McKettricks Bundle

by Linda Lael Miller

  Rance stood alone. The wad of paper, folded and stuffed into his shirt pocket, burned right through fabric to flesh, and beyond flesh to the heart of his pride.

  During the night, when the girls were enjoying the untroubled sleep of the profoundly innocent, he’d finally bitten the bullet, gone to Julie’s computer, and opened the file he’d known was there. Maybe she’d wanted him to find it, one day—or maybe she’d thought she had all the time in the world to delete it.

  It didn’t matter now.

  He touched the pocket. “I’m sorry, Julie,” he said in a raspy whisper.

  A fierce ache swelled behind his eyes, jammed up his throat.

  He heard Cora’s truck rattling up the winding dirt road. Saw her get out of it and come toward him, but he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t acknowledge her presence in any way.

  Reaching his side, she touched his arm.

  “It’s all right, Rance,” she said gently.

  He shook his head.

  Cora bent to lay a supermarket bouquet next to Maeve and Rianna’s wildflowers. When she straightened again, he felt her gaze burning like an August sun against his face.

  “Rianna called and told me you were coming up here this morning,” she said to him. “She also mentioned that you were on the computer all night, in Julie’s office. I may be all wet here, but my guess is, you finally read those e-mails.”

  Rance could only nod.

  “She didn’t love him, Rance,” Cora went on. “She was trying to get your attention. That’s why she didn’t delete the files.”

  At last, Rance found his voice, but it was ragged, and he wouldn’t have recognized it if it hadn’t come from his own mouth. “I know,” he said. And he did know, but his eyes burned, just the same. “I guess I’ve got nobody to blame but myself.”

  Cora’s eyes flashed. “What Julie did was flat wrong, and I told her so at the time. She never betrayed you physically, Rance, and I hope you never betrayed her. But she had no business visiting those chat rooms in the first place, let alone striking up an intimate friendship with a stranger. Julie’s not here to ask your forgiveness, so I’m asking for her. You’ve got to erase those files, Rance, so your daughters never see them.”

  “Already done,” Rance said. He took the crumpled printouts from his pocket, handed them to Cora. She took them with a shaky hand and stuffed them into her purse. “She threw it up to me a couple of times, Cora,” he went on, after a decent interval. “She wanted me to read what she’d written to that guy, and what he’d written to her. And until last night, I couldn’t do it.”

  Cora rested a hand on his back. “You do understand, don’t you, that Julie was really writing to you, not that man in California?”

  He nodded. “That’s the hardest thing of all,” he said. “Knowing it was my fault. She tried to tell me, so many times, how she felt. I thought she ought to be content with two amazing children, a big house, and all the money she cared to spend. I didn’t listen to her, Cora.”

  “He wanted to meet her. She said no. Do you know why, Rance?”

  He waited.

  “Because she loved you. Not him. You.”

  He managed another nod.

  “Let this all go,” Cora pleaded softly. “Let it be over, Rance. For your own sake, and for the girls’. I don’t know what’s developing between you and Echo—I have my hopes, but it’s not my call. All I’m asking is that you set aside that damn pride of yours long enough to give it a chance.”

  “You’re an amazing woman, Cora,” he told her. For the first time since she’d arrived, he was able to look her straight in the eye.

  Maeve and Rianna’s voices rang on the soft breeze of the morning, and the sound made him smile, albeit sadly.

  Cora grinned, though there were tears standing in her eyes. “Sometimes I even amaze myself,” she said. “I’ve got a date for the Summer Dance. Imagine that! An old fogey like me.”

  Rance slipped an arm around Cora’s waist, held her close for a moment. “Half the widowers in town lust after you,” he teased. “Didn’t you know that?”

  Cora sighed. There was a new peace about her, as though she’d taken her own advice and let go of something. Laid down some heavy burden, never to pick it up again. “For a long time,” she said, “I hated myself for outliving Julie. It just didn’t seem right.”

  “I imagine my folks could identify. Neither one of them ever got over losing Cassidy. I’m pretty sure that’s what broke up their marriage.”

  “Isn’t it peculiar,” Cora mused, after a nod of agreement, “that the things that ought to bind a man and woman at the heart can drive them apart instead?”

