Molly was terrified. She’d never seen a fight, and she didn’t want to start now.
Keegan beckoned to Jesse with both hands. “Come on, hotshot,” he said. “Throw a punch.”
Rance gave Jesse a light push. “Yeah,” he said. “Throw a punch.”
Jesse’s face contorted; he whirled on Rance with a fist raised.
Rance ducked at the last second, and the fist landed squarely in the middle of Keegan’s face.
Molly cried out and took a step forward; Cheyenne and Emma pulled her back.
Keegan reeled slightly, lowered his head and dived straight into Jesse’s solar plexus, sending him into Rance.
The three of them landed on the ground in an angry blur.
Molly put a hand over her mouth. “They’ll kill each other,” she murmured between her fingers.
“No such luck,” Cheyenne said, but there were tears standing in her eyes.
“What we need,” Emma put in, “is the riot squad.”
Meanwhile, someone grunted in fury and pain somewhere in the snarl of pigheaded men rolling around on the ground.
Molly moved in again, nudged Keegan with the toe of her shoe. “You stop it!” she cried. “Right now!”
Keegan looked at her in confusion, and promptly took another punch, this time in the jaw.
“You’re going to look terrible in the wedding pictures!” Molly warned.
And suddenly Keegan started to laugh. Kneeling in the dirt, with his lower lip split open and bleeding, the man sat back on his haunches and actually laughed.
Rance, who’d evidently been at the bottom of the dog pile, raised himself onto his elbows, looking baffled and a little suspicious, as though he suspected a trick. Jesse, rolling onto his knees as Keegan had done, threw back his head and guffawed.
He started to rise to his feet, but Cheyenne strode over, planted a foot in the middle of his chest and sent him flying backward. He caught himself on both hands and stared at his wife with an expression of such startled consternation that Keegan and Rance howled with delight.
Cheyenne was clearly not amused. “Sit there, you damn fool!” she told Jesse. “Sit there until hell freezes over!”
With that, she pivoted on one heel and stormed away.
Jesse scrambled to his feet. “Cheyenne, wait…”
“Now he’s in trouble,” Rance said with a smirk.
“Like you’re not,” Emma said huffily. “I’m going back to the shop, Rance McKettrick, where your daughters are. If you have a brain in that thick head of yours, you’ll steer clear of me until you come up with a very convincing apology!”
The smirk dissolved. “Emma…”
But Emma turned away without another word and followed the trail Cheyenne had just blazed.
A car door crashed shut. An engine roared to life.
Molly moved around the barn to see what was happening.
Cheyenne was speeding away in the Escalade. Jesse was standing in her wake, staring after her.
Emma shrugged off Rance’s attempt to stop her from leaving, too, got into her pink Volkswagen and nearly ran over him making a U-turn.
Rance yelled a swearword. He and Jess conferred briefly, then each of them got into a truck and drove off.
Molly went back to Keegan.
He was still catching his breath. He touched the back of one hand to his split lip, lowered it again and frowned when he saw a smear of blood on his knuckles. One of his eyes was starting to swell shut, and a small cut on his forehead oozed crimson.
“You really are going to look awful in the wedding pictures,” Molly said. “Let’s go inside and get you cleaned up.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s obvious.” She hooked her arm through his and ushered him toward the ranch house. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re a grown man, for heaven’s sake. What if Devon had seen this—this brawl?”
Keegan gave her a lopsided and entirely too fetching grin. “That wasn’t a brawl,” he said. “It was just a tussle. We got into a dustup outside the Roadhouse once that went on for an hour. Took a fire hose to break it up.”
“An hour. Well, how very macho of you. You should be ever so proud of yourself!”
He balked, stopped right in his tracks.
Molly gave him a tug to get him moving again. “You need some ice on that lip.” She peered up at him. “No stitches, probably.”
Inside the house she pressed him into a chair at the end of the table. Then she bunched up some paper towels, wet them down at the sink and shoved the wad into his hands.
