McKettrick's Heart

Devon’s eyes rounded. “Is she going to die?”

Keegan swallowed. “Yes,” he said.

Devon slid out of the booth, rounded the end of the table and squeezed in beside Keegan. Laying her head against his arm, she murmured. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

Keegan’s throat closed. He blinked a couple of times.

“You want to cry, huh?” Devon asked softly.

He didn’t dare answer.

“Poor Daddy. It’s hard to be a man, isn’t it?”

He swallowed. Nodded.

“Do you wish you’d married Psyche?”

The question surprised him so much that he turned and stared down into his daughter’s—his daughter, by God—upturned and innocent little face. “No,” he said. “I don’t wish that.”

“Why not?”

He managed a smile. “Because I wouldn’t have you,” he told her. “And that’s something I can’t imagine.”

“Know something, Dad?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

He kissed her forehead, held her close against his side. “I love you, too, monkey,” he croaked. They just sat there like that, side by side in a restaurant booth, for a while. “You had enough of those waffles?” he asked finally.

She nodded. “Let’s hit the trail.”

He laughed. “We’re out of here.”

* * *

MOLLY PAUSED outside the bookshop, peering through the display window at the latest bestsellers. Two of her authors were represented—unfortunately, neither of them was Denby Godridge. She dreaded calling the arrogant old tyrant—smoothing his ruffled feathers would take a lot of emotional energy—but she would have to do it. And soon.

Lucas, sitting in his stroller, reached up and laid a hand on the glass, making a little-boy smudge. While Molly was scrambling for a tissue to wipe it clean, the bookshop door opened and a woman peeked out, smiling. She was blond and about Molly’s age, and warmth glowed in her eyes.

“Emma Wells,” the woman said, putting out a hand and holding the door open with one slender hip.

“Molly Shields,” Molly answered, shaking the offered hand.

“Come in,” Emma said. “I just made fresh coffee, and I promise, you don’t have to buy anything.”

Molly smiled. Since her arrival in Indian Rock she’d met exactly three people besides Lucas: Psyche, Florence and Keegan McKettrick. Her relationship with Thayer precluded friendship with all three of them, though Psyche had been kind. Molly was a woman with an active social life, a mover and a shaker, and she missed the buzz, the power lunches, the parties-with-a-purpose.

Since she’d boarded the bus in L.A., though, she’d become a person she didn’t know how to be.

“I’d like some coffee,” she said. “And I might even buy a book.”

Emma laughed and stepped back to admit her.

The shop was small and cozy, brightly lit. Two little dark-haired girls played in the children’s section, clomping around in high heels selected from a massive pile.

The sight did something strange to Molly. Filled her with a nameless, bittersweet yearning so strong that she clasped the handle on Lucas’s stroller hard to steady herself.

Meanwhile Emma crouched to smile at Lucas. “Hey, there, handsome,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Lucas,” Molly told her.

The little girls clomped over to inspect him.

“I’m Rianna,” the smaller one said. “And this is my sister, Maeve. We’ve got a dog, but he’s at the vet, getting neutered. He has to stay there till Tuesday.” She looked up into Molly’s face, her expression earnest. “Does Lucas like dogs?”

“I don’t know,” Molly said.

“Our dog’s name is Scrappers, and he doesn’t bite. Dad got him at the pound when Snowball had to go home with her real owners.”

Scrappers. Snowball. There was obviously a story here, but Molly couldn’t guess what it was.

She didn’t know any children. Was this the kind of thing they liked to talk about? She glanced hopefully at Emma, who was still on her haunches, admiring Lucas. Her pink skirt fluffed out around her in a spill of soft material. “That’s really nice,” she said.

Before Molly could figure out what was really nice, the conversation hit a snag.

“How come you don’t know if your own little boy likes dogs?” Rianna asked, clearly concerned.

“Lucas and I are…just getting to know each other,” Molly said awkwardly.

“Enough questions,” Emma told the child gently, straightening. Her expression was solemn as she regarded Molly. “How about that coffee I promised?”

Molly nodded gratefully. “Thanks,” she said.

“Do you take sugar and cream?”

“Black, please,” Molly answered.

Rianna and Maeve went back to their shoe pile.

Lucas fidgeted, wanting out of the stroller.

Emma went up the back stairs.

