McKettricks of Texas: Garrett (29 page)

“Now,” she said, “let's have a better look at that eye.”

“I'm all right,” Garrett said, though not with a lot of certainty.

She took his hand—where had her bone-deep tiredness gone?—and led him into the big kitchen.

“Sit down,” she said.

Garrett dropped into a chair.

Briskly—
just call me Nurse Julie,
she thought, with a silent chuckle—she found a plastic bag with a zip-top, filled it with ice and approached him.

Garrett winced when she touched the ice pack to his eye, then relaxed with a long sigh.

Julie smiled, overwhelmed by tenderness.

Garrett took hold of the ice pack, lowered it and buried his face in her middle, just long enough to start a wildfire blazing through her veins.

“I'll be going away in a few days,” he said, very quietly.

Time itself seemed to stop the instant Garrett spoke those words.

At least, for Julie it did.

Why was she so shocked, so shaken? Garrett McKettrick was—Garrett McKettrick. He had another life, away from the ranch, away from Blue River.

Away from her.

“Julie?” Garrett's hands rested on her hips, holding her in place. Not that she could have moved to break away; she was in statue-mode. Frozen.

She didn't answer.

Garrett pulled her down, onto his lap.

She did her best not to look at him; that was all the resistance she could muster at the moment, it seemed.

She'd worn her hair up that day, in what Paige called her “schoolmarm do,” secured by a sterling silver clip.

Garrett opened the clip, and all those spirally curls tumbled down.

“So go,” she finally managed to croak out. “Nobody expects you to stay.”

“Will you look at me?”

“Actually, no. I'd rather not.”

He took her chin in one hand, gently, and turned her head. Short of squinching her eyes shut like a child, there was no way to avoid meeting his gaze.

“Senator Cox is about to resign,” he said, very quietly. “That's a very big deal, Julie. I have to be there.”

“Okay,” Julie said.

“I'd like you to come with me.”

She blinked, startled. “I can't,” she managed, after a long moment of wild consideration. “There's Calvin, and my job—”

“We're talking about one or two days, max,” Garrett reasoned. Splaying the fingers of his right hand, he combed them through her hair. “Think about it, Julie.”

“I couldn't,” she said.

“Just the two of us,” Garrett drawled, his voice dreamlike, almost hypnotic. “You and me. Together. Naked a lot of the time.”

Julie swallowed hard. “Think about it,” Garrett repeated.

As if she could
help
thinking about it.

N
AN'S PHONE CALL WOKE
G
ARRETT
in the middle of the night.

He sat up, grumbling, and groped for the receiver beside his bed.

“Yeah?” he growled.

“You've got to come,” she said.

Sleep still fogged Garrett's head. He'd been dreaming about Julie, the sort of erotic—and thwarted—dream it wasn't easy to leave behind.

“What? Where—?”

“There's been an accident, Garrett,” Mrs. Cox replied, and now he could tell that she was struggling to maintain control. “Morgan and the—the woman, Mandy? They were skiing at some resort in Oregon—”

He felt a sickening sense of déjà vu. He couldn't help remembering another call, in the middle of another night, about another accident, of a different kind. That time, the caller had been Tate, and the news was beyond bad.

Their folks had been airlifted to Houston, after a car crash.

Neither was expected to live.

And neither had.

Garrett swore silently and swung his legs over the side of the bed, groping for the jeans he'd tossed aside earlier, after tearing himself away from Julie. God, he'd wanted to
share her bed, spend the whole night loving her, wake up with her beside him. But there was Calvin to consider. He was not quite five years old; he couldn't be expected to understand.

She hadn't said Morgan was dead, he remembered. She'd said there had been an accident. “Exactly what happened, Nan?” he asked. “And how bad is it?”

“As I understand it, Mandy is all right,” Nan answered woodenly, sounding detached now, as though she were watching the event unfold on a movie screen no one else could see. Of course she must have been in shock. “Morgan—Morgan is in bad shape. You know what a good skier he was—
is
—but—”

“Nan?” Garrett broke in, firmly but not unkindly. “What happened?”

She gave a strangled little laugh, void of humor and hard to hear. “He was probably showing off for that—that
pole dancer.
Skiing too fast—on a trail too advanced for a middle-aged man, out of shape—” Nan stopped. Made that sound again. Then, “Morgan collided with a tree, Garrett. He's—he's comatose.”

Bile scalded the back of Garrett's throat.
Comatose.
He struggled into his pants, wedged the cordless receiver between his shoulder and his ear.

“But he's alive,” Nan choked out. “People
do
come out of comas—sometimes.”

Garrett closed his eyes, but the images wouldn't be shut out. Morgan Cox had been a brilliant man, a Rhodes scholar. Now, it seemed, he had been reduced to a vegetative state.

“Where are you?”

