McKettrick's Heart

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Come in and have some coffee,” Molly said, bending over the playpen and spooning the first bite of cereal into Lucas’s open mouth. He reminded her of a chubby little bird, her son, waiting for a worm.

  The chauffeur nodded cordially, almost shyly, to Florence.

  Florence patted her hair and smoothed her chenille bathrobe.

  Molly treated herself to a private grin. A rare enough luxury these days.

  “Wilkins,” Denby said to his driver, who must have accompanied him on the private jet to take over the wheel of the waiting limo at the airport, “they do not appreciate me here.”

  Wilkins took off his hat, nodded his thanks to Florence for the coffee she instantly provided, and sat down at the table. “They seem pretty hospitable to me,” he remarked.

  Molly racked her brain, trying to remember meeting Wilkins.

  “That’s why you’re a limo driver and I’m a bestselling novelist,” Denby said.

  “Denby,” Molly interjected, “shut up.”

  Wilkins chuckled. “I kind of like it here,” he said, but Molly noticed he was looking at Florence when he spoke, not Denby. “Maybe I’ll stick around awhile.”

  Molly could have sworn the air crackled.

  Florence excused herself and retreated into her room.

  Denby finished his coffee.

  Lucas finished his cereal.

  Florence returned, wearing a floral print dress, and with her hair pouffed. Molly caught a whiff of perfume.

  Wilkins eyed the housekeeper appreciatively. “You ever get to Seattle?” he asked.

  “I’m moving there to live with my sister,” Florence replied coyly.

  Molly shook her head. She hadn’t just seen Florence Washington bat her eyelashes—had she?

  Wilkins flashed a Denzel smile. Produced a card. “Well, now,” he said. “I happen to live in Seattle. Been chauffeuring for Mr. Godridge here, and a few other select clients, for years. You ever need a driver, you call.”

  Florence snatched up the card, crossed to the counter and tucked it under the cookie jar.

  “What’s going on here?” Denby asked.

  “That ole black magic.” Wilkins beamed.

  Florence refilled his coffee cup, and Molly could have sworn she was blushing, though it was hard to tell, given the rich mahogany shade of the older woman’s skin.

  “There are still good things happening in this world,” Molly whispered to Lucas.

  He stood on tiptoe in his playpen. “Kiss,” he said, puckering his lips.

  And Molly blinked back tears as she gave him a smooch.

  KEEGAN’ GUT CHURNED in the back of his throat.

  It was standing room only at McKettrickCo—the conference room was barely big enough to contain the whole unruly bunch, even with the folding dividers pushed back.

  There were Texas McKettricks.

  New York McKettricks.

  San Francisco and Chicago McKettricks.

  Even a few who lived in Europe.

  Old Angus would have been amazed to see what a herd had come of four sons and a daughter.

  Jesse stood at Keegan’s right, Rance at his left, so close their shoulders touched his. Meg, seated with Sierra, caught Keegan’s eye.

  “McKettrick-tough,” she mouthed.

  Keegan returned the favor.

  Eve McKettrick, Sierra and Meg’s mother, stepped to the front of the room. She was a beautiful woman, with red hair and green eyes. Keegan remembered her helping to put up preserves in the kitchen at the main house, out on the Triple M, and yelling right along with the others about the running in and out and the screendoor slamming.

  Today she was all business. The CEO of a major corporation with financial interests in practically every capital city on the globe.

  Eve rustled some notes, but she didn’t need them. Her memory was almost as legendary as her business acumen. “We’ve all been arguing about this question long enough,” she said. “It’s time to take a vote and decide the matter, once and for all.”

  There was a lot of shifting, shuffling and muttering, but nobody actually spoke up.

  “I’d open the floor for discussion,” Eve went on, “but there’s been plenty of that already. Every last one of us has a definite opinion.”

  The ensuing silence reminded Keegan of the uneasy weight that always preceded a high-country thunderstorm.

  “Will those opposed to the agreement, as outlined in the reports all of you were given earlier, please raise their hands?” It was a backward way of doing things, asking for the dissenting vote first, but that was Eve.

  Keegan was the first to respond, followed by Jesse and then Rance.

