McKettrick's Luck (20 page)

Cheyenne broke away from Sierra and her friends to approach Jesse. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Jesse wanted to kiss her till her toes curled. Instead, he resettled his hat and countered, “Are you? I know the food isn't the best at Lucky's, but I've never known it to give anybody an instantaneous case of food poisoning.”

She flushed, threw a pretend punch at his chest and then laughed. It was a self-conscious sound, though, and she wouldn't quite meet his eyes.

He curled a finger under her chin, not giving a damn who was watching or what conclusions they might draw. “You've got good instincts, Cheyenne,” he said quietly. “You picked up on something in there that a lot of people would have missed.”

“I've seen a lot of games go bad,” she said. Wyatt's siren gave a couple of distant whoops, far up the road, and then went silent. She looked that way, then back to Jesse's face. “You'd better watch your back,” she told him. “The big guy's nobody to worry about, but those other two—”

Jesse was moved by her concern in a way he hadn't been by Nurleen's, and it didn't take a shrink to say why. “Be careful,” he said. “You might give me the impression that you give a damn about me, and not just those five-hundred acres you want to buy.”

She looked away. Folks were meandering back into Lucky's, flowing past them in a divided stream.

Jesse let his hand fall to his side.

“I took a job with McKettrickCo,” Cheyenne said. “I start tomorrow.”

Jesse felt a peculiar mixture of relief and dread. If she was going to work for Keegan and Rance, then she must have resigned from the real-estate outfit, which meant the land wouldn't be an issue between them anymore. On the other hand, his cousins were both single, and not above charming an attractive woman whenever the opportunity afforded itself.

Cheyenne was one hell of an opportunity.

“That's good, I guess,” he said.

A brief silence buckled in the air between them, like a live wire getting too much charge.

“Jesse, I—” Cheyenne began. But then she stopped. Bit her lower lip.

“What?” he prompted.

She seemed fascinated by the gravel at their feet, but she finally looked up at him again. Smiled thinly. “If you change your mind about selling that land, I can still facilitate the deal.”

Disappointment hollowed his middle. “Guess I'd better get on home,” he said. “See to the horses. Maybe grab a little sleep.” He'd noticed her car, parked next to Sierra's SUV. If it hadn't been for that, he'd have offered to drop her off on the way back to the ranch.

She caught at his arm as he turned to walk away. “Jesse?”

He stopped. Waited.

Another struggle played out in her face. “I—we need to talk. Do you think you could come by our place for supper tonight? Mom and Mitch will be there, but—”

Something quickened inside Jesse, an uneasy exhilaration. He'd felt the same way the first time he'd ridden a bronc in a rodeo. “Sounds serious,” he said when she left the sentence hanging in midair. “Tell you what. I'll grill a couple of steaks at the ranch. Seven o'clock?”

If he hadn't been holding his breath for her answer, he might have smiled at her obvious consternation. She knew as well as he did that, one of these times, the circumstances were going to be just right and the two of them would end up in a sweaty tangle between the sheets.

Maybe even tonight.

The prospect electrified Jesse. Woke up everything inside him, tired as he was.

“Okay,” she said uncertainly and after a long internal deliberation.

Jesse wanted to give a jubilant yell and toss his hat in the air, but he didn't. He'd spook Cheyenne if he did, and he wasn't about to take the chance.

Sierra, Elaine and Janice came out of the restaurant, in a chattering gaggle, and Sierra was schlepping an extra purse.

“Guess the practice game is over,” Cheyenne said with a faint smile.

“Guess so,” Jesse agreed.

“Should we walk you to your truck?” Sierra asked him, looking worried as she forked over Cheyenne's handbag. All four of them must have left their gear behind when Cheyenne had caught Jesse's signal and had bolted from the poker room. “Those guys might have doubled back, or they could have friends—”

Jesse chuckled. “This isn't Tombstone, Sierra,” he said. “I'll be fine.”

Sierra clearly wasn't convinced. “I could call Travis—he's in town, meeting with the contractor about our new house. I'd feel better if he followed you out to the ranch, just in case—”

“Sierra,” Jesse interrupted. “Chill.”

“I'm calling him,” Sierra decided aloud, reaching into her purse to pull out her phone.

“Sierra.”

“Oh, okay,” Sierra said. “But I don't like it.”

Jesse kissed her cheek, tipped his hat and left.

 

“I
THINK IT WOULD BE SAFER
,” Elaine said as Cheyenne watched Jesse disappear around the side of Lucky's Bar and Grill, “to hold the next practice game at somebody's house.”

“Good idea,” Sierra replied thoughtfully. Out of the corner of her eye, Cheyenne saw that her friend had watched Jesse out of sight, too. “We have lots of food left over from the party. How about tomorrow night on the Triple M?”

Elaine and Janice nodded.

A moment passed, then Cheyenne nodded, too.

They all agreed to meet at Sierra's the next evening, at seven, and went their separate ways.

Cheyenne sat stone still in her car, her heart pounding, her stomach churning.

Now that she'd let her guard down, she had to deal with the near-miss that had just taken place in Lucky's card room. Sierra and the others probably didn't suspect
how
near a miss it had been, even with all the drama of exiting the building at Cheyenne's insistence, the arrival of the deputy sheriff, and the red truck roaring out of the alley at top speed.

Cheyenne knew only too well what might have happened.

She'd seen men pull knives over a hand of cards.

She'd hidden behind bars during fistfights, with glass from broken bottles and shattered mirrors raining down on her head.

