McKettricks of Texas: Tate

He drew her close, held her tightly, his chin propped on the top of her head.

They were still standing there, minutes later, not a word having passed between them, when Esperanza returned, the front of her dress soaked, her lustrous, gray-streaked hair coming down from its pins. Barking and the laughter of little girls sounded in the distance.

“The dogs,” Esperanza told Tate breathlessly, “they are in the bathtub, with the children.”

Tate sighed in benign exasperation, then stepped away from Libby. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. As he passed Esperanza, he laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezed.

“These children,” Esperanza fretted. “I am too old—”

Libby hurried over to help the other woman into a chair at the table. Brought her a glass of water.

“Are you all right?”

Esperanza hid her face in her hands, and her shoulders began to shake.

It took Libby a moment to realize the woman was laughing, not crying.

Relieved, Libby laughed, too.

Tears of mirth gleamed on Esperanza’s smooth brown cheeks, and she used the hem of her apron to wipe them away.

Then, crossing herself, she said, “It is just like the old days, when the boys were young. Always in trouble, the three of them.”

Tate returned, pausing in the doorway to take in the scene. Like most men, he was probably wary of female emotion unleashed.

Libby took in every inch of him.

Tate McKettrick, all grown up, was still trouble.

The kind it was impossible to resist.

CHAPTER FIVE

LIBBY WAS UP EARLY the next morning, feeling rested even though she’d only had a few hours’ sleep. After driving her home and walking her to her front door the night before, like the gentleman he could be but sometimes wasn’t, Tate had kissed her again, and the effects of that tender, tentative touch of their mouths still tingled on her lips.

The sun was just peeking over the eastern horizon when she took Hildie for the first walk the poor dog had enjoyed since Ambrose and Buford had come to stay with them weeks before. It was good to get back into their old routine.

All up and down Libby’s quiet, tree-lined street, lawn sprinklers turned, making that reassuring chucka-chuck sound, spraying diamonds over emerald-green grass. Hildie stopped for the occasional sniff at a fence post or a light pole or a patch of weeds—Julie, joint owner, along with Calvin, of a surprisingly active three-legged beagle named Harry, would have said the dog was reading her p-mail.

As Libby and Hildie passed Brent Brogan’s house, a small split-level rancher with a flower-filled yard and a picket fence, Gerbera stepped out of the front door, bundled in a summery blue-print bathrobe, and hiked along the walk to get the newspaper.