#1 New York Times bestseller Linda Lael Miller brings you the next installment in her unforgettable McKettricks of Texas series. The three McKettrick brothers meet their matches in the three Remington sisters, and now it’s Austin’s turn…

World champion rodeo star Austin McKettrick finally got bested by an angry bull. With his career over and his love life a mess, the lone maverick has nowhere to go when the hospital releases him…except back home to Blue River and the Silver Spur ranch. But his overachieving brothers won’t allow this cowboy to brood in peace. They’ve even hired a nurse to speed his recovery. Paige Remington’s bossy brand of TLC is driving him crazy. Not to mention her beautiful face, sexy figure and silky black hair.

Paige has lost count of the number of times Austin has tried to fire her. She’s not going anywhere till he’s healed—body and heart.

Praise for the McKettricks of Texas series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller

“A passionate love too long denied drives the action in this multifaceted, emotionally rich reunion story that overflows with breathtaking sexual chemistry.”

—Library Journal on McKettricks of Texas: Tate

“Linda Lael Miller delivers a powerful novel of love lost and love regained…. The author does a great job of letting you into the heart of these characters.”

—BestRomanceStories.com on McKettricks of Texas: Tate

“The tale of Austin McKettrick…is completely wonderful. Austin’s interactions with Paige are fun and lively and the mystery that began in Tate’s story ends with Austin’s love story and adds quite a suspenseful punch.”

—RT Book Reviews on McKettricks of Texas: Austin

“A heartwarming romance and the perfect ending to a wonderful series.”

—JoyfullyReviewed.com on McKettricks of Texas: Austin

“Miller’s fast-moving, emotional contemporary romance continues the McKettricks series’ plotlines, with more installments to come.”

—Booklist on McKettricks of Texas: Garrett

“[Miller’s] subtle blend of sensuality, chivalry, and the clear roles of her men and women create charming romances. The McKettrick brothers are sexy gentlemen with Stetsons. Whether they’re from 1810 or 2010, Linda Lael Miller’s cowboys are timeless.”

—JoyfullyReviewed.com on McKettricks of Texas: Garrett

“A fitting addition to the…well-written McKettrick novels from Miller. This one will not disappoint either old fans or new.”

—The Romance Reader on McKettricks of Texas: Garrett

McKettricks of Texas: Austin
Linda Lael Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the third of three books starring a group of modern-day McKettrick men. Readers who have embraced the irrepressible, larger-than-life McKettrick clan won’t want to miss the stories of Tate, Garrett and now Austin—three Texas-bred brothers who meet their matches in the Remington sisters. Sidelined by an injury, bad-boy rodeo star Austin McKettrick fears he’s got nothing left to live for…until spirited nurse Paige Remington makes him dream of the happily-ever-after he hadn’t thought he wanted.

As I’ve said in earlier letters, I love all things Western: the landscape, the people and, of course, the stories. Especially stories with a lot of romance in them… There’s nothing like a cowboy, after all! I’ve set books in a number of different Western locales, including Texas (like these three books), Montana (the Parable series), Arizona (the Mojo Sheepshanks stories) and now Wyoming (the Brides of Bliss County, my newest trilogy).

I also want to remind you, my dear readers, about something else that’s extremely important to me and, I know, to you—animals, and our responsibility to them. We should all support our local shelters, and the best way to do that is to adopt your pets from them! I can’t stress enough the importance of keeping our pets safe—neuter and vaccinate them and make sure they’re properly identified, with microchips and/or tags. Encourage everyone you know to do these things, too. The animals in our lives bring us so much happiness; they’re the very definition of unconditional love. And we should treat them the same way!

Check out my website, lindalaelmiller.com, to read my blog, to comment and to learn about current releases and contests.

With love,

For Wendy Diane Miller, my daughter.

I love you.

Acknowledgments

Every book presents its special challenges, as does every series. But some touch writers more deeply than others, and require more in terms of creativity, energy, depth of emotion. This trilogy, The McKettricks of Texas, was such an experience. There were times of soaring joy, of course; there was also a lot of difficulty. Without the help, patience and faith of my beloved editor, Joan Marlow Golan, and the constant encouragement of my agent, Irene Goodman, the books would have been far more challenging, if not impossible, to write. My love and heartfelt thanks to both of these impressive women.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Copy

Praise

Title Page

Dear Reader

Dedication

Acknowledgments

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

San Antonio, Texas October

EIGHT SECONDS.

Outside the world of rodeo, it was hardly any time at all.

Add two thousand pounds of ticked-off bull—aptly named Buzzsaw—to the equation, though, and eight seconds could seem a whole lot like forever.

Standing at the bar in a little backstreet, hole-in-the-wall dive a more prudent man would likely have steered clear of, Austin McKettrick reflected on the ride he’d made a few hours before and wondered why he didn’t feel more like celebrating.

For months now, ever since the first go-round with that particular bull, when he’d nearly been killed, Austin had thought about little else except riding Buzzsaw.

Now that he’d done it, and laid a demon or two to rest in the process, he was fresh out of worthy objectives.

A flicker in the mirror behind the bar drew Austin’s attention; he adjusted his hat and scanned the shadowy width of the glass with an imperceptible movement of his eyes.

Shit, he thought as he watched his brothers, Tate and Garrett, approach.

They were both cowboys, lean and tall, with broad shoulders and Clint Eastwood attitudes. Folks just naturally stepped out of their way.

Without turning around, Austin lifted his mug and took a long, slow sip of beer.

Tate, the eldest of the three, bellied up to the bar on Austin’s right, while Garrett took the left side, both of them crowding into his space. As if he might not have noticed them otherwise. He grinned to himself and adjusted his hat again.

Pinky, the bartender, a woman in her mid-seventies with her hair plaited into a long gray braid and skin that glowed with good health behind a veil of wrinkles, appeared right away.

“What’ll it be?” she asked, her gaze moving from Tate’s face to Garrett’s, but slipping right on past Austin’s as if he weren’t there.

Once married to one of the wranglers on the Silver Spur, Pinky was still a friend of the family. The wrangler, on the other hand, was long gone.

Tate, always a hand with the ladies, tugged at the brim of his hat, gentlemanlike, and favored the woman with that famous white-toothed smile of his. “Nothing for me, thanks,” he said, exaggerating the drawl. “How’ve you been, Pinky?”

“I’m holding up okay,” Pinky allowed. She smiled, nodded to Garrett. “I hear there’s going to be a double wedding out there on the Silver Spur come this New Year’s Eve. That true?”

“Sure is,” Garrett answered easily. “Your invitation will be along in the mail, Pinky.”

“So you’re both getting hitched?” Pinky said after clucking her tongue at the marvel of it all.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tate replied. “I’m marrying Libby Remington, and Garrett’s tying the knot with her sister, Julie.”

Pinky gave a long, low whistle of exclamation through her teeth. “Brothers marrying sisters. Don’t that beat all? Your kids will be double-cousins, won’t they?”

“Yep,” Garrett said.

At long last, Pinky fixed Austin with a look. “Tate’s taking a wife,” she said, cutting straight to the chase. “So is Garrett. What’s keeping you single, handsome?”

Tate and Garrett both leaned in a little, putting the squeeze on him.

Austin felt heat climb his neck, and he was glad for the dim, smoky light, because there were a few things he wanted to keep to himself.

Nobody needed to know he was embarrassed.

“I’m too young to get married,” he told Pinky, employing his most endearing grin.

“Nonsense,” Pinky blustered. “Marriage might settle you down a little. And you could do with some settling down, if you ask me.”

Austin refrained from pointing out that he hadn’t asked her.

It was right about then that he felt a strange squeezing sensation in his lower back, and his left leg went numb to the knee. He shifted his weight to the right, hoping to relieve some of the pressure, but it didn’t help much.

“Tate and I couldn’t agree more,” Garrett chatted on. “Austin definitely ought to settle down. Quit bumming around the rodeo circuit, start a family, do something constructive with his life.”

Privately, Austin scoffed at his brother’s remark. Garrett had a hell of a nerve making a speech like that. Up until a few months ago, when Julie Remington had roped him in and then hog-tied him for good, Brother Number Two had worked for a United States senator and had his pick of smart, beautiful, willing women.

Tate hadn’t exactly lived like a monk either, back in the wild days after he and Cheryl divorced and before he’d fallen back in love with Libby, his high school sweetheart and Julie’s older sister.

The way they talked now, a person could almost imagine that they’d been living saintly and celibate lives right along.

Austin took a long swig of his beer and waited for the feeling in his leg to come back.

“Do you know what he did tonight?” Tate asked, on a roll now, resting an elbow on the bar and leaning earnestly in Pinky’s direction.

“No tellin’,” Pinky said with a shake of her head. “Could have been just about anything.”

“He rode Buzzsaw,” Garrett informed the bartender, as though Austin weren’t standing right there between his brothers, both of them shoulder-mashing him. “Managed to draw the same bull that tore him apart last year. Took a whole team of surgeons to sew our baby brother back together, and what does he do?”

Pinky’s blue eyes grew round. She stared at Austin as though he were seven kinds of a fool and then some. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said. “Always said you had more looks than good sense, and now here’s the proof.”

Austin didn’t have an answer handy, and he wouldn’t have gotten the chance to use one, anyhow. Suddenly, the floor pitched sideways, and he leaned against the bar, waiting for the room to right itself.

When it did, the motion was sudden, and Austin’s knees buckled.

He might have gone down if Tate and Garrett hadn’t gotten him by the elbows and held him upright.

“I swear that’s only his second beer,” Pinky said, sounding worried.

Garrett waved off her concern. “He’s all right, Pinky.”

“Can you walk?” Tate asked Austin, his voice quiet now and serious.

If fierce determination had been enough, Austin would have made it across that barroom floor and outside to his own truck, told his brothers to go to hell and driven himself back to the seedy motel room he’d rented a few days before. A hot shower and about twelve hours of sleep and he’d be fine.

Unfortunately, determination wasn’t enough, not that night anyway. Austin managed to stay on his feet, but only because Tate and Garrett were holding him up.

“Hell, yes, I can walk,” he lied.

“You damn idiot,” Tate muttered, as they crossed the parking lot, headed for his big extended-cab truck. With some help from Garrett, Tate muscled him into the backseat.

He’d have fought back for sure if his legs hadn’t turned to noodles. He felt light-headed, too, and slightly sick to his stomach.

“My truck,” he said. “I can’t just leave it here. This isn’t exactly the best neighborhood in San Antonio—”

Garrett cut him off. “We’ll get your truck later.”

“It’s a classic,” Austin said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Garrett replied, sounding grim. “Whatever.”

The world was on the tilt again, and a strange sense of urgency sent a rush of adrenaline through Austin’s system. “There’s a dog,” he added anxiously. “Back at the motel, I mean. I’ve been feeding him and—”

Tate got behind the wheel.

Garrett buckled himself in on the passenger side.

The numbness in Austin’s leg washed back up his spine and turned to pain. He swore. “I can’t just—leave—the dog—” he insisted.

“We’ll see to the dog, and the truck, too,” Garrett assured him quietly. “Let it go, Austin.”

Austin passed out, woke up again. He wondered if somebody had slipped him something back at the bar.

Over the course of the next few minutes, time seemed to lose all meaning. He was in the back of Tate’s truck, and then he wasn’t. He was sitting up, and then he was lying down flat. Lights spun around him, a strange mix of neon and moon glow and fluorescent bulbs glaring brightly enough to dazzle his eyes.

A pretty nurse in scrubs smiled down at him. Red curls poked out around her face.

Something leaped inside Austin. Paige Remington?

No, this couldn’t be Paige. His luck was neither that good nor that bad. Anyway, Paige had dark hair.

“What...” he began.

He realized he was on a gurney, his brothers at his side, being wheeled through a hospital corridor. It was a familiar scenario. Déjà vu all over again, he thought. Then he frowned. Wait a second. Sure, Buzzsaw had gotten the best of him that other time. He’d been airlifted to Houston, undergone a couple of different operations, fought his way back from the banks of the River Styx. But he had recovered.

That was then and this was now—tonight, he’d ridden that bull to the buzzer. He’d scored high enough to take first-place money, though it hadn’t really been about winning, not this time.

He’d walked out of the arena, gotten into his truck and driven to Pinky’s, thinking he ought to whoop it up a little.

After that, the details were a mite sketchy.

So what the hell was he doing in a hospital?

He would have asked why he was there, but for the pain. It swelled to a crescendo and then gulped him down whole, and there was nothing but darkness.

* * *

AUSTIN CAME TO lying in a bed with rails on either side, still dressed except for his boots. The curtains were drawn all around, shutting him in, and he couldn’t begin to guess what time of day—or night—it might be.

“If the pain is under control,” Austin heard a woman’s voice say, “I’ll release him. If not, he’ll have to stick around for more tests and some observation.”

