McKettricks Bundle

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Wyatt’s a proud name,” Keegan put in. “I don’t know why you don’t want to use it.”

  “John’s a good name, too,” Wyatt told him. “And it goes a lot better with Terp.”

  “That,” Rance said, with an accompanying belch that sounded as if it came from someplace around his ankles, “is a matter of opinion.”

  “Well,” Wyatt said reasonably, “here’s my opinion. The three of you are drunk as squirrels rolling in corn mash. My advice would be, settle up your bill, and I’ll drive you as far as Cora’s. I haven’t got time to go all the way out to the Triple M.”

  “I can’t let my kids see me like this,” Rance said.

  “Like what?” Jesse asked.

  “Drunk,” Keegan explained.

  “Oh,” Jesse said.

  Wyatt sighed. “Let’s go,” he said. “If you don’t want to go to Cora’s, I’ll drop you off at the motel on the other end of town.”

  Jesse got about half-sober when he stepped outside and the fresh air hit him. Unfortunately, half wasn’t enough to suit Wyatt. “I’d rather sleep in my truck,” he said.

  “Fine,” Wyatt agreed. “Let’s have your keys.”

  “People are going to think we’ve been arrested,” Rance fretted, looking around as if he expected to see that a crowd of spectators had gathered. Given that Indian Rock would have a hard time coming up with a crowd for anything less than the Second Coming, Jesse was amused.

  “We ought to call a cab instead of riding in the squad car,” Rance said.

  “There aren’t any cabs,” Keegan pointed out.

  “Get in the squad car,” Wyatt said.

  A tour bus, making a pit stop on the way to Sedona or the Cliffcastle casino, pulled in and disgorged a flock of gapers.

  “These people,” Wyatt told them, “are not under arrest.”

  “Oh, that was great, Wyatt,” Rance protested.

  “John,” Wyatt corrected, beginning to sound testy.

  “Whatever,” Rance said.

  In the end, Jesse surrendered his keys to Wyatt and slept in his truck.

  God only knew where Keegan and Rance wound up.

  “YOU LOOK TERRIBLE,” Cheyenne was emboldened to say at eight the next morning when she arrived at Keegan’s office for the meeting they’d agreed upon. She’d fully intended to tell him about the pickle she was in with Nigel but she’d lost her courage. When she’d arrived home from Sierra’s the night before, she’d found Mitch and Bronwyn sitting on the front porch, sharing their dreams. Mitch’s was a shot at a job at McKettrickCo.

  If she got fired, he probably wouldn’t have a chance.

  Keegan was swilling strong coffee, and Cheyenne would have sworn he was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the day before. He was clearly not in the mood to hear confession—or grant absolution.

  “I had a very bad night,” he said grimly.

  “I can see that. Maybe you should go home. Eat chicken soup or something.”

  Keegan paled. “Please,” he said, setting the coffee down to rub his temples, “do not mention food again.”

  “Okay,” Cheyenne said uncertainly.

  “Doughnuts, anybody?” Myrna chimed from the doorway of Keegan’s office. “I got the goopy ones, with lots of frosting and sprinkles—”

  “Excuse me,” Keegan said and bolted past them.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Cheyenne asked.

  “He’s cracking under the pressure,” Myrna said cheerfully.

  “What pressure?”

  “He works too hard. He’s just been through a nasty divorce. If he had any sense at all—which he doesn’t, because he’s a boneheaded McKettrick, through and through—he’d take a vacation.” Myrna spoke with great affection, and a sort of blithe fretfulness, oddly juxtaposed to her actual words.

  “We were supposed to have a meeting,” Cheyenne confided.

  “Ain’t gonna happen,” Myrna replied, shoving a pink bakery box at her. “Doughnut?”

  JESSE’S HEAD WAS about to split wide open.

  He sat up in the driver’s seat of his truck with a groan.

  As luck would have it, the Roadhouse was doing a brisk breakfast trade. He tried to smile when the preacher walked by and gave him a happy little wave.

  Had he been in a fight? It felt as if somebody had kicked in his ribs.

