“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.
CHEYENNE 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 workstudy 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.”
He stepped inside, closed the office door and looked around speculatively. There was barely any furniture—just a credenza, bookshelf, and her desk and chair. No pictures on the walls. No coffee mug with something silly imprint
ed on it.
Cheyenne blushed harder. She was there to work. She hadn’t had time to make any kind of personal imprint on the room and, besides, she’d read in one of the million and one self-help books she’d devoured over her lifetime that women shouldn’t have cozy offices if they wanted to be taken seriously in the business world.
“You a betting woman, Cheyenne?” Jesse asked.
“Rhetorical question,” she said, recovering a little from the initial shock of having to deal with Jesse on the morning after. “You know I am. At least, when it comes to poker.”
He set the deliciously fragrant bags on the corner of her desk. Came around to place both hands on the arms of her chair and look straight into her eyes. “I’ll bet we make love, right here in this office, before the month is out.”
Cheyenne’s temper flared, along with a visceral need to lose the bet, and devil take waiting a month. “You’re on,” she said.
Jesse’s lips were a fraction of an inch from hers. “If I win,” he said, “you’ve got to wear your hair down, like it was last night, every day for a year.”
Heat surged through her.
She remembered a movie she’d rented, a long time ago.
9 1/2 Weeks was the title, and sexual obsession was the theme.
Her pelvis bones seemed to widen, even though her legs were clasped tightly together. “Yeah? Suppose I win? What do I get?”
“Anything you want.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” Jesse drawled. He reached for her desk calendar, flipped ahead thirty days, picked up a pen and covered one whole page with an X.
She swallowed. “What if I want you to sell me that land you’re so determined to hold on to?”
His cool blue eyes seemed to sizzle. His breath was warm on her mouth; she felt her pulse there.
Cheyenne figured she’d be lucky if she didn’t lose the bet in the next five minutes, let alone in a month.
“I’m willing to take that chance,” Jesse drawled, damnably confident.
Unsettled, Cheyenne tried to peer around him, afraid Myrna would come in with the tuna on rye and catch Jesse with his hands on either side of her chair and her trembling like Kim Basinger in that movie.
“We’d better agree on some terms, don’t you think?” Jesse went on when she didn’t speak.
“What kind of terms?”
“What constitutes making love, for one thing.” He touched his mouth to hers. “You’re a responsive woman, Cheyenne. I can think of at least half a dozen ways to bring you to a climax.”
She couldn’t deny that. He’d had her in every position in the Kama Sutra the night before, and her body was still singing at the memory.
“Say I were to kneel,” Jesse went on, “and set your legs over the arms of this chair—”
Cheyenne suppressed a groan. Closed her eyes. “Jesse, stop.”
“Suppose I used my tongue—”
“Jesse.”
“Would that count?”
Cheyenne trembled, just imagining the scene. “No,” she said. “It wouldn’t count. Making love is—”
“What?” He kissed her lightly. “What is making love, Cheyenne?”
“Damn you, Jesse. Get out of here. I have work to do, unlike some people I could name—”
He nibbled the length of her neck. Tasted her earlobe. “What is making love, Cheyenne?” he repeated, murmuring the words. “Full penetration?”
“Yes,” she said, breathless. Maybe if she went along with him, he’d leave and she could get back to the task at hand. “Full penetration.”
“In this office.”
She gulped, mortified at the prospect—and the depths of her own desire to indulge the fantasy in real time. “In this office,” she agreed.
“It’s a deal,” he said.
A lusciously spicy scent wafted from the bags of Chinese food. “Do I smell sweet-and-sour chicken?” she asked, desperate to ground herself in the real world. Desperate to distract Jesse from seducing her.
“Yes,” Jesse said, grinning as he pushed back. Then he opened the bags, took out a carton, and proceeded to feed her morsels of sugary, savory chicken, bite by bite.
By the time they got to the fortune cookies, Cheyenne was moist in places that should have been dry.
IF JESSE HADN’T KNOWN Rance and Keegan would have asked too many questions, he would have slipped into the gym for a cold shower before he left McKettrickCo.
As it was, he was as hard as petrified tamarack.
No relief in sight, either.
Cheyenne wouldn’t be joining him on the ranch that night. She had a date to play poker with the girls at Sierra’s place.
He got out of the truck in Cheyenne’s front yard, or what passed for one, hauled his tool box from the back and approached the pile of lumber he’d unloaded the day before.
How exactly did a person build rails for a wheelchair ramp, anyhow?
