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Or, better yet, she could just stand him up. Not show up at all. Just as he’d done to her, way back when, when she’d loved him with all her heart and soul, when she’d believed he meant to make a place for her in his busy, exciting life.
Musing, Meg laid a hand to her lower abdomen.
She’d stopped believing in a lot of things when Brad O’Ballivan ditched her.
Maybe he wanted to apologize.
She gave a teary snort of laughter.
And maybe he really had fans on other planets.
A rap at the back door made her start. Angus? He never knocked—he just appeared. Usually at the most inconvenient possible time.
Meg went to the door, peered through the old, thick panes of greenish glass, saw Travis Reid looming on the other side. She wrestled with the lock and let him in.
“I’m here on reconnaissance,” he announced, taking off his cowboy hat and hanging it on the peg next to the door. “Sierra’s worried about you, and so is Eve.”
Meg put a hand to her forehead. She’d left the baby shower abruptly to go meet Brad at the Dixie Dog Drive-In. “I’m sorry,” she said, stepping back so Travis could come inside. “I’m all right, really. You shouldn’t have come all the way out here—”
“Eve tried your cell—which is evidently off—and Sierra left three or four messages on voice mail,” he said with a nod toward the kitchen telephone. “Consider yourself fortunate that I got here before they called out the National Guard.”
Meg laughed, closed the door against the chilly October twilight, and watched as Travis took off his sheepskin-lined coat and hung it next to the hat. “I was just feeling a little—overwhelmed.”
“Overwhelmed?” She’d been possessed.
Travis went to the telephone, punched in a sequence of numbers and waited. “Hi, honey,” he said presently, when Sierra answered. “Meg’s alive and well. No armed intruders. No bloody accident. She was just—overwhelmed.”
“Tell her I’ll call her later,” Meg said. “Mom, too.”
“She’ll call you later,” Travis repeated dutifully. “Eve, too.” He listened again, promised to pick up a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread on the way home and hung up.
Knowing Travis wasn’t fond of tea, Meg offered him a cup of instant coffee, instead.
He accepted, taking a seat at the table where generations of McKettricks, from Holt and Lorelei on down, had taken their meals. “What’s really going on, Meg?” he asked quietly, watching her as she poured herself some tea and joined him.
“What makes you think anything is going on?”
“I know you. We tried to fall in love, remember?”
“Brad O’Ballivan’s back,” she said.
Travis nodded. “And this means—?”
“Nothing,” Meg answered, much too quickly. “It means nothing. I just—”
Travis settled back in his chair, folded his arms, and waited.
“Okay, it was a shock,” Meg admitted. She sat up a little straighter. “But you already knew.”
“Jesse told me.”
“And nobody thought to mention it to me?”
“I guess we assumed you’d talked to Brad.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because—” Travis paused, looked uncomfortable. “It’s no secret that the two of you had a thing going, Meg. Indian Rock and Stone Creek are small places, forty miles apart. Things get around.”
Meg’s face burned. She’d thought, she’d truly believed, that no one on earth knew Brad had broken her heart. She’d pretended it didn’t matter that he’d left town so abruptly. Even laughed about it. Gone on to finish college, thrown herself into that first entry-level job at McKettrickCo. Dated other men, including the then-single Travis.
And she hadn’t fooled anyone.
“Are you going to see him again?”
Meg pressed the tips of her fingers hard into her closed eyes. Nodded. Then shook her head from side to side.
Travis chuckled. “Make a decision, Meg,” he said.
“We’re supposed to have a drink together tomorrow night, at a cowboy bar in Stone Creek. I don’t know why I said I’d meet him—after all this time, what do we have to say to each other?”
“‘How’ve ya been?’” Travis suggested.
“I know how he’s been—rich and famous, married twice, busy building a reputation that makes Jesse’s look tame,” she said. “I, on the other hand, have been a workaholic. Period.”
“Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself? Not to mention Brad?” A grin quirked the corner of Travis’s mouth. “Comparing him to Jesse?”
Jesse had been a wild man, if a good-hearted, well-intentioned one, until he’d met up with Cheyenne Bridges. When he’d fallen, he’d fallen hard, and for the duration, the way bad boys so often do.
“Maybe Brad’s changed,” Travis said.
“Maybe not,” Meg countered.
“Well, I guess you could leave town for a while. Stay out of his way.” Travis was trying hard not to smile. “Volunteer for a space mission or something.”
“I am not going to run,” Meg said. “I’ve always wanted to live right here, on this ranch, in this house. Besides, I intend to be here when the baby comes.”
Travis’s face softened at the mention of the impending birth. Until Sierra came along, Meg hadn’t thought he’d ever settle down. He’d had his share of demons to overcome, not the least of which was the tragic death of his younger brother. Travis had blamed himself for what happened to Brody. “Good,” he said. “But what do you actually do here? You’re used to the fast lane, Meg.”
“I take care of the horses,” she said.
“That takes, what—two hours a day? According to Eve, you spend most of your time in your pajamas. She thinks you’re depressed.”
