A classic tale of cowboys staking claim to their land—and the women they love…

The only wide-open space Rance McKettrick wants to see in his future is his hometown in his rearview mirror. The down-to-earth ex-rancher is determined to make a fresh start with his two young daughters—and leave his heartbreaking loss and family’s corporation far behind. He sure doesn’t need Indian Rock’s free-spirited new bookstore owner, Echo Wells, confusing his choices…and raising memories he’d rather forget. But her straightforward honesty and reluctance to trust is challenging everything Rance thought he knew about himself. And when their irresistible attraction puts their hearts on the line, Rance and Echo must come to grips with who they really are in order to find a once-in-a-lifetime happiness.

Praise for the novels of #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Linda Lael Miller

“Linda Lael Miller creates vibrant characters and stories I defy you to forget.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Miller’s masterful ability to create living, breathing characters never flags, even in the case of Echo’s dog, Avalon; combined with a taut story line and vivid prose, Miller’s romance won’t disappoint.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on McKettrick’s Pride

“With sizzling, fairy-tale romance, tender tears, and a bit of magic, the pages of this book turn swiftly and leave us feeling a special joy mixed with sadness that we have to close the book at the end. McKettrick’s Pride is a Perfect 10 and a keeper!”

—Romance Reviews Today

“Once again, Miller has created a wonderful dynamic between two very different characters.”

—Armchairinterviews.com on McKettrick’s Pride

“The book incorporates humor with a nice caring look into family and getting over the past. It has its hot spots for sure, romance too, and makes you smile all the way through.”

—Bookloons.com on The Creed Legacy

“If you like cowboys, romance, and great adventure, then you’ll love Linda Lael Miller’s work!”

—Sharon Galligar Chance, Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews, on Creed’s Honor

“Bestselling author Linda Lael Miller delivers another Creed generation of hot, handsome men with hearts of gold in her new Creed trilogy…. No one can resist a rugged cowboy, and Linda Lael Miller is a brilliant genius when it comes to creating irresistible Westerners.”

—Single Titles on A Creed in Stone Creek

McKettrick’s Pride

Linda Lael Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

My Dear Readers,

First I brought you back to the Triple M ranch with Jesse McKettrick and Cheyenne in McKettrick’s Luck. Now, in McKettrick’s Pride, let’s go back and revisit Rance McKettrick and the mysterious new bookstore owner, Echo Wells. If ever there were two people who weren’t meant for each other…

Rance is stubborn, handsome, practical and every bit as proud as his ancestor Rafe McKettrick. A widower with two small daughters and a consuming interest in the family conglomerate, McKettrickCo, Rance is all business. Echo, on the other hand, is a dreamer, with a heart as big as Arizona itself. She rescues a stray dog, drives a hot-pink Volkswagen and secretly runs an online love-spell business. Folks around Indian Rock start feeling the heat right away!

And speaking of feeling the heat, you won’t want to miss out on the final tale featuring these McKettrick men. Be sure to look for Keegan and Molly’s story, McKettrick’s Heart, from HQN Books in May!

With love,

To Sally and Jim Lang, with love

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

THE DOG, FUR SOAKED, MATTED and muddy, sat forlornly on the rain-slicked pavement, next to Echo Wells’s custom-painted hot-pink Volkswagen bug. Echo, rushing from the truck-stop restaurant with the remains of her supper in a take-out box, in hopes of not getting too wet before she reached her car, stopped cold.

“I do not need a dog,” she told the universe, tilting back her head and letting the drizzle wash away the last tired traces of her makeup.

The dog whimpered. It was a large creature, of indeterminate color and breed. A slight indentation around its neck revealed that it had once worn a collar, and its ribs showed. One forepaw bore the brownish stain of old blood.

“Oh, hell,” Echo said. She glanced around the parking lot, empty except for a few semitrucks and an ancient RV, but there was no one in sight, no one conveniently searching for a missing pet.

The dog had obviously been on its own for days, if not weeks—or even months.

Just imagining the loneliness, fear and deprivation the poor thing must have experienced made Echo shudder and opened a gaping chasm of sympathy within her.

The canine wayfarer had either been dropped off—there was a special place in hell, in Echo’s opinion, for people who abandoned helpless animals—or it had gotten away somehow, while its owners were gassing up at the pumps or inside the restaurant having a meal.

“I just had this car detailed,” Echo told the dog. The bug was her only vanity, a reckless indulgence with psychological implications she didn’t care to examine too closely.

The animal whimpered again, and looked up at her with such sad hope in its soulful brown eyes that Echo’s heart melted all over again.

Resigned, she rounded the car and opened the passenger door with one hand, balancing the take-out box in the other. The dog slunk along with her, half crouched, limping a little.

“Go ahead,” she said gently. “Get in.”

The dog hesitated, then made the leap into the seat—mud, rainwater and all.

Echo sighed, opened the take-out box and stood in the rain, hand-feeding the animal the last of her meat loaf special. So much for staying within her travel budget by stretching every meal into at least two more.

Ravenous, the poor critter gulped down its supper and looked up at Echo with such pathetic gratitude that tears came into her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” she said, to herself as much as the dog. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She closed the car door, let the rain wash her hands clean, holding them out palms up as if in supplication, and rubbed them semidry on her ancient tan Burberry coat before settling behind the wheel once more.

The dog, dripping onto Echo’s formerly clean leather seat, eyed her with weary adoration.

Echo started the car, and the combination of wet dog and her own soggy raincoat instantly fogged up the windows.

“This is Arizona,” she complained to her new traveling companion. “It’s supposed to be dry.”

The dog sighed, as if to concur that nothing was as it should be.

“You really are wet,” Echo remarked matter-of-factly. She switched on the defroster, pulled the lever to open the trunk and braved the elements again to get out the quilt she’d carried around with her since childhood. After bundling the dog, she peeled off her raincoat and tossed it over the seat before getting back in the car and buckling up.

Cocooned in faded colors, the dog sighed again, lay down as best it could given the disparity between its size and that of the seat, and was snoring by the time Echo pulled out onto Highway 10.

Two and a half hours later, on the outskirts of Phoenix, she turned into the lot of a medium-priced chain hotel. The rain had stopped, and there was a muggy warmth in the night air.

The dog sat up, yawning, the quilt falling away in damp folds.

Echo assessed the creature again. “I was hoping to make it to Indian Rock tonight,” she told her bedraggled passenger, “but I’m tired and, frankly, you stink. So I’m going to spring for a room, and we’ll hit the road again in the morning. Wait here.”

The dog looked alarmed at the prospect of her departure, and made a low, whining sound in its throat.

Echo patted its filthy head. “Not to worry, Muttzo,” she said. “It’s you and me until we find your people.”

Grabbing her hobo bag, she got out of the car slowly, leaving a window cracked, and headed for the main entrance, hoping she didn’t smell like the dog.

“Good news,” she said when she returned after fifteen minutes, clutching a key card in hand. “We’re in.” The dog was so glad to see her that it leaned across and laved her face with its rough, meatloaf-scented tongue. “Of course, I did tell them you were a toy poodle.”

Echo drove around to the back and parked under a light. The dog politely paused to do its business in the shrubbery while Echo wrestled one of her suitcases out of the Volks. Inside, they slogged along a carpeted hallway to room 117 and entered.

