Chapter 10
10
Within five minutes of her arrival in Painted Pony Creek, hauling her small frame laboriously out of Courtney’s rental car, Keely made it absolutely clear that she would have preferred to be anywhere else on the planet besides some backwater town in Montana.
And with anybody else but her father.
Cavan, on the other hand, unbuckled himself from his booster seat and bolted out of the back of the subcompact to rush Liam like a football player going for a touchdown.
“Dad!” the little boy cried, beaming.
Nearly knocked off his feet, Liam laughed and swept him up into his arms, spun him around. “Hey, cowboy,” he said hoarsely, looking away for a moment because he knew his eyes were wet. “Welcome home.”
“Aunt Courtney says we get to stay this time! Forever! ” Cavan crowed.
“That’s right,” Liam said, nearly choking on the words. “Forever.”
Keely meandered toward him, frowning.
Even as a still gawky nine-year-old, Keely was a strikingly beautiful child.
And, as evidenced by her expression, a very unhappy one at the moment.
She reached Liam’s side, eventually, and allowed him to shoulder-hug her, though just briefly.
Bending to set Cavan back on his feet, Liam kissed the top of his daughter’s head.
“What if I don’t want to stay here forever?” she asked, and although she was doing her best to be snarky, Liam glimpsed a flicker of uncertainty in her wide eyes.
“You probably won’t,” Liam replied, after clearing his throat. “You’ll grow up and go to college and have a career all your own.”
“Gambie said I could have been in TV commercials, but you said no,” Keely reminded him. “She said I could have won a lot of beauty pageants, too, but you wouldn’t even let me try .”
Liam didn’t attempt to make a case for his decisions. He had nothing against children getting into show business or entering beauty contests—as long as they weren’t his children.
He simply wanted his kids to have a chance to be kids, that was all.
He sighed and exchanged glances with Courtney, standing nearby.
Courtney, too, was beautiful, but not in the same dazzling way Waverly had been, and Keely almost certainly would be.
Her personality was nothing like Waverly’s, and Liam saw that as a good thing, though of course he wouldn’t have said so. In spite of everything, Courtney had loved her sister.
And that, Liam knew from experience, wasn’t easy.
Keely was still looking up at him, waiting stubbornly for a response to her complaint.
He took off his hat and plopped it onto her head, so it covered half her face.
“No commercials and no pageants, Keel. Not before you’re eighteen, anyway,” he said, gently but firmly. “Take your time and be a kid while you can, because you’re going to be a grown-up before you know it. And for the rest of your life.”
Keely tilted her head back, regarding him solemnly.
She wasn’t going to give Liam an inch, if she could help it, and that was fine.
He was a McKettrick, too, and he liked a challenge.
In the meantime, Cavan caught the hat before it fell into the dirt of Bitter Gulch’s main—and only—street. Put it on his own head. “Look Dad,” he grinned. “I really am a cowboy now. Can I be in the movie?”
“We’ll talk about that another time,” Liam said, smiling at Courtney and mouthing the word, Thanks .
“Hello, Liam,” she greeted him, rising onto her toes to plant a sisterly kiss on his cheek.
They were good friends, he and Courtney, but nothing more.
And, though it was another thing he’d never say, the mere prospect of marrying back into that family made him think of sticking his right arm into a wood chipper.
In any case, he didn’t want to lay his family problems on his ex-sister-in-law.
He shook off the thought, but for a moment, he was back in that amazing house, the night before, with Madison on his lap, this far from carrying her to the nearest bed and making love to her until they were both exhausted.
He hadn’t, of course, because it was way too soon for sex.
Madison was still broken, in terms of romance. She’d said so herself.
And he wasn’t exactly whole himself.
He needed to get his act together, and that had to begin with his children.
He loved them both fiercely, but they were going to need some convincing—especially Keely.
“If you let Cavan be in the movie,” Keely said, breaking the train of his thoughts and bringing him back to the here and now with a bone-jarring crash, “I’m gonna be real mad!”
Liam suppressed a grin. He was heartened by the fact that, attitude aside, his daughter was still leaning into his side, and she hadn’t shaken off the arm resting lightly around her shoulders.
“Why?” he asked, baiting her a little, just to hear her voice.
Even if it was a little on the snippy side.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” Keely pointed out, her cheeks flushing pink. “If I can’t have a career until I’m eighteen, neither can my brother!”
“Fair enough,” Liam replied.
“Could we get hamburgers?” Cavan interjected, still rocking the hat. “And milkshakes and curly fries?”
“Or something healthy?” Courtney offered. “Like salad, maybe?”
“Noooooo!” both children chorused.
“Hamburgers,” insisted Cavan.
