Calvin studied her for a long time.
“Maybe you should both spend the night here,” Paige said. “It’s late and Calvin isn’t feeling well. I’ll sleep right here on the couch, and you two can share my bed.”
It seemed an odd conversation to be having, when the cottage, Julie and Calvin’s home for so long, was just across the road.
But the cottage wasn’t home anymore.
She and Calvin didn’t have a home.
Paige was waiting for an answer, so Julie finally shook her head. “You’ve done enough,” she told her sister, giving her a hug. “We’re not throwing you out of your bed.”
Twenty minutes later, Julie, Calvin and the dog stepped into the warmth and brightness of the ranch-house kitchen, and Julie’s drooping spirits were instantly lifted.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GARRETT LAUGHED AND CAUGHT CALVIN easily when he ran across the big room and launched himself into the man’s arms.
Julie’s heart stumbled at the sight.
“I saw you on TV!” Calvin shouted exuberantly. “Aunt Paige said you looked good even with a shiner!”
Garrett, wearing jeans, a long-sleeved black pullover shirt and boots, laughed again and stood the boy on the bench that ran along one side of the long kitchen table, so they were eye to eye.
“Is that right?” he asked, finally. He slanted a mischievous glance at Julie. “Your aunt Paige said that?”
Calvin nodded. Then he took a closer look at the shiner in question and frowned. “It’s turning green and yellow,” he said.
“They do that,” Garrett explained easily. “I’ll be good as new in a few days.”
“That’s better, then,” Calvin decided, clearly relieved.
Garrett had been resting a hand on either side of the boy’s waist, so he wouldn’t fall off the bench. Now he raised one to ruffle Calvin’s decidedly messy hair. “I heard you were under the weather, cowboy,” he said. Over Calvin’s head, Garrett fixed that McKettrick-blue gaze on Julie and didn’t look away for a long moment. When he spoke to Calvin again, his voice was gruff with masculine concern. “You feeling better now?”
“I was feeling better,” Calvin replied, “until Mom told me you were going away and you probably wouldn’t even be here when we got back from town tonight.” The child turned his head, gave Julie a triumphant I-told-you-so look before focusing all his attention on Garrett again. “I stayed with my aunt Paige all day because I had a fever and I kept barfing—”
“Calvin,” Julie interrupted. “That will be enough detail, thank you.”
Calvin rolled his eyes, and Garrett chuckled.
“I had to use my inhaler, too,” Calvin threw in.
Garrett’s expression was fond as he looked at Calvin, but there was a certain respect in it, too. “You’ll be all right, little pardner,” he said, without a speck of condescension. Except for the “little pardner” part, he might have been talking to a grown man. “Sturdy fella like you? ’Course you will.”
Calvin all but blossomed under Garrett’s quiet certainty that he was All Right. “Sure, I will,” the child agreed manfully.
Now that Calvin’s worth as a human being had been declared, for all time and eternity, the subject took a new turn.
Julie, standing there in the kitchen, still wearing her coat and holding her purse, had to do some emotional scrambling to catch up.
“Esperanza’s in Blue River, playing bingo,” Garrett told his pint-size sidekick. “But she cooked before she left, so there’s corned beef and cabbage in the Crock-Pot upstairs in my kitchen.” He grinned at Calvin before lifting him down off the bench to stand on the floor again.
“We’ve eaten,” Julie said, still dazed. Her remark seemed incredibly mundane, considering the thing she had just realized.
She didn’t just like Garrett McKettrick.
She didn’t just enjoy having sex with him.
She was deeply, profoundly, hopelessly and permanently in love with him.
Furthermore, she thought, even more shaken than before, loving Garrett was nothing new. She’d probably fallen for him a long time ago, as far back as high school even. Because they were so different—Garrett the popular rich kid, the high school rodeo star, Julie the drama queen/rebel—she’d repressed the attraction, kept it buried.
That had been so much easier when Garrett was someone she saw around town occasionally, or at weddings and funerals and other events where the entire community tended to gather.
