Garrett

by Linda Lael Miller

  “If you need any help while Garrett’s gone,” Austin said presently, when his brother had disappeared into the living room to fetch Calvin, “just let me know. I’ll be glad to lend a hand.”

  It was a brotherly offer, nothing more.

  Julie couldn’t help visualizing Paige and Austin standing side by side.

  They’d be wonderful together, she thought whimsically. He had pale brown hair, while Paige’s was dark. His eyes were the standard McKettrick blue, hers a deep and vibrant brown.

  They would have the most beautiful children.

  “Do I have something on my face?” Austin asked, with a grin.

  Embarrassed, Julie laughed and shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to stare. I was just thinking—”

  Would she have told him what she was thinking—that he and Paige would have made a great couple—if Garrett hadn’t come back just then, with a sleepy Calvin in his arms and Harry at his heels?

  Probably not.

  “Want me to carry the dog downstairs?” Austin asked his brother.

  Garrett looked from Austin to Julie and back again. And he frowned, not in an angry way, but in a thoughtful one.

  “I’d appreciate it,” he said.

  Julie, suddenly in a hurry to be on the move, led the way out of Garrett’s apartment and down the stairs to the main kitchen.

  Garrett followed, carrying Calvin, and Austin came as far as the foot of the staircase, where he set Harry down and immediately retreated again.

  She watched from the doorway of Calvin’s room as Garrett took his glasses off, put him into bed and gently tucked the covers in around him.

  The boy stirred. “’Night, Garrett,” he said.

  “’Night, buddy,” Garrett replied, his voice throaty.

  “You going away?” Calvin asked, in a sleepy murmur.

  “For a few days,” Garrett answered, “but I’ll be back.” He glanced at Julie, still hovering on the threshold.

  “For sure?” Calvin mumbled, as Harry leaped onto the bed to curl up behind his knees.

  “You have my word,” Garrett said.

  Calvin opened his eyes just long enough to look at Garrett and smile. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.”

  Garrett lingered a moment, stroking Calvin’s hair back from his face with a light pass of one hand. Then, just when Julie was beginning to think she couldn’t bear the sheer wonder of the sight of the two of them together for another moment, Garrett stood, crossed to her, steered her out into the hallway.

  Very quietly, he closed the door.

  When Julie started for the sitting room, though, he stopped her.

  Pulled her against him.

  His hands rested on her backside, deliciously possessive.

  Julie whimpered, full of sweet despair, but she didn’t try to pull away. She was pretty sure she didn’t have the strength—or the willpower—to do that.

  And Garrett kissed her.

  His lips touched hers, gently at first, then with unmistakable hunger.

  Julie still didn’t pull away. No, indeed, she slipped her arms around Garrett’s neck and rose onto the balls of her feet to kiss him back.

  “I’m staying,” he told her, when they both had to breathe.

  “Calvin—” Julie whispered back.

  “We’ll be quiet,” Garrett said. And he pulled her straight into the other bedroom, the one where she’d expected to spend a miserable and lonely night.

  Life was full of surprises.

  Garrett was full of surprises.

  Julie’s heart was thudding away in her throat. “But—”

  He closed the door, turned the lock.

  “What if we can’t be quiet?” she asked.

  Garrett hauled her shirt off over her head and tossed it aside. Took a moment to trace the round tops of her breasts, rising above her bra, with the tip of one finger.

  “We can be quiet,” he assured her.

  “Speak for yourself,” Julie argued, remembering the primitive, gasping desperation of the climaxes she’d had the last time she and Garrett made love. He knew just where to touch her, just how to touch her.

  Garrett chuckled. Then he removed her bra. Weighed her bare breasts in his hands, chafing the nipples to tingling hardness with the sides of his thumbs.

  Julie moaned, but very softly, because Garrett muffled her cry with another bone-melting kiss.

  She felt a lot of things in the next few moments—confusion and hope and, of course, the fierce and rising need for completion.

