McKettrick's Pride

by Linda Lael Miller

  How much did they know? Echo didn’t think Rance was the type to kiss and tell, but men were a strange species. Maybe he’d told them all about last Sunday afternoon and evening.

  The thought made Echo duck behind her menu.

  “The steaks are good,” Jesse commented. “You might want to avoid the seafood, though. We’re a ways from the ocean, here in Arizona.”

  Echo relaxed a little.

  When the waitress came, she ordered the fried chicken dinner. She felt a yen for comfort food, and there was nothing like a little grease to soothe a person’s jangled nerves.

  Jesse and Keegan both ordered T-bones.

  After that, there was no excuse for using the menu as a shield, and Echo felt strangely exposed.

  “You planning on sticking around Indian Rock?” Jesse asked casually, after the salads arrived and the waitress had disappeared again.

  Were they going to tell her to stay away from Rance? The idea both irritated and amused her. “That’s the idea,” she said lightly.

  “Good,” Keegan said, and smiled.

  They all noshed on their salads for a while.

  “I guess you lived in Chicago before you came here,” Jesse said.

  “That’s right,” Echo confirmed.

  “Indian Rock must be quite a change,” Keegan observed.

  “Quite a change,” Echo said, enjoying herself. If they wanted to grill her, they were going to have to come right out and admit it. She wasn’t giving up a thing.

  “Pretty drastic, in fact,” Keegan said.

  They were McKettricks, Echo thought. They’d probably already run a background check on her. What were they hoping to find out? Did they think she was a gold digger, looking for a rich husband?

  She didn’t say anything at all.

  “Especially since you didn’t know anybody here in town,” Jesse added.

  Internally, Echo rolled her eyes. This, she figured, could go on all night. “Are you guys trying to give me the third degree?” she asked mildly.

  Jesse’s grin flashed, remarkably reminiscent of Rance’s, even though the two men bore no other resemblance to each other. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Painfully so,” Echo said cheerfully.

  “Rance has been through a lot,” Keegan told her.

  Echo felt a brush of sadness against a tender place in her heart. Nodded.

  “Rianna and Maeve, too,” Jesse added.

  “Yes,” Echo agreed, and the word came out sounding hoarse. “It must have been awful for everybody, when Julie died. Cora told me a little about that.”

  Jesse and Keegan looked slightly relieved.

  The main courses arrived, and the salad plates were removed.

  Keegan watched the waitress’s shapely backside as she sashayed away from the table, but Jesse’s gaze was fixed on Echo’s face.

  “I guess what we want to know,” he said, “is what your intentions are toward Rance.”

  Echo was grateful she hadn’t bitten into a piece of fried chicken yet, because she might have choked if she had. “My intentions?” she asked.

  Keegan elbowed Jesse. “That was subtle,” he said.

  “Nothing about this is subtle,” Echo said. “I think it’s sweet that you’re looking out for Rance. A little old-fashioned, maybe, but sweet.”

  “Are you serious about him?” Keegan asked. Now that the issue of subtlety was out of the way, he was taking the direct route.

  “No,” Echo answered. “We’ve had supper together a couple of times. That’s all.”

  Both men looked disappointed. Echo had expected relief, so she was a little taken aback.

  “You’ve never been married,” Keegan said, frowning slightly.

  “Nor do I have a criminal record,” Echo answered. “But I’m sure you know that already. I’m not in the market for a husband, wealthy or otherwise, so you can stop worrying.”

  Jesse grinned. “You’ve got great credit, too,” he said.

  “Rance,” Keegan imparted grimly, “is going to kill us.”

  “No harm done,” Echo told him, sawing at her chicken with a knife and fork. She thought it was kind of nice that Jesse and Keegan looked out for Rance the way they did. Wondered what it would be like, to have somebody watching your back like that.

  It gave her a lonely feeling.

  “Out here in the country,” Jesse said, watching the culinary struggle with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes and a quirk to his mouth, “we eat fried chicken with our fingers.”

