in the daunting kitchen of the main ranch house on the Silver Spur Ranch. She and her four-going-on-five-year-old son, Calvin, along with their beagle, Harry, had been staying in the first-floor guest suite for nearly a week because there were termites at their rented cottage in town and the whole structure was under a tent.
Taking her private stash of herbal tea bags from a cupboard, along with a mug one of her high school drama students had given her for Christmas the year before, Julie set about brewing herself a cup of chamomile tea.
Coffee would probably have made more sense, she thought, pumping hot water from the special spigot by the largest of several sinks, since it would be morning soon, but she still had hopes of catching a few winks before the day began in earnest.
She had just turned, cup in hand, planning to head back to bed, when the door leading into the garage suddenly opened.
Julie nearly spilled the tea down the front of her ratty purple quilted bathrobe, she was so startled.
Garrett McKettrick paused just over the threshold, and she knew by the pensive look in his eyes that he was wondering what she was doing in his kitchen.
She was unprepared for the grin breaking over his handsome face, dispelling the strain she’d glimpsed there only a moment before.
“Hey,” he said, shutting the door behind him, tossing a set of keys onto a granite countertop.
“Hey,” Julie said back, wondering if he’d remembered her yet. She crossed the room, put out her free hand for him to shake. “Julie Remington,” she reminded him.
He laughed. “I know who you are,” he replied. “We grew up together, remember? Not to mention a more recent encounter at Pablo Ruiz’s funeral.”
A trained actress, Julie was playing the part of a woman who didn’t feel self-conscious standing in someone else’s kitchen in the middle of the night, drinking tea and wearing an old bathrobe. Or trying to play the part, anyhow.
It was proving difficult to carry off. Especially after she blew her next line. “I just thought—with all the people you must know—”
All the women you must know …
Garrett’s eyes were that legendary shade of McKettrick blue, a combination of summer sky, new denim and cornflower, and solemn as they regarded her.
Julie’s heart took up a thrumming rhythm. “I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here,” she prattled on.
What was wrong with her? It wasn’t as if she’d been caught breaking and entering, after all. Tate had practically insisted that she and Calvin move into the mansion, instead of taking a motel room or making some other arrangement, while the cottage was being pumped full of noxious chemicals.
One corner of Garrett’s mouth tilted up in a grin, and he walked over to the first of a row of built-in refrigerators, pulled open the door and assessed the contents.
“Actually,” he said, without turning around, “I wasn’t wondering that at all.”
Julie, who was not easily rattled, blushed. “Oh.”
He plundered the refrigerator for a while.
“Well,” Julie said, too brightly, “good night, then.”
Holding a storage container full of Julie’s special chicken lasagna, left over from supper, Garrett faced her, shouldering the refrigerator door shut in the same motion. “Or good morning,” he said, “depending on your viewpoint.”
“It’s barely four,” Julie remarked.
Garrett stuck the container into the microwave, pushed a few buttons.
“Don’t!” Julie cried, rushing past him to rescue the dish. “This kind of plastic melts if you nuke it—”
He arched an eyebrow. “I’ll be damned,” he said. Then, while Julie busied herself transferring the contents of the container onto a microwave-safe plate, he added, “Are your eyes really lavender, or am I seeing things?”
The question flustered Julie. “It’s the bathrobe,” she said, as the microwave whirred away, heating up the lasagna.
“The bathrobe?” Garrett asked, sounding confused. He was standing in Julie’s space; she knew that even though she couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him again, which was stupid, because just as he’d said, Blue River was home to both of them. They’d gone to the same schools and the same church growing up. And with their siblings engaged, they were practically family.
Julie, who never blushed, blushed again, and so hard that her cheeks burned. She was really losing it, she decided.
“My—my eyes are actually hazel,” she said, “and they take on the color of whatever I’m wearing. And since the bathrobe is purple—”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Julie bit down on her lower lip. Why couldn’t she just shut up?
Mercifully, Garrett didn’t comment. He just stood there at the counter, waiting for the microwave to finish warming up the leftover lasagna.
“Mom?” Calvin padded into the kitchen, blinking owlishly behind the lenses of his glasses. He wore cotton pajamas and his feet were bare. “Is it time to get up? It’s still dark outside, isn’t it?”
Julie felt the usual rush of motherly love, and an undercurrent of fear as well. Recently, Calvin’s biological father had been making overtures about “reconnecting” with their son and, although he’d paid child support all along, Gordon Pruett was a total stranger to the boy.
“Go back to bed, sweetheart,” she said gently. “You don’t have to get up yet.”
The dog, Harry, appeared at Calvin’s side. The adopted beagle was surprisingly nimble, although he’d been born one leg short of the requisite four.
Calvin’s attention shifted to Garrett, who was just sitting down at the table, the plate of lasagna in front of him.
“Hello,” Calvin said.
Harry began to wag his tail, though Julie figured the dog was at least as interested in the Italian casserole as he was in Garrett, if not more so.
“Hey,” Garrett responded.
“You’re Audrey and Ava’s uncle, aren’t you?” Calvin asked. “The one who gave them a real castle for their birthday?”
Garrett chuckled. Jabbed a fork into the food. “Yep, that’s me.”
“It’s at the community center now,” Calvin said, drawing a little closer, not to his mother, but to Garrett. “The castle, I mean.”
“Probably a good place for it,” Garrett said. “You want some of this pasta stuff? It’s pretty good.”
Unaccountably, Julie bristled. Pasta stuff? Pretty good? It was an original recipe, and she’d won a prize for it at the state fair the year before.
Calvin reached the
