McKettricks of Texas: Tate (19 page)

“If I don’t get some sleep,” Tate said, with a shake of his head, “I won’t be good for much of anything tomorrow, so I’ll pass on the java this time.”

“All right,” Brent replied, opening the door of the cruiser, keyring in hand. When he hesitated, Tate knew his friend had more to say. “I spoke to Isabel Ruiz,” Brogan went on. “She’s going to L.A., all right, moving in with her sister.”

The decision seemed hasty, but in the final analysis, it wasn’t his business what Isabel did. So Tate merely nodded, opened the door of his truck and climbed in. It hurt to imagine that sturdy but humble house, buzzing with life and laughter for as long as he could remember, standing empty,
with just the whisper of the creek or a passing wind to break the silence.

Pablo was gone for good; that was something he had to come to terms with in much the same way he’d had to accept the loss of his mom and dad. Things changed, that was the one thing a man could count on, and folks came and went, and you never knew when the last thing you’d said to them, or failed to say, might really be the last chance you were ever going to get, one way or the other.

On the lonely drive back to the ranch, through a sultry summer night, Tate missed his old dog even more than usual. It would have been a fine thing to have Crockett riding shotgun, as he’d done before, a sympathetic listener with his ears perked up and his eyes warm with canine devotion.

Had Crockett been there, Tate would have told him how worried he was about Audrey and Ava, and the way they were growing up, bouncing back and forth between two different houses. He’d have said what a hard thing it was knowing Pablo had died so senselessly, hard, too, wondering if he could have prevented what happened somehow, and if his friend had suffered or had had time to be afraid before the end came.

He might even have said that he loved Libby, not in the fevered, grasping way of a boy, as he had before, but hard and strong and steady, in the way of a man, but he’d rather do without her for the rest of his days than risk hurting her again.

Tate might have said a lot of things to Crockett that night, but all that actually came out of his mouth was a quiet, “I sure do miss you, old dog.”

B
Y THE NEXT DAY
, Libby was entirely recovered from her mother’s unexpected visit the night before, and
mostly
over
making such an idiot of herself out at the Ruizes’ place after Pablo’s funeral.

She rarely did anything impulsive—she couldn’t afford the luxury—but that bright summer morning, after she and Hildie had taken their walk, Libby decided not to open the Perk Up for business at the usual time.

Today, she just felt like playing hooky.

So she scribbled a message on a piece of yellow-lined paper, crossed the alley and let herself into the shop by the back way, passed through the kitchen into the main area and taped the sign to the glass in the front door.

CLOSED FOR REPAIRS, the notice read. BACK BY NOON. PROBABLY.

The “repairs” Libby needed to make weren’t the kind that required wrenches and screwdrivers, and while she fully intended to be serving coffee and smoothies and scones, if Julie had baked any, by midday, she wasn’t sure that would happen. That was why she’d added the “probably”—to give herself an out if the need should arise.

Back home, Libby switched her shorts and tank top for her best jeans and a sleeveless blue cotton blouse, then put on a pair of comfortable sandals. Brushed her hair, leaving it loose instead of binding it back in the usual ponytail, and applied some lip gloss.

Hildie, munching kibble in the kitchen when her mistress jingled the car keys in invitation, looked up, cocked both ears as she considered her options and promptly went back to eating her breakfast.

Libby smiled at that. “I’ll be back soon,” she promised, stroking the dog’s broad back with one hand before heading out the door.

Standing on the back porch, she looked around her yard
and wished she hadn’t let the shrubs and flower beds get so out of hand. She’d never been much of a gardener, mostly because she’d never had the time, but now she felt a new and strangely keen longing to get her hands dirty, to weed and water and plant things just to watch them grow.

First, of course, she’d have to prepare the ground, and that would be a big job, one that might take weeks. By the time she’d finished, folks around Blue River would probably be fertilizing and tilling their garden plots under, to lie fallow until spring, when the nursery section down at the feed store would be awash in starter plants and brightly colored seed packets.

