Austin

by Linda Lael Miller

  Shep was panting, in need of water and his blanket pile, and there were too many people around anyway. He’d wait until Doc and Cliff and Ron Strivens had gone, at least.

  So Austin went on into the house, and then the bedroom.

  There was no sign of Paige; she was probably still upstairs, shooting the breeze with her sisters. The image of the three of them with their heads together made him smile.

  He reached for the book he’d brought downstairs earlier, from his apartment, and stretched out on the bed, though he was careful to keep his boots off the edge.

  Shep, once he was certain that Austin meant to stay put, curled up on his blankets nearby and shut down his engines for a while.

  Austin read a few paragraphs before deciding to rest his eyes. When he opened them again, the slant of the light at the windows was different, and somebody was pulling his leg. Literally.

  He opened one eye, saw Paige struggling womanfully with his left boot. The right one was already off; he could feel a breeze through the fabric of his sock.

  “This is an antique quilt,” she fussed.

  “I can’t hear you. I’m asleep.”

  “Right,” Paige said, and if she still had a sense of humor, it was not in evidence. She finally succeeded in separating the boot from his foot, and nearly fell on her perfect backside in the process. “Honestly, Austin. What if you’d gotten mud or manure on this exquisite heirloom?”

  Austin eased himself upright, far enough to sit with his back against the headboard. Grinned and set the book aside. “Then I guess that would become part of its history,” he said. “‘See this stain here?’ some future McKettrick might say to another future McKettrick. ‘Ole Great-grampa Austin himself did that, way back when. Yes, sir, went to bed with his boots on one day and damned if some woman didn’t give him three kinds of hell for it.’”

  Paige tried to look stern, but in the end she couldn’t hold back a giggle. So she turned and crossed the room and chucked the boots willy-nilly into the closet.

  Austin heard them thump against the back wall before landing.

  When she turned around again, her arms were folded.

  Austin peeked over at Shep, still snoozing on his blanket pile, and raised a finger to his lips. “Tone it down a little,” he told Paige. “You’ll wake up the dog. According to Doc, Shep needs his rest.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  He loved it when she rolled her eyes.

  “Yes,” she said. “And so do you.”

  “Typical medico logic,” Austin remarked, wanting to keep the conversation going, even if it was a mite on the prickly side. “Come in here and wake me up, pulling off my boots, and then preach a sermon about how I ought to get more sleep.”

  A grin flicked at the corner of her mouth. “Did you take your meds?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I haven’t eaten anything yet and I’m not supposed to take them without food—Nurse Remington.”

  “Don’t call me Nurse Remington,” she said. She smiled, high beam, but it was all for Shep, who’d hauled himself up onto his haunches by then, yawning big.

  “Why not?” Austin asked, vaguely irritated.

  “Because you only say it to be a smart-ass,” Paige told him.

  “I say everything to be a smart-ass,” he replied.

  She sighed. “Well,” she said cheerfully. “You’ve got me there.”

  He laughed. “How was breakfast?” he asked. And when she looked blank, he added, “With your sisters?”

  “Turned out to be a bait and switch,” Paige answered, patting Shep on the head once before starting to putter with things on top of the bureau and then the bookshelf. “They just wanted me to look at another awful bridesmaid’s dress.”

  Austin assumed an expression of mocking horror. “Not that.”

  “Pink,” Paige fussed, straightening out things that didn’t need any straightening. “Pink, with ruffles. Tons of ruffles—”

  “Hey,” Austin said in a gentle rasp.

  She looked at him, and he wondered if all the misery he saw in that beautiful face could really be about a bad dress. He patted the mattress, scooted over to make room for her.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said.

  “I promise not to subject you to another round of screaming climaxes,” he said mildly.

  Paige glanced anxiously in the direction of the door. Closed it carefully. “I did not scream,” she pointed out in a hissing whisper.

  “But you did climax,” Austin teased. “Repeatedly.”

  “So did you.”

  “Once,” he said. “And I definitely didn’t scream.”

  Her face was pink—perhaps as pink as the dress she so desperately wanted not to wear in the wedding.

  “Is this conversation going somewhere?” Paige asked.

  He patted the mattress again, arched his eyebrows.

  She didn’t move an inch.

  “I was hired as your nurse, Austin,” she informed him. “Not your sexual plaything.”

  He gave a snorting laugh. “My ‘sexual plaything’?”

  She glared at him, still keeping her distance. Still with her arms folded. “If we’re going to get along with each other for the next fifty years,” she reasoned, “we’re going to have to avoid doing what we—almost did last night.”

  “What we almost did?”

  “We didn’t make love.” She was really flustered now. “And it doesn’t have to happen again.”

  “How can it happen again,” Austin wanted to know, “if it never happened in the first place?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You mean,” he replied gravely, in the tone of a man grappling with a weighty philosophical dilemma, “that what happened between us last night wasn’t sex because we didn’t actually—connect. Am I right?”

  “It wasn’t sex,” she insisted. “Technically.”

  “Then why can’t we do it again? Nontechnically, of course.”

  She looked around, probably for something to run over him with.

  Fortunately, there was no golf cart handy.