She named a hospital in Austin. “I asked them to bring
him here,” she said. “I just hope he makes it, so I can say goodbye, tell Morgan I f-forgive him—”

Nan broke down then.

“I'll be there as soon as I can,” Garrett told her, aching inside. “Hold on, Nan.” He paused. The question had to be asked. “Are there reporters?”

Another ragged sob burst from Nan's throat. “Of
course
there are reporters,” she blurted out. “There are
always
reporters.”

“No statements,” Garrett warned. It was a real bitch, trying to talk on the phone and get dressed at the same time. He felt like a one-legged man attempting to stomp out a campfire. “Don't say
anything.
I'll handle the press when I get there.”

“Hurry,”
Nan pleaded.

Garrett said goodbye, thumbed the off button and tossed the receiver onto his rumpled bed.

He didn't shower and he didn't shave.

He just pulled on a shirt, socks and boots, grabbed his cell phone, and scrambled out of his room and down the stairs into the kitchen.

Austin was sitting at the table in a pair of sweatpants, shirtless, squinting at the screen of a laptop.

Seeing Garrett, he narrowed his eyes. “What the hell…?”

“Put a shirt on,” Garrett snapped. “There's a lady in this house, and a little kid.”

The admonition made Austin grin slightly, but his eyes were still troubled. “What's going on?”

“There's been a skiing accident,” Garrett said, grabbing the Porsche keys from the hook next to the door leading into the garage. “Morgan isn't expected to live.”

Austin gave a low whistle of exclamation, but he didn't say anything.

Even in his distracted state, Garrett noticed the haunted look that fell across his brother like a shadow, at the mention of the word
accident.
Of course, Austin was remembering the night their parents died.

They'd all taken the deaths hard, but Austin, maybe because he was the youngest, had taken them hardest of all.

“Do me a favor?” Garrett asked gruffly, about to go out the door, get in his Porsche and head for his Cessna.

“Sure,” Austin said. A news site flickered on the screen of his laptop now, bluish in the dim light. “What do you need?”

“I know you and Tate are getting on each other's nerves and you want to lock horns,” Garrett said, choosing his words with as much care as his rush would allow. “But Tate needs our help, Austin. It's not just this rustling thing—he's talking about selling out and moving off the ranch.”

Austin's mouth dropped open. He closed it, then blurted,
“Selling out?”
A pause, rife with blinking disbelief. “He can't be serious.”

“I've got a feeling our big brother is
dead
serious, Austin. The ranch matters to Tate, but Libby and the kids are more important, and he wants more husband-and-dad time.”

Austin still looked as though he'd been sucker punched. “He'd never do it,” he said, pale. Half sitting and half standing now, unable, it seemed, to make up his mind and choose one direction, up or down. “Tate would
never
sell his share of the Silver Spur!”

Garrett sighed. “We've got a choice to make—you and I,” he said in parting. “Either we step up and help Tate run this place, or he moves on.”

Austin left the table, followed Garrett all the way out to the Porsche. Stood there, barefooted and bare-chested,
while Garrett pushed a button to raise the garage door behind his car and started the engine.

“I could come along,” Austin offered, when Garrett rolled down his window. “If you need somebody to ride shotgun or something—”

Garrett rummaged up a smile. “Thanks,” he said, shaking his head even as he spoke. “It'll be better if you stay here and help Tate as much as you can. When I get back, the three of us will sit down and figure out what to do next.”

Austin swallowed visibly, then nodded, stepping back from the Porsche and giving a halfhearted wave of one hand as Garrett backed out.

He reached the airstrip within five minutes, and after a quick safety inspection and an engine warm-up, Garrett drove his plane out of its hangar, lined up the nose and zoomed down the short, bumpy runway.

Once aloft, Garrett set his mind on reaching Austin.

He'd called Nan back on the drive to the airstrip, given her an ETA and asked her to have Troy meet him with a car.

In the near distance, the small grid of lights that made up the town of Blue River twinkled in the darkness.

The river and the creeks looked like black ribbons, snaking through the night, silvery with the moon's glow.

Tate's place was dark, Garrett noticed.

That gave him a lonely feeling.

He automatically scanned the horizon, though he could have charted the course to Austin or any one of a dozen other places with his eyes shut. And that was when he spotted the snarl of headlights over near the dry riverbed he and Tate had checked out a day or two before.

He banked in that direction, frowning, not wanting to
take the time, knowing he wouldn't be able to see much from the air, heading there anyway.

He swung low over the trailer of a semi surrounded by a number of smaller rigs. Several sets of headlights—all but the semi's—blinked out like fireflies going into hiding, but not before Garrett spotted the dark figures of men scattering to flee.

He reached for the handset of the radio, but drew back without taking hold of it. Instead, he fumbled for his cell phone, jammed into his shirt pocket just before he left the house.

