Julie thrust out her chin, rested her hands on her hips, elbows sticking out. “If you’re implying that I’m afraid of you, Garrett McKettrick—”
“No,” he agreed, curving a finger under her chin and lifting, “but you might be a little scared of yourself.”
She gave a huffy burst of laughter, though the truth was that she was scared. “Oh, right,” she said, having no choice but to tough it out. “I’m terrified. I might be overcome by your masculine charms, lose control, throw myself at you. It could happen at any moment!”
Garrett laughed again, and for one lovely, dreadful skittering beat of her heart, she thought he was going to kiss her.
Instead, he took her hand and led her into the barn.
Various motion-sensor lights came on as they entered, but mostly the stalls were dark.
Julie sat on a bale of hay, trying to think of a way to get out of going riding in the dark without sounding chicken, wanting, at the same time, more than practically anything, ever, this ride, on this night, with this man.
Garrett whistled under his breath as he led two horses out into the wide sawdust-covered aisle between the long rows of stalls and saddled them.
And Julie wondered why she wasn’t behaving like a sane woman, a teacher and a mother, soaking in a nice bath, or sipping a cup of herbal tea, or a glass of white wine, before climbing into bed.
“Ready?” Garrett asked, startling her a little.
She stood. “Ready,” she said.
They led the horses out into a star-silvered night, and Julie mounted without waiting for Garrett. She hadn’t ridden in years—not since high school, when she’d sometimes visited the McKettrick ranch with Libby. Even then, her sister and Tate had been in love, though they would have a lot of rivers to cross before they found their way back to each other.
Garrett climbed onto his own horse, and although she couldn’t be sure, Julie would have sworn he winced a little as he lowered himself into the saddle.
A smile touched down on Julie’s mouth, immediately flew away again. Of course, she thought, Garrett had been wearing a suit to work for years. Sitting at desks. Yes, he was a McKettrick through and through, and riding was in his blood, but she wasn’t the only one likely to be sore in the morning.
He bent from the saddle to work the latch on a gate, rode through and waited for Julie before shutting it again behind her.
They followed the shining ribbon of creek winding along the lower end of the range, and the lights of staff trailers and Tate and Libby’s house gleamed distantly through the trees.
The peace was all-encompassing, and there was no need for words.
Julie drank it all in, the country quiet, the cloppity-clop of the horses’ hooves, the babbling murmur of the creek, the sighs and whispers of the wind. The cattle were quiet, some lying down, dark lumps in the moonlight, others still grazing. Once in a while, one of them gave a low, mournful call.
She tilted her head back, breathed in not only fresh, cool air, but the very light of the stars and the moon, or so it seemed to her. She hadn’t done anything this impulsive since—well, since she couldn’t remember when. She was a single mother, a teacher. She loved her son, she worked and struggled and…she survived.
Moonlit horseback rides with a true cowboy, born and bred, were not part of her everyday experience.
When she and Garrett started back toward the ranch house after half an hour or so, Julie was sorry to see the odyssey end. As tired as she was, as emotionally wrung out from the evening with Gordon and Dixie, the ride left her feeling restored.
She would be ready for whatever came next.
CHAPTER SIX
JULIE STOOD FACING THE BIG BULLETIN BOARD in the high school cafeteria late the next afternoon, tacking up the printed notice announcing that tryouts for Kiss Me Kate would begin on Monday afternoon of the following week, as soon as the day’s classes were over.
“So it’s official, huh?” the girl asked, trying to smile. “The showcase is out and the musical is in?”
Julie had been inside all day, and she needed some fresh air. She felt frustrated and out of sorts—none of which was Rachel’s problem. “I was thinking we could do a single performance of each of the plays—no props, no extras of any kind—and record them. Send digital copies—”
Rachel colored up so quickly that Julie fell silent.
The worst was true, then. Rachel had already given up on going to college.
“My little brothers need me,” she said, at once shy and fierce. “They’re having a really hard time without Mom, and Dad tries, but it isn’t the same.”
