“That’s what I want for Christmas,” Echo told her uncle, very quietly, although no one had asked. “That doll.”
Her cousins, two girls and a boy, clamored for skates and soccer balls and boom boxes.
Her uncle looked down at her, in a rare noticing moment, and frowned, as though surprised to find her there, standing beside him, zipped up in her hand-me-down coat. But Echo felt a stirring of hope, just the same. She whispered a prayer—back then, she still called the Universe “God”—please.
It was all she knew to say.
When Christmas morning came, the skates and the boom-boxes and the soccer balls were there, but no doll.
She got a coloring book and crayons, and a jewelry box with a little ballerina inside. It danced on a tiny circle of glass when the key was turned. She sat, among gifts she would otherwise have cherished, and wondered what Christmas tree Margaret, that magical doll, stood under, in what living room.
Somebody else’s doll.
Echo awakened with tears on her face and Snowball trying to lick them away.
Somebody else’s doll.
Somebody else’s dog.
And Rance, whether she liked it or not, was somebody else’s man. Rianna and Maeve were somebody else’s daughters. It didn’t matter that Julie McKettrick was dead and gone. She’d been there first, Julie had—first with Rance, first with the children.
Julie’s life, however brief, had been a shout.
And I am only the echo.
Echo clung to Snowball, and she sobbed.
BUD WILLAND STUDIED THE picture on the front page of the Indian Rock Gazette, which he’d found on a table in one of the casino restaurants, way down in Phoenix, and figured it for a sign. Echo Wells and that piece-of-shit dog, with a cake between them.
The payoff, given to him by her fancy boyfriend, was gone. He’d poked the last of it into a slot machine, not fifteen minutes back. They were all rigged, those damn machines. Suckered you in, with lights and music and motion and color. Made you think you had a chance, but all the time, they were bleeding you dry.
Bud seethed.
He’d found that dog out in the alley, going through his garbage, a couple of months back. Skinny as hell, and dirty, too. He’d wanted to run it off, but his woman said it was some kind of purebred, and there might be a reward. So they’d corralled the critter, found it was wearing a collar, but the little ring where the tag should have been was sprung.
Della said they ought to check the newspapers, and then she marched right out and tied the dog up in the backyard. Gave her a pan of water and the leavings from breakfast, and named the animal Whitey, once they’d hosed her down so they could see what color she was.
Days went by, though, and there was nothing in the papers. Bud would have taken that fleabag out on the highway and left it, while Della was at work, just to be shut of it, except that one day his buddy, Clovis, came by and said they could make some money. All they had to do was breed Whitey to Clovis’s dog, another white Lab. When the pups came, they’d sell them and split the takings.
Clovis had paid almost a thousand bucks for the dog he had. Practically got divorced over it, too, since he’d been out of work at the time and the rent was due, and he’d used most of an insurance check to buy Ranger. Women just didn’t understand business—or the value of a good hunting dog.
Clovis brought Ranger over, and it took. All they had to do was wait, him and Clovis. Make plans for spending the proceeds.
They’d gone halves on some kibble for Whitey, to fatten her up. Wanted those pups to come out good and solid. Then, one day, while nobody was home, Whitey wriggled out of that collar some way—left it on the ground, still hooked to the rope knotted to one of the clothesline poles—and jumped the fence.
Bud and Clovis had looked all over the county for that damned dog. Then, just when they’d given up all hope, Clovis’s teenage daughter, who was good with computers, found a notice on a Web site and told them about it. Showed them the picture.
Sure as death and taxes, it was Whitey.
They’d as much as called Bud a liar, that Echo woman and her boyfriend, when he went up to claim his rightful property. Of course, Bud hadn’t mentioned the grand the boyfriend had given him to Clovis—he would have wanted half, and a man had a right to the occasional windfall.
Now, sitting in that casino restaurant, flat broke but with a full tank of gas in his truck, Bud was forced to reconsider the situation.
