McKettrick's Luck

Jesse’s name wasn’t on the reader board in the sleekly contemporary reception area, a fact that didn’t surprise Cheyenne. When she’d known him, he was the original trust-fund bad boy, wild as a mustang and committed to one thing: having a good time.

She approached the desk, relieved that she didn’t recognize the woman tapping away at the keyboard of a supercomputer with three large flat-screen monitors.

“May I help you?” the receptionist asked pleasantly. She was middle-aged, with a warm smile, a lacquered blond hairdo and elegant posture.

Cheyenne introduced herself, hoping her last name wouldn’t ring any bells, and asked how to locate Jesse McKettrick. With luck—and she was due for some of that—she wouldn’t have to drive all the way out to his house and confront him on his own turf.

Not that any part of Indian Rock was neutral ground when it came to the McKettricks.

The receptionist assessed Cheyenne with mild interest. “Jesse could be anywhere,” she said, after some length, “but if I had to make a guess, I’d say he’s probably in the back room over at Lucky’s, playing poker.”

Cheyenne stiffened. Of course he’d be at Lucky’s—fate wouldn’t have it any other way. How many times, as a child, had she sneaked through the back door of that place from the alley and tried to will her father away from a game of five-card stud?

She produced a business card, bearing her name, affiliation with Meerland Real Estate Ventures, Ltd., and her cell number. “Thanks,” she said. “Just in case you see Mr. McKettrick before I do, will you give him my card and ask him to please call me as soon as possible?”

The woman studied Cheyenne’s information, frowned and then nodded politely. “He doesn’t come in too often,” she said.

Of course he didn’t.

Still Jesse, after all these years.

Cheyenne left McKettrickCo, got back into her car and drove resolutely to Lucky’s Main Street Bar and Grill. The gravel parking lot beside the old brick building was full, with the dinner hour fast approaching, so she parked in the alley, next to a mud-splattered black truck with both windows rolled down.

For a moment, she was a kid again, sent by her misguided mother to fetch Daddy home from the bar. She remembered propping her bike against the wall, next to the overflowing trash bin, rehearsing what she’d say once she got inside, forcing herself up the two unpainted steps and through the screened door, which always groaned on its hinges.

When the door suddenly creaked open, Cheyenne was startled. She wrenched herself out of the time warp and actually considered crouching behind the Dumpster until whoever it was had gone.

Jesse stepped out, stretched like a lazy tomcat at home in an alley and fixing to go on the prowl, and adjusted his cowboy hat. He wore old jeans, a Western shirt unbuttoned to his collarbone and the kind of boots country people called shit-kickers. Even mud and horse manure couldn’t disguise the fact that they were expensive, probably custom-made.

When Cheyenne’s gaze trailed back up to Jesse’s face, she realized that he was looking at her. Grinning that lethal grin.

She blushed.

Someone flipped the porch light on from inside, and moths immediately gravitated to it, out of nowhere. Drawing an immediate parallel between Jesse and the bulb, she took half a step back.

He registered her suit and high-heeled shoes in a lazy sweep of his eyes. He clearly didn’t recognize her, which was at once galling and a relief.

He tugged at the brim of his battered hat. “You lost?” he asked.

Cheyenne was a moment catching her breath. “No,” she answered, fishing in her hobo bag for another card. “My name is Cheyenne Bridges, and I was hoping to talk to you about a business proposition.”

She instantly regretted using the word proposition because it made a corner of Jesse’s mouth tilt with amusement, but she was past the point of no return.

He descended the steps with that loose-limbed, supremely confident walk she remembered so well and approached her. Put out his hand. “Jesse McKettrick,” he said.

There was nothing to say but “I know.” She’d given herself away with the first words she’d spoken.

“Bridges,” he said, reflecting. Studying the card pensively before slipping it into his shirt pocket.

Cheyenne braced herself inwardly. Glanced toward the screen door Jesse had come through a few moments before.

“Any relation to—?” He paused, stooped slightly to look into her face. Recollection dawned. “Wait a second. Cheyenne Bridges.” He grinned. “I remember you—Cash’s daughter. We went to the movies a couple of times.”

