McKettricks of Texas: Garrett (34 page)

“What?” Austin called back.

“I said Mom and Garrett are
kissing!
”

Garrett rolled his eyes and chuckled; otherwise, he seemed unruffled.

Julie, on the other hand, was mortified. On top of that, her nipples had gone so hard that they ached, and she was damp, too.

She'd already made the mental shift: This thing happening between her and Garrett wasn't going anywhere.

Her body was slower to buy in.

Austin stepped into the doorway behind Calvin and took the boy lightly by the shoulders, turning him around, heading him into the living room again. He glanced back over one shoulder, grinned the grin Paige probably still couldn't get out of her mind.

“Go right on kissing,” he said. “Don't let Cal and me bother you.”

Garrett had taken up his fork again. He seemed to be enjoying the corned beef and cabbage, since he went on eating, but his gaze was on Julie and it shone with tenderness and comedy and desire and a whole mix of other things that weren't so easily identified.

“Will you wait for me?” he asked again, when he'd finished his supper, carried his plate and silverware to the sink, rinsed them before dropping them into the dishwasher.

“I'll wait,” Julie heard herself say. It really wasn't such a noble sacrifice, after all. Unless she wanted to crowd poor Paige out of her bed, forcing her to sleep on the couch, there weren't a lot of choices.

Until the house she and Paige and Libby owned together was habitable, and that might be weeks, she really didn't have anywhere to go.

“When will you leave?” she asked, when Garrett stood behind her chair, instead of sitting down again, and began to massage her shoulders.

“Probably tomorrow,” he answered. “The funeral will be held in a few days, and Nan has meetings scheduled with the governor and various state legislators.”

Julie frowned. “Meetings? The same week as her husband's funeral?”

“She's a strong woman,” Garrett said.

Or a cold one,
Julie thought, though she immediately decided she was being unfair. Morgan Cox had, after all, been embroiled in an embarrassing and steamy scandal when he died.

She glanced toward the doorway where Calvin had appeared earlier and lowered her voice, just in case he was eavesdropping again. Or still.

“Well, she's certainly a better woman than I am,” she said. “If that had happened to me, about the last thing in the world I'd be doing would be jumping in to fill the man's seat in the Senate.”

Garrett took her hand, rubbed his thumb lightly, musingly, over her knuckles. “Nobody,” he said gravely, “is a better woman than you are, Julie Remington.”

“Now,” she said, struggling against an insane need to break down and cry, preferably sitting on Garrett's lap, with her face buried in his neck, “you're just flattering me.”

He held on to her hand, raised it to his mouth, retraced with his lips the path he'd taken earlier with his thumb.

Hot, shivery shards of wanting poked and prodded Julie from within.

“Don't,” she pleaded.

He didn't release her immediately.

She made no effort to pull away.

Austin made a great deal of noise to let them know he was approaching the kitchen; appeared with his plate and silverware and his usual heartrending grin. Coupled with the sadness lurking behind the sparkle in his eyes, the effect was powerful.

“Cal's asleep on the couch,” he confided, crossing the room to set the plate and silverware in the sink.

“I'd better get him to bed,” Julie said, unable to keep from sighing softly as she rose from her chair. “He has a tendency to get overexcited anyway, and when he's sick…”

Garrett got up.

A look passed between him and Austin, who lingered at the sink, though he didn't rinse his dishes. He just leaned against the counter, his arms folded, and watched his brother thoughtfully.

“If you need any help while Garrett's gone,” Austin said presently, when his brother had disappeared into the living room to fetch Calvin, “just let me know. I'll be glad to lend a hand.”

It was a brotherly offer, nothing more.

Julie couldn't help visualizing Paige and Austin standing side by side.

They'd be wonderful together, she thought whimsically. He had pale brown hair, while Paige's was dark. His eyes were the standard McKettrick blue, hers a deep and vibrant brown.

They would have the most beautiful children.

“Do I have something on my face?” Austin asked, with a grin.

