McKettricks of Texas: Garrett (28 page)

If she hadn't known it would embarrass her little boy, she would have pulled him into her arms, then and there, and hugged him tight.

“I'll be fine,” she said. “Somebody ordered pizza.”

Calvin mulled that over. “Harry probably needs to go outside,” he concluded at last. “And he'll be needing some kibble and some fresh water pretty soon.”

“I'm sure you're right,” Julie replied seriously.

“You don't mind if I go on to the Silver Spur with Garrett, then?” Calvin sounded so hopeful that Julie ached. “Instead of staying here with you?”

“I don't mind,” Julie said, choking up a little.

Just then, her gaze connected with Garrett's.

“Have you heard anything from Libby? About Audrey and Ava, I mean?” Julie's cell phone was in the bottom of her purse; if her sister had called with news about Tate's girls and their twin cases of flu, she hadn't heard the ring.

“Tate called a little while ago,” Garrett said. “It's the usual prescription—bed rest, children's aspirin and plenty of fluids. The twins will be fine in a day or two.”

“But in the meantime,” Calvin interjected, with energetic distaste, “they're really
germy.
I could be
contaged
just by being in the same room when they cough or sneeze.”

“Sounds ominous,” Garrett remarked, giving Calvin's shoulder a light punch, guy-like.

“Let's go,” Calvin said, obviously impatient to be on his way, with Garrett.

Inside Julie, sorrow squeezed hard. It would be
years
before Calvin was old enough to leave home. Why was she always so conscious that the clock was ticking?

Garrett ducked his head slightly, to look into her face. “You okay?” he asked.

Julie swallowed hard, then nodded. Smiled. “I'll see you both later—around eight o'clock, I expect.”

“See you then,” Garrett said. His eyes seemed to caress her, warming her flesh, awakening her tired nerves.

Ten minutes ago, she'd been looking forward to the end of the day, when she could take a warm bath and then crawl into her bed.

Now she was only interested in the bed, and it was
Garrett's
bed she wanted to slip into, not hers.

Julie shook off a cloud of stars, nodded again, then bent to kiss the top of Calvin's head. “Be good,” she said.

Calvin gave a sigh that seemed to rise from the soles of
his little high-top sneakers. “I'm
always
good,” he said. “It gets boring.”

Garrett chuckled at that. “Come on, pardner,” he said, getting Calvin by the hood of his new nylon jacket and steering him in the general direction of the main doors. “We've got things to do out on the ranch—nothing like doing chores to put an end to boredom—and your mom has things to do here.”

“Garrett?” His name came fragile from her throat, shimmering and iridescent, like a soap bubble.

He'd turned away, engaged with Calvin, who was already recounting some incident that had taken place on the playground at school, but when Julie spoke, Garrett turned his head to look back at her.

She moved close to him, unable to help herself, touched her fingertips to the bruised skin under his eye. “You'll tell me what happened? Later on?”

“I'll tell you what happened,” Garrett said, almost sighing the words.

Moments later, he and Calvin were gone.

Julie turned back to the task at hand—back to the kids and the stage and Mrs. Chambers's piano-pounding musical style.

Kiss Me Kate
wasn't going to cast itself, after all.

 

U
PSTAIRS IN HIS OWN KITCHEN
, Garrett hoisted Calvin onto the countertop, where the kid could watch the proceedings without being too close to anything hot or sharp. Buzzing with kid-energy, Calvin bounced the heels of his shoes against the cupboard door, stirring the dog, Harry, to a three-legged frenzy of yelping excitement.

“Whoa,” Garrett said good-naturedly. “Sit still.”

Calvin stopped kicking. Earlier, they'd fed the horses together, out in the barn, and the boy's glasses had fogged over from the cold. Now they were clear again, magnifying his pale blue eyes.

“Do you think the doctor made Audrey and Ava get
shots?
” he asked Garrett, looking horrified at the prospect.

The dog quieted down, went back to his kibble bowl.

