Linda Miller - McKettricks of Texas - Austin

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.”