The McKettrick Legend (34 page)

 

Sierra glowed from the inside, as though she'd distilled sunlight to a golden potion and swallowed it down. The room was bedecked in flowers, splashes of watercolor pink, blue and yellow shimmered all around.

“Aunt Meg!” Liam cried delightedly, zooming out of the teary blur. “I've got a brand-new brother and his name is Brody Travis Reid!”

With a choked laugh, Meg hugged the little boy, almost displacing his Harry Potter glasses in the process. “Where
is
this Brody yahoo, anyhow?” she teased. “His legend looms large in this here town, but so far, I haven't seen hide nor hair of him.”

“Silly,” Liam said. “He's in the
nursery,
with all the other babies!”

Meg ruffled his hair. Went to give Sierra a kiss on the forehead.

“Congratulations, little sister,” she said.

“He's so beautiful,” Sierra whispered.

“Boys are supposed to be
handsome,
not beautiful,” Liam protested, dragging a chair up on the other side of Sierra's bed and standing in the seat so he could be eye to eye with his mother. “Was I handsome?”

Sierra smiled, squeezed his small hand. “You're
still
hand some,” she said gently. “And Dad and I are counting on you to be a really good big brother to Brody.”

Liam turned to Meg, beaming. “Travis is going to adopt me. I'll be Liam McKettrick Reid, and Mom's changing her name, too.”

Meg lifted her eyebrows slightly.

“Somebody had to break the tradition,” Sierra said. “I've already told Eve.”

Sierra would be the first McKettrick woman to take her husband's last name in generations.

“Mom's okay with that?” Meg asked.

Sierra grinned. “Timing is everything,” she said. “If you want to break disturbing news to her, be sure to give birth first.”

Meg chuckled. “You are a brave woman,” she told Sierra. Then, turning to her nephew, she held out a hand. “How about showing me that brother of yours, Liam McKettrick Reid?”

 

Jesse returned at midmorning, as promised, with a dozen mounted cowboys. To Brad, the bunch looked as though
they'd ridden straight out of an old black-and-white movie, their clothes, gear and horses only taking on color as they drew within hailing distance.

Brad was bone-tired, and Livie, her doctoring completed for the time being, had fallen asleep under a tree, bundled in his coat as well as her own. He'd built a fire an hour or so before dawn, but he craved coffee something fierce, and he was chilled to his core.

Before bedding down in the wee small hours, Livie had cheer fully informed her brother that while he ought to keep watch for the wolf pack, he didn't need to worry that Ransom and the mares would run off. They knew, she assured him, that they were among friends.

He'd kept watch through what remained of the night, pondering the undeniable proof that his sister
had
received an SOS from Ransom.

Now, with riders approaching, Livie wakened and got up off the ground, smiling and dusting dried pine needles and dirt off her jeans.

Jesse, Keegan and Rance were in the lead, ropes coiled around the horns of their saddles, rifles in their scabbards.

Rance nodded to Brad, dismounted and walked over to Ransom. He checked the animal's legs as deftly as Livie had.

“Think he can make it down the mountain to the ranch?” Rance asked.

Livie nodded. “If we take it slowly,” she said. Her smile took in the three McKettricks and the men they'd rallied to help. “Thanks, every body.”

Most of the cowboys stared at Ransom as though they expected him to sprout wings, like Pegasus, and take to the
blue-gold morning sky. One rode forward, leading mounts for Livie and Brad.

Livie took off Brad's coat and handed it to him, then swung up into the saddle with an ease he couldn't hope to emulate. He kicked dirt over the last embers of the campfire while Rance handed up Livie's veterinary kit.

The ride down the mountain would be long and hard, though thank God the weather had held. The sky was blue as Meg's eyes.

Brad took a deep breath, jabbed a foot into the stirrup and hauled himself onto the back of a pinto gelding. He was still pretty sore from the
last
trip up and down this mountain.

The cowboys went to work, starting Ransom and his mares along the trail with low whistles to urge them along.

