Home. Austin liked the sound of the word, coming from Paige. He liked that she meant the ranch when she said it—his ranch.
He immediately reined himself in. Whoa, cowboy. Don’t go getting all sentimental. You’re all wrong for Paige Remington and she’s all wrong for you and you learned that the hard way, so don’t forget it.
“Garrett says Mom works too hard,” Calvin announced. “And you know what?”
“What?” Austin asked, shaking off his own thoughts to pick up the cue.
“I get a baby brother or sister right away.”
A grin broke across Austin’s face.
Paige looked his way and smiled a little before replying, “Well, maybe not right away, Calvin. Babies take nine months, you know.”
“Garrett says all the other babies will take that long, but the first one can come anytime.”
Austin laughed at that.
“Garrett says, Garrett says,” Paige teased, craning her neck a little to catch sight of Calvin in the rearview mirror. Hers was a slender, pretty neck, and Austin ached to trace its length with his lips. “It’s the gospel according to Garrett McKettrick.”
“That,” Austin put in drily, “would be some gospel.”
“Hush,” Paige told him, but the word was warmly spoken, nice to hear, like the way she’d said home a few minutes before.
They reached Blue River High School, and Paige pulled into the teachers’ parking lot. Except for Julie’s car, an old pink Cadillac, and the fancy white pickup truck Garrett had bought soon after he and Julie got engaged, the lot was empty.
Plenty of the kids in the drama club had cars, of course, but the students had their own parking area, on the other side of the school building.
“Calvin and I won’t be long,” Paige told Austin, after popping the gearshift into Park and shutting off the motor. Then her cheeks went cotton-candy pink. “Unless, of course, you’d rather come inside with us.”
“I believe Shep and I will just stretch our legs a little, out here in the parking lot,” he said, enjoying her discomfort.
God, it was good to know he could still shake her up a little.
Or a lot.
Don’t go there, he reminded himself, but his brain was already partway down the trail to trouble.
Mercifully, Paige and Calvin were out of the car and hotfooting it toward the entrance to the auditorium in no time.
Austin adjusted his anatomy with a subtle motion of his hips, took off his seat belt and pushed open the passenger door. Shep didn’t have a collar or a leash yet, but he wasn’t likely to run off; he seemed too glad to have a home to try making a go of it on his own again.
As predicted, Shep conducted himself like a gentleman, and he had just hopped back into Paige’s car when Garrett ambled out of the auditorium—he often visited Julie at play practice—wearing a stupid, drifty grin. He moved easily, as if all his hinges had just been greased.
Seeing Austin, Brother Number Two grinned and readjusted his hat.
“Well, now,” he said, evidently surprised to see Austin not only up and around but out and about. “If it isn’t the bull-riding wonder boy of Blue River, Texas.”
“In the flesh,” Austin retorted, keeping his tone noncommittal, shutting the car door and approaching Garrett.
Garrett took in Paige’s car, threw a quick glance back at the auditorium before facing Austin again. “You must be in better shape than Tate and I thought you were,” he drawled, folding his arms.
Austin didn’t answer. He just waited for whatever was coming. And he had a pretty good idea what that “whatever” was.
“As of New Year’s,” Garrett said, at some length, “Paige will be family. Keep that in mind, Austin.”
Austin leaned into Garrett’s space. He hadn’t done anything wrong and, back trouble or no back trouble, he wasn’t about to retreat. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he demanded under his breath.
“Add it up, little brother,” Garrett replied tersely. “Paige is Julie’s sister. Julie loves her. I love Julie. Consequently, if you hurt Paige, that’s bound to hurt Julie, too, and I’m going to be one pissed-off Texas cowboy if that happens.”
Austin knew the difference between a threat and a promise. This was a promise. And while he wasn’t afraid of Garrett, or of Tate, or of the two of them together, he got the message.
“You think I’m out to take advantage of Paige?” He put the question evenly, in a steely tone void of inflection.