  Before Rance had to frame an answer to that one, Maeve and Rianna rushed up, whooping with delight and enfolding their grandmother in little-girl hugs.

  “Mind if I take these yahoos to Flagstaff with me for the day?” Cora asked Rance. “I’m shopping for a new dress to wear to the dance, and I could use the moral support.”

  “Can we go to the dance, too?” Rianna immediately asked.

  “Can we get new dresses?” Maeve asked, the words tumbling right over the top of her sister’s.

  Rance looked down into the eager, upturned faces of his daughters. “You can go to Flagstaff. You can have new dresses if you want them. But I’m not too sure about the rest. You’ll be running off to dances soon enough, to my way of thinking.”

  “Every kid in town will be there, Rance,” Cora said, but softly.

  Three beautiful women, one man. Rance knew the odds were against him, so he relented. “Okay,” he said reluctantly.

  Maeve and Rianna jumped up and down, whooping like Apaches around a campfire.

  Cora smiled and herded them toward the truck, parked just outside the cemetery gates, next to his rig. He watched them till they were out of sight, and when they were gone, he tipped his hat to Julie, turned and walked away.

  He’d said what he had to say to his late wife, and now he could leave her to rest in peace.

  Carrying his hat in one hand, he approached Cassidy’s grave.

  It was a day for setting aside his pride, and saying what was in his heart instead.

  THE WOMAN, dRESSED IN OLD jeans and a faded T-shirt, slipped furtively into the shop, as though she expected to be thrown out at any moment. Her hair was a nondescript brown, worn in a style at least a decade out of date, and a tiny rose tattoo marked her right forearm. Her skin was muddy, her eyes at once defiant and resigned.

  Echo knew instantly who she was.

  She could only guess at what she wanted.

  Snowball whimpered and low-crawled behind the counter to hunker down.

  “Hello, Mrs. Willand,” Echo said, grateful there was no one else in the store and, at the same time, wishing Ayanna would appear. Although the day had started out sunny, there were already dark clouds rolling in from the west, and Echo couldn’t help drawing certain parallels.

  “Della,” the woman answered, pausing just inside the door. “My name is Della.”

  “Echo Wells,” Echo replied, stepping over Snowball to come out from behind the counter and extend her hand.

  Della hesitated, then took Echo’s hand briefly in her own. “I guess you know I’m here about Bud,” she said.

  Echo hadn’t known that, not for sure, anyway, but she didn’t say anything. She just waited.

  “He done a stupid thing,” Della said, blushing a little. “Coming here like he did. Breaking in. Once Bud gets an idea in his head, seems like it takes a stick of dynamite to blast it out again.”

  “What do you want me to do, Mrs. Willand?”

  “Della.”

  Echo suppressed a sigh, along with a badly timed desire to recommend an exfoliant. “Della, then,” she said.

  “I come to ask you to drop the charges against Bud.”

  “He broke into my store. My home.”

  Della Willand might have been a con artist, but the pain in her eyes was real. “Bud’s been out of work awhile,” she
said. “It did something to his brain. Last night, he got a call from his foreman, Bob Walker. He can start a new job Monday morning if he gets out.” She pried a scrap of paper from the hip pocket of her tight jeans, shoved it at Echo. “Here’s Bob’s number. He’ll tell you it’s true.”

  Echo looked at the name and number scrawled on the corner of an old envelope. “How do I know this isn’t one of your friends, just pretending to be a foreman?” she asked.

  Della shrugged wearily. “I guess you don’t. Bud’s never been in trouble before, Miss Wells, and that’s something you can check up on easily enough. Anyhow, it’s partly my doing—that he was so all-fired determined to get that dog back, I mean. We bred her to our friend Clovis’s dog, and we had most of the pups already sold. We had some fancy plans for the money.”

  Echo considered. On the one hand, she was no great judge of character—she’d trusted Justin, and several other people she shouldn’t have. On the other, some part of her truly believed Della Willand and wanted to offer a second chance.

  “I’ll need to think about this,” she finally said. “I’m not sure it’s in my power to get the charges dropped, even if I decide that’s what I want to do.”