The boyfriend had warned him off, and he hadn’t seemed like the kind to make an idle threat. Bud was no pansy-ass, but he wasn’t a fool, either. The man from Indian Rock was younger, stronger and probably faster, and he’d had that make-my-day look in his eyes.
Still, he couldn’t be everywhere at once, and judging by his clothes and that rig of his, not to mention that he could peel off a thousand dollars and hand them over to a perfect stranger without so much as a flicker of regret, he probably had some high-powered job. Which meant he couldn’t be hanging around Echo Wells’s bookstore twenty-four/seven, on the lookout for trouble.
Idly, Bud flipped through the pages of the thin newspaper.
And there, on the third page, was a picture of the boyfriend, part of a community service ad for McKettrickCo.
Rance McKettrick.
Bud recognized the name—just about anybody in Arizona would have—and it sent a little chill skittering down his spine. The McKettricks were definitely not people a sane man would mess with.
Pulling his pay-as-you-go cell phone from his shirt pocket, hoping he hadn’t used up his minutes like he’d used up just about everything else in his life, Bud dialed the number in the ad.
“McKettrickCo,” a woman said in a cheerful, singsong sort of voice.
Bud cleared his throat. “This is Ben Jackson,” he said. “I’m calling from the University of Arizona, down in Tucson. I’d like to speak with Mr. Rance McKettrick, if I could. About—the educational program.”
The woman hesitated, and Bud would have sworn she’d made him for a fake. If she looked at the caller ID panel on her telephone, she’d see a Tucson area code. With luck, she’d take that at face value, instead of calling back to check.
Not that Bud had had any luck to speak of lately, anyway. Della had had some big plans for his cut of the puppy-money—as much as eight thousand if they got a big litter, with half a dozen buyers already lined up—and she’d been pouting ever since that lousy dog took a powder. Always ragging on him about drawing unemployment, while she worked ten hours a day doing pedicures for a lot of snotty women. Like he ought to be flipping burgers or something.
He was a welder, damn it. He’d worked hard to get his ticket, and he’d been a foreman on his last job. A man had to have standards.
“Mr. McKettrick is out of the country for the rest of the week,” the woman at McKettrickCo said. “However, I’d be happy to put you through to Ms. Bridges. She’s in charge of our work/study program.”
Bud smiled. The boyfriend was not only out of town, he was out of the United States.
Yes, indeedy, it was a sign.
He thanked the lady politely, said he’d call back another time, and hung up.
Bud thought about calling Della and telling her he’d have a surprise for her when he got home that night, but the cell phone was dead. No more minutes.
He dropped it in a trash can as he left the casino.
THE STORE WAS SO BUSY that morning that Echo had to call Ayanna and ask her to put in some extra hours. Ayanna arrived within thirty minutes, but there was something a little off about her manner, as if she’d suddenly turned shy.
Echo was puzzling over that when a teenage girl rushed into the store, bypassed all the carefully displayed books and gifts, and marched straight up to the counter.
Echo, just finishing up with another customer, smiled politely. “May I help you?”
“I want a love-spell,” the girl said.
Echo went as still as if she’d just stepped over a lo
g in the deep woods and found herself ankle deep in a nest of snakes.
“You sell them, don’t you?” the visitor asked. “I don’t have to order from the Web site? I’m in a hurry—I need a date for the summer dance.”
“The summer—”
“Word’s all over town that you’re selling love-spells,” Ayanna confided, stepping over Snowball, who was lying behind the counter, almost under Echo’s feet. Ever since the crying jag, after the doll-dream, the dog had stuck close.
The teenage girl, who was a few pounds overweight and had a bad complexion, looked desperately hopeful. “You will sell me one, won’t you?”
Echo had thought no one in Indian Rock knew about her sideline except Cora. Obviously, she’d been wrong. Had the woman blabbed the news all over town?
Echo finally found her voice. “Listen—er—”
“Jessica,” the girl supplied.
