The McKettrick Way

by Linda Lael Miller

  "I don't know about that," Jesse said, taking Brad's measure again.

  A muscle bunched in Brad's jaw, but he didn't speak.

  "Get your stuff, if you have any," Jesse told Meg. "We're leaving." He turned to Brad again, added reluctantly, "You'd better come with us. This storm is going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

  "Can't leave the horses," Brad said.

  Meg was annoyed. Her cousins had landed a helicopter in front of the line shack, in the middle of a blinding white-out, determined to carry her out bodily if they had to, and all he could think about was the horses?

  "I'll stay and ride out with you," Jesse told Brad. Whateve his issues with Brad might be, he was a rancher, born and bred. And a rancher never left a horse stranded, whether it was his own or someone else's, if he had any choice in the matter. His blue eyes sliced to Meg's face. "Keegan will get you hack to the Triple M."

  "Suppose I don't want to go?"

  "Better decide," Keegan put in. "This storm is picking up stream as we speak. Another fifteen or twenty minutes, and the lour of us will be bunking in here until spring."

  Meg searched Jesse's face, glanced at Brad.

  He wasn't going to express an opinion one way or the other, apparently, and that galled her. She knew it wasn't cowardice—Brad had never been afraid of a brawl, with her rowdy cousins or anybody else. Which probably meant he was relieved to get out of a sticky situation.

  Color flared in her cheeks.

  "I'll get my coat," she said, glaring at Brad. Still hoping he'd stop her, send Jesse and Keegan packing.

  But he didn't.

  She scrambled into her coat with jamming motions of her lists, and got stuck in the lining of one sleeve.

  "Call Olivia," Brad said, watching her struggle, one corner of his mouth tilted slightly upward in a bemused smile. "Let her know I'm okay."

  Meg nodded once, angrily, and let Keegan shuffle her out into the impossible cold to the waiting helicopter.

  ***

  "Smooth," Brad remarked, studying Jesse, shutting the door behind Meg and Keegan and offering a brief, silent prayer for their safety. Flying in this weather was a major risk, but if anybody was up to the job, it was Keegan. His father had been a pilot, and all three of the McKettrick boys were as skilled at the controls of a plane or a copter as they were on the back of a horse.

  A little of the air went out of Jesse, but not much. "We'd better ride," he said, "if we're going to make it out of here before dark."

  "What'd you think I was going to do, Jesse?" Brad asked evenly, reaching for the poker, opening the stove door to bank the fire. "Rape her?"

  Jesse thrust a hand through his hair. "It wasn't that," he said, but grudgingly. "Until we spotted the smoke from the line shack chimney, we thought the two of you might still be out there someplace, in a whole lot of trouble."

  "You couldn't have just turned the copter toward the Triple M and left well enough alone?" He hadn't shown it in front of Meg, but Brad was about an inch off Jesse. Meg wasn't a kid, and if she'd needed protection, he would have provided it.

  Jesse's eyes shot blue fire. "Maybe Meg's ready to forget what you did to her, but I'm not," he said. "She put on a good show back then, but inside, she was a shipwreck. Especially after the miscarriage."

  For Brad, the whole world came to a screeching, spark-throwing stop in the space of an instant.

  " What miscarriage? "

  "Uh-oh," Jesse said.

  It was literally all Brad could do not to get Jesse by the lapels and drag an answer out of him. He even took a step toward the door, meaning to stop Meg from leaving, but the copter was already lifting off, shaking the shack, setting the horses to fretting again.

  "There—was—a baby?"

  "Let's go get those horses ready for a hard ride," Jesse said, averting his gaze. Clearly, he'd assumed Meg had told Brad about the child. Now Jesse was the picture of regret.

  "Tell me," Brad pressed.

  You'll have to talk to Meg," Jesse answered, putting his hat on again and squaring his shoulders to go back, out into the cold and around to the lean-to. "I've already said more than I should have."

  "It was mine?"

  Jesse reddened. Yanked up the collar of his heavy coat. "Of course it was yours," he said indignantly. "Meg's not the type to play that kind of game."

  Brad put on his own coat and yanked on some gloves. He felt strangely apart from himself, as though his spirit had somehow gotten out of step with his body.

