McKettrick's Heart (7 page)

“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 kiss 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.”

I
NDEPENDENCE
D
AY

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, sob-like guffaw escaped her, and she put a hand over her mouth, too late.

Psyche's pain-weary eyes twinkled. “Perhaps wee
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.

 

A
T SUNSET,
K
EEGAN 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 under-shirt, 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.”

A stream of tobacco juice shot out of the man's mouth, narrowly missing Keegan's shoe. “I'm an independent contractor” came the answer. “Not that it's any never-mind of yours.”

“You have any other donkeys?”

“Just old Spud here. Truth is, he's about worthless. Gotta pop him one every once in a while, just to keep him going.”

“Dad?” Devon asked at Keegan's elbow. “Are we going to buy tickets? The line's getting
really
long.”

Keegan took in the queue of impatient kids.

“I'd sell him for the right price,” Happy volunteered cagily.

“I imagine you would,” Keegan drawled.

“Dad?” Devon prompted.

Keegan handed his daughter a bill without looking away from Happy's beady little eyes. “Forget the donkey,” he told her. “Ride the Ferris wheel.”

“But, Dad, we want—”

“The Ferris wheel, Devon.”

Devon heaved a dramatic sigh, but she obeyed. She and Rianna and Maeve immediately headed for the ticket booth.

“How much?” Keegan asked.

Happy named his price, which was, as expected, astronomical.

Keegan counted out the money, flourished it, but didn't hand it over. “I'll need a bill of sale,” he said. Then he crossed to the donkey, hoisted the overzealous rider off its back and turned to face the straggling line of kids. “Spud,” he told them, “has just retired.”

There were a few groans of disappointment, but in general the crowd took the news well.

Keegan removed the donkey's harness, stroked his rough, nubby hide with one hand while the keeper wrote out a receipt on a scrap of paper pulled from his pocket. Spud, barely reaching Keegan's middle, looked up at him, then nuzzled his arm.

“You didn't waste much of your profits on feed, did you, Happy?” he asked, looking at Spud's ladder of ribs while swapping the money for the bill of sale.

“You just made a fool's bargain,” Happy said, ignoring Keegan's remark, folding the fat wad of bills and tucking them into a battered wallet attached to one of his belt loops by a tarnished chain. “That critter is stupid, and he's lazy. Good for nothin'. Now he's your problem, not mine.”

Keegan took off Spud's saddle and the worn blanket beneath it, tossed them both aside. That left the bridle. Taking a loose hold on the reins, he turned to walk away, and the donkey followed willingly.

Rance had just arrived with Emma, and he spotted Keegan and his four-legged purchase right away. Grinning, Rance approached.