“Put this against your mouth, stupid,” she said. “I’ll get the ice.”
“Did you just call me stupid?”
Molly wrenched open drawers until she found a box of plastic storage bags. “Oh, grow up.”
Keegan opened his mouth, closed it again.
Molly plucked a bag out of the box, went to the refrigerator and filled it with little round cubes from the icemaker. After zipping the top of the bag closed, she crossed the room again and pressed it against Keegan’s mouth.
He winced.
“Does it hurt?” Molly asked sweetly.
“Yes,” he mumbled from behind the ice bag.
“Good,” Molly said briskly. Then she got some more wet paper towels and began cleaning up the rest of Keegan’s face, none too gently.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Keegan said.
“I’m in no mood to listen to your reasons for rolling around on the ground behind the barn, if that’s what you have in mind.”
He flinched again as she examined the cut on his forehead. Nope, he didn’t need stitches, which was kind of a shame. A scar would have served him right.
“It’s about our getting married.”
She stopped, took half a step back. Her heart wriggled its way up into her throat and expanded there. “Are you backing out?”
“No,” he said. “But you might want to, once you hear what I have to say.”
“I want to raise Lucas. I have to marry you to do that. You could confess to robbing banks, and it wouldn’t change my mind.”
Keegan smiled, but his eyes were sad. “Psyche was jerking us around, Molly,” he said. “She never offered Lucas to Sierra and Travis.”
Molly blinked, laid a hand to her stomach, which was pitching as wildly as it had during the brawl—Keegan could call it whatever he chose—behind the barn.
“She’d still let me have Lucas?”
Keegan studied her. The skin around his eye was slowly turning a greenish-purple. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll be Psyche’s executor either way, so you’ll still have to deal with me.”
“But you’d lose out on adopting Lucas. Making him a McKettrick.”
Keegan merely nodded. Waited.
Molly sat down hard on the bench, all the starch gone out of her. “When did you find this out?”
“Yesterday.”
“And you’re just now telling me?”
“I almost didn’t,” Keegan said. “I want to raise Lucas almost as much as you do.”
She absorbed that.
Keegan reached out, took a tentative hold on her hand. “What’s your choice, Molly? Will you back out? Or will you let Lucas have a father?”
CHAPTER 14
WILL YOU BACK OUT ? Or will you let Lucas have a father?
Until she and Keegan had gone to bed together, Molly could have answered those questions readily. Was he kidding? Yes, she’d back out. And no, she definitely wouldn’t have chosen Keegan McKettrick as her son’s father.
So easy.
So simple.
Except that the truth had just hit her full force, maximum impact.
She loved this impossible, complex and strangely honorable man.
She sucked in a horrified breath and waited to see if she was going to throw up all over the place.
“Molly?” Keegan asked, tracing a light circle on the palm of her hand with the pad of his t
humb. She felt the reverberations of his touch in every part of her, body and soul. “Are you all right?”
“No,” she said bitterly. “I am not all right.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
She stood, tremulously, not trusting her legs to support her. Tears, those damn tears, were dangerously close to the surface. Again. She’d been holding on to her sanity for dear life ever since Psyche had summoned her to Indian Rock. And meeting Keegan had only made it worse. Much, much worse. “Oh, you’ve done quite enough, thank you very much.”
He looked confused—and wary. “Are you going to marry me or not?”
Molly bit down hard on her lower lip. “Yes,” she said, at considerable length. “But only because of Lucas.”
One side of Keegan’s rapidly swelling mouth tilted up—out of relief, Molly supposed—but there was still a look of confusion lurking in his eyes. “What other reason could there be, besides Lucas?”
“None,” Molly said briskly. “None at all.” Then she snatched the wad of wet paper towels out of his hand, now stained with stubborn McKettrick blood, marched over to the trash and disposed of it.
She’d left her purse and car keys in the station wagon, but it was a moment or so before she remembered that, frazzled as she was, and interrupted her own automatic search.