  No, he realized, as his brain began to clear a little. He’d probably fallen asleep with the knob on the gearshift poking into his side.

  Real bright, McKettrick.

  He dug in both front pants pockets, looking for his keys, before he remembered that Wyatt had taken them. On his worst day, Jesse wouldn’t have driven drunk, but Wyatt, of course, wouldn’t have taken that chance.

  Now, he was stuck, sitting there in his truck like a damn fool while half the town paraded by.

  This was what he got for being the one person in North America who didn’t carry a cell phone.

  On top of it all, he needed to piss like a racehorse.

  No way was he walking the length of the Roadhouse, passing by every jam-packed table in the place, to get to the men’s room.

  He glanced speculatively toward the alley.

  Not a good day for taking chances.

  “Hell,” he said, closing his eyes, hoping that would make the headache let up a little.

  A rap on the window made him turn.

  Travis was standing on the running board, grinning in at him. Holding up his keys.

  Jesse pushed the door open, forcing Travis to jump clear or be knocked to the asphalt.

  “Wyatt sent me,” Travis said with mock seriousness. “As an officer of the court, I can’t let you have these keys until I know for sure that you’re sober.”

  Jesse was sober, all right. And he cut loose with a blue streak to make his point.

  Travis handed over the keys. “Rance ended up at the motel. Keegan spent the night at the office. What the hell happened here?”

  “I don’t have time to discuss it,” Jesse said, having cooled off a little. His bladder was screaming and, short of risking arrest on charges of indecent exposure by whipping it out behind the Dumpster, he was out of choices.

  He headed for the nearest gas station.

  Travis was waiting when he came out of the john.

  “Maybe you ought to let me take you home,” he said. “Sierra and I could pick up your truck later. Drop it off at your place.”

  “I’m fine,” Jesse said.

  “You don’t sound fine. You don’t look fine, either.”

  Jesse ignored him. Got back into the truck and went straight for the Triple M. When he got there, the horses were still out in the pasture, from the day before, having a good old time.

  Jesse swore off booze forever.

  Climbed over the corral fence, opened the gate and whistled for the herd.

  The sound sliced between the right and left sides of his brain like a sharp ax, swung hard.

  The horses galloped toward him.

  He stepped back, watched as they thundered into the corral, then the barn.

  They were horses, he reminded himself. One night in a grassy pasture, with plenty of water, did not amount to animal abuse. But he felt guilty, just the same.

  He gave them each a handful of grain, a rare treat, since too much of it wasn’t healthy for most horses, then brushed them all down for good measure. It was a kind of personal penance.

  By the time he went inside the house, not even stopping to make coffee, he wanted nothing but a hot shower, a couple of aspirin and about twenty hours of sleep.

  That was probably why he didn’t realize he wasn’t alone until it was way too late.

  KEEGAN DID SOMETHING unprecedented that day. At least, it was unprecedented according to Myrna. He took the day off. Rance didn’t come in at all. The staff, which consisted of a few people in the mail room and several secretaries, worked diligently behind the scenes.

  Cheyenne made phone calls to various junior colleges in the
area and continued mapping out the plan Keegan had hired her to develop and execute.

  On her lunch hour, she drove over to the supermarket, bought a sandwich in the deli and offered Ayanna half as a peace offering.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Ayanna looked small and forlorn, hunched at the table outside the employee’s lunch room, in her jeans and her perky blue vest. “Me, too,” she replied. “I shouldn’t have hit you.” She stopped, clapped her hand over her mouth for a moment, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, Cheyenne. I actually hit you.”

  “It’s okay, Mom.”

  “It isn’t okay!”

  “You’re right. It isn’t. But it’s over.” Cheyenne took her mother’s hand, squeezed gently. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

  “I’m not a liar!” Ayanna whispered. Fortunately, the few other workers taking their lunch break at the same time as Ayanna had chosen to stay inside.

  “I know,” Cheyenne said.

  “No, you don’t. You think I lied for your father. In court. Under oath! Okay—I did lie to his bosses a few times, and people he owed money to, because we didn’t have any money to pay them with, Cheyenne—but he was with me the night that store was robbed. We were across the street, at Denny’s.”