“But you don’t think there’s any permanent damage?” Garrett asked quietly, sounding hopeful, bone-tired and completely exasperated all at once.

They were shadows against the curtain, the three of them. The lady—no doubt a doctor—and Tate and Garrett.

“That depends,” the woman answered, “on your definition of ‘permanent damage.’ Your brother has a herniated disc. With rest and reasonable caution, he could make a full recovery.”

“Austin wouldn’t know ‘reasonable caution’ if it bit him in the ass,” Tate said.

“What’s your definition of reasonable caution, Doc?” Garrett asked.

She sighed. She could have been fresh out of med school or as old as Pinky; Austin couldn’t tell by her voice or her shape. “Well,” she replied, “it certainly wouldn’t include riding bulls in rodeos.”

Austin closed his eyes.

He was a bull rider and not much else. Who the hell would he be if he quit the rodeo circuit?

“What about horses?” Tate asked. “He can still ride them, right?”

“If you’re talking about regular saddle horses,” the doc answered, “that would probably be fine, once he’s had some time to recover, and if he uses common sense.”

The sound Garrett made was somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “That’ll be the day.”

Tate again. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”

Tate, being the eldest brother, the one who oversaw the day-to-day operation of the family ranch, took himself pretty seriously sometimes. More so since their folks were gone.

The doctor didn’t reply right away. That, Austin concluded, probably wasn’t a good sign.

“Doc?” Garrett prompted.

Another sigh. More hesitation.

Austin tried to sit up, but his back spasmed and he barely bit back a groan.

He must have made some kind of sound, though, because he’d drawn their attention. The curtain zipped open and the doctor appeared at his bedside, peering at him.

She was young and pretty. Some consolation, under the circumstances.

“Mr. McKettrick?” she said.

Austin nodded. “That would be me,” he told her.

“How are you feeling?”

If the pain is under control, I’ll release him. If not, he’ll have to stick around for more tests and some observation.

“Never better,” Austin said, scrounging up a grin.

She looked him over skeptically. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure.”

“You will need to see your own doctor within the next few days.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Austin agreed cheerfully. “I will surely do that.”

Tate and Garrett exchanged suspicious glances. They’d probably figured out that he’d say just about anything he had to say to get out of that place.

“I’m prescribing muscle relaxants,” the doctor rambled on. “But only for the short term. It is imperative, Mr. McKettrick, that you rest. I’m sure your personal physician will agree that, except for moderate exercise, definitely low-impact, you shouldn’t move around a lot for the next several weeks.”

“Whatever you say,” Austin told her, sweet as pecan pie.

Garrett rolled his eyes.

Tate folded his arms and frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe our brother ought to stay here after all,” he said. “For some of that...observation.”

Austin spoke up. “I need to get my gear from the motel room,” he said, suddenly scared that Tate might convince the doc to admit him after all. He’d spent enough time in hospitals to last him the rest of his life. “And the dog. He’ll be wondering where I went—”

“Will you forget that damn dog?” Garrett snapped.

“No,” Austin said, leveling a look at his brother. “I won’t forget the damn dog.”

Garrett subsided, coloring up a little.

The doctor gave a few more instructions, promised that a prescription would be waiting downstairs at the pharmacy by the time Austin had been wheeled down there in a chair and signed all the insurance forms. With that, she left.

A good half an hour had gone by before they finally turned him loose. He’d scrawled his name on various dotted lines and retrieved his cell phone and wallet, along with the key to Room 3, over at the Cozy Doze Motel.

After climbing into Tate’s truck—this time with no help from his brothers—he shook two pills out of the bottle into his palm and swallowed them dry.

Then he directed Tate to the motel where he’d left a change of clothes and the dog he’d found cowering in the alley the first night, slat-ribbed and down on his luck.

“Room 3,” he said as they pulled up to the crumbling adobe structure. “It’s around back.”

Garrett turned in the front passenger seat to look at him, both eyebrows raised. “You were staying here?” he asked.

Austin chuckled. “The Ritz was full,” he replied. Then he rolled down the back window and whistled, shrill, through his front teeth. He’d chosen the Cozy Doze because he’d wanted to keep a low profile until after he’d evened the score with Buzzsaw the night before at the rodeo. Folks in San Antonio knew him, especially around the fancier hotels, and he hadn’t wanted word of his presence to get back to his brothers before he’d had a chance to make his ride. But clearly Tate and Garrett had eventually tracked him down.

Much to his relief, the dog he’d named Shep wriggled out from behind a pile of old tires all but overgrown by weeds, wagging his tail and lolling his tongue.

Part German shepherd, part Lab and part a lot of other things, by the looks of him, Shep wasn’t a big dog, but he wasn’t a little one, either. He was about the same size as Harry the beagle, and his coat was probably brown, although it would be hard to tell until he’d had a bath.

Austin tossed his room key to Tate, while Garrett got out of the truck to call the dog.

Shep growled halfheartedly and laid his ears back. One of them was missing a chunk of hide.

“It’s all right, boy,” Austin told the frightened animal through the open window of Tate’s rig. “This is my brother Garrett. He used to be a politician, but you can trust him just the same.”

The dog gave a low whimper, but he wagged his tail and let his ears stand up.

Austin pushed the truck door open. If Garrett tried to touch the poor critter, he’d be bitten for sure.

“Come, Shep,” Austin said very quietly.

Shep sort of slouched around Garrett, then crept over to stand on his hind legs, both front paws resting on the running board of the truck.

“Let’s go on home,” Austin told him.

After considering the proposition, the dog high-jumped into the rig, scrambled across Austin’s boots and clawed his way up onto the seat next to him.

Tate appeared with Austin’s shaving kit and duffel, a five-pound sack of kibble under one arm.

“You square on your bill and everything?” he asked, flinging the works into the truck bed. He turned to take in the sorry place once more, no doubt registering the overflowing garbage bin and the broken asphalt in the parking lot, where weeds poked up through the cracks.

Tate shook his head.

“Yeah,” Austin told him. “I paid in advance.”

Tate nodded, crossed to the office to drop off the key.

“This is a real shit hole,” Garrett observed, settling into the front passenger seat again and wearing his hotshot aviator glasses.

Austin didn’t see any point in refuting the obvious. “Why did you and Tate track me down to Pinky’s last night?” he asked. Shep was lying down on the seat now, and Austin ran a light hand over the animal’s matted back, letting him know he’d be okay from then on.

“You’re our kid brother,” Garrett said, sounding tired. “When nobody sees you in a while, we come looking for you. It’s what we do.”

Tate was striding toward the truck now, resettling his hat as he moved. He opened the driver’s-side door, got in, started the engine. Although he wouldn’t have admitted as much, Austin was glad to be headed home, and glad to have his brothers’ company, even if they were a couple of royal pains in the ass.

CHAPTER ONE

Blue River, Texas November

THE EVIL BRIDES were gaining on her, closing the gap.

Paige Remington ran blindly down a dark country road, legs pumping, lungs burning, her heart flailing in her throat. Slender tree branches plucked at her from either side with nimble, spidery fingers, slowing her down, and the ground turned soft under her feet.

She pitched forward onto her hands and knees. Felt pebbles dig into her palms.

Behind her, the brides screeched and cackled in delighted triumph.

“This is only a dream,” Paige told herself. “Wake up.”

Still, sleep did not release her.

Flurries of silk and lace, glittering with tiny rhinestones and lustrous with the glow of seed pearls, swirled around her. She felt surrounded, almost smothered.

Suddenly furious, the dream-Paige surged to her feet.

If the monsters wanted a fight, then by God, she’d give it to them.

Confronting her pursuers now, staring directly at them, Paige recognized the brides. They were—and at the same time, in that curious way of dreams, were not—her sisters, Libby and Julie.

Wedding veils hid their faces, but she knew them anyway. Libby wore a luscious vintage gown of shimmering ivory, while Julie’s dress was ultramodern, a little something she’d picked up on a recent romantic getaway to Paris.

“We just want you to try on your bridesmaid’s dress,” the pair said in creepy unison. “That’s all.”

“No,” Paige said. “I’m not trying on the damn dress. Leave me alone.”

They advanced on her. Garment bags had materialized in their arms.

“But you’re our only bridesmaid,” the two chorused.

“No!” Paige repeated, trying to retreat but stuck fast.

It was then that a voice penetrated the thick surface of the dream. “Hey,” the voice said, low and male and disturbingly familiar. “You okay?”

She felt a hand on her shoulder and woke up with a jolt.

And a faceful of Austin McKettrick.

“It just keeps getting worse,” she marveled, gripping the arms of the poolside chair where she’d fallen asleep after a solitary lunch in the ranch-house kitchen.

Austin laughed, drew up a chair himself and eased into it with the care of a man much older than his twenty-eight years. His beard was coming in, buttery-brown, and his hair looked a little shaggy.

It ought to require a license, being that good-looking.

“Gee,” he drawled. “Thanks.”

It galled Paige that after all this time, he could still make her heart flutter. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Austin settled back, popping the top on a beer can, letting her know he meant to take his sweet time answering. A scruffy-looking dog meandered in and settled at his booted feet with a little huff of contented resignation.

“I reckon if anybody’s going to demand explanations around here,” Austin said at long last, “it ought to be me. I live here, Paige.”

She’d set herself up for that one. Even seen it coming. And she’d been unable to get out of the way.

Paige drew a deep breath, released it slowly. “I’ve been staying in the guest suite for a couple of days,” she said after a few moments. “The lease was up on my apartment and the renovations on our old house aren’t quite finished, so—”

Austin’s eyes were a lethal shade of blue—“heirloom” blue, as Paige thought of it, a mixture of new denim and summer sky and every hue in between. According to local legend, the McKettricks had been passing that eye color down for generations.

He studied her for a long time before speaking again. Set the beer aside without taking a sip. “My brothers,” he said, “are marrying your sisters.”

Paige sighed. “So I’ve heard,” she said.

Austin ignored the slightly snippy response, went on as if she hadn’t said anything. “That means,” he told her, “that you and I are going to have to learn to be civil to each other. In spite of our history.”

Paige recalled some of that history—youthful, frenzied lovemaking upstairs in Austin’s boyhood bedroom, the two of them dancing under the stars to music spilling from the radio in his relic of a truck.

And the fights. She closed her eyes, remembering the fights, and her cheeks burned pink.

“Paige?”

She glared at him.

“Is it a deal?” he asked quietly.

“Is what a deal?” she snapped.

Austin sighed, shoved a hand through his hair. He looked thinner than the last time she’d seen him, and shadows moved behind the light in his eyes. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was in pain—maybe physical, maybe emotional. Maybe both.

He leaned toward her, spoke very slowly and very clearly, as though addressing a foreigner with language challenges. “Whether we like it or not, we’re going to be kin, you and me, once New Year’s rolls around. My guess is, my brothers and your sisters will still be married at the crack of doom. There’ll be a whole lot of Christmases and Thanksgivings and birthday parties to get through, over the years. All of which means—”

“I know what it means,” Paige broke in. “And what’s with the condescending tone of voice?”

Austin raised both eyebrows. A grin quirked at one corner of his mouth but never quite kicked in. “What’s with the bitchy attitude?” he countered. Then he snapped the fingers of his right hand. “Oh, that’s right. It’s just your normal personality.”

Paige rode out another surge of irritation. Much as she hated to admit it, Austin had a point.

Libby was marrying Tate. Julie was marrying Garrett. Tate’s twins, Audrey and Ava, were already part of the family, of course, and so was Julie’s little boy, Calvin. And both couples wanted more kids, right away. Oh, yes, there would be a lot of birthday parties to attend.

“Could we try this again?” Paige asked, trying to sound unruffled.

Austin tented his fingers under his chin and watched her with an expression of solemn merriment that was all his own. “Sure,” he replied, all fake generosity and ironic goodwill. “Go ahead and say something friendly—you can do it. Just pretend I’m a human being.”

Paige looked away, and a deep and inexplicable sadness swept over her. “We’re never going to get anywhere at this rate,” she said.

Time seemed to freeze for an instant, then grind into motion again, gears catching on rusty gears.

And then Austin leaned forward, took a light grip on her hand, ran the pad of his thumb over her knuckles.

A hot shiver went through her; he might have been touching her in all those secret, intimate places no one else had found.

“You’re right,” Austin said, his tone husky. “We’re not. Let’s give it a shot, Paige—getting along, I mean.”

He looked sincere. He sounded sincere.

Watch out, Paige reminded herself silently. “Okay,” she said with dignity.

Another silence followed. Paige, for her part, was trying to imagine what a truce between herself and Austin would actually look like. After all, they’d been at odds since that summer night, soon after they’d both graduated from high school, when Paige had caught the lying, sneaking, no-good bastard—

She drew another deep breath, mentally untangled herself from the past. As best she could.

