McKettricks of Texas: Tate Read Online Free PDF Page B

put Bamboozle back in his stall and make sure the other horses are taken care of,” Tate said, when neither ofhis daughters spoke. “Then you can shower—in separate parts of the house—and we’ll hit the pool.”
    “I’d rather hit Ava,” Audrey said.
    Ava started for her sister, mad all over again, and once more, Tate interceded deftly. How many times had he hauled Garrett and Austin apart, in the same way, when they were kids?
    “You couldn’t take me anyhow,” Audrey taunted Ava, and then she stuck out her tongue and the battle was on again. The girls skirted him and went for each other like a pair of starving cats after the same fat canary.
    Tate felt as if he were trying to herd a swarm of bees back into a hive, and he might not have untangled the girls before they did each other some harm if Garrett hadn’t sprinted out of the barn and come to his aid.
    He got Audrey around the waist from behind and hoisted her off her feet, and Tate did the same with Ava. And both brothers got the hell kicked out of their knees, shins and thighs before the twin-fit finally subsided.
    There was a grin in Garrett’s eyes, which were the same shade of blue as Tate’s and Audrey’s and Ava’s, as he looked at his elder brother over the top of his niece’s head. “Well,” he drawled, as the twins gasped in delight at his mere presence, “ this is a fine how-do-you-do. And after I drove all the way from Austin to be here, too. Why, I have half a mind to send your birthday present right back to Neiman Marcus and pretend this is just any old day of the week, nothing special.”
    Simultaneously, Tate and Garrett set their separate charges back on their sandaled feet.
    Audrey smoothed her crumpled sundress and her hair—females of all ages tended to preen when Garrett was around—and asked, with hard-won dignity, “What did you get us, Uncle Garrett?”
    Last year, Tate remembered with a tightening along his jawline, it had been life-size porcelain dolls, custom-made by some artist in Austria, perfect replicas of the twins themselves. He was glad the things were at Cheryl’s—they gave him the creeps, staring blankly into space. He’d have sworn he’d seen them breathe.
    “Why don’t you go around to the kitchen patio and find out?” Garrett suggested mysteriously. “Then you’ll know whether it’s worth behaving yourselves for or not.”
    Hostilities forgotten—for the time being anyway—the girls ran squealing for the wide sidewalk that encircled the gigantic house.
    Whatever Garrett had bought for Audrey and Ava, it was sure to make Tate’s offering—a croquet set from Wal-Mart—look puny and ill-thought-out by comparison.
    Not that he put a lot of stock in comparison.
    “I thought you were in the capital, fetching and carrying for the senator,” Tate said, taking his brother’s measure in a sidelong glance.
    Garrett chuckled and slapped him—a little too hard—on one shoulder. “Sorry I missed the shindig in town,” he said, ignoring the remark about his employer. “But I managed to get here, in spite of meetings, a press conference and at least one budding scandal neatly avoided. That’s pretty good.”
    Tate sucked in a breath, let it out. Jabbed at the dirt with the heel of one boot. Garrett was a generous uncle and a good brother, for the most part, but he was living the wrong kind of life for a Texas McKettrick, and he didn’t seem to know it. “I don’t know what gets into those two,” Tate said, shoving a hand through his hair. As far as he knew, he hadn’t been in smoothie-range on the ride home, but he felt sticky all over just the same.
    Whoops of delight echoed from the distant patio and Esperanza, the middle-aged housekeeper who had worked in that house since their parents’ wedding day, could be heard chattering in happy Spanish.
    “They’ll be fine,” Garrett said lightly. Easy for an uncle to say, not so simple for a father.
    “What the hell did you get them this