“Going by past history?” Garrett retorted. “Yeah. That’s what I think, all right. She’s not one of your usual women, Austin.”
Austin wanted to land a sucker punch in the middle of his brother’s handsome face, but Jim and Sally McKettrick hadn’t raised any fools. He was at a distinct disadvantage with that herniated disc, and Garrett wouldn’t fight because of it. So Austin waited out the rush of adrenaline that made his fists clench and his hackles rise.
“What’s my ‘usual woman,’ Garrett?” he rasped.
Before Garrett could reply to the loaded question, the auditorium doors sprang open and Paige reappeared, Calvin trailing behind her.
“Can I ride home with you, Garrett?” the boy asked, full of delight.
Garrett didn’t hesitate. “Sure,” he said gruffly, ruffling Calvin’s hair. “You can help me feed the horses.”
“Is that okay, Aunt Paige?” Calvin asked, looking up at his aunt with such hope in his eyes that Austin didn’t see how she could have refused, without her heart turning to stone first. “I have a safety seat in Garrett’s truck and everything.”
“Of course,” Paige said softly. “See you back at the ranch.”
Calvin nodded and headed for the truck.
Garrett smiled, spread his hands as if to say What can you do? and followed.
“He’s so happy,” Paige murmured, watching them go. Her gaze followed the man and the boy, tender, alight with affection.
Austin wanted to take her into his arms, then and there. Hold her tight, the way he used to do, way back when.
When.
When she loved him.
When she would have trusted him not only with her heart, but with her life.
When she still believed he felt the same way about her.
“Who?” Austin asked, keeping his distance. “Garrett or Calvin?”
She smiled, and the earth shifted under Austin’s feet.
“Both of them, I guess,” Paige answered with a wistful look and a little shrug of her shoulders. “Calvin adores Garrett.”
Austin wanted to spread his fingers, slip them into her hair. Rub the pads of his thumbs over her delicate cheekbones and then kiss her, but he didn’t do that.
There were things he could have said, should have said, maybe. And still couldn’t.
I was only eighteen, Paige. Things were happening too fast between us and the feelings were way too overwhelming and I didn’t know how else to put on the brakes, so I cheated and made sure you knew it.
Even as a teenager, Paige had known exactly what she wanted. A career, first of all. Then marriage and a home and babies.
Austin, confused and scared shitless by the emotions Paige could stir in him, seemingly without half trying, hadn’t wanted to go on to college, as his older brothers had, or stay home and learn to run the ranch, either.
And love Paige though he did, he sure as hell hadn’t been ready to move into some off-campus apartment and play househusband while his bride attended nursing school. Rodeo had been his consuming passion for as long as he could remember, and its siren song was impossible to resist.
Austin came back to the here and now with a jolt, and while he was able to shake off the memories, mostly anyway, the mood remained.
Paige got behind the wheel of her car.
Without Calvin there to serve as a buffer, the connection between Austin and Paige seemed even more intimate than before. It made Austin uncomfortable, in a not entirely unpleasant way.
“Since Esp
eranza is away taking care of her niece for the next couple of weeks,” Paige said, as though she and Austin were mere acquaintances and not two people who had been able to turn each other inside out once upon a time, “Garrett’s making supper for Julie and Calvin tonight. Tate and Libby and the girls will be there, and we’re invited, too.”
She wasn’t looking at him. No, she was too busy backing out, turning around, pushing her sunglasses back up her nose.
“Just one big, happy family,” Austin said sourly. He was still smarting a little from the exchange with Garrett in front of the auditorium. He couldn’t very well blame Garrett for his low opinion—Austin had spent years living down to it.
Paige glanced his way before pulling out of the familiar parking lot onto the road. “What’s your problem now?” she asked with a note of snarky impatience.
“Who said I had a problem?” Austin retorted.
In the backseat, Shep gave a little whine, as if to intercede.
“It’s hopeless,” Paige said.
“What?”
“Trying to get along with you, that’s what.”
