McKettrick's Luck (26 page)

“Telling the truth is
important,
Cheyenne.”

The tension was too much; the recoil came. “The way
you
told the truth, Mom? All those times you lied for Dad? Lied to his creditors—his employers, on the rare occasions when he had a job? When you told the police you hadn't seen him? When you told a court of law that he was with you the night he robbed a convenience store in Phoenix to feed his gambling habit? Is
that
what you're preaching, Mom?”

Ayanna paled, and tears filled her eyes. “Cash
was
with me that night,” she said.

“Mother, they had the whole thing on tape, remember? Security cameras don't lie.”

“It was a mistake. There was something wrong with the camera, or the film, or something—”

“Stop lying to me, Mother. Stop lying to
yourself.
If you were with Dad when that store was robbed, then you must have been driving the getaway car!”

Ayanna had never struck Cheyenne before, but in that moment, she lost it. The flat of her hand smacked Cheyenne's cheek, hard.

The two women stared at each other, mother and daughter, each on one side of a wide chasm that might never close.

The shock took Cheyenne's breath away. She started up the porch steps, but the sound of an arriving car made her turn around.

Jesse's truck was coming up the driveway.

No,
Cheyenne thought.

Ayanna, still standing in the yard, glanced up at her, and there were tears in her eyes.

Jesse brought the truck to a stop, and Cheyenne saw Mitch's wheelchair in the back. Spotted her brother next, sitting on the passenger side, grinning at her through the windshield.

“I thought Mitch went to Sedona with Bronwyn,” Cheyenne mused.

“So did I,” Ayanna said stiffly. “Apparently we were wrong.”

Jesse jumped down from the truck, walked back and opened the tailgate, hauled the wheelchair out and set it on the ground. A stray thought rustled through the underbrush in Cheyenne's mind, poked its head up like a gopher. The chair was heavy, and though both she and Ayanna could manage it, it always took a lot of maneuvering, dragging and sweaty effort.

Jesse handled the thing as easily as he would a lawn chair.

And then there was Mitch. He had to weigh as much as Jesse did, and yet Jesse carried him without any sign of strain.

He set Mitch in the chair, and Cheyenne really looked at her brother's face. He seemed windblown, as though he'd spent the day riding in a convertible with the top down, and he was smiling from ear to ear.

“Ask me what I did today!” he shouted.

“What did you do today?” Ayanna asked, very softly.

Mitch punched the air with his fist. “I rode a horse. Not just around and around in a corral, either.
On the range.
Jesse and I went clear up on top of the ridge.”

Cheyenne looked at Jesse, then back at Mitch. “You're kidding, right?” she asked. “
Tell me
you didn't take a chance like that—”

“He did fine,” Jesse said quietly.

“Leave it alone, Cheyenne,” Ayanna added.

Didn't
any
of them understand? Another spinal injury could
kill
Mitch, or render his arms as useless as his legs, which, for him, would probably be even worse than dying.

Not trusting herself to say another word, Cheyenne turned, wrenched open the screen door and went inside. The rusted spring pulled the door shut with a crash.

 

“D
AMN IT
,” J
ESSE MUTTERED
, watching Cheyenne vanish into the house, flinching when the screen door slammed.

Hard to believe she was the same woman he'd made love to the night before.

Ayanna approached, laid a hand on his arm. “Thanks, Jesse,” she said quietly as Mitch rolled up the ramp to the porch. “For taking my boy out riding, I mean.”

Ayanna was grateful. Mitch was grateful. But the Bridges vote clearly wasn't unanimous.

Jesse sighed. “You're welcome,” he answered dismally.

She smiled. “Cheyenne's been through a lot,” she said. “She's not used to things going well. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop—the next terrible thing to happen. Give her a little time, Jesse. And then ask her about Nigel.”

The uneasiness was back, with a wallop. Jesse had managed to elude it all day because he could escape just about anything on horseback, but now he was on foot again. “Nigel?” he repeated. “Her old boss?”

“Ask her,” Ayanna said. She paused, staring at the house for a long, long time. When she turned back to Jesse, her eyes were full of ancient sorrows. “I'd invite you in,” she told him, “but right now, things are a little awkward.”

“
Awkward
doesn't cover it,” he said. “Anyway, I've got a game in Flag.”

Ayanna nodded.

Jesse said goodbye, turned and went back to his truck.

There was no game in Flag.

But he'd find one if he looked.

He drove out onto the highway, headed for Indian Rock. Passed through town, saw Keegan's Jag and Rance's SUV parked outside the Roadhouse.

On an impulse, and because for some curious reason he didn't want to play poker with a bunch of strangers, or even back at Lucky's with the usual suspects, he stopped, parked and went inside.

His cousins sat at a corner table, deep in some earnest discussion.

Jesse waved off Roselle's offer to escort him, with a grin meant to soften the rejection, and joined the party.

“Is this a private argument,” Jesse asked, dragging back a chair, “or can anybody join in?”

Rance leaned back abruptly.

Keegan looked as if he were going to slam his palms down on top of the table. “Sit right down,” he drawled ironically, since Jesse was already sitting.

“What's going on?” Jesse asked, reaching for a menu.

“Nothing,” Rance snapped.

“Try again,” Jesse said. Sirloin steak? Fried chicken? He sighed. What he wanted wasn't on any menu. He closed the vinyl-clad folder and set it back in its customary place between the napkin holder and the salt and pepper. “The two of you are about ready to tear each other's ears off.”

Rance and Keegan exchanged glares.

