McKettricks of Texas: Tate

Libby swallowed hard and then nodded.

He left.

She hurried to lock the door again, turned the “Closed” sign to the street, and stood there, watching Tate stride toward his truck, so broad-shouldered and strong and confident.

What was it like, Libby wondered, to live as though you owned the whole world?

On the off chance that Tate might glance in her direction again, once he’d finished handing the cups through the window of his truck to the girls, Libby quickly turned away.

She took the day’s profits from the till—such as they were—and tucked the bills and checks into a bank deposit bag. She’d hide them in the usual place at home, and stop by First Cattleman’s in the morning, during one of the increasingly long lulls in business.

The house she’d lived in all her life was just across the alley, and Hildie and the pups were in the backyard when she approached the gate, Hildie lying in the shade of the only tree on the property, the foster dogs playing tug-of-war with Libby’s favorite blouse, which had either fallen or been pulled from the clothesline.

Seeing her, the pups dropped the blouse in the grass—the lawn was in need of mowing, as usual—and yipped in gleefully innocent greeting. Libby didn’t have the heart to scold them, and they wouldn’t have understood anyway.

With a sigh, she retrieved the blouse from the ground and stayed bent long enough to acknowledge each of the happy-eyed renegades with a pat on the head. “You,” she said sweetly, “are very, very bad dogs.”

They were ecstatic at the news. A matched set, they both had golden coats and floppy ears and big feet. While Hildie looked on, nonplussed, they barked with joy and took a frenzied run around the yard, knocking over the recycling bin in the process.

Hildie finally rose from her nest under the oak, stretched and ambled slowly toward her mistress.

Libby leaned to ruffle Hildie’s ears and whisper, “Hang in there, sweet girl. With any luck at all, those two will be living the high life out on the Silver Spur by tomorrow night.”

Hildie’s gaze was liquid with adoration as she looked up at Libby, panting and swinging her plume of a tail.

“Suppertime,” Libby announced, to all and sundry, straightening again. She led the way to the back door, the three dogs trailing along behind her, single file, Hildie in the lead.

The blouse proved unsalvageable. Libby flinched a little, tossing it into the rag bag. The blue fabric had flattered her, accentuating the color of her eyes and giving her golden brown hair some sparkle.

Easy come, easy go, she thought philosophically, although, in truth, nothing in her life had ever been easy.

The litany unrolled in her head.

She’d paid $50 for that blouse, on sale.

The economy had taken a downturn and her business reflected that.

Marva was back, and she was more demanding every day.

And as if all that weren’t enough, Libby had two dogs in dire need of good homes—she simply couldn’t afford to keep them—and she’d already pitched the pair to practically every other suitable candidate in Blue River with no luck. Jimmy-Roy Holter was eager to take them, but he wanted to name them Killer and Ripper, plus he lived in a camper behind his mother’s house, surrounded by junked cars, and had bred pit bulls to sell out of the back of his truck, along a busy stretch of highway, until an animal protection group in Austin had forced him to close down the operation.

Libby washed her hands at the sink, rubbed her work-chafed hands down the thighs of her blue jeans since she was out of paper towels and all the cloth ones were in the wash.

No, as far as placing the pups in a good home was concerned, Tate McKettrick was her only hope. She’d have to deal with him.

Damn her lousy-assed luck.

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE TIME they got to the ranch, Audrey and Ava were streaked pale orange from the smoothie spills and had developed dispositions too reminiscent of their mother’s for Tate’s comfort. The minute he brought the truck to a stop alongside the barn, they were out of their buckles and car seats and hitting the ground like storm troopers on a mission, pretty much set on pitching a catfight, right there in the dirt.

Tate stepped between them before the small fists started flying and loudly cleared his throat. The eldest of three brothers, he’d had some practice at keeping the peace—though he’d been an instigator now and again himself. “One punch,” he warned, “just one, and nobody rides horseback or uses the pool for the whole time you’re here.”

“What about kicks?” Audrey demanded, knuckles resting on her nonexistent hips. “Is kicking allowed?”