“Don't know,” Garrett said, peeling the foil off the pan of chicken tamales Esperanza had left downstairs in the oven for supper. Turned out, she had a meeting at church.

“I
hate
shots,” Calvin told him.

“Well, now,” Garrett said reasonably, taking two plates down from a cupboard, “a cowboy always takes his medicine, if the doctor says he needs it.”

Calvin considered that, his eyes wide. “Did you ever cry, when you were little, and you had to have a shot?”

“No,” Garrett answered honestly, “but I ran out of the clinic once, when I was about your age, and hid in the men's restroom of a gas station across the street, until my mom walked right in there and got me by the ear.”

He grinned at the memory.

He'd barely felt the injection, given a few minutes later, he'd been so impressed that his mother wasn't afraid to march herself straight into a men's room to collect him.

“And she made you get the shot?”

“It had to be done,” Garrett said, dishing up tamales.

Plates filled, he hoisted Calvin back down off the counter and set him on his feet.

They washed up, then took their meal to the table over by the wall of windows looking out over the dark range.
The boy ate a few bites and then started blinking rapidly, like he had something in his eyes.

Garrett hid a smile, aware that Calvin was having a hard time staying awake.

“You tuckered out?” he asked the little guy.

Calvin yawned widely, set down his fork. “Yeah,” he admitted. “But I don't want to go to bed yet, because my mom isn't home and Esperanza isn't either, and this is a big house to be alone in.”

He was there, and Austin probably was, too, which meant that, technically, Calvin wouldn't be alone, though he might as well have been, Garrett supposed, considering the size of the place.

“I guess you could stretch out on my sofa till your mom gets back,” Garrett offered.

“Would the lights be out?” Calvin asked. “Would you be right there?”

“I'd be right there,” Garrett confirmed.

“In the living room, where I could see you?”

“In the living room, where you could see me.”

Calvin looked relieved. “I guess that would be all right, then,” he decided.

Then, “You wouldn't tell anybody that I'm scared of the dark, would you?”

The earnest expression in the little boy's face touched something in Garrett, caused another shift, one he couldn't begin to describe. It roughened his voice, the strange emotion he felt then.

“I wouldn't tell,” he promised.

Calvin pushed his plate away. “I'm full,” he said.

“No need to keep eating, then,” Garrett replied.

He got a soft blanket and a pillow from the linen closet in the hallway, and made a bed for Calvin on the sofa. Lamps burned at either end, dimmed down to a yellow glow. Garrett switched on the TV, with the volume low, and kicked back in his favorite chair.

The dog immediately started trying to jump up onto the sofa with Calvin. It was a pitiful sight, given that the poor critter was missing a leg.

Garrett got up, hoisted the mutt onto the couch with Calvin and sat down again.

As usual, TV didn't have much to offer, but Garrett had made a promise—he'd stay with Calvin until his mother came home—so he flicked through the channels until he found a rodeo-retrospective on ESPN and settled on that.

His brain immediately divided itself into three working parts.

One level focused on the rodeo unfolding in front of his eyes.

Another, the lovely problem of Julie Remington, her boy and her dog, and all the ways they might change his life.

Still another went over and over that day, out on the range. They'd fixed fences, he and Tate and the other cowboys, but they'd found nothing that might lead them to the rustlers.

Or the sons of bitches who'd shot those six cattle and left them for the flies. The recollection sickened Garrett; it was hard to fathom why anybody would kill a living thing for no reason.

Nan's call had complicated everything, of course.

Fired or not, he knew he'd have to help her straighten out the mess Morgan and the pole dancer were stirring up. Not only had Garrett worked for her husband since law
school, his mother and Nan had been college roommates and very close friends.

As far as he knew, Morgan hadn't hired anybody to replace him as yet—the august senator from the great state of Texas had been too busy romancing the pole dancer to do anything about the sudden vacancy on his staff, other than ask other staffers to cover the responsibilities that had been Garrett's.

It was only logical for Garrett to take up the slack.

Besides, he liked Nan. She was mentally, emotionally and physically sound. She knew the issues. She knew the people, cared about what they wanted and what was best for them, not only in the present, but generations hence.