She swallowed, nodded, hiked her chin up a notch. “That’s right,” she said carefully. Cash’s daughter, that’s who she was to him. A shy teenager he’d dated twice and then lost interest in. He didn’t know, she reminded herself silently, that she’d tacked every picture of him she could get to the wall of her bedroom in that shack out beyond the railroad tracks, the way most girls did photos of rock stars and film idols. He didn’t know she’d loved him with the kind of desperate, hopeless adoration only a sixteen-year-old can feel.

He didn’t know she’d prayed that he’d fall madly in love with her. That she’d imagined their wedding, their honeymoon and the birth of their four children so often that sometimes it felt like a memory of something that had really happened, rather than the fantasy it was.

Thank God Jesse didn’t know any of those things. She wouldn’t have been able to face him if he had, even with Mitch and her mom and Nigel all depending on her to persuade him to sell five hundred unspoiled acres of land to her company.

“I heard about your brother’s accident,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Shaken out of her reverie, Cheyenne nodded again. “Thanks.”

“Your dad, too.”

Her eyes stung. She tried to speak, swallowed instead.

Jesse smiled, took a light grip on her elbow. “Do you always do business in alleys?” he teased.

For a moment, she was affronted. Then she realized it was a perfectly reasonable question. “No,” she said.

“I was just heading for the Roadhouse to grab some supper. Want to come along?” He gestured toward the muddy truck.

The Roadhouse, also known as the Roadkill Café, was an institution in Indian Rock, a haven for truck drivers, bikers, cowboys and state patrolmen. Ironically, families dined at Lucky’s, probably pretending that the card room behind it didn’t exist.

“I’ll meet you there,” Cheyenne said. She’d have been safe enough with Jesse, but no way was she climbing into that truck in a straight skirt. She had some dignity, after all, even if she did feel like the scrawny ten-year-old who’d parked her bike in this alley and gone inside to beg her father, with a stellar lack of success, to come home for supper. Or to watch her perform in the class play. Or to take Gram to the hospital because she couldn’t catch her breath.…

“Okay,” Jesse said easily. He walked her to the rental car, which looked nondescript beside his truck. Like his boots, the vehicle had seen its share of action. Like his boots, it was top-of-the-line, with dual tires and an extended cab. Definitely leather seats, custom CD player and a GPS, too.

Once she was behind the wheel of the rental, with the window rolled down, Jesse leaned easily against the door and looked in at her.

“It’s good to see you again, Cheyenne,” he said.

“You, too,” she replied. But a lump rose in her throat. Don’t go there, she told herself sternly. This is business. You’ll buy the land. You’ll help Nigel get the construction project rolling. You’ll collect your bonus and take care of Mitch and your mother. And then you’ll go back to San Diego and forget Jesse McKettrick ever existed.

“As if,” she muttered aloud.

Jesse, in the process of turning away to head for his truck, turned back. “Did you say something?”

She gave him her best smile. “See you there,” she said.

He waved. Hoisted himself into the truck and fired up the engine.

Cheyenne waited until he pulled out, and then followed.

If she’d been as smart as other people thought she was, she thought grimly, she’d have kept on going. Sped right out of Indian Rock, past the Roadhouse, past Jesse and all the other memories and impossible dreams he represented, and never looked back.

CHAPTER TWO

JESSE REACHED THE Roadhouse first and waited in his truck for Cheyenne to catch up. Things had been dull around Indian Rock lately, with nothing much to do besides play poker and feed horses, but he had a feeling life was about to get a little more interesting.

Smiling slightly, he pulled Cheyenne’s business card from his pocket and read it again. Meerland Real Estate Ventures, Ltd.

This time, it clicked.

The smile faded to black.

She wanted the land.

“Damn,” he muttered, watching in the side mirror as Cheyenne’s car turned into the lot and pulled up beside him.

He sighed. She’d been pretty, as a girl. Strangely alert, too, like a deer raising its head at a watering hole at the snap of a twig, sniffing the wind for the scent of danger. Now, as a woman, Cheyenne Bridges was beautiful. Slight in adolescence, she’d rounded out real well, and if she’d let that rich dark hair down from the prim French twist and ditch the librarian gear, she’d be a showstopper.

Jesse got out of the truck, waited stiffly while Cheyenne pushed open her car door to stand teetering in those ridiculous shoes. She smiled tentatively and touched her hair.