Before getting into her car and backing it into the alley, she looked under dusty tarps in the detached garage until she found her dad’s old push-mower. The blades were probably dull; maybe later, she’d heft the ancient apparatus into the trunk of the Impala and take it out to Chudley Wilkes for sharpening. When he wasn’t running his one-taxi empire, Chudley fixed things.

Just
thinking
about mowing the lawn empowered Libby a little, though she supposed she’d be whistling a different tune once she’d made a few swipes through the high grass. As kids, she and Julie and Paige had taken turns doing yard chores, and she remembered the blisters, the muscle aches and all the rest.

They’d begged their dad to invest in a gas-powered mower, but he’d said hard work and exercise were good for the character. Of course, he hadn’t been able to afford fancy equipment, especially with three young daughters to raise.

With a pang, Libby paused to pat the dusty handle. Indeed, hard work and exercise
were
good for the character—and she’d get a sense of accomplishment, the incomparable scent of fresh-cut grass and a tighter backside out of the deal.

Chudley’s place was in the opposite direction from where she was headed, and stopping there would delay the opening of her coffee shop by at least an hour, but Libby popped open the Impala’s trunk and hoisted the mower inside anyway. It was heavier than it looked, that machine, and the handles stuck out, so the trunk wouldn’t close again.

She’d just have to alter her plans slightly, Libby concluded, after standing there in the alley biting her lower lip for a few moments. She’d drop the mower off at Chudley’s first, then go on about her business. If Wilkes happened to be going through one of his ambitious phases—these were famously rare—the machine might be ready to cut grass later in the day.

Libby got behind the wheel, cranked up the engine and jostled off down the alley, wincing every time she hit a bump, causing the lid of the trunk to slam down on the shaft of the mower.

The Wilkes’s home, two trailers welded together sometime in the fifties and surrounded by what seemed like acres of rusted-out cars, treadless tires and miscellaneous parts of God-knew-what, had been an eyesore for so long that folks around Blue River had long since stopped getting up petitions to force Chudley and his wife, Minnie, to clean the place up.

Libby pulled into the gravel driveway and waited a few moments before pushing open her car door, since Chudley had been known to keep mean guard dogs and once, reportedly, even an ostrich that might have killed the UPS man if Minnie hadn’t rushed outside and driven it off with a broom handle.

Outsiders might have scoffed at that tale, thinking the odds were in the big bird’s favor. Anybody who thought that had never met Minnie Wilkes.

She stepped out onto the sagging porch, wiping her hands on a faded apron and squinting, probably trying to place the green Impala. Six feet tall, with shoulders like a linebacker’s, Minnie was a formidable sight, even pushing eighty, as she must have been.

Libby got out of the car. Smiled and waved. “It’s me, Mrs. Wilkes,” she called. “Libby Remington.”

A blinding smile broke across Minnie’s face. In her youth, the story went, she’d been quite a looker. Nobody’d ever been able to work out what caused her to throw in her lot with a little banty-rooster like Chudley. “Will’s girl? Well, now, you’ve turned out just fine, haven’t you? You still smitten with Jim and Sally McKettrick’s oldest boy?”

Libby felt a little pinch inside her heart. Was
smitten
the word? “I see him around town,” she said, approaching the gate, with its rusted hinges and weathered wooden latch, then hesitating. “Is that ostrich still around?”

Minnie’s laugh boomed out over the seemingly endless expanse of junk. “Now there’s a yarn that got right out of hand,” she said, still standing on the porch. “Started out with one cussed old rooster, too stringy for the stewpot. Stubby—that was the rooster—went after the UPS man, right enough. But by the time that driver got through spreadin’ the story around Blue River and half the county, I’ll be darned if poor old Stub wasn’t seven feet tall and a whole different kind of bird.”

Libby smiled, started to open the gate.

