Austin

by Linda Lael Miller

  Rushing back to the bedroom, Tate quickly finished getting dressed.

  Libby appeared in the bedroom doorway just as he was pulling on his second boot. She looked pale as death.

  “Brent was already on his way out here,” she reported, in a stunned tone of voice, still clutching the phone receiver. “Somebody called his house from a pay phone in town a few minutes ago, and told him he’d better get to the oil field on the Silver Spur pronto, that it might be a matter of life and death.”

  Tate opened the gun safe bolted to the top shelf of the master bedroom closet and pulled out his pistol, a .38, and a box of ammunition.

  “Listen to me,” he said, standing practically nose to nose with his future wife, the woman he loved more than he’d ever dreamed it was even possible to love a woman. “Lock the door behind me. Keep the kids close, and don’t let anybody in unless you know for sure it’s me or Garrett or Brent or—” His throat closed then. He’d been about to say “Austin.”

  “Be careful,” Libby said, touching his arm.

  “Always,” he replied. He kissed her, swept his children up in his gaze. “Call Garrett,” he added, on his way out.

  “Brent’s doing that,” Libby told him.

  He went out the back door, heard the lock turn behind him with a decisive click.

  He sprinted toward the driveway, the gun in one pocket of his denim jacket, the bullets in the other.

  Austin’s dog, last seen on the front porch, was waiting patiently beside Tate’s truck.

  Tate hesitated, then scooped the critter up and set him inside the cab, blood and all. Shep stepped over the console and the gearshift and settled himself in the passenger seat, and sat there just as calmly as if he rode shotgun every day of his life.

  PAIGE WAS DRESSED and sitting at the table in the main kitchen, reading and sipping herbal tea, when Garrett came pounding down the middle stairway, wild-eyed, wild-haired, misbuttoning his shirt and risking his damn fool neck in his hurry to get wherever he was going.

  Immediately, Paige rose to her feet. “Julie? Calvin?” she asked, terrified.

  “Austin,” Garrett replied, grabbing a jacket and his keys and pushing open the door leading to the garage.

  Paige’s heart clenched like a fist closing around a life-line. She didn’t bother going back for her purse, but ran behind Garrett, grabbing someone’s hooded sweatshirt off a hook as she passed.

  They rode in Garrett’s truck, descending the driveway at top speed. Midway down, Garrett pushed a button on his remote, and the iron gates slowly swung open ahead of them.

  They shot through the gap with not more than an inch of leeway on either side, by Paige’s hasty reckoning, and practically took the turn toward town on two wheels.

  “Where is Austin?” Paige managed to gasp, holding on to the edges of the seat with both hands, even though her seat belt was securely fastened. They were moving so fast that she almost expected her face to tighten from the g-force. “Garrett, what’s happened?”

  Garrett didn’t look at her. He just drove faster, and then faster still.

  They heard a siren, saw ambulance and squad car lights flashing up ahead, blue and then red and then blinding white.

  “Brogan got an anonymous tip a little while ago,” Garrett finally replied, his voice an odd scratchy rasp. “Looks like Austin might be in some trouble, over at the oil fields.” Now, briefly, he turned his head to catch Paige’s eye and added, “You shouldn’t be here.”

  A shiver moved down Paige’s spine; God only knew what they might be facing, but there was no turning back now. And she wouldn’t have stayed behind even if that were possible. “Well, I am here, Garrett, and I’m not going anywhere,” she snapped in response.

  The ambulance and Brent Brogan’s cruiser turned onto the oil-field road, and Tate’s truck wasn’t far behind.

  Garrett and Paige, getting there last, jostled along at the tail end.

  “What the devil would he be doing out here at this hour?” Garrett muttered.

  Paige didn’t know the answer—she’d last seen Austin after their swim earlier that evening. Of course, Garrett wasn’t expecting her to reply; he was thinking out loud, trying to make sense of the situation.

  For her part, Paige leaned forward in the seat and willed the procession, slowed by the deeply rutted dirt road, to move faster.