“Are you leaving?” Keegan asked, sounding amazed.
The lunkhead. Of course she was leaving. Joanie’s plane had already landed in Phoenix, and she was probably on her way to Indian Rock in a rental car at that very second. If Molly stayed on the Triple M, she wouldn’t be on hand to greet her friend.
No, she’d be in Keegan’s bed in another few minutes, in the throes of passion. And she might say something stupid at the height of one of the inevitable orgasms—like I love you.
“Yes, I’m leaving,” she said tersely. “I have things to do in town.”
Keegan sighed. “So do I,” he said. “Devon’s at the bookshop, and I have to pick her up.”
Molly already had the outside door open. Her hand tightened on the knob. “She’s going to be upset when she sees you,” she said, worried. “Honestly, Keegan, your face—”
“It’ll be all right,” he said. “Are you still taking her shopping tomorrow? Devon, I mean?”
“Yes,” Molly said, suddenly wishing she could stay. And not just because of the sex, either. Something else was going on—something concerning Devon—and little unidentified flying objects were blipping across Molly’s inner radar screen. “Keegan, is—is everything all right? With Devon?”
He shook his head. Molly felt compelled to cross the room again and take him into her arms, but she refused to let herself do it.
“No,” he said. “But it’s a long, involved story. And I need to talk to her about it first.”
Molly stood still in the doorway, unable to leave, unwilling to stay. “Sounds big,” she said.
“It is big,” Keegan confirmed miserably.
“You’re sure you don’t want to tell me about it?”
“I want to tell you about it,” Keegan said with grim certainty. “But I can’t. Not yet. It wouldn’t be fair to Devon.”
“Okay,” Molly said with equally grim uncertainty. “But if this is something that might affect Lucas—”
“It won’t,” Keegan interrupted.
Still Molly hesitated. “Look, maybe I should pick Devon up at the bookstore. Let her spend the night at Psyche’s, with Lucas and Joanie and me. That way, we could leave for Flagstaff early tomorrow morning. And it would give us a chance to get to know each other a little better.”
Keegan considered the offer in silence, finally nodded. “I’ll talk to her after you get back,” he said. “Maybe even after the wedding.”
At last Molly was able to move.
But she didn’t go out the door, as she had consciously planned to do.
She went back to where Keegan sat, leaned down and kissed him very gently on the mouth.
She knew he wanted to reach for her, and that if he did, she’d be lost. In the end, he kept his hands to himself. Grinned up at her, endearing even with his face all messed up. “You’d better go,” he said, “before I give you a good old-fashioned McKettrick welcome.”
She laughed, even though there were tears in her eyes. Kissed him again, this time on the forehead, and stepped back out of welcoming distance.
Her practical side, long on standby, finally booted up and installed itself. “Devon will need clothes—pajamas, a toothbrush.”
Keegan nodded.
Molly waited while he went upstairs.
She looked around that big, time-worn kitchen and imagined herself there, making breakfast. Going over homework with Devon, and later—when he was older and ready for school—Lucas. Doing all sorts of homey things that never would have occurred to her in her last incarnation, back in L.A.
Molly Shields, superagent, was about to morph into Molly McKettrick, ranch wife. And nobody could have been more amazed about that little twist in her life story than she was.
Presently Keegan returned with a small overnight case. It looked so incongruously feminine in his hand that she had to swallow an unexpected and slightly hysterical giggle.
He walked her out to the hastily parked station wagon, carrying Devon’s overnight case. Tossed it into the backseat and waited while Molly got behind the wheel and turned the key.
“Molly?”
The way he said her name, all gravelly and low, made her squirm a little on the car seat and wish, yet again, that she could stay. Go inside with him, let him strip away her clothes, lie down with him in the bed they would soon be sharing.
He’d opened a whole new landscape inside her, one she’d never dreamed existed.
But—why? Why did it have to be Keegan McKettrick, of all people?
“What?” she asked, jolted again.
