she said.
He waved. Hoisted himself into the truck and fired up the engine.
Cheyenne waited until he pulled out, and then followed.
If she’d been as smart as other people thought she was, she thought grimly, she’d have kept on going. Sped right out of Indian Rock, past the Roadhouse, past Jesse and all the other memories and impossible dreams he represented, and never looked back.
CHAPTER TWO
JESSE REACHED THE Roadhouse first and waited in his truck for Cheyenne to catch up. Things had been dull around Indian Rock lately, with nothing much to do besides play poker and feed horses, but he had a feeling life was about to get a little more interesting.
Smiling slightly, he pulled Cheyenne’s business card from his pocket and read it again. Meerland Real Estate Ventures, Ltd.
This time, it clicked.
The smile faded to black.
She wanted the land.
“Damn,” he muttered, watching in the side mirror as Cheyenne’s car turned into the lot and pulled up beside him.
He sighed. She’d been pretty, as a girl. Strangely alert, too, like a deer raising its head at a watering hole at the snap of a twig, sniffing the wind for the scent of danger. Now, as a woman, Cheyenne Bridges was beautiful. Slight in adolescence, she’d rounded out real well, and if she’d let that rich dark hair down from the prim French twist and ditch the librarian gear, she’d be a showstopper.
Jesse got out of the truck, waited stiffly while Cheyenne pushed open her car door to stand teetering in those ridiculous shoes. She smiled tentatively and touched her hair.
In poker, that move would be an eloquent tell: Cheyenne was nervous.
And if his suspicions were right, she had cause to be nervous. He retallied the facts in his head—she worked for a real-estate company, of the “ventures” variety, and back there in the alley behind Lucky’s she’d said she wanted to discuss a business proposition.
In those few moments while they both stood in the gap between silence and speech, between uncertainty and decision, he considered sparing her fruitless expectations. He wasn’t about to sell the acres just beyond the eastern boundaries of the Triple M, if that was what she wanted. That land was the only thing he’d ever gotten on his own and not by virtue of being born a McKettrick.
Then again, he supposed he ought to at least hear her out. Maybe he was wrong, and she was beating the brush for investors. Being a gambler, he might be able to get behind something like that, if only because it would mean spending time with Cheyenne, unraveling some of the mysteries.
One thing was obvious. Cheyenne had come a long way since she’d left Indian Rock. The car was nothing special—probably rented—but the clothes were upscale. And while she still used her maiden name, that didn’t mean she wasn’t married. His older sisters, Sarah and Victoria, both had husbands, but still they went by McKettrick.
He glanced at Cheyenne’s left hand, looking for a ring, but the hand was hidden by the wide strap of her purse.
“Shall we?” he asked and gestured toward the entrance of the Roadhouse.
She looked relieved. “Sure,” she said. She walked a little ahead, and he opened the door for her.
Jesse had been eating at the Roadhouse all his life, but as he followed Cheyenne over the threshold, it seemed strange to him, a place he’d never been before. The sounds and smells and colors spun around him, and he felt disoriented, as though he’d just leaped off some great wheel while it was still spinning. He was a second or two getting his bearings.
He’d gone to school with the hostess, from kindergarten through his senior year at Indian Rock High, but as he and Cheyenne followed the woman to a corner booth, he couldn’t have said what her name was.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Cheyenne slid into the red vinyl seat, and Jesse sat opposite, placing his hat on the wide windowsill behind the miniature jukebox. He ordered coffee, she asked for sparkling mineral water with a twist of lime.
They studied their plastic menus, and when the waitress showed up—Jesse had gone to school with her, too, and consulted her name tag so he wouldn’t be caught out—Cheyenne went with French onion soup and he chose a double-deluxe cheeseburger, with fries.
“Thanks, Roselle,” he said, to anchor himself in ordinary reality.
Roselle touched his shoulder, smiled flirtatiously and sashayed away to fill the orders.
Cheyenne raised her eyebrows slightly, but said nothing.
Might as well bite the bullet, Jesse figured. “So Cheyenne, what brings you back to Indian Rock after all this time?” he asked easily.
She took a sip of fizzy water. “Business,” she said.
Jesse thought of his land. Of the timber, and the wide, grassy clearings, and the creek that shone so brightly in the sun that it made a man blink. He tasted his coffee and waited.
Cheyenne sighed. She had the air of someone about to jump through an ice hole in a frozen lake. “My company is prepared to offer you a very competitive price for—”
“No,” Jesse broke in flatly.
She’d made the jump, and from her expression, the water was even colder than expected. “No?”
“No,” he repeated.
“You didn’t let me finish,” she protested, rallying. “We’re talking about several million dollars here. No carrying back a mortgage. No balloon payments. Cash. We can close on the deal within two weeks of going to contract.”
Jesse started to reach for his hat, sighed and withdrew his hand. He’d seen this coming. Why did he feel like a kid who’d counted on getting a BB gun for Christmas and found new underwear under the tree instead?
“There isn’t going to be any contract,” he said.
She paled. Settled back against the booth seat. Her hand trembled as she set down her water glass.
“The price is negotiable,” she told him after a few moments of looking stricken.
He knew what she was thinking; he could read it in her face. Money talks. She thought he was angling for a higher price.
“You should never take up poker,” he said.
The food arrived.
Roselle winked as she set the burger down in front of him.
“I hate women like that,” Cheyenne told him after Roselle had swivel-hipped it back behind the counter.
Unprepared for this bend in the conversational river, Jesse paused with a French fry halfway to his mouth. “What?”
“They’re a type,” Cheyenne said, leaning in