  Cheyenne sighed. On television, there would have been a lengthy trial, with lots of witnesses. In real life, Cash Bridges’s case was just one of many. He’d been arrested, charged and convicted. Ayanna had testified on his behalf. There hadn’t been a jury. An assistant D.A. had played back the film from the security camera, and Cash had been sentenced to five years in prison.

  He’d died in a fight between inmates, eighteen months later.

  “He did leave the table to buy cigarettes,” Ayanna said miserably.

  Cheyenne stared at her. “How long was he gone?”

  “Long enough,” Ayanna said.

  “Did you tell the police that?”

  “Of course not. I was young, I was stupid. I had a daughter to raise. Useless as he was, I didn’t want Cash to go to jail.”

  “You knew he was guilty.”

  “No,” Ayanna protested. “I know he left the table for five minutes or so.”

  “Mom, what about the tape?”

  “It was just somebody who looked like him.”

  “Okay, stay in denial.”

  “If you saw that tape, you’d know it wasn’t your dad.”

  “It’s long gone by now, Mom.” She sighed, feeling inexpressibly weary. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it wasn’t Dad.” Maybe if I hold my arms out, a flock of cartoon birds will flutter down and light on my dainty little Snow White wrists. “The point is, we’re never going to get anywhere talking about this.”

  “You’re right.”

  Cheyenne hugged her. “Eat your hoagie,” she said.

  “I’ve tried to be a good mother,” Ayanna told her.

  “You are a good mother.”

  Ayanna sniffled. Her eyes shone behind a film of tears. “You ought to eat this sandwich,” she said. “You’re too skinny.”

  “I wish,” Cheyenne said. She hugged Ayanna again. “I’d better go, Mom. I’ve got lots to do back at the office.”

  Ayanna caught hold of her hand when she would have walked away. “Tell Jesse the truth,” she said. “Tell him the truth, Cheyenne, before it’s too late.”

  Cheyenne bit her lower lip, nodded.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Today?”

  “Today.”

  Ayanna approached, kissed Cheyenne on the cheek and dashed back into the store to bag groceries.

  CHEYENNE LEFT THE OFFICE promptly at five that afternoon, called home from the car to make sure Mitch was all right. He answered on the second ring.

  “Hey,” Cheyenne said.

  “Hey,” Mitch responded.

  “You doing okay?”

  He bristled. “I’m not helpless, you know.”

  “I know,” Cheyenne answered. She didn’t ask if Ayanna was home yet because she’d seen the van in the lot when she’d driven past the supermarket. “Anything you’d like me to pick up?”

  “Bronwyn’s bringing pizza,” Mitch said. “Feel free to stay gone for a while. Mom’s staying after work for a union meeting or something.”

  “The coast is clear, then,” Cheyenne told him. “I’m on my way out to Jesse’s place, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Tell Mom, okay?”

  “Okay,” Mitch promised. “Chey?”

  “What?”

  “Did you ask your boss about—?”

  “Yes,” Cheyenne said carefully. She’d wanted to have this conversation in person, after she knew how Jesse in particular and the McKettricks in general would react to the news that she hadn’t been completely honest with them. Now, she was on dangerous emotional ground. If she went down in flames, most likely so would Mitch and all his hopes of getting into the training program. “I mentioned that you’d like to participate in the project. Keegan didn’t give me a definitive answer, Mitch. That’s the bottom line.”

  “You’re going to tell Jesse about Nigel?”

  Cheyenne swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  Mitch’s response surprised her, though she realized, immediately after the fact, that it shouldn’t have. “Jesse’s a good man, Chey. He might be mad at first, but he’ll understand.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Cheyenne said, but she was doubtful, and she knew Mitch could hear it in her voice.

  “I’m right,” Mitch told her confidently.

  “See you later,” she said.

  “I’m betting on sometime tomorrow,” Mitch replied.

  Cheyenne said goodbye and hung up.

