McKettrick's Luck. Linda Miller Lael

another drink of water. Jesse had already made up his mind; at this point, she had nothing to lose.

       “There’s a bonus in it,” she said. “The money would make a lot of difference to my family.”

       Jesse shifted in his chair and turned his beer can around on the tabletop as he thought. “There must be a lot of other people out there, ready and even eager to sell their property. Why does it have to be my land?”

       “Nigel wants it,” Cheyenne answered.

       He raised one eyebrow. “Nigel?”

       “My boss. And this is probably going to mean my job.”

       “You could always get another job.”

       “Easy to say when you’re somebody who doesn’t need one.”

       Jesse hoisted his beer can slightly. “Touché,” he said. “There might be a place for you at McKettrickCo. I could ask Keegan.”

       Cheyenne remembered Keegan from school. He’d been the serious, focused one. And Rance, who’d been almost as wild as Jesse. She might have gone for the sympathy vote in a last-ditch effort to pull the deal out of the soup, but accepting McKettrick charity was another thing. “I’ll be all right,” she said. Good thing she didn’t have to say how that was going to happen, because she had no earthly idea. She smiled. “Is the Roadhouse hiring? I might be able to get on as a waitress. Or maybe I could deal cards in the back room at Lucky’s—”

       He reached out unexpectedly and squeezed her hand. “You’re smart, Cheyenne. You always were. You have experience and a degree, unless I’ve missed my guess. There are a lot of options out there.”

       “Not in Indian Rock, there aren’t,” she said. “And for right now, anyway, I’m stuck here.”

       Jesse circled the center of her palm with the pad of one thumb, and a delicious shiver went through Cheyenne. “I can’t say I mind the idea of your hanging around for a while,” he told her. “And Flag’s just up the road. Probably lots of work there, for somebody with your skills.”

       Cheyenne bit down on her lower lip. “Sure,” she said, with an attempt at humor. “There must be at least one company looking to drive wildlife out of its natural habitat and decimate the tree population. Why was I worried?”

       Maybe, answered her practical side, because she’d sold her car and sublet her apartment. Once Nigel pulled the company credit cards and she’d turned in the rental, she’d either have to drive her mother’s van or hope her old bike was still stashed in the garage behind the house.

       “You must have done well, Cheyenne. Why are you in such a pinch?”

       “What makes you think I’m in a pinch?” How the hell do you know these things? Are you some kind of cowboy psychic?

       “I can see it in your eyes. Come on. What’s the deal? Maybe I can help.”

       She bristled at that. “If you want to help, Jesse, sell me the land. I’m not soliciting donations here. I’m offering you the kind of money most people couldn’t even dream of laying their hands on.”

       “Take it easy,” Jesse counseled. “I didn’t mean to step on your pride. We went to school together, and that makes us old friends. I just want to know what’s going on.”

       She would not cry. “Medical bills,” she said.

       “From your brother’s accident.”

       “Yes.”

       “Wasn’t there insurance?”

       “No. My mother worked as a waitress.” She isn’t a socialite, ordering tables inlaid with turquoise. “My stepfather was a day laborer when he worked at all, which wasn’t often. He was more interested in trying to get some kind of disability check out of the government so he could play pool all day. In fact, if he’d worked half as hard at a real job as he did at getting on the dole, he might have accomplished something.”

       “So it all fell on you? You weren’t legally responsible, Cheyenne. Why take on something like that?”

       “Mitch is my brother,” she said. For her, that was reason enough. The hospitals and doctors had written off a lot of the initial costs, and Mitch received a stipend from Social Security. At nineteen, he was on Medicare. But the gap between the things they wouldn’t pay for and the things he needed was wide. “He can survive on his benefits. I want him to do more than survive—I want him to have a life.”

       “Enough to sacrifice your own?”

       Cheyenne was silent for a long time. “I didn’t think it was going to be this hard,” she finally admitted, to herself as well as Jesse. “I thought there would be an end to it. That Mitch would walk again. That everything would be normal.”

      I wish I could have a job and a girlfriend, she heard her brother telling her the night before in his room. I wish I could ride a horse.

       “And my selling you five hundred acres of good land would change any of that? Make things ‘normal’ again?”

       Cheyenne sighed, swallowed more water, pushed back her chair to stand. Plan A was down the swirler; best get cracking with plan B. Whatever the hell that was. “No,” she said. “No, it wouldn’t.”

       She returned to the bathroom then, changed clothes, brought the jeans, boots and flannel shirt back to Jesse.

       “I’m sorry,” he said.

       She believed him—that was the crazy thing. “Thanks for the ride,” she told him.

       He opened the kitchen door for her, walked her to the car.

       “Friends?” he asked, once she was behind the wheel.

       “Friends,” she said, starting the engine.

       “Then maybe you’d do me a favor,” Jesse pressed.

       She frowned up at him, puzzled. What kind of favor could she possibly do for him?

       “There’s a party Saturday night, sort of a pre-wedding thing my cousin Sierra and her fiancé are throwing. Barbecue, a hayride, that kind of thing. I need a date.”

       If there was one thing Jesse McKettrick didn’t lack for, besides money, it was available women. “Why me?” she asked.

       “Because I like you. Your mom and Mitch can come, too. It’ll be a good way for them to get reacquainted with the locals.”