  Meg had been pregnant when he caught that bus to Nashville.

  He knew in his bones it was true.

  If he'd been anything but a stupid, ambitious kid, he'd have known it then. By the fragile light in her eyes. By the way she'd touched his arm, as if to get his attention so she could say something important, then drawn back, trembling a little.

  He'd still have gone to Nashville—he'd had to, to save Stone Creek from the bankers and developers. But he'd have sent for Meg first thing, swallowed his pride whole if he had to, or thumbed it back to Arizona to be with her.

  Tentatively, Jesse laid a hand on Brad's shoulder. Withdrew it again.

  After securing the line shack as best they could, they left, made their way to the fitful horses, saddled them in silence.

  ***

  The roar of the copter's engine and the whipping of the blades made conversation impossible, without a headset, and Meg refused to put hers on.

  Keegan concentrated on working the controls, keeping a close watch on the instrument panel. The blizzard had intensified; they were literally flying blind.

  Presently, though, visibility increased, and Meg relaxed little.

  Keegan must have been watching her out of the corner of his eye, because he reached over and patted her lightly on the arm. Picked up the second headset and nudged her until she took it, put on the earphones, adjusted the mic.

  "I can't believe you did this," she said.

  Keegan grinned. His voice echoed through the headset "Rule number one," he said. "Never leave another McKettrick stuck in a blizzard."

  Meg huffed out a sigh. "I was perfectly all right!"

  "Maybe," Keegan replied, banking to the northwest, in the direction of the Triple M. "But we didn't have any way of knowing that. Switch on your cell phone. You'll find we left at least half a dozen messages on your voice mail, trying to find out if you were okay."

  "What if they don't make it out of that storm?" Meg fretted. Before, she'd just been furious. Now, with a little perspective, she was suddenly assailed by worries, on all sides. The fear was worse than the anger. "What if the horses get lost?"

  "Brad knows the trail," Keegan assured her, "and Jesse could ride out of hell if he had to. If they don't show up in a few hours, I'll come back looking for them."

  "You're not invincible, you know," Meg said tersely. "Even if you are a McKettrick."

  "I'll do what I have to do," he told her. "Are you and Brad—well—back on?"

  "That is patently none of your affair."

  Keegan's grin was damnably endearing. "When has that ever stopped me?"

  "No," Meg said, beaten. "We are not 'back on.' I was just helping him look for Ransom, that's all."

  "Ransom? The stallion?" "Yes."

  "He's real?"

  "I've seen him with my own eyes."

  "You decided to go chasing a wild horse in the middle of a blizzard?"

  "It wasn't snowing when we left Stone Creek Ranch," Meg said, feeling defensive.

  "Know what I think?"

  "No, but I'm afraid you're going to tell me."

  Keegan's grin widened, took on a wicked aspect. "You wanted to sleep with Brad. He wanted to sleep with you. And I use the word sleep advisedly. Both of you knew snow's a real possibility in the high country, year round. And there's the old line shack, handy as hell."

  "So none of your business. And who do you think you are, Dr. Phil?"

  Keegan chuckled, shook his head once. "It probably won't help,
" he told her, "but if we'd known we were interrupting a tryst, we'd have stayed clear."

  "We were playing gin rummy."

  "Whatever."

  Meg folded her arms and wriggled deeper into the cold leather seat. "Keegan, I don't have to convince you. And I definitely don't have to explain."

  "You're absolutely right. You don't."

  By then, they were out of the snow, gliding through a golden autumn afternoon. They passed over the town of Stone Creek, continued in the direction of Indian Rock.

  Meg didn't say another word until Keegan set the copter down in the pasture behind her barn, the downdraft making the long grass ripple like an ocean.

  "Thanks for the ride," she said tersely, waiting for the blades to slow so she could get out without having her head cut off. "I'd invite you in, but right now, I am seriously pissed off, and the less 1 see of any of my male relatives, you included, the better."

  Keegan cocked a thumb at her. "Got it," he said. "And for the record, I don't give a rat's ass if you're pissed off."