  The emergency lights cast a strange, jerky light over Austin’s truck, and Paige had her door open even before Garrett stopped his rig. If he hadn’t reached out and grabbed her arm, she probably would have jumped to the ground while they were still moving.

  As it was, she wrenched free and bolted, her heart scalding in her throat, making it hard to breathe.

  Chief Brogan got to the truck first, soon followed by two volunteer paramedics, and hinges squealed horribly as they hauled open the driver’s-side door.

  Seeing Paige, and well aware of her nursing skills because of earlier medical emergencies, Brogan instructed the paramedics to get out of her way.

  She scrambled up onto the running board, peering in.

  Both seats were splotched with blood and crunchy with broken glass, but Austin wasn’t there. The passenger-side door must have been thrown open on impact; it was jammed open, partially wedged into the far wall of the ditch.

  “He’s gone!” Paige cried, scooting back out and jumping to the ground. A thought ricocheted through her head—she hadn’t been this scared since that one Thanksgiving, when Calvin was a toddler. He’d suffered a major asthma attack, and she’d been so desperate to help him catch his breath that she’d thrust him into an icy shower.

  Now, her gaze swung from one worried male face to another, all of them spookily illuminated by headlights and the swirling red-white-blue of the squad car and the ambulance.

  A whimper made her drop her gaze to Shep, standing fitfully at Tate’s side. His coat was matted with blood.

  Pure terror rose up in Paige then. She broke away from the cluster of men and turned in a slow circle in the middle of the dark road, calling Austin’s name, pausing to listen, calling again.

  When Shep suddenly bolted off through the grass, Paige was right behind him. She was a fast runner, but Garrett and Tate shot past her, soon followed by Chief Brogan, fumbling with a flashlight as he sprinted along.

  Shep streaked ahead of them all, barking wildly.

  Finally, the dog stopped, somewhere beyond the reach of Brent’s flashlight beam, and when they all caught up, Shep was turning in frantic circles, his eyes glowing yellow in the gloom, making a low, terrifying sound in his throat.

  Austin was behind him, sprawled on his back, the front of his shirt crimson with blood.

  Paige would have screamed in fear—she, the cool-headed nurse, trained in emergency procedures, would have lost it, right then and there—if Austin hadn’t drawn up one knee and groaned, proving he was alive.

  Shep wasn’t going to let anybody near him—not her, not Garrett or Tate, and certainly not Chief Brogan and the two winded paramedics.

  In a hoarse, somewhat strangled voice, Austin called the dog to his side, stroked Shep’s back until he began to calm down.

  Paige landed on her knees on one side of Austin’s prone body, Tate and Garrett on the other. Shep growled again and nestled in close against his master.

  “I think I’m shot,” Austin said, in an almost dreamy voice.

  Tate made a hoarse sound, a parody of a chuckle. “Ya think?” he asked, peeling off his coat and spreading it gently over Austin.

  “Do you know who shot you?” Garrett asked, explosively calm.

  Austin shook his head.

  Paige, frozen for a few moments, regained her voice and her ability to move. She pushed away Tate’s jacket, ripped open Austin’s shirt, uncovering his chest.

  Chief Brogan, the only one with a flashlight, shone the beam on the wound.

  The bullet had torn into his left shoulder, only inches from his heart, but far enough away to mean he probably wouldn’
t die. While the paramedics ran back to the ambulance for supplies and a stretcher, Paige wadded the shirt Garrett hauled off over his head and used it to apply pressure and slow the bleeding.

  “How bad is it?” Tate asked gruffly.

  Paige realized she was crying. She sniffled once, shook her head. “I don’t know,” she replied, “but if we can control the bleeding and get him to the clinic in town—”

  “Not the hospital in San Antonio?” the chief asked.

  “It’s too far,” she said. “Austin needs treatment now.”

  He looked up at her then and smiled ingenuously. “Are you crying over me, ma’am?” he asked. He was in shock, Paige knew, but he sounded like he was looped.

  “There’s no reason to cry over you, cowboy,” she responded fiercely, if tremulously, “because you’re going to be just fine.” She leaned down, so their noses were almost touching. “Just fine,” she repeated.