  Della started to say something, stopped herself and swallowed visibly. Then she nodded. “Thanks,” she said at last. “I’m really sorry for what Bud done.”

  With that, Della left the shop, and Echo trailed her as far as the front door, where she stood watching as the other woman got into a battered compact and drove away.

  Thoughtfully, Echo tapped her chin with the tip of one index finger.

  Then she went back to the counter, got out the phone book and looked up the nonemergency number for the local police.

  Wyatt Terp answered.

  Echo gave her name and told him about Della Willand’s visit.

  Wyatt was quiet for a long time. “I’ve already run some checks on Bud,” he said. “He’s a loser, all right. But as far as I can tell, he’s never been in trouble with the law.”

  “If I were to drop the charges against him, would they let him go?”

  “That’s up to the prosecutor. What Willand did was pretty serious, any way you look at it, and we don’t have any real assurance that he won’t come after you again.”

  Echo looked down at the phone number Della had given her. “He’s got a chance for a job, according to his wife. She gave me a number.”

  “I’ll run it down, if you’d like. Speak to somebody at the prosecutor’s office, too. It might take a while, though.”

  Echo sighed gratefully. “I’d appreciate it. I just have a feeling—”

  The shop bell tinkled above the door and Ayanna came in.

  “I don’t know as anything can be done,” Wyatt said. “I’ll see what I can find out, though, and get back to you as soon as I can.”

  Echo thanked him, said goodbye and hung up.

  “It’s the darnedest thing,” Ayanna said, bright-eyed and breathless. Tiny diamonds of rain twinkled in her dark hair, with its lovely streaks of silver. “I ran into Virgil Terp at the gas station this morning, and he asked me to the Summer Dance.”

  Echo had never met Virgil, but she knew, via Cora, that he was brother to Morgan and Wyatt, whom she’d just been talking to. “Did you say yes?” she asked, smiling at Ayanna’s flushed cheeks.

  “Sure I did,” Ayanna answered. “I like Virgil. He’s pretty shy, but he’s nice enough.”

  Echo smiled again. “You wouldn’t happen to know of a house for rent, would you?”

  “Not right off the top of my head,” Ayanna said, looking intrigued. “Why?”

  “I think I’d like a little more room,” Echo replied. “A yard, too. So I can raise flowers.”

  “Cora’d be the one to ask,” Ayanna told her. “She knows everybody in Indian Rock. Or you could call Elaine, over at the real estate office.”

  Echo nodded.

  “It’s nice to know you plan on staying here, Echo,” Ayanna said. She came around to put her purse in its usual place, under the counter. A mischievous look came into her eyes. “Does it have anything to do with Rance McKettrick?”

  “Everything and nothing,” Echo said.

  Ayanna chuckled. “I know what you mean,” she answered. “Speaking of houses, I see somebody’s moving into the old Lindsay place.”

  Echo frowned, not recognizing the name.

  “It’s that old three-story pile of brick on the corner of Maple and Red River Drive. The only genuine mansion in Indian Rock.”

  “I’m surprised it doesn’t belong to a McKettrick,” Echo said, and then could have bitten off her tongue because Ayanna’s daughter, Cheyenne, was about to become a McKettrick. “I didn’t mean to sound flip,” she added hastily.

  Ayanna chuckled. “No offense taken. Actually, it did belong to them, once. Doss McKettrick, one of Holt’s sons, built it for his bride, Hannah, back in the 1920s, because she had a hankering to live in town. Eventually, they moved back out to the ranch, though. Sierra and Meg’s place was theirs, back then. Sold the mansion to a banker for a chunk of change.”

  Echo shook her head. “I envy them all that history. The McKettricks, I mean.”

  Ayanna eyed her curiously. “Don’t you have a history, Echo?”

  The question took Echo aback. With one fingertip, she spelled out the letters of her real name on the countertop, where they left no trace at all. “Not like they do,” she said.

  “But the doll, and your Uncle Joe—”

  “Hardly a legacy,” Echo said without rancor.

  “Then maybe it’s time to start one. So things will be different for the ones who come after you.”