  Garrett kissed her for a long time, using plenty of tongue, a harbinger of things to come, and then he bent his head and boldly took one of her nipples into his mouth to suckle.

  Julie gasped with pleasure, but softly, and leaned back, supported by the steely strength of the arm he’d curved around her waist, giving herself up to him. The more vulnerable she was to Garrett’s lips and his tongue, the better it felt.

  He turned to her other breast, taking his sweet time to enjoy her pleasure as well as his own, but when he eased her down onto the bed, sideways, Julie knew what was going to happen, knew she wouldn’t stop him.

  Knew she would soar.

  “Shhh,” he said, getting her naked. Arranging her on the edge of the mattress, parting her legs, nibbling the insides of her thighs.

  She trembled, murmured his name, groped for him with her hands.

  “Shhh,” Garrett said again. He nipped at her, the way he had that other time, but this time, there were no jeans to serve as a buffer, and no underpants, either.

  “Oh, God,” Julie whimpered.

  He parted her.

  “Garrett—”

  He slid his left hand up her body, pausing to squeeze gently at one breast and then the other, fondling them.

  “Hold on,” he said. “The ride is just about to start.”

  That was when he put his mouth on her, and drew her in, and the pleasure was so great that her hips flew upward, seeking him, wanting more. She covered her mouth with both hands, to hold in cries of frantic welcome, and surrendered.

  Garrett put his hands under her, lifted her to his mouth, held her there.

  She needed him more and then still more, but she didn’t dare move her hands, even to beg, because she knew she’d yell fit to raise the roof.

  The build was excruciating—Garrett knew when she reached the edge and he eased up, whispering against her most tender flesh. Then he would tease her a little, with the tip of his tongue, and then—

  When, at long last, Garrett let her have the orgasm he’d been taunting her with, Julie’s entire body buckled in the grip of it. Grasping at Garrett, tangling her fingers in his hair, she gave a long, low, keening wail of satisfaction.

  The climax was protracted, a series of ferocious spasms, and Garrett granted Julie no quarter. He devoured her, drove her to peak after peak, even when she was sure she couldn’t endure the climb again.

  The lovemaking that followed was alternately fevered and sacred.

  It was very late—or very early—when Garrett awakened Julie from a deep, sated sleep to kiss her goodbye.

  She cried, not only because he was going away, because even then she knew that everything would change after this night.

  Probably forever.

  Three Days Later

  THE FUNERAL WAS RELATIVELY DIGNIFIED, Garrett thought, considering the national media attention surrounding Senator Morgan Cox’s short, spectacular fall from grace, followed so soon by his dramatic death.

  There were plenty of mourners—Mandy Chante being notably absent—and although the press was in attendance, they had the decency to keep their distance, at least until the services were over.

  Following the solemn church ceremony, the gleaming, flower-draped casket was lifted into a hearse and taken to the private side of the Austin airport, then loaded into the cargo hold of a private jet. The plane was provided by certain powerful political interests Garrett preferred not to think about.

>   He was putting one foot in front of the other, that was all.

  Showing up and suiting up, as his high school athletic coach used to put it.

  Since leaving the ranch, he’d had several job offers, all of which were high profile, but none were more promising than Nan’s. She would serve out the remaining two years of the senator’s term as an appointee, but all the while, she and the bosses would be grooming him, Garrett, to run in the next election.

  Young as he was, Nan had reasoned, Garrett was well known in the state, thanks to his time on Morgan’s staff. Plus, he was from an influential Texas family.

  Garrett McKettrick, United States senator.

  It had a ring to it.

  And yet he couldn’t stop thinking about Julie Remington, her little boy and the Silver Spur.

  Some women, he knew, would have been impressed by his shining future in government.

  Julie was not one of those.

  Then there was the Silver Spur. Austin still didn’t want to believe that Tate was serious about either turning the ranch back into the family enterprise it had been since Clay McKettrick founded it in the early 1900s or just calling it quits, but Garrett knew that was a fact.