Minnie stopped her. “You just stay right there, honey. We got another rooster pecking around here somewheres, and he might come at you, spurs out and screechin’ like a banshee, if he don’t happen to like your looks or somethin’.”

Libby shaded her eyes and waited for her heartbeat to
slow down, so her words wouldn’t come out sounding shaky. “I was hoping Chudley could sharpen my lawn-mower blades,” she said.

“He’ll do it,” Minnie said, with a decisive nod. “He’s out on a taxi run just now, takin’ Mrs. Beale home from the supermarket—she bought more than she could carry in that little pushcart of hers again—but he ought to be back soon.
One Life to Live
is fixin’ to come on any minute now, and Chud never misses it.”

Libby went around to the back of the car to unload the mower. Minnie, who had a light step for such a big woman, appeared beside her, elbowed her aside and lifted the all-metal machine from the trunk as easily as if it were a child’s toy, made of plastic.

“I’d invite you in for a neighborly chat,” Minnie said, holding the mower off the ground with one hand, the way she might have held a rake or a hoe. “But Miss Priss had her kittens on the couch yesterday, and she ain’t ready to move them just yet. What with Chudley’s magazines and such, there’s no other place to sit.”

Libby smiled. “Thank you just the same,” she said. “But I’d have had to say ‘no’ anyway, because I’ve got so much to do today.”

Minnie, bless her, looked relieved. She was known as much for her pride as for her bad housekeeping, and Libby had always liked her. Wouldn’t have hurt her feelings or embarrassed her for anything.

“I’ll see that Chudley brings this here piece of machinery by your place later on,” Minnie said. “Good as new.”

Libby opened the car door, reached for her purse.

“Keep your money,” Minnie huffed, already trundling back through the gate, taking the mower along with her. “I
meant to send over one of my sugar pies when your daddy was sick, and I never got around to it. Always felt bad about that—Will Remington was a fine man—but if it ain’t one thing around here, it’s another. Anyhow, Chudley will fix this mower right and proper, and I’ll feel a sight better about not buildin’ that sugar pie.”

Libby’s eyes burned. She knew the Wilkeses could have used even the small amount of money Chudley probably charged for sharpening the blades of a push lawn mower, but she wouldn’t have discounted Minnie’s belated but heartfelt condolence gift on any account. It would have been kinder to slap the woman across the face.

“Thank you, Mrs. Wilkes,” she said.

Minnie plunked the mower down next to the porch steps, which dipped visibly under her considerable weight. Her thick hair, dyed an unlikely shade of auburn and bobby-pinned into a messy knot on top of her head, bobbed a little when she spoke, as it might tumble down around her shoulders. “You’re a woman grown now,” she said, with firm good grace. “Old enough to call me Minnie, if it suits you.”

“Minnie,” Libby repeated. It
did
make her feel more like a mature adult, addressing an older woman of slight acquaintance by her given name.

By the time she added a “Goodbye” Minnie had already disappeared back inside the conjoined trailers. After all these years, the seam still showed, a brownish, welded ribbon wrapping the structure like a gift and stopping directly above the front door.

Libby got back into her car, backed slowly into the turnaround and pointed the Impala back down the driveway toward the county road.

There, she stopped and looked both ways. On the left was
an old porcelain toilet, red flowers—possibly geraniums—billowing from the bowl, riotous with well-being.

She smiled.

And to think people considered this place a blight upon the landscape.

A
WEEK HAD PASSED
since Pablo Ruiz’s funeral, and during that time, Tate McKettrick hadn’t called once. Maybe, Libby thought, watching as a rare and badly needed rain pelted the road out in front of the Perk Up, her dad had been right, in years past, when he used to moralize that there wasn’t much point in buying the cow when you could get the milk for free.

Libby sighed. A few days ago, she’d bitten the bullet and called Doc Pollack to ask for a prescription for birth control pills, which she’d filled at Wal-Mart, her cheeks burning with mortification. She knew every single person in Blue River, and they knew her, and it was just her luck that Ellie Newton, her high school nemesis, happened to be clerking in the pharmacy that day.