“Curly fries,” Keely cried.
Courtney laughed and rolled her eyes.
Under ordinary circumstances, Liam would have taken all three of them to the hotel dining room right there in Bitter Gulch, except that the place was swarming with various film crews busily setting up for the first scene, which would involve a shootout in front of the Hard Luck Saloon.
“We’ll eat at Bailey’s,” he decided. “It’s a great place. Everybody in Painted Pony Creek goes there—or to Sully’s Bar and Grill, but that’s on the other end of town.”
“Can we walk there?” Courtney asked. “To Bailey’s, I mean? My legs are stiff from sitting on a crowded plane for almost two hours, then spending another hour and change in the car.”
“There wasn’t even a first-class section on the plane,” Keely kvetched, determined, apparently, that nothing about this day would be classified as fun if she had anything to say about the matter. “It was really little and really crowded.”
“Terrible,” Liam teased.
“And we didn’t get any pretzels, either,” Cavan said when Liam reclaimed his hat and patted the boy’s head. He couldn’t quite summon up a complaint, it seemed, probably because he was a glass-half-full kind of a kid. Always had been.
“Bailey’s is just a few blocks away,” Liam replied to Courtney’s request, over the children’s heads. “Let’s get there before the noon rush.” The kids were walking beside him as he started in the appointed direction, one on his left, one on his right, and he rested his hands on their shoulders, verifying their presence to himself. “It’s only ten thirty, so they’re probably still serving breakfast, if that sounds good to anybody.”
“Hamburgers,” Cavan repeated, with less emphasis than before, but plenty of certainty just the same.
“Curly fries,” Keely confirmed.
Courtney, keeping pace, shook her head and smiled. “Do they get that hardheaded attitude from our side of the family?” she asked. “Or from yours?”
“A little of both, I’d say,” Liam said. When it came to stubbornness, which usually manifested as grit, the McKettricks were world-class. In light of what he knew about the family history, that was nothing new.
Courtney laughed. “Very gracious of you,” she said. She was probably thinking about Waverly, and how difficult she’d been at times.
Bailey’s Restaurant and Bar practically functioned as a community center, it was so popular with locals.
There, among the Formica-topped tables and booths, people met to talk about books they’d read, or to play canasta and pinochle, or simply to enjoy comfort food and company.
At Bailey’s, men and women planned to get married, or to get divorced. They laughed and cried and cheered each other on when times got tough.
It was, in fact, one of the reasons Liam loved the town.
The place was genuine, and so were the people.
Alice Bailey, a tall blonde, still beautiful into her late sixties, greeted them with a bright smile. “Liam!” she called, as though his arrival might just be the high point of her day so far. She swept the kids and Courtney up in her welcome. “I’m Alice,” she added. “Who do we have here?”
“This is my sister-in-law, Courtney,” Liam answered, proud of his little crew. “My daughter, Keely, and my son, Cavan.”
“Glad to meet you all,” Alice replied, and the great thing was, she wasn’t just being polite. She meant it. She indicated an empty table—the last one in the place, as a matter of fact—and they all sat down.
Liam and Courtney were on one side of the table, Keely and Cavan on the other.
While the adults looked the lunch menu over, the kids waited impatiently to order as planned. Breakfast was still being served, but Alice made an exception because the kids were so eager.
Courtney chose a Cobb salad and ice tea, while Liam asked for the special of the day, chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and green beans.
He’d skipped breakfast that morning, too wired to eat, and now he was half-starved.
He wanted something with gravy on it.
Cavan did most of the talking, at least at first, between bites of food.
He pronounced the hamburger at Bailey’s to be the best one he’d ever eaten, while Keely argued for the curly fries.
Liam’s bruised heart swelled inside him as he watched them, his children . How had he even survived living apart from them for a day, let alone a year?
In those moments, his regret was so ferocious that it nearly tore him in two.
The problem with regret was, it didn’t change anything, and if you dwelled on it too long, it could do serious harm. Its only real value was in the lessons it taught, like making up your mind to do better, be better, and not to make the same mistakes ever again.
It wasn’t an easy pit to avoid, since there were so many things he wished he’d done differently, from the first time he met Waverly Everton right up to this very moment.
Still, whatever her faults—and his—Waverly had given him these kids.
That made everything else worthwhile.
Liam’s throat tightened, and he lowered his eyes for a second or two.
The eyes really were the windows of the soul, and just then, he didn’t want anyone to see inside him.
Especially not his kids.
It would be too easy for them to misunderstand the things he was feeling.
“Can I have a horse?” Cavan blurted out, stopping his father from drifting and reeling him right back into the present moment. The seven-year-old had been chattering along, though Liam had missed some of it, lost in his own thoughts.
