Her eyelashes fluttered, and her small, clearly defined mouth tightened a little. Her nose was delicate, and spattered with the faintest sprinkling of freckles. “Is that SUV yours?” she asked, after glancing into the rearview mirror.
“Yes,” Rance answered, wondering what the hell his rig had to do with the price of rice in China.
“Well,” she replied pertly, “if you drove a reasonable vehicle, instead of that enormous gas-hog, you would have seen me coming and the whole non-incident could have been avoided!”
Rance was so taken aback by her audacity that he laughed, but it was a short, gruff sound that made the dog growl again.
She blinked again, but then she stuck out a slender hand, startling him as much as she had by almost running him down. “Echo Wells,” she said.
“What?”
“My name?” she prompted.
Rance took her hand. It felt cool and soft. The dog snarled and strained at the seat belt.
“Hush, Avalon,” said Echo Wells. “We’re in no danger. Are we—Mr….?”
“McKettrick,” he supplied belatedly, holding on to her hand a moment longer than absolutely necessary. “Rance McKettrick.”
She smiled suddenly, and Rance felt ambushed, as though he’d been dazzled by a sun-struck mirror popping up out of nowhere.
“No harm done,” she said.
Rance wasn’t so sure of that. He felt oddly shaken. Maybe she had run over him, with all four wheels, and he’d somehow survived and gotten to his feet in some kind of altered state. “What kind of name is Echo Wells?” he heard himself ask.
The smile faded, and it was something of a relief to Rance. The flash was still pulsing at the edges of his vision, but his knees felt a little steadier.
“What kind of name is Rance McKettrick?” she shot back.
Avalon bared her teeth and snarled again.
“What’s with the dog?” Rance asked, mildly insulted. “I’ve always gotten along just fine with animals.”
“You did come on a bit strong,” said the redoubtable Ms. Wells. “Dogs are sensitive to energy fields, you know. And yours, if you don’t mind my saying so, is a mess.”
“I guess almost getting killed does that to a person,” Rance said, after a moment or two of baffled recovery. “Messes up their—energy field, I mean.”
Echo’s cheeks went even pinker. The effect was similar to the smile, and Rance stubbornly resisted an impulse to back up a step or two. “Are you making fun of me, Mr. McKettrick?”
“No,” he said, glancing at the crystal swinging from her rearview mirror. “But if you’re into energy fields, then you’re probably looking for Sedona, not Indian Rock.”
She reached over, still staring defiantly into Rance’s face through the open car window, and gave the dog a few reassuring strokes with her right hand. Momentarily, Rance wished he could sprout fur, so she’d touch him like that. A practical man, he quickly shook off the fanciful thought.
“Would you mind moving?” Echo asked, with acidic sweetness. “It’s been a long drive, and I’d like to get out of the car.”
Wondering what he was doing carrying on this conversation in the first place, Rance retreated.
Echo Wells opened the car door, unbuckled her seat belt and swung two shapely legs out to stand. The top of her head came just shy of his chin, and that skimpy little pink-and-white sundress of hers was about a size-nothing. Instead of the high-heeled shoes he’d have expected with an outfit like that, she was wearing pink high-top sneakers with gold ribbons for laces.
Smiling dreamily, as though Rance had turned transparent and she could see right through him to the feed-and-grain across the street, she drew a deep breath and expelled it from the diaphragm.
Rance frowned. He took up his share of space, and he wasn’t used to being invisible—especially to women.
“Welcome to Indian Rock,” he said, mainly to get her attention. His tone could have been a mite on the grudging side.
She went around to the sidewalk, opened the door on the other side, and let the mutt out. Avalon—silly name for a dog, just the kind of airy-fairy thing he’d expect from somebody with a crystal on her mirror, wearing pink high-tops and driving a car to match—pranced straight over and squatted next to his truck tire.
He glowered at the dog.
The dog obviously didn’t give a rip what he thought. If she’d had a pecker, her look said, she would have lifted a leg against his shiny black paint job, or maybe christened the running board.