A brief scenario unfolded on the screen of Libby’s mind, in which Ellie switched on a microphone and announced to the whole store that, in case they hadn’t heard, Libby Remington was catting around with Tate McKettrick again. And after he’d made a fool of her in front of the whole county, too, throwing her over for that fancy woman he’d met in Austin.

Yes, folks, the imaginary version of Ellie Newton proclaimed in triumph, she had the proof right here, a little packet of pills.

While none of that
actually
happened, Libby would have sworn she’d seen just the tiniest spark of smug judgment in Ellie’s eyes as she rang up the purchase.

Ellie’s husband, Joe, worked on the Silver Spur as a ranch hand, Libby reflected; alone in the Perk Up with all the chores caught up, she had way too much time for introspection. Suppose Ellie had driven straight out there to the nice single-wide trailer she and Joe shared and told Joe that Libby was on birth control pills?
Further
suppose, Libby thought, gnawing on her lower lip, that Joe, hearing this news, went straight to his boss, none other than Tate McKettrick, and told
him?

Tate would think she was hot to trot, jumping right on the pill when they’d been to bed exactly once.

And maybe she
was
hot to trot. With Tate, anyway.

Libby pressed the fingertips of both hands to her temples. What was the big deal here? This wasn’t 1872. Consenting adults
had sex,
preferably responsible sex, all the time. And it wasn’t as if she planned to keep the pills a secret from Tate—she just wanted to be the one to tell him, that was all.

It didn’t help that business was slow.

A lot of Libby’s regular customers had gone on vacation—good Lord, did they travel in a
herd,
or something? Every year, it seemed they all left at once.

No tour buses passing through town en route to the Alamo or Six Flags or some art or music fest in Austin stopped at Libby’s place.

Even her sisters weren’t around much—Paige was working double shifts at the clinic, and Julie had been helping out at Calvin’s playschool, since the venerable Mrs. Oakland was recovering from an impacted wisdom tooth.

The McKettrick twins’ castle was due to be delivered soon—volunteer fathers had dug and poured a cement foundation for it, along with a well for a very shallow fishpond nearby. Unless Mrs. Oakland’s swelling went down soon, Julie would be in charge of the dedication ceremony.

All by her lonesome in the Perk Up, Libby wished the place had a jukebox, so she could have dropped some coins into the slot and played a sad song.

Instead, she checked the clock—4:37 p.m.—and made an executive decision; she’d close up early. Go home and let Hildie out for a run in the backyard.

Chudley had returned her lawn mower, sharpened and rust-free and ready to go, the day before. If the rain let up soon enough, she’d cut the grass.

If it didn’t, she’d clean out some of the flower beds. Maybe it was too late in the season to plant, but just pulling the weeds would be an improvement.

After locking up, Libby crossed the alley and let herself into her yard through the back gate. The dust-scented rain had slackened to a drizzle, and a cool breeze dissipated some of the humidity.

While Hildie was outside, Libby changed into shorts, a sleeveless sweatshirt and flip-flops. She poured kibble in the dog’s empty bowl, refilled her water dish and pushed open the screen door.

Hildie crunched happily away while Libby went outside, set her hands on her hips, and looked up at the gray sky. Texas had been in the grip of a drought for more than a decade, so any kind of precipitation was welcome, but her spirits dipped a little lower just the same.

The only sure remedy for the blues, at least in Libby’s experience, was physical work—if it brought out a sweat and
left her with achy muscles, so much the better. She hauled the mower out of the garage, considered the fact that it was made almost entirely of steel and put it back.

Work therapy was one thing.
Shock
therapy, courtesy of a lightning bolt, was another.

Hildie, finished with her supper, then scratched politely at the screen door from the inside.

Libby smiled, mounted the porch steps and let the dog out.