“You get the first bath,” Echo told her canine friend, leading the way to the bathroom. As soon as she turned on the faucet in the tub, the dog leaped over the side and lapped thirstily at the flow.

The showerhead was on a long metal tube, one of those detachable jobs, so Echo took it down from its hook and knelt beside the tub. Finished slurping, the dog sat down, watching her, its eyes luminous with trust.

“What do you know?” Echo asked, after considerable spraying. Ten pounds of dirt rolled down to the bottom of the tub and swirled around the drain. “You’re a white Lab. And female, too.”

The dog gazed at her soulfully, enduring. One more trial in a long sequence of them.

Echo opened a tiny packet of soap and lathered the dog’s coat. Rinsed. Lathered again. The soap bar wore away to a nubbin, so she fetched a bottle of shampoo from her cosmetic bag.

More lathering. More rinsing.

“You need a name,” Echo said as she towel-dried the dog. “Since there’s something faintly mystical and Lady-of-the-Lakeish about you—it’s the eyes, I think—” She paused, pondered and decided. “I hereby dub you Avalon.”

Avalon, apparently understanding that the bath was over, leaped out of the tub and stood uncertainly on the mat for a few moments, as though awaiting a cue. When Echo didn’t issue any orders, the animal shook herself gloriously, dousing her human companion, and padded out into the main part of the hotel room.

Echo laughed, found the blow-dryer and plugged it into a wall socket. Avalon’s snow-white fur curled endearingly under the onslaught of heat. Once the dog was thoroughly dry, Echo filled the ice bucket with water, set it on the floor and dodged into the bathroom for a badly needed shower of her own.

When she came out, bundled in a robe, with her curly, shoulder-length blond hair standing out around her head like an aureole, Avalon had curled up on the floor, at the foot of the bed. The dog opened one brown eye and lifted her head slightly, and there was a certain stalwart wariness in her manner now, as if she expected to be chased away.

Echo’s throat tightened. She knew what it was like to feel that way, to hover on the fringes of things, hoping not to be noticed and, at the same time, yearning desperately to belong.

Her old life, in Chicago, had been all about waiting on the sidelines.

“Hey,” she said, crouching to stroke Avalon’s soft, gleaming coat. “I’m a woman of my word. We’ll stick together, as long as necessary. Share and share alike.” She put out her hand and, to her surprise, Avalon placed a paw in her palm. They shook on the deal.

After blow-drying her hair and winding it into a French braid to keep it from frizzing out, Echo pulled on a cotton nightshirt, brushed her teeth and climbed into bed, leaning to switch off the bedside lamp.

Avalon gave a soft, pitiful whine, as though she were crying.

Echo’s eyes burned again. “Come on, then,” she said. “There’s room enough up here for both of us.”

Avalon jumped onto the bed, nested at Echo’s feet and fell asleep.

Echo, exhausted after days on the road, wasn’t far behind.

CORA TELLINGTON GREETED HER granddaughters, Rianna and Maeve, with exuberant hugs, on the sidewalk in front of Cora’s Curl and Twirl. The day was new-penny bright, and the only cloud on the horizon was the scowl on her son-in-law’s face as he got out of the gigantic SUV he drove whenever he came back to Indian Rock.

Rance McKettrick eyed the storefront next to Cora’s combination beauty salon and baton-twirling school, apparently noting that the For Sale sign was gone from the dusty display window.

“Finally unloaded the place, did you?” he asked. “Who’s the sucker?”

Cora took in her late daughter’s handsome husband with a patient sigh. He stood six feet tall, and even in that expensive suit he was wearing, he managed to look like a rugged cowboy, just off the range. His hair was dark—Cora’s fingers itched to give it a trim—and his blue eyes were dusky with his private sorrow. Since Julie’s death, nearly five years ago now, though it didn’t seem possible she’d been gone that long, Rance had been living a half life, going through the motions. Phoning it in.

Cora missed Julie as much as he did, if not more, because there are few losses more poignantly painful than burying one’s only child, but she’d come to terms with the grief for the sake of her granddaughters. They were so young, only six and ten, and they needed her. Of course, they needed Rance, too, and he loved them, in his own harried, distracted way, but he seemed to be able to push them onto an emotional back burner whenever he went away on business—which was all too often.

“It’s going to be a bookstore,” Cora said of the storefront, as the girls rushed into her shop to raid the candy jar on the counter and be greeted by Cora’s three employees, who always fawned over them. “This town needs one of those.”

Rance assessed the place, looking skeptical. “It’s going to take a lot of work,” he warned. “And things are tough for independent bookstores these days. Everybody shops at big-box chains or online.”

Cora ignored that. “I got a decent price,” she said, studying him, with her hands on her still-slender hips. Thanks to years of baton twirling, Cora was still petite, even in her sixties, and she liked to dress flashy; hence her stylish jeans, silk blouse and rhinestone-trimmed denim vest. She changed the color of her hair often; that week, it was auburn, and pinned up into a do reminiscent of a Gibson girl’s. “What’s going on, Rance? You look like a thunderhead, rolling over the horizon and fixing to drop a shitload of rain.”

Rance sighed, continuing to stand on the sidewalk, and for a moment, Cora felt sorry for him, even though she wanted to snatch him bald-headed most of the time, out of pure frustration.

“I was wondering if you could keep Rianna and Maeve for a few days,” he said, having a hard time meeting her eyes. “There’s a big meeting in San Antonio, at the head office. Even Jesse’s going, which ought to tell you that it’s critical.”

McKettrickCo, the conglomerate that had made Rance’s family rich, along with the largesse from their legendary Triple M Ranch, was on the verge of going public. There was a lot of dissension among the McKettricks over the move, and if they were converging on San Antonio, Cora realized, the meeting was indeed big. Jesse, Rance’s cousin, was notoriously indifferent to company operations, but maybe now that he was planning to marry up with that Bridges girl, he’d decided to become more responsible.

To Cora’s way of thinking, Rance and his other cousin, Keegan, would have been better off to adopt Jesse’s original attitude—cash the dividend checks and celebrate every new sunrise.

“Rance,” Cora said carefully, “Rianna’s birthday is coming up on Saturday. She was counting on a party. And Maeve’s getting her braces on bright and early Monday morning, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Cora,” Rance replied, looking grave and a little guilty, “this is important.”

“Rianna and Maeve,” Cora countered, “are more important.”

“We’re talking about their future,” Rance argued, keeping his tone low. Folks were passing on the street, so he spared a rigid smile or two, but his overall expression went from grave to grim.

“Come on,” Cora jibed. “They’ve already got trust funds that would choke a mule.” She leaned in a little, to make her point. “What they need is a father.”

Rance bristled, as Cora could have predicted he’d do. “They’ve got one,” he growled.

“Do they?” Cora asked. “Jesse pays more attention to them than you do. He’s the one who came to their baton recital last week, when you were in Hong Kong or Paris or wherever the hell you were.”

“Do we have to have this conversation on the goddamned sidewalk?” Rance demanded, in a furious undertone.

“We’re not having it inside, where your daughters can hear.”

Rance spread his hands. “Rianna and Maeve are okay with this,” he insisted. “We can reschedule the orthodontic thing, and Sierra’s going to throw a little do for Rianna’s birthday, on the ranch.”