“Excuse me, but it seems to me that you’re not trying all that hard,” Austin pointed out. Reasonably, he thought.
“What you mean is,” Paige replied heatedly, “that I’m not bending over backward to make you happy!”
Austin began to laugh. He snorted first, then howled.
Paige kept driving, but she was moving at the break-neck speed of a golf cart in first gear.
“What,” she demanded, “is so freaking funny?”
In the next instant, with a visible impact, Paige realized for herself what was so freaking funny. Her bending over—in any direction—was guaranteed to make him happy, and he could recall a few times when she’d had a pretty good time in that position, too.
The best part was, he didn’t have to say any of that.
She wrenched the car over to the side of the highway, shifted into Park, and flipped on the hazard lights.
Paige sort of pivoted in the seat then, and he watched as a tremor of anger—and possibly passion—moved through that compact, curvy little body of hers and then made the leap across the console and turned him instantly, obviously hard.
“Maybe,” he said, “we ought to just have sex and get it over with.”
She simply stared at him.
Mentally, Austin pulled his foot out of his mouth. Shoved a hand through his hair and wished his hard-on weren’t pressing itself into the ridges of his zipper—he’d have a scar, if this kept up.
“Let me rephrase that,” he said.
Paige blinked.
Time stretched.
Cars passed, the drivers tooting the horns to say howdy.
Polar ice caps melted.
New species developed, reached the pinnacle of evolution and became extinct.
“I’m waiting,” Paige said finally. A little lilt of fury threaded its way through her tone.
“For what?”
“For you to ‘rephrase’ that ridiculous statement you just made. ‘Maybe we ought to just have sex and get it over with,’ I think it was.” She adjusted her sunglasses, smoothed the thighs of her jeans, as she might have done with a skirt. “It’s hard to imagine how, Austin, but I’m sure you can make things even worse if you try.”
It wasn’t as if he had to try, he thought bleakly. When it came to Paige Remington, he could make things worse without even opening his mouth.
“It was just a thought,” he said, disgruntled. “There’s no need to overreact.”
“Overreact.” Paige huffed out the word, made a big show of facing forward again. With prim indignation, she resettled herself, switched off the blinkers and leaned to consult the rearview mirror before pulling back out onto the highway. “You are such a jerk,” she told him.
Austin couldn’t think of a damn thing to say in reply to that—nothing that wouldn’t get him in deeper, anyhow.
“I can’t believe you said that,” Paige marveled.
Austin’s response was part growl, part groan. He’d forgotten just how impossible this woman could be when she got her tail into a twist about something—or how little it took to piss her off.
Shep whined again.
“You’re scaring the dog,” Paige said.
“I’m scaring the dog?” Austin shot back, keeping his voice low. “You started this, Paige, by calling me a jerk!”
“You are a jerk,” Paige replied, raising her chin, her spine stiff as a ramrod, her face turned straight ahead. “And you started this by saying—by saying what you said.”
He couldn’t resist, even though he knew he should. “That we ought to have sex and get it over with, you mean?”
She glared at him. Even through the lenses of her sunglasses, he felt her eyes burning into his hide.
He grinned at her. “Well,” he drawled, “now that you bring it up, maybe a roll in the hay wouldn’t be such a bad idea. We could get it out of our systems, put the whole thing behind us, get on with our lives.”
Her neck went crimson, and she just sat there, her back rigid, her knuckles white from her grip on the wheel. “Oh, that’s a fine idea, Austin. Just what I would have expected from you!”
“You have a better one?”
She said nothing.
“I didn’t think so,” Austin said smugly.
AUSTIN HAD BEEN BAITING HER, Paige knew that.
But knowing hadn’t kept her from taking the hook.
Get it out of our systems.
Put the whole thing behind us, get on with our lives.
Indeed.
Standing at the counter in Julie and Garrett’s kitchen, upstairs at the Silver Spur ranch house, Paige whacked hard at the green onions she was chopping for the salad. Julie reached out, stopped her by grasping her wrist.
