McKettricks of Texas: Garrett by Linda Lael Miller

manufactured brightness, “like I said, you don’t have to decide right away.” The Welcome to Blue River sign fell behind them, and it seemed to her that the night was subtly darker, the stars a little closer to the earth.
    â€œHow come you got so mad about me riding the horse?” Calvin asked, when they were well out of town, almost to the tilted mailbox marking the turnoff to Libby and Tate’s little house. “I wasn’t all by myself, you know. I wouldn’t have gotten hurt, because Garrett was right there, behind me.”
    â€œTell you what,” Julie offered, after taking another long breath. “I’ll say sorry for reacting without thinking first and getting all overprotective when I saw you on that horse, if you’ll say sorry for the rude tone.”
    Calvin considered the deal.
    â€œOkay,” he said, at long last.
    â€œOkay,” Julie agreed.
    By the time they arrived at the ranch house, Calvin was sound asleep.
    He’d had a very big day for such a little guy.
    Garrett happened to be in the garage when Julie pulled in. He was standing on the front bumper of an old red pickup truck, the hood raised, doing something to the works inside.
    Seeing Julie, he gave a grin that stopped just short of his eyes, got down off the bumper with the same grace ashe’d descended from the horse in Tate’s yard earlier, and reached for a rag to wipe his hands clean.
    Julie looked him over, and didn’t see so much as a smidgeon of grease. When her gaze came back to his face, and she realized he’d been watching her scan him from head to foot, she blushed.
    â€œNeed some help?” he asked, when she opened the back door of the car, about to hoist Calvin out of his safety seat.
    The child was nodding, half awake, half deeply asleep.
    He was heavy, and Julie suddenly felt the weight of all the things she carried, visible and invisible, as she moved out of Garrett’s way. Allowed him to unbuckle Calvin and lift him into his arms.
    Calvin yawned, laid his head on Garrett’s shoulder and went back to sleep.
    The sight of this man carrying her son struck Julie in a tender place, and she wondered why that hadn’t happened when she’d seen Calvin and Gordon together earlier, at the restaurant.
    Julie shut the car door and followed Garrett into the kitchen, across that wide space and into the hallway leading to the guest suite she and Calvin had been occupying since the exterminators had tented the cottage.
    The apartment was comfortable, though small. It boasted two bedrooms, a full bath and a little sitting room with a working fireplace and large, soft armchairs upholstered in a floral pattern made chicly shabby by age.
    Harry lay curled up on a rug in front of the cold hearth, and looked up with a big dog yawn as they entered.
    â€œYou’re quite a guard dog, Harry,” Julie told the animal wryly.
    Garrett chuckled at that, paused to look back at her.
    â€œTo your right,” Julie said, in answer to the unspoken question.
    He nodded, carried Calvin into the tiny bedroom.
    Julie switched on the lamp on the pinewood dresser, rather than the overhead, and watched as Garrett put Calvin down carefully on the bed and stepped away, then out of the room.
    Calvin stirred, blinking, his glasses askew.
    Julie, now seated on the edge of his bed, set the specs aside and kissed the little boy’s forehead.
    â€œDo I have to wash and brush my teeth?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” Julie told him. She got it then—Calvin had almost surely been pretending to be asleep all along, so Garrett would carry him. “And you have to put on your pajamas, too.”
    â€œWhat about my prayers?” Calvin negotiated, as Julie shifted to tug off his little tennis shoes. “Do I have to say them?”
    â€œThat’s between you and God,” Julie replied.
    She stood, went to the dresser, took a set of yellow cotton PJ’s from the top