McKettrick's Pride. Linda Lael Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ When she came out, bundled in a robe, with her curly, shoulder-length blond hair standing out around her head like an aureole, Avalon had curled up on the floor, at the foot of the bed. The dog opened one brown eye and lifted her head slightly, and there was a certain stalwart wariness in her manner now, as if she expected to be chased away.

       Echo’s throat tightened. She knew what it was like to feel that way, to hover on the fringes of things, hoping not to be noticed and, at the same time, yearning desperately to belong.

       Her old life, in Chicago, had been all about waiting on the sidelines.

       “Hey,” she said, crouching to stroke Avalon’s soft, gleaming coat. “I’m a woman of my word. We’ll stick together, as long as necessary. Share and share alike.” She put out her hand and, to her surprise, Avalon placed a paw in her palm. They shook on the deal.

       After blow-drying her hair and winding it into a French braid to keep it from frizzing out, Echo pulled on a cotton nightshirt, brushed her teeth and climbed into bed, leaning to switch off the bedside lamp.

       Avalon gave a soft, pitiful whine, as though she were crying.

       Echo’s eyes burned again. “Come on, then,” she said. “There’s room enough up here for both of us.”

       Avalon jumped onto the bed, nested at Echo’s feet and fell asleep.

       Echo, exhausted after days on the road, wasn’t far behind.

      CORA TELLINGTON GREETED HER granddaughters, Rianna and Maeve, with exuberant hugs, on the sidewalk in front of Cora’s Curl and Twirl. The day was new-penny bright, and the only cloud on the horizon was the scowl on her son-in-law’s face as he got out of the gigantic SUV he drove whenever he came back to Indian Rock.

       Rance McKettrick eyed the storefront next to Cora’s combination beauty salon and baton-twirling school, apparently noting that the For Sale sign was gone from the dusty display window.

       “Finally unloaded the place, did you?” he asked. “Who’s the sucker?”

       Cora took in her late daughter’s handsome husband with a patient sigh. He stood six feet tall, and even in that expensive suit he was wearing, he managed to look like a rugged cowboy, just off the range. His hair was dark—Cora’s fingers itched to give it a trim—and his blue eyes were dusky with his private sorrow. Since Julie’s death, nearly five years ago now, though it didn’t seem possible she’d been gone that long, Rance had been living a half life, going through the motions. Phoning it in.

       Cora missed Julie as much as he did, if not more, because there are few losses more poignantly painful than burying one’s only child, but she’d come to terms with the grief for the sake of her granddaughters. They were so young, only six and ten, and they needed her. Of course, they needed Rance, too, and he loved them, in his own harried, distracted way, but he seemed to be able to push them onto an emotional back burner whenever he went away on business—which was all too often.

       “It’s going to be a bookstore,” Cora said of the storefront, as the girls rushed into her shop to raid the candy jar on the counter and be greeted by Cora’s three employees, who always fawned over them. “This town needs one of those.”

       Rance assessed the place, looking skeptical. “It’s going to take a lot of work,” he warned. “And things are tough for independent bookstores these days. Everybody shops at big-box chains or online.”

       Cora ignored that. “I got a decent price,” she said, studying him, with her hands on her still-slender hips. Thanks to years of baton twirling, Cora was still petite, even in her sixties, and she liked to dress flashy; hence her stylish jeans, silk blouse and rhinestone-trimmed denim vest. She changed the color of her hair often; that week, it was auburn, and pinned up into a do reminiscent of a Gibson girl’s. “What’s going on, Rance? You look like a thunderhead, rolling over the horizon and fixing to drop a shitload of rain.”

       Rance sighed, continuing to stand on the sidewalk, and for a moment, Cora felt sorry for him, even though she wanted to snatch him bald-headed most of the time, out of pure frustration.

       “I was wondering if you could keep Rianna and Maeve for a few days,” he said, having a hard time meeting her eyes. “There’s a big meeting in San Antonio, at the head office. Even Jesse’s going, which ought to tell you that it’s critical.”

       McKettrickCo, the conglomerate that had made Rance’s family rich, along with the largesse from their legendary Triple M Ranch, was on the verge of going public. There was a lot of dissension among the McKettricks over the move, and if they were converging on San Antonio, Cora realized, the meeting was indeed big. Jesse, Rance’s cousin, was notoriously indifferent to company operations, but maybe now that he was planning to marry up with that Bridges girl, he’d decided to become more responsible.

       To Cora’s way of thinking, Rance and his other cousin, Keegan, would have been better off to adopt Jesse’s original attitude—cash the dividend checks and celebrate every new sunrise.

       “Rance,” Cora said carefully, “Rianna’s birthday is coming up on Saturday. She was counting on a party. And Maeve’s getting her braces on bright and early Monday morning, in case you’ve forgotten.”

       “Cora,” Rance replied, looking grave and a little guilty, “this is important.”

       “Rianna and Maeve,” Cora countered, “are more important.”

       “We’re talking about their future,” Rance argued, keeping his tone low. Folks were passing on the street, so he spared a rigid smile or two, but his overall expression went from grave to grim.

       “Come on,” Cora jibed. “They’ve already got trust funds that would choke a mule.” She leaned in a little, to make her point. “What they need is a father.”

       Rance bristled, as Cora could have predicted he’d do. “They’ve got one,” he growled.

       “Do they?” Cora asked. “Jesse pays more attention to them than you do. He’s the one who came to their baton recital last week, when you were in Hong Kong or Paris or wherever the hell you were.”

       “Do we have to have this conversation on the goddamned sidewalk?” Rance demanded, in a furious undertone.

       “We’re not having it inside, where your daughters can hear.”

       Rance spread his hands. “Rianna and Maeve are okay with this,” he insisted. “We can reschedule the orthodontic thing, and Sierra’s going to throw a little do for Rianna’s birthday, on the ranch.”

       Cora folded her arms. She didn’t like playing her trump card, but she was about to, because Rance McKettrick needed to wake the heck up and get it through his hard head that his girls were growing up. He couldn’t keep on treating them like appointments to be shifted around to suit his crazy schedule. “What do you think Julie would say if she could see what’s happened to her children, Rance? And to you?”

       For a moment, he looked as though she’d struck him. Then he shoved one of his big rancher’s hands through his hair and huffed out an exasperated breath. “Damn it, Cora, that was below the belt!”

       “Call it whatever you want,” Cora replied, hurting for him and determined not to let it show. “You and those little girls meant more to Julie than anyone or anything on earth. She gave up a career to make a home СКАЧАТЬ