  Jesse’s house was rimmed by the fiery golds and crimsons of a sunset that would flare brightly and then dim by degrees of lavender and purple as the twilight crept in. In all the time the earth had existed, there had never been a sky show exactly like this, and there would never be one again.

  The glare almost blinded her, even with her sunglasses. She made out the distinctive shape of Jesse’s truck, parked at an odd angle near the barn, but that was about all.

  She parked at the top of the driveway, spent a few moments working up her courage before she got out of the Escalade.

  There was no answer when she knocked at the kitchen door, but she could hear the faint, smoky strains of jazz coming from somewhere inside. She considered looking for the front entrance and ringing the bell, or going around to the back.

  Instead, she opened door number one, stepped nervously over the threshold.

  “Jesse?” she called.

  Nothing, but she thought the jazz went softer.

  She took a few more feet of ground. “Jesse?”

  The stereo went off.

  A premonition of inexplicable doom overtook Cheyenne.

  “Jesse!” she called again, but her voice shook. Anybody listening would know it was pure bravado.

  Cheyenne thought of the two men at Lucky’s. An icy chill trickled down her spine.

  They would have attended to business—beaten Jesse to a pulp or even killed him—and left—-wouldn’t they? Not stuck around, listening to jazz.

  On the other hand, some criminals delighted in doing that kind of thing.

  Heart pounding, Cheyenne fished her cell phone out of her handbag, clasped it in one sweaty palm and listened hard. She shouldn’t have called out—now, if there was someone else in the house, besides Jesse, they knew she was about to discover them.

  Should she call 911?

  And say what? Hello. My name is Cheyenne Bridges, and I’m trespassing, and I think someone else is, too?

  When the cops showed up, she’d probably be arrested, and she’d feel like a fool.

  She slipped out of her shoes and moved cautiously through the dining room. The windows faced east, so there wasn’t much light.

  The living room was empty, too.

  Terrified of what she’d find when she got there, equally afraid
of never making it that far in the first place, Cheyenne headed for Jesse’s bedroom.

  The double doors stood partially open.

  Cheyenne peeked through.

  Another woman peeked back.

  Both of them shrieked.

  In the dazzling light of the same sunset she’d admired earlier, now pouring through the windows arching around Jesse’s bed, Cheyenne saw him sit up.

  Meanwhile, the woman on the other side of the threshold stood with one hand pressed to her heart. She was a stunningly beautiful blonde, as tall as Jesse, clad in a white T-shirt, probably one of his, and nothing else.

  Finally, the pieces fell into place.

  Cheyenne backed up a few steps.

  “Shit,” she heard Jesse say.

  Cheyenne turned to run.

  Jesse must have pushed past the blonde because there was no sign of her when he caught up to Cheyenne in the living room, made her stop and face him.

  “Cheyenne,” he said, “listen to me—”

  “No,” Cheyenne said, praying she wouldn’t cry. “You listen to me, Jesse McKettrick. I came here to tell you that I still work for Nigel Meerland. He wanted me to spy on you, dig up some dirt, so you’d have to sell us the land—”

  Jesse’s face went still. The blue of his eyes, usually like a summer sky, was glacial. He’d been gripping Cheyenne’s shoulders, and he let go so suddenly that she almost fell.

  The blonde appeared behind him. “Hi,” she said, putting out a hand. “My name is Brandi and I’m—”

  “She’s my wife,” Jesse said.

  Brandi must have been an actress because she looked confused, and she was damn convincing, too. “I’m your ex-wife—”

  Jesse’s gaze bored into Cheyenne. “You lied to me,” he said.

  “You lied to me,” Cheyenne replied.

  “Will somebody listen?” Brandi asked, sounding plaintive.

  “No,” Cheyenne said.

  “No,” Jesse said, at precisely the same moment.

  “Oh, crap,” Brandi said. “This is all—”

  Cheyenne bolted.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LIKE A MAN WAKING UP in the middle of a nightmare, Jesse turned to stare at Brandi, standing there in his living room, wearing one of his Tshirts and nothing else, as far as he could tell.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded.