Linda Miller - McKettrick's Luck

Jesse set his back teeth, thought of his cousin Keegan for no reason he could have explained, and deliberately relaxed his jaws. “Wild animals are being driven farther out of their natural habitat every day,” he said. “By people like you. They’ve got to be somewhere, damn it.”

“Which do you care more about, Mr. McKettrick? People or animals?”

“Depends,” Jesse said. “I’ve known people who could learn scruples from a rabid badger. And it’s not as if building more condominiums is a service to humanity. Most of them are a blight on the land—and they all look alike, too. Stucco boxes, stacked on top of each other. What’s that about?”

Cheyenne picked up her spoon, made a halfhearted swipe at her soup. Straightened her spine. “I’d be glad to show you the blueprints,” she said. “Our project is designed to blend gracefully into the landscape, with minimal impact on the environment.”

Jesse eyed his cheeseburger regretfully. All those additives and preservatives going to waste, not to mention a lot of perfectly good grease. “No deal,” he said. With anybody else, he’d have played out the hand, let her believe he was interested in selling, just to see what came of it. Cheyenne Bridges was different, and that was the most disturbing element of all.

Why was she different?

“Just let me show you the plans,” she persisted.

“Just let me show you the land,” he retorted.

She smiled. “I’ll let you show me yours,” she bargained, “if you’ll let me show you mine.”

He laughed. “You sure are persistent,” he said.

“You sure are stubborn,” she answered.

Jesse reached for his cheeseburger. By that time, he’d had ample opportunity to notice that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“You ever get married?” he asked.

She seemed to welcome the change of subject, though the quiet, bruised vigilance was still there in her eyes and the set of her shoulders and the way she held her head. “No,” she said. “You?”

“No,” he told her. He and Brandi, a rodeo groupie, had been married by an Elvis in Las Vegas, come to their senses before word had got out, and agreed to divorce an hour after they’d checked out of the hotel. They’d parted friends, and he hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, though she hit him up for a few hundred dollars every now and then, and he always sent the money.

As far as he was concerned, he’d answered honestly. Brandi slipped out of his mind as quickly as she’d slipped in.

Meanwhile, he’d only taken a couple of bites of the sandwich, but the patty was thick and goopy with cheese, and protein always centered him—especially when he’d been playing cards all day, subsisting on the cold cereal he’d had for breakfast after doing the chores on the ranch. Sure enough, it was the burger that lifted his spirits.

Sure enough, said a voice in his head, you’re full of sheep dip.

It’s the woman.

“How’s the soup?” he asked.

“Cold,” she said. “How’s the burger?”

He grinned. “It’s clogging my arteries even as we speak.”

Cheyenne lifted one eyebrow, but she was smiling. “And that’s good?”

“Probably not,” he said. “But it tastes great.”

After that, the conversation was relatively easy.

They finished their meal, Jesse paid the bill, and Cheyenne left the tip.

He walked her to her car. There was virtually no crime in Indian Rock, but that kind of courtesy was bred into him, like opening doors and carrying heavy things.

“You’ll really look at the plans?” she asked quietly, her eyes luminous, once she was behind the wheel.

“If you’ll look at the land,” Jesse reminded her. “Come up to the ranch tomorrow, around nine o’clock. I’ll be through feeding the horses around then.”

She nodded. A pulse fluttered at the base of her throat. “I’ll bring the blueprints,” she said.

“Please,” he said, with mock enthusiasm, “bring the blueprints.”

She laughed and moved to close the car door. “Thanks for supper, Jesse.”

He went to tug at the brim of his hat, then remembered he’d left it inside the Roadhouse. “My pleasure,” he said, feeling awkward for the first time in recent memory.

He watched as Cheyenne started the car, backed out and drove away. Ordinarily, he’d have gone back to Lucky’s to play a few more hands of cards, but that night, he just wanted to go home.

He went back into the Roadhouse, reclaimed his hat.

Roselle invited him to a party at her place.

If her eyes had been hands, he’d have been stripped naked, right there in the Roadhouse. Clearly, the “party” she had in mind would include the two of them and nobody else.

He said some other time, adding a mental “maybe.”

Back in his truck, he adjusted the rearview mirror and looked into his own eyes. Who are you? he asked silently. And what have you done with Jesse McKettrick?

“I COMPLETELY BLEW IT,” Cheyenne told her mother the moment she stepped into the house that night.

Ayanna sat on the old couch, her feet resting bare on the cool linoleum floor, crocheting something from multi-strands of variegated yarn. “How so?” she asked mildly.

The sounds of cyber-battle bounced in from the next room. Mitch was playing a video game on his laptop. Mitch was always playing a video game on his laptop. It was as though by shooting down animated enemies he could keep his own demons at bay.

“Jesse flatly refused to sell me the land,” Cheyenne said.

Ayanna smiled softly. “You expected that.”

Cheyenne tossed her heavy handbag onto a chair, kicked off her shoes and sighed with relief. “Yeah,” she said.

“Want something to eat?” Ayanna asked. “Mitch and I had mac-and-cheese.”

“I had soup,” Cheyenne said.

Her cell phone played its elevator song inside her bag.

“Ignore it,” Ayanna advised.

“I can’t,” Cheyenne answered. She fished out the phone, flipped it open and said, “Hello, Nigel.”

“Have you made any progress?” Nigel asked.

Cheyenne looked at her watch. “Gosh, Nigel. You’ve shown amazing restraint. It’s been at least an hour and a half since the last time you called.”

“You said you were on your way to have dinner with McKettrick,” Nigel reminded her. They’d talked, live via satellite, during the drive between Lucky’s and the Roadhouse. “How did it go?”

Ayanna sat serenely, crocheting away.

“He said no,” Cheyenne reported.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“We’re doomed.”

“Take a breath, Nigel. He agreed to look at the plans—on one condition.”

“What condition?”

“I have to look at the land. Tomorrow morning. I’m meeting him at his place at 9:00 a.m.”

“So we’re still in the running?”

“Anybody’s guess,” Cheyenne said wearily, moving her purse to sink into the chair herself. “Jesse’s direct, if nothing else, and as soon as he knew what I wanted, he dug in his heels.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have sprung it on him so soon,” Nigel mused. Cheyenne could just see her boss’s bushy brows knitting together in a thoughtful frown. She wondered if he’d ever considered investing in a weed eater, for purposes of personal grooming.

“You didn’t give me any other choice, remember?”

“Don’t make this my fault.”

“You’ve been breathing down my neck since I got off the plane in Phoenix yesterday morning. If you want me to do the impossible, Nigel, you’ve got to give me some space.”

“You can do this, can’t you, Cheyenne?”

She felt a surge of shaky confidence. “I specialize in the impossible,” she said.

“Come through for me, babe,” Nigel wheedled.