Looking back over the years he'd worked for Senator Morgan Cox, Garrett was astounded at how many dots he hadn't noticed, let alone connected.

Nan
was the strong one, not Morgan.

Nan
was the force of nature, the skilled politician, the one with A Plan.

Why hadn't he seen that?

The thing Nan hadn't wanted to discuss over the cell phone? She was planning to call in all her markers and run for Morgan's Senate seat when the next election rolled around in a little over two years.

She meant to hire him, Garrett, as her right-hand man.

McKettrick,
Garrett told himself, glowering at the TV screen above the fireplace,
not much gets by you. You have the political instincts of a pump handle.

On the couch, Calvin stirred, made a soft, kid-sound in his sleep.

Garrett's heart actually seized.

He closed his eyes, just to shut out the light for a few moments.

When he opened them, Julie was sitting on the arm of his chair, smiling down at him.

“So,” she whispered, keeping her voice down so Calvin wouldn't wake up, “what happened to your eye? Remember, you promised you'd tell me.”

Garrett chuckled hoarsely. Julie Remington had no idea how down-home sexy she was. No idea at all.

“Either Tate or Austin punched me,” he said.

Julie's wonderful, changeling eyes widened. She moved to smooth his hair back from his forehead, hesitated, then went ahead and did it.

Electricity shot through Garrett; all of a sudden, he was wide awake, every nerve reporting for duty, ready for action.

“‘Either Tate or Austin'?” She smiled. Her fingertips rested lightly on his bruises, and he felt some kind of sacred energy surge through him. “You don't know which one?”

Garrett grinned. If the boy and the dog hadn't been sleeping on the couch, just a few feet away, he would have tugged Julie onto his lap. “Could have been either one,” he said. “They were about to go at it, and I was fool enough to get between them.”

She laughed, and the sound was silvery and pure, almost spiritual, like Christmas bells ringing out over miles of unmarked snow.

“Did Calvin behave himself?” she asked.

God, she was so beautiful. There are perfect moments in life, he thought, and this was one of them.

“He's a good kid,” Garrett answered presently, and somewhat hoarsely, with a nod. “Did you know he's scared of the dark?”

“Most kindergarteners are,” Julie said.

“I guess you've got a point.”

Julie looked over at her son, curled up on the couch with his dog. The perfect moments just kept on coming, and that was fine with Garrett. “Would you mind carrying him downstairs for me?”

Garrett was on his feet. He would have carried the whole
sofa
downstairs, kid, dog and all, if she'd asked him to. He'd have staggered under the weight of just about anything, in fact, just for the light in her eyes and the way she held her mouth, as if she wanted to smile but wouldn't let herself do it.

“Sure,” he said. He scooped the boy up, blanket and all.

“Is my mom home?” Calvin asked sleepily.

Julie fetched the boy's glasses from the end table where he'd left them. “Your mom is definitely home,” she told her son.

Harry jumped down to follow.

“Keep the dog here,” Garrett said, at the top of the staircase leading down into the ranch-house kitchen. “I'll come back for him.”

Instead, Julie brought Harry downstairs herself.

The kitchen was dimly lit, and Garrett had no trouble navigating it.

When he laid Calvin down on his bed, his arms ached, objecting to the letting go.

Garrett waited in the sitting room while Julie settled her son in for the night, murmuring mother-words.

Garrett McKettrick marveled.

All his life, he'd wanted to be a U.S. senator and, eventually, president.

Now, incomprehensibly, he couldn't seem to think beyond being a husband, a father and the master of a three-legged dog.

What the hell was wrong with him?

 

J
ULIE DECIDED
,
ONCE SHE'D TUCKED
C
ALVIN IN
and kissed him good-night, Harry properly settled in his place at the foot of the bed, that it would be all right to fuss over Garrett's black eye
just a little.
As long as she didn't get carried away, what harm could it do?

She was pleased to find him still in the apartment when she returned from Calvin's room.