  “I hear you,” Austin said sleepily.

  The next couple of hours passed in a blur, at least for Paige.

  She rode to the clinic in Blue River in the back of the ambulance with Austin, starting an IV. Garrett claimed the front passenger seat, while the more experienced of the two paramedics knelt opposite Paige, taking vital signs.

  She was too busy to worry about much of anything except stabilizing Austin, but the dog did cross her frantic mind a couple of times.

  Had someone taken care of Shep?

  AUSTIN DRIFTED IN AND OUT of consciousness. Out was better, because whenever he started to wake up, his left shoulder felt as though it had been blown completely away from his body.

  If it hadn’t been for the occasional jolt of pain, he would have thought for sure he was dead. He was surrounded by blurry figures dripping light, trailing it in tumbling spangles with every move. It didn’t seem possible that they were human beings, these creatures made of crackling energy.

  They must have given him a pretty powerful drug at some point, because even though the burning throb in his shoulder continued, indeed deepened and developed a rhythm suspiciously like a heartbeat, he was able to transcend it, somehow. He still had pain, but he didn’t care.

  “My dog,” he ground out once, when he thought Paige’s face passed in front of his. She looked wavery as a ghost, though. “Where’s Shep?”

  “I’ll find out,” the apparition replied.

  “Good,” he said, and passed out again.

  When Austin finally came back to himself, he was lying in a hospital bed, as numb as if every nerve in his body were swathed in cotton balls. A light burned in the hallway, and someone—Paige—was slumped in a chair nearby, huddled inside a blanket.

  “Paige?”

  She started, gasped softly and straightened. Stood and smoothed his hair back from his forehead with a cool hand. “You’re awake,” she said.

  He grinned. “Duh,” he said, his voice husky as the call of a bullfrog.

  She smiled, but her eyes shimmered with what might have been tears. “How do you feel?”

  “Like somebody shot me through the windshield of my truck and everything went south from there,” he answered. It was hard to talk, he discovered. His throat was so dry, it hurt.

  Paige, ever the nurse, produced a glass of water with a bent straw sticking out of it and held it to his mouth.

  “Slowly,” she ordered.

  The thirst was powerful, but guzzling through a straw was more than he could manage at the moment.

  So he sipped.

  “Where’s my dog?” he asked, when his throat was moist enough to permit him to speak.

  Paige smiled, set the glass aside. “Chief Brogan took Shep back to the ranch,” she said. “Did you know he found his way to Tate and Libby’s place? It’s as if he actually went for help.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Austin ground out.

  Paige laid a finger to his lips. “Shhh,” she said.

  It made him feel coddled, that “shhh” and the touch of her fingers against his mouth. Quickened his heartbeat, too.

  “Shep is fine,” she assured him, in a voice he wished she’d use all the time. “Thanks to Dr. Colwin, you’re going to be fine, too. You were lucky, Austin—the wound was fairly minor, but you bled like a stuck pig and you went into shock. Whoever called Chief Brogan saved your life.”

  Austin frowned. He didn’t remember anything except driving toward the oil fields, the smashed windshield, the pain in his shoulder. After that, there was a blank space, followed by a vague recollection of wondering where the dog was.

  He must have gone looking, because he remembered when they found him, Paige and his brothers and Chief Brogan. He remembered poor old Shep, guarding him from all comers.

  “You wouldn’t lie to a cowboy about his dog, would you?” he asked. “Not even to make him feel better?”

  She spilled that magical smile all over him, like fairy dust, and then she kissed his forehead. Shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “I would never lie to a cowboy.”

  He believed her, and felt a pang of deepest sorrow.

  She’d never lied to a cowboy, as far as Austin knew, but a cowboy had sure as hell lied to her, if only by omission.

  “I think I’m in the market for some competent medical care,” he said.

  She smiled, but a tear slipped down her perfect cheek. “At your service,” she replied.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AUSTIN HAD A FEW NEW STITCHES in his hide, along with a wad of medicated packing, a bandage over that, and a sling to support the whole mess. After two long days and three even longer nights confined to the inpatient section at the Blue River Clinic, he was finally headed home.