Livie rode up beside Brad and grinned. “You look like hell,” she said.

“Gosh, thanks,” Brad grimaced, shifting in the saddle in a vain attempt to get comfortable.

She chuckled. “Think of it as getting into character for the movie.”

 

Seeing Brody for the first time was the high point of Meg's day, but from there, it was all downhill.

Ted's tests were invasive, and he was drugged.

Liam was hyper with excitement, and didn't sit still for a second during lunch, despite Eve's grandmotherly reprimands. The food in the cafeteria tasted like wood shavings, and she got a call from the police in Indian Rock on her way home.

Carly had ditched school, and Wyatt Terp, the town marshal, had picked her up along Highway 17. She'd been trying to hitch hike to Flag staff.

Meg sped to the police station, screeched to a stop in the parking lot and stormed inside.

Carly sat forlornly in a chair near Wyatt's desk, looking even younger than twelve.

“I just wanted to see my dad,” she said in a small voice, taking all the bluster out of Meg's sails.

Meg pulled up a chair along side Carly's and sat down, taking a few deep breaths to center herself. Wyatt smiled and busied himself in another part of the station house.

“You could have been kidnapped, or hit by a car, or a thousand other things,” Meg said care fully.

“Dad and I thumbed it lots of times,” Carly said defensively, “when our car broke down.”

Meg closed her eyes for a moment. Waited for a sensible reply to occur to her. When that didn't happen, she opened them again.

“Will you take me to see him now?” Carly asked.

Meg sighed. “Depends,” she said. “Are you under arrest, or just being held for questioning?”

Carly relaxed a little. “I'm not busted,” she answered seriously. “But Marshal Terp says if he catches me hitchhiking again, I'll probably do hard time.”

“You pull any more stupid tricks like this one, kiddo,” Meg said, “and
I'll
give you all the ‘hard time' you can handle.”

Wyatt approached, doing his best to look like a stern lawman, but the effect was more Andy-of-Mayberry. “You can go, young lady,” he told Carly, “but I'd better not see you in this office again unless you're selling Girl Scout cookies or 4-H raffle tickets or something. Got it?”

“Got it,” Carly said meekly, ducking her head slightly.

Meg stood, motioned for her sister to head for the door.

Carly didn't move until the lawman raised an eyebrow at her.

“Is it the badge that makes her mind?” she whispered to Wyatt, once Carly was out of earshot. “And if so, do you happen to have a spare?”

 

He needed to see Meg.

It was seven-thirty that night before Ransom and his band were corralled at Stone Creek Ranch, and the McKettricks and their helpers had unsaddled all their horses, loaded them into trailers and driven off. Livie had greeted Willie, taken a hot shower and, bundled in one of Big John's ugly Indian-blanket bath robes, gobbled down a bologna sandwich before climbing the stairs to her old room to sleep.

Brad was tired.

He was cold and he was hungry and he was saddle sore.

The only sensible thing to do was shower, eat and sleep like a dead man.

But he still needed to see Meg.

He settled for the shower and clean clothes.

Calling first would have been the polite thing to do, but he was past that. So he scrawled a note to Livie—
Feed the dog and the horses if I'm not back by morning
—and left.

The truck knew its way to the Triple M, which was a good thing, since he was in a daze.

Lights glowed warm and golden from Meg's windows, and his heart lifted at the sight, at the prospect of seeing her. The McKettricks, he recalled, tended to gather in kitchens. He parked the truck in the drive and walked around to the back of the house, knocked at the door.

Carly answered. She looked wan, as worn-out and used-up as Brad felt, but her face lit up when she saw him.

“I get to stay in seventh grade,” she said. “According to my test scores, I'm gifted.”

Brad rustled up a grin and resisted the urge to look past her, searching for Meg. “I could have told you that,” he said as she stepped back to let him in.

“Meg's upstairs,” Carly told him. “She has a sick headache and I'm supposed to leave her alone unless I'm bleeding or there's a national emergency.”