  Tate was as much a McKettrick as any of them, and he loved the Silver Spur.

  He just loved Libby and the twins more, that was all.

  Garrett couldn’t blame him for that.

  Nan, buckling in beside him aboard the borrowed jet, elbowed him lightly in the ribs. The kids were all present, the older ones talking quietly among themselves or just thinking their own thoughts, the smaller ones overseen by attentive nannies.

  “All this will be over soon,” the widow said.

  Her eyes were clear, though red-rimmed from private weeping, and Garrett couldn’t help thinking what a class act she was. She was, in fact, downright noble.

  Garrett managed a smile, patted her hand. He was a good talker, but right then, he couldn’t think of one damn thing to say.

  “You’ll want to find a place in the Washington area,” Nan told him quietly. She paused, looking out the window as the jet taxied along the runway, building up speed for take-off. “I plan to spend a lot more time on the job than Morgan ever did.”

  Garrett closed his eyes for a moment. The woman had just been to her husband’s funeral. Her philandering husband’s funeral. Now, she was on her way to a city where she had many friends, yes, but even more enemies.

  “What?” Nan prompted, with gentle humor, and when Garrett looked at her again, he saw that she was smiling.

  “We’re having some problems on the ranch,” he said. “Rustlers, mainly. Tate’s getting married at New Year’s and he has full custody of his daughters, for all intents and purposes. He’s talking about selling out, doing something else with the rest of his life besides running that ranch.”

  “Maybe that would be a good idea,” Nan mused, surprising him a little. “As you know, I kept my father’s ranch after he and Mom were both gone. Oh, it’s nowhere near the size of the Silver Spur, but I’ve worried about that place plenty over the years. Sometimes, I think my life—with Morgan, I mean—might have turned out differently if I hadn’t been so stubborn about holding on, keeping that land in the family….”

  Her voice fell away.

  Garrett sighed. He didn’t follow her logic, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t right. “There’s not much point in speculating,” he said quietly. “Is there?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said. “There’s nothing to do now but go on. Make the best of a truly tragic situation.”

  Garrett waited a beat or two before he spoke again, making sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “Did you know about Mandy Chante?” he asked.

  Her answer took him off guard. “Of course I knew,” she said. “Didn’t you?”

  He bit back a swear word. “No,” he said.

  Nan broke the news gently. “Miss Chante was only the latest of many, Garrett.”

  “You seemed so shaken up when he made his little announcement at that fundraiser—”

  “I was shaken up,” Nan told him. “But it wasn’t because the news came as any big surprise. It was the public announcement that had me worried.” She craned her neck, scanned the immediate area to make sure none of the children or nannies were listening in. “That was when I knew he was losing it.”

  Garrett frowned. “Losing it?”

  “Maybe it was only a midlife crisis,” she said, her eyes luminous with sorrow. “Or stress, or a breakdown, or the beginnings of some neurological disease. Morgan wasn’t himself, that’s all I meant.”

  Garrett wondered why Nan or the state politicos thought he was smart enough to be a senator. Yes, Morgan had seemed distracted in the days and weeks immediately preceding the Mandy Announcement, but hell, the man held high office. He was up to his ass in alligators most of the time, so why wouldn’t he be distracted?

  “I think,” Nan said sweetly, “that that cowboy-idealism of yours clouds your vision sometimes, Garrett. You see what should be there, not necessarily what is.”

  His first impulse was to deny Nan’s observation, but he remembered Tate saying much the same thing about his blind loyalty to the senator, only in slightly cruder terms.

  He closed his eyes, hoping Nan would think he wanted to catch some sleep.

  In his mind, he heard Tate’s voice. Things change. People change.

  Damn if he hadn’t changed, too, Garrett thought.

  The question was—how much had he changed?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  HECTIC.

  That was the word Julie would have chosen to describe the last week of her life. Between ferrying Calvin to and from Paige’s apartment every day, a full schedule of classes, and the tryouts for Kiss Me Kate, she’d barely had a chance to draw a deep breath.