  “It’s time for your medicine,” she said, after unclamping her lips. “I’m bringing you a grilled cheese sandwich, Austin McKettrick, and you will eat it and take your pills and go back to sleep.”

  Austin saluted.

  That so pissed her off. She stormed out.

  Shep crutch-hopped it over to the side of the bed, laid his muzzle on the mattress and gave a little whimper.

  Austin chuckled. Then he got off the bed and he and Shep made their way into the kitchen.

  Paige was there, banging things around, making grilling a sandwich a lot more complicated, it seemed to him, than it had to be.

  “Oh, Nurse Remington,” he trilled.

  At least he thought he was trilling it.

  She turned, a spatula in one hand, and glared at him. If ever he’d seen a woman in need of at least one more orgasm, Paige was that woman. “What?”

  “Shep wants to go outside,” he told her sweetly.

  “Take him out yourself, then,” Paige snapped, turning back to the sandwich-making enterprise.

  “I’m only trying to be a good patient,” Austin said, turning on the pathos. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  Angrily, she shoved the skillet back off the burner, set down the spatula and went to open the back door.

  She was all sweetness and light when she spoke to Shep. “Come on, fella,” she said.

  The two of them went out.

  Paige slammed the door.

  And Austin, grinning, turned around and went back to bed.

  Who knew? If he got Paige riled enough, she just might join him there.

  Again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  PAIGE PRACTICALLY SHOVED THE PLATE into Austin’s hands, and it didn’t improve her crazy, hormonal mood when he peeled back the bread and peered beneath it.

  “Grilled cheese,” she said tightl
y. “Just as I promised.”

  “I was only checking for obvious signs of tampering,” Austin retorted, with a grin that made her want to slap him.

  It was galling how this man could take her through an entire range of emotions with his mischievous eyes and crooked grins—even more galling that she couldn’t seem to stop herself from going along for the ride.

  And she so knew better.

  Still, Paige’s own personal, private riot continued: she wanted to throttle him. She wanted to shut and lock the door and crawl right into bed with him. She wanted to scream and throw things.

  It was dizzying. Everything in Paige’s life made sense—except her penchant for this man. Maybe, she thought with alarm, she was one of those people who liked pain or, more accurately, needed it for some dark psychological reason.

  While all these thoughts were whirling through her mind, Austin picked up half the sandwich, took a bite, chewed slowly, ponderously. Waited a long, long time to take another bite.

  “I was fresh out of cyanide,” Paige said with a brittle smile, spreading her hands. “So I had to resort to drain cleaner.”

  “It’s actually pretty good,” Austin told her. “Almost as good as the ones Esperanza makes. She usually chops up some jalapeño and—”

  “If you don’t like that sandwich, Austin McKettrick,” Paige broke in, “get off your cowboy-ass and make your own.”

  He laughed. “You used to have a sense of humor,” he said.

  “That must have been before we met,” she countered.

  “I doubt it. We go all the way back to Mrs. Roberts’s kindergarten class, remember?” Austin took another bite of the sandwich and took his time chewing, swallowing and thinking. Paige hoped he wouldn’t hurt himself, trying that last thing.

  Shep, the poor devil, was trying to join Austin on the bed.

  Carefully, because of his injuries, Paige lifted the dog off the floor and onto the mattress.

  Austin gave him the other half of the sandwich. At Paige’s dark look, he said, “Point in your favor. I couldn’t have fed him Esperanza’s— God knows what jalapeños would do to a dog.”

  Paige clamped down her jaw. Austin was deliberately baiting her, she knew that. But why—oh, why—did she have to take the hook? It was like some figurative tennis game, and she kept batting the damn ball back over the net instead of just walking off the court.

  What was up with that?

  She went into his bathroom, counted out his various pills, filled a glass with water and returned to his bedside.

  “Here,” she said, practically shoving the meds at him. “Take these. They’ll make you sleep.”

  “Maybe I don’t feel like sleeping.”

  “Imagine how bad I might feel if I gave a rat’s ass what you feel like doing, Austin McKettrick,” Paige replied coolly.

  He reared back a little, gave a low, exclamatory whistle. “Are you PMS-ing or something? Because I’ll understand if you are. That’s the kind of guy I am. Modern. Sensitive.”

  “A real softy,” Paige said with an emphasis on the last word. She wanted to laugh in spite of everything, but she managed to keep a straight face.

  Austin assumed an injured look. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said.

  Paige smiled. Waited.

  He finally took the pills from her still-extended palm, tossed them back and washed them down with a few gulps of water.

  Paige’s mouth twitched as she watched him set the glass aside. She would not laugh, by God.

  She wasn’t prepared for Austin’s strength, or his speed. He gripped her wrist and pulled and the next thing she knew, she was flat on her back on the bed beside him, looking up into his devilish blue eyes.

  With his mouth very close to hers, he breathed, “Oops. Sorry—that was clumsy of me.”

  Paige blinked. Get up, she told herself.

  But her self didn’t listen.

  Austin slid his hand under her sweater, splayed his fingers over the bare skin of her midsection.

  And she still didn’t move.

  Unless a racing heart and some very fast breathing counted as movement.