“Whoa,” she said. “If you’re not careful, you’ll chop off a finger.”
Libby, standing nearby and busy pouring white wine into three elegant glasses, grinned knowingly at her two younger sisters.
All three of the McKettrick men were outside, in the small, private courtyard at the bottom of a flight of stucco steps, barbecuing steaks and hamburgers. Calvin, Tate’s twin daughters and the pack of dogs were with them.
“You know, Paige,” Libby observed, handing her a glass, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you and Austin were—back on, or something.”
Julie’s eyes twinkled as she accepted a wineglass for herself and took a sip. “Or something,” she murmured after swallowing.
“Stop it, both of you,” Paige protested. “Austin and I are not ‘back on.’ The man infuriates me.”
Libby smiled, resting a hip against the side of the counter, but said nothing. The firstborn daughter in the Remington family, Libby had light brown hair and expressive blue eyes. She and Tate were crazy about each other, and they would have beautiful children together.
“Why?” Julie asked. The second sister, a year younger than Libby and a year older than Paige, Julie had chameleon eyes. They seemed a fierce shade of bluish green at the moment, though the color changed with what she was wearing and often looked hazel, and her coppery hair fell naturally into wonderful, spiraling curls past her shoulders.
“Why?” Paige echoed, stalling.
“Why does Austin infuriate you?” Julie wanted to know.
“Because he’s so—sure of himself,” Paige said. There were probably a million reasons, but that was the first to come to mind.
Libby raised both eyebrows. “This is a bad thing?” she asked.
Paige wanted her sisters to understand. Take her side. If anybody knew how badly her heart had been broken, they did. “He’s arrogant.”
Julie laughed. “No,” she said with a shake of her head, “he’s a McKettrick.”
Paige took a sip from her wineglass—and nearly choked. She set the drink aside and promptly forgot all about it. “The difference being…?”
Julie and Libby exchanged knowing glances o
ver the rims of their wineglasses.
“If you still care about Austin,” Julie said presently, after a visible gathering of internal forces, “there’s nothing wrong with that. You’re not in high school anymore, after all, and there’s no denying that the man is all McKettrick.”
Paige folded her arms. “Look,” she said, “I know you’re both madly in love with McKettrick men, and I’m happy for you—I really, truly am—but if you think I’m going to decide all is forgiven and fall into Austin’s bed as if nothing ever happened, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“She’s not going to fall into Austin’s bed,” Libby said to Julie very seriously.
“She’s not going to fall back into Austin’s bed,” Julie said.
Paige stepped between them and waved both arms. “Hello? I’m in the room,” she told her sisters. “I can hear everything you’re saying.”
Libby and Julie laughed. And they raised their wineglasses to each other.
“I give them seventy-two hours,” Libby said.
“Nonsense,” Julie replied matter-of-factly. “Paige will be twisting the sheets with Austin by tomorrow night at the latest.”
“You’re both crazy,” Paige said, flustered. “Just because neither of you can resist a McKettrick man, doesn’t mean I can’t!”
“She’s got it bad,” Libby told Julie.
“Worst case I’ve ever seen,” Julie decreed.
Paige simmered.
“About the bridesmaid’s dress,” Libby said, evidently determined to make bad matters worse. “I was thinking daffodil yellow, with ruffles, pearl buttons and lots of lace trim—”
“Lavender,” Julie countered cheerfully. “With a bustle.”
That did it. “Why not throw in a lamb and one of those hoops you roll with a stick?” Paige erupted. “And maybe I could skip down the aisle?”
The picture must have delighted Libby and Julie, because they both laughed uproariously.
Libby refilled her own wineglass, and Julie’s. Paige’s was still full.
Julie elbowed Paige aside to finish making the salad. She was, after all, the cook in the family.
“You’re really afraid of The Dress, aren’t you, Paige?” Libby asked, her eyes sparkling with happiness and well-being.
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