“with the headlights out. Did you get the exhaust fixed yet?”
“That was my car you saw,” Julie hastened to say.
It was a good thing Calvin wasn’t around, because that was a whopper and he’d have been sure to point that out right away. Julie’s car was a pink Cadillac that had been somebody’s Mary Kay prize back in the mid-’80s. Even in a dark alley, it wouldn’t be mistaken for an Impala, especially not by a trained observer like Brent Brogan.
Libby gave her sister a look. Sighed and rubbed her suddenly sweaty palms down her jean-covered thighs. “I had an appointment at the auto-repair shop,” she told Brent, “but then a pipe blew in the kitchen and I had to call a plumber and, well, you know what plumbers cost.”
Brent slanted a glance at Julie, who blushed that freckles-on-pink way only true redheads can, and once again turned his attention back to Libby. “So it was you?”
“Yes,” Libby said, straightening her shoulders. “And if you give me a ticket, I won’t be able to afford to have the repairs done for another month.”
The timer bell chimed.
Julie rushed to take the latest batch of scones out of the oven.
“I’m going to give you one more warning, Libby,” Brent said quietly, raising an index finger. “Count it. One. If I catch you driving that environmental disaster again, without a sticker proving it meets the legal standards, I am so going to throw the book at you. Is—that—understood?”
Libby set his drink on the counter with a thump. “Yes, sir,” she said tightly. “That is understood.” She raised her chin a notch. “How am I supposed to get the car to the shop if I can’t drive it?”
Brent smiled. “I’d make an exception in that case, I guess.”
Libby made up her mind to put the repair charges on the credit card she’d just paid off, though it would set her back.
Julie looked toward the street, smiled and consulted an imaginary watch. “Well, will you look at that,” she said. “It’s time to pick Calvin up at playschool.”
The pit of Libby’s stomach jittered. She followed her sister’s gaze and saw Tate walking toward the door, looking beyond good in worn jeans, scuffed boots and a white T-shirt that showed off his biceps and tanned forearms.
Scanning the street, she saw no sign of his truck, the sleek luxury car he sometimes drove or his twin daughters.
Libby felt as though she’d been forced, scrambling for balance, onto a drooping piano wire stretched across Niagara Falls. It was barely noon—Tate had suggested dinner, hadn’t he, not lunch?
Either way, she reflected, trying to calm her nerves with common sense, she’d said “Maybe,” not “Yes.”
Tate reached the door, opened it and walked in. His grin was as white as his shirt, and even from behind the register, Libby could see the comb ridges in his hair.
He greeted Brent with a half salute. “Denzel,” he said.
Brent smiled. “Throw those blueberry scones into a bag for me,” he said, though whether he was addressing Julia or Libby was unclear, because he was watching Tate. “I’d better buy them up before McKettrick beats me to the draw.”
Tate was looking at Libby. His blue gaze smoldered that day, but she knew from experience that fire could turn to ice in a heartbeat.
“You had any more trouble with those rustlers?” Brent asked.
Libby ducked into the kitchen, nearly causing a sister-jam in the doorway because Julie had the same idea at the same time.
“Rustlers?” Libby asked, troubled.
“Not recently,” Tate told his friend. Looking down into Libby’s face, he added, “Rustling’s a now-and-again kind of thing. Not as dangerous as it looks in the old movies.”
Julie squirmed to get past Libby and leave to pick Calvin up at the community center.
“If you don’t come straight back here,” Libby warned her sister, momentarily distracted and keeping her voice low, “I’m only taking over with Marva for half of next week.”
“Relax,” Julie answered, turning back and grabbing a paper bag and tongs to fill the chief’s scone order. “I’ll bake all afternoon, and bring you a big batch of scones and doughnuts in the morning. My oven is better than this one, and I really do have to fetch Calvin.”
Libby blocked Julie’s way out of the kitchen and leaned in close. “What am I supposed to do if Brent leaves and Tate is still here?” she demanded.
Julie raised both eyebrows. “Talk to the man? Maybe offer him coffee—or a quickie in the storeroom?” She grinned, full of mischief. “That’s about the only thing I miss about Gordon Pruett. Stand-up sex with a thirty-three percent chance of getting caught.”
Libby blushed, but then she had to laugh. “I am not offering Tate McKettrick stand-up sex in the storeroom!” she said.
“Now, that’s a damn pity,” Tate said.
Libby whirled around, saw him standing in the doorway leading into the main part of the shop, arms folded, grin wicked, one muscular shoulder braced against the framework. Color suffused Libby’s face, so hot it hurt.
Julie fled, giggling, with the bag of scones in one hand, forcing Tate to step aside, though he resumed his damnably sexy stance as soon as she’d passed.
“Well,” he remarked, after giving a philosophical sigh, “I stopped by to repeat my offer to buy you dinner, since the girls are over at the vet’s with Ambrose and Buford and therefore temporarily occupied, but if you want to have sex in a storeroom or anyplace else, Lib, I’m game.”
“Ambrose and Buford?” Libby asked numbly.
“The dogs,” Tate explained, his eyes twinkling. “They’re getting checkups—‘wellness exams,’ they call them now—and shots.”
“Oh,” Libby said, at a loss.
“Could we get back to the subject of sex?” Tate teased.
“No,” she said, half laughing. “We most certainly can’t.”
He straightened, walked toward her, in that ambling, easy way he had, cupped her face in his hands. She loved the warmth of his touch, the restrained strength, the roughness of work-calloused flesh.
His were the hands of a rancher.
“Dinner?” he asked.
“Are you going to kiss me?” she countered.
He smiled. “Depends on your answer.”
“If I say ‘no,’ what happens?”
“You wouldn’t do a darn fool thing like that, now would you?” he asked, in a honeyed drawl. Although his body shifted, his hands remained where they were. “Turn down a free meal, and a tour of a plastic castle? Miss out on a perfectly good chance to see how Ambrose and Buford are adjusting to ranch life?”
He meant to “buy” dinner at his place, then. The knowledge was both a relief and a whole new reason to panic.
“Will Audrey and Ava be there?”
“Yes.”
“Garrett?”
“No. Sorry. He had to get back to Austin.”
“Pressing political business?”
Tate chuckled. “Probably a hot date,” he said. “Plus, he’s afraid I’m going to kill him in his sleep for giving my kids a goddamn castle for their sixth birthday.”
“Hmm,” Libby mused.
“Well?” Tate prompted.
“I