Cora folded her arms. She didn’t like playing her trump card, but she was about to, because Rance McKettrick needed to wake the heck up and get it through his hard head that his girls were growing up. He couldn’t keep on treating them like appointments to be shifted around to suit his crazy schedule. “What do you think Julie would say if she could see what’s happened to her children, Rance? And to you?”

For a moment, he looked as though she’d struck him. Then he shoved one of his big rancher’s hands through his hair and huffed out an exasperated breath. “Damn it, Cora, that was below the belt!”

“Call it whatever you want,” Cora replied, hurting for him and determined not to let it show. “You and those little girls meant more to Julie than anyone or anything on earth. She gave up a career to make a home for all of you, out there on the Triple M, and now you treat the place like a hotel with express checkout!”

Rance was silent for a long time.

Cora waited it out, holding her breath.

“Will you look after Rianna and Maeve or not?” Rance finally asked.

Bitter disappointment swept through Cora like a harsh wind scouring a lonely canyon, even though she’d expected the conversation to end just this way. After all, it always did.

“You know I will,” she said.

Rance took a conciliatory step toward her—raised his hands as if to lay them on her shoulders—then decided against the gesture and stood his ground. “I didn’t pack any of their things,” he said. “I figured you might want to stay in the ranch house, instead of here in town.”

“You wouldn’t know where any of their things were,” Cora told him, defeated. Julie, Julie, she thought. I try, but this man of yours is a McKettrick, and that means he’s bone-stubborn. Might as well try to move one of these mesas as change his mind. “You do what you’ve got to do. I’ll take care of Rianna and Maeve.”

“I appreciate it,” Rance said, and Cora knew he was sincere. Trouble was, sincere fell a long way short of enough.

FEELING AS THOUGH HE’D JUST been dragged bare-ass naked over ten miles of bad road, Rance watched as his mother-in-law sashayed into the Curl and Twirl and slammed the door behind her. Squeezing the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger in hopes of circumventing another tension headache, he turned and stepped off the curb just as a Pepto-Bismol-pink Volkswagen whizzed into the next parking space and nearly took off all ten of his toes.

It was a relief to have somewhere to focus his irritation.

“What the hell…?” he rasped, and stormed around to the driver’s side of that bug, intending to open a can of verbal whup-ass on whoever was at the wheel.

The window went down, and a blonde with wide-set hazel eyes and a braid blinked up at him, cheeks flushing pink.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Rance leaned to glare in at her. A white dog, buckled into the seat belt on the passenger side, growled an eloquent warning. “I don’t know where you come from, lady,” Rance said, “but around here, people don’t expect to get maimed for life trying to get into their own cars.”

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.

She probably read tarot cards and danced naked under the moon.

He smiled a little. Not an entirely unpleasant thought, if you left out the tarot cards.

“I don’t give a damn what it costs to keep a jet idling on a runway,” he told Keegan, settling into one of the plush leather seats and buckling up. “I’m rich, remember?”

“What else is new?” Jesse asked, and he seemed a little wistful as he turned to look out the plane window. Probably missing his lady, Rance reflected, with an utter lack of sympathy.

“Well,” Rance said, as the pilot appeared in the doorway of the cockpit, looking for a nod to take off, which Keegan promptly gave, “I’ll tell you what’s new, cousin. A hippie woman bought the shop next to Cora’s. She drives a neon-pink car and wears sneakers to match.”

Both Jesse and Keegan looked at him with interest, Keegan frowning, Jesse smiling a little.

“I like my women a little broad in the beam,” Jesse said.

“Oh, right,” Keegan countered irritably. Somebody had sure pissed on his parade that morning. It pleased Rance to think it might have been him. “Like Cheyenne. The woman has a body that won’t quit.”

The engines revved, and the jet taxied down the strip, picking up speed.

Jesse grinned. “Eat your heart out,” he said.

“You do need a woman,” Rance told Keegan. “A little nookie might mellow you out.”

Keegan glowered. “The kind you’re getting?” he retorted.

“Boys, boys,” Jesse put in, grinning that Jesse-grin that often made Rance want to put a fist down his throat, “you’ve both got perpetual hard-ons. That’s your problem.”

Both Rance and Keegan glared at Jesse.

He laughed.

“I do not have a hard-on,” Keegan said.

“Not where it shows,” Jesse countered.

Rance’s thoughts strayed back to Echo, and he started imagining what might be under that soft, almost see-through dress of hers.

He shifted in the seat and crossed his legs.

“This meeting had better be good,” he said, desperate to change the subject, along with his developing thought trend. “I’m missing Rianna’s birthday for it.”

“Tell me you remembered to get her a present,” Jesse said. He looked serious now, and Rance recalled what Cora had said, about how Jesse paid more attention to the girls than he did, and it rankled.

“Of course I did,” he lied. He’d call Myrna Terp, back in the Indian Rock office, first chance he got, and ask her to order something, have it delivered in time for the party at Sierra and Travis’s place, out on the ranch. A pony, maybe. Or one of those kid-size cars that ran on a battery pack.

Preferably pink.

He felt better, and unaccountably disturbed.

He’d never bought anything pink in his life.

“How’s Devon?” Jesse asked, turning to Keegan. Devon was Keegan’s ten-year-old daughter, and since the divorce, he didn’t see much of her. She lived in Flagstaff, with the ex, who was threatening to move to Europe with a boyfriend and take the kid with her.

Rance ached a little, thinking what that would be like.

Keegan let out a long sigh, and his broad shoulders, a McKettrick family trait, seemed to sag a little. He shoved a hand through his chestnut-colored hair and gazed down at the tastefully carpeted floor of the jet.

“Travis is picking her up Saturday afternoon, so she can go to Rianna’s party,” Keegan answered, and when he looked up, his face was glum. Travis, now their cousin Sierra’s husband, was a lawyer for McKettrickCo and a childhood friend to all of them, though he was closest to Jesse. “Do you ever wonder if it’s worth it, missing all the stuff we do?” Keegan asked.

“Duh,” Jesse said. He’d never held down a real job in his life. He was a trust fund baby, like the rest of the McKettrick men, and up until he’d run into Cheyenne Bridges again, he’d spent most of his time playing Texas Hold ’Em, chasing women and riding horses. Keegan and Rance had worked since they graduated from college, because it seemed like the right and responsible thing to do. Still, Rance sometimes wondered if Jesse didn’t have the best of it, and he suspected that Keegan asked himself the same question he’d just voiced, in the dark hours of a lonely night.

“Cora gave me hell for leaving,” Rance admitted. “There’s Rianna’s birthday, and Maeve was supposed to get braces put on her teeth on Monday morning.” He paused, shook his head. “I can see why missing the party is a problem, but I’ll be damned if I understand why I ought to be in the orthodontist’s office instead of my own.”

Jesse shook his head. “Because,” he said, “kids are scared of dentists.”

“Maeve isn’t scared of anything,” Rance replied, with some pride.

“That’s what you think,” Jesse said.

Rance studied him, alarmed. “Is there something going on with my daughter that I ought to know about?” he asked, putting a slight emphasis on the words my daughter.

“Why don’t you ask her?” Jesse replied.

“Listen, if she told you something was troubling her, I want to know about it.”

“Do you?” Jesse asked.

“Hell, yes, I do!”

Jesse relented. “You missed her recital. Everybody else’s dad was there—except you.”

“I’ve watched that kid twirl batons for hours on end,” Rance protested. “That’s about all she ever does.”