The last bell of the day shrilled, signaling dismissal.
Julie waited for it to stop, but even when it had, the din was joyously horrendous—kids poured out of classrooms, locker doors squealed open and slammed shut again, exuberant plans were shouted, and most likely texted, from one end of the school’s main corridor to the other.
Julie had always loved the sounds and the energy of kids. Her dad had often said, with a look of tired contentment in his eyes, that he’d been born to teach and Julie had never doubted he was right.
In that way, she was like Will Remington—teaching was her gift. She loved children, related to them, thrilled to the excitement some of them radiated when she finally got through, and they grasped some concept that had eluded them before.
Of course there were always others who, for one reason or another, couldn’t be reached. She didn’t want Rachel to be one of those kids.
But what could she say? In Rachel’s place, she might have done the same thing. And it was sobering to think that, in some ways, Libby had been in a position similar to this young girl’s.
Libby hadn’t joined the school band or acted in plays or tried out for cheerleader. She’d come straight home every day, after her last class, to mother Julie and Paige.
Something buzzed, jolting Julie out of her reflections.
Rachel took a cheap cell phone from the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt and peered at the screen. The phone looked like a pay-as-you-go model, the kind sold in convenience stores, along with tacky cigarette lighters, energy boosters in little bottles and candy bars in faded wrappers.
Julie wasn’t really surprised to see the cell, of course. Kids with virtually nothing else had phones. It was a sign of the times.
“Dad sent me a text,” Rachel explained, though Julie hadn’t asked. “He wants me to go over to the elementary school and take the bus home with my brothers before I head over to the bowling alley for work.”
Julie nodded. “I could give you a ride,” she offered, wondering how Rachel planned to get back to the bowling alley after she took the boys home and if there would be anyone to look after them after she left.
But Rachel shook her head. “That’s okay,” she said.
Still, she didn’t move to walk away.
“Was there something else, Rachel?” Julie finally asked.
“I just—I just wanted to say thank you, Ms. Remington. For picking my play to be in the showcase and everything. It really meant a lot to me.” Sorrow shone in the girl’s wide, luminous eyes, and a kind of determined bravery. “Guess I’d better get moving, or I might miss the elementary school bus.” With that, Rachel was gone, hurrying through the crowds of departing kids, disappearing from view.
Julie was still pensive, half an hour later, when she stopped by Libby and Tate’s to pick up Calvin.
He was down at the creek-side, with the twins and Libby, all of them wielding fishing poles.
Julie parked the pink bomb and got out, cheered by the sight.
“Have you caught anything yet?” she called, from the top of the bank, her arms folded against a chilly wind. It was bonfire weather, leaf-burning, blue-skied, hot-soup-simmering-on-the stove weather.
“Not one single fish,” Libby called back, grinning. She wore jeans, a heavy sweatshirt, sneakers and a ponytail. Briefly, guiltily, Julie envied her sister, soon to be married to a man who lo
ved her. “Guess it’s beans and wieners for supper tonight!”
Julie laughed, because envy or no envy, she loved both her sisters. And she was happy for Libby, happy for Tate, happy for Audrey and Ava, the six-year-old twins who needed the stability their father and future stepmother provided.
Calvin seemed set apart from them all somehow, and Julie felt an ache of sadness as he reeled in his fishing line and turned to trudge up the bank behind Libby and the twins.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, without particular enthusiasm.
Julie laid a hand on his head, ruffled his hair. “Hey,” she said back.
“You might as well stay for supper,” Libby said quietly, slipping an arm around Julie’s waist and steering her toward the little house. She gave Julie a mischievous grin and a sisterly squeeze. “I’m not really serving beans and wieners,” she said. “We’re having stew, and it’s been simmering in the Crock-Pot all day. It smells like heaven.”
“You cooked?” Julie teased.
Libby laughed, sent the three kids around back to put the fishing poles away on the covered porch and take off their muddy shoes. “Now that I don’t have the Perk Up to run, I’m developing all sorts of new skills.”