Echo Wells came back to her car, got her handbag, which was roughly the equivalent of a piece of carry-on luggage, and fished inside for a key. Then she pranced right over and stuck that key in the lock of the door of the empty shop next to Cora’s place.
Rance was jarred. This was the new owner?
He realized he’d been expecting someone different. Someone like Cora, maybe. But definitely not this woman.
“Most folks drive to one of the big chain stores in Flagstaff for their books,” Rance called, and considered biting off his tongue. Since it still came in handy once in a while, he pressed it to the roof of his mouth instead.
“Do they?” Echo chimed, sounding merrily unconcerned. Then she and the dog went inside, and she shut the door, hard.
Rance had half a mind to storm in there after her and tell her a thing or two, but since he couldn’t imagine what those things would be, he stood on the sidewalk instead.
Before he could turn away, the door of Cora’s shop sprang open and his daughters barreled out. Both of them were dark-haired, like he was, but they had Julie’s green eyes.
It had been a full year after Julie’s accident before he could look into those eyes without flinching on the inside. Still happened, sometimes.
“We almost forgot to say goodbye!” Rianna, the youngest, lisped, clinging to his right leg with both arms. She would be seven on Saturday.
Maeve, tall for ten, clutched him around the middle.
His heart softened into one big bruise, and his eyes stung a little. He embraced the girls and bent to kiss them both on top of the head.
“I’ll be back in a few days,” he said.
They let go of him, stepped back, craning their necks to look up at his face. Their expressions were solemnly skeptical.
“Unless you decide to go someplace else after you leave San Antonio,” Maeve said sagely, folding her arms.
Rianna’s attention had already shifted to the pink Volkswagen. She approached and touched one fender with reverence, as though it were an enchanted coach, drawn by six white horses, instead of a car.
“It’s like a Barbie car,” she said wondrously. “Only bigger.”
Maeve rolled her eyes. The young sophisticate.
“Yeah,” Rance agreed, though he didn’t have the faintest idea what a Barbie car was.
The door of the soon-to-be-bookstore opened again, and Rance heard bells ring. He was confused, until he remembered the little brass tinkler Cora had hung above the entrance to the Curl and Twirl, so she’d know when a customer came in. Echo’s shop must have one, too.
Echo stood in the gap, leaning one bare and delectable shoulder against the splintery framework and smiling at the girls. “Hi,” she said, taking in both Rianna and Maeve in the sweeping, sparkling approval of her glance, and leaving Rance firmly outside the she-circle. “My name is Echo. What’s yours?”
“Echo,” Rianna sighed, spellbound.
“You made that up,” Maeve accused, being the proverbial chip off the old block, but she sounded intrigued, just the same.
“You’re right, I did—sort of,” Echo said. “It suits me, don’t you think?”
“What’s your real name?” Maeve asked.
Rance should have been on his way to the airstrip outside of town, where the McKettrickCo jet was waiting, with Keegan and Jesse already onboard, checking their watches every few seconds, but he was as curious to hear the lady’s answer as Maeve was.
“That’s a secret
,” Echo said mysteriously, and put a finger to her lips as if to say, Shush. “Maybe when we’ve known each other for a while, I’ll tell you.”
“My name is Maeve,” said Rance’s eldest daughter, stoically charmed.
“I’m Rianna,” said the younger.
“Well, if my real name were as beautiful as yours are, I’d have kept it,” Echo confided.
Rance could almost hear the engines revving on the company jet.
“I’d better go,” he told his daughters, who seemed to have forgotten he existed.
The white dog slipped past Echo, trotted over to Rianna and licked her face.
Rance, poised to lunge to his daughter’s defense, was confounded by this display of canine affection.
Rianna giggled, stroked the dog with both hands and looked back at Rance over one tiny shoulder. “Can we get a puppy, Daddy?”
“No,” he said. “I travel too much.”
“You can say that again,” Maeve quipped. Sometimes she was more like a very short adult than a kid.
Echo raised one perfect eyebrow.