She'd been driven home in the backseat of squad cars because Cash, bloody from some brawl, had been arrested for disorderly conduct. More than once, angry players had come pounding at the door of the house out beyond the railroad tracks in the middle of the night, shouting threats. Another time, she and her mom and dad had been out for a drive, on one of Cash's rare poker-free Sunday afternoons, when a car full of sore losers had run them off the road.

Her dad had greeted them with a shotgun, pulled out from under the car seat, and Cheyenne had been so scared, she'd almost wet herself.

“Get down!” Ayanna had ordered, breathless with fear, but Cheyenne hadn't obeyed. She'd seen the whole thing.

Oh, yes. There was an energy to that kind of trouble, and she'd felt it again, back there in that room behind the restaurant. It made the tiny hairs on her forearms stand up, and the bottom fall out of her stomach.

Clutching the steering wheel, she closed her eyes.

Swallowed the bile that rose, stinging, into the back of her throat.

She hadn't had to fake the throwing-up part.

Sierra and Elaine and Janice had all scrambled into the restroom to find her heaving up her lunch. She'd taken the time to rinse her mouth and splash her face with cold water before herding them all outside, along with everyone in the restaurant.

Then she'd dialed 911 on her cell phone.

Feeling dizzy now, she leaned her head back against the top of the seat and tried to breathe slowly and deeply.

Surely Jesse wasn't so naive as to think those men were gone for good.

They obviously believed he'd cheated them.

They had a score to settle, and one small-town sheriff's deputy wouldn't scare them off.

Cheyenne fought the need to hyperventilate.

Jesse shouldn't have refused Sierra's offer to call Travis.

Damn his stupid pride, anyhow.

Damn his stupid McKettrick pride.

Still shaking, Cheyenne turned the key in the ignition, shifted into Drive and drove out of Lucky's parking lot. She cruised down Main Street, keeping to the speed limit, but at the edge of town, she gunned the engine.

She raced past the turnoff that would have taken her home.

After ten minutes or so, she spotted Jesse's truck up ahead. Slowed down a little. Silly to hope he wouldn't see her, recognize her car.

Crazy, what she was doing.

She wouldn't be any use at all in a fight.

Jesse rounded a bend, disappeared.

Cheyenne sped up.

Rounded the same bend.

Jesse was parked alongside the road, leaning against the side of his truck, with his arms folded. He'd taken off the baseball cap, and his rumpled hair gleamed in the sunlight.

Cheyenne considered sailing right on by, pretending she hadn't been following him at all but just traveling the same road, purely by chance, but she knew the tactic wouldn't work. So she pulled in behind the truck, shut off the car and got out.

“What are you doing?” Jesse asked reasonably, as she approached.

“Making sure you get home all right,” she answered, lifting her chin.

He chuckled. Shook his head. “You're protecting me?”

She came a step closer. His beard was golden, like his hair. His eyes were the same color as the high-country sky arched over their heads.

She couldn't tell by his expression whether he was insulted or flattered. “Those guys are bad news, Jesse,” she said quietly. She was already in over her head, so she might as well start treading water. “The kind who don't take kindly to losing.”

“Nobody does,” Jesse said, watching her. “They'll cool off, Cheyenne. Move on to the next game.”

“Maybe,” she replied, remembering her dad facing down those flushed and cursing men on the side of the road, with a shotgun in his hands. She'd screamed when he'd fired it into the air, could still smell the gunpowder and see the flames shooting from the double barrels.

“Suppose they turned up right now,” Jesse speculated, his tone gentle. “What would you do?”

“I don't know,” Cheyenne said, wanting to cry. “Something.”

Suddenly Jesse reached out and hooked an arm loosely around her shoulders, pulled her against him. Propped his chin on the top of her head. “You know, don't you,” he said, “what'll happen if you follow me out to the ranch?”

She buried her face in his T-shirt. Even after playing poker all night, in a smoky room, he smelled dangerously good. After a long, long time, she nodded.

He held her a little more tightly. “Want to ride in the truck with me?”

She pulled back, just far enough to look up at him. “I can't leave the car here,” she said. After all, the vehicle didn't belong to her. She was supposed to give it back. She didn't follow the chain of thought any further than that because it would lead to Nigel.

Right now, she was pretending her boss didn't exist.

Jesse nodded, walked her back to the driver's side door, which was still standing open, and waited until she was inside.

“Now's your chance, Cheyenne,” he told her gravely. “You can turn around and head back to Indian Rock, and I'll understand. There'll be no hard feelings.”

He was offering her a way out, and she ought to take it. She knew that. She also knew she
wouldn't
go back to Indian Rock, not before she'd spent the afternoon, and maybe the night, too, in Jesse McKettrick's bed.

It wasn't too much to ask, after all the doing without, all the fear, all the hopeless waiting in card rooms, all the pain of watching Mitch struggle to recover from the accident and not being able to do anything about it.

She didn't answer Jesse. Just waited until he walked away, got back into his truck, started it up.

She followed him along the winding road, leading ever upward, toward the house where McKettricks had lived and loved for almost a century and a half.

She had no illusions.

There would be no fairy-tale endings.

She'd hate herself in the morning. Maybe even before then.

But for one brief interlude in eternity, she was not going to be Cash Bridges's daughter.

She was not going to be Nigel Meerland's hired gun.

She was not going to be Ayanna's support system.

She was not going to be Mitch's protector.

She was going to be one thing, and one thing only.

A woman.