“Not the same,” Jesse argued coolly. “She had a special outfit for the shindig, and she won a ribbon. She wanted you there, Rance.”

“Well, you were obviously there,” Rance growled.

Jesse nodded, showing no signs of backing down. “Cheyenne and I both went. Took her and Rianna to the Roadhouse afterward, for ice cream. Do you know what the worst part was, Rance? Watching that kid try to pretend it didn’t matter that you couldn’t be bothered to show up.”

The pressurized air seemed to crackle.

“Hold it, both of you,” Keegan said.

“I don’t need some poker-playing, bronc-riding womanizer telling me how to raise my daughter,” Rance bit out.

“You sure as hell need somebody,” Jesse replied, “because you’re not getting it on your own.”

“Enough,” Keegan insisted. “We’re on a jet, not out behind the barn.”

Rance sighed angrily and thrust himself back in his seat.

Jesse turned to look out the window again.

They were landing outside San Antonio before anybody said another word.

ON SATURDAY MORNING, three days after her daddy had left town with her uncles, Keegan and Jesse, Rianna McKettrick opened her eyes and lay very still in her twin-size canopy bed at Granny’s place on Zane Gray Road.

In the bed across from hers, Maeve went on sleeping, breathing softly.

“I’m seven,” Rianna wanted to say, right out loud. “Last night, when I went to bed, I was only six. Now, this morning, I’m seven.”

It seemed a wonderful thing, a thing people ought to be told.

She knew Maeve would just roll her eyes and look at her like she was stupid. It made Rianna sad. The bigger Maeve got, the less she seemed to like her little sister, and try though she might, Rianna couldn’t catch up.

It took some of the fun out of being seven.

With a sigh, she sat up, tossed back her covers and slid out of bed. She padded into the bathroom she and Maeve shared when they were at Granny’s, which was just about all the time. She’d heard her daddy say that they all ought to stay out at the ranch house, but Granny didn’t like to be that far from the Curl and Twirl.

Granny was a businesswoman. She had things to do.

All grown-up people did, it seemed to Rianna. All the time.

She washed her hands and headed for the stairs.

Granny would be down there in the kitchen, listening to the radio and waiting for the coffee to brew. Rianna could smell the familiar aroma already, and that made her sad, too. It reminded her of her daddy. The first thing he did, every morning when they were at home on the ranch, was make coffee.

Last night, after Granny had tucked her and Maeve in, listened to their prayers and left the room, Rianna had whispered to her sister that she thought Daddy might come to the party, after all. He had that jet to travel in, didn’t he?

“Forget it,” Maeve had said. “He won’t be there. He’s busy.”

Remembering, Rianna paused on the stairway, doing her McKettrick-best not to cry. She wished she had a mommy, like the other kids at school.

She thought of Echo—Miss Wells, Granny said to call her—with her sparkly smile and pretty hair. It would be a fine thing to have a mother like Miss Wells, driving a pink Barbie car, pulling up in front of the elementary school and waiting to see Rianna and Maeve come out the door. Taping their drawings and arithmetic papers to the front of the fridge.

Rianna’s throat ached, and her eyes burned so bad she couldn’t see for a moment.

“Rianna, honey?” It was Granny, standing at the bottom of the stairs with the newspaper in one hand, looking up at her. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

Rianna swallowed hard, summoned up a smile and went the rest of the way down the steps. “I’m seven,” she announced.

Granny smiled, leaned down and kissed the top of her head. Patted her lightly on one shoulder. “You surely are,” she agreed. “You’re getting to be such a big girl.”

“Maeve says I’m a dweeb,” Rianna confided solemnly.

Granny bent a little more and hugged her tight. She smelled of lilacs, just like always. “Don’t you pay too much attention to the things Maeve says,” Granny told her. “She’s growing up, just like you are, and sometimes that’s hard. It makes a person crabby.”

“Was my mommy ever crabby when she was growing up?” Rianna, unlike Maeve, had no memory of her mother. She wished she had, because then there might not have been a big hole opening up in the middle of her chest when she saw moms hugging their little girls, gathering them up like chicks, loading them into minivans.

Granny’s face softened. “Oh, yes,” she answered, and her voice sounded kind of funny, like she’d swallowed something and couldn’t quite get it to go all the way down. “Sometimes she was. Mostly, though, she was happy. She was smart and beautiful, too, just like you and Maeve.”

Rianna had heard those things before, many times, but she never got tired of listening. “How come Daddy isn’t happy?” she asked.

Granny’s face changed again, but it was different from before. It made Rianna wish she hadn’t asked. Maybe Maeve was right. Maybe she asked too many questions. But how else was she supposed to find things out? It wasn’t as if people told a kid anything much—beyond “Brush your teeth” and “Do your homework—” without a lot of prodding.

“He works too hard,” Granny said. “And he misses your mama something fierce.”

“I miss her, too,” Rianna said. Maeve might have mocked her, said she couldn’t miss Mommy because she’d been too young when she died, but Granny seemed to understand.

“She’d want you to have a real happy birthday,” Granny said.

Maeve appeared at the top of the stairs, still in her pajamas, rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand. She yawned. “Is breakfast ready?”

“I’m seven,” Rianna burst out, unable to contain the stupendous news.

“Big deal,” Maeve said.

“Maeve McKettrick,” Granny scolded, “if you’re going to be snotty, go back to bed.” She turned to Rianna again and smiled. “Meanwhile,” she went on, “there just might be a pile of presents waiting for you in the kitchen.”

Rianna’s spirits rose. She liked presents.

Maeve came grudgingly down the stairs.

“You think you’re a teenager,” Rianna whispered, waiting until Granny went on into the kitchen, to pay Maeve back a little for thinking it wasn’t important to be seven. For one thing, Rianna reasoned, it was the only way to get from six to eight. “Just because you’re getting braces.”

“At least I’m not a baby,” Maeve sniffed. “Like you.”

Rianna clenched her fists at her sides. “I’m not a baby!”

Granny doubled back. She said she had eyes in the back of her head, and sometimes Rianna believed her. Imagined them peering out through the hard-sprayed fluff of hair.

“That will be quite enough,” Granny said. “This is a beautiful day, and we’re all going to be nice to one another.”

There was a big stack of presents by Rianna’s plate, all of them tied up with ribbon, and that took her mind off mean Maeve calling her a baby. She wondered out loud if any of them were from her daddy.

Granny’s mouth pulled in tight again, but only for a second. “He had something sent to the ranch,” she said. “Myrna Terp called me and told me so.”

Mrs. Terp worked at McKettrickCo, and always slipped Maeve and Rianna cookies and hard candy in little twisty wrappers when they visited, while their daddy pretended not to notice.

“I hope it’s a dog,” Rianna said.

“As if,” Maeve said.

“Maeve,” Granny finished.

Maeve rolled her eyes. She did that a lot. Rianna figured one of these days they’d pop right out of her head, like in a cartoon, and roll around on the floor.

“Maybe it’s a mommy,” Rianna said.

“You can’t buy a mother, stupid,” Maeve answered, but at another look from Granny, she bit her lower lip, pulled back a chair at the table and sank into it hard.

“Land sakes, Maeve,” Granny muttered, “I can hardly wait until you’re sixteen.” She didn’t sound like she meant it, though. That was another thing about grown-ups; they were always saying one thing when they meant something else entirely.

