McKettricks of Texas: Tate (9 page)

Libby did remember, of course, and she might have broken down and cried herself, if Calvin hadn’t yelled, at that precise moment, “I see one! I see a customer!”

Pablo’s smiling face lingered in Libby’s mind. She’d tried to pay him once, for taking care of the yard, and he’d refused with a shake of his head and a quiet, heavily accented, “Friends help friends. Mr. Remington, he helped our Mercedes with her schoolwork. Nico, too, when he was applying for scholarships. It is a privilege to do what little I can. “

“The scones!” Julie blurted out, suddenly remembering that they were done, and rushed to pull a baking sheet from the oven.

Despite an almost overwhelming sense of loss, there was
work to be done. Libby straightened her shoulders and headed for the espresso machine again.

The customer Calvin had announced turned out to be Tate McKettrick, and he looked, as the old-timers liked to say, as if he’d been dragged backward through a knothole in the outhouse wall.

“I’m so sorry about Pablo,” Libby said, wanting to go to him, take him in her arms, but uncertain of the reception she’d get if she did. The old sparks were definitely back, but she and Tate were older now and things were different. They had adult responsibilities—the shop for her, the children for Tate.

He was pale, he hadn’t shaved—which only made him
more
attractive, in Libby’s opinion—and his clothes, the same ones he’d worn the night before at supper, looked rumpled. What was he doing here, in the Perk Up, on the morning after he’d lost a dear friend and long-time employee?

He acknowledged her words of condolence with a nod. Shoved a hand through his hair. “It’s either strong coffee,” he said, “or a fifth of Jack Daniels. I figured the coffee would be a better choice.”

“Sit down,” Libby said, indicating the stools in front of the counter. “Where are the girls, Tate?”

He sat. Rested his forearms on the countertop. “With Esperanza. I haven’t told them about Pablo yet—but of course they know something’s going on…”

Calvin hurried over. “We’re getting a
castle
at the community center, Mr. McKettrick,” he announced exuberantly. “And I’m running for king.”

“I heard about the castle,” Tate said, with a wan smile. For a moment, his weary gaze connected with Libby’s. “I didn’t know there was going to be a special election, though.”

“Only kids can vote,” Calvin said importantly. “
Little
kids, who go to playschool. The big ones don’t even know we’re going to elect a king.”

“Ah,” Tate said, “a coup. I’m impressed.”

“What’s a koo?” Calvin asked.

Tate sighed.

“Never mind, Calvin,” Libby interceded gently. “Go back to your table and watch for customers.”

“Why?” He pointed to Tate. “We’ve already
got
one.”

Tate chuckled at that, but it was a raw, broken sound, and hearing it made the backs of Libby’s eyes burn.

“Calvin,” she said evenly, but with affection, “I
said
never mind.”

“Jeez,” Calvin protested, flinging his arms out from his sides and then letting them fall back with a slight slapping sound. “People talk to me like I’m a
baby
or something, and I’m
four years old.
”

“Go figure,” Tate said, with appropriate sympathy.

Libby set a cup of black coffee in front of Tate.

Calvin stalked back to his post to keep watch, clearly disgusted and probably still wondering what a coup was.

“That kid,” Tate remarked, after taking an appreciative sip of the coffee, “is way too smart. Is he really only four—or is he forty, and short for his age?”

The way Tate said “kid,” reflected Libby, was a 180 from the way Jubal Tabor did. Why was that?

“Tell me about it,” Julie interjected before Libby could respond, as she came out of the kitchen and set a plate of fresh scones in front of Tate, along with a little bowl of butter pats in foil wrapping. She’d wiped the flour smears from her face at some point, and even with the pallor of shock replacing the usual pink in her cheeks, she was radiantly lovely. “Eat these, McKettrick. You look like hell warmed over. Twice.”

“You always had a way with words, Jules,” he replied. But, his big hands shaking almost but not quite imperceptibly, he opened two pats of butter, sliced a steaming scone in two, and smeared it on. “And with cooking.”

Libby was seized by a sudden, fiercely irrational jealousy, gone as quickly as it came, fortunately. No matter how many new recipes she tried, how many chef shows and demonstrations she watched on satellite TV, taking notes and doing her best to follow instructions, when it came to cooking, she was doomed to be below average.