“Well, I’m not,” Meg said. “I’m just—catching up on my rest.”
“Okay,” Travis said, drawing out the word.
“I’m not drinking alone and I’m not watching soap operas,” Meg said. “I’m vegging. It’s a concept my mother doesn’t understand.”
“She loves you, Meg. She’s worried. She’s not the enemy.”
“I wish she’d go back to Texas.”
“Wish away. She’s not going anywhere, with a grandchild coming.”
At least Eve hadn’t taken up residence on the ranch; that was some comfort. She lived in a small suite at the only hotel in Indian Rock, and kept herself busy shopping, day trading on her laptop and spoiling Liam.
Oh, yes. And nagging Meg.
Travis finished his coffee, carried his cup to the sink, rinsed it out. After hesitating for a few moments, he said, “It’s this thing about seeing Angus’s ghost. She thinks you’re obsessed.”
Meg made a soft, strangled sound of frustration.
“It’s not that she doesn’t believe you,” Travis added.
“She just thinks I’m a little crazy.”
“No,” Travis said. “Nobody thinks that.”
“But I should get a life, as the saying goes?”
“It would be a good idea, don’t you think?”
“Go home. Your pregnant wife needs a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.”
Travis went to the door, put on his coat, took his hat from the hook. “What do you need, Meg? That’s the question.”
“Not Brad O’Ballivan, that’s for sure.”
Travis grinned again. Set his hat on his head and turned the doorknob. “Did I mention him?” he asked lightly.
Meg glared at him.
“See you,” Travis said. And then he was gone.
“He puts me in mind of that O’Ballivan fella,” Angus announced, nearly startling Meg out of her skin.
She turned to see him standing over by the china cabinet. Was it her imagination, or did he look a little older than he had that afternoon?
“Jesse looks like Jeb. Rance looks like Rafe. Keegan looks like Kade. You’re seeing things, Angus.”
“Have it your way,” Angus said.
Like any McKettrick had ever said that and meant it.
“What’s for supper?”
“What do you care? You never eat.”
“Neither do you. You’re starting to look like a bag of bones.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t make comments about bones. Being dead and all, I mean.”
“The problem with you young people is, you have no respect for your elders.”
Meg sighed, got up from her chair at the table, stomped over to the refrigerator and selected a boxed dinner from the stack in the freezer. The box was coated with frost.
“I’m sorry,” Meg said. “Is that a hint of silver I see at your temples?”
Self-consciously, Angus shifted his weight from one booted foot to the other. “If I’m going gray,” he scowled, “it’s on account of you. None of my boys ever gave me half as much trouble as you, or my Katie, either. And they were plum full of the dickens, all of them.”
Meg’s heart pinched. Katie was Angus’s youngest child, and his only daughter. He rarely mentioned her, since she’d caused some kind of scandal by eloping on her wedding day—with someone other than the groom. Although she and Angus had eventually reconciled, he’d been on his deathbed at the time.
“I’m all right, Angus,” she told him. “You can go. Really.”
“You eat food that could be used to drive railroad spikes into hard ground. You don’t have a husband. You rattle around in this old house like some—ghost. I’m not leaving until I know you’ll be happy.”
“I’m happy now.”
Angus walked over to her, the heels of his boots thumping on the plank floor, took the frozen dinner out of her hands, and carried it to the trash compactor. Dropped it inside.
“Damn fool contraption,” he muttered.
“That was my supper,” Meg objected.
“Cook something,” Angus said. “Get out a skillet. Dump some lard into it. Fry up a chicken.” He paused, regarded her darkly. “You do know how to cook, don’t you?”
Chapter Three
Jolene’s, built on the site of the old saloon and brothel where Angus McKettrick and Major John Blackstone used to arm wrestle, among other things, was dimly lit and practically empty. Meg paused on the threshold, letting her eyes adjust and wishing she’d listened to her instincts and cancelled; now there would be no turning back.
Brad was standing by the jukebox, the colored lights flashing across the planes of his face. Having heard the door open, he turned his head slightly to acknowledge her arrival with a nod and a wisp of a grin.
“Where is everybody?” she asked. Except for the bartender, she and Brad were alone.
“Staying clear,” Brad said. “I promised a free concert in the high school gym if we could have Jolene’s to ourselves for a couple of hours.”
Meg nearly fled. If it hadn’t been against the McKettrick code, as inherent to her being as her DNA, she would have given in to the urge and called it good judgment.
“Have a seat,” Brad said, drawing back a chair at one of the tables. Nothing in the whole tavern matched, not even the bar stools, and every stick of furniture was scarred and scratched. Jolene’s was a hangout for honky-tonk angels; the winged variety would surely have given the place a wide berth.
“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked. He was a squat man, wearing a muscle shirt and a lot of tattoos. With his handlebar mustache, he might have been from Angus’s era, instead of the present day.
Brad ordered a cola as Meg forced herself across the room to take the chair he offered.
Maybe, she thought, as she asked for an iced tea, the rumors were true, and Brad was fresh out of rehab.
The bartender served the drinks and quietly left the saloon, via a back door.
