ragged sob burst from Nan’s throat. “Of course there are reporters,” she blurted out. “There are always reporters.”
“No statements,” Garrett warned. It was a real bitch, trying to talk on the phone and get dressed at the same time. He felt like a one-legged man attempting to stomp out a campfire. “Don’t say anything. I’ll handle the press when I get there.”
“Hurry,” Nan pleaded.
Garrett said goodbye, thumbed the off button and tossed the receiver onto his rumpled bed.
He didn’t shower and he didn’t shave.
He just pulled on a shirt, socks and boots, grabbed his cell phone, and scrambled out of his room and down the stairs into the kitchen.
Austin was sitting at the table in a pair of sweatpants, shirtless, squinting at the screen of a laptop.
Seeing Garrett, he narrowed his eyes. “What the hell…?”
“Put a shirt on,” Garrett snapped. “There’s a lady in this house, and a little kid.”
The admonition made Austin grin slightly, but his eyes were still troubled. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been a skiing accident,” Garrett said, grabbing the Porsche keys from the hook next to the door leading into the garage. “Morgan isn’t expected to live.”
Austin gave a low whistle of exclamation, but he didn’t say anything.
Even in his distracted state, Garrett noticed the haunted look that fell across his brother like a shadow, at the mention of the word accident. Of course, Austin was remembering the night their parents died.
They’d all taken the deaths hard, but Austin, maybe because he was the youngest, had taken them hardest of all.
“Do me a favor?” Garrett asked gruffly, about to go out the door, get in his Porsche and head for h
is Cessna.
“Sure,” Austin said. A news site flickered on the screen of his laptop now, bluish in the dim light. “What do you need?”
“I know you and Tate are getting on each other’s nerves and you want to lock horns,” Garrett said, choosing his words with as much care as his rush would allow. “But Tate needs our help, Austin. It’s not just this rustling thing—he’s talking about selling out and moving off the ranch.”
Austin’s mouth dropped open. He closed it, then blurted, “Selling out?” A pause, rife with blinking disbelief. “He can’t be serious.”
“I’ve got a feeling our big brother is dead serious, Austin. The ranch matters to Tate, but Libby and the kids are more important, and he wants more husband-and-dad time.”
Austin still looked as though he’d been sucker punched. “He’d never do it,” he said, pale. Half sitting and half standing now, unable, it seemed, to make up his mind and choose one direction, up or down. “Tate would never sell his share of the Silver Spur!”
Garrett sighed. “We’ve got a choice to make—you and I,” he said in parting. “Either we step up and help Tate run this place, or he moves on.”
Austin left the table, followed Garrett all the way out to the Porsche. Stood there, barefooted and bare-chested, while Garrett pushed a button to raise the garage door behind his car and started the engine.
“I could come along,” Austin offered, when Garrett rolled down his window. “If you need somebody to ride shotgun or something—”
Garrett rummaged up a smile. “Thanks,” he said, shaking his head even as he spoke. “It’ll be better if you stay here and help Tate as much as you can. When I get back, the three of us will sit down and figure out what to do next.”
Austin swallowed visibly, then nodded, stepping back from the Porsche and giving a halfhearted wave of one hand as Garrett backed out.
He reached the airstrip within five minutes, and after a quick safety inspection and an engine warm-up, Garrett drove his plane out of its hangar, lined up the nose and zoomed down the short, bumpy runway.
Once aloft, Garrett set his mind on reaching Austin.
He’d called Nan back on the drive to the airstrip, given her an ETA and asked her to have Troy meet him with a car.
In the near distance, the small grid of lights that made up the town of Blue River twinkled in the darkness.
McKettricks of Texas: Garrett Page 25