He thumbed in Tate's number, then reconsidered and cut off the call.

The rigs below scattered, driving blind. Garrett made an executive decision and stuck to the semi, its trailer probably loaded down with McKettrick cattle.

Tate called him back in two seconds, half-asleep and in no mood to be gracious. “What?” he growled. “You call, you let the phone ring
once,
and then you
hang up?
”

“Sorry about that,” Garrett said. “Second thoughts.” If he mentioned the semi to Tate now, the damn fool would probably come running out here in the middle of the night, planning to chase the crooks to the farthest corner of hell if he had to—and maybe get hurt or killed in the process.

Below, the semi driver jolted toward the main road, traveling fast, over rough ground.

Garrett hoped the cattle jammed into the back were all right. At the same time, it gave him that old rodeo feeling, tailing that fleeing semi from the air. Even with all that was going on, he could barely hold back a whoop of pure yeehaw.

“You're not getting off that easy,” Tate said. “Why did you call me?”

It was easy to tell that he was a man in love, because as pissed-off as he was, he still tried to keep his voice down so he wouldn't wake Libby.

“Garrett,” he demanded, in a loud whisper, “are you drunk or something?”

Garrett laughed outright then. It was a broken sound, part tragedy. “No,” he said. “I'm not drunk.” He was going to have to give up something, he could see that; Tate wouldn't leave him alone until he did. “I'm on my way to Austin,” he said. He told Tate what little he knew about the senator's tragic mishap on an Oregon ski slope.

“I'm really sorry,” Tate said, when Garrett had finished.

Garrett didn't answer.

Below, the semi pulled onto the main road, heading south.

“Gotta go,” Garrett said.

“I could meet you at the hospital—”

Garrett cut him off. “No,” he replied, his voice gruff. “Look, I'll call you tomorrow. Bring you up to speed.”

The brothers said their goodbyes, and rang off, and Garrett put through a quick call to Brent Brogan. Brent promised to send the state police after the semi, but without a license number or any identifying characteristics other than the direction the rig was headed in, there wasn't much hope.

Just then, there didn't seem to be a whole hell of a lot of hope for much of anything.

Garrett felt a raw and confounding sadness, brief in duration but carving deep, and it had little or nothing to do with the senator's tragedy.

Below, the semi lumbered right, onto a state highway.

The driver could be headed anywhere—Arizona, Oklahoma, or even toward the Mexican border.

Reluctantly, Garrett changed course.

He was needed in Austin.

 

I
T WAS STILL DARK
when he landed the plane. Troy, the senator's driver, waited on the tarmac, beside the usual Town Car.

The two men shook hands, and then Garrett sprinted around to the passenger side and slid into the front seat.

“Has the senator arrived yet?” he asked, dreading the answer, as Troy settled behind the wheel.

Troy nodded wearily. “He was holding on when I left the hospital, but as soon as they unhook all those machines—”

Garrett's voice was hoarse. “How's Nan?”

“Mrs. Cox is hanging in there.”

“Have the kids been told?”

“I don't think so,” Troy answered, with a shake of his head. “Mandy, now, she's been spilling her guts to the media. Telling them more than even
they
want to know, probably.” With a thin attempt at a grin, he added, “What happened to your
face,
man?”

“I was kicked by a horse,” Garrett lied.

Troy's eyes rounded, then rolled. “You are so full of shit,” he said.

“I missed you, too,” Garrett said, leaning to punch his friend in the shoulder. “How long's it been since we've crossed paths, old buddy? Three days? A week?”

Troy laughed, but there was a note of harsh grief in the sound. “Damn,” he muttered. “This is bad, Garrett.”

“Yeah,” Garrett agreed, tilting his head back and closing his eyes.

“The state police came to the house to tell Mrs. Cox the news in person,” Troy said. He lived in an apartment over
Nan and Morgan's garage, so he'd be available whenever a driver was needed. Technically, he was on call 24/7, but he had a lot of downtime, too. “I heard a ruckus, so I got out of bed and dressed and scrambled downstairs to find out what was going on.” Troy thrust out sigh. “He's not going to make it, Garrett.”

After that, there wasn't much else to talk about.

They arrived at the hospital within a few minutes, and Garrett noticed several news vans in the parking lot.

He sighed inwardly.

“You might as well go on home and get whatever rest you can manage,” Garrett told Troy quietly, bracing himself inwardly and pushing open the car door. He hadn't missed dealing with reporters during his brief hiatus on the ranch. “However things come down, tomorrow is bound to be a real mother.”

Troy hesitated, then nodded. “You tell Mrs. Cox to call if she needs me.”

Garrett promised to pass the word, got out of the car, squared his shoulders and headed for the hospital entrance.

As expected, reporters and cameramen were waiting in the lobby, and Mandy Chante, tragic in her black stretch ski pants and fluffy pink sweater, was holding court.