They’d gotten together by accident, in the beginning— Tate and Libby were going to a movie one Friday night, and, grudgingly, Tate had brought his younger brother along. Paige had gotten the impression that their parents had insisted, and if Tate had refused, it would have been a deal breaker.

Paige had been curled up in an armchair reading a book when Austin turned that fabled charm on her, grinned and asked if she’d like to go to a movie.

After that, she and Austin had been as inseparable as Libby and Tate.

Paige had thought he was playing some game at first, but after a few months, they were a couple. After a year, Paige was on the pill, and they were making love.

Yes, she’d been in love with Austin. She’d lost—okay, given—her virginity to him, along with her trust and, of course, her heart.

Ultimately, he’d betrayed her.

But all that had happened just over ten years ago, before his folks, Jim and Sally McKettrick, were killed in that awful car accident, before her own dad had died of cancer. So very much had happened in the interim and, well, Paige was tired of holding a grudge.

“You were having a bad dream before?” Austin asked presently.

“Huh?” Paige said.

“When I woke you up a little while ago?”

“Yes,” she answered, smiling a little. “Thanks for that.”

He grinned, making the pit of her stomach quiver for a moment, then reached for his can of beer. Raised it slightly in an offhand toast. “Anytime,” he said.

The dog whimpered, chasing something in his sleep. Or running away from something.

“Shep,” Austin said, nudging the animal gently with the toe of one boot. “Easy, now. You’re all right.”

Paige looked down at Shep. “A stray?”

Austin grinned again. This time, there was no smart-ass edge to his tone. “What gave him away? The matted coat? The dirt, maybe?”

“The poor thing could use a bath,” Paige admitted. She’d always had a soft spot for animals—especially the abused, neglected and unwanted ones.

“Garrett promised to hose him down before supper,” Austin said. The way he spoke, it was no big deal.

Paige met his gaze, puzzled and not a little annoyed. “Supper’s a ways off,” she pointed out.

“He’ll keep,” Austin told her. “Won’t you, Shep?”

Paige glanced at her watch. She still had more than an hour before she was due to pick Calvin up in town, at day care. Although she was a nurse by profession, she was between jobs at the moment, as well as between homes. Since Julie was practically meeting herself coming and going these days, between getting ready for the big wedding, holding down her teaching job at the high school and directing the student musical production, Paige had been looking after her nephew a lot lately.

Since she adored Calvin, it was no hardship.

She stood. “I’ll do it,” she said.

“Do what?” Austin asked.

“Bathe the dog,” Paige answered, proud of herself for not adding, since you can’t be bothered to do the job yourself.

“I told you,” Austin said, frowning. “Garrett will take care of Shep when he gets home.”

“No sense in putting it off,” Paige said, feeling sorry for the critter.

Shep hauled himself to his feet, watching her with a combination of wariness and hope. His tail swished tentatively to one side, then the other.

And Paige’s heart warmed and softened, like so much beeswax.

She crouched, looked straight into the dog’s limpid brown eyes.

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” she said very gently. “Not for the world.”

Shep wagged again, this time with more trust, more spirit.

“Paige,” Austin interjected cautiously, “he’s sort of wild and he probably hasn’t had his shots—”

Paige put out a hand, let Shep sniff her fingers and palm and wrist.

She felt something akin to exultation when he didn’t retreat. “Nonsense,” she said. “He’s a sweetheart. Aren’t you, Shep?”

She straightened, saw that Austin was standing, too. If it hadn’t been for the dog, the man would practically have been on top of her. So to speak.

Heat pulsed in her cheeks.

Something mischievous and far too knowing danced in Austin’s eyes. He folded his arms and tilted his head to one side, watching her. She had no clue what he was thinking, and that was even more unsettling.

In order to break the spell, Paige turned and headed for the main part of the house, moving resolutely.

She felt a little zing of triumph when she glanced back and saw the dog hesitate, then fall into step behind her.

* * *

AUSTIN COULDN’T REALLY blame the dog for trailing after Paige—watching that perfect blue-jeaned backside of hers as she walked away left him with little choice but to do likewise. Still, it stung his pride that Shep hadn’t waited for him.

Whose dog was he, anyhow?

Paige’s apparently. She led the way, like some piper in a fairy tale, with Shep padding right along in her wake, and that was how the three of them ended up in the laundry room, off the kitchen.

Paige knew her way around—she rustled up some old towels and the special mutt shampoo Julie kept around for Harry—and started the water running in one of the big sinks. She spooled out the hand-sprayer and pressed the squirter with a practiced thumb, testing the temperature against the underside of her left wrist.

The sight, ordinary as it was, did something peculiar to Austin.

“Well,” Paige said, dropping her gaze to the dog and then letting it fly back to Austin’s face, “don’t just stand there. Hoist Shep up into the sink so I can wash him.” She smiled at Shep. “You’re going to feel so much better, once you’ve had your bath,” she assured the critter.

Austin had his pride. He wasn’t about to tell this woman that he’d blown out his back and couldn’t risk lifting one skinny dog off the floor because he might wind up in traction or something.

He leaned down and carefully looped his arms under Shep’s belly. Set him gently in the laundry sink.

Paige introduced Shep to the sprayer with a few little blasts of warm water, and gave him time to sort out how he felt about the experience.

Austin, meanwhile, was just about to congratulate himself on getting away with lifting the dog when he felt a stabbing ache in the same part of his back as when he’d had to be half carried out of Pinky’s bar last month. He drew in a sharp breath and grasped the edge of the long counter, where the housekeeper, Esperanza, usually folded sheets and towels.

Steady, he thought. Wait it out.

Paige, preoccupied with sluicing down the dog and apparently oblivious to the way the water was soaking the front of her skimpy T-shirt, paid Austin no attention at all. And that was fine by him, mostly.

The spasm in Austin’s back intensified, a giant charley horse that he couldn’t walk off like one in his calf or the arch of his foot. He bit down hard on his lower lip and shut his eyes.

“Austin?” Paige’s voice had changed. It was soft, worried-sounding. “Is something wrong? You’re sort of pale and—”

Austin shook his head. The spasm was beginning to subside, though it still hurt like holy-be-Jesus, but talking was beyond him.

He wouldn’t risk meeting her gaze. Back when they were just kids and hot and heavy into dating, Paige had shown a disturbing ability to read his mind—not to mention his soul—through his eyes.

Not that she’d been infallible in that regard.

Or maybe, when it really counted, she’d been too mad to look long enough, hard enough.

“I’m—fine,” he finally said. The pain was letting up.

Paige reached for the dog shampoo, squeezed a glistening trail of it down Shep’s sodden back and began to suds him up.

“Excuse me,” she said matter-of-factly, “but you don’t look fine.”

Poor Shep looked up at him, all bedraggled and wet, but there was a patient expression in his eyes, a willingness to endure, that tightened Austin’s throat to the point where he couldn’t make a sound.

Paige, a head shorter than he was, bent her knees and turned to peer up into his face. “Are you sick?”

He shook his head again, helpless to do more than that.

“Austin,” she said firmly, “I am a nurse. I know a person in pain when I see one.”

When he opened his mouth to answer, his back spasmed again. He tightened his hold on the counter’s edge, riding it out.

Paige simply waited, not fussing, not pressing for an answer. In fact, she rinsed the dog, soaped him up again, sprayed him down a second time.

Shep, who withstood all this without complaint, turned out to be buff colored, with a saddlelike splotch of reddish brown running down the center of his back.

Paige congratulated the critter on his good looks and toweled him vigorously before lifting him out of the laundry sink and setting him on the floor.

Austin, by that time, could breathe again, but that was about all.

Paige turned to him, hands on her hips, T-shirt clinging in intriguing places from the inevitable splashing.

Austin dragged his gaze, by force, from her perfect breasts to her face, though not quickly enough. Paige’s brown eyes were snapping with temper.

Or was it concern?

“Some things never change,” she said.

Austin sighed. He let go of the counter, relieved that the kink in his lower back had smoothed out. “What the hell do you mean by that?” he asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, he rushed on, fool that he was. “Okay, so I checked out your chest. I’m sorry you saw that.”

Her mouth twitched. “You’re sorry I caught you at it, you mean?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, unwilling to elaborate until he knew which way the mood wind was blowing.

She laughed.

He’d forgotten what the sound of Paige Remington’s laughter did to him, how it made him feel dizzy inside, as though he’d been blindfolded, turned around half a dozen times and then had the floor yanked out from under him.

Paige’s expression sobered, though the ghost of a grin flicked at one corner of her mouth and danced like a faint flame in her eyes. “What I meant,” she informed him, “when I said some things never change, was that you’re still too cussed and proud to let on when you need help.”

“I don’t need help,” Austin reasoned, wondering why it was so important to him to make that absolutely clear.

Shep broke loose with a good shaking then, flinging moisture over both of them.

“I’m not going to argue with you, Austin McKettrick,” Paige said.

He snorted at the irony of that statement.

“Something is wrong,” she said, ignoring his reaction. She headed back into the kitchen, and Shep followed at a sprightly pace, toenails clicking on the plank floor. “If you won’t tell me what it is, I can find out from Garrett or Tate.”

Austin waited until he was sure he could walk without any obvious hitches before stepping away from the counter. Paige was standing at the kitchen sink, washing her hands.

She wouldn’t look at him.

“Paige.”

Still, she kept her eyes averted, and he knew from the stubborn angle of her chin that she wasn’t going to let this go. She meant to ask one or both of his brothers what was going on with him, and they’d tell her, putting their own spin on the story.

Dammit, it was his story to tell and, besides, he didn’t want any secondhand versions making the rounds. “My back goes out sometimes,” he said very quietly. “That’s all.”

Paige turned to face him. “‘That’s all’? Why didn’t you say that a few minutes ago, when I asked you to lift Shep into the sink?”

Austin tugged at an imaginary hat brim and answered, “Because I’m Texas born and bred, ma’am, and therefore averse to letting a lady do my lifting.”

She just stood there for several long moments, looking at him as if she were doing arithmetic in her head and none of the sums were coming out right.

Finally, she spoke.

“You idiot,” she said with some affection.

Austin opened his mouth, closed it again, entirely at a loss.

She’d just insulted him, hadn’t she? And yet her tone...well, it made him feel all wrapped up in something warm.

Paige, oblivious to the strange effect she was having on him, checked her watch. “I’ve got to pick Calvin up,” she said, addressing no one in particular. “Want to come along for the ride?”

Did he ever.

She’s offering to let you ride in her car, fool. That’s all.

He shoved a hand through his hair. Did she really want his company, he wondered, or was she just afraid to leave the invalid cowboy alone in the house?

Hard to tell, and when it came right down to it, he didn’t care.

“Sure,” he said. “I guess.”

Paige rolled her marvelous eyes. “Well, that was ambivalent,” she replied. “Just let me change out of this wet T-shirt, and we’ll go.”

“Do you have to?”

Her gaze narrowed and her hands went back to her hips, but she was trying too hard not to grin to be angry. “Have to what?”

Austin waggled his eyebrows. “Change out of the wet T-shirt?”

She widened her eyes at him, then turned and hurried off in the direction of the guest apartment.

It was all he could do not to tag along with her.

His mouth quirked. It wasn’t as if she’d let him watch her change her shirt.

Damn the luck.

* * *

EVERY NERVE IN HER body was on red alert, and her heart seemed to skip every other beat.

It was her own fault.

What had she been thinking, asking Austin, of all people, if he’d like to ride to town with her?

Now here he was, big as life and busting with testosterone, sitting in her perfectly ordinary subcompact car, sliding the passenger seat back as far as it would go. Shep, still damp from his bath and smelling pleasantly of freshly shampooed dog, sat directly behind him.

Austin was taking up more than his fair share of room, she knew that much. If she weren’t careful, their shoulders would touch.

All business, Paige took her sunglasses from the holder above her rearview mirror and put them on. Then she fastened her seat belt, shifted into Reverse and almost backed into the garage door.

Austin chuckled, reached up to push the button on the remote clasped to one of the visors.

The garage door rolled up behind them.

“I would have remembered,” Paige said.

“Of course you would have,” Austin agreed lightly.

Paige knew if she looked at him, she’d catch him grinning. Her cheeks ached with heat, and she was grateful for her sunglasses.

“I suppose you think you should drive,” she huffed, taking great care as she backed out into the driveway.

Austin spread his hands. “Did I say that?” he asked.

Paige sighed. “No.”

She managed to drive out of the garage without crashing into anything and pointed the car toward the massive iron gates standing open at the bottom of the driveway.

“Why are you so rattled?” Austin wanted to know.

Paige braked for the turn onto the main road. The coast was clear in both directions, but she came to a crawling stop anyhow.

“I am not rattled.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I am not.” She paused, sucked in a righteous breath. “Don’t flatter yourself, Austin. Not every woman is susceptible to your many charms, you know.”