Embarrassed, Julie laughed and shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to stare. I was just thinking—”

Would she have told him what she was thinking—that he and Paige would have made a great couple—if Garrett hadn't come back just then, with a sleepy Calvin in his arms and Harry at his heels?

Probably not.

“Want me to carry the dog downstairs?” Austin asked his brother.

Garrett looked from Austin to Julie and back again. And he frowned, not in an angry way, but in a thoughtful one.

“I'd appreciate it,” he said.

Julie, suddenly in a hurry to be on the move, led the way out of Garrett's apartment and down the stairs to the main kitchen.

Garrett followed, carrying Calvin, and Austin came as far as the foot of the staircase, where he set Harry down and immediately retreated again.

She watched from the doorway of Calvin's room as Garrett took his glasses off, put him into bed and gently tucked the covers in around him.

The boy stirred. “'Night, Garrett,” he said.

“'Night, buddy,” Garrett replied, his voice throaty.

“You going away?” Calvin asked, in a sleepy murmur.

“For a few days,” Garrett answered, “but I'll be back.” He glanced at Julie, still hovering on the threshold.

“For sure?” Calvin mumbled, as Harry leaped onto the bed to curl up behind his knees.

“You have my word,” Garrett said.

Calvin opened his eyes just long enough to look at Garrett and smile. “Good,” he said. “That's good.”

Garrett lingered a moment, stroking Calvin's hair back from his face with a light pass of one hand. Then, just when Julie was beginning to think she couldn't bear the sheer wonder of the sight of the two of them together for another moment, Garrett stood, crossed to her, steered her out into the hallway.

Very quietly, he closed the door.

When Julie started for the sitting room, though, he stopped her.

Pulled her against him.

His hands rested on her backside, deliciously possessive.

Julie whimpered, full of sweet despair, but she didn't try to pull away. She was pretty sure she didn't have the strength—or the willpower—to do that.

And Garrett kissed her.

His lips touched hers, gently at first, then with unmistakable hunger.

Julie still didn't pull away. No, indeed, she slipped her arms around Garrett's neck and rose onto the balls of her feet to kiss him back.

“I'm staying,” he told her, when they both had to breathe.

“Calvin—” Julie whispered back.

“We'll be quiet,” Garrett said. And he pulled her straight into the other bedroom, the one where she'd expected to spend a miserable and lonely night.

Life was full of surprises.

Garrett
was full of surprises.

Julie's heart was thudding away in her throat. “But—”

He closed the door, turned the lock.

“What if we
can't
be quiet?” she asked.

Garrett hauled her shirt off over her head and tossed it aside. Took a moment to trace the round tops of her breasts, rising above her bra, with the tip of one finger.

“We can be quiet,” he assured her.

“Speak for yourself,” Julie argued, remembering the primitive, gasping
desperation
of the climaxes she'd had the last time she and Garrett made love. He knew just where to touch her, just
how
to touch her.

Garrett chuckled. Then he removed her bra. Weighed her bare breasts in his hands, chafing the nipples to tingling hardness with the sides of his thumbs.

Julie moaned, but very softly, because Garrett muffled her cry with another bone-melting kiss.

She felt a lot of things in the next few moments—confusion and hope and, of course, the fierce and rising need for completion.

Garrett kissed her for a long time, using plenty of tongue, a harbinger of things to come, and then he bent his head and boldly took one of her nipples into his mouth to suckle.

Julie gasped with pleasure, but softly, and leaned back, supported by the steely strength of the arm he'd curved around her waist, giving herself up to him. The more vulnerable she was to Garrett's lips and his tongue, the better it felt.

He turned to her other breast, taking his sweet time to enjoy her pleasure as well as his own, but when he eased her down onto the bed, sideways, Julie knew what was going to happen, knew she wouldn't stop him.

Knew she would soar.

“Shhh,” he said, getting her naked. Arranging her on the edge of the mattress, parting her legs, nibbling the insides of her thighs.

She trembled, murmured his name, groped for him with her hands.