Living under the same roof, it hadn’t taken long to find him irresistible.
A few days.
Calvin gave her a look that was part reproof and part loving tolerance. “Mom?” he said. “Earth to Mom. Come in, please.”
Calvin was into retro-TV, so that line must have come from Lost in Space or Star Trek. Julie chuckled, got busy taking off her coat, putting it away, along with her purse and tote bag.
In the guest-suite bathroom, she splashed her face with cool water. Since the small amount of mascara she’d applied that morning had long since worn off, it didn’t loop under her eyes, raccoon-style.
Julie straightened, dried her face with a hand towel and remained in front of the sink, squinting into the mirror above it.
Now what are we going to do, Smarty-pants? she asked herself silently.
When there was no answer immediately forthcoming, Julie marched herself back to the kitchen. She would help Calvin wash up, tuck him into bed for the night and—and what?
Lie in her bed and stare at the ceiling for hours, probably.
The prospect was dismal, especially after the day she’d put in.
“Maybe you could just keep Austin and me company while we eat,” Garrett was saying as she rejoined him and Calvin and Harry.
Julie glanced at her watch. Started to decline the invitation.
Spending time in close proximity to Garrett McKettrick, however appealing the idea might be, would only make bad matters worse. That long-ago Julie, the one with the white lipstick and the black clothes, hadn’t been wrong about everything, after all.
She and Garrett not only hadn’t traveled in the same circles back then, they hadn’t occupied the same universe.
They were older now, and undeniably, they were sexually compatible.
But she and Gordon had been, too, though not quite to the same soul-shattering degree.
Still.
Seeing a pattern here, Remington? taunted the voice in her head. You’re two-for-two—you and Gordon wanted different things, and so do you and Garrett, and you might as well face it.
Cut your losses and run.
Garrett was watching her a little too perceptively. “Please?” he said.
“Please?” Calvin echoed.
It took Julie a moment to recall what they were talking about, her son and the man she wished had been his father.
Oh, yes. Garrett wanted them to come upstairs, sit with him and Austin while they ate their supper.
Julie might have been able to refuse Garrett, out of principle and because she needed to draw up lesson plans for the next day and go over her notes from the Kiss Me Kate tryouts, but she didn’t have the heart to quash the hope shining in Calvin’s little face.
“All right,” she conceded, “but we can’t stay very long.”
Calvin punched the air with one fist and whooped, “Yes!”
Harry barked, doing a three-legged spin, caught in a backwash of boy-joy, and in spite of everything, Julie laughed.
It was Garrett who carried Calvin up the stairs to his second-floor apartment. Austin showed up just in time to lug Harry.
Julie followed, smiling to herself. Feeling less exhausted, less confused.
Wiser, but a whole lot sadder, too.
“Tough day?” Garrett asked, in his kitchen, when Julie repeated that she’d already eaten at Paige’s, and Calvin was okay, too.
He lifted the lid off Esperanza’s Crock-Pot and the savory aroma of corned beef and cabbage filled the room.
Calvin and Harry were in the living room, with Austin, with the TV blaring and the fireplace crackling cheerily away in welcome.
“Yes,” Julie said. “I did have a tough day, as a matter of fact. But it wasn’t nearly as tough as yours, I’ll bet.”
He gave a crooked grin, carried a plate to the table. “I wish you could stay,” he said, very quietly.
Julie sighed and looked away. She wanted the same thing, but it wasn’t possible, with Calvin not only at home, but recovering from his illness. And it also wouldn’t be smart.
“So what happens now?” she finally asked Garrett, barely resisting the urge to lay a hand on his arm.
She’d asked herself that same question earlier, and she was still waiting for the answer. Maybe Garrett had one.
He didn’t.
Garrett looked down at the plate of food in front of him, motionless for the moment. “The governor and some of the state legislators have already been in touch, according to Nan. It looks as though she’ll be appointed to finish out her husband’s term in the U.S. Senate. She’s always worked closely with Morgan—well, until recently, anyway—so she knows the issues inside and out.”
