McKettrick's Pride

“I haven’t seen the girls in a few days,” Echo said, brightening.

“Rance took them camping up on Jesse’s ridge,” Cora explained, relieved. “Where’s Avalon?”

“Hiding under my bed, I think,” Echo replied. “All this hammering and sawing is probably giving her a headache.”

Eddie grinned sheepishly and waded into the conversation. “Almost done,” he said.

Cora had known Eddie all his life. Known his mother, and his grandmother, too, God rest their souls. He wasn’t a bright boy, but he was good with his hands. When somebody in Indian Rock needed shelves put up, or walls painted, or pipes and wiring fixed, Eddie was the person they called. That was why Cora had recommended him to Echo.

“Looks like you did a good job,” Cora told him. “Just like always.”

Eddie beamed, already putting away his tools. The floor was covered with sawdust, and Cora, being Cora, found a broom in the corner and started sweeping.

“You don’t have to do that,” Echo protested, a slight frown puckering her brow.

Cora remembered that she’d come from Chicago. Like as not, folks in a big city like that didn’t sweep one another’s floors, but this was Indian Rock, not Chicago. Cora went right on with her sweeping.

Echo watched solemnly, and she looked like a person with something to say. When Eddie finished up, Echo wrote him a check, and he left with his toolbox.

Avalon came downstairs the moment the door closed behind him.

“How ya doin’ today, little mama?” Cora asked the dog. She’d always liked critters, but she had a special place in her heart for this one. Echo had told her about finding Avalon outside a truck stop down by Tucson, lost and soaked to the skin.

“I was walking her on Saturday night, after I got back from the party,” Echo said suddenly, patting the dog’s head. “We came to a park, so I let her off the leash for a run. She headed straight for an RV parked on the opposite side and about clawed the door down trying to get in.”

Cora considered that. The implications were obvious.

“I want to find her family,” Echo said, very softly, and very sadly. “I truly do. But I swear it’s going to kill me to give her up.”

If ever anybody looked like they needed a hug, it was Echo Wells, in that moment. “You’ll do what’s right,” Cora said, dumping a dustbinful of sawdust and wood chips into the trash. “That’s the kind of person you are.”

Echo’s eyes glistened. She blinked and looked away.

“I might be out of line asking this,” Cora ventured carefully, “but do you have any folks?”

Echo met her gaze, though Cora could tell she didn’t want to. “An aunt and uncle, a few cousins,” she said. “We’re not close.”

“I see.” Cora told herself she was an old busybody and she ought to keep her mouth shut. She didn’t, though. “No husband or boyfriend?”

Echo shook her head. Looked away. Looked back. “I almost got married once,” she said. “Justin and I booked a slot in one of those gaudy little chapels in Vegas. I flew in on schedule, put on my dress and took a cab to the McWeddings place. Justin was—detained.”

Cora set the broom aside. “You mean he stood you up?”

“He said he had a meeting at the last minute,” Echo said, trying to smile and failing miserably.

Uh-oh, Cora thought, as she registered the word meeting. She’d been toying with the idea that Rance and Echo might get together ever since the party—the girls liked Echo, and she and Rance surely looked good together—despite their bristly beginning. But Rance was a workaholic, and evidently this Justin yahoo had been, too.

“So you were all alone in Vegas? He didn’t show up at all?”

“I told him not to bother,” Echo said. Her voice sounded small and faraway.

“But when you got back home…?”

“Justin lives in New York,” Echo replied, when Cora’s sentence fell apart in the middle, like a suspension bridge bearing too much weight. “I lived in Chicago. Neither of us wanted to move at the time, so it wouldn’t have worked out, anyway.”

“Still,” Cora said, wanting to cry.

“Justin was all business,” Echo went on, evidently trying to make Cora feel better. The effort, just like the smile she’d attempted earlier, fell flat. “He cared more about his company than anything else. I wanted—”

“What did you want, Echo?” Cora asked, after a few moments of gentle silence.

“A dog,” Echo said. “A husband and kids.”

Cora’s hopes sparked again. “You’re young—twenty-nine? Thirty? You oughtn’t to give up.”

Echo leaned down, stroked Avalon thoughtfully. “Twenty-nine,” she said. Then she gave Cora another of those pensive looks. “What about you, Cora? You haven’t mentioned a husband. Are you planning to fall in love one day soon?”

It was an odd question. Made Cora think of the little package snugged away in her handbag. “Julie’s dad died years ago. Best husband a woman could ever ask for, my Mike. Nope, I’m not in the market for a man. After all, I’m sixty-three years old. I’ve saved up some money, and I’d like to take me one of those cruises.”

“What stops you?” Echo asked. She put the question carefully, as though expecting it to blow up in her face.

“Rance,” Cora admitted, after weighing the matter in her mind first. “I’m afraid he’d hire another airheaded nanny and fly off someplace. Leave Rianna and Maeve at her mercy.”

Echo’s gaze drifted to the display window, and suddenly she looked flushed and flustered. “Speak of the devil,” she said.

Cora turned, watched as Rance got out of his SUV, fresh from the camping trip. His hair was rumpled and he needed a shave. His jeans and white T-shirt looked as though he’d slept in them. He started toward the Curl and Twirl, noticed Cora and Echo watching him through the window, and changed direction.

“Where are the girls?” Cora asked the minute he stepped over the threshold.

He sighed, and a muscle bunched in his jaw. Then he grinned, that tilted McKettrick grin. “I knew I was forgetting something when I broke camp this afternoon,” he joked.

“Very funny,” Cora said, but she had to chuckle a little.

“They’re at Keegan’s, with Devon,” Rance explained, and even though he was speaking to Cora, he was looking at Echo. Taking in the paint splotches, the long bare legs, the form-fitting T-shirt.

“I just remembered something I need to do before the Curl and Twirl closes for the day,” Cora announced, and made a beeline for the door.

Outside, on the sidewalk, she paused and allowed herself the smallest of smiles. If Rance kept his back turned long enough, she might just be able to slip the contents of that little package under the seat of his truck.

She thought about the Web site, and all the testimonials, and the thirty-day money-back guarantee.

Time to take a chance on magic.

“ABOUT THE OTHER NIGHT,” Rance began awkwardly, giving the dog a sidelong glance. At least it hadn’t gone for his throat, so maybe he’d be able to work his way into its good graces after all.

Echo, looking like a strawberry ice cream cone in her tight pink shirt and little bitty jeans shorts, stayed on the other side of the room. She said nothing, just waited. Maybe she wanted to watch him squirm for a while.

Rance shoved a hand through his hair, wishing he’d taken the time to shower and change clothes before driving into town. He’d come to let Cora know he and the girls were back from the camping trip, or at least that was what he’d told himself when he’d dropped the girls off at Keegan’s. Now, facing Echo Wells, he knew it for the lie it was.