  Meg reached across and slugged him in the upper arm, hard, but she laughed a little as she did it. Shook her head. "Goodbye!" she yelled, tossing the headset into his lap.

  Keegan signaled her to keep her head down, and watched as she pushed open the door of the copter and leaped to the ground.

  Ducking, she headed for the house.

  Angus was standing in the kitchen when she let herself in, looking apologetic.

  "Thanks a heap for the help," Meg said.

  "There's not much I can do with folks who can't see or hear me," Angus replied.

  "I get all the luck," Meg answered, pulling off her coat and flinging it in the direction of the hook beside the door.

  Angus looked solemn. "You've got trouble," he said.

  Meg tensed, instantly alarmed. She'd ridden home from the mountaintop in relative comfort, but the trip would be dan-gerous on horseback, even for men who'd literally grown up in the saddle. "Jesse and Brad are okay, aren't they?"

  "They'll be fine," Angus assured her. "A couple of shots of good whiskey'll fix 'em right up."

  "Then what are you talking about?"

  "You'll find out soon enough."

  "Do you have to be so damned cryptic?"

  Angus's grin was reminiscent of Keegan's. "I'm not cryptic," he said. "I can get around just fine."

  "Very funny."

  He chuckled.

  Frazzled, Meg blurted, "First you tell me about your long-lost brother, and how some unknown McKettrick is about to show up. Then you say I've got trouble. Spill it, Angus!"

  He sobered. "Jesse let the cat out of the bag. And that's all I'm going to say."

  Meg froze. She had only one deep, dark secret, and Jesse couldn't have let it slip because he didn't know what it was.

  Did he?

  She put one hand to her mouth.

  Angus patted her shoulder. "You'd better go out to the barn and feed the horses early. You might be too busy later on."

  Meg stared at her ancestor. "Angus McKettrick—"

  He vanished.

  Typical man.

  Meg placed the promised call to Olivia O'Ballivan, got her voice mail and left a message. Next, she started a pot of coffee, then picked her coat up off the floor, put it back on and went out to tend to the livestock.

  The work helped to ease her anxiety, but not all that much.

  All the while, she was wondering if Jesse had found out about the baby somehow, if he'd told Brad.

  You 've got trouble, Angus had said, and the words echoed in her mind.

  She finished her chores and returned to the house, shedding her coat again and washing her hands at the sink before pouring herself a mug of fresh coffee. She considered lacing it with a generous dollop of Jack Daniel's, to get the chill out of her bones, then shoved the bottle back in the cupboard, unopened.

  If Jesse and Brad didn't get home, Keegan wouldn't be the only one to go out looking for them.

  She reached for the telephone, dialed Cheyenne's cell number.

  "I'm sorry," Cheyenne said immediately, not bothering with a hello. "When I passed your message on to Jesse, about checking on your horses if you didn't call before nightfall, he wanted to know where you'd gone." She paused. "And I told him."

  Meg pressed the back of one hand to her forehead and closed her eyes for a moment. If a certain pair of stubborn cowboys got lost in that blizzard, or if Jesse had, as Angus put it, "let the cat out of the bag," the embarrassing scene at the line shack would be the least of her problems.

  "There's a big storm in the high country," she said quietly, "and Jesse and Brad are on horseback. Let me know when Jesse gets back, will you?"

  Cheyenne drew in an audible breath. "Oh, my God," she whispered. "They're riding in a blizzard?"

  "Jesse can handle it," Meg said. "And so can Brad. Just the same, I'll rest easier when I know they're home."

  Cheyenne didn't answer for a long time. "I'll call," she promised, but she sounded distracted. No doubt she was thinking the same thing Meg was, that it had been reckless enough, flying into a snowstorm in a helicopter. Taking a treacherous trail down off the mountain was even worse.

  Meg spoke a few reassuring words, though they sounded hollow even to her, and she and Cheyenne said goodbye.

  At loose ends, Meg took her coffee to the study at the front of the house and logged onto the computer. Ran a search on the name Josiah McKettrick, though her mind wasn't on genealogical detective work, and she started over a dozen times.