He laughed. “I didn’t say that, either.”

Paige sniffed, indignant. “Some things,” she replied, “go without saying.”

Austin cocked an eyebrow at her as she pointed the car toward town. “No matter what I say,” he ventured, “you’re going to disagree. Right?”

“Right,” Paige said.

That time they both laughed.

Austin folded his arms, closed his eyes, tilted his head back, the very picture of a contented cowboy. Although Paige hated to give this particular man credit for anything, she had to admit, at least to herself, that he still had the power to short-circuit her wiring.

He was so damnably at home in his own skin.

It would have bothered some men, riding shotgun instead of taking the wheel, but not Austin. Whatever he might have questioned in his lifetime, it hadn’t been his masculinity, Paige was sure of that.

Tate and Garrett were the same way. Maybe, she concluded, it was a McKettrick thing.

And why shouldn’t they be confident, all three of them? They had it all—good looks, money, a ranch that was large even by Texas standards, a name that commanded respect.

Heat climbed Paige’s neck, her throat tightened and her heart started racing again.

Of course that was when he hit her with the question, when she was least prepared to respond to it with any kind of dignity.

“How’ve you been, Paige?”

The backs of her eyes scalded with tears she’d have died before shedding. She swallowed hard.

How’ve you been, Paige? Since I broke your heart, I mean. Since you chased me down Main Street on a stolen golf cart. How’ve you been, Paige old buddy, old pal?

“Fine,” she said, surprised and relieved by how calm she sounded. “I’ve been—just fine. Busy. How about you?”

There. The ball was in his court.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Austin had turned his head in her direction, and he was watching her.

“Has it really been ten years?”

“It has,” Paige said very quietly. A month after their breakup, Austin’s parents had been killed in that terrible accident. She’d wanted so much to go to him, offer her condolences, ask if there was anything she could do to help.

Alas, he wasn’t the only one with too much pride.

“I went to the funeral,” she said. A joint service had been held for Jim and Sally McKettrick, and there had been so many mourners, they couldn’t all fit into the church. People had stood in the yard and on the sidewalk and even in the street, just to be there.

He didn’t ask which funeral, though they often turned up at the same ones, both of them raised in or near Blue River as they had been.

“I know,” Austin said very quietly. “I saw you.”

Austin had attended Paige’s father’s services, too, along with both his brothers. He hadn’t spoken to her then, but it had helped a little, just knowing he was nearby, that he’d cared enough to put in an appearance. She’d been too distracted by grief, that one day, to smart over the loss of her first love.

There had been plenty of other days to cry over Austin McKettrick, and many a dark night as well.

They passed the oil wells, long since capped, though there was still plenty of black gold under the Silver Spur, according to the experts. They drove by cattle grazing on good McKettrick grass, and there was so much Paige wanted to say.

In the end, though, she either had too much good sense—or too little courage—to put any of her emotions into words.

CHAPTER TWO

CALVIN REMINGTON, FIVE YEARS OLD as of a very recent birthday, was one of Austin’s all-time favorite people.

Going by the broad smile on the little boy’s face as he ran toward Paige’s car, the feeling was mutual. His aunt walked a few feet behind him, looking bemused, while Austin waited in the passenger seat, having buzzed down the window.

“Hey, buddy!” he called.

Calvin’s horn-rimmed glasses were a little askew, and his light blond hair stuck out in all directions. His jacket was unzipped and he was waving a paper over his head.

“My whole kindergarten class gets to go to Six Flags!” he shouted to Austin. “Because we’ve been really, really good!”

Austin chuckled. His gaze accidentally connected with Paige’s, and electricity arched between them, ending up as a hard ache that settled into his groin like a weight.

“Whose dog is that?” Calvin demanded, breathless with excitement and crossing the yard between the community center and the parking lot at a dead run. “Is that your dog, Austin? Is it?”

“That is my dog,” Austin confirmed. “His name is Shep.”

Calvin opened the car door and scrambled into the booster seat in the back. “Hello, Shep,” he said.

Paige leaned over to make sure her nephew was properly buckled in.

She looked after the boy with the same easy competence she’d shown bathing Shep, back in the ranch-house laundry room.

For some reason, realizing that cinched Austin’s throat into a painful knot.

“Give Shep some space, now,” Paige told the child. “He’s still getting used to belonging to somebody, and you don’t want to scare him.”

Calvin agreed with a nod and changed the subject. “Will you be a chaperone when we go to Six Flags, Aunt Paige?” he asked. “I bet Mom would do it, but she’s got to teach school all day and help the drama club put on the musical and get ready to get married and stuff.”

Paige glanced at Austin, over the seat.

Austin indulged in a wink.

Paige blushed a little, shut Calvin’s door, got into the front seat, snapped on her seat belt and started the engine. All the while, she was careful not to look at Austin again.

“Will you, Aunt Paige?” Calvin persisted.

“Depends,” Paige said mildly, though there was a faint tremor in her tone. “When’s the big day?”

“It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving,” the boy answered eagerly. “My teacher said she’d like to know what lame-brain scheduled a field trip for the day before a big holiday like that. She likes to bake pumpkin pies that day, but now she’ll probably get a pounding headache and have to spend the whole evening with her feet up and a cold cloth on her head.”

Austin grinned. “Your teacher said all that?”

Calvin nodded vigorously. “She wasn’t talking to the class, though,” he clarified. “It was during recess, and I went inside to the bathroom, and when I came back, I heard her talking to Mrs. Jenson, the playground monitor.”

“Ah, I see,” Austin said very seriously as Paige started the car and backed carefully out of her parking space. There were other kids leaving the premises with their mothers or fathers, and casual waves were exchanged.

“I think this dog is pretty friendly,” Calvin remarked. “Can I pet him? Please?”

“Yes,” Paige answered, hitting every possible pothole as she guided the compact out onto the highway. “But no sudden moves.”

They rolled along in companionable silence for a while, but when it came time to turn right and head back out to the Silver Spur, Paige turned left instead.

Austin didn’t comment, but Paige explained anyhow.

Women. They were always ready to give a man more information than he needed.

“Calvin likes to stop by Blue River High and see his mom for a few minutes before going home,” she said.

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 Esperanza 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 breakneck 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 over 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.

“I’m the Lone Bridesmaid,” Paige pointed out, calmer now but still discouraged. “I have nightmares about that dress.”

“To hear her tell it,” Julie told Libby, “neither of us has any taste at all.”

“Will you two stop talking as though I’m not even here?” Paige asked. “If you’d just agree to let me pick out my gown, since I’m the one who has to wear it—”

“What fun would that be?” Libby said to Julie. “We’re the brides, after all.”

Paige, as the youngest, flashed back to the old days, when the three of them were kids and her older sisters had tossed a ball back and forth between them, over her head, making sure it was always out of her reach. They called the game “Keep Away.”

The term seemed especially apt that night, though she couldn’t have explained the idea. If ever two people had had her back, no matter what the situation might be, her sisters were those two people.

As a kid, she’d tagged after them, wanting so badly to go wherever they went, do whatever they did, to be part of their circle.

Growing up, she’d loved wearing their clothes and mimicking their voices and copying their mannerisms. Now, they were marrying brothers. Was some unconscious part of her still trying to follow in Libby and Julie’s footsteps? The possibility was chilling to consider.

“That’s it,” Paige said decisively, though without rancor. “I’m dropping out of the wedding party. You both have plenty of friends, and I’m sure some of them are willing to make absolute fools of themselves at the ceremony by wearing some god-awful dress—lavender with a bustle, or yellow, with ruffles—”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have teased her,” Julie told Libby.

“Of course we should have teased her,” Libby said. “She’s our little sister.”

Julie looked speculative. “If you married Austin,” she ruminated, turning to Paige, “we could have a triple wedding, and you wouldn’t have to worry about hoops and lambs and bustles, because you’d be wearing a bridal gown.”

Paige flung both hands out from her sides. “Why didn’t I think of that?” she scoffed. “I’ll just marry Austin. To hell with my goals, my plans, my personal standards. To hell with everything!”

Julie reached out to touch Paige’s arm. “Honey,” she said softly, “we didn’t mean to upset you—”

Paige drew in a deep, sharp breath, let it out slowly. Shook her head. “It’s all right, I just—I just need some time alone, that’s all.”

Having said that, she left Garrett’s glam second-story apartment—one of three such spaces comprising that floor of the house and part of a third—and to their credit, neither Julie nor Libby called her back or tried to follow.

Downstairs, Paige crossed the main kitchen, retrieved her jacket and purse from the guest apartment and slipped out through the back door. It was dark, and stars glittered from horizon to horizon in great silvery splotches of faraway light.

On the other side of the courtyard wall, the kids were laughing, the dogs were barking, while the men talked in quiet voices.

Paige couldn’t make out their words, wouldn’t have tried. She needed quiet to collect her scattered thoughts, get some perspective. So she walked to her car—which she’d parked near the barn instead of in the garage as she usually did, flustered, at the time, because of Austin’s close proximity—got in and started the engine.

She drove down the long driveway, through the open iron gates, and out onto the highway, headed for town. She switched on the radio, choosing a classical spot on the dial instead of her favorite country station. Paige felt too raw to listen to country music at the moment, and she was woman enough to admit it, by God.

This last thought made her smile.

Drive, she told herself. Don’t think about him.

Between the soft piano concerto flowing out of the dashboard speakers and the semihypnotic effect of driving alone over a rural road, cosseted in purple twilight and under a canopy of stars, Paige was finally able to relax a little—and then a little more.

It was as though Austin McKettrick possessed his own magnetic field; the farther she got from him, the easier it was to breathe, to reason. To simply be.

Reaching the outskirts of town, Paige slowed down, drove automatically toward the house where she and Libby and Julie had grown up, with their dad. Libby had lived there, before and after Will Remington’s death from pancreatic cancer, with her dog, Hildie, and had run the Perk Up Coffee Shop to support herself.

Now, thanks largely to their mother, Marva, and her questionable driving skills, the shop was gone, along with the mom-and-pop grocery store that had once stood beside it, the lot totally empty.

Rumor had it that a bank would be built on the site, but as Paige bumped along the alley toward the detached garage behind the old house, she saw no signs of construction.

After parking her car in the narrow space the garage afforded, Paige got out, walked to the back gate and let herself into the yard.

Here, there were definitely signs of construction. The old cupboards, newly pulled away from the kitchen walls, stood near the porch, seeming to crouch under blue plastic tarps. The bathtub, so outdated that it was probably about to come back into style again, rested in one of the flowerbeds, with the matching green toilet perched inside it.

Paige sighed as she let herself in through the back door and drew in the scents of sawdust and new drywall. She flipped on the overhead light and was gratified, and a little surprised, that it worked.

The kitchen, twice its former size, boasted a new slate-tile floor and an alcove set into a semicircle of floor-to-ceiling windows, but it was a long way from usable.

Paige shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket and moved farther into the house.

The living room was all new; the floors were hardwood and the molding around the edges of the raised ceiling had been salvaged from an old mansion in Dallas. There was an elegant marble fireplace, with an antique mantel, and the windows, like the ones in the kitchen, stood taller than Paige did.

Black against the night, the glass threw her reflection back at her—a trim woman in jeans, a T-shirt and a jacket, with dark, chin-length hair and the saddest eyes.

A lot of changes had been made, but this was still the place—the very room—where her dad had died.

It was the same house her mother had left, for good, when she and Libby and Julie needed her most.

The same house where she’d waited in vain for Marva to come back. Where she’d cried over Austin McKettrick and grieved after her father’s death.

Julie and Libby had both signed their shares over to her. And she would live here, a spinster, growing stranger and stranger with each passing year. Adopting dozens and dozens of cats, and playing bingo three nights a week, cutting beer cans into panels, punching holes in the sides and crocheting them together into hats.

Paige sank down onto the raised hearth of the fireplace and tried to make up her mind whether to laugh or cry. It was a tough choice.

CHAPTER THREE

AUSTIN WAS ONLY half listening to his brothers’ conversation that evening, there in Garrett’s small, well-lit courtyard; a big part of his mind was on Paige. He’d heard her car door slam, listened as she started the engine, and it had been all he could do not to let himself out through the gate and run down the driveway after her, like some damn fool in a bad movie.

Lounging at the picnic table, watching the kids and the dogs dash around in the grass, Austin sipped his beer and savored the smoky scent of beef cooking on an outdoor grill.

Julie and Libby came down the back steps from Garrett’s terrace, Libby carrying a salad, Julie holding a tray of empty glasses and a pitcher of iced tea. While Austin couldn’t rightly think of a place he’d rather be just then, he wished Paige hadn’t left.

Remembering his manners—better late than never, he supposed wryly—he rose, crossed the yard and took the tray out of Julie’s hands.

