McKettricks of Texas: Austin by Linda Lael Miller

room—where her dad had died.
    It was the same house her mother had left, for good, when she and Libby and Julie needed her most.
    The same house where she’d waited in vain for Marva to come back. Where she’d cried over Austin McKettrick and grieved after her father’s death.
    Julie and Libby had both signed their shares over to her. And she would live here, a spinster, growing stranger and stranger with each passing year. Adopting dozens and dozens of cats, and playing bingo three nights a week, cutting beer cans into panels, punching holes in the sides and crocheting them together into hats.
    Paige sank down onto the raised hearth of the fireplace and tried to make up her mind whether to laugh or cry. It was a tough choice.

CHAPTER THREE
    A USTIN WAS ONLY HALF LISTENING to his brothers’ conversation that evening, there in Garrett’s small, well-lit courtyard; a big part of his mind was on Paige. He’d heard her car door slam, listened as she started the engine, and it had been all he could do not to let himself out through the gate and run down the driveway after her, like some damn fool in a bad movie.
    Lounging at the picnic table, watching the kids and the dogs dash around in the grass, Austin sipped his beer and savored the smoky scent of beef cooking on an outdoor grill.
    Julie and Libby came down the back steps from Garrett’s terrace, Libby carrying a salad, Julie holding a tray of empty glasses and a pitcher of iced tea. While Austin couldn’t rightly think of a place he’d rather be just then, he wished Paige hadn’t left.
    Remembering his manners—better late than never, he supposed wryly—he rose, crossed the yard and took the tray out of Julie’s hands.
    Julie thanked him. She and Libby exchanged glances, and both of them looked flustered.
    Austin carried the tray back to the picnic table, set it down and turned to see both his brothers watching him.
    When he realized that they thought he might have donehimself permanent injury by carrying the tray, he gave a brief, ragged chuckle and shook his head.
    Tate and Garrett had the good grace to look chagrined, and went back to turning steaks and talking ranch business.
    The meal was served, and they all sat down at the long picnic table, kids and adults, with the dogs sitting quietly—and hopefully—nearby.
    â€œWhere’s Aunt Paige?” Calvin piped up, barely visible over the hamburger towering on his plate.
    An awkward little silence fell, broken only by the distant lowing of cattle and the sound of a car somewhere down the road.
    â€œEat your supper, sweetheart,” Julie told her son gently.
    â€œWhat about Aunt Paige’s supper?” Calvin persisted. “Is she going to have any?”
    â€œI’m sure your aunt will be fine,” Julie assured him.
    Silverware clinked against dishes, and the wind whispered in the limbs of the oak trees nearest the house. It was November, and turning colder, but thanks to a pair of outdoor heaters, the patio was warm enough.
    â€œMaybe she ran away,” Ava, one of Tate’s twins, speculated, after chewing and swallowing a big bite of burger and bun.
    Calvin took immediate offense, stiffening and glaring across the table at Ava. “Did not!”
    â€œHush,” Julie said, ruffling the boy’s hair.
    Ava blinked behind her glasses and then jutted out her fine McKettrick chin, stubborn to the bone. “Did, too!” she insisted. “Maybe.”
    â€œGrown-ups don’t run away!” Calvin said.
    â€œSometimes they do!” Ava argued.
    â€œAva,” Tate said quietly. “That will be enough.”
    Ava subsided, but not graciously.
    And her sister, Audrey, by far the more outgoing of the pair, spoke right up. “Our mom ran away,” she said. “She went all the way to New York City, and she’s never coming back.”
    Another silence.
    Then Libby, sitting next to Audrey, slipped an