  In the kitchen, she heated a can of soup and ate it mechanically, never tasting a bite. After that, she read for a couple of

  hours, then she took a long, hot bath, put on clean sweats and padded downstairs again, thinking she'd watch some television. She was trying to focus on a rerun of Dog the Bounty Hunter when she heard a car door slam outside.

  Boot heels thundered up the front steps.

  And then a fist hammered at the heavy wooden door.

  "Meg!" Brad yelled. "Open up! Now!"

  Chapter Seven

  Brad looked crazed, standing there on Meg's doorstep. She moved to step out of his way, but before she could, he advanced on her, backing her into the entry way. Kicking the door shut behind him with a hard motion of one foot.

  He hadn't stopped to change clothes after the long, cold ride down out of the hills, and he was soaked to the skin. He'd lost his gloves somewhere, and there was a faintly bluish cast to his taut lips.

  "Why didn't you tell me about the baby?" he demanded, shaking an index finger under Meg's nose when she collided with the wall behind her, next to Holt and Lorelei's grandfather clock. The ponderous tick-tock seemed to reverberate throughout the known universe.

  Meg's worst fears were confirmed in that moment. Jesse had known about her pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage—and he'd let it slip to Brad.

  "Calm down," she said, recovering a little.

  Brad gripped her shoulders. If he'd been anyone other than exactly who he was, Meg might have feared for her safety. But this was Brad O'Ballivan. Sure, he'd crushed her heart, but he wasn't going to hurt her physically, she knew that. It was one of the few absolutes.

  "Was there a child?"

  Meg bit her lower lip. She'd always known she'd have to tell him if they crossed paths again, but she hadn't wanted it to be like this. "Yes," she whispered, that one word scraping her throat raw.

  "My baby?"

  She felt a sting of indignation, hot as venom, but it passed quickly. "Yes."

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  Meg straightened her spine, lifted her chin a notch. "You were in Nashville," she said. "You didn't write. You didn't call. I guess I didn't think you'd be interested."

  The blue fury in Brad's eyes dulled visibly; he let go of her shoulders, but didn't step back. She felt cornered, overshadowed—but still not threatened. Oddly, it was more like being shielded, even protected.

  He shoved a hand through his hair. "How coul
d I not be interested, Meg?" he rasped bleakly. "You were carrying our baby."

  Slowly, Meg put her palms to his cheeks. "I miscarried a few weeks after you left," she said gently. "It wasn't meant to be."

  Moisture glinted in his eyes, and that familiar muscle bunched just above his jawline. "Still—"

  "Go upstairs and take a hot shower," Meg told him. "I'll fix you something to eat, and we'll talk."

  Brad tensed again, then relaxed, though only slightly. Nodded.

  "Travis left some clothes behind when he and Sierra moved to town," she went on, when he didn't speak. "I'll get them for you."

  With that, she led the way up the stairs, along the hallway to the main bathroom. After pushing the door open and waiting for Brad to enter, she went on to the master bedroom, pulled an old pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt from a bureau drawer.

  Brad was already in the shower when she returned, naked behind the steamy glass door, but clearly visible.

  Swallowing a rush of lust, Meg set the folded garments on the lid of the toilet seat, placed a folded towel on top of them and slipped out.

  She was cooking scrambled eggs when Brad came down the back stairs fifteen minutes later, barefoot, his hair towel-rumpled, wearing Travis's clothes. Without comment, Meg poured a cup of fresh coffee and held it out to him.

  He took it, after a moment's hesitation, and sipped cautiously.

  Meg was relieved to see that the hot shower had restored his normal color. Before, he'd been ominously pale.

  "Sit down," she said quietly.

  He pulled out Holt's chair and sat, watching her as she turned to the stove again. Even with her back turned to him, she could feel his gaze boring into the space between her shoulder blades.

  "What happened?" he asked, after a few moments.

  She looked back at him briefly before scraping the eggs onto a waiting plate. Didn't speak.

  "The miscarriage," he prompted grimly. "What made it happen?"

  With a pang, Meg realized he thought it might have been his fault somehow, her losing their baby. Because he'd gone to Nashville, or because of the fight they'd had before he left.

  She'd suffered her own share of guilt over the years, wondering if she could have done something differently, prevented the tragedy. She didn't want Brad to go through the same agony.