In poker, that move would be an eloquent tell: Cheyenne was nervous.

And if his suspicions were right, she had cause to be nervous. He retallied the facts in his head—she worked for a real-estate company, of the “ventures” variety, and back there in the alley behind Lucky’s she’d said she wanted to discuss a business proposition.

In those few moments while they both stood in the gap between silence and speech, between uncertainty and decision, he considered sparing her fruitless expectations. He wasn’t about to sell the acres just beyond the eastern boundaries of the Triple M, if that was what she wanted. That land was the only thing he’d ever gotten on his own and not by virtue of being born a McKettrick.

Then again, he supposed he ought to at least hear her out. Maybe he was wrong, and she was beating the brush for investors. Being a gambler, he might be able to get behind something like that, if only because it would mean spending time with Cheyenne, unraveling some of the mysteries.

One thing was obvious. Cheyenne had come a long way since she’d left Indian Rock. The car was nothing special—probably rented—but the clothes were upscale. And while she still used her maiden name, that didn’t mean she wasn’t married. His older sisters, Sarah and Victoria, both had husbands, but still they went by McKettrick.

He glanced at Cheyenne’s left hand, looking for a ring, but the hand was hidden by the wide strap of her purse.

“Shall we?” he asked and gestured toward the entrance of the Roadhouse.

She looked relieved. “Sure,” she said. She walked a little ahead, and he opened the door for her.

Jesse had been eating at the Roadhouse all his life, but as he followed Cheyenne over the threshold, it seemed strange to him, a place he’d never been before. The sounds and smells and colors spun around him, and he felt disoriented, as though he’d just leaped off some great wheel while it was still spinning. He was a second or two getting his bearings.

He’d gone to school with the hostess, from kindergarten through his senior year at Indian Rock High, but as he and Cheyenne followed the woman to a corner booth, he couldn’t have said what her name was.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Cheyenne slid into the red vinyl seat, and Jesse sat opposite, placing his hat on the wide windowsill behind the miniature jukebox. He ordered coffee, she asked for sparkling mineral water with a twist of lime.

They studied their plastic menus, and when the waitress showed up—Jesse had gone to school with her, too, and consulted her name tag so he wouldn’t be caught out—Cheyenne went with French onion soup and he chose a double-deluxe cheeseburger, with fries.

“Thanks, Roselle,” he said, to anchor himself in ordinary reality.

Roselle touched his shoulder, smiled flirtatiously and sashayed away to fill the orders.

Cheyenne raised her eyebrows slightly, but said nothing.

Might as well bite the bullet, Jesse figured. “So Cheyenne, what brings you back to Indian Rock after all this time?” he asked easily.

She took a sip of fizzy water. “Business,” she said.

Jesse thought of his land. Of the timber, and the wide, grassy clearings, and the creek that shone so brightly in the sun that it made a man blink. He tasted his coffee and waited.

Cheyenne sighed. She had the air of someone about to jump through an ice hole in a frozen lake. “My company is prepared to offer you a very competitive price for—”

“No,” Jesse broke in flatly.

She’d made the jump, and from her expression, the water was even colder than expected. “No?”

“No,” he repeated.

“You didn’t let me finish,” she protested, rallying. “We’re talking about several million dollars here. No carrying back a mortgage. No balloon payments. Cash. We can close on the deal within two weeks of going to contract.”

Jesse started to reach for his hat, sighed and withdrew his hand. He’d seen this coming. Why did he feel like a kid who’d counted on getting a BB gun for Christmas and found new underwear under the tree instead?

“There isn’t going to be any contract,” he said.

She paled. Settled back against the booth seat. Her hand trembled as she set down her water glass.

“The price is negotiable,” she told him after a few moments of looking stricken.

He knew what she was thinking; he could read it in her face. Money talks. She thought he was angling for a higher price.

“You should never take up poker,” he said.

The food arrived.

Roselle winked as she set the burger down in front of him.

“I hate women like that,” Cheyenne told him after Roselle had swivel-hipped it back behind the counter.

Unprepared for this bend in the conversational river, Jesse paused with a French fry halfway to his mouth. “What?”