Brad hid his disappointment. “Oh,” he said, because nothing better came to him.

“I heard you were making a movie,” Carly said. Clearly she was lonesome, needed somebody to talk to.

Brad could certainly identify. “Yeah,” he answered, and this time the grin was a little easier to find.

“Can I be in it? I wouldn't have to have lines or anything. Just a costume.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Brad said. “My people will call your people.”

Carly laughed, and the sound was good to hear.

He was about to excuse himself and leave when Meg appeared on the stairs wearing a cotton night gown, with her hair all rumpled and shadows under her eyes.

“Rough day?” he asked, a feeling of bruised tenderness stealing up from his middle to his throat, like thick smoke from a smudge fire.

She tried to smile, pausing a moment on the stairs.

“Time for me to get lost,” Carly said. “Can I use your computer, Meg?”

Meg nodded.

Carly left the room and Brad stood still, watching Meg.

“I guess I should have called first,” he said.

“Sit down,” Meg told him. “I'll make some coffee.”

“I'll make the coffee,” Brad replied. “
You
sit down.”

For once, she didn't give him any back talk. She just
padded over to the table and plunked into the big chair at the head of it.

“Did you find Ransom?” she asked, while Brad opened cupboard doors, scouting for a can of coffee.

“Yes,” he said, pleased that she'd remembered, given everything else that was going on in her life. “He and the mares have the run of my best pasture.” He told Meg the rest of the story, or most of it, leaving out the part about Livie's dreams, not because he was afraid of what she might think of his sister's strange talent, but because the tale was Livie's to tell or keep to herself.

Meg grinned as she listened, shaking her head. “Rance and Keegan and Jesse must have been in their element, driving wild horses down the mountain like they were back in the old West.”

“Maybe,” Brad agreed, leaning back against the counter as he waited for the coffee to brew. “As for me—if I never have to do that again, it'll be too soon.”

Meg laughed, but her eyes misted over in the next moment. She'd looked away too late to keep him from seeing. “Sierra—my other sister—had a baby this morning. A boy. His name is Brody.”

Brad ached inside. It had been hard for Meg to share that news, and it shouldn't have been. Given the way he'd shut her out after meeting Carly, he couldn't blame her for being wary.

He went to her, crouched beside her chair, took one of her hands in both of his. “I'm sorry about the other night, Meg. I was just—I don't know—a little rattled by Carly's age, and her resemblance to you.”

“It's okay,” Meg said, but a tear slipped down her cheek.

Brad brushed it away with the side of one thumb. “It isn't okay. I acted like a jerk.”

She sniffled. Nodded. “A
major
jerk.”

He chuckled, blinked a couple of times because his eyes burned. Rose to his full height again. “I was hoping to spend the night,” he said. “Until I remembered Carly's living here now.”

Meg bit her lip. “I have guest rooms,” she told him.

She didn't want him to leave, then.

Brad's spirits rose a notch.

“But what about Willie, and your horses?”

“Livie's at the house,” he said, moving away from her, getting mugs down out of a cupboard. If he'd stayed close, he'd have hauled her to her feet and laid a big sloppy one on her, complete with tongue, and with a twelve-year-old in practically the next room, that was out. “She'll take care of the live stock.”

After that, they sat quietly at the venerable old McKettrick table and talked about ordinary things. It made him surprisingly happy, just being there with Meg, doing nothing in particular.

In fact, life seemed down right perfect to him.

Which just went to show what
he
knew.

B
RAD BLINKED AWAKE,
sprawled on his back on the big leather couch in Meg's study, fully dressed and covered with an old quilt.

Carly stood looking down at him, a curious expression on her face, probably surprised that he hadn't slept with Meg.

“What time is it?” he asked, yawning.

“Six-thirty,” Carly answered. She was wearing jeans and the T-shirt he'd given her, and it looked a little the worse for wear. “Have you decided if I get to be in your movie?”

Brad chuckled, yawned again. “I haven't heard from your agent,” he teased.

