McKettrick's Luck (27 page)

“Now you're psychic,” Keegan scoffed. “You didn't have a premonition that day. You were trying to run off with the mess of trout
I
caught. You jumped over a log and stepped on the snake.”

The waitress came back. They ordered another round of beer and T-bone steaks.

“We keep drinking like this,” Keegan said, being the practical one, “and we're going to need a designated driver.”

Rance belched copiously. “And who are we going to designate, genius?”

“You could call Cora. She's right down the street.”

“Sure,” Rance said. “I'm going to get my mother-in-law on the horn and tell her I'm too drunk to drive.”

“Better than calling her from jail,” Keegan said.

“Or,” Jesse suggested, “we could stay sober.”

Keegan and Rance considered the idea.

“Naaahhh,” they said in chorus.

It was all downhill from there.

“I
PAID OUR ENTRANCE FEES
for the tournament,” Elaine announced when the ladies' poker club convened on the screened sunporch running alongside Sierra's family home. For party leftovers, the spread was pretty fancy—barbecued spareribs, coleslaw, cold chicken and about nine kinds of dessert. “We're in!”

Cheyenne, who had been thinking about whether or not the house was haunted, when she wasn't wishing she hadn't been so quick to cut Jesse off at the pockets when he'd brought Mitch home, snapped back to the here and now in an instant. “When
is
the tournament?”

“The preliminary round is next Saturday afternoon,” Elaine answered. “At the casino down the road.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Fifty bucks from each of you. Fork it over.”

Sierra, Janice and Cheyenne all paid up.

“This was a crazy idea,” Sierra said. She was probably thinking about her wedding, which was scheduled for the Saturday following the tournament. “We're all terrible at this, except for Cheyenne.”

“You're not terrible,” Cheyenne lied.

“Yes, we are,” Janice said, resigned.

“Do you think everybody on the World Poker Tour is a seasoned pro?” Elaine asked, separating twenties from tens and tucking the bills into her wallet. “Why, some of those people are rank amateurs. And they win
big bucks.
”

“
Rank
is the word for us.” Janice sighed.

“We've paid our entrance fee and told half the town we're going to help pay for the in-patient wing on the clinic,” Elaine said. “Now you want to just forget it?”

Please, God,
Cheyenne prayed silently.

“No!” Elaine cried, with all the verve of an old-time preacher rallying a revival crowd to seek salvation. “We're going to follow through. And one of us is going all the way, too!”

“Don't mind her,” Janice whispered loudly behind one hand. “Elaine's in sales, so she listens to a lot of motivational CDs in her car. She goes to seminars, too.”

“It wouldn't hurt you,” Elaine complained indignantly, “to think about something besides soap operas and feeding the cows.”

“Time out,” Sierra said. “We started this. We might as well finish. And it's not as if any of us are
really
going to end up at the final table in Vegas.”

She was right about that, Cheyenne thought. What was the harm in playing in a local tournament? They'd be aced out in the first few hands of cards anyway. Then they could all go back to their regular lives—Sierra to being a bride, Elaine to selling houses, Janice to feeding cows and watching soap operas.

And what was
her
regular life? Cheyenne asked herself.

She had her new job—and, regrettably, her
old
one, too. She had her family.

She had screaming orgasms with Jesse.

Provided he hadn't written her off.

“Thoughts,” Elaine lectured, shaking her finger at one and all, “are
things.
If you don't
believe
you'll succeed, you won't.”

Everybody nodded, tacitly promising to believe.

Believing, hopeless as it was, was easier than arguing with Elaine.

The evening went by rapidly, probably because Cheyenne was having fun, and she had absolutely nothing to look forward to when it was over. At least there had been some comic relief while they were playing.

Janice had gone all in on a seven and a three, off-suit.

Elaine was as serious as a kidney stone, the whole time, studying her cards like holy writ.

Sierra bet on a king and queen, figuring that made a marriage.

