Austin

by Linda Lael Miller

  Paige broke into his thoughts. “Do you want me to whip up some scrambled eggs or something?”

  “No,” Austin said. Then, “Thanks.”

  “You need food if you’re going to take your pills.”

  “I know that, Paige,” he replied with exaggerated patience. “But right now I’m okay, and I’m not ready to eat.”

  “Suit yourself, then,” Paige said, snipping off the words.

  After giving a great sigh, intended to sound long-suffering, Austin rose and retreated to the bedroom where, to hear her tell it, he and Nurse Remington had most definitely and absolutely not had sexual relations.

  Could have fooled me, Austin thought, remembering the way she’d pitched and moaned and squirmed before finally exploding in trembling satisfaction. Oh, lady, you could have fooled me.

  CALVIN AND THE TWINS were gathered in Garrett and Julie’s living room, watching cartoons on TV, still in their pajamas and munching cold cereal from colorful plastic bowls, when Paige arrived.

  Paige waggled her fingers and smiled in greeting, then drifted into the kitchen, where her sisters were sitting at the table, conferring over yet another goony dress, in yet another bridal magazine.

  “What do you think of this?” Julie asked, jabbing at an image with one manicured index finger. The model wore something that resembled a pink cloud.

  “I’d look like a giant wad of cotton candy,” Paige said, meaning it.

  She helped herself to a cup of coffee and stood at the counter to sip away, instead of joining her sisters at the table. She was afraid to get too close to the pink dress, even in printed form.

  Libby and Julie exchanged glances and sighed in perfect unison. It reminded Paige of the dream where the two spooky brides had chased her down a dark country road, waving horrible travesties of fashion at her.

  “Well, what do you suggest?” Libby inquired archly. “Something tasteful and form-fitting, maybe? Say, a black sheath and a rope of pearls?”

  Paige imagined the outfit, drank more coffee and finally replied, “You know, that doesn’t sound half-bad.”

  Verbally, Libby sprang. Physically, she remained in her chair. “You are not wearing a black dress at my wedding, Paige Remington!”

  “Mine, either,” Julie agreed, all huffy.

  “How about red?” Paige suggested. With her dark hair, she looked especially good in most shades of red.

  “If we were getting married in a brothel, maybe,” Libby said.

  The hopelessness of it all made Paige sag on the inside. She hated wearing pastels—with few exceptions, they washed her out, made her look like a plague victim.

  Her sisters, on the other hand, looked wonderful in pinks and baby blues and cheery lavenders. And this was their big day, after all.

  “Okay,” she said bravely, “I’ll wear the dress.” She indicated the magazine, still open on the table, with a motion of one hand. “Even if it does make me look like something from the snack bar at the circus.”

  Having said that, Paige surprised not only her sisters but herself, too—she burst into tears.

  Libby and Julie, both used to mothering her, immediately scooted back their chairs, got to their feet and advanced on her. Each one gripping an elbow, they ushered her to the table and sat her down, with rather more force than was strictly necessary, in a chair.

  “I knew it,” Libby told Julie fitfully. “We shouldn’t have brought up the bridesmaid’s dress so soon after the latest Austin crisis.”

  “You’re right,” Julie agreed with a big sigh, propping her elbow on the tabletop and cupping her chin.

  Paige was momentarily distracted from the subject of the hour: the gown of her nightmares. “What do you mean, the latest Austin crisis?” she asked as Libby shoved a box of tissues at her.

  Julie watched with concern as Paige wadded a tissue and scrubbed at her eyes.

  “There was Buzzsaw, the bull,” Libby ventured.

  “And then whatever happened in that bar in San Antonio and the shooting in the oil field,” Julie added.

  “And now this,” Libby concluded.

  “This what?” Paige wanted to know.

  “All that excitement last night, with the gun and everything,” Julie said, using the same tone of over-the-top patience she might have chosen to address a four-year-old learning to tie his or her shoes. “Garrett told me all about it.”

  “And Tate told me,” Libby threw in. Her blue eyes rounded. “He said there was this huge dog, and Austin had to shoot it.”