She frowned. “I don't have an agent,” she replied. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” he relented, smiling. “I can promise you a walk-on. Beyond that, it's out of my hands. Deal?”

“Deal!” Carly beamed. But then her face fell. “I hope my dad makes it long enough to see me on the big screen,” she said.

Brad's heart slipped, caught itself with a lurch that was almost painful. “We could show him the rushes,” he said after swallowing once. “Right in his hospital room.”

“What are rushes?”

“Film clips. They're not edited, and there's no music—not even sound, some times. But he'd see you.”

Meg appeared in the doorway of the study, clad in chore clothes.

“I get to be in the movie,” Carly informed her excitedly. “Even though I don't have an agent.”

“That's great,” Meg said softly, her gaze resting with tender gratitude on Brad. “Coffee's on, if anybody's interested.”

Brad threw back the quilt, sat upright, pulled on his boots. “Somebody's interested, all right,” he said. “I'll feed the horses if you'll make break fast.”

“Sounds fair,” Meg answered, turning her attention back to Carly. “Nix on the T-shirt, Ms. Streep. You've worn it for three days in a row now—it goes in the laundry.”

On her way to certain stardom, Carly apparently figured she could give ground on the T-shirt edict. “Okay,” she said, and headed out of the room, ostensibly to go upstairs and change clothes.

“Carly got arrested yesterday,” Meg announced, looking wan.

Brad stood, surprised. And not surprised. “What happened?”

“She decided to cut school and hitch hike to Flag staff to see Ted in the hospital. Thank God, Wyatt happened to be heading up Highway 17 and spotted her from his squad car.”

Brad approached Meg, took her elbows gently into his hands. “Having doubts about being an instant mother, McKettrick?” he asked quietly. She seemed uncommonly fragile, and knowing she'd been flattened by a headache the night before worried him.

“Yes,” she said after gnawing at her lower lip for a couple of seconds. “I've always wanted a child, more than anything, but I didn't expect it to happen this way.”

He drew her close, held her, buried his face in her hair
and breathed in the flower-and-summer-grass scent of it. “I know you don't think of Ted as a father,” he said close to her ear, “but a reunion with him this late in the game, especially with a terminal diagnosis hanging over his head, has to be a serious blow. Maybe you need to acknowledge that Carly isn't the only one with some grieving to do.”

She tilted her head back, her blue eyes shining with tears. “Damn him,” she whispered. “Damn him for coming back here to die! Where was he when I took my first steps—lost my front teeth—broke my leg at horse back riding camp—graduated from high school and college? Where was he when you—”

“When I broke your heart?” Brad finished for her.

“Well—” Meg paused to sniffle once. “Yeah.”

“I'd do anything to make that up to you, Meg. Anything for a do over. But the world doesn't work that way. Maybe besides finding a place for Carly, where he knows she'll be loved and she'll be safe, Ted's looking for the same thing I am. A second chance with you.”

She looked taken aback. “Maybe,” she agreed. “But he sure took his sweet time putting in an appearance, and so did you.”

Brad gave her another hug. They were on tricky ground, and he knew it. Carly could be heard clattering down the stairs at the back of the house, into the kitchen.

They needed privacy to carry the conversation any further.

“I'll go feed the horses,” he reiterated. “You make breakfast.” He kissed her forehead, not wanting to let her go. “Once you've dropped Carly off at school, you could drop in at my place.”

He held his breath, awaiting her answer. Both of them knew what would happen if he and Meg were alone at Stone Creek Ranch.

“I'll let you know,” she said at long last.

He hesitated, nodded once and left her to feed the horses.

Break fast turned out to be toaster waffles and microwave bacon.

“Next time,” Brad told Meg, after they'd exchanged a light kiss next to her Blazer, with Carly watching avidly from the passenger seat, “I'll cook and
you
feed the horses.”

He sang old Johnny Cash favorites all the way home, at the top of his lungs, with the truck windows rolled down.