Julie thanked him. She and Libby exchanged glances, and both of them looked flustered.

Austin carried the tray back to the picnic table, set it down and turned to see both his brothers watching him.

When he realized that they thought he might have done himself permanent injury by carrying the tray, he gave a brief, ragged chuckle and shook his head.

Tate and Garrett had the good grace to look chagrined, and went back to turning steaks and talking ranch business.

The meal was served, and they all sat down at the long picnic table, kids and adults, with the dogs sitting quietly—and hopefully—nearby.

“Where’s Aunt Paige?” Calvin piped up, barely visible over the hamburger towering on his plate.

An awkward little silence fell, broken only by the distant lowing of cattle and the sound of a car somewhere down the road.

“Eat your supper, sweetheart,” Julie told her son gently.

“What about Aunt Paige’s supper?” Calvin persisted. “Is she going to have any?”

“I’m sure your aunt will be fine,” Julie assured him.

Silverware clinked against dishes, and the wind whispered in the limbs of the oak trees nearest the house. It was November, and turning colder, but thanks to a pair of outdoor heaters, the patio was warm enough.

“Maybe she ran away,” Ava, one of Tate’s twins, speculated, after chewing and swallowing a big bite of burger and bun.

Calvin took immediate offense, stiffening and glaring across the table at Ava. “Did not!”

“Hush,” Julie said, ruffling the boy’s hair.

Ava blinked behind her glasses and then jutted out her fine McKettrick chin, stubborn to the bone. “Did, too!” she insisted. “Maybe.”

“Grown-ups don’t run away!” Calvin said.

“Sometimes they do!” Ava argued.

“Ava,” Tate said quietly. “That will be enough.”

Ava subsided, but not graciously.

And her sister, Audrey, by far the more outgoing of the pair, spoke right up. “Our mom ran away,” she said. “She went all the way to New York City, and she’s never coming back.”

Another silence.

Then Libby, sitting next to Audrey, slipped an arm around the child. Over the girls’ heads, her gaze connected with Tate’s. “Your mother came to visit just last month,” Libby reminded her softly. “She took you and Ava to the ballet in Austin, and you stayed in a hotel.”

Tate sighed, pushed his plate away.

Austin felt a pang of sympathy, watching his brother. Tate’s first marriage, to the twins’ mother, had been a mistake from the beginning. He and Cheryl had been divorced since the twins were babies, but they still butted heads now and then over the kids. Cheryl, probably jealous of Libby, was always playing some kind of head game.

Just one more reason, as far as Austin was concerned, to stay single. And if the idea gave him a lonesome feeling, well, he concluded, nobody had everything.

Garrett, meanwhile, managed to shift Calvin onto his lap without making a big fat production of it. “Your Aunt Paige wouldn’t run away,” he told the boy, looking straight at Austin. “She probably just didn’t feel like having steak for supper.”

Austin felt color rise to his face. What was Garrett implying? That it was his fault Paige didn’t want to join the rest of the family for a meal?

Maybe it was his fault.

Austin decided he wasn’t all that hungry. He excused himself, as he’d been taught to do, having been raised by a good Texas mama, and left the table. Carried his plate inside and left it in the sink in Garrett’s kitchen.

Shep joined him on the short walk to the door of his own apartment, just down the hall from Garrett’s.

In the terrible days immediately after their folks were killed, nothing had made sense to any of the three brothers, and little wonder. They’d been eighteen, nineteen and twenty years old at the time. For the last ten years, they’d shared the main floor of the ranch house, where the big kitchen and the pool and the media room were, among other things, but back then, for reasons Austin couldn’t recall, they’d divided the rest of the house into three separate living areas.

As little kids, still on their first set of teeth, Tate, Garrett and Austin had shared one wide, long room, with lots of windows. When Tate entered tenth grade, the original space was sectioned off into three connecting squares, all the same size but distinctly separate.

Now, those rooms were gone, too, making up the wide corridor. Only the long row of tall windows remained.

Austin shoved a hand through his hair as he entered his own part of the house. The kitchen, living room and master suite were on that floor, while an office and two guest rooms shared the third with a huge attic.

Like Tate and Garrett, Austin had his own stairway.

God forbid they should have to share one.

Bleakly, he wandered to the windows, gazed out over the range, toward the main road. No question about it—he wanted to see headlights, and not just any headlights, either. He was looking for Paige’s car.

No sign of it, though.

He finally turned away, took in the stark simplicity of his living room and longed for the old days, when things had been different. When the folks were alive and they’d lived like a family, not a bunch of strangers.

The Silver Spur ranch house had been just that, a house, before the folks died; a big one, granted, but still a family home, with one kitchen, one living room, one dining room.

One turkey at Thanksgiving.

One tree at Christmas.

Now, it was more like a grand hotel, or an apartment building.

It sure as hell wasn’t a home anymore. Nobody really lived there; they were all just passing through, doing their own thing, on their way to somewhere else.

* * *

PAIGE WOKE UP late the next morning, having tossed and turned until all hours. Glancing at the bedside clock, she gasped, threw back the covers, and leaped out of bed. She showered quickly, put on black slacks and a simple white blouse, gave each of her cheeks a pass with the blush brush, and sped out into the kitchen.

Garrett and Austin were there, Garrett drinking coffee and reading a newspaper at the table, Austin leaning indolently against one of the counters, wearing nothing but a pair of rag-bag sweatpants, a case of bedhead and an obnoxious grin.

Shep, wolfing down kibble from a bowl nearby, spared her a glance but went right on eating.

“Did Julie leave already?” Paige asked. “I was supposed to drive Calvin to school this morning—”

Garrett smiled easily and rose from his chair, remained standing until Paige waved him back into his seat. “Julie didn’t want to wake you,” he said. “She took Calvin over to Libby and Tate’s to ride the school bus to town later on with the twins.”

Paige was aware of Austin at the periphery of her vision, lounging like he had nothing better to do than stand around in the kitchen on a weekday morning.

And maybe he didn’t.

“Have some coffee,” Austin said in an easy drawl that brought back all sorts of sensory memories, all of which were purely physical. “There’s no hurry now, is there?”

Garrett glanced back at his brother, and something passed between them, though Paige had no idea what.

“All right,” Paige said.

Austin moved to the coffeemaker, filled a mug, brought it to Paige. His hair was a mess. His chest was bare. His sweatpants were in disreputable shape.

And just looking at him made Paige wish she were lying flat on her back in his bed, instead of standing in a kitchen awash in morning light.

“Thanks,” she said out loud, taking the mug he offered.

“Guess I’d better throw on some clothes,” he said without the least trace of self-consciousness in either his tone or his manner. “As Dad always said, we’re burnin’ daylight.”

Paige didn’t respond. She couldn’t have responded, because her throat had closed.

With a nod, Austin left, heading up his set of stairs, the dog trotting behind him.

Garrett stood up again, gestured for Paige to take a seat.

She slumped onto the bench, curled both hands around the mug.

Garrett sank back into his chair. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Paige, realizing that she’d clenched her eyes shut, opened them and drummed up a smile. “Yes,” she said. “But Julie was counting on me to look after Calvin and I overslept and—”

“Calvin is fine,” Garrett said, covering her hand with his very briefly.

Paige sighed, and with the outward thrust of her breath, her shoulders relaxed. She felt the familiar rush of love for her only nephew; she could not have loved Calvin more if he’d been her own child.

Garrett cleared his throat subtly, and glanced toward the stairs Austin and Shep had mounted only moments before.

“Tate and I were wondering...” he began. But then his voice fell away, and he looked strangely shy for a man whose self-confidence seemed to rise from the cellular level.

“What?” she asked. God knew it had complicated her life when Libby and Tate had fallen in love and, soon after that, Garrett and Julie. Austin was their brother; it would, of course, be almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with him on a fairly regular basis.

Still, Paige liked her future brothers-in-law, and she was certainly glad they were making her sisters so happy.

Garrett scooted his chair in a little closer to the table. Lowered his voice, even though Austin was nowhere in sight and couldn’t possibly have overheard.

“Julie says you’re between jobs right now,” he ventured carefully.

Paige felt a brief sting of embarrassment; she’d worked since high school and being unemployed was new to her. Fortunately, the feeling passed quickly.

“I guess you could say that,” she said with a little smile. If Julie had confided that her sister was “between jobs,” she’d explained the circumstances, too, but Paige saw no reason to point that out. “I was supposed to replace one of the nurses at Blue River Clinic—Alice was planning on enlisting in the Navy. There was some kind of hitch, though, and it will be another few months before she starts her training.”

The expression in Garrett’s McKettrick-blue eyes was kind.

He and Tate, Paige realized with a start, would be the brothers she’d never had. They had already accepted her as part of the family, and they would look out for her, if only because they loved her sisters.

Her throat ached with an emotion she was glad she didn’t have to define, because there were no words for it.

Garrett gave her a few moments to recover before he tried to continue. He said his younger brother’s name, hoarsely, and then faltered.

“Go on,” Paige said very quietly.

“Austin—needs help. He’s never going to admit that, though.”

Paige nodded, waited. She knew Austin better than most people did, and nothing Garrett had said so far surprised her.

Garrett sighed again, thrust a hand through his dark-blond hair. “We—Tate and I, that is—think there ought to be somebody around to sort of keep an eye on Austin when none of us are around, just in case—”

She didn’t speak, hoping the conclusion she’d just jumped to was wrong.

“Austin needs a nurse,” Garrett finally said, and his tone was decisive.

“A nurse,” Paige repeated dully. “Garrett, tell me you’re not suggesting that I—”

Garrett merely smiled and raised one eyebrow ever so slightly.

Paige swallowed. “Don’t you think that would be a little—well—awkward?”

“Awkward?” Garrett, the skilled political spin doctor, was probably playing her, but he sure sounded confused. “It’s not as if you would have to bathe him or anything intimate like that.”

She met his gaze and held it. “What is Austin’s diagnosis, exactly?”

“He has a herniated disc,” Garrett answered, his tone genuinely grave now.

“Will he need surgery?” The question was rhetorical; Paige was thinking out loud. Processing the implications of an injury all too common to athletes, no matter what their sport.

Garrett rubbed his attractively stubbled chin with one hand as he considered his answer. “That depends,” he finally replied. “If he stays away from the rodeo, gives himself a chance to heal, there’s a good chance he can avoid having an operation.”

Paige felt faintly sick to her stomach. “You don’t think Austin will actually go along with the idea, do you? I mean, he and I are making an effort to get along—for obvious reasons—but things are still pretty rocky—”

“Tate and I aren’t planning on giving Austin a choice in the matter,” Garrett said firmly.

“And you want me to...babysit.”

A slow grin settled over Garrett’s sensual mouth. “That’s about the size of it,” he said with a little nod.

“There are a lot of private nurses in the world,” Paige said. “Why me?”

Austin could be heard at the top of the stairs, talking to the dog.

Paige lowered her voice and added, “You know I infuriate him.”

Garrett folded his arms, and if they’d been playing poker, Paige would have thrown in any hand short of a royal flush when she saw the flicker of triumph in his eyes. He leaned in and said in a stage whisper, “That’s the idea. We’d make it worth your while.”

Paige widened her eyes, but before she could say anything in response to Garrett’s remark, Austin was back.

He’d pulled on jeans and a raggedy T-shirt and his damp hair showed comb ridges, though he hadn’t shaved. That practiced smile flashed across both Paige and Garrett like the sweep of a searchlight, dazzlingly bright, but somehow distant, and distinctly cool.

Garrett looked at his watch, pushed back his chair and stood. “Time to play cowboy,” he said. “I was supposed to meet Tate on the east range fifteen minutes ago—better get out there before his lid starts rattling.”

Austin rolled his eyes. “Can’t have that,” he said.

“Later,” Garrett responded. Grabbing the keys to his truck from the hook beside the door, he disappeared into the garage.

Austin rounded slowly, studying Paige. “What were you two talking about, before I came downstairs?” he asked mildly.

Paige bit her lower lip. “Garrett offered me a job,” she said.

He frowned. “Doing what?”

She hadn’t actually accepted the position, but it wouldn’t hurt to bait Austin a little. Paige took pleasure in her reply. “Babysitting.”

Austin looked relieved. “You’re already doing that, aren’t you?” Not expecting an answer, he took up the mug he’d left on the counter earlier and refilled it at the coffeemaker. Turned to look at Paige again as he took a sip of the brew. “Calvin’s a great kid,” he observed.

“I wasn’t hired to look after Calvin,” Paige said.

Austin lowered the cup from his mouth, set it aside with a faint thump. His marvelous eyes narrowed a little. “What?”

“Garrett asked me to be your nurse, Austin.” No need to add that she hadn’t said yes.

She was enjoying this way too much, but it was harmless fun, all things considered.