Rianna inspected the present on top of the pile. “Can I open it?”

“Eat your breakfast first,” Granny said. She dished up Rianna’s favorite, French toast, with blueberries and whipped cream on top. There was milk, too, and orange juice. Rianna was afraid she’d be eight before she got to open her presents.

After breakfast, she ripped in.

A coloring book.

A small plastic pony with a lavender mane and tail.

“That’s from me,” Maeve said.

There was some Barbie stuff from Granny and, finally, a gold locket in a red velvet box.

Rianna drew in her breath. Maeve had gotten one just like it when she turned ten. Rianna had thought she’d have to wait three more years to be grown up enough to wear anything but plastic pop beads.

Her fingers were shaky as she opened the tiny heart. Her mommy’s picture was inside, and there was one of her daddy, too. Both of them were smiling.

Rianna scrunched up her face, trying to remember the pretty woman in the photo, wishing she’d come to life, like pictures did in the Harry Potter movies, and say, “Happy birthday, Rianna.”

Or maybe, “I love you.”

“You’d better not lose that,” Maeve said.

Granny gave Maeve another look, helped Rianna get the necklace out of the box and fastened it around her neck, even though she was still wearing her pajamas.

The thin gold chain glittered magically as Rianna looked down at it.

Granny sniffled and turned away, standing at the sink for a long time.

“She misses Mom,” Maeve confided in a whisper.

So do I, Rianna wanted to say, but she knew she’d get shot down, so she didn’t.

Maeve patted her hand. Smiled like the old Maeve, the one who’d liked her. “Happy birthday, kid,” she said.

THE SHOP WAS COMING together nicely.

Echo and Avalon were outside, on the sidewalk, admiring the gold lettering on the display window—Echo’s Books and Gifts—when Cora pulled up in her old pickup truck. Rianna and Maeve tumbled out of the passenger-side door almost before their grandmother got the vehicle stopped.

“Look!” Rianna crowed, practically dancing in her delight. “I’ve got a locket, and my mommy’s picture is inside it!”

Echo smiled, attributing the slight sting she felt, just behind her heart, to missing her own mother, who had died, along with her father, when she was four. She’d been raised by an aunt and uncle who had three children of their own, didn’t need the irritation of an extra one, and frequently said so.

“Let’s see,” she said softly.

Proudly, Rianna opened the locket.

Echo bent to look.

Rance, a few years younger, heart-stoppingly handsome, and plainly happy. The woman in the adjoining photo had chin-length brown hair with a touch of red, a mischievous smile and large, expressive eyes.

“That’s my mommy,” Rianna explained reverently.

Echo nodded. “She’s very pretty. And you look just like her.” She raised her eyes, took in both Rianna and Maeve.

“I think we look more like Dad,” Maeve said.

“Well, you do resemble him, too,” Echo told her, exchanging glances with Cora.

“Did your furniture ever come?” Rianna asked.

Echo nodded. “Yesterday,” she said. “Avalon likes the air bed, so she slept on that.”

“You still don’t have any books,” Maeve remarked, approaching the display window. Avalon followed, licked the child’s hand tentatively.

“Next week,” Echo told her. “In the meantime, I’ve got a handyman coming to put up new shelves.”

“You girls come on inside now and don’t bother Miss Wells,” Cora said, sounding distracted. It was only eight-thirty, but the Curl and Twirl was already full.

Obediently, Rianna and Maeve went into their grandmother’s shop.

Cora lingered, looking a little flustered. “I didn’t mean to sound abrupt,” she said. “It’s just that, well, days like this, I miss Julie—that’s my daughter—even more than usual.”

Echo nodded. “Birthdays and holidays are harder,” she said quietly.

Cora brightened, making a visible effort. “It helps to keep busy,” she said. She gave an anxious little laugh. “Tell me I remembered to invite you to the party tonight,” she pleaded. “It’s on the ranch, at Travis and Sierra’s place.” Cora had already explained, during other sidewalk visits, that Sierra was Rance’s cousin and Travis was her husband. Travis had grown up with Rance, Jesse and Keegan, but Sierra was a relative newcomer to the family.

“You did,” Echo said. “And I told you I thought I’d be intruding.”

“Nonsense,” Cora said. “How else are you going to get to know people if you don’t come to parties? You can bring the dog, too, if you don’t mind letting her ride in the back of my truck. You could squeeze in up front with the girls and me.”

“I guess I could follow in my car,” Echo said. Cora was right. She was opening a business in Indian Rock, and she would have to get over her shyness and be a part of the community if she wanted this new chapter of her life to be a successful one.

Cora gave an approving nod. “We’ll leave here around six o’clock,” she said. Then she opened the door of the Curl and Twirl and vanished inside.

Echo ran damp palms down the thighs of her jeans. Rance wouldn’t be at the party, she reminded herself, and there was no reason to believe the rest of the McKettrick tribe wasn’t nice. Rianna and Maeve were sweet, and Cora was proving to be a good friend.

“We can do this,” she said.

Avalon cocked her head to one side, perked up her ears and let her tongue loll, looking just like the digital picture Echo had taken the day before and posted to every lost-pet Web site she could find.

All of a sudden, Echo wanted to break down and cry, right there on the sidewalk. Because little girls lost their mothers. Because their fathers were too busy to attend birthday parties. Because maybe no one cared enough about this dog to search the Internet and then come to take her home, and because someone might do just exactly that.

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN AVALON STAUNCHLY refused to get into the Volkswagen that evening at six sharp, Echo led the way back into the shop and up the stairs to her apartment on the second floor. Cora and the girls, about to drive off in Cora’s pickup truck, trailed after them.

With a sigh, Avalon settled onto the air mattress she’d appropriated after the furniture arrived, scorning Echo’s brass bed, an estate-sale find she prized very highly.

“Do you think she’s sick?” Echo asked worriedly, turning to Cora.

Cora smiled, approached the dog and crouched, gently patting the dog’s belly. “No,” she answered. “I think she’s pregnant.”

“You mean she’s going to have puppies?” Rianna cried exuberantly, before Echo could present the same question—not so exuberantly.

“What else would she have, dingbat?” Maeve asked her sister.

“Puppies?” Echo repeated.

Cora straightened, smiling. She looked festive in her red jeans, matching boots and silk shirt, causing Echo to wonder, even in the midst of rising panic, if her soft blue broomstick skirt-sweater combo and open-toed sandals were the proper attire for a party on a ranch.

“I’m no veterinarian,” Cora replied, “but I’ll stand by my diagnosis just the same.”

“Yikes,” Echo said.

Cora bent and gave Avalon a long, affectionate stroke with one hand. “You just rest, girl,” she told the animal. “I promise we won’t keep your mistress out late.”

“Shouldn’t I take her to an emergency clinic or something?” Echo fretted.

Cora chuckled. “No,” she said. “She’s not in any apparent distress. Just a case of the oogies, I figure.” She smiled fondly down at Avalon. “Right, girl?”

Avalon sighed, rested her muzzle on her forepaws and closed her eyes.

Meanwhile, Cora linked arms with Echo. “Come along, now,” she urged. “You’re all dressed up and you’ve got someplace to go. Avalon will be just fine.”

“Puppies,” Echo reiterated, but she let herself be pulled out of the apartment and down the stairs, casting anxious glances backward every few steps.