“Thanks. Thanks for coming out here to break up the fight. Thanks for being willing to pick Devon up when you get back to town. And thanks for marrying me.”
Molly swallowed. To him, it was only a bargain, their getting married. A way to be part of Lucas’s life. To her, it was that and so much more.
“You’re welcome,” she said weakly.
I love you, Keegan McKettrick.
God help me, I love you.
He backed away from the car.
Molly drove off.
Keegan was still watching her, she saw in the rearview mirror, when she crossed the bridge over the creek. Two miles up the road she pulled over onto the shoulder and sobbed.
JOANIE LOOKED TRAVEL WORN in her rumpled red linen jumpsuit, which was probably a size too small, and her tinted hair jutted around her round face in brown spikes. “Oh, Molly,” she said, taking Lucas from Molly’s arms, “he’s beautiful.”
“Ride,” Lucas said.
Joanie laughed moistly, her eyes bright with tears. She spotted Devon, standing just behind Molly in the entryway to Psyche’s house, and smiled. “And who’s this?”
“Devon McKettrick,” Molly said, “meet Joanie Barnes.”
Devon stepped forward and put out a hand, and Joanie maneuvered Lucas to her other hip to shake it.
“Molly’s going to be my stepmom,” the child said formally.
“Lucky for her,” Joanie replied. “And lucky for you, too.”
Devon’s formality gave way to a smile. “She said she has lots of shoes,” she confided to Joanie. With Devon, apparently, a good supply of footwear was a prerequisite for joining the family.
Molly remembered Keegan’s cryptic remarks back at the Triple M earlier that day, and felt a rush of tension. She barely knew this child, and yet she already had a fierce desire to protect her.
Joanie grinned. “Believe me,” she said, “Molly has closetfuls. I should know. I just shipped something like fifteen boxes of them—along with clothes and cosmetics, of course—before I left.”
Devon looked thrilled.
Molly felt a surge of gratitude. “Ble
ss you,” she said to Joanie. She’d packed hastily before leaving L.A., and there were certain outfits she really missed. Casual things, mostly, but a few suits. She was going to be a ranch wife now, but she still had almost a dozen clients, the loyal ones who hadn’t jumped ship.
She needed to be that other Molly, at least some of the time. The powerful one, with the don’t-mess-with-me clothes.
“We have to talk about your dad,” Joanie said after graciously accepting Molly’s gratitude for taking time to drive out to her house, box up and send her belongings, all before jumping on a plane to attend an impromptu wedding.
“Great,” Molly replied with a tight little smile.
Devon picked up Joanie’s one small suitcase. She’d be heading back to L.A. right after the ceremony.
“I’ll put this in your room,” Devon said, as comfortably as if she’d lived her whole life in Psyche’s mansion. “It’s next door to mine, and we have to share a bathroom.”
“Thanks,” Joanie said, handing Lucas back to Molly with what might have been relief. Joanie’s boys were in their teens, and it had been a long time since she’d dealt with toddler energy.
Devon took the elevator. She’d been up and down in it at least a dozen times since Molly had brought her here from the bookstore.
“Very cute kids,” Joanie observed.
Molly nodded in agreement and led the way toward the back of the house. Florence was in the kitchen, murmuring into the telephone, and Psyche was, of course, propped up in her hospital bed on the sunporch.
Molly paused to put Lucas in his playpen in the kitchen, then proceeded to the porch.
Psyche had been gazing out at the flowers in her garden, but when Molly and Joanie entered, she immediately turned her head.
Molly made the introductions.
Psyche was polite, even warm, but distant, too. It seemed to Molly that she’d been withdrawing from life more rapidly since she’d played the marriage card. She’d even pulled back from Lucas, and, no matter that Florence was constantly offering her some favorite food, she barely ate.
She’s waiting, Molly thought sadly. She’s waiting for the wedding to take place. And then…
“Will you do me a favor, Molly?” Psyche asked, startling Molly out of her reflections. “Throw out Keegan’s peonies, please.”
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