  Echo wasn’t entirely sure anyone would come after her. She’d be thirty on Saturday, with no prospect of marriage on the radar. Sure, there was something going on with Rance, but she was afraid to trust it—or him. It would simply hurt too much to fall in love and then fall out again.

  No, she intended to live the best life she could. She wanted a house, a yard full of flowers, a dog or two. For the moment, she didn’t dare plan beyond those things.

  “Echo?” Ayanna prompted when she didn’t say anything.

  A tour bus rolled up outside.

  “Showtime,” Echo said, with a forced smile.

  MAEVE NEVER INTENDED TO read the papers. It was just that Granny sent her back to the truck for her purse when they got home from Flagstaff late that dark and windy afternoon, and everything had tumbled out of the bag, onto the floor.

  She was stuffing things inside when she accidentally turned back the corner of what looked like a thick, folded letter, and saw her mom’s name.

  After that, even though she knew better, knew it was wrong, reading private things other people had written, she couldn’t help looking.

  She didn’t read it all, and she didn’t understand a lot of what she did read. But it was clear enough, from the beginning, that these were e-mails. There were love words in them, too—and her mom had been writing to some guy named Steve, not her dad.

  Not her dad.

  Carefully, Maeve refolded the pages and tucked them into Granny’s purse. Her hands trembled and her skin felt clammy. She got that taste in her mouth, like she was going to throw up.

  She desperately wanted to tell somebody what she’d discovered, so they could say it didn’t mean what she thought it did, or it happened before her mom and dad were married. But who could she tell?

  Granny?

  No. Granny already knew, if the e-mails were in her purse. Of course she hadn’t said anything, because Maeve was a kid, and grown-ups didn’t tell kids stuff like this.

  Her dad?

  Double no. He might hate her mom forever, if he found out. And, besides, she knew her parents had gone steady practically since they were little kids. There was no time when it would have been all right for her mom to say things like that to another man.

  Maeve closed her eyes and drew a couple of deep breaths, trying to get her balance. She had t
o be McKettrick tough. The only problem with that was, being tough was harder when you were only ten, whether you were a McKettrick or not.

  “Maeve!” Rianna yelled from Granny’s front porch. “Hurry up! We’re going to put on our new dresses and have a fashion show—you and me and Granny!”

  “Coming,” Maeve called back, after swallowing some burny stuff that rose into the back of her throat.

  Uncle Jesse. That was it, Maeve decided, wildly relieved—she could tell Uncle Jesse. He’d probably say it was all a mistake. He’d say her mom and dad loved each other, and those e-mails belonged to somebody else, some other Julie.

  Gathering Granny’s purse tight in both arms, she turned and headed back up the walk, big drops of rain splatting down on her like tears.

  RANCE WOULD HAVE LIKED to stop by the bookshop, just to spend a few minutes looking at Echo, but by the time he got to town, there was a storm gathering. He had to pick up the girls, then get back out to the ranch, because cattle tended to spook when there was weather, and he’d already heard a few long, low rolls of thunder, between brief downpours.

  He used his cell phone to call Jesse, then Keegan.

  The way things were shaping up, he was going to need help.

  Warm rain hammered the ground as Maeve and Rianna rushed out to jump into the truck, Rianna giggling, Maeve looking unusually somber.

  “We had a fashion show,” Rianna told him, once she’d bounded up into the seat.

  Maeve didn’t speak. She just climbed in, clutching a shopping bag and fastened her sister and then herself into the seat belts.

  The air smelled of wet dust.

  “You okay, Maeve?” Rance asked, concerned.

  She gave him a determined smile. “I’m okay,” she said.

  “I’m going to have to herd cattle when we get back to the ranch,” he told his daughters. “You girls want to stay here with your granny?”

  “We’re old enough to be alone in the house, Dad,” Maeve said.

  Rianna could barely contain her excitement. She kicked her little sandaled feet and smoothed her rain-dampened hair. “Maybe we can have another fashion show!”

  “Like I want to put on this stupid dress again,” Maeve said, with a sniff. She turned her head away then and stared out the window as if she’d never seen Indian Rock before.