Austin

by Linda Lael Miller

  Until now, that is.

  Until Paige.

  He turned on one heel, hoping to sneak back out without her seeing him, but he hadn’t even crossed the threshold before she gave a little shriek.

  Poor old Shep, thinking there was an emergency only a crippled dog could handle, immediately bounded into the room.

  “I’m sorry,” Austin said, keeping his back to Paige.

  Warm, beautiful, sweetly responsive, naked Paige.

  Something, probably a wet washcloth, struck him mid-spine, with a soggy plop. His molars clamped together. In all his born days, he had never encountered such a prickly and impossible woman.

  He walked away.

  “I MIGHT HAVE OVERREACTED,” Paige said, standing beside Austin’s bed, twenty minutes after the shower incident. She was wearing both a nightgown and a bathrobe, and she still felt grossly underdressed.

  Austin, sprawled on top of the covers in his jeans and his attitude and nothing else, didn’t look up from the pages of his paperback Western.

  “Ya think?” he asked tartly.

  “You walked in on me, Austin. I was startled.”

  He touched the tip of his index finger to his tongue, turned the page. And he still didn’t look at her. “Sorry about that,” he said, with an utter lack of conviction.

  She flung her hands out from her sides, let them fall again. “I tried,” she said. “The shower is all yours, Austin. I’m going to bed.”

  “Good night,” he said, and turned another page.

  Austin, Paige knew, had always struggled with reading. Unless he was channeling Evelyn Wood, he was faking her out with all that page turning.

  She grabbed the book out of his hands.

  “That,” he said drily, “was not cool.”

  Paige sighed. “You’re right,” she said, giving back the book. “It wasn’t.”

  “What do you want me to say, Paige? I walked in on you. I’m sorry. I think I said so at the time.”

  “I didn’t believe you,” Paige said.

  “That’s obvious,” he replied. “And it’s discouraging, too, considering that we’ve known each other since kindergarten and I just made that big speech out there in the barn. All about how it would be your choice when we finally make love.”

  Paige folded her arms. Old hurts sneaked up and ambushed her. “You’ve made other speeches in your time, Austin McKettrick,” she said. And then she turned on one heel and started to walk away.

  Only, Austin caught her by the back of her bathrobe and stopped her in her tracks. “Hold it,” he said. “You don’t get to make a remark like that and then just walk away, Nurse Remington.”

  She turned on him. “You said you loved me!” she cried, and then wished she had the courage to literally bite off her tongue.

  Austin sat up, resting his back against the headboard of the antique bed. “I did love you, Paige,” he said very quietly. “That’s why I did what I did.”

  Paige’s eyes stung fiercely, and her breath came in short, rapid gasps. “Liar!”

  “We were kids, Paige,” he said. “Things were moving way too fast. We were eighteen and headed hell-bent for a lot of stuff we couldn’t possibly have handled. I’d do things differently now, but at the time, I swear to God I didn’t know any other way to save either one of us. But I’m sorry I hurt you, really and truly I am.”

  The ache that rose within Paige in that moment threatened to split her heart wide open. She couldn’t speak, and that was probably a good thing, because anything she said would have been even more painful to hear than it was to say.

  She left the room, and Austin let her go.

  In Calvin’s old room, she threw back the covers, laid herself down and curled into a fetal position.

  A whimper behind her made her turn, and there was Shep, with his muzzle resting on the side of the mattress and his eyes luminous with sympathy in the dim moonlight coming in through the window.

  That did it. Paige began to cry. In earnest. She rolled over, patting Shep’s smooth head, and sobbed.

  He waited, that sweet dog, for the storm to pass. Didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

  After a few minutes of hard grieving for things that might have been and never would be, Paige began to recover some of her composure. She continued to stroke the dog’s head, and he kept his vigil, too. He didn’t move even once. Just stood there, with his furry chin resting on the bottom sheet and his eyes shining with the hang-in-there kind of love he probably knew a great deal about.

  “Thanks,” Paige said, when the worst of the weeping storm was over.

  Shep whined once, low in his throat, and then he turned and limped out of the room, no doubt returning to his master’s side.

  After a very, very long time, Paige slept.

  “WAKE UP.”

  The voice was Austin’s.

  Paige struggled toward the surface of a dream. “Wh-what?”

  “It’s six-fifteen,” Austin said. “Breakfast is ready.”

  “B-breakfast?” Paige blinked her eyes rapidly. Sat up. “Austin, what—?”

  Then she remembered. The horseback ride.

  She sank back into her pillows and pulled the blankets up over her head.

  Austin only chuckled. “Go or stay,” he told her, and she knew by the sound of his voice that he was walking away. “That’s up to you. You have fifteen minutes, at the outside, and then I’m gone.”

  Paige moaned.

  He laughed and she listened to the sound of his boot heels grow fainter and then fainter still.

  The aroma of fresh coffee reached her, even through the fabric of the bed clothes. She tried hard—maybe too hard—to go back to sleep.

  But waking life intruded. Paige remembered how it felt to ride a horse through a crisp autumn morning.

  She also remembered that, technically, she was Austin’s nurse.

  There would be no persuading the damn fool to stay home, but what if he was out there all alone and he had a back spasm, or even got thrown from the saddle and reinjured his shoulder?

  What if whoever had shot him before tried again?

  Sputtering a swear word, Paige flung back the covers and sat up. Ran both hands through her hair and dragged in a deep breath.

  After that, she took a very quick shower, dressed warmly in heavy jeans and a wool sweater. She didn’t own a pair of boots, so her sneakers would have to do for footwear.

  When she reached the kitchen, Austin was still there, rinsing his plate and placing it neatly into the dishwasher, along with the silverware he’d used. He’d brought Shep’s blanket-pile bed out and set it down in front of the unlit fireplace, and the dog looked settled there, as though he’d accepted that, this time, he’d have to stay home.

  With a twitch of a grin, Austin looked Paige over and then nodded his head in the direction of the middle staircase.

  A pair of brown boots waited there, well-worn but still sturdy, along with two pairs of wool socks, wound up into balls.

  “Those were my mom’s,” Austin explained. “I think they might be a little big for you, but the extra socks should help.”

  A complicated emotion rose inside Paige, and she didn’t even try to give it a name. It was too damn early and she hadn’t even had coffee yet.

  She walked over, sat down heavily on the step, kicked off her sneakers and the footies she’d worn beneath them, and donned both pairs of wool socks, then the boots. She stood, walked around a little. The fit was perfect.

  The complicated emotion swelled again, then ebbed and faded as Austin held out a cup of hot coffee.

  She accepted the cup, took a cautious sip.

  Her eyebrows rose. “Did you make this?”

  Austin laughed. “Yeah,” he replied. “I have other talents as well.”

  “I think it would be better,” Paige allowed, after more coffee, “if we didn’t discuss your talents.”

  “Your loss.” He grinned, gesturing toward the table. “Sit down. You need to eat before w
e go.”

  Paige shook one foot and then the other, getting used to the boots. “I’m not hungry,” she said.

  “Too bad,” Austin replied. He dished up some scrambled eggs, took two thick slices of buttered toast out of the oven and set them on top, and put the whole works on the table. “Eat.”

  Paige sighed, but she washed and dried her hands at the sink, she sat down and she ate.

  The surprises just kept on coming: it turned out that Austin was a halfway decent cook.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AUSTIN CROUCHED in front of Shep’s dog bed in the kitchen and flopped the critter’s ears around a little with a light pass of his hand. “You stay here and guard the house,” he told the animal solemnly. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  Standing in the middle of the room, bundled up and wearing Sally McKettrick’s boots, Paige felt an odd little pinch in her heart. It was hard to believe this tough yet tender man was the same person who’d betrayed her in such a cavalier way ten years ago.

  Words he’d said the night before replayed in her head. I didn’t know any other way to save either one of us.

  Paige bit her lower lip, watched carefully as he straightened, looking for the smallest sign that he wasn’t up to riding horseback. She saw nothing in Austin but calm confidence, a man at home in himself, no matter what was going on in the outside world.

  Shep didn’t make a sound, nor did he try to rise from his resting place.

  Paige and Austin exchanged glances as he passed her, but neither one spoke. She followed him outside, into the first pinkish-purple shimmer of a new day, felt revitalized by the snapping chill in the air.

  Up ahead, the barn glowed with light, and Paige could hear the horses stirring inside, snuffling, whinnying and nickering as they greeted each other.

  Two horses stood in the breezeway, a pinto gelding and a bay mare, both saddled. Garrett smiled at Paige, held the bay still and used his free hand to steady the stirrup. He was wearing jeans and an old faded shirt and the kind of boots country people call “shit-kickers.”

  “Mornin’,” he said.

  “Morning,” Paige replied. Then she nodded, grabbed hold of the saddle horn and stuck her foot into the stirrup, silently praying that she wouldn’t make a fool of herself by not landing smoothly in the saddle.

  She succeeded on the first try, though, much to her relief, and looked over to see that Austin was already astride the gelding, the reins resting easy in his left hand as he adjusted his hat with his right.

  “Obliged,” he told Garrett, who must have saddled the horses.

  Garrett gave a semisalute and asked Austin, “You got your cell phone?”

  Austin chuckled and shook his head. “Now, it just ain’t cowboy,” he joked, “asking a question like that.”

  “Somebody tried to kill you a while back,” Garrett responded easily. “Have you got your cell phone, Austin?”

  Austin reached into the breast pocket of his denim jacket, pulled out a slim phone, held it by two fingers for Garrett to see.

  Garrett sighed. “Get out of here,” he said.

  Austin ducked as he rode through the doorway of the barn, even though there was no danger of bumping his head.

  Paige rode behind him, feeling anxious—it had been a long, long time since she’d been in the saddle—but exhilarated, too. She’d missed riding, missed the unique company of horses.

  Out in the barnyard, she leaned forward until the saddle horn pressed into her stomach, closed her eyes and breathed in the familiar smell of the animal’s hide.

  When she straightened and opened her eyes again, smiling, she saw that Austin had stopped the gelding, turned sideways to watch her. His expression was cryptic, partly because the brim of his hat cast a thin shadow over his features. He reined his horse toward the lower road that ran along the inside of the fence line, letting his mount walk.

  Birds were beginning to sing, and Paige could hear the creek flowing in the near distance. It struck her that it was possible to be perfectly happy, not all the time, of course, but in these golden moments that arrived only at their own bidding.

  The bay mare—one of those horses that are not content to follow—picked up speed, bent on closing the gap of a dozen yards or so between her and the gelding.

  Paige bounced a lot for the first few seconds, then found her stride, bracing her feet in the stirrups, not quite standing, but rising into the rhythm of the animal’s movements.

  Once alongside Austin and the gelding, the mare was happy.

  Austin gave Paige a sidelong grin and adjusted his hat again.

  “What’s her name?” Paige asked, referring to the mare she was riding.

  Austin flashed her a grin that made things quicken inside her. “Betty,” he said. “She’s pretty tame, but she does like to keep up with the herd.”

  Paige laughed and patted the mare’s neck. “Betty,” she repeated. “I’m not sure I’ve ever met a horse by that name before.”

  “Audrey and Ava named her,” Austin answered. He was quiet for a while, turning his head to scan the rolling land in front of them. Then he cleared his throat and said, “I’m glad you came along, Paige.”

  She knew he wanted to nudge the gelding to a trot and then a gallop and then a run—she could actually feel his restraint in her own body—but he continued at an easy walk. Probably, Paige figured, the restraint was for her sake.

  “Me, too,” she said, and the words came out sounding odd and a little squeaky.

  They rode alongside the creek for a while, and then Austin pointed toward the bank on the opposite side of the road.

  “Ready to climb?” he asked.

  Paige nodded, leaning forward in the saddle so she wouldn’t slide right off Betty’s back when she followed the gelding’s lead up the side hill. At the top, the land leveled out, and the sight of all that sky and grass and wide-open space snagged Paige’s breath in the back of her throat.

  They didn’t talk, but it struck Paige that talking wasn’t necessary anyhow. They were a man and a woman riding two good horses over home ground, and that was communication enough.

  When the old mining camp, with its Quonset huts and dry riverbed, came into view, Paige felt a vague prickle of alarm. She stood in the stirrups to stretch her legs and silently scolded herself for being silly. Still, even in the first fresh light of morning, the place was spooky.

  Austin seemed to sense her reluctance, and he glanced back at her with a question in his eyes. Stopped the gelding and then loosened his hold on the reins to let the animal graze for a few moments.

  Paige did the same. And a shiver moved down her spine. Knowing Austin had seen, she said, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  Austin took off his hat, held it for a while, leaning forward in the saddle a little way. His grin held both mischief and lively interest. “Nope,” he said. “Do you?”

  She smiled. Shook her head. “No,” she said, looking around, taking in the lonely desolation of that once-lively patch of ground. When the mines were running, long before her and Austin’s time, there had been a town on this site. Even a schoolhouse and a church. “But I do believe in energy. I think it can linger in a place, especially after something important happens.”

  Austin straightened, put his hat back on. “Back when we were kids,” he said, “Garrett and Tate and I, along with some of our friends, used to camp out here. Pretend we were old-time cowpokes—sometimes outlaws—either driving a herd north into Montana or fixing to steal it.”

  This brief insight into Austin’s boyhood felt sacred to Paige, even as it made her smile. She sensed there was more and held her tongue, not wanting to stem the conversational tide.

  “Once the campfire went out,” Austin went on presently, “and everybody else had gone to sleep, I used to lie there in my bedroll and just listen to things. A time or two, I would have sworn I heard that river flowing, even smelled the water, but it’s probably been dry for ten thousand years.”

&n
bsp; Paige smiled. Here was another perfect moment, and she meant to savor it.

  Austin chuckled hoarsely. “There were some other things, but Tate and Garrett were behind the more creative stuff. Back in those days, they liked to scare me.”

  “Did they succeed?”

  He turned his head, grinning, and his eyes were the same color as his denim jean jacket. “A couple of times,” he admitted. “But mostly, I just went along with the game. Fact is, I knew something they didn’t.”

  Paige raised one eyebrow, waited.

  The grin intensified to the kind of high wattage that can short-circuit female wiring. “Dad—or Pablo Ruiz—used to camp out somewhere close by, out of sight, to make sure we were safe.”

  Sadness touched Paige’s heart lightly, like a soft breeze. They were both gone now, Jim McKettrick and his longtime ranch foreman, Pablo Ruiz. And so was her father.

  The world, for all its compensations, wasn’t the same place without those three men, and it never would be.

  Austin rode close, then stopped, so that their horses were side by side, with his facing in one direction and hers in the other. He reached out and cupped her chin with one hand, brushed a lock of windblown hair back from her cheek with his thumb.

  “I’d really like to kiss you right about now,” he said.

  Even as Paige’s better judgment entered a silent protest, something took wing inside her, and soared.

  “I think I’d really like to be kissed right about now,” she responded.

  With a slight grin, Austin leaned in, touched his mouth to hers. He smelled of good grass and sunshine and wide-open spaces, and the kiss…

  Well, the kiss.

  It rocked Paige so thoroughly that she clung to the back of Austin’s jacket with her free hand—the other was clasping the saddle horn for dear life—sure she’d tumble right off the horse if she didn’t hold on.

  Austin chuckled, the sound low and gruff, as he drew back. “I guess we’d better get moving again,” he told her. “Because if we don’t, I might wind up doing my damnedest to seduce you, and that would be breaking my word.”

  Paige struggled just to breathe. As for the concept of Austin breaking his word, well, it was probably better that she didn’t now possess the necessary lung power to say anything at all, right at that moment.