Julie’s insides warmed at the twinkle in her sister’s eyes—and the aroma of savory stew, as they stepped into the living room. Until their mother, Marva, had driven Julie’s Cadillac through the front wall and brought the whole place down, timber-and-brick, Libby had been the harried owner of a coffee shop on Main Street.
Three dogs—Libby’s aging Lab, Hildie, and the twins’ matching mutts, Ambrose and Buford—barked a greeting.
Libby shushed them, while Julie looked around at the living room, admiring the renovations anew, even though she’d seen the project unfolding all along. A row of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the creek and the towering oak trees in one direction, and the old orchard in the other. A fire crackled on the hearth of the natural stone fireplace, and the screen of Libby’s new computer ran a perpetual slide show of photos she’d taken herself—Tate, the girls, Calvin, the breathtaking scenery that surrounded them on all sides.
“How’s the online degree coming along?” Julie asked, as the dogs deserted them, en masse, for the kitchen, where the kids were entering from the back porch.
Libby looked back at her, shrugged. “It’s coming,” she said. “I’ve mostly been looking at pictures of other people’s weddings online.” She dropped into a cushy armchair, legs dangling over one side, looking more like a teenager than a woman about to be married. “Sit,” she added.
Julie sat. The kids and the dogs were making a commotion in the kitchen, but it didn’t seem to bother Libby, so Julie didn’t worry, either.
“Are we still on for the shopping trip on Saturday?” Libby asked.
“Why wouldn’t we be?” Julie countered. The snap in her voice surprised her as much as it did Libby.
Julie frowned.
Libby waited a few beats. “What’s bothering you, Jules? Did dinner with Gordon and the missus go badly?”
Julie sighed. Shook her head. “It was…okay,” she said. “I’m still worried about how this whole thing is going to be for Calvin, but for right now, anyway, I think I can feel my way through.”
“Then, what?” Libby inquired gently. She wasn’t pushy, but she wasn’t going to be put off, either. “The cottage being under a tent? The job?”
Again, Julie sighed. “Arthur Dulles and the school board have spoken,” she said. “I’d planned on showcasing the one-act plays—I told you about them—but a musical always brings in more money, so it’s scratch the showcase and stage the umpteenth amateur production of a Broadway staple.”
Libby smiled, looking a little puzzled. “I’ve never known you to balk at an excuse to sing and dance,” she said. “Even vicariously, by directing instead of actually treading the boards.”
Julie laughed, feeling better already, but the bittersweet sensation, like sadness but not sadness, lingered. “Kiss Me Kate will be lots of fun,” she admitted. “But I was counting on the showcase to help those three kids get into college.”
Libby raised an eyebrow. “Won’t they get in anyway? They’re all smart.”
“Tim and Becky will,” Julie nodded, thinking of the two young playwrights whose plays she’d planned to produce, along with Rachel’s. Both of them were from middle-class families, and they had scholarships and loans in place. “I’m not so sure about Rachel.”
Libby simply waited, so at ease sprawled in that chair.
Julie told her sister what little she knew about the girl’s circumstances.
“You’re afraid she won’t go to college because her dad and her brothers need her?” Libby recapped, when Julie had finished.
Julie nodded.
Calvin, the twins and the three dogs all straggled in from the kitchen.
“Can we watch TV?” one of the twins asked. Both girls were beautiful, with their father’s McKettrick-blue eyes. They wore mismatched jeans, boots, plaid flannel shirts and long, ebony-dark braids. They were alike—and at the same time, different.
“No, Audrey,” Libby replied cheerfully.
“Not even if it’s something educational?” the other twin asked, while Calvin looked on earnestly, his glasses a little crooked. He was still wearing his coat, though he’d left his shoes on the back porch, that being the house rule whenever the kids had been down by the creek or out in the garden, and was therefore padding about in his stocking feet.
Julie ached with mother-love, just looking at him. He was so beautiful—and he would be a little boy for such a short time.