  Sierra raised her hand, and so did Meg.

  A half dozen other hands went up, too.

  The pit of Keegan’s stomach plunged.

  It wasn’t enough.

  “Those in favor?” Eve asked, after holding Keegan’s gaze for a long moment.

  It was a landslide.

  McKettrickCo would go public, with an IPO that would make them all ridiculously wealthy.

  “It’s decided, then,” Eve said, lowering her own hand very slowly.

  Jesse’s shoulder pressed harder against Keegan’s, and so did Rance’s.

  The floor felt soft, and the blood pounded in Keegan’s ears.

  The many descendants of Angus McKettrick began to file out of the room.

  Meg and Sierra lingered, sitting rigid in their chairs.

  Eve approached Keegan, stood square in front of him, looking directly into his eyes. “I’m sorry, Keegan,” she said.

  He managed a nod. There were a lot of things he wanted to say, but all of them were jammed up tight in his throat.

  Eve touched his face, her fingers light and cool. When his folks were killed, during his teenage years, she’d been one of the first to step up. Offered him a home with her, in her San Antonio mansion. In the end he’d chosen to stay on the ranch, and had bounced back and forth between Jesse’s parents’ place and Rance’s until he went away to college.

  “This is for the best,” she said. Then, without another word, she turned and left the conference room.

  At some signal from either Jesse or Rance, Meg and Sierra got up and left, too. Meg closed the conference room doors softly behind her.

  “We lost,” Keegan heard himself say in a voice he didn’t recognize.

  “Seems that way now,” Rance said quietly.

  As if it was going to change.

  Jesse had Cheyenne, and poker. He was a world champion.

  Rance had Emma, a couple of kids who lived under his roof instead of being dragged back and forth between two houses the way Devon was, and he’d morphed into a rancher.

  And he, Keegan, was a part-time father with nothing constructive to do between visitation weekends. Without McKettrickCo, who would he be? What reason would he have to get up in the morning, once Devon went back to Shelley?

  Jesse pushed a chair behind Keegan’s knees, and he sank into it.

  “Think about Devon,” Jesse said. “You won’t be too busy to be a father to her now.”

  Rance pulled a silver flask from the inside pocket of a suit he hadn’t worn since before he shit-canned his McKettrickCo nameplate and turned cowboy.

  Keegan considered the flask, then shook his head.

  Rance put it away. “We’re saddling up around sunset,” he said. “Riding up to Jesse’s ridge, with the women and the kids and some of these relations of ours. Devon wants to go along, and we’ll take her, but she’d sure get a lot more out of it if you went, too. You in, Keeg?”

  Keegan thought of Psyche, and the papers he was supposed to sign that afternoon, the ones that would make him executor of her estate and Lucas’s guardian, at least unofficially. He thought of the boy and, inevitably, of Molly.

  “I have some things to do,” he said woodenly.

  Rance laid a hand on his shoulder. “I know,” he replied. “Travis mentioned it. Matter of a couple of hours, at
most.” He paused, drew a breath, released it. “A trail ride would do you good, Keeg. Put you back in touch with who you are. And that’s a McKettrick, born and bred.”

  The backs of Keegan’s eyes throbbed. “Is that who I am?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Jesse said. “That’s who you are. You’ve been riding a desk chair, instead of a horse, for so long that you’ve forgotten. You need to saddle up, Keeg. Sit around a campfire and swap yarns. Sleep under the stars. And your daughter needs that even more than you do.”

  He’d do it, he decided. Go along on their dumb-ass trail ride. For Devon. And because if he spent the night knocking around alone in the ranch house, he knew he’d go crazy.

  He nodded stiffly.

  “Buy you a beer over at Lucky’s?” Jesse asked.

  Keegan shook his head. If he started drinking now, he might not stop. Ever.

  Rance and Jesse left then, reluctantly.

  And Keegan sat alone in the conference room and began the process of letting things go, one by one.

  Psyche.

  McKettrickCo, and the identity that went with it.

  He still had Devon, though.

  And there was Lucas, the son he’d never had.

  He would dig in his heels, set his back teeth and hold on, he decided.