  All three of the Remington sisters were animal lovers, but Libby was passionately protective of critters. She’d fostered dozens of dogs and cats over the years, until good homes could be found for them, and before their mother had leveled the Perk Up Coffee Shop in Julie’s tank of a Cadillac, she’d kept a donation jar for the shelter right next to the cash register.

  Would she think less of Austin for using the rifle?

  Paige gulped hard, but before she could figure out a way to find out, Libby went right ahead and answered her. “I know he had to do it,” she said softly, squeezing Paige’s hand. “Austin was defending Shep.”

  Another tear strayed down Paige’s cheek; she wiped at her face with the back of one hand. The salt made her skin sting, and she thought she’d better get a grip and cut out all this crying before she turned into a chronic sniveler.

  “How do you stand it?” she asked, looking deep into Libby’s eyes and then, in turn, Julie’s.

  Libby frowned, clearly puzzled. “Stand it?”

  “Stand what?” Julie wanted to know.

  “Loving McKettrick men,” Paige burst out, in what might have been called a stage whisper, spreading her hands for emphasis. “They act as though they’re immortal, all three of them.”

  Her sisters were smiling at her. Knowingly, too, as if she’d just inadvertently revealed some deep, dark secret.

  “Stop it,” she said. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “What are we thinking?” Libby asked lightly.

  “Who knew you were psychic?” Julie threw in, still smiling. “From now on, when I need a glimpse of the future, I’ll just dial 1-800-PAIGE.”

  “You two are just so hilariously funny,” Paige said, keeping her voice down because of the kids in the next room, “that it makes me want to puke.”

  “Touchy,” Julie said, sipping coffee.

  Libby’s tone was prim, though her eyes danced. “To answer your question,” she said to Paige, “loving Tate McKettrick isn’t hard. It comes as naturally to me as my breath and my heartbeat.”

  Julie sighed contentedly, her expression dreamy and faraway all of a sudden, and smiled mysteriously.

  “That isn’t what I mean,” Paige insisted, “and both of you know it. It seems to me that Tate and Garrett and Austin all take a lot of risks, compared to normal people. On top of that, they seem to have acquired some dangerous enemies. How can you sleep at night, thinking of all the things that might happen to them?”

  Libby giggled. “I sleep just fine. Tate and I make love and then we both conk out until morning. It’s really very healthy.”

  Paige blushed hard. Told herself there was no way her sisters could know what she and Austin had done the night before.

  “Lucky you,” she said, and there might have been some acid in her tone.

  “Jealous?” Julie teased. These days, she always had a twinkle and a glow, and she made no secret of the fact that the physical part of her relationship with Garrett was working out just fine.

  “Maybe,” Paige admitted. She made a sweep of one hand to indicate the tabletop, which was empty except for their coffee cups and the bridal magazine opened to the hideous cotton-candy dress. “I thought you said we were going to have breakfast. Where’s the food?”

  AUSTIN MADE THE CLIMB to his own rooms, after shutting Shep up in the pantry downstairs so he wouldn’t try to follow on his splinted leg, and raided his dresser drawers for shorts and a pair of jeans. He’d plann
ed on wearing a T-shirt, but the plan proved too painful to carry out, even after he’d temporarily removed the splint.

  Carefully, and with no small amount of difficulty, he managed to get into a blue chambray work shirt, leaving the left sleeve to dangle empty.

  The word awkward didn’t do justice to the way it felt to wear half a shirt, Austin thought glumly.

  He did manage to get into a pair of beat-up old boots, probably because he’d had them so long that they were starting to fall apart.

  As accomplishments went, it was pretty pissant, but a man had to take what he could get.

  A smile curved Austin’s mouth as he thought of Paige, gasping and flexing and crooning with pleasure during the night. In that case, it hadn’t been about what a man could get, but what he could give.

  Since he didn’t need a hard-on in addition to his other woes, Austin turned his thoughts in another direction: his mental to-do list.

  After gathering his shaving gear, some extra clothes and the book he’d been trying to read before he’d been prescribed all those pharmaceuticals, Austin headed back down to the first floor.

  He let Shep out of the pantry, put the clothes away and then stood in front of the bureau, looking at the cover of the book. Reading was a chore for him—he’d been diagnosed with ADD as a kid—but he wanted to like books, the way his brothers did, and he had no intention of giving up before that happened.

  Even if it took until he was a hundred.

  With a sigh, he set the paperback Western down and returned to the kitchen. After putting on half a jacket, Austin stepped out into the cold, sunny morning and Shep peg-legged along behind him.

  Reese and Tom were working in the barn again, along with Ron Strivens, the father of one of Julie’s favorite students. Garrett had personally hired Strivens on as a ranch hand, moving the widower and his three kids into a trailer on the Silver Spur. The guy was quiet, mostly kept to himself, but he more than earned his pay.

  In fact, Tate was planning to promote Strivens to an assistant foreman’s job after the first of the year. In the meantime, he seemed thrilled to have grocery money coming in steady, along with a home and health insurance for his family.

  Reese nodded abruptly to Austin and went on shoveling horseshit.

  Tom was in the loft, throwing bales of hay down into the bed of a truck backed up to the barn. Although there was plenty of grass on the range in spring and summer, it started to go a little sparse in places in the late fall, and that meant feed had to be hauled to different parts of the ranch on a rotating basis.

  Strivens, standing in Molly’s stall and applying ointment to her rapidly healing hide, had cleaned up pretty well, as Garrett had once remarked. The man had cut his hair and shaved off his beard the same day he was hired, and he showed up every day, rain or shine, sick or well, not just on time, but early. His clothes were mended in places, but always clean, and while he seemed shy, he was friendly enough.

  Austin liked him.

  “Mornin’,” he said, standing outside the stall and looking in.

  Strivens smiled tentatively. Nodded his head. “Morning,” he replied, wiping his hands down the front of his flannel shirt after he was done dosing Molly with the ointment.

  A movement at the periphery of his vision distracted Austin; he turned his head, out of curiosity, and saw Tom and Cliff Pomeroy standing at the far end of the breezeway. They seemed to be having a serious conversation, both of them gesturing, but their words didn’t carry far enough for Austin to pick up on the topic.

  If Cliff was around, Austin reasoned idly, pondering the faintly unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, the one his granddad had called botheration, then Doc was probably there, too.

  Austin thanked Strivens for tending to Molly and turned to head for the open doorway at the other end of the barn.

  As he came nearer, Cliff flushed and worked up a smile. Tom nodded a greeting to Austin and went on about his business.

  “Hello, Cliff,” Austin said. The man had been away from Blue River for years, and Tom was little more than a drifter, according to Tate. Such men tended to turn up out of nowhere, wanting a job, work just hard enough to get by and quit without notice as soon as they’d racked up a paycheck or two.

  Cliff’s gaze moved to Austin’s sling, and his expression changed subtly. “Dad wanted to stop by and check up on your animals,” he said.

  “We appreciate that,” Austin said, glancing down at his canine sidekick. “Don’t we, Shep?” He looked his father’s one-time friend over and wondered what it was about the man that troubled him.

  They stepped out into the cold November sunlight.

  Doc was standing at the back of his truck, with the tailgate down, and Reese was practically on top of him, yammering on about something.

  Austin surely would have liked to know what that something was.

  Shep, meanwhile, turned testy again. His hackles rose and he gave a snarling growl of warning.

  Austin reached down and got him by the scruff of his neck just as he would have lunged, bandaged leg and all.

  Reese turned his head, saw the dog and backed up a step. His neck turned a dull shade of crimson, though, while his face went pale.

  It was a disturbing contrast.

  Doc waved the man off and approached Austin and Shep. Cliff stood just behind Austin, and when Doc got close, it seemed that his gaze shifted briefly to his son and narrowed.

  Austin made a mental note to find out what had brought Cliff Pomeroy back to Blue River after all these years. As far as he knew, the man hadn’t even visited, once he’d decided to leave Blue River.

  “I’ve come for a look at the little mare and this dog,” Doc answered, and his countenance softened as he crouched to look Shep in the eye.

  Uneasy, Cliff wandered back toward the barn.

  Doc ruffled Shep’s ears and straightened. “He gets around pretty well on that bandaged leg,” the old man observed. “Poor critter will do his best to keep up with you, Austin, no matter what the effort costs him. Try to keep that in mind for the dog’s sake, if not your own.”

  Austin registered the message, acknowledged it with a nod. Shep probably did need a rest, but he wouldn’t light anywhere unless his master did.

  “What was that all about?” he asked when it was clear that Doc wasn’t going to volunteer anything about the apparent argument he’d had with Reese. “You and the ranch hand, I mean.”

  Doc heaved a sigh. Took off his hat, tugged it on again. Today, he was wearing a beat-up Stetson, a change from his usual billed cap with the sweat stains and the thread-bare seams.

  Maybe he had a hot date after rounds, Austin thought whimsically.

  “Best you take that up with him, rather than me,” Doc said, going around him to head for the barn, where he meant to examine Molly. “You get that dog inside the house. He needs to rest a spell, and it wouldn’t hurt you to take a load off, either.”

  Austin agreed, but he didn’t move, and neither did Shep.

  “Doc?” Austin said.

  Farley Pomeroy stopped. His back stiffened, and he didn’t turn around or speak.

  “The dog I shot last night. You got a look at him before we buried him and you came in to tend to Shep?”

  Farley faced him then, but his face was screwed up against the sunlight and Austin couldn’t read his expression. “Course I did. Had to make sure he was gone. Couldn’t let him suffer.”

  “I made sure he was gone, Doc.”

  “I reckon you did,” Doc allowed, not unkindly. Then he shook his head, remembering. “It was a good, clean shot, Austin. I couldn’t have disposed of that animal any more humanely than you did. He was a fine specimen, though—some Mastiff in him, I think. I’ve seen ponies that weren’t as big as he was.”

  Tate and Garrett had moved the carcass the night before, buried it on the other side of a copse of oak trees, not wanting the women or the kids to see it.

  “Did you see any signs of rabies?” Austin pe
rsisted, though he knew Doc wanted to get on with it, look in on Molly, collect his son and move on to the next sick animal, on the next ranch or farm.

  Doc considered the question for a long time. Could have been he was just debating with himself, deciding whether to answer or not. “He wasn’t foaming at the mouth or anything like that, but he was hungry. Ribs stood out like pickets along a fence. I figure, you probably did that poor critter a favor by shooting him.”

  “He meant to go for my throat, Doc,” Austin said. “And when my dog got in the way, he damn near killed him.”

  Doc sighed. “I hate to see any animal die before it ought to,” he said, his voice gruff. “But there are times when something just plain has to be done, and last night was one of them. You did the right thing, Austin, if that’s what you’re asking me. You did the only thing you could do, under the circumstances.”

  Austin swallowed, nodded. “But the dog belonged to Reese, didn’t he? That’s why he was ranting at you, a few minutes ago.”

  “Yes,” Doc finally admitted. “The dog was his. He claimed he kept the critter close to home, in a kennel he and his friend rigged up out behind the bunkhouse. Said the dog had been known to run off now and again but was tame, wouldn’t hurt anybody. He’s pretty riled up about it.”

  “But not ‘riled up’ enough to ask me directly?”

  “I guess not,” Doc said. His gaze moved to Austin’s sling, lingered there for a moment. “Might be he figured that wouldn’t be right, you being all bunged up and everything.”

  A charitable view if Austin had ever heard one. “You said you thought the dog was hungry.”

  Doc set his jaw hard. “He was,” he said. “Critter like that never gets to be a pet. No, sir. His whole purpose in life is to make a statement for some asshole who thinks owning a mean dog makes him look tough.”

  Austin felt a pang of sorrow for the fallen animal, and it wasn’t the first. Looked around for Reese, thinking he’d have a word with the man, but then he decided to wait.