Oh, yeah,
Cheyenne thought.
Dolly Brunson, eat your heart out.

After Elaine and Janice left, Cheyenne stayed to help Sierra clean up. Liam had already gone to bed, and there was no sign of Travis. The house was quiet, in an expectant sort of way.

“You promised to tell me about the ghosts,” Cheyenne said shyly, as they stood side by side at the sink, Cheyenne rinsing plates, glasses and silverware, and Sierra sticking them in the dishwasher.

Sierra smiled. “They're not ghosts,” she said. “Not really.”

“What, then?” Cheyenne asked. She was being nosy, but she couldn't help it. Anything supernatural gave her delicious shivers.

“It's hard to explain,” Sierra told her. “But have you ever thought about how time might not be linear—you know, past, present, future—but all of it happening simultaneously instead?”

“I've considered it,” Cheyenne said. “You're talking about different dimensions, existing side by side?”

Sierra nodded. “And sometimes intersecting,” she added. “Liam sees Tobias on a regular basis. Once, I saw Hannah—Hannah McKettrick, that is—she was an ancestor of mine, and lived—lives—in this house.”

Cheyenne shut off the faucet, groped for a dish towel and dried her hands. “But you don't think she's a ghost?”

“I think she's as real—and as alive—as we are.”

“Wow,” Cheyenne marveled.

Sierra bit her lower lip, then looked directly into Cheyenne's eyes. “I don't talk about this a lot,” she said carefully. “I mean, there have been rumors about this house for years, according to my mother and a few other people who would be in a position to know. But I don't want to stir up talk. It could be hard on Liam, at school.”

“I understand,” Cheyenne said. “I won't say anything to anyone else.”

Sierra's smile was sudden and dazzling. “Thanks,” she said.

Twenty minutes later, driving toward town, Cheyenne considered taking a detour. Pictured herself heading up Jesse's long driveway, knocking on his door.

When he answered—if he answered—she'd apologize for the way she'd acted when he'd brought Mitch home earlier in the evening. Try to explain that sometimes the fear of seeing her brother get hurt again just surged up out of her psyche, like a banshee, and possessed her.

On the other hand, what Jesse had done
was
reckless. Mitch was normal, and it was good of Jesse to treat him that way, but he was also vulnerable. Another injury would not only crush his body; it would crush his spirit, too.

He'd almost given up the first time, Mitch had.

Cheyenne and Ayanna had simply refused to let him go.

They'd kept vigils by his bedside, even when he'd been unconscious, holding his hand. Whispering to him. Telling him to hold on, to fight with everything he had, to
come back.

Weeks after he'd regained consciousness, Mitch had admitted that he'd heard them. Followed their voices home to his body. Back to the pain, and the limitations.

Once or twice, Cheyenne had seen a reproachful question in his eyes.

Why didn't you let me go?

Cheyenne drove past Jesse's road.

He wouldn't understand.

 

W
YATT
T
ERP AMBLED
into the Roadhouse on about the umpteenth round of microbrews. With the unerring instincts of his almost-namesake, he zeroed right in on the McKettrick table.

“I
know
you boys aren't planning to drive,” he said amiably.

Rance gave him a bleary once-over. “Did somebody call you?” he asked and cast a suspicious glance around the restaurant.

“Nobody called me,” Wyatt answered, leaning in and bracing his hands against the table edge. “I stop by the Roadhouse three or four times on every shift. You know that. Now, is this a celebration, or a wake?”

“Something in between,” Keegan said. He probably hadn't been this drunk since college, and Jesse could see, even in his own profound state of inebriation, that his cousin's regular, buttoned-down self was wondering what the hell had hit him.

Wyatt's gaze moved to Jesse. “I bet you couldn't touch the floor with your hat right about now,” he observed. “By the way, those rounders from Lucky's haven't been back since I gave them a speeding ticket and told them to keep moving.”

“Good work, Wyatt,” Jesse said with a salute.

