Austin

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I’m not inviting you to sleep with me,” she went on, when they stood in the modestly furnished living room of the guest quarters. Light spilled from the lamps, and dark was at the windows. “No matter how determined you may be to misinterpret everything I say.”

  Austin looked around, taking in the space. It was part of the original house, the one Clay and his wife had built together, early in the last century.

  “This would have been the parlor,” he said, thinking aloud.

  Paige looked at him curiously. She wasn’t quite so prickly as before, but she still generated plenty of electricity. “The parlor?”

  “Yes,” Austin said, moving to stand in front of the cold fireplace, tracing the design carved into the mantel’s edge with his working hand. The wood was dark and heavy, scarred in places, but built to last. The clock Clay had given his bride as a wedding gift was still there, too, and still ticking away, the sound strong and true. “Once upon a time, this was pretty much the whole house—this apartment and Esperanza’s, anyway. There was a loft, but no upstairs.”

  She watched him, arms folded, but loosely, and not like she was guarding herself from him, her head tilted to one side. He loved the way she looked when she listened. “You McKettricks have quite a family history,” she said.

  He nodded, offered up a lopsided grin. “Yep,” he agreed. His place upstairs seemed far away, hard to get to and way too lonely. Paige’s bed, even without her in it, was looking better and better.

  “Come on,” she said, putting out a hand. “You’d better rest.”

  “I’m going to need some help with my—boots,” he said, looking down at his clothes and that sling and figuring he was going to need help with a lot more than his boots. Taking pity on her, he added, “I could call Garrett or Tate.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, surprising him again. “I’m an RN, Austin. I’ve undressed a lot of men in my time.”

  Austin’s mouth twitched with the impulse to comment, but he restrained himself. From the look on her face, Paige was under a lot of strain, and he didn’t plan on adding to it.

  “Okay,” he said.

  In the bedroom, Austin lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed. It was a four-poster, intricately carved like the mantelpiece out in the living room, and from the same era.

  A lot of McKettricks had been conceived and eventually born in that old bed, and not a few had died there. It made Austin feel connected, in a strangely comforting way, to all those who had gone before.

  He was not a whimsical man, nor was he particularly interested in climbing the branches of his family tree. This odd nostalgia was probably nothing more than a side effect of all the drugs he’d been given lately, and it would pass.

  He’d be his old rascally self again before he knew it.

  Paige bent, got him by one foot, and pulled. Vigorously.

  Nothing happened.

  She pulled again.

  Again, nothing.

  “It works better,” Austin drawled, wondering how long it had been since he’d had this much fun with his clothes on, “if you turn around. That way, I can push with my other foot.”

  Crimson patches bloomed on her cheeks, and her eyes glittered. “Are you suggesting…?” She paused, swallowed, visibly regrouped. “Are you suggesting that I let you put your foot on my—backside—and push?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and then bit the inside of his lower lip so he wouldn’t laugh right out loud. “That’s how it’s done, Paige.”

  Shep, content to lie under the window and watch the proceedings, pricked up both ears and then relaxed again, resting his muzzle on his forelegs and rolling his brown eyes from Austin to Paige and then back again.

  Paige didn’t move.

  Austin put a lot of drama into a sigh of resignation, then leaned to grab hold of his right boot, with his one working hand. He gave a mighty pull—that was real—but the gasp of pain, not so much.

  Paige called him an idiot—he was beginning to read that as a term of affection—and took over the boot pulling. As instructed, she turned her back to him, held his booted foot between her knees and yanked.

  Unable to resist, Austin carefully centered his left boot across her shapely, blue-jeaned buttocks and pushed.

  She gave a little cry, one of indignation rather than pain, and stumbled a few steps when the boot came off.

  The look she gave him over her shoulder could have been used to brand cowhide.

  It wasn’t as if he’d laughed or anything. He’d wanted to, though. He had really wanted to.

  “I offered to call Tate or Garrett down here to help,” Austin reminded her. “And you said you’d rather undress me yourself.”