“Jessica,” Echo confirmed. “The spells are just—well, they’re for fun, mostly. Just a little bag, with a stone and a feather and a prayer inside—”
“Nineteen-ninety-five, plus shipping and handling,” Jessica said, laying a twenty dollar bill on the counter. “Since you don’t have to handle or ship, can you give me a break on the price?”
“They’re really not—”
Jessica wasn’t listening. “F. Finklestein of Waycross, Georgia, got a date for the prom within twelve hours,” she said. Clearly, she’d been reading the testimonials on the site, and she wasn’t going to be easily dissuaded. “The dance is in a week. All my friends have dates, and I’ve even got a dress. You’ve got to help.”
Jessica’s eyes teared up.
Ayanna busied herself on the other side of the shop.
“My sister, Alicia, says it will take magic to get me a date,” Jessica confided, leaning in a little.
Inwardly, Echo sighed. Then she bent down, got a red velvet bag out of the box behind the counter and handed it to Jessica, along with her twenty dollars. “My gift to you,” she said softly. “Good luck, Jessica.”
Jessica blushed. “Thanks,” she said. She managed a faltering smile and clutched the little pouch in one hand, pressing it to her too-ample chest. “Maybe J. Borger, of Indian Rock, Arizona, will be writing in to say she got a date for the Summer Dance.”
“I surely hope so,” Echo answered.
As soon as Jessica had left the store, Echo rounded the end of the counter and headed for the door.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she called to Ayanna.
Next door, she found Cora in an empty chair at one of the work stations, reading a movie magazine while she waited for somebody’s color job to process.
“Did you tell anyone about the love-spells?” Echo asked.
Cora blinked, lowered the movie magazine, which was practically an antique, since it showed Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt cuddling onboard a yacht somewhere tropical. An indrawn breath turned Cora’s mouth to an O.
“I might have mentioned it to one of the girls at the post office,” she said sheepishly, laying aside the magazine and standing to face Echo. “I’m so sorry—”
Echo realized she must look angry, and consciously corrected her body language. There were very few things she was sure of these days, but one of them was the authenticity of Cora Tellington’s friendship. “It’s okay,” she said on a sigh.
“What happened?” Cora asked.
Echo told her about Jessica’s visit, and her high hopes of getting a date for the dance.
Cora smiled. “Poor Jessica. She used to be in one of my twirling classes. I’ve always said she’d be a beautiful girl, once her skin cleared up and she lost a pound or two.”
Echo sagged a little. “I don’t want her to be disappointed,” she said, biting her lower lip. And then a flood of guilt washed over her, because she’d sold more than a thousand little bags with prayers and rocks and feathers in them to hopeful people all over the United States and Canada. How could she have been so irresponsible? Testimonials notwithstanding, there must be a lot of Jessicas out there, waiting for some special boy to ask them out.
And it wasn’t going to happen.
She slapped a hand over her mouth and sank into one of the cheap plastic chairs in the waiting area.
Cora rushed over, looking alarmed. “My goodness, Echo—are you all right?”
Tears glazed Echo’s eyes, sudden, unexpected, and hot as acid. “What have I done?” she whispered miserably. “It started out as a lark—I never thought—”
Cora sat down in the chair beside Echo’s. “Honey, honey—get a grip.”
Echo began to hyperventilate.
Cora, adept in a crisis, put a hand on the back of Echo’s neck and forced her head down between her knees. “Breathe slowly and deeply,” she counseled. “Very, very slowly.”
Echo tried to surface. “What have I done?” she repeated in a gasp.
Cora shoved Echo’s head back to knee-level. “Breathe,” she repeated.
Echo concentrated. She began to feel ever so slightly better, and Cora let her sit up. Then she thought of Jessica Borger again and burst into tears.
Cora cupped a cool, competent hand on either side of Echo’s wet face. “This isn’t about any love-spell, is it?” she asked.
Echo thought of the dream she’d had the night before.
Somebody else’s doll.
Somebody else’s dog.
Somebody else’s man.
Was she falling for Rance McKettrick?