“Goodbye,” Rance told his daughters.
Rianna was busy snuggling with the dog. Maeve gave him a look.
He got into his enormous gas-hog of an SUV and drove off.
*
“I LIKE YOUR PINK CAR,” Maeve said, but only after she’d watched her father’s SUV go out of sight. The look on her face reminded Echo of Avalon, sitting next to the Volkswagen the night before, hoping to hitch a ride and fully expecting to be refused.
“I like your dog,” said Rianna.
“Dad won’t let us get one,” Maeve announced.
“So I gathered,” Echo answered carefully. These were well-cared-for children. Their long dark hair was neatly brushed and clipped back with perky little barrettes, and their denim shorts and colorful sun-tops looked as though they came from some rich-kid boutique.
So why did she want to kneel on the sidewalk and gather them both into her arms? They probably had a mother.
“He’s gone a lot,” Rianna said.
“We stay with Granny all the time,” Maeve added.
“Does your mom travel, too?” Echo asked.
“She died,” Maeve said.
Echo felt bereft. “Oh,” she replied, lacking a better response.
The door of Cora’s Curl and Twirl opened, and a woman stuck her elaborately coiffed auburn head out. “Maeve, Rianna—” She paused, noticing the dog, then the car, and finally Echo herself, and broke into a big smile. “You must be Miss Wells,” she said.
“Echo.”
“Echo, then,” the woman said pleasantly. “I’m Cora Tellington, and I presume you’ve met my granddaughters.”
“I have,” Echo said softly.
“Well, land sakes,” Cora enthused, coming over to pump her hand. “I wasn’t expecting you for a few more days yet. I would have dusted a little, inside the shop, and aired out the apartment upstairs if I’d known you were going to be here so soon.”
“That’s kind of you,” Echo replied, already liking the woman. She’d purchased the shop sight unseen, and the whole transaction had been conducted via fax and overnight delivery services. She’d wondered what kind of person Cora Tellington was, selling property over the Internet for next to nothing. Cora had probably speculated about her as well. “Actually, I’m looking forward to getting the place in shape.”
“Don’t you have any furniture?” Maeve asked, peering through the display window, which needed scrubbing.
Rianna and Avalon drew up beside Maeve, taking ganders of their own.
“How can you have a bookstore without any books?” Rianna asked.
“My things are coming in a truck,” Echo explained. “And I’ve got a lot of work to do before I can stock the shelves.”
Maeve whistled through her teeth in a way that shouldn’t have reminded Echo of Rance McKettrick but did. “I’ll say you do,” she agreed.
Rianna turned and looked up at her worriedly. “Where will you sleep?”
“Right here,” Echo answered. “Avalon and I stopped by a discount store this morning and bought an air mattress and some sheets.”
“It’ll be like camping,” Rianna said, reassured.
“No, it won’t, you doofus,” Maeve said, with all the disdain of an elder sibling. “Camping is outside.”
“Enough,” Cora interrupted gently, but she looked as worried as Rianna had as she studied Echo’s face. “There’s plenty of room at my place,” she said. “Dog’s welcome, too, of course.”
Echo’s heart warmed. “We’ll be fine right here, won’t we, Avalon?” Even as she said the words, though, she thought of Rance McKettrick, and wondered if she shouldn’t have taken his suggestion and gone on to Sedona instead, started her new life there.
No, she decided, just as quickly.
When it came to starting over, Indian Rock, Arizona, was as good a place as any.
CHAPTER TWO
EXPLORING THE INSIDE OF the shop with Avalon padding alongside for company, Echo had the inevitable second thoughts. Bringing the place up to her modest standards would take a considerable chunk of her cash reserves, which had been dwindling steadily since she’d made the decision to relocate.
She’d had a good job in the Windy City, planning and staging fund-raisers for an art gallery, a tiny apartment with a view of the lake, and a growing online business that had filled her lonely evenings, though she still wasn’t making a profit.