Julie nodded. There it was, the handwriting on the wall. “And she’ll need your help and advice, of course.”
“At first,” Garrett said, avoiding her eyes. He wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“‘At first’?” Julie echoed, surprised.
Inwardly, she braked hard when hope sprang up in front of her like a deer on a dark and icy road.
“Something’s happening between you and me,” Garrett said quietly. “I’d like to find out what.”
Julie thought about Calvin, decided he wasn’t listening, because he and Austin were laughing about something they’d seen on TV, and even Harry contributed a few barks of comment.
“Maybe we should just agree that it’s been fun and part ways,” Julie heard herself say. Maybe? jibed the voice in her head.
He set down his fork. Watched her for a long moment before replying. “Why do you say that?”
“Because we’re different,” Julie said. “You’re a McKettrick,” she went on, with a slight smile of self-deprecation, “and I’m a high school English teacher with a child to raise.”
Garrett arched an eyebrow. Dear God, he was good-looking, Julie thought, even with a black-and-purple-and-green eye, streaked with yellow. “All of which means?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“We don’t have a whole lot in common,” Julie said slowly, and with emphasis.
Garrett grinned at that. “Sometimes that’s good,” he said. “And there’s one thing we do have in common.”
Julie blushed, looked away.
“Sex,” Garrett whispered, close to her ear. His breath was a warm, tingling rush against her skin. “We both like sex.”
“Everybody likes sex,” Julie said.
Garrett chortled at that. “You are naive,” he said.
Julie leaned in close. “I’ll bet you’ve never had a complaint,” she challenged.
This time, Garrett laughed outright. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said. “And I have to ask this. Have you ever had a complaint?”
Julie blushed. Hard.
“Well, no,” she said. “But—”
In the living room, Austin and Calvin hooted in unison. Whatever was playing on TV, they were enjoying it to the max.
Garrett chuckled, but his eyes were solemn. Searching hers, probing deep.
Julie felt as though her very soul had been laid bare to the man.
“There are some things I have to do,” he said, after a long time. “I’ll be gone for a week, maybe two. Will you be here, Julie—on the Silver Spur—when I get back?”
“Wh-what are you really saying?” she asked.
“That there’s something going on between us,” Garrett reiterated quietly. “And I need to know what it is before I make any major decisions.”
Julie opened her mouth, closed it again.
She had never been at such a loss for words.
It simply wasn’t like her.
Garrett raised himself far enough out of his chair to lean over and kiss her lightly on the mouth.
He tasted of Esperanza’s delicious cooking.
“Will you wait for me?” he asked, drawing back just a fraction of an inch.
Everything inside Julie was responding to his mouth, to the need for another kiss, for a lot more than another kiss. Even Smarty-pants didn’t have anything to say.
“Wait for you? I don’t understand.”
Garrett grinned and damn it was sexy. Definitely an unfair advantage. “I have some things to do in Austin and in Washington,” he answered. “Loose ends to tie up. When I get back here, the first thing I’m going to do is take you to bed. The second thing is—well—I’ll probably take you to bed all over again. Assuming we ever get out of bed in the first place.”
“So,” Julie said, in a whisper that was barely more than a breath, “you want to have sex again.”
“And again,” Garrett confirmed. “And again.”
Julie raised an eyebrow. And then she asked, only partly in jest, “What’s in it for me?”
“Multiple orgasms?” he said, so quietly and so close that his lips were actually touching hers now.
She laughed, wishing she could collect on that promise sooner rather than later. “You are too cocky, Garrett McKettrick,” she murmured, drawing back just slightly. “How do you know I wasn’t faking before?”
“You weren’t faking,” he said, with damnable confidence. “I have the scratches on my back to prove it.”
“That could be part of the act,” Julie said.
He laughed. “Okay,” he replied. “Were you faking?”
