McKettrick's Luck Read Free

their history seriously.
    â€œWhat’s so important that it can’t wait?” he asked, in a low voice that slid in under Kenny’s famous vibrato.
    Keegan was the same height as Jesse, but the resemblance ended there. Keegan had reddish-brown hair, always neatly trimmed, while Jesse’s was dark blond and shaggy. Keegan had the navy-blue eyes that ran in Kade McKettrick’s lineage, and Jesse’s were the light azure common to Jeb’s descendents.
    â€œWe had a meeting, remember?” Keegan snapped.
    Kenny wrapped up the song, and a silence fell. The jukebox whirred and Patsy Cline launched into “Crazy.”
    Jesse grinned. First, a musical treatise on gambling. Then, a comment on mental health. “That’s real Freudian, Keeg,” he drawled. “And I didn’t know you cared.”
    Keegan’s square jaw tightened as he set his back molars. By now, they must have been worn down to nubs, Jesse reckoned, but he kept that observation to himself.
    â€œGoddamn it,” Keegan rasped, “you’ve got as big a share in the Company as I do. How about showing a little responsibility?” Keegan always capitalized any reference to McKettrickCo, the family conglomerate, verbally or in writing. The man worked twelve-hour days, pored over spreadsheets and pulled down a seven-figure salary.
    By contrast, Jesse rode horses, entered the occasional rodeo, chased women, played poker and banked his dividend checks. He considered himself one lucky son of a gun, and in his more charitable moments he felt sorry for Keegan. Now, he straightened his cousin’s tasteful pin-striped tie, which had probably cost more than the newest front-loader over at Don’s Laundromat.
    â€œYou think poker isn’t work?” he asked and waited for the steam to shoot out of Keegan’s ears. They’d grown up together on the Triple M, fishing and camping out in warm weather, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in winter, with Rance, a third cousin, completing the unholy trio. They’d all gone to college at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where Keegan had majored in business, Rance had studied high finance and Jesse had attended class between rodeo competitions and card games. Despite their differences, they’d gotten along well enough—until Rance and Keegan had both married. Everything had changed then.
    They’d both turned serious.
    These days Rance traveled the world, making deals for McKettrickCo.
    â€œSmart-ass,” Keegan said, struggling not to grin.
    â€œBuy you a beer?” Jesse asked, hopeful, for a brief moment, that his cousin was back.
    Keegan glanced at his Rolex. “It’s my weekend with Devon,” he said. “I’m supposed to pick her up at six-thirty.”
    Devon was Keegan’s nine-year-old daughter, and since he and his wife, Shelley, had divorced a year ago, they’d been shuttling the kid back and forth between Shelley and the boyfriend’s upscale condo in Flag and the main ranch house on the Triple M where Keegan remained.
    Jesse hesitated, then laid a hand on Keegan’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “Another time.”
    Keegan sighed. “Another time,” he agreed, resigned. He started to walk away, then turned back. “And, Jesse?”
    â€œWhat?”
    The old, familiar grin spread across Keegan’s face. “Grow up, will you?”
    â€œI’ll put that on my calendar,” Jesse promised, returning the grin. He loved Devon, whom he thought of as a niece rather than a cousin however many times removed, and certainly didn’t begrudge her time with Keegan. Just the same, he felt a twinge of sadness, too.
    Everything and everybody in the world changed—except him.
    That was the reality. Best accept it.
    Jesse went back to the poker table and anted up for the next hand.
    Â 
    â€œC AN’T THIS WAIT UNTIL tomorrow?” Ayanna had