  Relieved, Echo reached for a drumstick. She wondered if they knew about Justin, and how he’d left her standing at the altar in a cheap wedding chapel in Las Vegas. She hadn’t mentioned that to Rance, but Cora might have told them.

  “So,” she said, grinning, “maybe you two want to know how I voted in the last election, or something of that nature?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JESSE AND KEEGAN FOLLOWED Echo back to the store in their separate vehicles, then stood on the sidewalk at her elbows, like a pair of Secret Service agents flanking a First Lady. The instant she opened the front door, she knew something was wrong.

  The breeze, which should have been coming from behind her, cooled her face and raised the small hairs on her forearms.

  She took a step inside, dropped her handbag on the floor. “Avalon?” she called, thick-throated. Then, remembering, “Snowball?”

  No answering bark.

  The rear door slammed. An engine revved, then backfired.

  Her intuition, already in overdrive, kicked in big-time.

  “My dog!” Echo yelled, bolting for the storeroom, behind the stairs. “He’s stealing my dog!” “He,” she knew instinctively, was Bud Willand.

  “The alley,” she heard one McKettrick man say to the other.

  “Snowball!”

  Tires peeled out on hard dirt, flinging gravel, though Echo, in mid-dash, couldn’t be certain whether the sounds came from the front of the shop or the back. Or both.

  The alley door, padlocked since she’d taken possession of the property, stood gaping. She bolted through the opening, fists clenched at her sides, ready to fight.

  Sure enough, an old truck careered along the narrow passage between the back of Echo’s shop and someone’s detached garage, on the other side, hurling up so much dust that Echo could barely make out the figure of her dog, sitting stalwartly in the back.

  Echo ran after the truck.

  Meanwhile, a second truck, Jesse’s, screeched to a halt at the end of the alleyway, broadside, blocking the first truck’s escape. Keegan covered the only other escape route, parking his Jag and hitting the ground running.

  He went by Echo, who was running at top speed, as though she were standing still, but even before he reached the scene, Jesse had wrenched open the door of Bud Willand’s truck and dragged him out by the shirt.

  “Chill, man,” Willand blustered. “I was only taking back my own property!”

  Jesse flung Willand hard against the side of the truck. “I’d shut up if I were you,” he said.

  Willand sank to the running board and sat with his head in his hands.

  Meanwhile, Echo tugged at the tailgate, trying to free Snowball, who leaned over the top and laved her forehead with a sandpaper tongue.

  Keegan eased her aside, opened the latch on the tailgate and lowered it, before lifting Snowball in both arms and setting her on the ground.

  Echo dropped to her knees and put her arms around Snowball, their foreheads touching.

  “Damn piece of shit dog bit me,” Willand complained.

  “Just goes to show how glad she must have been to see you,” Jesse said. “And I told you to shut up.”

  Keegan, meanwhile, was on his cell phone. “Wyatt?” he said. “Keegan McKettrick. We’ve got a case of breaking and entering and burglary in the alley behind the Curl and Twirl.”

  “McKettricks,” Willand muttered. “Christ, if it weren’t for shit-luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

 
“Keep talking,” Jesse said. “I have a penchant for violence.”

  Echo got back to her feet, wobbling a little. She wasn’t a runner, and besides, her shoes were all wrong. “Thank you,” she said as Keegan flipped his cell phone shut.

  He gave her a tilted grin and nodded. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, though now that the adrenaline rush was subsiding, she thought she might faint.

  The legendary Wyatt Terp, whom Echo had never met but had heard about from Cora, arrived at Jesse’s end of the alley in record time, with siren blaring and light-bar spewing splashes of official blue and red.

  “What happened here?” Wyatt asked, sprint-trotting toward them.

  “This man,” Echo said, pointing at Bud Willand’s cowering bulk, still quivering on the running board, “broke into my shop and stole my dog.”

  “Give me a break,” Willand said.

  “Can I hurt him?” Jesse asked Wyatt.

  “No,” Wyatt responded with a note of unmistakable regret.

  Wyatt ambled back to the rear of Echo’s shop and inspected the damage. “Breaking and entering, all right,” he said, returning. “You want to press charges, miss?”