“In that case,” Austin said evenly, “you’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me,” Paige told him, delighted by the swift blue flash of his temper and the sudden buzz in the air. “I don’t work for you.”

Austin shoved a hand through his hair, sucked in a breath and released it, summoned up a casual smile. Paige recognized the tactic from days of old; he was still annoyed, but she wasn’t supposed to notice.

“Do I look as though I need medical supervision?” he asked reasonably, spreading his hands.

He looked like sugar-coated sin, not that Paige would have said so. “All I know,” she said, trying to look and sound innocent, “is that I’ve been hired to take care of you.”

She should have put on the brakes right then and there, admitted she was only teasing, that she thought the idea of signing on as his nurse was as ludicrous as he did.

For whatever reason, she didn’t straighten him out.

Austin crossed to one of the row of fancy refrigerators, wrenched open a door and promptly slammed it shut again, without taking anything out.

Turning back to face Paige, he snapped, “Fine.”

“Fine,” she repeated with a nod, tucking her hands behind her back and hooking her index fingers together. Rocking back on her heels.

“Don’t do that,” Austin growled, storming over to another cupboard, taking out a loaf of bread, extracting two slices and dropping them into the toaster.

“Don’t do what?” Paige asked.

“Don’t repeat what I say.”

“I was only agreeing with you.”

“You’re enjoying this,” he accused.

“Enjoying what?”

“You know damn well what.”

Paige smiled blandly. Watched as he ranged all over the kitchen, getting a plate down from a shelf, then a knife from a drawer, then butter and jam from another one of the refrigerators.

Such an enormous amount of fuss just to make toast.

The bread popped up.

Austin grabbed both slices at once, plunked them down on the plate, spread butter and jam.

Finally walked over to the table and stood stiffly at one end of the bench. “Sit down,” he said. When Paige didn’t move, he added, “I can’t until you do.”

Ah, yes. His manners.

The irony made her want to chuckle, but she didn’t give in to the impulse.

He sat. Ate some of his toast, tore off a piece of buttery crust and gave it to Shep, who wolfed it down.

“You shouldn’t give a dog people food,” Paige said.

“Gosh,” Austin answered, “thanks for straightening me out on that point, Nurse Remington.”

“You don’t have to be such an asshole,” she told him.

He smiled as though weighing the accuracy of the accusation, then dismissed it with a shake of his head. “I don’t know what it is,” he said in his own good time, after chewing and swallowing, “but something about you just totally pisses me off.”

She smiled back. “I feel exactly the same way about you,” she said with a note of saucy surprise.

That was when he laughed. It was a ragged sound, and there was some bitterness in it, though she suspected that had less to do with her than Garrett. Austin had always been prickly about being the youngest of the three McKettrick brothers.

Paige, being the youngest of three sisters, thought she understood. She loved Libby and Julie with all her heart, but she did tend to compare herself to them, and in her own mind, she didn’t always measure up.

“Austin,” she said very gently.

He had finished his toast, pushed away his plate. When he raised his eyes to hers, she was, once again, struck by their very blueness, and by the way that color pierced her in so many tender and nameless places.

“Your brothers are worried about you,” she said, thick-throated. “They just want you to be okay.”

Austin was quiet, absorbing that. He’d lowered his head a little, and his eyes didn’t meet Paige’s, not right away, at least. “My brothers,” he said slowly, “ought to stop treating me like I’m Calvin’s age and let me work things out on my own.”

“What things?” Paige ventured. She was on thin emotional ice here, couldn’t have said why she’d voiced such an intimate question in the first place.

He thrust a hand through his hair. For the briefest of moments, she thought he might answer honestly, but in the end, he simply sighed again and shook his head. The effect was so chilly and distant that he might as well have pushed her away physically.

“I don’t want a nurse,” he said after a long time.

Paige didn’t answer.

Austin left her then, heading upstairs, Shep scrambling at his heels.

Paige just sat there, at the long trestle table where several generations of McKettricks had not only taken their meals, but argued and made peace, borne their singular sorrows alone or shared them with each other. She sat there and thought about families—how precious they were, and how complicated, and how damnably inconvenient sometimes.

It was because of her sisters and their McKettrick men that she was in this fix, after all. If Libby hadn’t decided to marry Tate, and Julie Garrett, then she, Paige, would have no earthly reason to pass the time of day with Austin, let alone serve as his glorified babysitter.

Paige stiffened her spine, jutted out her chin.

After the big wedding on New Year’s Eve, she could leave Blue River, start her life over somewhere else. She’d often thought about going back to school, maybe becoming a physician’s assistant or even a doctor. And there were other options, too, like joining one of the international relief organizations, where her skills and experience, instead of just looking good on a résumé and qualifying her for a top-level salary, would make a real difference.

The hardest part of leaving wouldn’t be parting from her sisters, though the three of them had always been close. No, the prospect that closed Paige’s throat and made her sinuses burn was not being able to see her five-year-old nephew as often as they both liked.

Although Calvin’s birth father was back in his life—sort of—Julie was a single mother. Libby and Paige, both devoted aunts, had done a lot of pinch-hitting, right from the beginning. Paige loved her sister’s child as fiercely as if he were her own, and so did Libby.

On top of that, Blue River was and always would be home, at least to Paige. Like her sisters, she’d been born there, in the old brick hospital that had burned down while she was still in elementary school.

Paige stood up, determined not to follow the memory trail, but it was already too late. Even as she gathered her purse and her coat and her car keys, all with no particular destination in mind, the past unfolded in her mind.

She’d grown up in the modest house her parents had bought when they were newlyweds, probably convinced, being young and naive, that they would be together always.

Inwardly, Paige sighed.

She raised the garage door from the control on the wall and climbed into her car.

Her mom and dad had had three babies in three years. Will Remington, a born husband and father and a gifted teacher, had thrived on family life. Marva? Not so much.

Paige started the car engine, backed carefully out onto the concrete that comprised the upper driveway.

Even though years had passed since Marva had found herself a tattooed boyfriend, announced that she “just wasn’t happy” being a wife and mother and hit the road with barely a backward glance, the hurt still surfaced sometimes.

Marva had eventually come back to Blue River, having made up her mind to reconnect with the daughters she’d abandoned as small children, and she’d succeeded, to a certain degree. Still a gypsy at heart, it would seem, dear old Mom had stayed long enough to demolish Libby’s coffee shop by driving through the front wall and present each of her children with a sizable windfall, the proceeds of an old life insurance policy, prudently invested. With a classic my-work-here-is-done flair, Marva had then given up her apartment and returned to her retired-proctologist husband and their home in Costa Rica.

Paige had not been sorry to see her go. Not like the first time, anyhow.

Reaching the main gates, Paige met Tate, driving his flashy pickup truck and pulling a horse trailer behind. Garrett, riding shotgun, smiled and greeted her with a tug at the brim of his hat.

Paige, no longer distracted by thoughts of her mother, waggled her fingers and then backed up, so Tate could make the wide turn onto the ranch road.

The driver’s-side window zipped down, and Tate took off his hat, set it aside. “Did Austin manage to run you off already?” he asked with a worried grin.

Paige laughed, though her face warmed. She refrained from pointing out that she hadn’t formally accepted the job Garrett had offered her earlier. Instead she replied, “I wouldn’t say that. He is in a mood, though.”

“He’s always in a mood,” Tate said wearily, shoving splayed fingers through his dark hair and then replacing his hat.

Paige indicated the trailer with a nod of her head. “New horse?”

Tate nodded, and now there was a grim set to his mouth. “A little mare,” he answered. “She’s half starved—according to Libby’s friend at the animal shelter, Molly’s owners moved away, nobody’s sure exactly when, and left her behind to fend for herself.”

Paige’s heart slipped a notch. Her sister was always finding homes for unwanted pets of all kinds—dogs, cats, horses, birds, even a few snakes over the years. Before she could make a reply, Garrett leaned from the passenger side of the truck to favor her with a grin.

“So,” he said, “are you taking the job or not?”

A smile tugged at Paige’s mouth. “You’re only slightly less impossible than your younger brother, Garrett McKettrick,” she told him. “The truth is, I haven’t decided.”

Tate flashed the grin that had always made Libby’s heart pound. “It’s a pretty tough assignment, riding herd on Austin. Not everybody’s cut out to do it.”

She was about to call her future brother-in-law on his attempt to manipulate her with flattery, but Libby pulled up just then, tooting the horn of a classic red Corvette Paige didn’t recognize.

After parking behind the truck and horse trailer, Libby got out of the sports car and approached, beaming.

“What do you think?” she asked Paige, gesturing toward the shining vehicle.

Paige blinked. “I think it’s really—red,” she answered, and then laughed, not out of amusement, but out of joy. Her big sister was so happy.

Libby, meanwhile, climbed onto the running board of Tate’s truck, and the two of them exchanged a quick kiss through the open window. That done, she turned toward Paige again.

“Were you going somewhere?” she asked.

Paige sighed, shook her head. “Not really,” she answered.

Tate said he and Garrett would be up at the barn, and the two of them drove off.

Libby watched them go, a special light glowing in her eyes, then smiled at Paige and gestured toward the Corvette.

“It won’t do, of course,” Libby said, “but it’s sure fun test-driving the thing.”

“Why won’t it do?” Paige asked, thinking of her sister’s ancient Impala, with its rust marks and temperamental engine.

“There’s no room for the twins,” Libby told her, with a tolerant grin. “Or for babies or for the dogs, or for groceries or feed sacks—”

Paige laughed. “I get the point,” she said. Then, resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going anywhere, for the moment at least, she watched as Libby walked back to the Corvette, got in and started the engine with a deliberate roar.

As soon as Libby sped by, a flash of red, Paige turned her boring subcompact around and followed her sister up the driveway.

Why fool herself?

She probably could have resisted Austin.

Resisting Molly, the rescued mare, was a whole other matter, though.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS THE sight of a horse trailer that brought Austin out of the house, Shep and Harry, the three-legged beagle, Calvin’s dog, scuttling to keep pace.

Garrett and Tate gave him passing nods but didn’t speak. They were intent on unloading the new arrival.

Austin, curious, unable to resist making the acquaintance of yet another four-legged hay burner, hung around, watching. Garrett opened the trailer and pulled down the ramp.

The small horse lay in the narrow bed of the trailer, delicate legs turned under, barely strong enough, it seemed to Austin, to hold up its head. A black-and-white paint, under all the scruff and dried mud and thistle burrs, the poor critter had been hard done by, that was clear. Its ribs jutted out from its side, each one as clearly differentiated from the next as the rungs on a ladder.

Austin spat out a swear word and started forward just as Libby and Paige drove up in two different vehicles—Libby was driving a jazzy red ’Vette, while Paige was in her dull subcompact.

As if by tacit agreement, Tate and Garrett stepped back out of the way so Austin could climb into the trailer. Squatting beside the animal, he ran a slow hand along the length of her neck. The hide felt gritty against Austin’s palm, and damp with sweat.

“Meet Molly,” Tate said, his voice gruff. Briefly, he sketched in the outlines of the call Libby had gotten from her friends at the animal shelter in town, told how he and Garrett had gone straight to the sparse pasture where the mare had apparently been abandoned—they weren’t sure how long ago.

Never taking his eyes off Molly, Austin listened to the account, swore again, once he’d heard it all and processed it. The mare’s halter was so old and so tight that it was partially embedded in the hide on one side of her head—evidently, somebody had put it on her and then just left it. Her slatted sides heaved with the effort to breathe, and the look of sorrowing hope in her eyes as she gazed at Austin sent his heart into a slow, backward roll.

“You’re going to be all right now, Molly,” he promised the mare.

She nickered, the sound barely audible, then nuzzled him in the shoulder.

The backs of Austin’s eyes stung. He stood and got out of the way, feeling worse than useless, so Garrett and Tate could get the mare to her feet, a process that involved considerable kindly cajoling and some lifting, too. Molly stumbled a few times crossing the barnyard, and they had to stop twice so she could rest, but finally she made it into her new stall.

Some of the other horses whinnied in greeting, watching with interest as the mare took her place among them.

Molly had spent her strength, and she immediately folded into the thick bed of wood shavings covering the stall floor.

“Farley’s on his way,” Garrett said, standing behind Austin in the breezeway, laying a hand on his shoulder.

Farley Pomeroy was the local large-animal vet; he’d been taking care of McKettrick livestock for some forty-odd years. When their dad, Jim, was ten or twelve, he’d fallen off the hay truck one summer day and splintered the bone in his right forearm so badly that he required surgery. It had been Doc Pomeroy, who happened to be on the ranch at the time, ministering to a sick calf, who treated Jim for shock and rigged up a splint and a sling for the fifty-mile trip to the hospital.

Austin nodded to let Garrett know he’d heard. If ever a horse had needed Farley’s expert attention, it was this one.