Now she ran her fingertips across a dusty shelf, toward the back of the very small store. Her reasons for leaving Chicago—a nasty breakup she couldn’t seem to get over, and the fact that her life had become sterile, without any discernible dimensions—seemed downright reckless in retrospect.
Had she made a mistake?
Avalon gazed up at her with that singular and unquestioning devotion only dogs can manage.
Pets hadn’t been allowed in her building. The management didn’t want stains on the carpets, or scratch marks on the doors. Not to mention barking, though the flight attendants in 4-B had made enough noise to rival an animal shelter at feeding time.
“Sterile,” Echo mused aloud, feeling a little better. “Real life is supposed to be messy.”
Avalon made a sound Echo took as full agreement.
They trekked upstairs, woman and dog, for a look at their new living quarters. The area consisted of two rooms, counting the miniscule bath, but the place had a certain run-down charm, with its uneven hardwood floors and big windows overlooking the street at one end and the alley at the other.
Avalon’s toenails clicked on the floor as she explored, sniffing the stove, checking out the claw-foot bathtub, standing on her hind legs, forepaws resting on the sill, to look out the front windows.
“A little soap and water,” Echo said, hoisting up one of the rear windows to let in some fresh air, “and we’re golden.”
Again, Avalon seemed to agree.
They spent the next ten minutes hauling things in from the car—suitcases, the air mattress and accompanying bedding, Echo’s laptop, and the various accoutrements of dog-care she’d purchased that morning at the discount store.
“We need cleaning supplies,” Echo told Avalon. It worried her a little, this new habit of conversing with a dog, but the truth was, she’d been alone so long, she’d stored up a lot of words. “And food.”
She filled Avalon’s new water bowl at the sink—thankfully, Cora hadn’t shut off the services—and set it on the floor. While the dog lapped, she poured kibble into a second bowl and put that down, too.
While Avalon crunched industriously at her bowl, Echo dumped the folded air bed out of the box, plugged in the attached pump and watched as the thing inflated.
“Definitely like camping,” she said, remembering Rianna’s words with a little smile.
But thoughts of Rianna led straight to Rianna’s father, and Echo’s smile dissolved. There was something distinctly unsettling about Rance McKettrick�
��besides his surly temperament. His good looks were almost overpowering, and everything about him, including his car, said money.
Echo had nothing against money, but in her experience, people who had it were used to getting what they wanted, and if somebody got in their way, too bad.
She thrust out a sigh. She was being unfair.
She knew nothing about Rance McKettrick, really, except that he was a widower with two beautiful children, to whom he did not pay enough attention. He was wealthy, and way too handsome and he exuded the kind of uncompromising masculinity that both attracted Echo and made her want to run the other way.
Rance McKettrick was not Justin St. John.
He was not the man who had betrayed her and broken her heart.
Best she remember that, and at the same time keep her distance.
She had her shop now. She had a plan for the future, and her Web site was getting more hits every day. She had Avalon, even though the arrangement was probably temporary.
For now, today, she was doing just fine.
*
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT costs to keep a Lear jet idling on a runway?” Keegan snapped as Rance boarded the sleek company plane.
Jesse, wearing his usual jeans, boots and western shirt, just smirked and took a sip of whatever he was drinking. He’d always been laid-back, Jesse had, but now that he’d hooked up with the lovely Cheyenne Bridges, and put a big, glittering diamond on her finger, he gave new meaning to the term.
He was getting regular sex, and it showed in his eyes and the easy way he wore his skin.
Rance felt a twinge of envy. There had been plenty of women since he’d got over the worst of mourning Julie, but he couldn’t recall one of their faces in that moment, let alone any of their names.
Echo Wells floated into his mind, all gossamer and smooth. He recalled the tendrils of fair hair escaping from her braid, especially around her temples, and the way she’d smelled of some faint, flowery perfume.
He shook the recollection off.
No sense heading down that trail.
If ever a woman was wrong for him, it was Echo Wells, with her pink obsession and her grouchy dog and that dumb crystal hanging from her rearview mirror.
McKettrick's Pride Page 2