“It's none of your damn business how I raise my kids,” Rance told Keegan. “Mr. Divorced Father.”

“And I thought it was about going public,” Jesse said moderately. “Just goes to show I'm out of touch.”

“You've been out of touch since high school,” Keegan told him.

“Nice to be in the bosom of my family,” Jesse replied. “I can always depend on you two for a warm welcome.”

Both of them turned to him, still glaring.

“What?” he asked, spreading his hands.

“Don't you have a poker game or something?” Rance asked.

Jesse pretended to be hurt. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

Keegan huffed out a sigh. Ignored Jesse and focused on Rance. “Look, maybe I shouldn't have said anything. But it can't be good, your leaving Rianna and Maeve with Cora so much.”

“Cora is their grandmother,” Rance said, but there wasn't much steam behind the words. “She loves them.”

“You're their father,” Keegan answered. “They need you.”

Rance looked away. There was something bleak in the way he held his head and the set of his shoulders.

Jesse scooted his chair back. “Maybe I'll go find a game after all,” he said.

“Stay,” Keegan said huskily.

Jesse pulled up close to the table again. “Are we through with the heavy stuff?”

“It's
family
stuff,” Rance pointed out.

“Speaking of family stuff,” Keegan said, eyeing Jesse's jeans and cotton shirt, “Travis and Sierra are getting married Saturday after next. You picked up your tux yet?”

“No,” Jesse replied. He'd sent the suit to the cleaner's after his last trip to New York, about six months back, and had forgotten all about it.

“You're the best man,” Keegan reminded him.

Jesse grinned. “Jealous?”

Keegan laughed. “Hell, no,” he said. “But if you show up at that wedding looking as though you've been herding cattle, like you do right now, I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for your hide.”

Rance signaled the waitress, ordered three draft beers and a double order of nachos with everything. The steaks would come later, if at all.

“How did Cheyenne's first day go?” Jesse asked. He'd intended to put that question to Cheyenne herself, but she wasn't speaking to him.

“She's settling in,” Keegan said.

“Something wrong there,” Rance reflected, after downing half his beer.

“Like what?” Jesse asked.

“Yeah,” Keegan agreed. “Like what?”

Rance shrugged his big shoulders. “She's a beauty,” he said, staring off into space. “Really brightens up the office. But she's up to something.”

Since Rance wasn't known for his people skills, the remark seemed odd.

“Cheyenne has a degree in business and plenty of experience,” Keegan said, as if it were
his
place to defend Cheyenne. “She does one hell of a lot more than ‘brighten up the office'!”

“Take a breath,” Rance said, sounding bored. “I was just making a comment.”

“You know what you are?” Keegan demanded. “You're a
chauvinist.
”

Rance laughed. “You just figuring that out?”

The nachos arrived. Jesse helped himself. “You ought to spring for some furniture,” he said to Keegan. “For Cheyenne's office, I mean. The place looks like a monk's cell.”

“When did you see it?” Keegan asked. “Or a monk's cell, for that matter.”

“Today. I would have said hello, but neither of you were around.”

“She has a desk, a credenza, all that,” Keegan said. “What else does she need?”

“Maybe a couch,” Jesse said, snagging a few extra jalapeño slices off the nachos to sprinkle over his own portion.

Rance grinned.

Keegan went red in the neck. “A
couch?
”

Jesse munched for a while. “You have one in your office. So does Rance. What's the big deal?”

Rance gave a chuckle.

“Jesse,” Keegan warned. “What the hell do you care if Cheyenne has a couch in her office or not?”

“And you think
I've
been alone too long,” Rance said, rolling his eyes.

Keegan narrowed his. “Jesse?”

“Oh, get a grip, Keegan,” Rance put in. “He's already sleeping with the woman.”

“What makes you think that?” Jesse asked, sounding as innocent as he could.

“I met her on the road this morning,” Rance answered. “The sun was barely up. Since Keegan's place is across the creek from mine, I'd have noticed an extra car over there. She sure didn't spend the night with me, so, by process of elimination, she must have been at your place. Add that to the way you two were dancing at Travis and Sierra's shindig, and the books balance to the penny.”

“Damn it,” Keegan said.

“I know you like her, Keeg,” Rance reasoned, sounding mellow and wise, like some visiting therapist on a radio talk show, “but she's obviously fallen for the cowboy, here. Do yourself a favor and stop hoping the cards are going to turn.”

Keegan and Jesse did some glaring of their own across the plate of nachos.

“And while I'm giving out sage advice,” Rance went on, focusing on Jesse now, and as full of shit as ever, “you'd do well to watch your step. Something's not right. You're in over your head.”

“Is that right?” Jesse asked with deceptive mildness. One more beer and they'd have all the ingredients for good old-fashioned fisticuffs in the parking lot. He loved his cousins like brothers, but it might feel good to throw a few punches, the way they used to do out at the ranch, behind the old barn.

“I'm not saying she's bad, Jesse,” Rance said, and this time, he sounded damnably sincere. Even concerned. “There are folks around here who would remind you that she's Cash Bridges's daughter and the huckleberry doesn't fall far from the bush, but I'm not one of them. All I'm telling you is, I've got the same feeling I did just before I stepped on that rattler, down by the creek, when I was a kid.”

Jesse remembered the incident. He and Keegan had been there when it had happened. Rance, nine or ten at the time, had been rushed to a hospital in Flagstaff, and he'd nearly died on the way. He'd had to have surgery, once the doctors had pumped him full of antivenom and stabilized him and, ever since then, he'd been proud of the scar.