  “Yes,” Echo said staunchly.

  “Let’s see your ID, buddy,” Wyatt told Willand.

  Grumbling, Willand fished out his wallet, extracted a driver’s license.

  “Expired,” Wyatt said.

  “The shit-luck just keeps on comin’,” Jesse philosophized.

  Willand was handcuffed and hustled to the end of the alley.

  The sweet sound of Miranda rights trailed back to Echo, Jesse and Keegan.

  “Phew,” Echo said.

  Jesse and Keegan walked back with her, Snowball trotting along in front as cheerfully as though dog-napping and subsequent heroic rescue were a regular part of her experience.

  “She’s not really my dog, you know,” Echo confessed when they were all inside.

  Jesse and Keegan exchanged glances.

  “She belongs to some people named Ademoye. Herb and Marge. They’re on their way to get her right now.” Tears welled in Echo’s eyes, and she blinked them away.

  “What’s with the redneck?” Jesse asked, cocking his thumb in the direction Bud Willand and Wyatt had gone.

  “He tried to claim Snowball once before,” Echo explained, still a little dazed. “He was really quite intimidating. But Rance made him leave.”

  Rance. Just thinking of him opened a trap door in the pit of Echo’s soul, and she thought she might retract to a speck and fall right through, into oblivion.

  By then, Keegan was examining what passed for a padlock. “Hell,” he said. “My ten-year-old daughter could have broken this thing.”

  Snowball/Avalon gave Echo’s hand a lick, then went off to climb the stairs, no doubt headed for her airbed.

  Jesse proceeded to the front of the store. “This one isn’t much better,” he called back to Keegan, while Echo stood in between, like a net at a tennis match.

  “Hardware store,” Keegan decided.

  “Big time,” Jesse agreed.

  “I probably should go over to the police station and sign a complaint,” Echo said, just to be part of the conversation.

  Jesse nodded.

  “You hold down the fort,” Keegan told his cousin, talking over Echo’s head. “I’ll go get the locks and a few tools.”

  “Tools,” Jesse said, with a deliberately idiotic grin, and made a Tim Allen, Home Improvement kind of sound, which Keegan dutifully returned.

  Echo went upstairs, told Snowball she’d be safe with Jesse, downed two glasses of water to rehydrate herself, and headed for the cop shop.

  Bud Willand sat in the front office, his greasy head down, hands still cuffed behind him.

  “You’re not really going to do this, are you?” he asked plaintively when Echo appeared.

  “You’d better believe I am,” she answered.

  He narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Please,” she said, straightening her spine and lifting her chin.

  Wyatt Terp, watching the whole exchange from the water cooler, smiled and approached.

  “Look,” Willand pleaded. “I’m not a criminal. Just an ordinary guy, trying to make his way.”

  “You know what?” Echo responded. “That’s what the loser who tried to mug me said one night in Chicago, when a passerby turned out to be a plainclothes detective. I think a forensic scientist could still scrape bits of his DNA up off that particular sidewalk—the mugger’s, I mean. He’s doing three to five at Joliet.”

  “I guess that means you’re going to press charges?” Willand ventured.

  Echo widened her eyes. “And I thought you were terminally stupid,” she said.

  Wyatt laid a form on the desk. The pertinent details were already filled in.

  Echo found the appropriate line and signed with a flourish.

  Willand groaned. Then, a beat too late, his gaze turned shrewd. “I’ll be out on bail, you know,” he said. “Most likely before morning.”

  Wyatt leaned in. “Are you threatening a citizen of my town?” he asked very quietly.

  “Who are you kidding?” Willand retaliated, but he shrunk a little inside his filthy, wife-beater T-shirt. “This is the McKettricks’ town—everybody knows that.”

  The lawman smiled and beckoned to a passing deputy. “Mr. Willand is weary of our company,” he said to the other officer. “Why don’t you tuck him away in a nice, quiet cell.”

  The deputy nodded and hoisted Bud to his feet. Shuffled him through a rear door that whooshed hydraulically and closed with an authoritative snap.