Tate bit back a grin. “Kicks are as bad as punches,” he said. “Equal punishment.”

Both girls looked deflated—he guessed they had that McKettrick penchant for a good brawl. If their features and coloring hadn’t told the story, he’d have known they were his just by their tempers.

“Let’s put Bamboozle back in his stall and make sure the other horses are taken care of,” Tate said, when neither of his daughters spoke. “Then you can shower—in separate parts of the house—and we’ll hit the pool.”

“I’d rather hit Ava,” Audrey said.

Ava started for her sister, mad all over again, and once more, Tate interceded deftly. How many times had he hauled Garrett and Austin apart, in the same way, when they were kids?

“You couldn’t take me anyhow,” Audrey taunted Ava, and then she stuck out her tongue and the battle was on again. The girls skirted him and went for each other like a pair of starving cats after the same fat canary.

Tate felt as if he were trying to herd a swarm of bees back into a hive, and he might not have untangled the girls before they did each other some harm if Garrett hadn’t sprinted out of the barn and come to his aid.

He got Audrey around the waist from behind and hoisted her off her feet, and Tate did the same with Ava. And both brothers got the hell kicked out of their knees, shins and thighs before the twin-fit finally subsided.

There was a grin in Garrett’s eyes, which were the same shade of blue as Tate’s and Audrey’s and Ava’s, as he looked at his elder brother over the top of his niece’s head. “Well,” he drawled, as the twins gasped in delight at his mere presence, “this is a fine how-do-you-do. And after I drove all the way from Austin to be here, too. Why, I have half a mind to send your birthday present right back to Neiman Marcus and pretend this is just any old day of the week, nothing special.”

Simultaneously, Tate and Garrett set their separate charges back on their sandaled feet.

Audrey smoothed her crumpled sundress and her hair—females of all ages tended to preen when Garrett was around—and asked, with hard-won dignity, “What did you get us, Uncle Garrett?”

Last year, Tate remembered with a tightening along his jawline, it had been life-size porcelain dolls, custom-made by some artist in Austria, perfect replicas of the twins themselves. He was glad the things were at Cheryl’s—they gave him the creeps, staring blankly into space. He’d have sworn he’d seen them breathe.

“Why don’t you go around to the kitchen patio and find out?” Garrett suggested mysteriously. “Then you’ll know whether it’s worth behaving yourselves for or not.”

Hostilities forgotten—for the time being anyway—the girls ran squealing for the wide sidewalk that encircled the gigantic house.

Whatever Garrett had bought for Audrey and Ava, it was sure to make Tate’s offering—a croquet set from Wal-Mart—look puny and ill-thought-out by comparison.

Not that he put a lot of stock in comparison.

“I thought you were in the capital, fetching and carrying for the senator,” Tate said, taking his brother’s measure in a sidelong glance.

Garrett chuckled and slapped him—a little too hard—on one shoulder. “Sorry I missed the shindig in town,” he said, ignoring the remark about his employer. “But I managed to get here, in spite of meetings, a press conference and at least one budding scandal neatly avoided. That’s pretty good.”

Tate sucked in a breath, let it out. Jabbed at the dirt with the heel of one boot. Garrett was a generous uncle and a good brother, for the most part, but he was living the wrong kind of life for a Texas McKettrick, and he didn’t seem to know it. “I don’t know what gets into those two,” Tate said, shoving a hand through his hair. As far as he knew, he hadn’t been in smoothie-range on the ride home, but he felt sticky all over just the same.

Whoops of delight echoed from the distant patio and Esperanza, the middle-aged housekeeper who had worked in that house since their parents’ wedding day, could be heard chattering in happy Spanish.

“They’ll be fine,” Garrett said lightly. Easy for an uncle to say, not so simple for a father.

“What the hell did you get them this time?” Tate asked, starting in the direction of the hoopla. His mood was shifting again, souring a little. He kept thinking about that damn croquet set. “Thoroughbred racehorses?”