McKettrick's Pride. Linda Lael Miller
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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.
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