“Shhh,” Garrett said again. He nipped at her, the way he had that other time, but this time, there were no jeans to serve as a buffer, and no underpants, either.

“Oh, God,” Julie whimpered.

He parted her.

“Garrett—”

He slid his left hand up her body, pausing to squeeze gently at one breast and then the other, fondling them.

“Hold on,” he said. “The ride is just about to start.”

That was when he put his mouth on her, and drew her in,
and the pleasure was so great that her hips flew upward, seeking him, wanting more. She covered her mouth with both hands, to hold in cries of frantic welcome, and surrendered.

Garrett put his hands under her, lifted her to his mouth, held her there.

She needed him more and then still more, but she didn't dare move her hands, even to beg, because she knew she'd yell fit to raise the roof.

The build was excruciating—Garrett knew when she reached the edge and he eased up, whispering against her most tender flesh. Then he would tease her a little, with the tip of his tongue, and then—

When, at long last, Garrett let her have the orgasm he'd been taunting her with, Julie's entire body buckled in the grip of it. Grasping at Garrett, tangling her fingers in his hair, she gave a long, low, keening wail of satisfaction.

The climax was protracted, a series of ferocious spasms, and Garrett granted Julie no quarter. He devoured her, drove her to peak after peak, even when she was sure she couldn't endure the climb again.

The lovemaking that followed was alternately fevered and sacred.

It was very late—or very early—when Garrett awakened Julie from a deep, sated sleep to kiss her goodbye.

She cried, not only because he was going away, because even then she knew that everything would change after this night.

Probably forever.

Three Days Later

T
HE FUNERAL WAS RELATIVELY DIGNIFIED
, Garrett thought, considering the national media attention surrounding
Senator Morgan Cox's short, spectacular fall from grace, followed so soon by his dramatic death.

There were plenty of mourners—Mandy Chante being notably absent—and although the press was in attendance, they had the decency to keep their distance, at least until the services were over.

Following the solemn church ceremony, the gleaming, flower-draped casket was lifted into a hearse and taken to the private side of the Austin airport, then loaded into the cargo hold of a private jet. The plane was provided by certain powerful political interests Garrett preferred not to think about.

He was putting one foot in front of the other, that was all.

Showing up and suiting up, as his high school athletic coach used to put it.

Since leaving the ranch, he'd had several job offers, all of which were high profile, but none were more promising than Nan's. She would serve out the remaining two years of the senator's term as an appointee, but all the while, she and the bosses would be grooming
him,
Garrett, to run in the next election.

Young as he was, Nan had reasoned, Garrett was well known in the state, thanks to his time on Morgan's staff. Plus, he was from an influential Texas family.

Garrett McKettrick, United States senator.

It had a ring to it.

And yet he couldn't stop thinking about Julie Remington, her little boy and the Silver Spur.

Some women, he knew, would have been impressed by his shining future in government.

Julie was not one of those.

Then there was the Silver Spur. Austin still didn't want
to believe that Tate was serious about either turning the ranch back into the family enterprise it had been since Clay McKettrick founded it in the early 1900s or just calling it quits, but Garrett knew that was a fact.

Tate was as much a McKettrick as any of them, and he loved the Silver Spur.

He just loved Libby and the twins more, that was all.

Garrett couldn't blame him for that.

Nan, buckling in beside him aboard the borrowed jet, elbowed him lightly in the ribs. The kids were all present, the older ones talking quietly among themselves or just thinking their own thoughts, the smaller ones overseen by attentive nannies.

“All this will be over soon,” the widow said.

Her eyes were clear, though red-rimmed from private weeping, and Garrett couldn't help thinking what a class act she was. She was, in fact, downright noble.

Garrett managed a smile, patted her hand. He was a good talker, but right then, he couldn't think of one damn thing to say.

“You'll want to find a place in the Washington area,” Nan told him quietly. She paused, looking out the window as the jet taxied along the runway, building up speed for take-off. “I plan to spend a lot more time on the job than Morgan ever did.”