McKettrick's Heart Read Free Page B

were alone.
    Molly gasped.
    â€œDoes she know?” Keegan repeated fiercely.
    She bit her lower lip. “Yes,” she said very quietly, when he’d just about given up on getting an answer.
    â€œIf you’re trying to pull some kind of scam—”
    Molly’s shoulders had been stooped a moment before. Now she rallied and looked as though she might be about to slap him. “You heard Mrs. Washington,” she said. “Psyche asked me to come.”
    â€œNot without a lot of setting up on your part, I’ll bet,” Keegan retorted. “What the hell are you up to?”
    â€œI’m not ‘up to’ anything,” Molly answered after an obvious struggle to retain her composure, such as it was. “I’m here because Psyche…needs my help.”
    â€œPsyche,” Keegan rasped, leaning in again until his nose was almost touching Molly’s, “needs her friends. She needs to be home, in the house where she grew up. What she does not need, Ms. Shields, is you. Whatever you’re trying to pull, you’d better rethink it. Psyche’s too weak to fight back, but I assure you, I’m not!”
    â€œIs that a threat?” Molly countered, narrowing her marvelous eyes.
    â€œYes,” Keegan retorted, “and not an idle one.”
    Florence returned with the bread and milk, went around to the other side of the car and put the groceries in the backseat. “If you two are through arguing,” she said, “I’d like to get back to Psyche.”
    Keegan sighed.
    Molly gave him one last viperous look and got in on the passenger side.
    Keegan spoke to Florence over the roof of the ancient station wagon. “I’ll be there at noon tomorrow,” he said. “Should I bring anything?”
    He’d be bringing plenty, counting the questions he wanted to ask Psyche.
    At last Florence smiled. “Just yourself,” she answered. “My girl will be mighty glad to see that handsome mug of yours.”
    Keegan might have grinned if he hadn’t been mad enough to bite the top off one of the propane tanks and spit it to the other side of the road. “See you then,” he said.
    He stood watching as Florence fired up the wagon, popped it into gear and zoomed out onto the street.
    â€œI’ll be goddamned,” he muttered.
    Five minutes later, well down the road back to the Triple M ranch, where members of the McKettrick clan had lived for a century and a half, he punched a digit on his cell phone.
    He got his cousin Rance’s voice mail and cursed while he listened to the spiel. He’d undergone a transformation recently, Rance had, since he’d taken up with Emma Wells, who ran the local bookstore. Given up his high-powered job at McKettrickCo, the family conglomeration, and started ranching in earnest.
    The beep sounded. “That bitch Thayer Ryan was screwing around with is in town,” he snapped, without preamble, “and guess where she’s staying? Psyche’s place.”
    With that, he thumbed End and put a call through to Jesse, his other cousin. Jesse, who had a type-Z personality, was even harder to reach than Rance, since he refused to carry a cell phone. This time, Keegan didn’t even get voice mail.
    He was about to backtrack to town, figuring he’d find Jesse in the poker room behind Lucky’s Bar and Grill, fleecing unsuspecting Texas hold ’em devotees of their hard-earned money, when he remembered that Jesse and his new bride, Cheyenne, were still away on their honeymoon.
    A lonely feeling swept over Keegan, one he was glad no one was around to see. Jesse was in love with Cheyenne, Rance with Emma.
    And he was alone.
    His own marriage hadn’t worked out, and his daughter, Devon, living in Flagstaff with her mother, visited only occasionally. Going back to the big house on the ranch was the last thing he wanted to do, but he couldn’t face returning to the office,