“You already have one,” Keely told her brother, elbowing him in the arm for good measure. “You have Max the pony here. And Papa and Mimi just gave you that little pinto, Domino.”
Papa and Mimi were the names they called Liam’s parents.
“Domino,” Cavan said pointedly, “ is in California. And Max is just a pony. He’s for little kids. And I’m not a little kid anymore. I’m seven .”
“We’ll see about the horse,” Liam said, but neither Keely nor Cavan seemed to be listening.
“And,” Cavan went on, “you said you didn’t want a horse, so Papa and Mimi didn’t give you one!”
“Hey,” Liam interjected, more firmly this time. “I said we’d talk about that later.”
“When grown-ups say they’ll talk about something later,” Keely protested, pushing away what was left of her lunch, “they mean never !”
“Keely,” Courtney said mildly. “Stop. That isn’t true, and you know it.”
Keely hunkered down, puckered up her entire face, and kicked at the legs of her chair with the heels of her sneakers.
“They’re tired,” Courtney added, glancing Liam’s way. “Both of them.”
“It’s a big change for them,” Liam agreed. Then he turned his attention back to the kids. “Stop kicking the chair, Keely,” he said evenly. Firmly. “You’re too old to act like that.”
Keely stopped kicking, but apparently that was all the concession she was willing to make, because her arms were still clenched tight across her chest, and she wouldn’t look at Liam.
“You’re not the boss of me,” she said, in a tone that told Liam she was testing the parental waters. Looking for the border between what would and would not be tolerated.
“On the contrary, Miss Keely McKettrick,” Liam replied, ignoring another glance from Courtney, who clearly wanted to smooth things over, “for all practical intents and purposes, I am the boss of you, at least until you grow up, and you’d do well to keep that in mind.”
“Or what?” Keely whispered, with less confidence than before.
“Or you’ll be doing a lot of extra chores instead of, say, watching videos on your tablet or your phone. You’ve been to Papa and Mimi’s place plenty of times, so you know just how many chores there are to do on a ranch.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Isn’t it?” Liam’s voice was quiet, even respectful, and there was no anger in it. If there was anything he could do to stop his daughter from taking after her mother, as far as her behavior went, he was going to do it.
“Can we leave now?” Keely persisted.
“No,” Liam replied. “We’re not going anywhere until everybody’s finished eating.”
“I wish I’d stayed in the car!”
“I’d stop talking right about now, if I were you,” Liam advised calmly. He knew the kid was still baiting him, trying to get a rise out of him, maybe just for the fun of it, and maybe because she resented him in so many ways.
And that resentment wasn’t entirely unfounded, of course.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” Cavan said, a little sadly.
Keely had clearly popped the kid’s bubble with her mini melodrama, but he’d eaten plenty, for a kid his age, so Liam wasn’t troubled by that.
He hadn’t expected any of this to be easy.
And he knew it was just the beginning.
Mentally, he pushed up his sleeves and prepared himself for an uphill battle.
It was a skirmish he fully intended to win, because the well-being of his children was at stake, and that meant giving up wasn’t an option.
Not that any McKettrick he’d ever known—Keely, included, for better or for worse— ever gave up.
Not even when they should have.
When the meal was over, and Liam had paid the bill, they left Bailey’s for the sunbaked sidewalk.
Madison was just getting out of the Bentley, having parked on the other side of the street, and Liam’s flagging spirits rose a little, just at the sight of her.
She wore a simple cotton top, jeans and running shoes, and she nearly took his breath away.
She smiled, waved, looked both ways, and then hurried across the street.
“Is that your car?” Cavan asked, clearly impressed by the Bentley. The kid had never met a stranger, which was mostly a good thing.
Madison smiled and braced her hands on her knees, bending down to look Cavan directly in the face. “No,” she said. “It belongs to my grandmother, but I’m borrowing it these days.”
Liam remembered his manners.
Remembered that he was standing on a sidewalk in Painted Pony Creek, Montana, and not on a fluffy cloud somewhere over the rainbow.
He made the introductions.
Courtney and Madison shook hands.
Keely, thankfully, was reserved, but not out-and-out rude.
Cavan looked delighted, and a little bewitched.
Liam could identify with that.
He heard himself speaking, but he felt disassociated, too.
As if he were still suspended in midair.
Cue the cartoon birds, twittering a happy tune.
He invited Madison out to the ranch that coming Saturday for the horseback ride they’d had to postpone just yesterday, when it rained, and a barbecue afterward.
“I want to go riding, too,” Keely said.
“No you don’t,” Cavan protested. “You don’t even like riding horses.”
“Enough,” Liam said, resettling his hat, a thing he’d always done when there was any kind of conflict, benign or otherwise.