  After all, he was a McKettrick.

  Whatever the hell that meant.

  BY THE TIME PSYCHE ARRIVED home—brought by ambulance from the airstrip just outside town, where she’d landed half an hour before—Wilkins had collared Denby, muscled him into the hired limo and driven him to Phoenix to catch the next flight back to Seattle.

  Molly had showered, put on makeup, slipped into panty hose, high heels and a snazzy black suit with white lapels. After all, there were official papers to sign, and she wanted it known that she was taking the agreement seriously.

  Before tending to herself, she’d bathed Lucas and wrestled his giggly, squirmy little body into a pair of blue shorts, with diaper-bulge, and a matching shirt with a duck on the pocket. Slicked his golden hair down with water, and combed it, but it still curled over his ears.

  Wheeled through the front door on a gurney, Psyche looked fragile as dandelion fluff, but she brightened when she saw Lucas.

  The ambulance attendants, guided by Florence, transferred her into the waiting hospital bed on the porch behind the kitchen, and left again.

  There were rails on either side of Psyche’s bed, so Molly set Lucas beside her and stood at a slight distance, ready to grab him if he tumbled.

  “Are you hungry?” Florence asked Psyche, desperate to be doing something, anything, to help. “I’ve got some of that chicken soup you like, simmering in the Crock-Pot.”

  Psyche shook her head, caressed Lucas’s hair with its curls and little comb ridges. “I just want to hold my baby,” she said very softly.

  Molly’s eyes filled.

  “We had some excitement around here this morning, I’ll tell you that,” Florence said, bustling. Straightening Psyche’s blanket, patting her foot. “Some writer showed up on the doorstep, raving about a Pulitzer Prize.” By that time, Molly had explained her vocation. “I thought I’d have to call Wyatt and have him booted out of here, but Mr. Wilkins handled him just fine.”

  Psyche looked questioningly at Molly, a little smile playing on her lips.

  “A former client of mine,” Molly explained. “He won’t be back.”

  “Who was it?” Psyche asked, reaching for the little vial attached to her IV tube and pressing the red button on top with a practiced motion of her thumb.

  “Denby Godridge,” Molly said, wondering how bad Psyche’s pain was, and if the stuff in the vial would be enough to ease it.

  “I love his books,” Psyche said.

  Molly chuckled, but it came out as a sob.

  Lucas began to bounce on the bed, jostling Psyche.

  She closed her eyes, flinching.

  Silently Florence removed the child. Carried him into the kitchen, countering his protests with the promise of a cookie.

  “You’re crying,” Psyche said, watching Molly closely. “Don’t deny it.”

  “It’s hard,” Molly sniffled. “Seeing you like—like this.”

  Psyche’s smile was wan, and a little ironic. “It’s not so great from this side, either,” she said.

  Molly looked at the IV bag suspended from a pole next to Psyche’s rented bed. “I guess the pain must be pretty bad.”

  “Actually,” Psyche said, “I’m stoned out of my mind.”

  Molly had to smile. “You’re a pretty convincing actress, then. You’re not even slurring your words.”

  Psyche sighed. “Pull up a chair, Molly. There are some things I want to say.”

  Molly dragged over one of the chairs pushed in around the little table where the peonies sat, nodding in their crystal vase, and sat down. Suddenly she was full of dread; she knew instinctively what Psyche was about to say. She’d decided not to let her adopt Lucas after all, but to give him to Keegan instead.

  She waited, sick with tension. As desperate as she was, she wasn’t about to rush Psyche for an explanation. Not at a time like that.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d make it back from Flagstaff,” Psyche said. “I did some serious last-minute thinking, and called Travis Reid this morning.” She stopped, watched Molly for a few moments, a mixture of reluctance and stubborn certainty visible in her eyes. “I asked if he and Sierra would be willing to adopt Lucas and raise him as their own. He was a little surprised, of course, and he had to consult Sierra, but in the end they said yes.”

  Molly fully expected the floor to dissolve, along with the earth beneath it, sending her and her chair plunging through airless space. “Why?” she squeaked.

  “I want my son to have a real family, Molly. A mother, a father, siblings.”

