McKettricks of Texas: Garrett (25 page)

“Nothing,” she lied. She couldn't have explained what she was feeling to Garrett—it was all so complicated, she didn't understand it herself.

Libby and Tate were helping the twins out of their coats, taking off their own.

Libby turned her head, caught Julie's eye.

Julie watched as her sister's glance moved to Garrett, no doubt noticing how close the two of them were.

A smile twitched at Libby's mouth, and she widened her eyes at Julie, as if to say,
Well, now…what have we here?

Self-consciously, Julie moved away from Garrett just a bit.

He chuckled at that, and shook his head.

Esperanza oversaw all this, but when it was time to sit down and eat, she pleaded a full schedule of must-see TV, took a plate and left the kitchen for her own sitting room.

Julie couldn't help noticing that Calvin, who usually sat beside her, had squeezed in between Garrett and Austin at the other side of the table. Thankfully, Austin had casually relieved him of the oversize hat, setting it aside on a nearby breakfront.

The fire at the Strivenses' place was the first topic of conversation.

“It's just lucky one of the staff trailers was empty,” Libby said. Tate was next to her, and she paused to give him a look that said he'd not only hung the sun and the moon, but the stars, too.

Watching Libby, Tate looked wonderstruck, as though he couldn't believe his good fortune in being loved by such a woman.

Julie, seeing all this, made herself look away, not because she was envious, exactly, but because suddenly she yearned—oh, yes,
yearned
—to find what Libby and Tate had together. And in looking away, she immediately snagged gazes with Garrett.

It was a struggle, breaking free.

The air almost crackled between them.

And for just a little while, Julie allowed herself to pretend it would last.

“A
RE WE GOING TO PRETEND
last night didn't happen?” Garrett asked.

Julie, startled half to death, stopped on the threshold of her small sitting room, one hand pressed to her heart. She'd just tucked Calvin into bed and listened to his prayers.

“You scared me,” Julie said, although that was probably obvious.

Garrett sat, relaxed, on the sofa, with Harry snuggled right beside him. The dog's muzzle rested on Garrett's thigh and, barely acknowledging Julie's arrival, the animal casually rolled his luminous brown eyes in her direction but otherwise didn't move a muscle.

Not exactly protective.

“Sorry,” Garrett said, but the grin quirking at the corner of his mouth belied the sincerity of his apology.

Julie didn't retreat, but she didn't move forward, either. She just stood there, and this was not at all like the self she knew, and that was irritating to the nth degree. Of all the men who might have breached her defenses, why did it have to be this one?

“Julie?” Garrett prompted, stroking Harry's ears, evidently willing to wait as long as necessary for an answer to his question.

“It might be better if we
did
pretend that last night didn't happen,” she said.

Garrett studied her in silence for a long moment. Then he shook his head. “I don't believe that,” he decided aloud, “and I don't think you do, either.”

Julie bit down on her lower lip, wedged her hands, backward, into the hip pockets of her jeans, and rocked back, ever so slightly, on the heels of her sneakers.

“Come here,” Garrett said, patting the Harry-free side of him on the sofa.

She hesitated. Pulled a hand free of its pocket to cock a thumb over one shoulder, indicating that Calvin was just down the hallway. The little dickens hadn't had time to fall asleep, and if he'd heard Garrett's voice, caught even the timbre of it, he was surely listening in.

“Calvin,” Julie mouthed.

Garrett chuckled and shook his head again. “I wasn't planning on saying—or doing—anything ungentlemanly,” he said.

“You
did
mention last night,” she pointed out.

“So did you,” Garrett reasoned, sitting there looking all cowboy-hunky, with his boots and his jeans and his Western shirt open at the throat. “Just now.”

Julie narrowed her eyes, rested her hands on her hips. Harry had rolled onto his back for a tummy rub. Traitorous dog. Next, he'd be living upstairs with Garrett and riding around with him in trucks.

“Just remember,” she said, “that Harry is
my
dog.”

“Don't kid yourself,” Garrett replied, still amused. His eyes seemed to drink her in in big guzzling gulps. “He's
Calvin's
dog, through and through.” He glanced fondly down at Harry, who lay surrendered, all three
legs in the air. “He's also something of a hedonist, it would seem.”

Julie did not join Garrett on the sofa—that would have been giving too much ground, tantamount to sprawling on her back, like Harry, in hopes of a tummy rub.

Or something.

She did perch on the arm of a nearby chair, though. She folded her arms and tried to look as though the man hadn't turned her entire universe on its ear with one night of lovemaking.

