McKettrick's Heart

She felt a pang, and her throat tightened.

If all that was true, why did it sting so much to recall the way he’d looked at her?

* * *

RANCE RODE ACROSS the creek on a paint horse Keegan hadn’t seen before.

He might have come right out of the 1880s, the way he was dressed—boots, jeans, a Western-cut denim shirt and a beat-up old hat resurrected from his college-rodeo days.

“Got your message,” Rance said in his usual taciturn way, reining in and swinging deftly down from the saddle.

Keegan glanced across the creek toward Rance’s rustic, rambling ranch house, which faced his own, almost a mirror image. The two places dated back to the nineteenth century, when old Angus McKettrick and his four sons had still ridden the sprawling acres of the Triple M, though of course some modern conveniences had been added over the generations since. “You leave the girls home alone?” he asked, referring to Rance’s young daughters, Rianna and Maeve.

“Emma’s there,” Rance said with a slight and faintly goofy smile. “She’s making supper. You’re welcome to join us if you want to.”

Keegan felt bereft in that moment. He wanted to say yes, be part of a family, if only for an hour or two, but at the same time he wondered if he could cope with the contrast between his cousin’s life and his own. “I might,” he said to be polite, but he knew he wouldn’t go, and Rance probably did, too.

Rance let the reins drop so the horse could graze on Keegan’s lawn, which needed cutting. “What’s this about Thayer’s girlfriend moving in with Psyche?” he asked. “In the first place, I didn’t know Thayer ever had a girlfriend.”

Keegan shoved a hand through his hair. He’d been all-fired anxious to hash things out with Rance or Jesse or both of them, and had rushed outside when he’d seen his cousin crossing the shallow part of the creek. Now he wasn’t sure how to put the whole thing into words. “He cheated on Psyche from day one,” Keegan said after unclamping his back teeth. As kids, he and Psyche had made a playground pact to get married when they grew up, and have a big family. If she hadn’t been dying, he’d have grinned at the memory.

“I didn’t know that,” Rance replied quietly. He’d known about the pact, though. He and Jesse had teased Keegan unmercifully back in the day, but they’d been as smitten as he was. “I’d have blacked the bastard’s eyes if I had.”

Keegan recalled the night he’d run into Thayer and Molly, caught them sneaking around behind Psyche’s back, and felt the same clench in the pit of his stomach as he had then. It had been part rage, that feeling, but part something else, too. Something he’d rather not identify.

“She’s up to something,” he said flatly.

“Like what?” Rance asked.

“I don’t know,” Keegan admitted after thrusting out an exasperated sigh. “According to Florence, Psyche invited that little viper for a visit. I figure Molly must have manipulated her into it somehow.”

Rance arched an eyebrow. “It does seem like an odd arrangement. Mistresses and wives don’t generally mix all that well, especially under the same roof.” He paused for a beat. “Molly?”

“Molly Shields,” Keegan said.

Rance’s mouth quirked up at one corner, and a thoughtful smile rose into his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.

“Psyche’s a rich woman,” Keegan reminded his cousin, getting agitated again. “It’s got to be a scam.”

Rance considered that. “Could be,” he said. “Or maybe this—Molly Shields, was it?—maybe she’s just looking for a chance to make amends. Psyche’s dying. Ms. Shields did her wrong. Isn’t it possible she’s trying to set things right before it’s too late?”

Keegan gave a snort. “Love,” he told his cousin, “has softened your head.”

Rance chuckled. “That’s about all it’s softened,” he said.

Keegan grinned before he could catch himself. “You’re a lucky son of a bitch,” he told Rance. “So’s Jesse.”

“Your turn will come,” Rance replied, and he looked dead serious.

“I’m through with marriage,” Keegan answered. His ex-wife, Shelley, had cured him of any romantic notions he might have had where love and wedding cake were concerned. He was looking for regular sex of the no-strings-attached variety.

“I thought I was, too,” Rance said. He looked back over one shoulder toward his own place, and the pull of Emma’s presence was visible, for a fraction of a second, in the way he stood, leaning a little toward home.

“Pure luck,” Keegan reiterated.

“Come on over and have supper with us,” Rance urged, turning back to face Keegan again.

Keegan shook his head. “Not tonight,” he said.

Rance clasped Keegan’s shoulder briefly with one newly calloused hand. “I know it’s hard on you,” he said. “Psyche coming home to die and all. But she’s not stupid, Keeg. If she asked that Shields woman here for a visit, she’s got something in mind. You been to see her yet? Psyche, I mean?”

Again Keegan shook his head. Swallowed hard and looked away before meeting Rance’s steady gaze once more. “I’m going there tomorrow, for lunch.”

Rance nodded in solemn approval. “You tell Psyche I’ll be by later in the week, when she’s had more time to settle in.”

“I’ll tell her.”

Rance started to turn away, whistled for the horse. He caught the reins in one hand, put a foot into the stirrup, turned back before mounting up to go back to his woman and his kids. “Keeg?”

Keegan waited.

“If there’s trouble and Psyche needs our help, we’ll give it. You, me and Jesse. In the meantime, try not to let this eat another hole in your stomach lining.”

Until he’d met Emma—known as Echo when she first came to Indian Rock—driving a bright pink Volkswagon with a white dog riding shotgun, Rance had been as committed to McKettrickCo as Keegan was. He’d worn three-piece suits, traveled all over the world driving the hard bargains he was famous for and put in eighteen-hour days when he was in town.

He’d fallen in love, hard and fast, like Jesse before him, and nothing had been the same since. Now here he was, warning Keegan about ulcers.

Keegan was still getting used to the change, and there were times when he thought he never would.

He managed another grin, nodded again. “Take care,” he said.

“Back at you,” Rance replied.

And then he was riding away. Watching him go, Keegan felt about as lonesome as he ever had, and given some of the things he’d been through, that was saying something.

* * *

PSYCHE WATCHED from her bedroom window with a slight, wistful smile as Keegan got out of his car in front of the house, steeled himself in that subtle but unmistakable way she knew so well and opened the front gate.

I should have married him, she thought.

“Keegan’s here,” she told Florence, who had helped her out of her nightgown and into a royal-blue silk caftan for the occasion. She’d actually considered wearing a wig, but in the end she’d decided on a scarf instead. It seemed less pitiful, somehow.

“I’d better get down there and open the door for him, then,” said Florence. “You want me to come back for you?”

Psyche squared her shoulders. Turned to face her old friend. “No,” she replied, summoning up a smile that wouldn’t fool Florence for a moment. “I want to make an entrance.”

Florence smiled back, but tears shimmered in her eyes, too. She nodded once and left.