  It was a quiet ride, just him and Paige, now officially his keeper, rolling along in her ugly little car. Shep sat silently in the backseat, with his head up, as if he were on the lookout for a fresh batch of attackers.

  At least, Austin thought, cranky from the pain and the enforced immobility and all the rest of it, Paige wasn’t asking questions. He had flat-out had it with questions.

  How many times did he have to tell Tate, Garrett and Chief Brogan that he didn’t remember anything that would help their investigation? He’d seen something out there on the oil fields and gone to check it out. Then he’d been shot.

  That was the whole story.

  Although the chief and the state police had gone over the oil field looking for some kind of evidence, they hadn’t found anything they could use to identify the bad guys. Going by the terse reports Austin had basically pried out of Tate and Garrett, there had been an attempt to uncap one of the wells. Possibly the intruder had meant to set it afire.

  As the current theory went, Austin had interrupted the process by showing up at the wrong time and, in a panic, the sneaking, chicken-shit sons of bitches had taken a shot at him when their two vehicles met on that narrow road. He’d seen nothing but that dazzle of headlights coming at him before the bullet splintered the windshield and lodged itself in his shoulder.

  According to the doctors who’d treated him that night, if he hadn’t leaned to the right in an attempt to protect Shep, the bullet would have gone right through the middle of his heart.

  Fate was a peculiar thing, he reflected with a twinge of bitterness. Of course he was glad to be alive, but where was the lucky fluke—the wrong turn, the flat tire, the impulsive stop for Mexican food—that would have saved Jim and Sally McKettrick that night?

  When that semi had jumped the median, they’d been directly in its path.

  No reprieve, no mercy.

  “Hello?” Paige broke into his thoughts. “Austin? Are you in there?”

  He cocked a puny grin at her, slunk low in the seat and rubbed his bristly chin with one hand. His shoulder hurt, and the muscles in his lower back twitched in a vague but ominous threat of locking up. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Thanks?” she echoed. She was looking directly ahead, keeping her eyes on the road, and she sounded puzzled.

 
; “For springing me from the clinic,” Austin said. “And for bringing Shep along for the ride. I really missed that dog.”

  Paige gave an odd little chuckle, slid one brief glance in his direction before fixing her attention on the road again. “And the dog missed you,” she replied in a tone meant to convey more than Austin was able to pick up on at the time.

  “How about Molly?” he asked.

  “Molly,” Paige told him, in that same get-a-clue voice, “is healing nicely. Doc Pomeroy has stopped by twice to check on her. Calvin and I have been keeping the wounds clean and applying plenty of that special ointment Doc prescribed. Turns out my nephew has a real way with horses.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Austin said gruffly, grinning at the thought of the boy studiously doctoring the little paint mare. “Calvin is a world-class kid.”

  “At last, something we can agree on,” Paige said with what might—or might not—have been a smile. In profile, it was hard to tell. Plus, his gaze kept getting stuck on the perfect curve of her right breast.

  By then, they’d reached the gates of the Silver Spur. They were open wide, and to Austin, it was like a welcoming embrace.

  “When did we not agree?” Austin asked, figuring that, since they’d only been alone together for the fifteen minutes or so it took to drive from the clinic in Blue River to the ranch, they hadn’t had time to get on each other’s nerves.

  Paige headed up the long driveway. “Just about every time we’ve tried to have a conversation?” she jibed, but there was a twinkle in her eyes when she looked his way.

  Austin felt as though he’d been away from home a lot longer than the three days since the shooting, and maybe, at least from an emotional standpoint, he had been. Seeing the place again distracted him, even from the banter with Paige, and he felt things lift up inside him as he took in the barn, the outbuildings, the palatial house.

  And the moving trucks.

  There were two of them, parked in the massive portico.

  “What’s up with that?” he asked Paige, indicating the rigs with a nod of his head.

  She smiled, clearly pleased to know something he didn’t. “Tate and Libby and the girls are moving back into the main house,” she said.