She was on her knees, pulling up weeds, when Hildie, lying under her favorite tree, out of the misty rain, rose to her haunches and gave an uncertain woof, more greeting than challenge.

Something tickled Libby’s nose, so she ran a gloved hand across her face before turning around, expecting to see Julie, or Paige or even Marva.

But it was Tate who stood watching her, a slight smile curving his mouth upward at one side. “Hey,” he said.

Libby swallowed.
If I filled a prescription for birth control pills, it’s my own business,
she thought. “Hey,” she replied, feeling stupid.

Tate hadn’t
mentioned
her prescription, had he? Most likely, Ellie hadn’t told Joe and therefore Joe couldn’t have told Tate. Ellie had been a mean gossip in high school, it was true, but that was years ago and besides, she’d found religion—and Joe—since then.

“I tried to call,” he said, when the silence stretched. “But you didn’t pick up.”

Libby hadn’t thought to check her voice mail when she came home from the Perk Up—she didn’t get that many calls. Paige and Julie usually just stopped by when they wanted to talk to her.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, her face heated.

Tate, wearing comfortable jeans, a T-shirt and old boots, crossed the grass and crouched beside her. “Well,” he drawled, “you can
relax,
for a start.”

Libby fought an insane urge to weep, and that used up any energy she might have employed in talking. Anyway, she was too afraid she’d say something even stupider than
What can I do for you?

Gently, Tate used the backs of his fingers to wipe a smudge of dirt from Libby’s cheek. “I’ve missed you, Lib,” he said. “A lot.”

She swallowed.

One of his powerful shoulders moved in a partial shrug. That ghost-of-a-grin touched down on his mouth again, and she noticed that his eyelashes were spiky from the moisture in the air. “The last time we were together,” he reminded her, “things didn’t go all that well.”

Libby stood up, telling herself it was because her knees were starting to cramp, and dusted her hands off against the damp fabric of her shorts.

Tate stood, too. His dark hair curled a little in the light rain.

It was all Libby could do not to bury her fingers in that hair. The thought made her flesh tingle, all over.

She raised her chin a notch, remembering the minor spectacle the two of them had made, out there in Pablo’s orchard after the funeral.

“I’ll apologize if you will,” she said.

Tate laughed. “Deal,” he said. Then he sobered, and the blue of his eyes seemed to intensify. “I’m sorry.”

Libby’s breath caught, just looking into those eyes. “Me, too.”

If black holes were that color, she thought, the entire universe would have been sucked into oblivion long ago.

“Maybe I could make it up to you with dinner,” Tate said.

Libby blinked, pulled herself back from the blue precipice. Looked down at her muddy shorts and T-shirt. “I’d have to change clothes first,” she heard some foolish woman say.

Tate grinned. “I was thinking of steaks at my place,” he told her. The grin rose to dance, mischievous, in his eyes. “We suspended the dress code years ago. In fact, we never really had one, unless you count Mom’s stubborn refusal to allow barn boots any farther than the back porch.”

“I can’t go like this,” Libby said, still serious. “I’m all muddy and—and sweaty.”

Tate chuckled. “All right,” he said, “if you’re going to insist, may I suggest that yellow dress? The one you wore the other night?”

Libby’s cheeks burned again. Right. The yellow dress he’d said he could see through—the one she’d been so eager to get out of, after making such a big, damn deal about how it was too soon to make love.

And now she had a packet of birth control pills in her medicine cabinet.

Libby pretended she hadn’t heard his suggestion and started for the house.

He chuckled.

Hildie, the traitor, hung back so she could walk with Tate.

While Tate waited in the kitchen with the dog, Libby headed for the bathroom. A glance at herself in the mirror over the sink made her shake her head.

A streak of good Texas garden dirt ran the length of her right cheek, and her hair, caught up in the customary ponytail, would frizz like crazy when she turned it loose.

She started the shower running, adjusting the faucets until she got just the right temperature—tepid, with the merest
hint of a chill. She used a lot of conditioner after shampooing, hoping her hair wouldn’t do its fright-wig thing.