“They’re a type,” Cheyenne said, leaning in a little and lowering her voice. “Other women are invisible to them. If they had their way, the whole world would be a reverse harem.”

Jesse chuckled. “Well, that’s an interesting take on the subject,” he allowed. “The soup’s pretty good here.”

She picked up her spoon, put it down again. “It’s not as if I’m asking you to sell any part of the Triple M,” she said. Another hairpin turn, but this time, Jesse was ready. “That land is just sitting there. Unused.”

“Unspoiled,” Jesse clarified. “I suppose you want to turn it into an industrial park. Or a factory—the world really needs more disposable plastic objects.”

“Condominiums,” Cheyenne said, squaring her shoulders.

Jesse winced. “Even worse,” he replied.

“People need places to live.”

“So do critters,” Jesse said. He’d been hungry when he’d suggested supper at the Roadhouse. Now, he wasn’t sure he could choke down any part of that cheeseburger. “We’ve got so many coyotes and bobcats coming right into town these days that the feds are about to put a bounty on them. Do you know why, Ms. Bridges?” he asked, suddenly icily formal.

“Why are coyotes and bobcats coming into town,” she countered, “or why is the government about to put a bounty on them?”

Jesse set his back teeth, thought of his cousin Keegan for no reason he could have explained, and deliberately relaxed his jaws. “Wild animals are being driven farther out of their natural habitat every day,” he said. “By people like you. They’ve got to be somewhere, damn it.”

“Which do you care more about, Mr. McKettrick? People or animals?”

“Depends,” Jesse said. “I’ve known people who could learn scruples from a rabid badger. And it’s not as if building more condominiums is a service to humanity. Most of them are a blight on the land—and they all look alike, too. Stucco boxes, stacked on top of each other. What’s that about?”

Cheyenne picked up her spoon, made a halfhearted swipe at her soup. Straightened her spine. “I’d be glad to show you the blueprints,” she said. “Our project is designed to blend gracefully into the landscape, with minimal impact on the environment.”

Jesse eyed his cheeseburger regretfully. All those additives and preservatives going to waste, not to mention a lot of perfectly good grease. “No deal,” he said. With anybody else, he’d have played out the hand, let her believe he was interested in selling, just to see what came of it. Cheyenne Bridges was different, and that was the most disturbing element of all.

Why was she different?

“Just let me show you the plans,” she persisted.

“Just let me show you the land,” he retorted.

She smiled. “I’ll let you show me yours,” she bargained, “if you’ll let me show you mine.”

He laughed. “You sure are persistent,” he said.

“You sure are stubborn,” she answered.

Jesse reached for his cheeseburger. By that time, he’d had ample opportunity to notice that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“You ever get married?” he asked.

She seemed to welcome the change of subject, though the quiet, bruised vigilance was still there in her eyes and the set of her shoulders and the way she held her head. “No,” she said. “You?”

“No,” he told her. He and Brandi, a rodeo groupie, had been married by an Elvis in Las Vegas, come to their senses before word had got out, and agreed to divorce an hour after they’d checked out of the hotel. They’d parted friends, and he hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, though she hit him up for a few hundred dollars every now and then, and he always sent the money.

As far as he was concerned, he’d answered honestly. Brandi slipped out of his mind as quickly as she’d slipped in.

Meanwhile, he’d only taken a couple of bites of the sandwich, but the patty was thick and goopy with cheese, and protein always centered him—especially when he’d been playing cards all day, subsisting on the cold cereal he’d had for breakfast after doing the chores on the ranch. Sure enough, it was the burger that lifted his spirits.

Sure enough, said a voice in his head, you’re full of sheep dip.

It’s the woman.

“How’s the soup?” he asked.

“Cold,” she said. “How’s the burger?”

He grinned. “It’s clogging my arteries even as we speak.”

Cheyenne lifted one eyebrow, but she was smiling. “And that’s good?”

“Probably not,” he said. “But it tastes great.”

After that, the conversation was relatively easy.

They finished their meal, Jesse paid the bill, and Cheyenne left the tip.

He walked her to her car. There was virtually no crime in Indian Rock, but that kind of courtesy was bred into him, like opening doors and carrying heavy things.

“You’ll really look at the plans?” she asked quietly, her eyes luminous, once she was behind the wheel.