For a moment, she wanted to stop every clock in the world, stop the universe itself. Wait, wait. My baby is growing up too fast….
She shook off the fanciful thoughts, gestured for Calvin to come to her.
He did, dragging his feet only a little along the way, and she unzipped his two-toned nylon coat. Pushed it back off his shoulders.
“We’re staying for supper,” she told him.
Calvin’s face lit up instantly, and Julie felt another rush of helpless love for her boy.
“Yippee!” he yelled.
The dogs barked again, the twins echoed Calvin’s shouts and Libby and Julie merely waited for the hoopla to subside.
The swooping roar of an airplane engine distracted everybody.
“I bet that’s Uncle Garrett!” Ava yelled, dashing to the front door, wrenching it open and rushing outside, soon followed by the dogs and her sister and Calvin, still in his stocking feet.
Libby and Julie brought up the rear, Julie scooping Calvin off the ground with a laugh and a squeeze, all of them with their faces turned skyward.
Julie’s heart lifted off like a rocket from a launcher, as she stood watching. The small plane flew low, tracing the crooked path of the creek for a few hundred yards, then circled back, tipped a wing twice and finally banked to zoom away over the range.
“It is Uncle Garrett!” Audrey whooped, beaming.
“I bet Dad’s with him!” Ava agreed.
Libby laughed and held both girls against her sides for a moment, bending to kiss each of them on top of the head once before letting them go.
“We’d better get the table set,” Libby told the kids. “There are at least two hungry McKettrick men headed our way.”
The next few minutes were happy chaos—more dog-barking, more kid-laughter, a lot of washing of hands and faces, along with the clinking of silverware and the colorful everyday dishes Libby loved to mix and match.
When Tate came in, some minutes later, Libby and the twins flew at him, and he laughed and somehow managed to enfold them all. Garrett was right behind him, taking off his hat as he crossed the threshold, the gesture so old-fashioned that it almost made him seem shy.
Garrett’s too-blue gaze caught on Julie as he hung his hat on a peg by the door, shrugged out of his faded denim jacket and hung that up, too. When he shifted his attention from her to Calvin, she felt
it again—that same sensation of leaving the ground that she’d experienced earlier, while watching the airplane.
“Hey, buddy,” he said. And then, with no hesitation at all, Garrett swept Calvin up, as he might have done with a boy of his own, and added, “How’s my horseback ridin’ partner?”
Calvin beamed, all but transported. “Pretty good,” he said. Then, breathlessly, “Was that you and Tate in the airplane?”
Garrett nodded. “Sure enough was,” he said. “Didn’t you see us waving at you?”
“Yep,” Calvin said, delighted. “I saw the wings tip, like you were saying hello. Will you take me flying with you sometime?”
Garrett’s grin didn’t falter, but his gaze moved from Calvin to Julie. “That’s up to your mother,” he said quietly.
Calvin seemed to deflate. “Oh,” he said, dejected.
Garrett bounced him once before setting the child back on his feet. “Hello, Julie,” he said, watching her.
Hello, Julie. It was a perfectly ordinary greeting, nothing more.
And yet, for just the length of a heartbeat, the floor—the earth itself—seemed to shift beneath Julie’s feet.
It was all too easy, during that momentary interlude, to flash on another warm, bright kitchen, in some unknown house, homey like this one, with Garrett pulling her into his arms, just the way Tate was doing with Libby, and kissing her soundly. It was all too easy to imagine a lot of things.
She blushed.
“Can I go flying with Garrett, Mom?” Calvin demanded, breaking the spell.
“Someday,” Julie said. Her son was standing right in front of her, tugging at the sleeve of her teacherly—make that dowdy—cardigan sweater. With it, she wore a long tweed skirt and a prim blouse. And just then, her gaze still locked with Garrett’s, she had to shake off the odd sensation that she’d mistakenly put on someone else’s clothes that morning—the garments of a much older person.
Garrett smiled.
She blushed harder.
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