  “I did not say I wanted to undress you,” Paige pointed out, glaring. But she hauled off his second boot, the same way she’d done with the first one, and the gesture left Austin feeling a new kind of tenderness toward her.

  After that, they didn’t talk much.

  She helped him strip to his boxers and drew back the covers so he could lie down. She didn’t exactly tuck him in, but close.

  “I’ll get your medicine,” she said stiffly.

  “Thanks,” he told her, wanting to laugh again.

  As soon as she’d left the room, Shep crossed the floor and sprang up onto the mattress, sprawled himself across Austin’s ankles and gave a going-to-sleep sigh.

  Austin grinned. “I missed you, too, buddy,” he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PAIGE SLEPT LIGHTLY, just down the hall from Austin, and when she heard a crash, followed by a guttural and rather creative curse, somewhere in the deepest, darkest folds of the night, she was awake in an instant.

  She tossed back the covers on the narrow bed that used to be Calvin’s and sat up, reaching out to switch on the lamp.

  “Austin?” she called, but quietly, rushing into the hallway.

  No answer.

  Had he fallen? Reinjured himself, opened his stitches? Done some lasting and irrevocable harm to his back?

  These fears and others plagued her, even as she reminded herself that she was a nurse, for heaven’s sake, and therefore not usually prone to panic.

  She tried again. “Austin?”

  Paige flipped on the bathroom light, half expecting to see her charge sprawled on the floor, or unconscious in the tub or the shower stall, but the room was empty. So was the bedroom he’d occupied earlier.

  Another crash sounded, then another curse. A dog, probably Shep, began to bark.

  Heart pounding, Paige followed the ruckus to the kitchen.

  Austin, armed with a rifle and wearing only a pair of sweatpants and his sling, was just heading out the back door.

  “Wait!” Paige cried. “You can’t go out there like—”

  Shep darted past them both, shooting into the chilly darkness like a fur-covered bullet.

  As for Austin’s response, well, Paige might not have spoken at all, he paid so little attention.

  “Dammit,” Paige cursed, hopping and hurrying, trying to catch up with Austin and failing utterly. The ground was cold and small rocks dug into her bare feet. “Austin McKettrick,” she yelled, “you come back here!”

  Of course, he didn’t come back.

  Garrett and Tate ran out of the house, though, half-dressed shadows passing a now-limping Paige.

  The snarling started then, vicious.

  Paige knew Shep was fighting for his life, maybe for Austin’s.

  A scream burgeoned into the back of her throat, came out as a croak of terrified despair.

  Paige heard the crisp crack of a rifle shot, a brief yelp and pulsing silence.

  Garrett appeared out of the darkness, and took Paige by the shoulders. “Don’t go any farther,” he said.

  Fear lanced through Paige, shredding her from the inside. “Austin? Shep?”

  Just then, Austin stepped, ghost-pale, into a shaft of moonlight. His sling was askew, his bandages bloody. And he was carrying Shep in both arms.
<
br />   Paige looked back, saw Tate standing over the carcass of some huge animal—a wolf? A coyote? Perhaps even a panther? From that distance, she couldn’t tell.

  She continued toward the house, wincing as she walked but never slowing her pace.

  Inside the kitchen, the overhead lights flicked on, and Paige couldn’t tell who was in worse shape, the man or the dog.

  Shep made a small whimpering sound as Austin laid him gently on the big table, smoothed his ruff.

  Garrett was already on the phone to Doc Pomeroy.

  Stricken, Paige moved to stand beside Austin.

  Shep, though breathing hard, was conscious. A moment passed before Paige noticed the twisted angle of the dog’s right hind leg.

  “What—what happened?” she asked.

  Austin swung a leg over the bench and sat down at the table, stroking Shep’s side with slow, gentle motions of his right hand. He looked up at Paige briefly when he answered. “I heard a ruckus,” he said slowly. “It sounded like it was coming from someplace around the barn. I went to check it out, and Shep—well, something came at us, another dog, I think, and Shep went after it—”

  Tate came into the house, carrying what must have been the same rifle Austin had taken outside earlier. Paige barely registered his presence, or Garrett’s. Austin and his dog stood out in bold relief for her; everything and everyone else was beside the point.