  “But you—”

  “I know. I promised. But I’m going back on my word.”

  Molly couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even speak.

  She was aware of Lucas chattering in the next room, and of a more distant sound, deeper in the house, some sort of banging.

  “Travis and Sierra already have a little boy,” Psyche went on. “His name is Liam. He’ll make a fine brother to Lucas.”

  Molly gripped the sides of her chair, honestly afraid she’d pitch forward in a faint if she didn’t hold on with everything she had.

  This was it, then. Psyche’s revenge—she’d set Molly up to believe she was getting another chance with Lucas, and then pulled the proverbial rug out from under her.

  Paybacks. That’ll teach you to sleep with another woman’s husband.

  The banging got closer. And louder.

  “Where is she?” Molly heard a familiar voice demand in the nearby kitchen.

  “On the sunporch,” Florence answered.

  Keegan burst through the doorway.

  “What the hell is going on?” he demanded of Psyche. “Travis just told me…”

  Psyche smiled. “What did Travis just tell you?” she asked.

  “That you want him and Sierra to adopt Lucas.”

  Psyche merely nodded.

  Keegan glanced down at Molly, frowned.

  “I’ve already explained it to Molly,” Psyche said, “so I’ll give you the short version. I want Lucas to have a family, a real home, not just a mother and an executor.”

  Keegan opened his mouth, closed it again. Gripped the door frame on either side of him with such force that his knuckles turned white. His daughter peered around him, her brown eyes enormous.

  “We’re going on a trail ride,” the little girl said. “We’re going to have a campfire and sleep on the ground.”

  A silence fell.

  Shattered, Molly concentrated on not throwing up.

  Psyche’s gaze found the child and focused. “Devon?” she asked.

  Devon nodded and slipped past her motionless father to approach Psyche’s bed. “I’m sorry you’re so sick,” she said. “If
you weren’t, you could go camping with us, up on Jesse’s ridge. There’s a whole bunch of us making the trip.”

  Psyche smiled, touched Devon’s flowing hair. “I’d like that a lot,” she said wistfully. Her eyes, luminous with sorrow, rose to Keegan’s face. “How beautiful she is, Keegan.”

  Keegan cleared his throat. “Devon,” he said calmly, “go into the kitchen, please. Help Mrs. Washington look after Lucas.”

  The child hesitated, clearly aware that she was being given the bum’s rush, and then obeyed the quiet command, casting worried looks back over one shoulder as she went.

  “Would you take Lucas along?” Psyche asked Keegan, her hands knotting and unknotting where she gripped the crisp sheets covering her skeletal frame. “On the trail ride, I mean?”

  “Psyche,” Keegan reasoned, “he’s a baby.”

  “How old were you when you started riding horses?” Psyche challenged.

  Molly watched the answer take shape in Keegan’s face. He was not himself—at least, not the self Molly knew, though scantly. He looked ravaged, somehow. Almost broken. But there was an undercurrent of strength, too, hard as bedrock.

  “My dad put me in the saddle in front of him as soon as I could sit up,” Keegan admitted, but only after an internal struggle of some kind, one that corded the muscles in his neck and made his jawline harden.

  “Lucas has been sitting up for a long time,” Psyche said. “I don’t want him to be a timid little city boy, Keegan. The sooner he learns to ride and do other things like that, the better.”

  Keegan relaxed his jaw, and from Molly’s perspective the act looked as though it called on all his inner reserves, and then some. “Psyche, this whole conversation is crazy, and it’s beside the point. We’re talking about—”

  “About Lucas having a family. A mother. A father. A brother.” She paused, looked from Keegan to Molly and back again. Devon’s voice floated in from the kitchen; she was chattering to Florence about the upcoming trail ride. “Or perhaps a sister.”

  A jolt of realization went through Molly, belated but no less devastating for the delay.

  Psyche smiled again, clearly pleased.

  “Damn it, Psyche,” Keegan rasped. “Travis is a good man, but you don’t have the bond with him that you do with me. And Sierra’s a stranger to you.” He glanced at Molly, looked as though he wanted to add something, and bit it back.