“That’s life for you,” Cora said, out on the sidewalk again, watching as Echo fumbled to lock up the shop. “Do you want to ride with us?”

“I’ll take my own car,” Echo decided. Cora’s truck would be crowded with her stuffed in there. Besides, she’d probably want to leave early. “I’ll follow you.”

Cora nodded, ushered the girls into the pickup and climbed aboard herself.

Echo, offering a silent prayer that Avalon would be okay in her absence, pulled out behind Cora and followed her the length of Main Street, then onto a series of country roads. After about fifteen minutes of travel, they passed beneath a huge, old-fashioned sign marking the entrance to the Triple M Ranch.

Echo knew little about the spread, just the basic facts she’d been able to scrounge up on the Internet, but passing under that arched wooden sign felt like slipping through a wrinkle in time.

The Triple M was the fourth largest ranch in the United States, and it had been founded by one Angus McKettrick, in the nineteenth century. Once primarily a cattle operation, the place was now dedicated to historical preservation. The family fortune, apparently considerable, was generated by McKettrickCo, an international corporation. Four houses remained from Wild West days, including the main ranch house, which Angus had built with his own hands, along with the original barns and other outbuildings.

Barreling along in a cloud of dust from Cora’s pickup, Echo simultaneously worried about her dog and wondered what it would be like to be part of something as vast as the Triple M. According to her brief research, McKettricks had been living on this land for well in excess of a century. Echo, who had never lived in one place for more than a few years, could barely imagine having roots in a piece of ground that had seen so many generations come and go.

Presently, after many twists and turns, one of the ranch houses came into sight, a huge, sturdy wooden structure as at home on the land as a venerable oak or ancient ponderosa pine.

Children and dogs chased one another noisily across an expansive front yard, and colored lanterns hung from virtually every tree limb in sight, glowing red and yellow and blue, even though it was still daylight.

There were cars and trucks slant-parked at every possible angle.

Feeling self-conscious amid such practical, well-used vehicles, Echo found a place to tuck her pink bug, gathered her forces and got out. She reached behind the seat for the large stuffed pony she’d bought at the drugstore in town, as a birthday gift for Rianna.

While the girls ran ahead to join the festivities, Cora wended her way from her own distant parking spot to walk with Echo. From the other woman’s expression, Echo gathered she’d half expected Indian Rock’s newest arrival to bolt for town without saying howdy to anybody.

Since she’d been tempted to do exactly that, Echo blushed slightly and bit her lower lip.

“They’re all good people,” Cora assured her. Evidently, mind reading numbered among her other skills, like fixing hair and teaching little girls to twirl batons. “If that pony’s for Rianna, you picked a real winner. She’ll love it.”

Echo straightened the big red bow tied around the toy’s middle. She’d done that herself, in lieu of wrapping paper. “I’m never going to remember everyone’s name,” she confided. Despite the public nature of her job at the museum in Chicago, and the similar ones that had preceded it, she was naturally something of a loner.

“Not to worry,” Cora assured her. “It takes time to get to know folks. Showing up, that’s the important thing.”

“Half the town must be here,” Echo observed as she and Cora walked toward the house.

“Everybody except Rance McKettrick,” Cora said ruefully.

Sadness whispered against Echo’s heart, made it quiver slightly. She didn’t speak, because she had no right to offer an opinion, though she certainly had one.

“My Julie would give that man what-for if she could,” Cora added, before putting on a party smile and marching into the happy fray.

Echo had little choice but to go along, since Cora had once again hooked an arm through hers.

A tall woman with short, shining brown hair and thoughtful blue eyes approached, smiling. Cora introduced her as Sierra McKettrick, Rance’s cousin.

“She’s descended from Holt and Lorelei,” Cora informed Echo.

Seeing that Echo was at a loss, Sierra smiled warmly. “We McKettricks are big on family trees,” she explained. “Holt was the firstborn son of Angus, the patriarch. Lorelei was Holt’s wife. The house was theirs.”

Echo nodded, struck, once again, by a poignant sense of history.

“Echo owns the new bookstore next to my place,” Cora told Sierra.

“The whole town’s waiting for your shop to open,” Sierra said, eyes twinkling. “I’ll certainly be a regular customer.”

Echo thanked her, and Sierra moved away, graciously greeting other guests. After placing the beribboned pony with a mountain of gaily wrapped gifts, she did her best to mingle. Cora came and went, making occasional introductions, bringing her a glass of punch, tacitly encouraging her to work the crowd.

Echo smiled a lot, scrambling to link names with faces, and soon lost track. Sitting on the porch steps, taking a social breather, she watched as Travis Reid, Sierra’s husband, strung an enormous piñata from a tree branch. Rianna and Maeve and a bevy of young friends and cousins waited eagerly below, while the adults looked on, enjoying the scene.

Cora plopped down beside Echo with a little sigh.

“Lordy,” she said, “I’m getting old.”

“Never,” Echo replied.

Rianna, being the birthday girl, was to have the first whack at the piñata, now suspended by a rope. Travis tossed the other end to a handsome young man in a wheelchair, who caught it ably.

Sticks were handed out to all the children, who waited, anxiously polite, while Rianna swung, giggling, at the bobbing piñata.

A free-for-all followed, and the plaster bird, covered in colorful crepe-paper feathers, finally burst. Candy and small toys rained down, and the kids scrambled for their share of the booty.

It was a golden, glimmering keepsake of a moment, one Echo tucked away in a quiet corner of her heart.

A distant flapping sound distracted her, though, and everyone else at the party. As it drew nearer, they all looked up, shading their eyes against the last of the daylight.

“I’ll be darned,” Cora breathed, a smile breaking over her face, as a helicopter hovered above the field sloping away from the barn, setting the deep grass rippling in waves of green.

“They invited the president?” Echo asked, only half joking.

“Better than that,” Cora said, getting to her feet and dusting off the back of her jeans. “That’s Rance, unless I miss my guess, come to do right by his little girl!”

Echo caught her breath.

Adults restrained children wanting to dash across the field to the helicopter as it landed.

The blades blurred, then slowed.

The door of the copter swung open and, sure enough, out spilled Rance McKettrick like a conquering hero. Stooping until he was clear of the updraft, he grinned as Rianna climbed between two rails of the fence and ran toward him.

He wore jeans, a white shirt open at the throat, and a brown leather jacket that had seen better days, and the vision of him scooping up his young daughter and spinning her around and around in his arms imprinted itself on Echo’s memory like a living photograph.

“Just when I’m ready to wring his fool neck,” Cora marveled, with a hint of tears in her voice, “he comes through.”

Two other men got out of the helicopter, grinning. Another child broke free of the crowd and dashed to meet one of them.

“The blond one’s Jesse,” Cora explained, “and the other is Keegan. That’s Keegan’s daughter, Devon, hugging his neck.” She paused, smiling and shaking her head. “These McKettricks sure do know how to make an entrance.”

While Echo was glad, for Rianna’s sake, that Rance had arrived in time for the party, she was also strangely unsettled by his presence.

It wasn’t just that they’d had words the day she’d arrived—that had been a silly misunderstanding, the kind of thing reasonable adults quickly forget. No, it was the way he made her feel—suddenly and wildly disoriented, as though he’d breached her innermost boundaries, blithely unaware that he was trespassing.