“No,” she said with a quick shake of her head, answering her own question, not Cora’s.
“I didn’t think so,” Cora replied. “It’s just a theory—purely an intuition—but I think you’re upset about Rance rushing off to Taiwan or Singapore or wherever he went.”
Echo was stunned. “No,” she protested.
Cora patted her shoulder. “If I were you,” she said, lowering her voice, ostensibly so no one in the shop would overhear, “I’d be encouraged. I’ve never seen Rance McKettrick with such a burr under his hide. He’d fight a grizzly with his hands tied, but you sure put a scare into him. A big-enough one to send him flying halfway around the world just to catch his breath.” She grinned, evidently relishing the idea of Rance on the run. “Good job,” she finished in a confidential whisper.
Echo stared at her, completely at a loss for words.
Cora got up, went into the restroom and came out with a cold cloth.
Echo took it gratefully and swabbed her face.
“I shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “I should have stayed in Chicago.”
“Nonsense,” Cora argued. “You belong right here in Indian Rock.”
“Did I tell you I found Avalon—Snowball’s owners?”
“No,” Cora said.
“It’s going to kill me to give her up,” Echo said, sniffling. “If I’d stayed in Chicago, where I had a perfectly nice life going, I wouldn’t have found her and gotten attached—”
“And where would that have left that poor animal? If you hadn’t come along, she might have starved or been hit by a car. No, sir, Echo. Don’t you ever regret loving that dog, or anyone or anything else.”
“The thing about love,” Echo said miserably, “is you always end up losing out.”
Cora sat down again and gave her a quick hug. “Oh, but what you miss if you won’t take the chance,” she said.
Echo remembered, suddenly, that she owned a business, that it was the middle of the workday, and she’d left Ayanna in charge. She stood up, handed the cloth back to Cora and smoothed her pink-and-white floral sundress.
Time to start acting like a grown-up.
“Thank you, Cora,” she said.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for opening my big mouth over at the post office,” Cora replied, standing, too, and giving Echo a motherly pat on the shoulder. “And don’t worry so much. There isn’t any hocus-pocus to those little bags you sell. It’s the belief that makes them work.”
Echo nodded
and walked numbly out of the Curl and Twirl.
When she stepped inside her own shop, next door, she found no less than six women waiting, all wanting to buy love-spells.
She tried to give them away, as she’d done with Jessica, but the new customers, and the dozen or so after them, wouldn’t hear of it. They forked over their twenty dollars, every one of them, and rushed out to cast spells over some unsuspecting man.
At five o’clock, with considerable relief, Echo closed the shop.
At six, there was a loud knock at the door. She went partway downstairs, in the jeans and lavender T-shirt she’d changed into after work, and squinted to see who was so all-fired eager to get in.
Jesse and Keegan McKettrick stood outside on the sidewalk, both of them grinning at her through the glass window in the door.
She turned the latch and opened up.
“If you want love-spells,” she said, “you can’t have them.”
They looked at each other.
“Love…?” Jesse asked.
“Spells?” Keegan finished.
“Never mind,” Echo said, blushing.
Jesse grinned. “We came to ask you out to supper,” he said. “Cheyenne’s at a meeting up in Flag, so I’m on my own. And then there’s the chaperone factor—we wouldn’t want Rance to get the idea Keeg here was trying to move in.”
Keegan gave his cousin a look that would probably take the hide off anyone but another McKettrick.
The heat under Echo’s skin ratcheted up a degree or ten—did Jesse and Keegan know what had happened between her and Rance? “I’m not dressed up,” she pointed out, once she’d recovered from her private mortification.
“You look fine to me,” Keegan said, with a note of lingering appreciation. “Anyway, it’s just the Roadhouse. Burgers and beer.”
Jesse checked out the shop, then studied her. “You’re not a vegetarian or anything like that, are you?”
The question threw Echo. She’d been about to dash up the stairs to check on Snowball and retrieve her purse, but she paused and looked back at him over one shoulder. “Now, why would you ask that?”
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