But the song died in his throat when he topped the rise and saw a sleek white limo waiting in the driveway. Some gut instinct, as primitive as what he'd felt facing down the leader of the wolf pack up at Horse Thief Canyon, told him this wasn't Phil, or even a bunch of movie executives on an outing.

The chauffer got out, opened the rear right-hand door of the limo as Brad pulled to a stop next to it, buzzing up the truck windows and frowning.

A pair of long, shapely legs swung into view.

Brad swore and slammed out of the truck to stand like a gun fighter, his hands on his hips.

“I'd be perfect for the female lead in this movie,” Cynthia Donnigan said, tottering toward him on spiked heels that sank into the dirt. Her short, stretchy skirt rode up on her gym-toned thighs, and she didn't bother to adjust it.

He stared at her in amazement and disbelief, literally speechless.

Cynthia lowered her expensive sun glasses and batted her lashes—as fake as her breasts—and her collagen-enhanced lips puckered into a pout. “Aren't you glad to see me?”

Her hair, black as Ransom's coat, was arranged in art
fully careless tufts stiff enough to do damage if she decided to head butt somebody.

“What do you think?” he growled.

Luck, Big John had often said, was never so bad that it couldn't get worse. At that moment, Meg's Blazer came over the rise, dust spiraling behind it.

“I think you're not very forgiving,” Cynthia said, following his gaze and then zeroing in on his face with a smug little twist of her mouth. “Bygones are bygones, baby. I'm ideal for the part and you know it.”

Brad took a step back as she teetered a step forward. “Not a chance,” he said, aware of Meg coming to a stop behind him, but not getting out of the Blazer.

Cynthia smiled and did a waggle-fingered wave in Meg's direction. “I've checked into a resort in Sedona,” she said sweetly. “I can wait until you come to your senses and agree that the part of the lawman's widow was written for me.”

Brad turned, approached the Blazer and met Meg's wide eyes through the glass of the driver's-side window. He opened the door and offered a hand to help her down.

“The second wife?” Meg asked, more mouthing the words than saying them.

Brad nodded shortly.

Meg peered around him as she got out of the Blazer. Then, with a big smile, she walked right up to Cynthia with her hand out. “I think I've seen you in several feminine hygiene product commercials,” she said.

That made Brad chuckle to himself.

Cynthia simmered. “Hello,” she responded, in a dangerous purr. “You must be the girl Brad left behind.”

Meg had grown up rough-and-tumble, with a bunch of mischievous boy cousins, and served on the executive staff of a multinational corporation. She wasn't easy to intimidate. To Brad's relief—and amusement—she hooked an
arm through his, smiled winningly and said, “It's sort of an on-again, off-again kind of thing with Brad and me. Right now, it's definitely on.”

Cynthia blinked. She was strictly a B-grade celebrity, but as Brad's ex-wife and sole owner of an up-and-coming production company, she was used to deference of the Beverly Hills variety.

But this was Stone Creek, Arizona, not Beverly Hills.

And the word
deference
wasn't in Meg's vocabulary.

Temporarily stymied, Cynthia pushed her sun glasses back up her nose, minced back toward the waiting limo. The driver stood waiting, still holding her door open and staring off into space as though oblivious to everything going on in what was essentially the barnyard.

Brad followed. “If you manage to wangle your way into this movie,” he said, “I'm out.”

Cynthia plopped her scantily clad butt onto the leather seat, but didn't draw her killer legs inside. “Read your contract, Brad,” she said. “You signed with Starglow Productions.
My
company.”

The shock that made his stomach go into a free fall must have shown in his face, because his ex-wife smiled.

“Didn't I tell you I changed the name of the company?” she asked. “No me, no movie, cowboy.”

“No movie,” Brad said, feeling sick. The whole county was excited about the project—they'd have talked about it for years to come. Carly and a lot of other people would be disappointed—not least of all, himself.

“Back to Sedona,” Cynthia told the driver, with a lofty gesture of one manicured hand.

