McKettrick's Luck (23 page)

Ayanna cranked the van into Reverse. Her eyes shone with mischief. “Uh-oh,” she said.

“What?” Cheyenne demanded, worried that the van was either going to blow up or fall apart on the spot.

“You've lost that lovin' feelin',” Ayanna chimed. “Whoa-oh, that lovin' feelin'.”

“Very funny, Mother.”

Ayanna threw back her head and laughed out loud.

It was a good sound, Cheyenne thought, smiling a little, even if it
was
at her expense.

J
ESSE GRINNED AS THE
horses bolted through the corral gate, some of them kicking up their heels for sheer joy, others prancing and tossing their heads. He felt like joining them.

He'd awakened before Cheyenne that morning, and had lain for a long time just watching her sleep. Imagining what it would be like to wake up and find her beside him
every
morning. He'd even gone so far as to try and picture what their kids would look like—anybody's guess, he finally concluded.

He was fair, she was dark.

It was a genetic toss of the dice.

Whistling, he closed the gate and fastened the latch.

He'd tried to talk Cheyenne into staying for breakfast, but she'd been hell-bent on showing up on time for her first day at McKettrickCo. They'd showered together, though, and had made sweet, slick love before she'd toweled herself off and shimmied back into yesterday's clothes.

There'd been one awkward moment—just as she was leaving—a sort of hitch in the flow of events. She'd wanted to tell him something. Something that had sobered her expression and darkened her eyes. Probably that neither of them ought to put too much stock in how good the sex had been, because, after all, they were both consenting adults. Things happened.

He'd had similar thoughts himself—until Cheyenne had taken him to places he'd never dreamed existed. Shown him the landscape of his own spirit, with all its sunlight and shadow, all its canyons and mesas and shining creeks.

He wasn't prepared to call it love.

But it sure as hell wasn't casual sex, either.

He'd had plenty of that. Probably qualified as an expert. It was usually good; sometimes it even shook him up a little, made him want to reconsider some of the things he'd decided about his life. But
sex
was an inadequate word in this context; it didn't describe the kind of sacred communion he and Cheyenne had shared. He could search the dictionary from now till doomsday and never find a definition that suited the situation.

Leaning on the uppermost rail of the gate, he watched the horses frolic in the field for a while, delighting in their freedom, then turned and headed back toward the house.

He was hungry; he'd throw together an omelet or nuke something from the freezer, then drive into town. He needed a break from poker, but maybe he'd stop by McKettrickCo, show a little interest in the family business—now that Cheyenne was part of it.

She'd probably run him off with the verbal equivalent of a shotgun, but at least he could say howdy.

After that, he'd go on over to the Bridges place and work on the railings for Mitch's wheelchair ramp.

Sounded like a productive day to him.

Inside the house, he washed up at the kitchen sink, then got out the fixings for his omelet—a few green onions, some mushrooms, a little cheese would dress up the eggs just fine.

While the skillet was heating, Jesse remembered his mother's message the night before. Time to call her back. The familiar beep reminded him that he'd skipped right over Brandi's call. With a sigh, he punched in the appropriate numbers. Might as well get it over with.

“Jesse, this is Brandi,” the recorded voice said. “It's—listen, I really need to talk to you, because this guy came around, and he offered me a lot of money—
damn,
I forgot to charge this thing—call me later, will you?”

Frowning, Jesse thumbed the call-back sequence.

Another recording. “Hi, this is Brandi. I can't come to the phone right now, but your call is important to me. Leave your number and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Annoyed, Jesse simply said, “It's me, calling back. Bye.”

What “guy” had come around, offering Brandi “a lot” of money, he wondered, and what the hell did any of that have to do with him?

The phone rang before he could replace the receiver.

“Brandi?”

Familiar laughter trilled in his ear. “Sorry, Jess. It's only me—your mom. You remember—Callie McKettrick. Tall. Brown hair. A real sense of fashion. The person who gave birth to you.”

Jesse grinned, went back to the stove, stirred the onion-and-mushroom mixture around with the end of a spatula. “I have a vague recollection,” he said with a chuckle. As mothers went, he'd drawn a pretty good one, all things considered. “What's up?”

“Nothing much.” His mother sighed cheerfully. Callie was a happy woman, for the most part, and she described herself as
fulfilled,
whatever that meant. She'd never been involved with the company, like his dad was, and she spent most of her time socializing and raising money for various charities, but she was no airhead. Jesse had always been proud of her. “Your dad and I were just wondering how you are, that's all.”

“Couldn't be better,” Jesse said, remembering the night before.

Not that he intended to share any details.

“I wish we could have attended Sierra and Travis's engagement party,” Callie said, “but your father had meetings, and we'll be in Europe on their wedding day. Eve is just over the moon, having Sierra back in her life, and Liam as a bonus. What's she like, Jesse?”

“Sierra?”

“Of course Sierra. I already know what
Eve
is like.”

Jesse chuckled. “Sierra's a blood McKettrick. Proud. Stubborn.”

“I've seen her picture, of course. She's very pretty.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Jesse said, wondering where this conversational train was headed. “She's a looker, all right.”

“I wish
you
would meet a nice young woman, Jesse.”

He should have seen that one coming.

“I meet all kinds of nice young women, Mom.”
I slept with one last night, as a matter of fact.

“What do you think about McKettrickCo going public?”

“No opinion,” he said, whipping up the eggs, milk and cheese and pouring the concoction into the skillet, with the sizzling onions and mushrooms.

“You
should
have an opinion, Jesse. All the rest of us do.”

“Okay. Tell me your opinion, and I'll throw in with your side.”

