McKettricks of Texas: Austin

Austin smiled and rubbed his chin with one hand, hoping it wouldn’t start itching before morning, when he could reasonably shave.

Just sitting there, thinking his own thoughts and mostly at peace, the way he generally was around dogs and horses, he almost missed the movement in the doorway of the barn, would have disregarded it as an illusion if Shep hadn’t growled once and low-crawled out from under the cot to stand guard.

“Best show yourself,” Austin advised the unknown visitor mildly, rising to his feet with a lot less ease than he would have liked. “It’ll save us all some grief—you, me and the dog.”

No answer.

He rubbed the back of his neck and waited. How long would it be until the pills kicked in, anyhow? Austin wasn’t exactly hurting, but he was stiff as hell, and in all the wrong places, too.

The shadow in the darkened doorway resolved itself into a small and enticing shape.

“It’s me,” Paige said. From the tone of her voice, she was a little surprised to find herself in that barn, after nightfall, with all the lights shut off. Maybe even more surprised than Austin was to see her there.

He felt the right corner of his mouth kick up in a grin, as his heart staggered like a drunk and slammed against his rib cage before righting itself.

A shaft of moonlight found its way in through a high window way up there in the hayloft and Paige passed through it, a goddess in blue jeans and a pullover sweater, moving slowly toward him.

Shep had long since given up growling by then, and taken to wagging his tail instead.

Paige bent to muss the dog’s ears, then straightened and looked up into Austin’s face. “Did you hurt yourself?”

He couldn’t stop grinning. Good thing it was dark in that barn—mostly. There was that liquid-silver moonlight spilling in, but things were cast in angled shadows.

“Hurt myself? How would I have done that?”

She might have been flustered; there was no telling, since he couldn’t really see her face and her tone of voice wasn’t giving away much of anything. “Earlier, when you lifted Calvin so he could pet the horse?”

“Oh, that,” Austin said. He splayed the fingers of his right hand and pushed them through his hair, just to be doing something other than grabbing Paige Remington by the shoulders and kissing her until her knees buckled. Right then, that was about all he wanted to do.

She saved him from temptation by stepping away to stand in front of Molly’s stall door. There was enough light to see that the mare was on her feet, crunching away on the scoop of sweet feed Austin had given her just before cutting the lights.

Molly wanted for some fattening up, and a few alfalfa pellets now and again would probably do the trick.

Austin didn’t move from where he stood. This was one of those pivotal moments, he figured, where one wrong move could change the whole course of his life—and Paige’s, too.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. His voice was as rough as if he’d taken sandpaper to his vocal cords. “Right now, I mean. In the barn. This late and everything.”