“Yes, ma'am,” he replied. But he gave Brad a sym pathetic glance before getting behind the wheel.

Brad stood still, furious not only with Cynthia, and with Phil, who had to have known who owned Starglow Produc
tions, but with himself. He'd been too quick to sign on the dotted line, swayed by his own desire to play big-screen cowboy, and by Livie's suggestion that he build an animal shelter with the proceeds. If he tried to back out of the deal now, Cynthia's lawyers would be all over him like fleas on an old hound dog, and he didn't even want to think of the potential publicity.

“So that's the second wife,” Meg said, stepping up beside him and watching as the sleek car zipped away.

“That's her,” he replied gloomily. “And I am royally, totally screwed.”

She moved to stand in front of him, looking up into his face. “I was trying hard not to eaves drop,” she said, “but I couldn't help gathering that she wants to be in the movie.”

“She
owns
the movie,” Brad said.

“And this is so awful because—?”

“Because she's a first-class, card-carrying bitch. And because I can hardly stand to be in the same room with her, let alone on a movie set for three or four months.”

Meg took his hand, gave him a gentle tug in the direction of the house. “Can't you break the contract?”

“Not without getting sued for everything I have, including this ranch, and bringing so many tabloid stringers to Stone Creek that they'll be swinging from the telephone poles.”

“Then maybe you should just bite the proverbial bullet and make the movie.”

“You haven't read the script,” Brad said. “I have to kiss her. And there's a love scene—”

Meg's eyes twinkled. “You sound like a little boy, balking at being in the school play with a
girl
.” She tugged him up the back steps, toward the kitchen door.

Willie met them on the other side, wagging cheer fully.

Brad let him out, scowling, and he and Meg waited on the porch while the dog attended to his duties.

“You have no idea what she's like,” Brad said.

Meg gave him a light poke with her elbow. “I know you must have loved her once. After all, you married her.”

“The truth is a lot less flattering than that,” he replied, unable, for a long moment, to meet Meg's eyes. What he had to say was going to upset her, for several reasons, and there was no way to avoid it. “We hooked up after a party. Six weeks later, she called and told me she was pregnant, and the baby was mine. I married her, because she said she was going to get an abortion if I didn't. I went on tour—she wanted to go along and I refused. Frankly, I wasn't ready to present Cynthia to the world as my adored bride. She called the press in, gave them pictures of the ‘wedding.' And then, just to make sure I knew what it meant to cross her, she had the abortion anyway.”

The pain was there in Meg's face—she had to be thinking that, had she told him about
their
baby, he'd have married her with the same singular lack of enthusiasm—but her words took him by surprise. “I'm sorry, Brad,” she said softly. “You must have really wanted to be a dad.”

He whistled for Willie, since speaking was beyond him for the moment, and the dog, obviously on the mend, made it up the porch steps with no help. “Yeah,” he said.

“I have an idea,” Meg said.

He glanced at her. “What?”

“We could rehearse your love scene. Just to be sure you get it right.”

In spite of everything, he chuckled. The sound was raw and hurt his throat, but it was genuine. “Aren't you the least bit jealous?” he asked.

She looked honestly puzzled. “Of what?”

“I'm going to have to kiss Cynthia. Get naked with her on the silver screen. This doesn't bother you?”

“I'll cover my eyes during that part of the movie,” she joked, with a little what-the-hell motion of her shoulders. Then her expression turned serious. “Of course, there's a fine line between hatred and passion. If you care for Cynthia, you need to tell me—now.”

He laid his hands on her shoulders, remembered the satiny smoothness of her bare skin. “I care for
you,
Meg McKettrick,” he said. “I tried hard—with Valerie, even with Cynthia—but it never worked. I was always thinking about you—reading about you in the business pages of newspapers, getting what news I could through my sisters, checking the McKettrickCo website. Whenever I read or heard your name, I got this sour ache in the pit of my stomach, because I was scared a wedding announcement would follow.”