The backs of her eyes scalded with tears she’d have died before shedding. She swallowed hard.
How’ve you been, Paige? Since I broke your heart, I mean. Since you chased me down Main Street on a stolen golf cart. How’ve you been, Paige old buddy, old pal?
“Fine,” she said, surprised and relieved by how calm she sounded. “I’ve been—just fine. Busy. How about you?”
There. The ball was in his court.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Austin had turned his head in her direction, and he was watching her.
“Has it really been ten years?”
“It has,” Paige said very quietly. A month after their breakup, Austin’s parents had been killed in that terrible accident. She’d wanted so much to go to him, offer her condolences, ask if there was anything she could do to help.
Alas, he wasn’t the only one with too much pride.
“I went to the funeral,” she said. A joint service had been held for Jim and Sally McKettrick, and there had been so many mourners, they couldn’t all fit into the church. People had stood in the yard and on the sidewalk and even in the street, just to be there.
He didn’t ask which funeral, though they often turned up at the same ones, both of them raised in or near Blue River as they had been.
“I know,” Austin said very quietly. “I saw you.”
Austin had attended Paige’s father’s services, too, along with both his brothers. He hadn’t spoken to her then, but it had helped a little, just knowing he was nearby, that he’d cared enough to put in an appearance. She’d been too distracted by grief, that one day, to smart over the loss of her first love.
There had been plenty of other days to cry over Austin McKettrick, and many a dark night as well.
They passed the oil wells, long since capped, though there was still plenty of black gold under the Silver Spur, according to the experts. They drove by cattle grazing on good McKettrick grass, and there was so much Paige wanted to say.
In the end, though, she either had too much good sense—or too little courage—to put any of her emotions into words.
CALVIN REMINGTON, FIVE YEARS OLD as of a very recent birthday, was one of Austin’s all-time favorite people.
Going by the broad smile on the little boy’s face as he ran toward Paige’s car, the feeling was mutual. His aunt walked a few feet behind him, looking bemused, while Austin waited in the passenger seat, having buzzed down the window.
“Hey, buddy!” he called.
Calvin’s horn-rimmed glasses were a little askew, and his light blond hair stuck out in all directions. His jacket was unzipped and he was waving a paper over his head.
“My whole kindergarten class gets to go to Six Flags!” he shouted to Austin. “Because we’ve been really, really good!”
Austin chuckled. His gaze accidentally connected with Paige’s, and electricity arched between them, ending up as a hard ache that settled into his groin like a weight.
“Whose dog is that?” Calvin demanded, breathless with excitement and crossing the yard between the community center and the parking lot at a dead run. “Is that your dog, Austin? Is it?”
“That is my dog,” Austin confirmed. “His name is Shep.”
Calvin opened the car door and scrambled into the booster seat in the back. “Hello, Shep,” he said.
Paige leaned over to make sure her nephew was properly buckled in.
She looked after the boy with the same easy competence she’d shown bathing Shep, back in the ranch-house laundry room.
For some reason, realizing that cinched Austin’s throat into a painful knot.
“Give Shep some space, now,” Paige told the child. “He’s still getting used to belonging to somebody, and you don’t want to scare him.”
Calvin agreed with a nod and changed the subject. “Will you be a chaperone when we go to Six Flags, Aunt Paige?” he asked. “I bet Mom would do it, but she’s got to teach school all day and help the drama club put on the musical and get ready to get married and stuff.”
Paige glanced at Austin, over the seat.
Austin indulged in a wink.
Paige blushed a little, shut Calvin’s door, got into the front seat, snapped on her seat belt and started the engine. All the while, she was careful not to look at Austin again.
“Will you, Aunt Paige?” Calvin persisted.
“Depends,” Paige said mildly, though there was a faint tremor in her tone. “When’s the big day?”
“It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving,” the boy answered eagerly. “My teacher said she’d like to know what lame-brain scheduled a field trip for the day before a big holiday like that. She likes to bake pumpkin pies that day, but now she’ll probably get a pounding headache and have to spend the whole evening with her feet up and a cold cloth on her head.”
Austin grinned. “Your teacher said all that?”
Calvin nodded vigorously. “She wasn’t talking to the class, though,” he clarified. “It was during recess, and I went inside to the bathroom, and when I came back, I heard her talking to Mrs. Jenson, the playground monitor.”
“Ah, I see,” Austin said very seriously as Paige started the car and backed carefully out of her parking space. There were other kids leaving the premises with their mothers or fathers, and casual waves were exchanged.
“I think this dog is pretty friendly,” Calvin remarked. “Can I pet him? Please?”
“Yes,” Paige answered, hitting every possible pothole as she guided the compact out onto the highway. “But no sudden moves.”
They rolled along in companionable silence for a while, but when it came time to turn right and head back out to the Silver Spur, Paige turned left instead.
Austin didn’t comment, but Paige explained anyhow.
Women. They were always ready to give a man more information than he needed.
“Calvin likes to stop by Blue River High and see his mom for a few minutes before going home,” she said.
Home. Austin liked the sound of the word, coming from Paige. He liked that she meant the ranch when she said it—his ranch.
He immediately reined himself in. Whoa, cowboy. Don’t go getting all sentimental. You’re all wrong for Paige Remington and she’s all wrong for you and you learned that the hard way, so don’t
