Read Online McKettricks of Texas: Austin by Linda Lael Miller - Free Book Online Page B

his toast, tore off a piece of buttery crust and gave it to Shep, who wolfed it down.
    â€œYou shouldn’t give a dog people food,” Paige said.
    â€œGosh,” Austin answered, “thanks for straightening me out on that point, Nurse Remington.”
    â€œYou don’t have to be such an asshole,” she told him.
    He smiled as though weighing the accuracy of the accusation, then dismissed it with a shake of his head. “I don’t know what it is,” he said in his own good time, after chewing and swallowing, “but something about you just totally pisses me off.”
    She smiled back. “I feel exactly the same way about you,” she said with a note of saucy surprise.
    That was when he laughed. It was a ragged sound, and there was some bitterness in it, though she suspected that had less to do with her than Garrett. Austin had always been prickly about being the youngest of the three McKettrick brothers.
    Paige, being the youngest of three sisters, thought she understood. She loved Libby and Julie with all her heart, but she did tend to compare herself to them, and in her own mind, she didn’t always measure up.
    â€œAustin,” she said very gently.
    He had finished his toast, pushed away his plate. When he raised his eyes to hers, she was, once again, struck by their very blue ness, and by the way that color pierced her in so many tender and nameless places.
    â€œYour brothers are worried about you,” she said, thick-throated. “They just want you to be okay.”
    Austin was quiet, absorbing that. He’d lowered his head a little, and his eyes didn’t meet Paige’s, not right away, at least. “My brothers,” he said slowly, “ought to stop treating me like I’m Calvin’s age and let me work things out on my own.”
    â€œWhat things?” Paige ventured. She was on thin emotional ice here, couldn’t have said why she’d voiced such an intimate question in the first place.
    He thrust a hand through his hair. For the briefest of moments, she thought he might answer honestly, but in the end, he simply sighed again and shook his head. The effect was so chilly and distant that he might as well have pushed her away physically.
    â€œI don’t want a nurse,” he said after a long time.
    Paige didn’t answer.
    Austin left her then, heading upstairs, Shep scrambling at his heels.
    Paige just sat there, at the long trestle table where several generations of McKettricks had not only taken their meals, but argued and made peace, borne their singular sorrows alone or shared them with each other. She sat there and thought about families—how precious they were, and how complicated, and how damnably inconvenient sometimes.
    It was because of her sisters and their McKettrick men that she was in this fix, after all. If Libby hadn’t decided to marry Tate, and Julie Garrett, then she, Paige, would have no earthly reason to pass the time of day with Austin, let alone serve as his glorified babysitter.
    Paige stiffened her spine, jutted out her chin.
    After the big wedding on New Year’s Eve, she couldleave Blue River, start her life over somewhere else. She’d often thought about going back to school, maybe becoming a physician’s assistant or even a doctor. And there were other options, too, like joining one of the international relief organizations, where her skills and experience, instead of just looking good on a résumé and qualifying her for a top-level salary, would make a real difference.
    The hardest part of leaving wouldn’t be parting from her sisters, though the three of them had always been close. No, the prospect that closed Paige’s throat and made her sinuses burn was not being able to see her five-year-old nephew as often as they both liked.
    Although Calvin’s birth father was back in his life—sort of—Julie was a single mother. Libby and Paige, both devoted aunts,