“So the decision is…?” Garrett said, after watching her a little longer.

“There's supposed to be a decision?” she countered, stalling.

Garrett sighed. After easing Harry aside, he got up off the couch, walked to the archway leading into the small corridor, no doubt to make sure Calvin wasn't crouched just outside the glow of the hallway nightlight, eavesdropping.

Returning—the coast must have been clear—Garrett stood in front of Julie.

He gripped her shoulders, very gently, and raised her to her feet.

And then, slowly, and with a thoroughness that proved he meant business, Garrett McKettrick kissed her.

Julie practically swooned. There were now two categories of kissing in her personal lexicon—being kissed by Garrett McKettrick and being kissed by any
other
man in the world.

The first had totally ruined the second, for all time.

Julie had tears in her eyes when it ended. “You'll just go away,” she blurted out in an anguished whisper, and instantly regretted the outburst.

Garrett curved his fingers under her chin. “I always
come back,” he said, his voice husky, his gaze tender on her face. “And you might like some of the places I go. Did you ever consider that?”

What was he saying? What did
And you might like some of the places I go
actually mean?

“I have a son,” she said, taking a tremendous risk with her pride. He'd know she'd interpreted his remark as an invitation of sorts, or at least a suggestion that she might be traveling with him in the future—and that was way more than she was ready to acknowledge. “I have a job and two sisters.” Julie's gaze dropped to Harry, still on the couch, though now curled contentedly into a furball. “I'm pretty sure I still have a dog. In other words, I'm not a jet-setter like you, or the people you know, Garrett. I'm a hometown kind of gal.”

He frowned, apparently puzzled. A fraction of a second later, though, she saw his wondrous, dark-denim eyes widen with some realization he might or might not be willing to share. “I see,” he said.

“I'm not sure you do,” Julie replied, without meaning to say anything at all.

Her dad would have said her tongue was hinged at both ends, the way she kept blathering on. Why couldn't she just shut up?

The recollection of her gentle, often sad father brought the faintest hint of a smile to Julie's mouth.

Garrett merely raised one eyebrow, waiting for her to go on.

“You and I come from different worlds, Garrett,” she told him finally.

He actually had the nerve to roll his eyes. “That is so corny,” he said. “‘You and I come from different worlds'? Have you been watching soap operas or something?”

Garrett was mocking her, Julie decided, and she should have been angry—or at least indignant. Instead, this ridiculous and completely unfounded happiness burgeoned inside her, and she almost laughed.

Now, the new-jeans eyes were twinkling. It was disconcerting how quickly he read her, Julie thought—and how well.

“You know what I mean,” she insisted, determined to salvage something of the perfectly reasonable argument she was trying to make. “There are some pretty obvious contrasts between us, after all.”

“Umm-hmm,” Garrett agreed. He was about to kiss her again; she could feel his breath, a pleasant tickle on her mouth. “Viva la contrasts, baby.”

Julie pressed her palms to his chest then, meaning to push him away, or at least hold him at a little distance. Instead, though, her hands slid, as if of their own accord, to join at the back of his neck.

The second kiss left her swaying.

Garrett's hands rested, strong and sure, on either side of her waist. Then he gave a long, comically beleaguered sigh. “Good night, Julie,” he said, the words blowing past her ear like the softest of summer breezes.

He walked away then, and as soon as he turned his back, Julie rested one hand on the back of the armchair, just to steady herself, afraid she was going to hyperventilate.

Harry, still on the couch, lifted his head, thumped at the cushions a few times with his tail, and jumped, with remarkable grace, to the floor.

The dog hesitated, watching her with something like sympathy, then toddled off down the hall, headed for Calvin's room.

Julie followed, quietly opening the door, careful not to let the light from the hallway fall on her little boy's face.

Harry trotted in and bounded up onto the mattress on his own, settling into a sighing heap at Calvin's feet.

Julie blew a kiss to her sleeping son, slipped out of the room and softly closed the door.

 

“Y
OU'RE LIVING WITH THIS GUY
?” Gordon asked the next morning, his voice grating at Julie through her headset. She'd just dropped Calvin off at Libby and Tate's, and she had a full day of teaching ahead, to be followed by the first round of tryouts for the musical.

You're living with this guy?

The question was so off the wall that Julie was thrown by it.

That particular reaction was short-lived. “What did you just ask me?” she retorted.

Gordon sighed. “Look, as lousy as my track record is, I
am
Calvin's father,” he said. “I'm concerned about his…environment, that's all.”

