said, after some length, “but if I had to make a guess, I’d say he’s probably in the back room over at Lucky’s, playing poker.”
Cheyenne stiffened. Of course he’d be at Lucky’s—fate wouldn’t have it any other way. How many times, as a child, had she sneaked through the back door of that place from the alley and tried to will her father away from a game of five-card stud?
She produced a business card, bearing her name, affiliation with Meerland Real Estate Ventures, Ltd., and her cell number. “Thanks,” she said. “Just in case you see Mr. McKettrick before I do, will you give him my card and ask him to please call me as soon as possible?”
The woman studied Cheyenne’s information, frowned and then nodded politely. “He doesn’t come in too often,” she said.
Of course he didn’t.
Still Jesse, after all these years.
Cheyenne left McKettrickCo, got back into her car and drove resolutely to Lucky’s Main Street Bar and Grill. The gravel parking lot beside the old brick building was full, with the dinner hour fast approaching, so she parked in the alley, next to a mud-splattered black truck with both windows rolled down.
For a moment, she was a kid again, sent by her misguided mother to fetch Daddy home from the bar. She remembered propping her bike against the wall, next to the overflowing trash bin, rehearsing what she’d say once she got inside, forcing herself up the two unpainted steps and through the screened door, which always groaned on its hinges.
When the door suddenly creaked open, Cheyenne was startled. She wrenched herself out of the time warp and actually considered crouching behind the Dumpster until whoever it was had gone.
Jesse stepped out, stretched like a lazy tomcat at home in an alley and fixing to go on the prowl, and adjusted his cowboy hat. He wore old jeans, a Western shirt unbuttoned to his collarbone and the kind of boots country people called shit-kickers. Even mud and horse manure couldn’t disguise the fact that they were expensive, probably custom-made.
When Cheyenne’s gaze trailed back up to Jesse’s face, she realized that he was looking at her. Grinning that lethal grin.
She blushed.
Someone flipped the porch light on from inside, and moths immediately gravitated to it, out of nowhere. Drawing an immediate parallel between Jesse and the bulb, she took half a step back.
He registered her suit and high-heeled shoes in a lazy sweep of his eyes. He clearly didn’t recognize her, which was at once galling and a relief.
He tugged at the brim of his battered hat. “You lost?” he asked.
Cheyenne was a moment catching her breath. “No,” she answered, fishing in her hobo bag for another card. “My name is Cheyenne Bridges, and I was hoping to talk to you about a business proposition.”
She instantly regretted using the word proposition because it made a corner of Jesse’s mouth tilt with amusement, but she was past the point of no return.
He descended the steps with that loose-limbed, supremely confident walk she remembered so well and approached her. Put out his hand. “Jesse McKettrick,” he said.
There was nothing to say but “I know.” She’d given herself away with the first words she’d spoken.
“Bridges,” he said, reflecting. Studying the card pensively before slipping it into his shirt pocket.
Cheyenne braced herself inwardly. Glanced toward the screen door Jesse had come through a few moments before.
“Any relation to—?” He paused, stooped slightly to look into her face. Recollection dawned. “Wait a second. Cheyenne Bridges.” He grinned. “I remember you—Cash’s daughter. We went to the movies a couple of times.”
She swallowed, nodded, hiked her chin up a notch. “That’s right,” she said carefully. Cash’s daughter, that’s who she was to him. A shy teenager he’d dated twice and then lost interest in. He didn’t know, she reminded herself silently, that she’d tacked every picture of him she could get to the wall of her bedroom in that shack out beyond the railroad tracks, the way most girls did photos of rock stars and film idols. He didn’t know she’d loved him with the kind of desperate, hopeless adoration only a sixteen-year-old can feel.
He didn’t know she’d prayed that he’d fall madly in love with her. That she’d imagined their wedding, their honeymoon and the birth of their four children so often that sometimes it felt like a memory of something that had really happened, rather than the fantasy it was.
Thank God Jesse didn’t know any of those things. She wouldn’t have been able to face him if he had, even with Mitch and her mom and Nigel all depending on her to persuade him to sell five hundred unspoiled acres of land to her company.
“I heard about your brother’s accident,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Shaken out of her reverie, Cheyenne nodded again. “Thanks.”
“Your dad, too.”
Her eyes stung. She tried to speak, swallowed instead.
Jesse smiled, took a light grip on her elbow. “Do you always do business in alleys?” he teased.
For a moment, she was affronted. Then she realized it was a perfectly reasonable question. “No,” she said.
“I was just heading for the Roadhouse to grab some supper. Want to come along?” He gestured toward the muddy truck.
The Roadhouse, also known as the Roadkill Café, was an institution in Indian Rock, a haven for truck drivers, bikers, cowboys and state patrolmen. Ironically, families dined at Lucky’s, probably pretending that the card room behind it didn’t exist.
“I’ll meet you there,” Cheyenne said. She’d have been safe enough with Jesse, but no way was she climbing into that truck in a straight skirt. She had some dignity, after all, even if she did feel like the scrawny ten-year-old who’d parked her bike in this alley and gone inside to beg her father, with a stellar lack of success, to come home for supper. Or to watch her perform in the class play. Or to take Gram to the hospital because she couldn’t catch her breath.…
“Okay,” Jesse said easily. He walked her to the rental car, which looked nondescript beside his truck. Like his boots, the vehicle had seen its share of action. Like his boots, it was top-of-the-line, with dual tires and an extended cab. Definitely leather seats, custom CD player and a GPS, too.
Once she was behind the wheel of the rental, with the window rolled down, Jesse leaned easily against the door and looked in at her.
“It’s good to see you again, Cheyenne,” he said.
“You, too,” she replied. But a lump rose in her throat. Don’t go there, she told herself sternly. This is business. You’ll buy the land. You’ll help Nigel get the construction project rolling. You’ll collect your bonus and take care of Mitch and your mother. And then you’ll go back to San Diego and forget Jesse McKettrick ever existed.
“As if,” she muttered aloud.
Jesse, in the process of turning away to head for his truck, turned back.