  Some of Echo’s bravado drained away. “Do you think he’ll bother me?” she asked, looking not at Wyatt but at the door through which Willand and the deputy had disappeared. “He’s probably right about making bail before morning, you know.”

  Wyatt smiled again. “He’s right about something else, too,” he said.

  “What?” Echo asked, turning to go.

  “This is the McKettricks’ town.”

  Echo wondered, as she left the police station, if Wyatt had meant that statement to be reassuring.

  *

  RANCE WAS IN AN AFTERNOON meeting when his cell phone vibrated in his shirt pocket. Frowning, he extracted it, looked at the caller ID panel, recognized Keegan’s mobile number, and just about had a heart attack.

  Stateside calls were routine, of course, but they always came from the San Antonio offices, the Indian Rock branch, or one of the houses on the Triple M.

  A series of possible tragedies reeled through Rance’s mind, and he broke out in a cold sweat. He excused himself with the obligatory bows of the head, and made for the corridor.

  “Rance,” he barked into the cell phone, bracing himself.

  Maeve. Rianna.

  Echo.

  “Everybody’s okay,” Keegan said immediately.

  Rance nearly collapsed against the corridor wall. “Damn it,” he rasped, shoving his free hand through his hair. “It must be the middle of the night over there—I thought—”

  “I know what you thought,” Keegan answered, “and I’m sorry. It’s not ‘the middle of the night,’ it’s ten o’clock. I thought you’d want to know there was some trouble at Echo’s place earlier in the evening.”

  Rance’s gut seized, hard. “What kind of trouble?”

  “Take it easy,” Keegan counseled. “Jesse and I handled it, with some help from Wyatt. Some yahoo broke in the back way, while the three of us were having dinner at the Roadhouse, and took her dog.”

  Rance felt the blood drain from his face. Hell, from his whole body. He wouldn’t have been surprised to look down and see the stuff lapping at his shoes. “Is she all right?”

  “I said we handled it, didn’t I?”

  “What about the dog?”

  Keegan chuckled. “No damage,” he said.

  Rance ran a hand over his face. He needed a shave. “You said Wyatt was inv
olved?”

  “He made the bust. The guy’s in jail. Jesse and I replaced the locks on the shop doors, front and back.”

  Rance was both relieved and a little annoyed that his cousins, not him, had been there for Echo when the proverbial chips were down. “Thanks,” he said.

  Keegan chuckled again. “I can tell you’re thrilled.”

  “So the three of you had dinner together,” Rance said.

  “Yeah,” Keegan answered, a little smugly, and there was a smile in his voice as big as the ranch. “I don’t mind telling you, if you’re not interested—”

  “Stop right there,” Rance warned.

  Keegan laughed. A couple of Taiwanese businessmen came out of the conference room, gave Rance sidelong glances of polite curiosity and headed for the men’s room. “According to the lovely Ms. Wells, there’s nothing going on between the two of you.”

  Rance remembered the way the headboard had slammed against the wall while he and Echo were making love. He’d be lucky if he didn’t have to spackle and repaint, just to hide the evidence. “That’s right,” he said, biting the words off as if they were chunks of beef jerky well past the sell-by date.

  “You are so full of shit,” Keegan said.

  “Did you call me to say that?” Rance snapped.

  “Hallmark didn’t have a card, so I had to relay the sentiment via satellite,” Keegan answered. He paused, the way he always did when he was about to deliver a zinger. “Listen,” he said at last, “if she says there’s nothing going on between you, and you say there’s nothing going on between you, what’s to stop me from turning on the charm?”

  “My fist,” Rance said, serious as the heart attack he’d fully expected to have in the conference room a few minutes before.

  “We may have to settle this behind the barn,” Keegan answered mildly. And then, just like that, he rang off, leaving Rance standing in a foreign corridor, holding a cell phone suspended in midair and blowing fire from his nostrils.

  He shrugged, bowed to the next executive escaping the conference room, and calmly keyed in another number.

  “McKettrickCo, San Antonio,” said a smiling female voice from halfway around the world.

  “This is Rance,” he said. “I want the jet.”

  *