“Hell, no,” Julie answered, and tasted his mouth, because she couldn’t resist.
It was against her better judgment, all of it.
She was merely putting off the inevitable. And there didn’t seem to be a damn thing she could do about it, that night at least.
“They’re kissing!” Calvin yelled.
That pretty much tanked the moment.
Julie turned and saw her son standing in the doorway between Garrett’s kitchen and living room, making quite a picture in his pajamas and Austin’s cowboy hat. Since the hat didn’t fit, he had his head tilted back a little, so he could see under the brim.
“What?” Austin called back.
“I said Mom and Garrett are kissing!”
Garrett rolled his eyes and chuckled; otherwise, he seemed unruffled.
Julie, on the other hand, was mortified. On top of that, her nipples had gone so hard that they ached, and she was damp, too.
She’d already made the mental shift: This thing happening between her and Garrett wasn’t going anywhere.
Her body was slower to buy in.
Austin stepped into the doorway behind Calvin and took the boy lightly by the shoulders, turning him around, heading him into the living room again. He glanced back over one shoulder, grinned the grin Paige probably still couldn’t get out of her mind.
“Go right on kissing,” he said. “Don’t let Cal and me bother you.”
Garrett had taken up his fork again. He seemed to be enjoying the corned beef and cabbage, since he went on eating, but his gaze was on Julie and it shone with tenderness and comedy and desire and a whole mix of other things that weren’t so easily identified.
“Will you wait for me?” he asked again, when he’d finished his supper, carried his plate and silverware to the sink, rinsed them before dropping them into the dishwasher.
“I’ll wait,” Julie heard herself say. It really wasn’t such a noble sacrifice, after all. Unless she wanted to crowd poor Paige out of her bed, forcing her to sleep on the couch, there weren’t a lot of choices.
Until the house she and Paige and Libby owned together was habitable, and that might be weeks, she really didn’t have anywhere to go.
“When will you leave?�
�� she asked, when Garrett stood behind her chair, instead of sitting down again, and began to massage her shoulders.
“Probably tomorrow,” he answered. “The funeral will be held in a few days, and Nan has meetings scheduled with the governor and various state legislators.”
Julie frowned. “Meetings? The same week as her husband’s funeral?”
“She’s a strong woman,” Garrett said.
Or a cold one, Julie thought, though she immediately decided she was being unfair. Morgan Cox had, after all, been embroiled in an embarrassing and steamy scandal when he died.
She glanced toward the doorway where Calvin had appeared earlier and lowered her voice, just in case he was eavesdropping again. Or still.
“Well, she’s certainly a better woman than I am,” she said. “If that had happened to me, about the last thing in the world I’d be doing would be jumping in to fill the man’s seat in the Senate.”
Garrett took her hand, rubbed his thumb lightly, musingly, over her knuckles. “Nobody,” he said gravely, “is a better woman than you are, Julie Remington.”
“Now,” she said, struggling against an insane need to break down and cry, preferably sitting on Garrett’s lap, with her face buried in his neck, “you’re just flattering me.”
He held on to her hand, raised it to his mouth, retraced with his lips the path he’d taken earlier with his thumb.
Hot, shivery shards of wanting poked and prodded Julie from within.
“Don’t,” she pleaded.
He didn’t release her immediately.
She made no effort to pull away.
Austin made a great deal of noise to let them know he was approaching the kitchen; appeared with his plate and silverware and his usual heartrending grin. Coupled with the sadness lurking behind the sparkle in his eyes, the effect was powerful.
“Cal’s asleep on the couch,” he confided, crossing the room to set the plate and silverware in the sink.
“I’d better get him to bed,” Julie said, unable to keep from sighing softly as she rose from her chair. “He has a tendency to get overexcited anyway, and when he’s sick…”
Garrett got up.
A look passed between him and Austin, who lingered at the sink, though he didn’t rinse his dishes. He just leaned against the counter, his arms folded, and watched his brother thoughtfully.
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