McKettrick's Pride. Linda Lael Miller

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       Cora waited it out, holding her breath.

       “Will you look after Rianna and Maeve or not?” Rance finally asked.

       Bitter disappointment swept through Cora like a harsh wind scouring a lonely canyon, even though she’d expected the conversation to end just this way. After all, it always did.

       “You know I will,” she said.

       Rance took a conciliatory step toward her—raised his hands as if to lay them on her shoulders—then decided against the gesture and stood his ground. “I didn’t pack any of their things,” he said. “I figured you might want to stay in the ranch house, instead of here in town.”

       “You wouldn’t know where any of their things were,” Cora told him, defeated. Julie, Julie, she thought. I try, but this man of yours is a McKettrick, and that means he’s bone-stubborn. Might as well try to move one of these mesas as change his mind. “You do what you’ve got to do. I’ll take care of Rianna and Maeve.”

       “I appreciate it,” Rance said, and Cora knew he was sincere. Trouble was, sincere fell a long way short of enough.

      FEELING AS THOUGH HE’D JUST been dragged bare-ass naked over ten miles of bad road, Rance watched as his mother-in-law sashayed into the Curl and Twirl and slammed the door behind her. Squeezing the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger in hopes of circumventing another tension headache, he turned and stepped off the curb just as a Pepto-Bismol-pink Volkswagen whizzed into the next parking space and nearly took off all ten of his toes.

       It was a relief to have somewhere to focus his irritation.

       “What the hell…?” he rasped, and stormed around to the driver’s side of that bug, intending to open a can of verbal whup-ass on whoever was at the wheel.

       The window went down, and a blonde with wide-set hazel eyes and a braid blinked up at him, cheeks flushing pink.

       “I’m sorry,” she said.

       Rance leaned to glare in at her. A white dog, buckled into the seat belt on the passenger side, growled an eloquent warning. “I don’t know where you come from, lady,” Rance said, “but around here, people don’t expect to get maimed for life trying to get into their own cars.”

       Her eyelashes fluttered, and her small, clearly defined mouth tightened a little. Her nose was delicate, and spattered with the faintest sprinkling of freckles. “Is that SUV yours?” she asked, after glancing into the rearview mirror.

       “Yes,” Rance answered, wondering what the hell his rig had to do with the price of rice in China.

       “Well,” she replied pertly, “if you drove a reasonable vehicle, instead of that enormous gas-hog, you would have seen me coming and the whole non-incident could have been avoided!”

       Rance was so taken aback by her audacity that he laughed, but it was a short, gruff sound that made the dog growl again.

       She blinked again, but then she stuck out a slender hand, startling him as much as she had by almost running him down. “Echo Wells,” she said.

       “What?”

       “My name?” she prompted.

       Rance took her hand. It felt cool and soft. The dog snarled and strained at the seat belt.

       “Hush, Avalon,” said Echo Wells. “We’re in no danger. Are we—Mr....?”

       “McKettrick,” he supplied belatedly, holding on to her hand a moment longer than absolutely necessary. “Rance McKettrick.”

       She smiled suddenly, and Rance felt ambushed, as though he’d been dazzled by a sun-struck mirror popping up out of nowhere.

       “No harm done,” she said.

       Rance wasn’t so sure of that. He felt oddly shaken. Maybe she had run over him, with all four wheels, and he’d somehow survived and gotten to his feet in some kind of altered state. “What kind of name is Echo Wells?” he heard himself ask.

       The smile faded, and it was something of a relief to Rance. The flash was still pulsing at the edges of his vision, but his knees felt a little steadier.

       “What kind of name is Rance McKettrick?” she shot back.

       Avalon bared her teeth and snarled again.

       “What’s with the dog?” Rance asked, mildly insulted. “I’ve always gotten along just fine with animals.”

       “You did come on a bit strong,” said the redoubtable Ms. Wells. “Dogs are sensitive to energy fields, you know. And yours, if you don’t mind my saying so, is a mess.”

       “I guess almost getting killed does that to a person,” Rance said, after a moment or two of baffled recovery. “Messes up their—energy field, I mean.”

       Echo’s cheeks went even pinker. The effect was similar to the smile, and Rance stubbornly resisted an impulse to back up a step or two. “Are you making fun of me, Mr. McKettrick?”

       “No,” he said, glancing at the crystal swinging from her rearview mirror. “But if you’re into energy fields, then you’re probably looking for Sedona, not Indian Rock.”

       She reached over, still staring defiantly into Rance’s face through the open car window, and gave the dog a few reassuring strokes with her right hand. Momentarily, Rance wished he could sprout fur, so she’d touch him like that. A practical man, he quickly shook off the fanciful thought.

       “Would you mind moving?” Echo asked, with acidic sweetness. “It’s been a long drive, and I’d like to get out of the car.”

       Wondering what he was doing carrying on this conversation in the first place, Rance retreated.

       Echo Wells opened the car door, unbuckled her seat belt and swung two shapely legs out to stand. The top of her head came just shy of his chin, and that skimpy little pink-and-white sundress of hers was about a size-nothing. Instead of the high-heeled shoes he’d have expected with an outfit like that, she was wearing pink high-top sneakers with gold ribbons for laces.

       Smiling dreamily, as though Rance had turned transparent and she could see right through him to the feed-and-grain across the street, she drew a deep breath and expelled it from the diaphragm.

       Rance frowned. He took up his share of space, and he wasn’t used to being invisible—especially to women.

       “Welcome to Indian Rock,” he said, mainly to get her attention. His tone could have been a mite on the grudging side.

       She went around to the sidewalk, opened the door on the other side, and let the mutt out. Avalon—silly name for a dog, just the kind of airy-fairy thing he’d expect from somebody with a crystal on her mirror, wearing pink high-tops and driving a car to match—pranced straight over and squatted next to his truck tire.

       He glowered at the dog.

       The dog obviously didn’t give a rip what he thought. If she’d had a pecker, her look said, she would have lifted a leg against his shiny black paint СКАЧАТЬ