  Gently, she laid a hand on Austin’s bare shoulder. His flesh was ice cold—not surprising, given that he’d just been outside in the chill of a November night, wearing almost nothing. “You shot the other animal?” she asked quietly.

  Austin nodded. “Shep was down,” he said. “I knew he’d be a goner if I didn’t do something.”

  “Doc Pomeroy will be here to take care of Shep in a few minutes,” Garrett told his brother very quietly. “In the meantime, cowpoke, you’re somewhat worse for wear yourself. Better let Paige have a look at that shoulder.”

  Austin looked up at Garrett, his gaze hardening into something fierce, even primal. “The shoulder will keep,” he said.

  “So will the dog,” Garrett answered, unfazed by the cold put-down Austin had just delivered.

  Paige shook off her stupor then and got busy. “I’ll need some washcloths and some towels,” she told Garrett. “And a basin, since Austin isn’t likely to leave Shep’s side long enough to stand at the sink so I can clean him up and see how badly he’s hurt.”

  Garrett, obviously glad to have something to do, immediately got busy.

  Tate, meanwhile, sat down on the bench directly across the table—and the prone figure of the dog—his denim-blue eyes fixed on Austin’s pale face.

  Paige carefully removed the bandages from his shoulder and began to clean the wound with the water and washcloths Garrett had rounded up for her. The damage to Austin’s thick hide was probably only superficial, Paige concluded, biting her lip as she worked. He’d popped a few stitches, which accounted for the bleeding, but she doubted he’d done himself any serious harm.

  This time.

  Tate’s thoughts must have been running along the same lines as Paige’s were, because his jaw was outlined in white, and unclamping the joints to speak cost him visible effort.

  “I was right upstairs,” he said evenly. “So was Garrett. And you went out there, half-naked and all on your own because—”

  Meanwhile, Garrett had scared up a first aid kit from somewhere.

  He opened the plastic case for Paige and she assessed the supplies, took out antiseptic wipes, a package of cotton balls and a small bottle of iodine.

  Austin, who had been glaring at Tate, projecting the clear message that he would explain himself when and if he felt like it, sucked in a sharp breath when the iodine hit. He looked up at Paige, his expression faintly accusing, but he didn’t stop stroking the dog.

  Shep, for his part, seemed a lot calmer now. He lay still on the table, except for one or two attempts to reach back and lick his broken leg.

  “That hurt,” Austin told Paige.

  “It was supposed to hurt,” she replied. “It’s iodine.”

  He glared at her.

  She glared back.

  When it came to obstinacy, Paige could hold her own, thank you very much, even against a McKettrick.

  She took a packet of gauze and some tape from the first aid kit and applied a fresh bandage to Austin’s wound, offering no further comment. The sling was a total loss, so she chucked it into the garbage and fashioned a new one using some of Esperanza’s dish towels.

  Tate waited for an answer, his gaze practically pinning Austin, and one eyebrow slightly raised.

  “Okay,” Austin finally burst out, staring darkly back at Tate, “so maybe I should have asked you and Garrett for help. The point is, I didn’t, and now it’s over and if you wouldn’t mind dropping the subject, big brother, I would be much obliged.”

  There was a rap at the back door, which they had unlocked for the vet, and Doc Pomeroy let himself in, lumbered into the kitchen, his gaze going straight to Shep. This time, Cliff wasn’t along for the ride.

  “Get back, all of you,” Farley snapped, in his usual gruff voice. “Give us some room.”

  Everybody moved except Austin, who remained right where he was, still comforting the dog.

  Paige cleaned up, washing out the plastic basin and then scrubbing her hands.

  Garrett and Tate conferred with each other, in low voices, and left the house, probably to remove the body of the animal Austin had shot to save Shep. It wouldn’t do for Calvin or the twins to be confronted with such a sight, come morning.