She was, she supposed, painfully ordinary.

Julie was the gypsy sister, with many and varied talents, of which baking was only one. She could sing, dance and act. Her scones were already drawing in customers, and if she ever made her float-away biscuits, folks would break down the door to get at them. She was great with kids—
all
kids, from her students to Calvin.

On top of all that, Julie had the kind of looks that made men stop and stare, even when they’d known her all their lives.

Paige, the baby of the family, was the smart one, the cool, competent one. And she was just as beautiful as Julie, though in a different way.

Libby bit her lower lip. As for her—well—she was just the
oldest.

She was passably pretty, but she couldn’t carry a tune, let alone perform in professional theater companies, singing and dancing in shows people paid money to see—spectacular productions of
Cats
and
Phantom of the Opera
and
Kiss Me, Kate,
as Julie had done periodically, during her college years.

She didn’t shine in a life-and-death emergency, like Paige.

And why was she even thinking thoughts like this, when
Pablo Ruiz, a man she’d liked and deeply respected, had just died—and long before his time, too?

“I don’t see a single customer!” Calvin reported, his voice ringing across the shop.

“Keep looking,” Julie counseled. “There’s got to be one out there somewhere.”

Libby was still watching Tate. Even wan and worn, with his dark beard growing in and his hair furrowed because he’d probably been raking his fingers through it all night, as all the ramifications of Pablo’s death unfolded, he was a sight to stop her breath and make her heart skitter.

Here was
her
claim to fame, she thought gloomily.

She’d been dumped by Tate McKettrick.

For six months after the breakup, people had sent her cheery little cards and notes, most acting out of kindness, a few taking a passive-aggressive pleasure in her downfall. Her father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer by then—the dying by inches part would come later—but no one had mentioned her dad, in person or on paper. They’d written or said things like, “You’ll find someone else when the time is right” and “It wasn’t meant to be” and “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Like hell. She’d been blindsided by Tate’s betrayal. Fractured by it.

And here she was, letting him back in her life when she knew—
knew
what he could do to her.

While Libby was reconciling herself to reality, Julie collected her purse, jingled her car keys to attract Calvin’s attention. “Time for playschool, buddy,” she said. She squeezed Tate’s shoulder as she passed him and promised Libby she’d be back in no time. If she needed scones for the midmorning rush—
if
she needed scones?—there were four
dozen in the kitchen; Julie had baked them at home the night before, as promised.

As soon as Julie and Calvin had gone, Tate got off his stool, walked to the door, turned the “Open” sign to “Closed,” and twisted the knob to engage the dead bolt.

Libby didn’t utter a word of protest. She took the stool next to his, once he’d come back to the counter, and leaned his way a little so their upper arms just barely touched.

“Want to tell me what happened, cowboy?” she asked, very softly.

“Yeah,” Tate said, pushing away his plate, now that he’d eaten the scones. He didn’t meet her gaze, though. He just stared off into the void for a long time, saying nothing, though Libby saw his throat work a couple of times, while he struggled to control his emotions.

Libby simply waited.

“The dogs started raising hell, about half an hour after I went to bed,” he told her, when he was ready. “They woke up Audrey and Ava, of course, since all four of them were bunking together. I went to see what was going on—I thought there was an intruder in the house or something, the way those mutts carried on. As soon as I opened the door to the girls’ room, the pups shot past me, baying like bloodhounds picking up a strong scent. They ran down the stairs and straight to the kitchen—by the time I got there, they were hurling themselves at the back door like they’d bust it down to get out if they had to.” He paused, drank the dregs of his coffee, but stopped Libby with a touch to her arm when she started to get up and go around the counter to get the pot and pour him a refill. After a long time, he continued. “Esperanza was awake by then, too, of course, and she kept the kids and the dogs inside while I went out to have a
look around. I saw that the lights were on in the barn, and I’d turned them off after I checked on the horses an hour earlier, but I figured one of the ranch hands was out there, meaning to bunk in the hayloft. The younger ones do that sometimes, when they’ve had a fight with a wife or a girlfriend or gotten a little too drunk to go home.”