He wished he’d asked his dad about it, while they’d been on the phone that morning. Woodworking was one of Martin’s hobbies—he’d built the deck and all the bookshelves in the house with his own hands.
Jesse shoved a hand through his hair. He hadn’t even picked up a hammer yet, and he was already sweating. A big part of him was still back in that office, feeding Cheyenne sweet-and-sour chicken.
Another big part of him hurt like all hell.
Maybe there was a garden hose around somewhere. He could turn on the spigot full blast and stand under the spray.
He laughed at the thought, glanced toward the house.
Cheyenne was at work, of course, and Ayanna, too. Maybe Mitch was around; he’d say hello and see if the kid wanted to hold nails or something.
He rapped on the door.
No answer.
Jesse frowned. Could be Mitch was sleeping, or playing a video game, or maybe he just wanted to be left alone.
He knocked again, a little harder.
The image of the tractor overturning flashed into his mind.
What if Mitch had fallen again? What if he was in some kind of trouble?
Jesse tried the knob, found the door unlocked. That wasn’t unusual in Indian Rock—like most towns, it had its share of petty crime, but most folks had lost track of their house keys years before.
He stepped inside. Called out, “Mitch?”
Nothing. The place felt empty, as if it were waiting for its people to come home. Still, how many places could Mitch have gone, confined to a wheelchair and with no other visible form of transportation?
Jesse scanned the living room. Linoleum floors. Old furniture. Dust-free surfaces. A console TV with a channel knob, and aluminum frozen-food trays duct-taped to the antenna. Poor people, making the best of a tough situation.
He headed for the hallway. “Mitch?”
Nothing.
Get out of here, he thought. You’re trespassing.
Then he heard the groan. It was distant, and so low that he almost missed it.
He raised his voice. “Mitch!”
The answer was more a feeling than a sound. A shift in the atmosphere, a silent grinding of gears, like when a poker game was about to turn sour.
Jesse opened the door of the first bedroom. Nothing.
The hall was dark, since there were no windows. He backtracked, found the light switch and flipped it.
Mitch was sprawled on the floor, his wheelchair out of reach.
“I tried to yell when Bronwyn came to the door,” Mitch choked out. “I guess she didn’t hear me—”
“It’s okay, buddy,” Jesse said, crouching beside Mitch. “What happened? Do you hurt anywhere?”
“I thought maybe it was all a mistake. My being crippled, I mean. Maybe I could walk if I just tried hard enough—”
Jesse wanted to look away from the despair he saw in Mitch’s face, but he didn’t because that would have added to the indignity. “That was a damn fool thing to do,” he said.
“Help me up.”
“I’m
not sure I ought to move you.”
“I’m okay, Jesse,” Mitch said. His words came out evenly, but there was a plea in them. “Please—don’t call anybody. Mom and Cheyenne will freak if we have to go through the whole ambulance thing.”
Within himself, Jesse debated the matter. His instincts said Mitch was telling the truth—he was all right—but what if those instincts were wrong? What if there were internal injuries? What if the kid had broken a bone or something?
“Just get me back in the chair,” Mitch said.
“We’re taking a chance here, buddy.”
“Just get me back in the chair.”
Jesse sighed. “Okay,” he said. He stood up, rolled the wheelchair within reach, then stooped to put both hands under Mitch’s arms and lug him semi-upright, then backward, into the seat.
Mitch just sat there for a few moments, probably getting a grip. He was dressed up, wearing chinos and a polo shirt. He closed his eyes.
“You were going someplace with Bronwyn?” Jesse asked, to give Mitch a way out of the silence.
“Sedona,” Mitch said bleakly. “I should have known it wasn’t going to work out.”
Jesse set a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t have tried to stand up,” he said. “But that’s where the shoulds and shouldn’ts end. Bronwyn’s a pretty girl. Of course you wanted to go to Sedona with her.”
The look of sorrow in Mitch’s gaze bruised something in Jesse. “I ought to accept reality,” he said. “Face it. I’m never going to have a life.”
“Bullshit,” Jesse said with certainty. Then he got behind the chair, took hold of the handles and started pushing it back down the hallway, toward the living room. “Come on, cowboy. You’re not dressed for a day on the range, but what the hell. The cattle don’t care if you look like a dude.”
Mitch looked back at him, and the hope Jesse saw in his expression was almost as hard to swallow as the sorrow had been. “A day on the—?”
“We’ll saddle up and ride.”
“Cheyenne will flip out,” Mitch said, grinning tentatively at the prospect.
“I can handle Cheyenne.”
Mitch went solemn again. “Can you, Jesse? Things—things aren’t what they seem.”
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