  Doc murmured under his breath as he examined and treated Shep. He gave the dog an injection first, probably a painkiller, and then set Shep’s leg and bound it tightly with gauze and bandages.

  That done, Farley scrubbed up and then shook some small tablets out of a bottle he carried in his medical bag, dropping them into a small envelope.

  “Starting tomorrow morning, give him one of these every twenty-four hours,” the veterinarian directed, brusque as ever.

  “Thanks,” Austin said, sounding relieved.

  He got up to hoist a snoring Shep off the table, but Doc elbowed him aside and did the honors himself.

  “Where do you want this fella put?” the old man asked. He was big, awkward-looking, raw-boned. And yet he held that dog as tenderly as he might have held a child, and the sight touched Paige, way down deep.

  Austin left the table, moving with weary grace. “This way,” he said, and he led Doc Pomeroy right back to the room where he’d been before all the excitement started.

  Paige took some blankets from the linen closet in the apartment hallway and made a nest for Shep on the floor, close to Austin’s bed.

  Doc’s strength didn’t falter as he dropped to a crouch and gently laid Shep down on the blankets.

  “He’s going to be fine,” Doc said, looking Austin over. “But I’m not so sure about you.”

  Paige had been mainly concerned with Austin’s wound, before. Now, she finally noticed that he was shivering, and there was a bluish cast to his lips.

  “I’m all right,” he told Doc solemnly.

  Doc shook his head. “You McKettricks. I once pulled the prongs of a pitchfork out of your granddaddy’s leg, back when the Silver Spur still grew all its own hay. He was bleeding like there was no tomorrow and giving me guff about how he had to get the cows and the horses fed when I asked him to let me take a look. Last thing he said before he passed out colder than a wedge was, ‘I’m all right.’”

  Austin cocked a grin at him. “What happened next, Doc?” he asked, in the tone of one who knew full well what happened next. “After you pulled the pitchfork out of Granddad’s leg, I mean.”

  “Soon as old Bill came around, he doused those punctures with kerosene from a can in one of the sheds and kept right on working. Put in a full day.”

  “Well, then,” Austin said lightly. “It must be genetic.”

  He s
at down on the edge of the bed, then stretched himself out straight.

  Paige covered him with two faded quilts and a thin blanket, thus exhausting the guest-quarters’ linen supply, peered at the labels on his prescription bottles, which were lined up on the dresser on the other side of the room.

  Once Doc had said his good-nights and gone, Paige went back to Austin’s bedside.

  He sat up—the chills were worse now—and accepted the pills and a glass of water.

  “I’ve said it before,” Paige told him, “and I’ll say it again—”

  “I’m an idiot?”

  “That’s pretty much it, yes.”

  Austin grinned, set the glass aside on the nightstand, and snuggled down under the blankets. “Now that we’ve established that,” he said, his teeth chattering a little, “maybe you could do something—nurselike.”

  Paige, her emotions spent, her body aching with fatigue, blinked back tears. She spoke in the most normal tone she could manage. “Such as?”

  “I was thinking you might want to get in bed with me.”

  “You were, were you? Why in hell would I want to do that?”

  “Because I’m cold? I could get pneumonia, you know. What kind of nurse lets a man get pneumonia, when all she’d have to do to prevent it is share her body warmth?”

  Paige sat down on the edge of the mattress, not because she was planning on “sharing her body warmth,” but because she was suddenly so tired that she didn’t trust her legs to hold her up.

  “You know something, McKettrick?” she said, sighing the words more than saying them. “You are high maintenance. As in, a lot of work.”

  He grinned, but he still looked pale, and she knew he wasn’t faking the shivers. “If you’d like,” he said generously, “I could ask my brothers to give you a raise.”

  She couldn’t help it.

  She laughed, though her eyes burned.

  “You’re not only a lot of work,” she said. “You’re impossible.”

  “There doesn’t have to be any sex,” he said.

  “You’re damn right there doesn’t,” Paige replied. But then she turned off the lamp and she joined him under the covers, wrapping her arms around him, settling in close.