  She missed Garrett, and fiercely, but if pressed, she would have admitted there was an upside to his being gone. This way, she didn’t have to resist having sex with the man—a tall order, considering that he could arouse her merely by running that earth-from-space blue gaze of his over her. If he touched her, kissed her—well, she was completely lost then.

  All common sense deserted her. Instantly.

  With Garrett gone, she’d expected to gain some perspective, find the strength to put the brakes on before both she and Calvin got their hearts broken.

  Seated at a large table in the restaurant at the Amble On Inn that Saturday morning, waiting for Gordon and Dixie and the elder Pruetts to show up for the scheduled visit with Calvin, Julie took a sip from her coffee cup. The little boy sat quietly beside her, coloring the place mat provided, using stubby wax crayons in an odd combination of hues.

  Calvin was still a bit too pale for her liking, and he seemed thinner than before, but he was over the stomach flu. Since Garrett’s departure, though, he’d been especially quiet.

  “Maybe they’re not going to show up,” he said, lifting his eyes from the printed place mat.

  The words punctured Julie’s heart, but she smiled. She was very good at smiling whether she felt like it or not. A questionable skill, to be sure, but one that had stood her in good stead since she was a little girl, huddled shoulder-to-shoulder with her sisters on the front porch of the old house, watching their mother drive away with her lover.

  “Smile,” Libby had whispered to her all those years ago, trying so hard to help. “It won’t hurt so much if you smile.”

  Paige, the little one, had let out a wail of despair and run toward the front gate, sobbing hysterically and calling, “Mommy! Mommy, come back!”

  Libby and Julie had rushed to stop Paige from chasing behind the car, both of them trying to smile.

  Both of them with tears streaking their cheeks.

  It still hurts, Lib, Julie told her sister silently. Even when you smile.

  “I’m sure they’re just late,” Julie said to Calvin, checking her watch. “Maybe they had car trouble or some other kind of delay.”

  Calvi
n rolled his sky-blue eyes. The lenses of his glasses gleamed with cleanliness that sunny morning, because he hadn’t been up long enough to smear them. “They have your cell number,” he said.

  A lightbulb went on in Julie’s beleaguered mind. “Which reminds me,” she said. “Your dad told me you called him a couple of times. Is that true?”

  Calvin squirmed a little, but there was defiance in his expression, too. “Yes,” he said. “It’s true.”

  The door of the restaurant swung open and both of them looked in that direction, expecting Gordon and his wife and his parents.

  Instead, Brent Brogan nodded in greeting and strolled over to the counter to order take-out coffee.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t let you call your dad, if you asked me about it first?”

  Calvin considered his mother’s question with the concentration of a Supreme Court justice. He was stalling, of course. Hoping Brent would stop by the table to pass the time of day, or the others would arrive, giving him time to frame an answer.

  No luck.

  Julie waited patiently, her hands folded in her lap.

  Calvin sighed, and his small shoulders drooped under his clean T-shirt and lined windbreaker. His hair was slicked down and his face was clean and if Gordon dared to disappoint him—well—Julie didn’t know what she’d do.

  “The other kids at school, they can all call their dad pretty much whenever they want to,” Calvin confessed. “I wondered what it was like. So I used Aunt Libby’s cell phone when she was babysitting me—she left it on the counter in the kitchen—and I called my dad.”

  Julie blinked a couple of times, wanting to cry and refusing to give in to the urge. Calvin was going through some big transitions for such a little boy, and the last thing he needed was a weeping mother.

  Brent, having collected and paid for his coffee, waved to Julie as he turned to leave. She waved back.

  “Was that a bad thing to do?” Calvin asked earnestly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “Borrowing your aunt’s cell phone without asking? Definitely not a good thing to do. But calling your dad? That’s normal, buddy.” She paused, resisting a urge to smooth his hair or pat his shoulder or fuss in some other way. “What was it like?”