He paused again then, swallowed hard, gazed bleak-eyed into that same invisible distance.

Once more, Libby bided her time. For Tate, not a talkative man, this wasn’t just an accounting of what had taken place, it was a verbal epic, a virtual diatribe. Normally, he probably didn’t say that much in half a day, never mind a few short minutes.

“I was pretty sure the dogs were just skittish because they’re pups, and in a new place with new people,” Tate went on presently. “They’d probably heard a rig drive in, I figured, and felt called upon to bark their damn fool heads off. I went outside, and I saw Pablo’s company truck parked between the barn and that copse of oak trees.”

Libby waited, seeing the scene Tate described as vividly as if she’d been there herself.

“It wasn’t unusual for Pablo to turn up at the barn, even late at night—he didn’t need much sleep and since he always had some project going on at his place, he stopped by often to borrow tools, equipment, things like that.” Tate sighed. “I checked the barn, and Pablo wasn’t inside, though all the horses were jumpy as hell, and, like I said, the lights were on. I headed for the truck, and I was nearly run down by a big paint stallion—that horse came out of nowhere.

“Pablo and I had talked about buying the stud if it went up for sale. We were going to turn him loose on the range, let him breed and see if any of the mares threw color—”

Libby touched Tate’s arm, felt a shudder go through him. “Take your time,” she said, very quietly.

“Pablo
had
bought that stallion,” he went on, after swallowing a couple of times. “He picked him up from the buyer and brought him over, probably planning on leaving him in the holding pen until morning, when we could have the vet come and look the paint over before—”

Libby closed her eyes for a moment. By then, she’d guessed what was coming next.

Tate looked tormented. It seemed like a long time passed before he went on. “I found Pablo on the ground, behind the trailer, trampled to death.”

Sorrow swelled in Libby’s throat, aching there. Such accidents weren’t uncommon, even among experienced men like Pablo Ruiz. Horses—especially stallions—were powerful animals, easily spooked and always unpredictable.

“I’m sorry, Tate,” Libby said. “I’m so sorry.”

He nodded, made a visible effort to center himself in the present moment.

The blue of his eyes deepened to the color of new denim and, very briefly, Libby pondered the mystery of why a loving God would give dark, thick lashes like that to a man instead of some deserving woman who would have appreciated them.

Like her, for instance.

Tate rose from the stool, stood so close to Libby that she could feel the heat of his skin, even through his clothes. She felt an irrational and almost overwhelming need to lead Tate to some private place, where the two of them could lie down, hold each other until things made sense again.

“How’s Isabel?” Libby asked.

Tate had his truck keys out, but he hadn’t moved toward the door. His concern for Pablo’s widow was almost pal
pable. “She’ll be all right in time, I guess,” he said. “Esperanza checks on her every so often. Nico’s been out of the country on business, but he’ll be here as soon as he can.”

Libby nodded.

Tate hesitated, then touched her face lightly with the backs of the fingers of his right hand. “Wish I could hold you,” he said.

Talk about that old-time feelin’.

Libby choked up, and her eyes burned. “Probably not the best idea,” she said, when she could manage the words. “You need to get some rest, and I have a business to run.”

Tate dropped his hand to his side. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d better get out of here. Esperanza’s wonderful with the kids, but she can’t say no to them. By now, they may have conscripted her and half the ranch hands to dig a moat around the castle.”

Libby smiled slightly at the picture his words brought to mind, followed him to the door, and then outside, into the hot, dry sunshine beating down on the sidewalk and buckling the asphalt in the road.

“You’ll call if you need anything?” she said, when Tate opened the door of his dusty truck to get behind the wheel.

He arched an eyebrow, and one corner of his mouth quirked upward, so briefly that Libby knew she might have imagined it. “You walked right into that one,” he said. Then he leaned forward, kissed her briefly on the mouth, and got into his truck. “See you soon,” he said.

See you soon.

“Come over and have supper with me tonight,” she said, because she’d had to let go of Tate McKettrick one too many times in her life, and this time she couldn’t. “Six o’clock,” she hastened to add. “Bring the kids.”