Get used to it, cowboy , advised the voice in his head. The chute’s open and the bronco is bucking fit to kick holes in the sky.
Madison’s smile didn’t waver, and her eyes told him she understood, though he couldn’t help wondering if she actually did.
“A horseback ride and a barbecue sound like a lot of fun,” she said. “What time, and what can I bring?”
“Bring your car,” Cavan put in. “I’d really like to ride in it!”
“I think that can be arranged,” Madison replied, and her focus shifted to Keely, who was probably just as impressed by the light in this woman’s eyes and in her voice as her brother was, though she’d most likely die before admitting it. “How about you, Keely? Would you like a ride in the Bentley too?”
Keely shrugged. “Maybe,” she muttered. “And I do too like riding horses,” she added, side-eying her brother. “No matter what Cavan says.”
Madison lifted one wrist, glanced at her watch.
It was the old-fashioned sort, not particularly expensive, the kind that had to be wound and did not play music, predict the weather, signal for help or send and receive texts.
As small an observation as that was, it struck Liam as one more thing he liked about this woman.
And those things were mounting up, fast.
“See you Saturday,” Liam said. “Around noon?”
“I’ll be there,” Madison promised. She turned back to Courtney, put out her hand again. “It’s nice to meet you, Courtney,” she said.
Just then, Melba Summers pulled up and parked right behind Madison’s grandmother’s car.
“We’re meeting for lunch,” Madison explained.
Liam couldn’t help feeling concerned. After all, she lived alone in that happy monstrosity of a house. Maybe something had happened, or she felt threatened for some reason?
“Is everything all right?” he asked, remembering how good it had felt to hold her the night before, on the couch in her library. They’d done quite a bit of kissing, and he’d sensed that she wanted more as much as he did.
And they’d tacitly agreed that it was too soon to go to bed together.
“Yes,” Madison assured him, though she seemed pleased that he’d cared enough to ask. “This is about something else, something that happened a long time ago. I’ll tell you about it another time.”
Melba had crossed the street to join them by then.
She was a beautiful woman, innately feminine.
She was also the local chief of police, and she was in uniform, all smiles and warmth and good-natured authority.
More introductions were made.
This time, Keely didn’t try to hide the fact that she was impressed. She’d taken note, it was obvious, of the shining silver badge, the service belt and revolver, the shoulder radio.
Her blue-violet eyes were wide, and they shone with admiration.
Inwardly, Liam celebrated.
After a few moments, Melba and Madison said their farewells and went into Bailey’s. Liam’s curiosity had been aroused— what “something” had happened “a long time ago”?
He’d just have to wait to find out.
He and Courtney and the kids returned to Bitter Gulch, or at least to the fringes of it. The filming had begun, and two actors, one of them very well-known, were squaring off in the street, with the saloon in the background.
They looked like the Earp gang, with their long, fitted coats, round-brimmed hats and Colt .45s.
There, Courtney parted ways with Liam and her niece and nephew, as it was time for a meeting she’d scheduled with one of the producers and a few of the techs. She would drive out to the ranch later, she’d said, in the rental car.
Liam collected Cavan’s booster seat, carried it to his truck, which was parked nearby.
“Now this ,” Cavan pronounced exuberantly, “is a truck !”
Keely rolled her eyes, but said nothing.
Liam grinned. Helped his son scramble up into the back seat and onto the booster.
Cavan fastened his seat belt on his own.
“Can I ride in front, with you?” Keely asked.
Damn. The first remotely friendly thing the kid had said to him and he had to refuse her request. “Sorry, Squirt,” he said, with genuine regret. “You’re not quite tall enough for that to be legal.”
“I don’t need a booster seat, like Cavan,” the girl reasoned. She was small for her age, delicate, and so, at the moment, was her voice. “So why is it against the law for me to sit in front?”
“Something to do with the airbags,” Liam responded. “If there was a crash, and those bags deployed, you could be badly hurt. Even killed.”
The thought of that , of course, was downright intolerable.
No way he was giving any ground on this one.
“That sucks,” Keely said, but she didn’t argue any further. She just climbed into the back seat with her brother, wrenched her seat belt into place, and snapped the buckle shut.
“So much of life does,” Liam replied mildly. “That’s why you have to choose what’s important enough to get bent out of shape over, and what doesn’t matter enough to justify a hassle.”
Keely just looked at him.
Not even a tween-ager yet, and she’d already mastered silent contempt.
Liam sighed. Shut the passenger side door and walked around to the driver’s side. Climbed in.
There was no sense in arguing, especially with this particular kid.
Instead, he decided to follow his own advice and save himself for more important battles.
God knew there would be plenty of those.