Molly was just standing there, minding her own business and waiting for Emma to come back with the coffee, when the shop door banged open behind her.

A girl-child dashed in, long butternut hair flowing behind her. “Shoes!” she yelled.

Molly smiled—until she saw the man coming through the doorway in the little girl’s wake.

Keegan.

McKettrick.

“I do read, you know,” Molly said defensively, to explain her presence.

Keegan’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything.

Molly flushed, furious with herself. It was free country, for Pete’s sake. She didn’t need a reason to be in a bookstore.

Keegan crouched in front of the stroller, much as Emma had done a few minutes before. “Hey, buddy,” he said.

“Hey, buddy,” Lucas echoed.

Keegan smiled at that, and Molly was thunderstruck by the effect of it. The man’s whole countenance changed when he wasn’t being a judgmental hard-ass. There might even be a human being in there somewhere, behind all that attitude.

As if he felt her gaze on him, Keegan looked up.

The second Ice Age arrived instantly.

“Does Psyche know you’re here?” he asked, rising to his full height.

Molly’s face heated. “No,” she snapped, keeping her voice down because of Lucas and the three little girls parading around in Emma’s high-heeled shoes. “I thought we’d make a break for it, Lucas and I. I plan to push his stroller overland. We’ll travel by night and sleep in trees during the day.”

He chuckled, and the sound was even more disconcerting than the smile had been.

Molly was still getting over it when Emma returned with the coffee.

“Keegan!” she cried, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

“Tell me you’ve come to your senses,” Keegan teased. “You’re dumping Rance and marrying me.”

Molly, standing on the edge of the encounter, wondered what it would be like to know this other Keegan.

Emma handed Molly a ceramic mug filled with fresh coffee, but she was looking at Keegan. Smiling. “You’re a shameless flirt,” she accused.

The little girl who’d come in with Keegan high-heeled it over to Molly. “Do you like shoes?” she asked.

“I have a closetful,” Molly said, confused.

“I’m Devon,” the child told her. “Devon McKettrick. This is my dad.”

Molly smiled stiffly. “Hello, Devon,” she responded, glancing at Keegan. “My name is Molly Shields. Your dad and I have already met.”

“She has a lot of shoes,” Devon told her father.

“Go play,” Keegan answered.

Devon didn’t move. She looked down at Lucas, then up at Molly. “Is this your little boy?”

Molly didn’t know how to answer.

“Go and play, Devon,” Keegan repeated.

“I’m just trying to find out if she’s on the market,” Devon told him.

Emma laughed.

Keegan’s neck reddened.

“Are you married?” Devon persisted, turning back to Molly, keen as a prosecutor pursuing a point of law in a courtroom.

“Devon,” Keegan warned.

“No,” Molly said nervously. “No, I’m not married.”

“But you have a baby?”

Keegan awaited her answer.

Emma shuffled Devon off to join the other kids at the shoe-fest.

“What’s with that kid and shoes?” Molly asked, to forestall the sarcastic remark Keegan had surely been planning to make.

“It’s a fixation, hopefully temporary,” Keegan said. “How’s Psyche?”

Molly sighed, saddened. “Weak. She’s hoping to attend the Fourth of July picnic and stay for the fireworks, though.”

Pain flashed in Keegan’s eyes. He started to say something, then stopped.

Molly felt compelled to speak, even though she knew it would have been better to hold her tongue. “Florence and I both thought she should rest,” she said, “but Psyche’s got her heart set on joining the celebration. So we’re bringing her.”

Keegan considered the plan in silence, probably disapproving.

Molly pushed the stroller over to the counter and set the coffee mug down. “I guess Lucas and I had better be getting back,” she said. She smiled at Emma. “Thank you.”

“Come back soon,” Emma said, looking puzzled.

Keegan held the door open so Molly could push the stroller out onto the sidewalk. Was he being courteous, or did he just want to get rid of her as quickly as possible?

He followed her outside. “Molly?”

She turned, frowning.

“I could give you and the boy a ride back to Psyche’s,” he said.

“Do you have a car seat?” Molly heard herself ask. As if she’d get in a car with Keegan McKettrick, after the way he’d treated her.

He shook his head.

“We’ll walk, then,” Molly said righteously.

It gave her some satisfaction to march off down the street without once looking back.

But not much.

* * *

SEATED ON THE FRONT PORCH swing, Psyche watched through the screen as Molly pushed Lucas up the walk. He’d fallen asleep in the stroller, hunkered down, with his head lolling to one side.

“They’re bonding,” she said to Florence, who was setting out a light lunch on the small wrought-iron patio table.

Florence grumbled as she poured lemonade into chilled glasses, one for Psyche, one for Molly and one for herself.

“Give her a chance, Florence,” Psyche pleaded softly.

“She’s probably some kind of crook,” Florence whispered. “Keegan thinks so, and so do I.”

“Well, you’re both full of sheep-dip,” Psyche said. “I had Molly’s background checked. Do you think I’d hand my baby over to some stranger?”

“No telling what you’d do,” Florence groused.

“Hush,” Psyche said, but gently. She’d been younger than Lucas when Florence had joined the family, pushed up her sleeves and put Psyche’s topsy-turvy world to rights. Her parents, both alcoholics, had been content to donate money from a distance and leave their only child’s upbringing to a person they referred to, on the rare occasions they referred to Florence at all, as “the domestic.”

Molly stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, crouched to unbuckle Lucas’s safety strap, hoisted him into her arms. He rested his head on her shoulder and snoozed on.

Molly carried Lucas up the steps with an ease Psyche envied.

There were so many simple things she couldn’t do anymore.

“Here,” Florence said, reaching out for Lucas. “I’ll put the little guy down for his nap. He can have lunch later.”

“Let Molly do it, Florence,” Psyche said.

Molly gripped Lucas a little more tightly and made for the door.

Florence stepped out of the way, but only at the last possible moment.

“She’s a stranger,” the older woman insisted, once Molly was well inside and she’d closed the heavy door. “Whether you paid a bunch of fancy detectives to investigate her or not!”

“Nonsense,” Psyche replied, sitting down at the table and reaching for her lemonade with an unsteady hand. “She’s Lucas’s mother.”

“You’re Lucas’s mother,” Florence said staunchly.

Psyche shook her head. “I’m a ghost,” she said pensively. The lemonade was ice-cold and struck just the right balance between sour and sweet. She relished the taste, though she knew it would probably make her violently ill later on. Almost everything she ate or drank did. Calling a halt to the chemotherapy hadn’t relieved her of the nausea.

“Don’t you talk that way!” Florence scolded, shaking a finger under Psyche’s nose the way she had when she was a little girl, tracking in mud from the backyard or fidgeting in church.

“Why not?” Psyche asked, nibbling at a corner of a little sandwich with smoked salmon and cream cheese inside. “It’s the truth.”

“I’ve never heard such silliness!” Florence ranted on. “You’re as alive as I am. As alive as anybody.”

“No, I’m not. It’s strange, Florence, but the grass seems greener than I’ve ever seen it, and the sky is bluer. I hear every bird, every bug rubbing its wings together in the flower beds. And yet there’s something—remote about it all. As though I’m…receding into another place.”

Florence, reaching for a sandwich of her own, suddenly bent her head, curved her always-straight shoulders inward and began to sob.

“I can’t bear it,” she cried. “Why isn’t it me that’s dying? I’ve lived my life—”

“Shh,” Psyche told her, rising to stand beside Florence, put an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “It’s all right.”

“It isn’t all right!” Florence fumed. “It’s a damn shame, is what it is! It isn’t fair!”

“You were the one who told me life isn’t fair, so we oughtn’t to expect it to be,” Psyche soothed. “Remember?”

Florence looked up, her beloved face ravaged by grief. “You’re like my own child, my own baby girl… .”

Psyche’s heart turned over. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

“Look at me, carrying on!” Florence boomed, straightening her shoulders, picking up a table napkin and swabbing at her tears. “You need me to be strong, and I’m falling apart like an old potato sack with its seams bursting.”

“It’s all right,” Psyche repeated.

The door opened again, and Molly stood on the threshold, looking as though she didn’t know whether to join Psyche and Florence or dash back into the house.

“Come and sit down, Molly,” Psyche said. “I want to hear all about your walk with Lucas.”

Chapter 4

INDEPENDENCE DAY.

Ironic, Molly thought as she joined Psyche at the table on the front porch. She was about to give up her personal freedom, her life in L.A. and, essentially, her career, for the sake of one little boy. Once the various documents were signed, she would be a captive, an emotional hostage, for all practical intents and purposes—to a child.

Lucas’s fate would be interwoven with her own—forever.

If his heart was broken, hers would be, too.

Was it worth it?

Molly had absolutely no doubt that it was, but neither did she suffer any illusions that the process would be easy and pain free. Joy, in her experience, was a Siamese twin to sorrow, conjoined at the heart.

She drew back a wicker chair with a bright floral cushion. “I saw Keegan while I was out,” she said. “He asked about you.”

Psyche smiled. “Keegan,” she repeated somewhat wistfully, as though by saying his name she’d conjured him and could see him clearly in the near distance.

Florence, her face wet, immediately fled into the house, muttering to herself and scrubbing at her eyes with a cotton handkerchief as she went.

“Are you in love with him?” Molly asked, and then was horrified, because she hadn’t consciously planned to ask the question. She didn’t pry. She was not, after all, a nosy person, nor was she impulsive. Indeed, she prided herself on her practicality, abhorred denial, went into things with her eyes wide open—her affair with Thayer being the one notable exception.

Now she awaited Psyche’s reply with a strange sense of urgency, braced, at one and the same time, for a stinging rebuke.

Psyche was silent for an interval, her expression still softly distant, almost diffused. Finally she shook her head. “No,” she said, and Molly marveled at the depth and swiftness of her own relief. “Keegan and I were childhood sweethearts… .” She paused to sigh. “Such an old-fashioned term, ‘childhood sweethearts’—don’t you think?”

Molly wanted to avert her gaze, but she didn’t allow herself to do so, because it would have been cowardly. “I think Keegan loves you,” she said, helpless against this strange and unwise part of herself suddenly rising up to say things she had no right or intention to utter. And she chafed at the stab of helpless sorrow her own words wrought in her.

Keegan hated her, and the feeling was mutual.

Why, then, did she care whether or not he loved Psyche?

More to the point, how could she stop caring?

“He does love me,” Psyche agreed. “He’s fiercely protective of anyone he cares about—all the McKettricks are.”

A lump rose in Molly’s throat and swelled there. She swallowed, determined not to break down.

Something moved in Psyche’s eyes—compassion, perhaps. She reached out, touched Molly’s hand.

“Keegan and I are friends,” Psyche went on gently. “Nothing more.”

“I’m not so sure he would agree,” Molly said. “Psyche, I—”

“What?”

“I’m so sorry—about what happened between Thayer and me, I mean.”

“Water under the bridge,” Psyche said. “When Thayer died I was—in some ways—relieved. It’s horrible to admit that, and maybe I’m being punished for it now. Maybe that’s why I have to let go, leave Lucas—”

“No,” Molly protested weakly. As much as she wanted to raise Lucas, the cost was simply too great.

Psyche smiled, but her eyes were misty, and her chin trembled ever so slightly. “Isn’t it remarkable, Molly? Your being here, I mean? I actually think we would have been friends if we’d met under other circumstances.”

Molly gulped. “I would do anything to go back and change things.”

“Would you?” Psyche asked. “Where would that leave Lucas?”

Molly couldn’t speak.

“You slept with my husband. You bore his child. And while convention would dictate that I ought to hate you for that, I can’t. You brought Lucas into the world, Molly. Try as I might, I can’t feel anything but gratitude.”

Tears burned in Molly’s eyes. “You are the most amazing person, Psyche Ryan,” she managed, fairly strangling on the words. “Worth ten of me, and a hundred of Thayer. He didn’t deserve you.”

Psyche gave a hoarse chuckle. “Well, I agree with you about Thayer. The man wasn’t fit to lick my shoes. But you, Molly Shields, are an entirely different matter. You are a far finer person than you think.”

Molly shook her head. “I was such a blind fool—”

“Stop,” Psyche said abruptly.

Molly blinked, surprised.

“Yes, you made a mistake,” Psyche allowed. “But something very, very good came of it. And now I’m dying.” She stopped, regrouping. Perhaps absorbing, yet again, the fate she couldn’t escape. “I have no time for hand-wringing or for regrets, yours or mine, so buck up and get over it. The first moment I held Lucas in my arms I forgave you for everything. I blessed you. Now you need to forgive yourself, if only for Lucas’s sake. Can you do that?”

Molly pondered the question, then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “But it won’t be easy.”