Julie actually trembled, and for a moment she thought the cheap plastic housing of her cell phone might actually crack, she was squeezing it so tightly. She pulled over to the side of that country road, for her own sake and that of other drivers, put the car in Park, flipped on the blinkers.

With a conscious effort, she loosened her grip on the phone and lightened up on the pressure against her skull.

“His
‘environment'?
”

“You know what I'm talking about,” Gordon said, but with less certainty than before.

“No, Gordon,” Julie countered, “I do
not
know what
you're talking about.” She did, actually, but she wasn't going to make this easy.

Gordon had been the one to initiate the call.

And
he'd made her sound like some kind of tramp, shacking up with this guy or that one and leaving Calvin to manage on his own.

Another sigh came then, gusty and long-suffering. “Maybe I could have been more diplomatic,” he ventured.

“Think so?”

Gordon sounded suitably remorseful. Even sad. But Julie knew from experience how quickly his mood could change. “I never knew how to talk to you, Julie. That was our main problem.”

In her opinion, their “main problem” had been Gordon's complete inability to commit himself to either her or their son. Fortunately for Dixie and the new baby, due in April, he had evidently changed.

Tension stretched between them, almost palpable.

The invisible rubber band finally snapped.

Just as Julie had expected, Gordon retrenched. “Are you or are you not living with a man you're not married to?” he demanded.

So much for his concern about being more diplomatic.

“I'm not
living with
Garrett McKettrick,” Julie said, “not that it would be any of your damn business if I was. I hardly feel any compunction to account to you for my behavior, Gordon.”

“You're right,” Gordon allowed, after a few beats. “What you do in your—romantic life—isn't my concern. It's just that Calvin told me—”

“When did you speak with Calvin?” Julie broke in.

She glanced into the rearview mirror and saw an old red
pickup pull up behind her. It was the same truck Garrett had been driving on Saturday, when she and Libby and Paige were heading out to shop for Libby's wedding dress.

Great,
she thought.

“I gave Calvin my cell number the other night, when we all had supper together,” Gordon said. “He's called me a couple of times since then.”

This was news to Julie. Calvin hadn't mentioned calling his father.

What did it mean—if anything?

She watched as the driver's-side door of the red truck swung open.

Julie's breath caught. “Listen, I'm due at work. Maybe we could talk later?”

“All right,” Gordon said. “When would be a good time?”

“Later—I'll call you later. Sometime—”

Gordon clicked off, after making a disgruntled man-sound in her ear.

Julie felt a little jolt when she turned her head and saw Austin standing beside her car, instead of Garrett. It was both a disappointment, she decided fitfully, and a relief.

She rolled the window down.

Austin bent, grinning at her. “You having car trouble or something?” he asked.

“No,” Julie said, embarrassed. “I was just—talking on my cell phone and—”

The man's smile was wickedly boyish, Julie thought, detached from Austin's charms in a way she couldn't seem to manage with Garrett. No wonder Paige wanted to steer clear of her old flame—when it came to this guy, the needle on the cute-o-meter was bobbing into the red zone, and there was a distinct danger of spontaneous combustion.

For Paige, anyway.

Austin tugged genially at his hat brim, every inch the cowboy. “I'll be on my way, then,” he said, “if you're sure you're all right, that is.”

Julie nodded to indicate that she was fine. “Thanks for stopping,” she said.

Austin grinned and sprinted back to the truck.

Julie straightened her shoulders, drew in and released a few deep breaths, and drove on.

At school, the halls were jammed.

Even though phone calls, texts and e-mails had probably been flying back and forth among them all weekend, the kids were eager to discuss the latest calamity—the fire at the Strivenses place—face-to-face.

Julie wove her way through the crowd, catching a snatch of conversation here and there.

…the McKettricks gave them a trailer to live in, and it's practically brand-new…

…the marching band wants to give a concert to raise money for groceries and stuff…

…my mom says the Quilters' Guild is planning to raffle off the project they worked on over the summer…

By the time Julie stepped into her classroom, she was smiling.

Kids could be ornery, no doubt about it, but deep down, they cared about each other, as did their parents. This was the Blue River Julie had known and loved all her life, the community that invariably rallied in the face of trouble, stood shoulder to shoulder, and saw things through to the finish.

“Ms. Remington?”

Julie was only mildly surprised to turn and see Rachel Strivens standing quietly next to one of the bookcases.
“Good morning, Rachel,” she said, careful not to examine the child too closely or reveal any of the sympathy she felt.