“They haven’t even sung the song I taught them,” Cheryl said.
Ava leaned against Tate’s hip. “We’re not good singers at all,” she confided.
Somewhat to Tate’s surprise, it was Audrey, the performer in the family, who turned on one sandaled heel, faced the assemblage and announced cheerfully, “You can all go home now—my dad says the party’s over.”
Cheryl winced.
The kids—and the pony—seemed relieved. So did the nannies, though the proper term, according to Cheryl, was au pairs. The mothers, many of whom Tate had known since kindergarten and dated in high school between all-too-frequent breakups with Libby Remington, the great love of his youth, if not his entire life, hid bitchy little smiles with varying degrees of success.
“The girls are a little tired,” Cheryl explained, with convincing sincerity. “All this excitement—”
“Can we ride horses when we get to the ranch?” Audrey called, from halfway across the yard. “Can we swim in the pool?”
Tate made damn sure he didn’t smile at this indication of how “tired” his daughters were, but it was hard.
Ava remained at his side, both arms clenched around his waist now.
“Their suitcases,” Cheryl said tightly, “are in the hall.”
“Let’s load Bamboozle in the trailer,” Tate told Ava, gently easing out of her embrace. “Then we’ll get your stuff and head for the ranch.”
Ava peeled herself away from Tate, walked over and took Bamboozle by the bridle strap, patiently waiting to lead the elderly animal to the trailer hitched to the back of Tate’s truck. Audrey had disappeared into the house, on some mission all her own.
“Don’t help,” Cheryl snapped, out of one side of her mouth. “You’ve already done enough, Tate McKettrick.”
“I live to delight you in every possible way, Cheryl.”
Audrey poked her head out between the French doors standing a little ajar between the living room and the patio. “Can we stop at the Perk Up on the way out of town, Dad?” she wanted to know, as calmly as if the backyard weren’t full of dismissed guests. “Get some of those orange smoothie things, like before?”
Tate grinned. “Sure,” he told his daughter, even though the thought of stopping at Libby’s coffee shop made the pit of his stomach tighten. He’d only gone in there the last time because he’d known Libby was out of town, and her sister, Julie, was running the show.
Which was ridiculous. They’d managed to avoid each other for years now, no mean trick in such a small town, but it was getting to be too damn much work.
“Just what they need—more sugar,” Cheryl muttered, shaking her head as she walked away, her arms still crossed in front of her chest, only more tightly now.
Tate held his tongue. He hadn’t been the one to serve cake and ice cream and fruit punch by the wheelbarrow load all afternoon.
Cheryl kept walking.
Tate and Ava led the pony into the horse trailer, which, along with his truck, took up at least three parking spaces on the shady street in front of Cheryl’s house. He’d bought the place for her as a part—a small part—of their divorce settlement.
“Boozle might get lonely riding in this big trailer all by himself,” Ava fretted, standing beside the pony while he slurped up water from a bucket. “Maybe I should ride back here with him, so he’d have some company.”
“Not a chance,” Tate said affably, dumping a flake of hay into the feeder for the pony to munch on, going home. “Too dangerous.”
Ava adjusted her glasses. “Audrey really wants to be in that Pixie Pageant,” she said, her voice small. “She’s going to nag you three ways from Sunday about it, too.”
Tate bit back a grin. “I think I can handle a little nagging,” he said lightly. “Let’s go get your stuff and hit the road, Shortstop.”
“I probably wouldn’t win anyway,” Ava mused wistfully, stopping her father cold.
“Win what?” Tate asked.
Ava giggled, but it was a strained sound, like she was forcing it. “The Pixie Pageant, Dad. Keep up, will you?”
Tate’s throat went tight, but he managed a chuckle. “Sure, you’d win,” he said. “And that’s another reason I won’t let you enter in the first place. Just think how bad all those other little girls would feel.”
“Audrey could be Miss Pixie,” Ava speculated thoughtfully, a small, light-rimmed shadow standing there in the horse trailer. “She can twirl a baton and everything. I keep on dropping mine.”
“Audrey isn’t entering,” Tate said. Bamboozle was between them; he removed the pony’s saddle and blanket, ran a hand along his sweaty back. “She’ll just have to content herself with being Miss McKettrick, at least for the foreseeable future.”
Ava mulled that over for a few moments, chewing her lower lip. “Do you think I’ll be pretty when I grow up, Dad?”
Tate moved to the back of the trailer, jumped down, turned and held out his arms for Ava, even though she could have walked down the ramp. “No,” he said, as she came within reach. “I think you’ll be beautiful, like you are right now.”
Ava felt featherlight as he swung her to the ground, and it gave him a pang. Was it his fault that the girls had been born too soon? Was there something he could have done to prevent all the struggles they’d faced just getting through infancy?
“You’re only saying that because you’re my dad.”
“I’m saying it because it’s true,” Tate said.
Ava stepped back while he slid the ramp into place under the trailer, then shut and latched the doors. “Mommy says it’s never too soon to think about becoming a woman,” she ventured. “Things we do now could affect our whole, entire lives, you know.”
Tate kept his back to the child, so she wouldn’t see the fury in his face. He spoke in the most normal tone he could summon. “You’ll only be a little girl for a few years,” he answered carefully. “Just concentrate on that for now, okay? Because ‘becoming a woman’ will take care of itself.”
Wasn’t it only yesterday that the twins were newborns, making a peeping sound instead of squalling, like most babies, hooked up to tubes and wires, dwarfed by their incubators at the hospital in Houston? Now, suddenly, they were six. He’d be walking them down the aisle at their weddings before he knew what hit him, he thought bleakly.
He shoved one hand through his hair, longing to get back to the ranch and pull on battered jeans that had never known the heat of an iron. Shed the spiffy shirt, so fresh from the box that the starch in the fabric chafed his skin.
On the ranch, he could breathe, although he’d seriously considered moving out of the mansion, taking up residence in the old bunkhouse or a simple single-wide down by one of the bends in the creek.
Mothers and nannies streamed past, herding grouchy children toward various cars and minivans. A few of the women spoke to Tate, most of them cordial, while a few others wished Ava a happy birthday in subdued tones and ignored him completely.
Tate wasn’t much for chatting, but he was friendly enough. When somebody spoke to him, he spoke back.
A scraping sound alerted him to Audrey, dragging her suitcase down the front walk on its wheels. He went to take the bag from her, stowed it in the front seat, on the passenger side, where his dog, Crockett, used to ride. Crockett had died of old age more than a year before, but Tate still forgot he wasn’t around sometimes and stood with the truck door open, waiting to hoist his sidekick aboard.
“You