Finished with her shower in record time, Libby dried off, pulled on her faded pink cotton robe, and collected clean jeans, fresh underwear, and a long-sleeved black and white T-shirt from her room.

Although she felt strangely rushed, she took the time to blow-dry her hair and even applied some mascara, though she skipped the lip gloss.

Just because she had birth control pills in her medicine cabinet didn’t mean she wanted to go sending “Seduce me” messages to Tate McKettrick by making her mouth all shiny and inviting.

Of course, if Tate hadn’t been in the picture, she wouldn’t have called Doc Pollack and then endured Ellie Newton’s studied indifference to get the prescription in the first place.

Gripping the edges of the sink, Libby looked at her steam-blurred image in the mirror.

“You’re
asking
for trouble, Libby Remington,” she told herself.

Then she opened the bathroom door and stepped into the hallway.

Mustn’t keep trouble waiting.

T
ATE LOADED
H
ILDIE INTO
the back seat of his truck, but although he’d opened the front passenger-side door for Libby, he stood back instead of helping her aboard, just so he could watch that sweet little ass in action, under the perfectly fitted jeans, as she made the climb.

Hot damn.
A silent groan reverberated through him.

“Are the girls at the ranch?” Libby asked, once she was settled and he was behind the wheel. Hildie leaned between
the seats and licked Tate’s right ear just as he turned the key in the ignition.

He laughed, not at the question but at the dog, and immediately drew a confused glance from Libby.

“No,” he said, as Hildie rested her muzzle on his shoulder and gave a contented little sigh. If only
all
females were so docile. “Audrey and Ava are in New York with their mother for a couple of days. Cheryl’s folks moved into an assisted-living place in Connecticut a few months back, and she’s putting their apartment on the market.”

Libby offered no comment, only a nod. She shifted uncomfortably in the seat—and Tate figured she’d probably been counting on having the kids around as a sort of buffer.

Esperanza, Garrett and Austin were all at the main house, as it happened, but Tate wasn’t taking Libby to the mansion. Where they were going, it would be just the two of them—and the old dog drooling on his shirt as he drove toward the outskirts of town.

“Are we going to talk?” Tate asked, when they’d traveled several miles in silence.

She smiled softly. “Do we need to?”

Damn. He wanted to pull over to the side of the road, right then and there, take Libby Remington into his arms and kiss her senseless.

“Probably,” he said hoarsely.

“About—?”

“Things,” Tate said, thrown by the scent of her, the warmth of her, the softness he could sense from three feet away, no touching necessary. Highly desirable, but not necessary.

“Things like—?”

“Like where we’re headed, you and I,” Tate said.

Libby’s smile was faint and a little saucy. “I assumed,
since you’re behind the wheel, that you had our destination all figured out.”

“That isn’t what I mean,” Tate said, mildly irritated, “and you know it.”

“Where are we going, Tate?” Libby asked, with exaggerated patience, of the smart-ass variety. There was an under-current of excitement there, too, unless he missed his guess.

“On one level,” Tate replied, “I’d say we’re on our way to a soft spot in some tall grass.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her blush, and took some satisfaction in that. “On another level—the long-range one—everything depends on you, Libby.”

Libby turned in her seat, her eyes flashing a little. He could see her nipples jutting against the inside of her blouse, so he figured she was up for the proposed tumble in the grass.

All right by him.

“Now, why would everything depend on me?” she asked, her eyes wide.

Tate didn’t give her an answer until he’d brought the truck to a stop at the edge of the yard that had been Pablo and Isabel’s for so long.

“You’re the one with all the forgiving to do, Lib,” he said, gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead through the windshield. The lumber and other building supplies he’d been buying and hauling out from town all week waited, moist from the drizzling rain.

Libby turned slightly in the seat, gently eased Hildie back, off his shoulder. “Tate McKettrick,” she said, “look at me.”