  “I think it’s real important,” Austin drawled, his lips right against hers now, hot and firm, “that we don’t have sex.”

  He slid his hand down a little way, popped the button on her jeans.

  And, at the same time, he kissed her—deeply, gently, in a way that rocked her to the core of her being.

  “No, we definitely should not have sex,” he went on after the kiss had finally ended.

  Paige was too breathless to respond, and too turned on—already—to do what she should have done, which was slap Austin McKettrick across his handsome, insolent face and get off the bed.

  He bent his head and, through her sweater and bra, nipped lightly at her left nipple, and then her right.

  Paige moaned, and arched the small of her back.

  Both responses were utterly involuntary.

  “You just tell me,” Austin continued in a sleepy rumble, “when you want to stop not having sex, and that’s the way it will be.”

  “Stop.” Paige managed to croak out the word.

  Austin looked into her face then, and although his mouth was serious, his eyes were laughing. “Stop what, Paige?”

  “Just—stop.”

  He pulled his hand out of her jeans, zipped them up, fastened the button. Pretty handy for a man with one arm in a sling—but then, he’d probably had all kinds of practice getting into women’s pants.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay?” she asked.

  “I’m a man of my word. We’ll stop not having sex.”

  “But that would mean—”

  Austin chuckled. “Yeah,” he agreed huskily. “That’s what it would mean.”

  She managed to suck in a breath, sit up, swing her legs over the side of the bed. Looked at her watch.

  Thank heavens; the pills she’d given him ought to be kicking in any minute now.

  He would probably doze off.

  And she could sneak out of the room, give herself a much-needed break.

  Sure enough, he closed his eyes.

  Paige stood up and sidled out of his reach.

  He let out a long breath, turned onto his right side.

  Paige waited a few seconds, then ventured close enough to cover him with the timeworn quilt one of his female ancestors had made with her own two hands.

  She half expected Austin to grab her again and pull her back down beside him, but he didn’t. He really was asleep, evidently.

  An unspeakable tenderness filled her, just to look at him.

  Why, she could not have said.

  Austin McKettrick was all man, but there was a boyish abandon in the way he slept, a vulnerability he’d never willingly reveal in a waking state.

  Unable to resist, Paige leaned down and lightly kissed his forehead, then turned and hurried out of the room.

  AUSTIN SLEPT. And he slept. And then he slept some more.

  He got up to use the bathroom, even gulped down a mug of soup Paige had fixed for him at one point, but he always tumbled straight back into slumber as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  “How’s Shep?” he would ask whenever he happened to wake up. “How’s Molly?”

  Each time, Paige was quick to answer that both animals were faring well—Ron Strivens took very good care of Molly and Shep was really on the mend, now that he could stay put on his blanket pile for hours at a time, recuperating, instead of wearing himself out keeping up with his master.

  Biding her time, Paige sat in a rocking chair Tate brought in from the kitchen, reading, surfing the Internet on her laptop and trying, without much success, to knit a scarf. To the casual observer, she probably looked calm and proficient and relaxed—the private nurse on duty, well trained. In control.

  Oh, it was true enough that she wasn’t worried about Austin, though both Tate and Garrett had expressed concern about his protracted slumber. She knew he had
simply used up his physical reserves—which must have been formidable—and his body, programmed to survive, had overridden the incessant demands of his mind, basically shutting down for repairs.

  No, what troubled Paige was not Austin’s condition, but her own.

  She was losing her objectivity.

  What started out as a Web search for a decent bridesmaid’s dress, for instance, morphed into a fascination with the endless array of wedding gowns pictured online.

  Paige nervously—and privately—attributed this odd obsession to the fact that both her sisters were about to get married. Somewhere inside, she was still that little girl who trailed after them, wanting to do what they did.

  Maybe she felt a little left out.

  When Libby got her driver’s license, and Julie a year later, Paige had ached for her turn at the wheel of the family car.

  When Libby had her waist-length hair cut short, as a junior in high school, Paige, lacking sufficient funds for a visit to the Curly-Girly Salon, had taken a pair of pinking shears to her own tresses.

  She and Julie had fought constantly because she was always “borrowing” something black and dramatic from Julie’s closet.

  And the list went on.

  Still, Paige reasoned, looking at bridal gowns was a harmless enough pursuit, wasn’t it?

  IT WASN’T UNTIL the next morning that Austin’s eyes flew open, then widened, as he sat up in bed and focused on Paige.

  She’d been reading his paperback Western; she set the book aside and smiled.

  He threw back the covers, vanished into the bathroom and came back with his hair standing on end because he’d been shoving his fingers through it.

  “How the hell long I have I been asleep?” he demanded.

  Paige made a point of consulting her watch—a gift from her dad and her sisters upon her graduation from nursing school—and took her time answering, because seeing him so rattled was a lot of fun and she wanted to stay in the moment as long as possible.

  “Not quite thirty-six hours,” she answered.

  Austin’s knees seemed to give out. Still wearing the original pair of sweatpants he’d fallen asleep in two days before, he sank onto the edge of the mattress and swore hoarsely before echoing, “Thirty-six hours? And I wasn’t in a coma?”