Tate came out of Molly’s stall, took off his hat.

Austin realized then that Libby and Paige were standing nearby.

“You’ll wait for Farley?” Tate asked, meeting Austin’s gaze.

Once again, Austin nodded. “I’ll wait.”

He was aware of it when Tate and Garrett and Libby left the barn, aware too, even without looking, that Paige had stayed behind.

Austin opened the stall door and stepped through it, dropping to one knee beside the little mare.

He didn’t ask her to do it, but Paige found a bucket, filled it from a nearby faucet, and brought it into the stall. Set it down within Molly’s reach. Austin murmured a thanks without looking back at Paige and steadied the bucket with both hands, so the animal could drink.

“Slow, now,” he told Molly. “Real slow.”

When she’d emptied the bucket, Paige took it and went back for more water.

Molly drank thirstily, then rolled onto her side, thrusting her legs out from under her and making both Austin and Paige move quickly to get out of the way.

Shep peered into the stall from the breezeway, Harry at his side.

The dogs made such a picture standing there that Austin gave a ragged chuckle and shook his head. Molly didn’t seem frightened of them, but he stroked her neck just to reassure her, told her she was among friends now, and there was no need to worry.

“Shall I take them into the house?” Paige asked.

“Might be better if they weren’t underfoot when Doc gets here,” Austin answered, not looking at her. “Thanks.”

She left the stall and then the barn, and while Harry was cooperative, it took some doing to get Shep to go along with the plan. He wanted to stick around and help out with the horse-tending, it seemed.

Insisting to himself that it didn’t matter one way or the other, Austin wondered if Paige would come back out to wait with him or stay inside the house.

She returned within five minutes, handed him an icy bottle of water.

He thanked her again, unscrewed the top and drank deeply. His back didn’t hurt, but he knew he’d be asking for it if he continued to crouch, so he stood, stretched his legs, finished off the water.

Paige looked almost like a ranch wife, standing there in that horse stall, her arms folded and her face worried. Maybe it was the jeans.

“How can things like this happen?” she muttered, staring at poor Molly.

Austin knew Paige didn’t expect an answer; she was thinking out loud, that was all. He wanted to put an arm around her shoulders right about then and just hold her against his side for a little while, but he wrote it off as a bad idea and kept his distance—insofar as that was possible in an eight-by-eight-foot stall.

A silence fell between the two of them, but it was a comfortable one. Austin moved out into the breezeway, and he and Paige stood side by side in front of the half door of the stall, both of them focused on the mare.

Soon, Doc Pomeroy’s old rig rattled up outside, backfired, then did some clanking and clattering as the engine shut down.

Austin and Paige exchanged glances, not quite smiles but almost, and turned to watch as the old man trundled into the barn, carrying his battered bag in one gnarled hand. Probably pushing eighty, Doc still had powerful shoulders, a fine head of white hair and the stamina of a much younger man.

“Come on in here, Clifton,” he said, half turning to address the figure hesitating in the wide, sunlit doorway. “I might need a hand.”

Clifton Pomeroy, Doc’s only son, hadn’t shown his face in or around Blue River in a long time. Not since Jim and Sally McKettrick’s funeral, in fact.

As kids, Cliff and Jim McKettrick had been the best of friends. Later on, they’d been business partners. When Jim had shut down the oil wells on the Silver Spur, though, Cliff had objected strenuously, since he’d been making a lot of money brokering McKettrick crude to various small independents. The association—and the friendship—had ended soon after that.

Austin’s dad had never said what happened—giving reasons for things he regarded as his own business had not been Jim McKettrick’s way. On the rare occasions when Cliff Pomeroy’s name had come up, Jim had always clamped his jaw and either left the room or changed the subject.

Now, finding himself back on a ranch he’d left on bad terms, Cliff hung back for a few moments, sizing things up. Then, in that vaguely slick way he had, he strolled easily into the barn, approaching Austin with one hand extended in greeting. His smile was broad and a little too bright, reminiscent of Garrett’s late boss, Senator Morgan Cox.

Because there was no way to avoid doing so without hurting Doc’s feelings, Austin shook hands with Cliff and said hello.

By then, Doc was in the stall with Molly and Garrett. Tate and Libby were entering the barn.

Everybody clustered in front of the stall door.

Doc, crouching next to the mare, looked up and frowned. “What is this?” he demanded. “Some kind of convention?”

Doc had always been a cranky old coot, but he knew his business.

Cliff chuckled nervously, took off his baseball cap and ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “You want a hand or not, Dad?” he asked, his tone falsely cheerful.

Austin recalled his mom saying that Clifton Pomeroy must have taken after his mother’s people, since he looked nothing like his father.

Doc opened his bag and rooted around inside with one of his pawlike hands. Brought out a round tin and a packet of gauze. Catching Austin’s eye, he said, “You’ll do. The rest of you had better occupy yourselves elsewhere and give this poor horse room to breathe.”

They all stepped away from the door, so Austin could go through.

Garrett struck up a conversation with Cliff, and the whole bunch receded, including Libby and Paige.

By then, Doc had filled one large syringe, set it carefully aside and filled another, and his expression was so grim that Austin was momentarily alarmed.

“What is that stuff?” he rasped, kneeling next to the veterinarian, near Molly’s head.

Doc’s mouth twitched, but he probably hadn’t smiled, or even grinned, in decades, and he didn’t break his record now. “Antibiotics, a mild sedative and a painkiller.”

Austin nodded, scratching lightly behind Molly’s ears and speaking to her in a soothing tone while Doc administered the shots, one right after the other.

The mare flinched, but that must have been all the resistance she had in her, because she lapsed into a noisy sleep right away.

Doc used some hand sanitizer from a bottle in his bag and began pulling away the half-rotted remains of Molly’s halter. Now and then, some hair and hide came away with it, and there were places where scabs had grown right over the strips of nylon.

Austin felt sick to his stomach.

“There are sterile wipes in my bag,” Doc told him quietly in a tone that indicated both understanding and stern competence. “Disinfect your hands, boy, then start cleaning the wounds as I uncover them. We’ll apply some ointment after that, and hope to God an infection doesn’t set in.”

Austin did as he was told, working quickly.

Maybe forty-five minutes had gone by when they’d finished. Molly came to right away, shook off the sedative and even scrambled to her feet.

Doc finished cleaning her up and dabbed on more ointment.

“She’s a good strong girl, then,” the old man proclaimed, patting Molly’s flank. “What she needs now is some supper and some rest and a whole lot of TLC.”

Austin fetched an armload of grass hay and dropped it into Molly’s feeder, then made sure the automatic waterer in her stall was working. Doc tarried long enough to watch her eat for a few moments, then picked up his bag and left the stall.

Austin shut and latched Molly’s door.

The other horses snorted and nickered, calling for room service.

“Thanks,” Austin told Doc.

Doc merely nodded. He wasn’t much for idle conversation.

While Austin fed the rest of the critters, Doc washed up at the sink in the tack room. Austin finished the chow chores pretty fast and washed up, too.

For some reason, Doc lingered in the tack room, rolling down the sleeves of his shirt, carefully buttoning the cuffs.

He and Austin left the barn at the same time, while Tate and Garrett came out of the main house by way of the kitchen door. Clifton was with them.

Austin looked for Paige, but there was no sign of her.

Probably for the best, he thought.

But he wasn’t quite convinced.

Libby hooked her arm through his and smiled up at him. “Paige went to town to fetch Calvin,” she said.

Austin chuckled, shook his head. He liked Libby, liked Julie, too—they were the sisters he’d never had. Paige was harder to categorize.

“Did I ask where Paige got to?” he challenged, grinning a little.

Libby just made a face at him, then walked over to speak to Tate.

Doc and Clifton said their goodbyes, got into Doc’s old truck and drove off at a good clip, stirring up a dry swirl of dust behind them. Libby stood on tiptoe to kiss Tate’s cheek, then she got into the red Corvette and made for the main road.

That left Tate, Garrett and Austin standing in a loose circle in front of the barn, strangely quiet now that the crowd had thinned out a little.

Tate rubbed the back of his neck, looked as though he might be nursing a tension headache.

“How long’s it been since Clifton Pomeroy paid his ole daddy a visit?” Garrett mused, his gaze following the departing rigs.

“Long time,” Tate remarked. He seemed distracted.

Austin wondered if his oldest brother had more on his mind than the sick horse he and Garrett had rescued at Libby’s request.

Just two months before, they’d had some trouble with rustlers, and one of the thieves turned out to be Charlie Bates, a longtime employee on the Silver Spur. Charlie and a few other crooks were in jail now, unable to make bail, but nobody figured the bad guys were all in custody. Charlie didn’t have the mental capacity to run an operation that big and complicated, but he wasn’t naming any names and neither were any of his partners in crime.

“How are things in the cattle business?” Austin asked, keeping his tone light.

Tate frowned, and his jawline hardened. Evidently, he’d used up his daily allotment of good cheer saving the horse. “As if you gave a damn,” he retorted, peevish as hell, just before he turned to walk away, vanishing into the barn.

Austin watched him go, didn’t look at Garrett when he spoke. “What’s chewing on him?”

“We’re still losing livestock,” Garrett replied after a long time and with significant reluctance.

Austin faced Garrett straight on. “Stolen?” Before Charlie and his gang had been rounded up, they’d raided the McKettrick herd a number of times, carted off a lot of living beef in semitrucks. Another half-dozen cattle had been gunned down and left to rot.

“About a hundred head, as far as we can tell,” Garrett replied. “A few more were shot, too.”

Austin swore. “You and Tate were planning on mentioning this to me—when...?”

Garrett sighed, folded his arms. Scuffed at the ground with the toe of one boot. “We figured you had enough to worry about, what with your back being messed up and everything.”

“I get a little sore once in a while,” Austin bit out, stung to a cold, hard fury, “but I’m not a cripple, Garrett. And what happens on this ranch is as much my concern as it is yours and Tate’s—whatever you think to the contrary.”

Tate came out of the barn again. Because of the angle of his hat brim, his face was in shadow, and there was no reading his mood, but Austin figured it was still bad.

As if you gave a damn, Tate had said.

Where the hell had that come from?

Garrett thrust out a sigh. “Tate’s pretty worried,” he said, keeping his voice down. “And I can’t say I blame him. Rustling is one thing, and killing cattle for the hell of it is another. It’s hard not to conclude that somebody out there has worked up a pretty good grudge against us, for whatever reason, and we figure it’s bound to escalate.”

Tate waved but headed for his truck instead of joining the conversation between Austin and Garrett.

At the moment, that was fine with Austin, because he was pissed off at being left out of the loop. Okay, so he had a herniated disc. He couldn’t ride bulls anymore, and for the time being, he wouldn’t be doing any heavy-duty ranch work, either. But one-third of the Silver Spur was his, and he had a right to know what went on within its boundaries, whether it was good or bad.

He watched as Tate got into the truck and drove off.

Garrett started toward the house and, after a moment’s hesitation, Austin fell into step beside him, but there was no more talk.

Once they were inside, Garrett headed for his part of the house, and Austin went to his, glad to find Shep there waiting for him. It made him feel a little less lonely.

A little, not a lot.

He fed the dog, then made for the bathroom, kicking off his boots and stripping down for a hot shower.

The spray eased some of the residual knots in his back, and he felt damn near human by the time he toweled off and pulled on fresh clothes. He ran a comb through his hair, put his boots back on and then went downstairs.

Shep, having finished his nightly kibble ration, went along, too, curious and companionable.

Austin searched the large storage room adjoining the garage until he found the camping gear. He took a rolled-up sleeping bag out of a cabinet—it smelled a little musty—and returned to the kitchen.

There he ate two frankfurters straight from the package, drank what was left of the milk and called it supper. If he got hungry later, he could always raid the kitchen again. Before going off to El Paso to take care of her niece and the new baby, Esperanza had cooked up and frozen enough grub to last for weeks.

He was in no danger of starvation.

* * *

THE TEENAGE ACTORS were on a break, and Paige sat with Julie and Calvin in the front row of the small auditorium, the three of them sharing a submarine sandwich from the supermarket deli.

Paige wanted to tell her sister all about the little mare, Molly, and how gentle Austin had been with the animal, but with Calvin right there and some of the drama club kids within earshot, that didn’t seem like a good idea.

“Did you decide whether or not you’ll take the job?” Julie asked, finishing her part of the sandwich, crumpling the wrapper and stuffing it into the bag.

“What job?” Paige asked, momentarily confused.

Of course, the moment the words left her mouth, she remembered Garrett’s offer, made that morning in the ranch-house kitchen. Basically, he and Tate wanted her to play nursemaid to Austin.

“You knew Garrett and Tate were planning to ask me to serve as Austin’s nurse?” Paige wondered aloud.

Of course she had, and Libby, too. Most likely, her sisters had set her up, hoping she would fall for Austin the way they had for his brothers and make the wedding a triple.