“I think I’ll go back to town and check on Avalon,” she said to Cora, but she was staring at Rance as he hoisted Rianna over the fence, then climbed nimbly over after her.

Cora clasped her hand. “You stay right here,” she said.

It wasn’t as if she could move, anyway. Echo stayed put.

Rance swung Rianna up onto his shoulders, while Maeve walked alongside, beaming up at her dad. He reached out, put an arm around Maeve’s shoulders and pulled her close.

Jesse and Keegan followed, Devon leaping fawnlike at Keegan’s side.

A beautiful dark-haired woman threw her arms around Jesse’s neck as soon as he’d cleared the fence.

“That’s Cheyenne Bridges,” Cora said, ever helpful. “She and Jesse are getting married next month, up on the ridge.”

Echo watched as Jesse and Cheyenne kissed, feeling peculiarly alone, like the sole survivor of a shipwreck riding in a rapidly sinking lifeboat.

She was so caught up in the romantic exchange that she didn’t register Rance’s approach until he was standing directly in front of her. Lifting Rianna down from his shoulders, he grinned.

Out of all the people at that party, he had to walk right up to her?

“Hello, Echo Wells,” he said.

She swallowed. “That was quite an entrance,” she remarked, stealing Cora’s line because nothing else came to mind.

The grin widened.

Echo wondered helplessly if it was registered somewhere, that smile, as a lethal weapon and an unfair advantage of cosmic significance.

“The jet could only bring us as far as Flagstaff,” he told her. “We chartered the helicopter there.”

Echo, still recovering from the grin, floundered in choppy conversational seas. “Impressive,” she said, because it was impressive, watching a copter land in a field during a little girl’s birthday party.

Rance’s face changed almost imperceptibly.

Rianna tugged at his hand. “It’s time for birthday cake, Daddy!” she chimed. “It’s time to blow out my candles and open my presents!”

Rance nodded, but the expression in his eyes was still serious, and a little perplexed. “You go ahead,” he told the child. “I’ll catch up.”

Rianna hurried away, toward the cake and the presents, skipping as she went.

“I live to impress you, Ms. Wells,” Rance said icily.

“I didn’t mean—”

He walked away.

“Numbskull,” Cora put in.

Echo, having forgotten all about Cora, turned to her with a questioning look.

“Him, not you,” Cora said, putting one arm around Echo’s shoulders and giving her a squeeze. “Come on. Let’s get some of that cake.”

Echo wanted nothing so much as to go home to her little apartment above the bookstore, and her dog. There, she could brew herself a cup of tea and put Rance McKettrick right out of her mind.

Alas, Cora wasn’t about to let her leave and, besides, she didn’t want to give Rance the satisfaction of sending her scuttling for cover. Assuming he’d notice her absence in the first place, which didn’t seem very likely.

“IS THAT HER?” KEEGAN ASKED, holding a plate of cake in one hand and a glass of punch in the other. “The woman who bought that storefront next to Cora’s shop?”

Rance followed his cousin’s gaze to where Echo stood, chatting with Cheyenne. His jaw tightened and he wanted to sigh, but he didn’t, because Keegan might read things into that that just weren’t there.

Or shouldn’t be.

“That’s her.”

Keegan grinned. “She’s easy on the eyes,” he said.

“Forget it,” Rance replied, too quickly. “She’s one of those New Age types. Drives a pink car.”

Keegan’s gaze sliced straight to his cousin’s face. “Oh, well, then. A pink car? That changes everything.”

Rance rubbed his chin. He hadn’t taken time to shave before catching the jet to Flagstaff, and he was getting a stubble. “Not your type,” he said, still watching Echo. She looked like a fairy princess, straight out of a storybook, with her hair pinned up and wispy around her neck, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d whipped out a wand with a twinkling star on one end. “That’s all I meant.”

“Not my type—or not yours?” Keegan asked.

Rance shoved a hand through his hair. “Look, if you want to put the moves on the lady, go right ahead. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to fool yourself, as well as me?”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

Keegan chuckled. “Hot damn,” he said. “You’re smitten.”

“Smitten?” Rance scoffed. “Keeg, old buddy, you’re spending way too much time with the lonely hearts club, if you’re using words like that.”

“I think I’ll ask her out,” Keegan mused.

Rance’s spine stiffened. “Have at it,” he said, and went to watch Rianna tear into her presents.

Myrna had come through for him, he saw, when Rianna got to the biggest gift in the bunch, wrapped in shiny paper and tied with a gigantic silver bow. She tore open the package and struggled with the cardboard box inside.

Even as he helped his daughter with the carton, Rance was aware of Echo, watching from a discreet distance. He wondered if Keegan really intended to ask her out, and what she’d say if he did.

Rianna let out a shriek of joy when the miniature car was revealed. It was a pink Volkswagen, with its own motor, working headlights and a horn.

“It’s just like Echo’s!” Rianna shouted, climbing into the little rig and tooting the horn. “It’s just like Echo’s!”

“I thought it belonged to somebody named Barbie,” Rance said.

Rianna looked up at him. “Thanks, Daddy,” she whispered, her eyes glowing in the gathering dusk.

Rance’s voice came out hoarse when he spoke. “Guess you’d better take it for a spin,” he said.

Rianna quickly found the ignition button, pushed it and drove right out of the carton. She did a few figure-eights, like a little clown in a circus parade, and flashed her headlights.

Laughing, people jumped out of her way.

Rance laughed, too, once he got over wanting to cry.

To think he’d almost missed this.

AVALON HAD PERKED UP by the time Echo got home, around nine that night. Hooking a leash onto the dog’s collar, Echo took her down the stairs and outside.

Since almost everybody in town was apparently still at Rianna’s party on the Triple M, the streets were empty. The sky was clear, speckled with stars, and there was a soft breeze, scented with newly mown grass, lilacs and roses in full bloom. Somewhere nearby, the faint whoosh-whoosh of a lawn sprinkler sounded.

“This is why I wanted to live in a small town,” Echo told Avalon, who squatted dutifully. Using a plastic bag she’d brought for the purpose, Echo disposed of the evidence, dropping it into a trash can at the end of somebody’s driveway. “It’s so peaceful.”

They came to a park, with a bandstand in the center, and lots of swing sets and trees. Since there was no one around, Echo decided to let Avalon off her leash to run, and was alarmed when the dog suddenly bolted across the grass toward an RV parked on the far side.

She was breathless when she caught up.

Avalon stood on her hind legs, yelping and scratching frantically at the door of the RV.

A light came on inside, and a woman stuck her head out. “Well, what’s this?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” Echo said quickly. “I hope she didn’t leave any marks on the paint.”

Suddenly deflated, Avalon turned and slunk back to Echo, her head down.

“I’m sure she didn’t do any harm,” the woman said. “What a nice dog.”

Echo reattached the leash, then crouched to rub Avalon’s ears, trying to comfort her. The dog slouched against her, actually rested her head against Echo’s shoulder, and gave a deep, shuddery sigh.

“Did your people drive a motor home like that one?” Echo whispered sadly, almost expecting the dog to answer.

Avalon gave a soft, despairing whimper.

“We’ll find them,” Echo told her, even as her eyes filled at the prospect of parting with her wayfaring friend. “I promise, we’ll find them.”

That night, Avalon foreswore the air bed and slept with Echo, curled despondently against her side and chasing something in her dreams. Echo, meanwhile, lay awake, wondering about Rance McKettrick.