“You really should be more interested.”

Jesse chuckled. “How are you and Dad voting? For or against?”

“For,” Callie said. “Your father works too hard. So does Eve. We'd all be rich.”

“Mom,” Jesse pointed out, “we're
already
rich.”

“Exactly my point.”

Jesse turned the omelet out onto a plate, grabbed some silverware and carried the whole shooting match to the table, along with the phone receiver, of course. “You know I'm not a big believer in twelve-hour workdays, pie charts, graphs and the rest of it. Keegan's going to fight you, though. He's in line for a stress-related triple bypass when he hits fifty, and by God, nobody's going to deprive him of it.”

“He's not over that terrible divorce,” Callie said sadly.

Jesse's good spirits dipped a little. “No,” he agreed. “Shelley's giving him a lot of trouble over Devon. She wants to take the kid to live in Europe, with her and the new husband.”

“The woman is a bimbo,” Callie said. Since she rarely made remarks like that, Jesse was a little taken aback. “Furthermore, she's stupid.”

He sat with his fork suspended midway between his mouth and the plate. Momentarily, he wondered if his folks had found out about the Brandi escapade somehow, and his mother was leading him along a meandering path to confession. “Shelley's not the brightest ball in the bowling alley,” he said carefully, “but she's not stupid.”
And neither is Brandi.

Callie was silent for a beat or so. “No,” she said, with a sigh. “I guess she isn't. I worry about Keegan, that's all. With his folks gone, he's all alone in the world.”

Keegan's parents, Libby and John Henry McKettrick, had been killed in a hotel fire in Singapore when Keeg was fourteen. After that, he'd been shunted from one part of the family to another until he'd been old enough to leave for college. “He's not alone, Mom,” Jesse said. “He's got all the rest of us.”

“Just the same,” Callie insisted, “Keegan is lonely. He needs a home and a family. Of his own.”

“He's
got
a home—the main ranch house—and he's got Devon.”

“A house and a home are not the same thing, and you know it,” Callie said. “And he doesn't see Devon very often as it is. Just imagine if Shelley takes her to Europe.”

Jesse went on eating his omelet, but it had all the flavor of shredded cardboard. “What's your point, Mom?” he asked. Callie might beat around the bush all day, if he let her. Like a lot of McKettricks, born or, as in her case, married, into the family, she was a lawyer.

“It's time the three of you settled down. That's all I'm saying. Rance runs all over the world taking over companies, and leaves those little girls with their grandmother. Cora is a good woman, but she's past the age when she should be raising children. Keegan works like a man possessed, and you—you're at the other end of the spectrum. You play poker. Your father and I didn't sign over that house on your twenty-fifth birthday just so you could rattle around in it like a pebble in the bottom of a coffee can.”

“You want it back?”

“Jesse McKettrick, do
not
smart off at me.”

“Okay. I'll rush out, marry the first woman I run across and get her pregnant by Tuesday. Or would Monday be better?”

“Jesse.” Callie's tone carried a warning.

He laughed. “Mom. Take a breath. I'm the perennial bachelor in the family, remember?”

“I remember, all right. And I'd love to forget it. I want grandchildren.”

“You
have
grandchildren, Mom. Two by Sarah, and three by Victoria.”

She sputtered, and Jesse heard his father's voice in the background.

“Leave him alone, Callie,” Martin McKettrick said.

“Your father says to leave you alone,” Callie said, sniffing.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “I heard him. Is this conversation over, Mom? Because I've got to head into town. See how things are going with the family business.”

“You mean you're going to ask for a—job?”

Jesse put his fork down, pushed his plate away, closed his eyes. He was a multimillionaire in his own right. Life was roiling all around them—trees and mountains on every side—it was like living in the mind of God. What did he need—what did
any
of them need—with a job? “Yeah, Mom,” he said. “Maybe I can run the copy machine. Or manage the mail room.”

“Jesse, you have a college degree.”

“I know, Mom,” he replied. “I majored in girls and rodeo.”

“You majored in pre-law. And you graduated with a 4.0 grade average.”

Before Jesse could answer, he heard a brief scuffle on the other end of the line, then his father came on.

“Don't listen to her,” he said. “About the job, I mean. But you really ought to get married.”

“I'll see what I can do, Dad,” Jesse promised.

Martin laughed. “Goodbye, Jesse.”

“Later,” Jesse said and hung up before his mother could get hold of the receiver again.

 

C
HEYENNE SPENT HALF
the morning in meetings with Rance and Keegan and Travis Reid, who was one of the company's dozens of lawyers, and half mapping out a preliminary plan for the work-study program.

At eleven-thirty, Keegan appeared in the doorway of her office and invited her to join him and Rance and Travis for lunch. They were driving out to the Roadhouse.

She declined graciously. Myrna had already offered to share the double-decker tuna on rye she was having sent over from Lucky's, in addition to presenting Cheyenne with a welcome gift of a potted bamboo shoot with a little stuffed panda clinging to its stalk and, anyway, she wanted to have some facts and figures in place by the end of the day.

Keegan hesitated, as though he wanted to say something more, then nodded, grinned and left.

Jesse showed up fifteen minutes later, with Chinese takeout from a place halfway to Flagstaff.

Cheyenne blushed when she saw him, remembering all the things they'd done together and, worse, wanting to do them again.

“Hey,” she said lamely.

“Hey,” he replied. “What's with the hair?”

She gave him a pretend glare, lowered her voice. Why did everybody seem to have such a problem with her hairstyle? She pinned it up because she didn't want it getting in her way when she worked. “This is an office, Jesse, not a bedroom.”