“If you’ll look at the land,” Jesse reminded her. “Come up to the ranch tomorrow, around nine o’clock. I’ll be through feeding the horses around then.”

She nodded. A pulse fluttered at the base of her throat. “I’ll bring the blueprints,” she said.

“Please,” he said, with mock enthusiasm, “bring the blueprints.”

She laughed and moved to close the car door. “Thanks for supper, Jesse.”

He went to tug at the brim of his hat, then remembered he’d left it inside the Roadhouse. “My pleasure,” he said, feeling awkward for the first time in recent memory.

He watched as Cheyenne started the car, backed out and drove away. Ordinarily, he’d have gone back to Lucky’s to play a few more hands of cards, but that night, he just wanted to go home.

He went back into the Roadhouse, reclaimed his hat.

Roselle invited him to a party at her place.

If her eyes had been hands, he’d have been stripped naked, right there in the Roadhouse. Clearly, the “party” she had in mind would include the two of them and nobody else.

He said some other time, adding a mental “maybe.”

Back in his truck, he adjusted the rearview mirror and looked into his own eyes. Who are you? he asked silently. And what have you done with Jesse McKettrick?

“I COMPLETELY BLEW IT,” Cheyenne told her mother the moment she stepped into the house that night.

Ayanna sat on the old couch, her feet resting bare on the cool linoleum floor, crocheting something from multi-strands of variegated yarn. “How so?” she asked mildly.

The sounds of cyber-battle bounced in from the next room. Mitch was playing a video game on his laptop. Mitch was always playing a video game on his laptop. It was as though by shooting down animated enemies he could keep his own demons at bay.

“Jesse flatly refused to sell me the land,” Cheyenne said.

Ayanna smiled softly. “You expected that.”

Cheyenne tossed her heavy handbag onto a chair, kicked off her shoes and sighed with relief. “Yeah,” she said.

“Want something to eat?” Ayanna asked. “Mitch and I had mac-and-cheese.”

“I had soup,” Cheyenne said.

Her cell phone played its elevator song inside her bag.

“Ignore it,” Ayanna advised.

“I can’t,” Cheyenne answered. She fished out the phone, flipped it open and said, “Hello, Nigel.”

“Have you made any progress?” Nigel asked.

Cheyenne looked at her watch. “Gosh, Nigel. You’ve shown amazing restraint. It’s been at least an hour and a half since the last time you called.”

“You said you were on your way to have dinner with McKettrick,” Nigel reminded her. They’d talked, live via satellite, during the drive between Lucky’s and the Roadhouse. “How did it go?”

Ayanna sat serenely, crocheting away.

“He said no,” Cheyenne reported.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“We’re doomed.”

“Take a breath, Nigel. He agreed to look at the plans—on one condition.”

“What condition?”

“I have to look at the land. Tomorrow morning. I’m meeting him at his place at 9:00 a.m.”

“So we’re still in the running?”

“Anybody’s guess,” Cheyenne said wearily, moving her purse to sink into the chair herself. “Jesse’s direct, if nothing else, and as soon as he knew what I wanted, he dug in his heels.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have sprung it on him so soon,” Nigel mused. Cheyenne could just see her boss’s bushy brows knitting together in a thoughtful frown. She wondered if he’d ever considered investing in a weed eater, for purposes of personal grooming.

“You didn’t give me any other choice, remember?”

“Don’t make this my fault.”

“You’ve been breathing down my neck since I got off the plane in Phoenix yesterday morning. If you want me to do the impossible, Nigel, you’ve got to give me some space.”

“You can do this, can’t you, Cheyenne?”

She felt a surge of shaky confidence. “I specialize in the impossible,” she said.

“Come through for me, babe,” Nigel wheedled.

“Don’t call me babe,” Cheyenne responded. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother smile. “And don’t bug me, either. When I have something to tell you, I’ll be in touch—”

“But—”

“Goodbye, Nigel.” Cheyenne thumbed the end button.

Sounds of intense warfare burgeoned from Mitch’s room.

With another sigh, Cheyenne tossed the cell phone onto a dust-free end table and rose from her chair. “You know something, Mom?” she said, brightening. “You’re amazing. You’ve been in this house for a few hours, and already it feels like home.”