What made him tick?

And why did she give a damn?

“OF ALL THE DERN FOOL THINGS to give a seven-year-old child,” Cora scolded affectionately the next morning, as she made breakfast in the sunny kitchen of Rance’s house. She’d spent the night in a guest room, since the girls had been too exhausted from all the excitement to make the trip back to town. “She must have run over my toes half a dozen times.”

Rance, sipping fresh coffee and leaning against the counter, gazed out the window at the creek flowing by, shining in the sun. Keegan’s house, the first one on the place, loomed augustly on the other side of the stream. “I told Myrna to get a Barbie car,” he said, by way of explanation. He hadn’t actually remembered what he’d told Myrna, until he asked her at the party, but Cora didn’t need to know that.

He crossed to the window, squinting a little, trying to see if Keegan’s Jag was parked in its usual place. The homestead, a log structure like Rance’s own house, was old, and it didn’t have a garage.

“Did you happen to see Keegan drive off this morning?” he asked, and then could have kicked himself. Cora possessed uncanny abilities of perception—women’s intuition, she called it—and he wouldn’t be a damn bit surprised if she guessed what he was really worried about.

“It’s not my day to watch Keegan McKettrick,” Cora said. “But since Devon’s there, I imagine he’s probably at home. If he’s got a lick of sense, he’ll take a few days off, instead of putting in twelve hours at McKettrickCo like he usually does.”

Rance didn’t dare turn around and look at his mother-in-law. He was afraid she’d see something in his face if he did. Not that there was anything to see—he just didn’t want her misunderstanding his concern about where Keegan might have passed the night, that was all.

He was a little startled when Cora’s hand came to rest on his shoulder; he hadn’t heard her approaching. “That was a fine thing you did, Rance,” she said quietly. “Getting back here for Rianna’s party, I mean.”

He looked down at her, not used to her praise. Once, they’d been close, he and Cora, but Julie had been the link between them, and things had changed after she died. The girls might have bridged the gap; instead, they were cause for argument, most of the time.

“I shouldn’t have left in the first place,” he said, to himself as much as to Cora. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”

Cora’s hand still rested against his shoulder. “Maeve and Rianna remind you of Julie,” she said gently. “It’s been five years, Rance. You need to let her go and concentrate on raising your daughters. Start seeing them for themselves.”

Rance’s throat closed. He set his coffee cup down on the wide sill of the window. Rafe McKettrick, his ancestor and Angus’s second son, had hewn that sill himself and hammered it into place. Rafe had had two daughters, too, with his wife, Emmeline. Rance wondered if he’d ever felt as confounded, raising girls, as he did.

Fortunately, before he had to say anything, Rianna and Maeve erupted into the kitchen like a couple of bullets.

“Can I drive my car all the way to town, Daddy?” Rianna demanded.

Rance turned, grinning down at his daughter, trying his best to see the child behind the overlay of Julie that always clouded his vision where Maeve and Rianna were concerned.

“No,” he said.

“It’s thirty miles to town, you dummy,” Maeve remarked.

“No name-calling,” Rance told his eldest daughter. The truth was, all of a sudden he saw two individuals standing there, in baby-doll pajamas and bare feet, with only a trace of Julie showing around their eyes.

“I’ll be careful,” Rianna said, “and I won’t speed. Cross my heart.”

Rance laughed. “Your rig tops out at about two miles an hour, kiddo,” he answered. “Take you a couple of days to get to Indian Rock, and your battery would die before you got to the main road.”

Rianna looked gravely disappointed. “Well, what’s the use of having a car if you can’t take it anywhere?”

“End of the driveway and back,” Rance decreed. “No farther.”

“Across the bridge to Uncle Keegan’s house?” Rianna tried. The kid had a future with the company, as a contract negotiator, if McKettrickCo didn’t go public in the meantime. The fight was still on where that decision was concerned. The meeting in San Antonio had gone on for the better part of three days, with nothing settled.

“No way,” Rance said.

Rianna plopped onto one of the benches lining the long table. It was a copy of the one across the creek, on the homestead. “I wanted to give Devon a ride,” she lamented.

“Devon can’t fit,” Maeve said. “It’s a baby car.”

“Leave your sister alone, Maeve,” Rance told his elder daughter.

Maeve subsided, but there was McKettrick thunder in her eyes.

“Babies don’t drive cars,” Rianna told Maeve.

“Enough,” Rance interceded.

“How am I supposed to show Echo that my car is just like hers?” Rianna persisted.

Rance closed his eyes, remembering how he’d gotten his back up the night before, when Echo had called his arrival by helicopter “impressive.” He’d been ultra touchy, stressed out because the meetings in San Antonio had done nothing but raise more trouble in the McKettrick ranks. He’d felt compelled to leave early so he could be home for Rianna’s party, and when the company jet landed in Flagstaff, there was a delay chartering the chopper. He’d been flat-out wrong to take those things out on Echo by snapping at her the way he had.

“Echo saw your stupid car last night,” Maeve pointed out.

“Maybe Avalon could fit,” Rianna speculated.

Rance sighed.

Cora stepped in. “Eat your breakfast, both of you.”

Rance gave her a grateful look.

“You, too,” she said.

He took his place at the head of the table—a seat he occupied all too infrequently—and let Cora serve him a plate mounded with fried potatoes, eggs and sausage links. He’d employed a variety of housekeepers and nannies over the years since Julie died, but none of them had lasted. Too much responsibility had fallen on Cora.

“Looks like a heart attack waiting to happen,” he said appreciatively, and dug into the food.

Cora laughed. “Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do,” she replied. “I cook you a meal, and you accuse me of trying to kill you.”

Maeve’s eyes widened. Her lower lip wobbled and, suddenly, she looked a lot younger than her usual ten-going-on-forty. “You wouldn’t really have a heart attack, would you, Dad?” she asked.

Rance reached out, ruffled her hair. “No,” he said quietly. “I plan on living to be a hundred and causing you all kinds of trouble in my old age.”

Maeve relaxed visibly, and her eyes danced. For a moment, he saw Julie again. “Just keep in mind,” she said, “that I’ll have a say in picking out your nursing home.”

Rance threw back his head and shouted with laughter.

“I get to help,” Rianna said. “What’s a nursing home?”

“Never mind,” Cora told her, bending to kiss both her granddaughters on top of the head. “Nobody’s going into a nursing home. Not in the immediate future, anyway.”

A silence fell, and Rance looked up at his mother-in-law, suddenly realizing that she was getting older. She’d lost weight since Julie died, and there were wrinkles around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Her husband had passed away years ago, and she had no family other than Maeve and Rianna—and him.

“What’s a nursing home?” Rianna repeated.

“It’s like a hospital,” Maeve explained. “Old people go there.”

Cora, her gaze locked with Rance’s, suddenly looked away.

He pushed back his chair, stood and followed his mother-in-law to the sink, where she stood with her back to the room. He laid a hand on her shoulder, just as she had done earlier, when he was at the window.

“Are you feeling okay, Cora?” he asked quietly. “You’re not sick, are you?”

She shook her head, tried to smile. “No, Rance—I’m fine.”

But as she turned from him to tackle the breakfast dishes, it was clear something was on her mind.

Maybe he ought to tell her he thought he knew what it was.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.