“Nobody said anything about easy,” Psyche responded. “Lucas will have fevers, and skinned knees, and all manner of required boy-experiences. Dealing with Keegan won’t be any stroll through the lilies either, but then, I suppose you’ve deduced that already.”

Ruefully Molly nodded again.

“I’ve asked Keegan to be the executor of my estate,” Psyche confirmed. “He wanted to adopt Lucas himself, you know. Leave you completely out of the picture. I refused, because I believe a child needs a mother.”

“How—” Molly choked, cleared her throat, started over. “How can you trust me, after all that happened?”

Psyche smiled. “This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision, Molly. I’m not giving Lucas to you just because you happen to be his birth mother. You’ve been checked out by the best private investigators in Los Angeles.”

“But you said something about not knowing my financial situation.”

“I lied,” Psyche said sweetly.

Molly laughed. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a raw, soblike guffaw escaped her, and she put a hand over her mouth, too late.

Psyche’s pain-weary eyes twinkled. “Perhaps we can be friends, even this late in the game,” she said. “What do you think?”

“I think I’d be honored to be your friend,” Molly answered.

“Know what?” Psyche asked.

“What?”

“Thayer wasn’t good enough to lick your shoes, either.”

Once again Molly laughed. She laughed so hard that she finally had to lay her head down on her folded arms and cry as though her very soul were bruised.

Which, of course, it was.

* * *

AT SUNSET, KEEGAN STOOD looking up at the Ferris wheel looming in the middle of Indian Rock’s small park, trying to work up a celebratory mood. Try as he might, he couldn’t.

Psyche was dying.

McKettrickCo was being torn apart from the inside.

Shelley wanted to take Devon thousands of miles away and install her in some institution so she and the boyfriend could walk the streets of Paris and hold hands in the rain.

What a load.

Keegan, meanwhile, was on tilt, like a pinball machine with a phone book under one leg.

“Dad?”

He looked down, saw Devon standing beside him, flanked by Rianna and Maeve. Rance and Emma would be along later. In the interim, all three of the kids were munching on big pink fluffs of cotton candy, and would most likely be puking up their socks any second now.

“Can we go on the pony ride, Uncle Keegan?” Rianna asked.

“It’s a donkey ride, ding-dong,” Maeve said importantly.

“There’s only one donkey,” Devon pointed out sagely, “so we’ll have to stand in line.”

Keegan sighed. “Sure,” he said.

The girls raced away across the lush grass of the park, past the barbecue being set up under a canvas canopy, and he ambled after them, feeling foolish in his white shirt, dress slacks and gray silk vest. The rest of the men were wearing jeans or chinos.

The donkey was small, and its hide was mangy. It lumbered doggedly around and around a metal center-pole, chained to the mechanism. The creature’s ribs showed, its hooves needed trimming and it kept its head down, as though slogging into the face of a heavy wind. The child on its back kicked it steadily with the heels of his sneakers.

As the animal passed Keegan, making its endless rounds, it turned its head, gazing at him with dull brown eyes. It stumbled, and a wiry little man standing to one side whacked it on the flank with a stick and growled, “Wake up!”

Keegan, in the act of taking out his wallet to give Devon and his nieces money to buy tickets, stopped cold.

The donkey keeper’s gaze sliced to the wallet, as if magnetized, then slithered, snakelike, up to Keegan’s face. Passing him a second time, the donkey stumbled again.

The man raised the switch.

Keegan, without realizing he’d moved at all, was there to jerk it out of the keeper’s hand. He might have flung the stick halfway across the park if there hadn’t been so many kids standing around. Instead, he let it drop to the ground, opening his fingers slowly.

“You got a problem, mister?” the man asked. He wore grease-stained jeans and a grubby white undershirt, and his upper arms were tattooed with intertwined serpents, apparently consuming each other. A plastic name pin pinned to his shirt identified him as “Happy.”

Keegan made a mental note to appreciate the irony later.

“No,” he replied flatly, keeping his voice down. “I don’t have a problem. But you will if you pick up that stick again.”

Happy ruminated, spat. “Old Spud belongs to me,” he said. “I reckon I can do as I please with him.”

“Do you, now?” Keegan inquired, still holding his wallet in his free hand. “You traveling with this carnival? It’s been coming here twice a year for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never seen you before.”