“John,” Wyatt said.

“Wyatt's a proud name,” Keegan put in. “I don't know why you don't want to use it.”

“John's a good name, too,” Wyatt told him. “And it goes a lot better with Terp.”

“That,” Rance said, with an accompanying belch that sounded as if it came from someplace around his ankles, “is a matter of opinion.”

“Well,” Wyatt said reasonably, “here's
my
opinion. The three of you are drunk as squirrels rolling in corn mash. My advice would be, settle up your bill, and I'll drive you as far as Cora's. I haven't got time to go all the way out to the Triple M.”

“I can't let my kids see me like this,” Rance said.

“Like what?” Jesse asked.

“Drunk,”
Keegan explained.

“Oh,” Jesse said.

Wyatt sighed. “Let's go,” he said. “If you don't want to go to Cora's, I'll drop you off at the motel on the other end of town.”

Jesse got about half-sober when he stepped outside and the fresh air hit him. Unfortunately, half wasn't enough to suit Wyatt. “I'd rather sleep in my truck,” he said.

“Fine,” Wyatt agreed. “Let's have your keys.”

“People are going to think we've been arrested,” Rance fretted, looking around as if he expected to see that a crowd of spectators had gathered. Given that Indian Rock would have a hard time coming up with a crowd for anything less than the Second Coming, Jesse was amused.

“We ought to call a cab instead of riding in the squad car,” Rance said.

“There
aren't
any cabs,” Keegan pointed out.

“Get in the squad car,” Wyatt said.

A tour bus, making a pit stop on the way to Sedona or the Cliffcastle casino, pulled in and disgorged a flock of gapers.

“These people,” Wyatt told them, “are not under arrest.”

“Oh, that was great, Wyatt,” Rance protested.

“John,” Wyatt corrected, beginning to sound testy.

“Whatever,” Rance said.

In the end, Jesse surrendered his keys to Wyatt and slept in his truck.

God only knew where Keegan and Rance wound up.

 

“Y
OU LOOK TERRIBLE
,” Cheyenne was emboldened to say at eight the next morning when she arrived at Keegan's office for the meeting they'd agreed upon. She'd fully intended to tell him about the pickle she was in with Nigel but she'd lost her courage. When she'd arrived home from Sierra's the night before, she'd found Mitch and Bronwyn sitting on the front porch, sharing their dreams. Mitch's was a shot at a job at McKettrickCo.

If she got fired, he probably wouldn't have a chance.

Keegan was swilling strong coffee, and Cheyenne would have sworn he was wearing the same clothes he'd had on the day before. He was clearly
not
in the mood to hear confession—or grant absolution.

“I had a very bad night,” he said grimly.

“I can see that. Maybe you should go home. Eat chicken soup or something.”

Keegan paled. “Please,” he said, setting the coffee down to rub his temples, “do not mention food again.”

“Okay,” Cheyenne said uncertainly.

“Doughnuts, anybody?” Myrna chimed from the doorway of Keegan's office. “I got the goopy ones, with lots of frosting and sprinkles—”

“Excuse me,” Keegan said and bolted past them.

“What's the matter with him?” Cheyenne asked.

“He's cracking under the pressure,” Myrna said cheerfully.

“What pressure?”

“He works too hard. He's just been through a nasty divorce. If he had any sense at all—which he doesn't, because he's a boneheaded McKettrick, through and through—he'd take a vacation.” Myrna spoke with great affection, and a sort of blithe fretfulness, oddly juxtaposed to her actual words.

“We were supposed to have a meeting,” Cheyenne confided.

“Ain't gonna happen,” Myrna replied, shoving a pink bakery box at her. “Doughnut?”

 

J
ESSE'S HEAD WAS
about to split wide open.

He sat up in the driver's seat of his truck with a groan.

As luck would have it, the Roadhouse was doing a brisk breakfast trade. He tried to smile when the preacher walked by and gave him a happy little wave.