* *
AUSTIN HAD BEEN baiting her, Paige knew that.
But knowing hadn’t kept her from taking the hook.
Get it out of our systems.
Put the whole thing behind us, get on with our lives.
Indeed.
Standing at the counter in Julie and Garrett’s kitchen, upstairs at the Silver Spur ranch house, Paige whacked hard at the green onions she was chopping for the salad. Julie reached out, stopped her by grasping her wrist.
“Whoa,” she said. “If you’re not careful, you’ll chop off a finger.”
Libby, standing nearby and busy pouring white wine into three elegant glasses, grinned knowingly at her two younger sisters.
All three of the McKettrick men were outside, in the small, private courtyard at the bottom of a flight of stucco steps, barbecuing steaks and hamburgers. Calvin, Tate’s twin daughters and the pack of dogs were with them.
“You know, Paige,” Libby observed, handing her a glass, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you and Austin were—back on, or something.”
Julie’s eyes twinkled as she accepted a wineglass for herself and took a sip. “Or something,” she murmured after swallowing.
“Stop it, both of you,” Paige protested. “Austin and I are not ‘back on.’ The man infuriates me.”
Libby smiled, resting a hip against the side of the counter, but said nothing. The firstborn daughter in the Remington family, Libby had light brown hair and expressive blue eyes. She and Tate were crazy about each other, and they would have beautiful children together.
“Why?” Julie asked. The second sister, a year younger than Libby and a year older than Paige, Julie had chameleon eyes. They seemed a fierce shade of bluish green at the moment, though the color changed with what she was wearing and often looked hazel, and her coppery hair fell naturally into wonderful, spiraling curls past her shoulders.
“Why?” Paige echoed, stalling.
“Why does Austin infuriate you?” Julie wanted to know.
“Because he’s so—sure of himself,” Paige said. There were probably a million reasons, but that was the first to come to mind.
Libby raised both eyebrows. “This is a bad thing?” she asked.
Paige wanted her sisters to understand. Take her side. If anybody knew how badly her heart had been broken, they did. “He’s arrogant.”
Julie laughed. “No,” she said with a shake of her head, “he’s a McKettrick.”
Paige took a sip from her wineglass—and nearly choked. She set the drink aside and promptly forgot all about it. “The difference being...?”
Julie and Libby exchanged knowing glances over the rims of their wineglasses.
“If you still care about Austin,” Julie said presently, after a visible gathering of internal forces, “there’s nothing wrong with that. You’re not in high school anymore, after all, and there’s no denying that the man is all McKettrick.”
Paige folded her arms. “Look,” she said, “I know you’re both madly in love with McKettrick men, and I’m happy for you—I really, truly am—but if you think I’m going to decide all is forgiven and fall into Austin’s bed as if nothing ever happened, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“She’s not going to fall into Austin’s bed,” Libby said to Julie very seriously.
“She’s not going to fall back into Austin’s bed,” Julie said.
Paige stepped between them and waved both arms. “Hello? I’m in the room,” she told her sisters. “I can hear everything you’re saying.”
Libby and Julie laughed. And they raised their wineglasses to each other.
“I give them seventy-two hours,” Libby said.
“Nonsense,” Julie replied matter-of-factly. “Paige will be twisting the sheets with Austin by tomorrow night at the latest.”
“You’re both crazy,” Paige said, flustered. “Just because neither of you can resist a McKettrick man, doesn’t mean I can’t!”
“She’s got it bad,” Libby told Julie.
“Worst case I’ve ever seen,” Julie decreed.
Paige simmered.
“About the bridesmaid’s dress,” Libby said, evidently determined to make bad matters worse. “I was thinking daffodil yellow, with ruffles, pearl buttons and lots of lace trim—”
“Lavender,” Julie countered cheerfully. “With a bustle.”
That did it. “Why not throw in a lamb and one of those hoops you roll with a stick?” Paige erupted. “And maybe I could skip down the aisle?”
The picture must have delighted Libby and Julie, because they both laughed uproariously.
Libby refilled her own wineglass, and Julie’s. Paige’s was still full.
Julie elbowed Paige aside to finish making the salad. She was, after all, the cook in the family.
“You’re really afraid of The Dress, aren’t you, Paige?” Libby asked, her eyes sparkling with happiness and well-being.
“I’m the Lone Bridesmaid,” Paige pointed out, calmer now but still discouraged. “I have nightmares about that dress.”
“To hear her tell it,” Julie told Libby, “neither of us has any taste at all.”
“Will you two stop talking as though I’m not even here?” Paige asked. “If you’d just agree to let me pick out my gown, since I’m the one who has to wear it—”
“What fun would that be?” Libby said to Julie. “We’re the brides, after all.”
Paige, as the youngest, flashed back to the old days, when the three of them were kids and her older sisters had tossed a ball back and forth between them, over her head, making sure it was always out of her reach. They called the game “Keep Away.”
The term seemed especially apt that night, though she couldn’t have explained the idea. If ever two people had had her back, no matter what the situation might be, her sisters were those two people.
As a kid, she’d tagged after them, wanting so badly to go wherever they went, do whatever they did, to be part of their circle.
Growing up, she’d loved wearing their clothes and mimicking their voices and copying their mannerisms. Now, they were marrying brothers. Was some unconscious part of her still trying to follow in Libby and Julie’s footsteps? The possibility