Even after a long day of teaching, Julie’s smile was brilliant. She seemed to have boundless energy, and it took a lot to catch her off guard.

“Sure I did,” she replied, unfazed. “Garrett and I talked about it last night.”

Paige sighed. “I see.”

Julie elbowed her lightly. “Answer my question,” she said.

“Right now, I’m inclined to refuse,” Paige replied, taking the sandwich bag from Julie and dropping in what remained of her supper and a couple of wadded paper napkins. “Austin didn’t exactly take kindly to the idea.”

“That’s just his pride,” Julie said with a dismissive wave of one hand. “This is serious, Paige. If Austin isn’t careful, he’ll have to have surgery, and that’s always a risk.”

Paige widened her eyes at Julie. “Yes,” she said pointedly, “as an RN, I’m familiar with the risks.”

Julie smiled angelically. Since she’d fallen in love with Garrett McKettrick and the two of them had decided to get married, she seemed to float through life, unconcerned with the moods of ordinary mortals like her younger sister. “It’s not as if you’re terribly busy or anything,” she reasoned cheerfully. “You probably won’t have to do anything more strenuous than make sure Austin doesn’t sneak off to enter some rodeo. How bad could it be?”

In her mind’s eye, Paige saw Austin tending the ailing mare, recalled the way he’d touched the animal, the gentle, rumbling tone of his voice. And she felt new emotions, things that had little or nothing to do with the girl she’d been so long ago, and the boy that girl had loved.

She was a woman now.

Austin was most definitely a man.

And watching him that afternoon, sitting on his haunches in that stall, next to Molly, Paige had come to the startling realization that this was a whole new ball game.

“Paige?” Julie prompted in a happy whisper. “Since you seem to have something—or someone—else on your mind, I’ll repeat my question. How bad could it be, taking care of a hunk like Austin McKettrick?”

It could be really, really bad, Paige figured, but again, this wasn’t the time or place to talk about such things.

Paige shook her head, but she was smiling. “I think Calvin and I ought to get back to the ranch. Harry will be wanting his kibble, for one thing.”

“Garrett will feed Harry,” Julie said. But she stood up, and Calvin stood, too, and Julie slipped an arm around her little boy. Bending, she kissed the top of his head and then ruffled his hair. “I won’t be late,” she told the child, her voice tender. “Mind your Aunt Paige and wash all over when you take your bath and don’t ask for more than one bedtime story, okay?”

Calvin looked up at his mother, blinking behind the lenses of his glasses. “Okay,” he said in a tone of mock resignation. Turning to Paige, he added solemnly, “I won’t need any help with my bath, because I’m five now, and I can pretty much read any book on my own, too, but I still like the sound of your voice when I’m falling asleep. It’s almost as good as when Mom reads to me.”

Paige laughed. “Well,” she said, “I guess that’s settled.”

Julie gave Calvin another hug and then started the rehearsal again.

“I’ll be glad when Mom is married to Garrett and making a baby,” Calvin confided as he and Paige left the auditorium, hand in hand, walking toward her car. “The play will be over then, and she’ll be at home every night, like most moms.”

Paige bit her lower lip and helped her nephew into his car seat, checking to make sure that he was properly buckled up. She was behind the wheel with the headlights on and the motor going before she responded to his remark, and then she took pains to speak casually. “The musical is this month,” she said. “And there are only a few performances, aren’t there?”

Turning her head, she saw Calvin nod in confirmation. “Two Friday night shows and two Saturday night shows and then she’s all done.” He paused. “And there’s the class trip to Six Flags, too. You’re going, aren’t you?”

Paige suppressed a sigh. She’d forgotten about the kindergarten field trip to the famed amusement park, scheduled for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Hadn’t even discussed it with Julie yet, and of course that had to happen before she could make any promises.

“Your mom and I will talk about it,” she said.

“When?” Calvin asked, sounding a little plaintive. The poor kid was tired, she reasoned, and with Julie so busy helping the drama club rehearse their play, he missed his mother.

“Tomorrow,” Paige answered, pulling carefully out onto the main road, pointing the car in the direction of the Silver Spur.

“Promise?” Calvin persisted.

“Promise,” Paige said with a little smile.

After that, Calvin lightened up, having conveyed his dissatisfaction with the long hours Julie had been putting in lately, and told her all about his day. One of the other kids in his class had eaten a bug and thrown up, and his teacher had a headache after that and had to rest in the teacher’s lounge while the librarian’s assistant took over the art program. He asked, as he often did, how long it would be, in “actual days,” until he could start first grade and “learn stuff.”

“You are learning things, Calvin,” Paige pointed out, keeping her eyes on the road.

“How to weave pot holders with those stupid little loops,” Calvin said.

Paige laughed. “I think those pot holders are lovely,” she told him. “I use mine all the time. Your mom and your Aunt Libby love them, too.”

Calvin would not be mollified. “We make hand-prints with finger paints,” he went on scornfully. “I don’t see how any of this stuff is going to prepare me for life.”

“Calvin,” Paige reminded her nephew, “you’re only five. Believe me, you have plenty of time to ‘prepare for life.’” She paused. “What exactly is it that you want to learn right now, immediately, anyhow?”

“How to ride a horse,” Calvin said.

Paige smiled again. “You ride with Garrett all the time,” she said. “What else?”

“Higher mathematics,” Calvin replied. “World history.”

“I think it’s mostly simple arithmetic and the alphabet in first grade,” she ventured, flipping the signal lever and starting the turn onto the Silver Spur Ranch.

“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” he said. “I can already read and write and everything.”

“Maybe you should just go straight from kindergarten to college, then,” Paige teased, noticing that the lights were on in the barn and wondering how Molly was doing.

“I could skip a couple of grades,” Calvin replied seriously, “but Mom and Garrett and my dad all said no. They say I have to put in my time as a kid, like everybody else.”

“There you have it,” Paige said. Calvin’s birth father, Gordon Pruett, had contacted Julie a couple of months before and informed her that he wanted to get to know his son. Things were moving slowly on that front. “So many people can’t be wrong.”

She felt the change in Calvin before he spoke. “What’s going on in the barn?” he asked. “All the chores should be finished by now.”

“Let’s find out,” Paige said, stopping the car in the square spill of light at the entrance to the long, rambling structure housing the McKettrick horses, including the golden ponies Austin had given Audrey and Ava for their sixth birthday, back in June.

Calvin had unbuckled himself and pushed open the door before Paige could pull her keys from the ignition and reach for her purse.

She had planned to give him a modified rundown on Molly’s situation, but she didn’t get the chance. Calvin sprinted into the barn.

Paige sighed and followed.

Austin was standing in front of Molly’s stall door, looking deliciously rumpled. A cot stood in the center of the breezeway, with a sleeping bag spread over it and Shep curled up underneath.

“You’re going to sleep out here?” Calvin demanded of Austin, sounding delighted. “You’re going to camp out in the barn?”

Austin slanted a glance at Paige, greeted her with a nod so slight it might not have happened at all.

“That’s the plan,” he told the boy, reaching out to ruffle his hair.

Still impressed, Calvin climbed up the rails in the stall door to peer over the top. Austin looked ready to grab him if he slipped.

“This is Molly,” he explained. “Molly, this is my good friend, Calvin.”

Paige wondered why his voice made her heart flutter, weak as the first motion of a hatchling’s wing.

“Hey, Molly,” Calvin cried exuberantly.

By that time, Paige was standing close enough to hook an arm around Calvin’s middle and hold him up so he could see the black-and-white mare without clinging precariously to the stall door.

Her arm touched Austin’s, and she took a half step to the side.

Molly had been groomed since Paige had seen her last, and she was on her feet, too. There were raw strips on the animal’s head, where the nylon halter straps had been, glistening with ointment.

“Can Molly be my horse?” Calvin asked, squirming so that Paige had to set him down. “I could feed her and ride her and put medicine on her cuts—”

“Calvin,” Paige interceded softly, laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

He was so excited, he was practically vibrating.

“Could I pet her?” he implored, tilting his head back to gaze up at Paige’s face, then Austin’s. “Please?”

Paige felt a jolt worthy of a stun gun when her gaze connected with Austin’s. Again she had that odd sense that he was a stranger, that he’d never been the Austin she’d loved so much when they were both teenagers.

“If it’s okay with your aunt,” Austin drawled, looking at her instead of Calvin, “then sure.”

Paige hesitated, then nodded her permission.

Austin unlatched the stall door and stepped slowly inside, holding Calvin by the hand.

“I can’t reach,” Calvin said.

Paige took a step toward the boy, intending to lift him up again, but Austin beat her to it. He paled slightly, beneath the bristle of his beard, holding Calvin in the curve of one arm.

“Austin,” Paige said, reaching out to take the child from him.

He hesitated before he let Calvin go.

Calvin, for his part, was too busy petting Molly’s nose to care who was holding him. He hooked an arm around Paige’s neck, though, and she felt a rush of such love for her sister’s child that it made her light-headed.

After a few more moments, she carried Calvin out of Molly’s stall and set him back on his feet. She was aware of Austin moving behind her, shutting and latching the door.

“Can I sleep out here in the barn, with Austin and Shep?” Calvin asked, his upturned face earnest with hope.

“Not tonight,” Paige told him gently.

Conveniently, Shep wriggled out from under the cot, wagging his tail, and Calvin, distracted from the camping prospect, squatted to ruffle the dog’s ears.

Looking up at Austin through her eyelashes, Paige was both gratified and shaken to find him watching her.

His color was coming back, but she couldn’t help wondering if he’d hurt himself, lifting Calvin up to pet Molly the way he had.

The grin came suddenly, nearly setting Paige back on her heels, dazzled.

“You know,” he drawled, leaning in close and keeping his voice low, “I’m starting to think I might need a nurse after all.”

CHAPTER FIVE

ONCE HE WAS fairly sure Molly’s visiting hours were over for the night, Austin took a couple of muscle relaxants, throwing them back with tepid tap water from the tack room sink, shut off the barn lights and eased himself down to sit on the shaky cot he’d set up earlier. He began the tricky task of taking off his boots.

With some sighing and some shifting around, Shep settled himself underneath the makeshift bed.

“Don’t snore,” Austin said. So far, that was the only drawback to having Shep for a dog.

Austin smiled and rubbed his chin with one hand, hoping it wouldn’t start itching before morning, when he could reasonably shave.

Just sitting there, thinking his own thoughts and mostly at peace, the way he generally was around dogs and horses, he almost missed the movement in the doorway of the barn, would have disregarded it as an illusion if Shep hadn’t growled once and low-crawled out from under the cot to stand guard.

“Best show yourself,” Austin advised the unknown visitor mildly, rising to his feet with a lot less ease than he would have liked. “It’ll save us all some grief—you, me and the dog.”

No answer.

He rubbed the back of his neck and waited. How long would it be until the pills kicked in, anyhow? Austin wasn’t exactly hurting, but he was stiff as hell, and in all the wrong places, too.

The shadow in the darkened doorway resolved itself into a small and enticing shape.

“It’s me,” Paige said. From the tone of her voice, she was a little surprised to find herself in that barn, after nightfall, with all the lights shut off. Maybe even more surprised than Austin was to see her there.

He felt the right corner of his mouth kick up in a grin, as his heart staggered like a drunk and slammed against his rib cage before righting itself.

A shaft of moonlight found its way in through a high window way up there in the hayloft and Paige passed through it, a goddess in blue jeans and a pullover sweater, moving slowly toward him.

Shep had long since given up growling by then, and taken to wagging his tail instead.

Paige bent to muss the dog’s ears, then straightened and looked up into Austin’s face. “Did you hurt yourself?”

He couldn’t stop grinning. Good thing it was dark in that barn—mostly. There was that liquid-silver moonlight spilling in, but things were cast in angled shadows.

“Hurt myself? How would I have done that?”

She might have been flustered; there was no telling, since he couldn’t really see her face and her tone of voice wasn’t giving away much of anything. “Earlier, when you lifted Calvin so he could pet the horse?”

“Oh, that,” Austin said. He splayed the fingers of his right hand and pushed them through his hair, just to be doing something other than grabbing Paige Remington by the shoulders and kissing her until her knees buckled. Right then, that was about all he wanted to do.

She saved him from temptation by stepping away to stand in front of Molly’s stall door. There was enough light to see that the mare was on her feet, crunching away on the scoop of sweet feed Austin had given her just before cutting the lights.

Molly wanted for some fattening up, and a few alfalfa pellets now and again would probably do the trick.

Austin didn’t move from where he stood. This was one of those pivotal moments, he figured, where one wrong move could change the whole course of his life—and Paige’s, too.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. His voice was as rough as if he’d taken sandpaper to his vocal cords. “Right now, I mean. In the barn. This late and everything.”

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