Читать книгу McKettrick's Pride - Linda Miller Lael - Страница 11

CHAPTER FOUR

ECHO SAT CROSS-LEGGED IN the middle of her featherbed, awash in sunlight from the big windows opening onto the alley behind the shop, laptop open, Avalon snoozing peacefully beside her.

Four different people, in four different and far-flung parts of the country, had e-mailed offers to adopt Avalon, but no one claimed ownership. Both relieved and discouraged, Echo dispatched electronic thank-you notes and went to her own Web site.

Seeing it always made her smile.

It was her delicious little secret.

And the orders were piling up—more than a hundred had come in since she’d last logged on, before leaving Chicago.

“Best get cracking,” she told Avalon, who opened her eyes, yawned and then went back to sleep.

Reaching for the pen and notepad on the bedside table, Echo scrawled a shopping list. Velvet bags. Cording. Certain herbs and stones. Some of the supplies she needed had arrived with her furniture and other belongings, but she would have to contact her wholesalers, just the same.

Biting her lower lip, she scanned the list of orders again. Something niggled at the periphery of her awareness.

And then the name jumped out at her.

Cora Tellington.

“Cora?” she said aloud. A smile broke over her face as she checked the address. Sure enough, it was the Cora Tellington, of Indian Rock, Arizona.

Well, she thought happily, I’ll be darned.

Of course, she could fill the order from supplies on hand and deliver it in person, but Cora might be embarrassed and, besides, Echo wasn’t sure she was ready to reveal her sideline to anyone just yet. Her name didn’t appear on the Web site, and there was no toll-free number or post office box listed, either. Any receipts went directly into an online-payment service account, and she’d always shipped the merchandise from a franchise in the neighborhood.

Something else caught her attention as she studied Cora’s order on the screen of her laptop.

Cora wasn’t buying for herself.

“Hmm,” Echo murmured, confused.

Then, because she felt a peculiar sense of urgency, she set the computer aside, got off the bed and started rummaging through boxes, gathering the necessary materials.

A feather.

A pink agate.

A prayer, printed on a tiny strip of paper.

She put all these things into a small blue velvet bag, tied the gold drawstring and placed the works inside a little padded envelope, to be mailed on Monday morning.

What on earth, she wondered, had prompted Cora Tellington to order a love-spell, not for herself, but for a man?

THE PACKAGE ARRIVED IN Monday afternoon’s mail. Cora smiled when she saw it, felt a shiver of excitement and secreted it away in her purse before Maggie or any of her other employees caught a glimpse.

It was silly, she knew, to place her hopes in this kind of magic, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She’d tried just about everything else, and she was fresh out of ideas.

Of course, she could have gone to Sedona and talked to a psychic, but people knew her there. She didn’t want anybody spilling the beans—if word of what she was up to ever got back to Rance, he’d have a fit and fall in it.

I did it for you, Julie, she said silently. And for your girls.

Julie would have laughed, Cora knew that. Her daughter had been the practical, pragmatic type, just like Rance. Indeed, the two of them had been very much alike, believing only in what they could see, hear and touch.

It was sad.

Cora came back from her mental sojourn. Hammering sounded from next door, at Echo’s shop, and Eddie Walters’s old truck was still parked out front.

Needing a break, after giving three perms and a weave, Cora decided to go over and see how the new shelves were coming along.

Echo was up on a ladder, painting the ceiling. Barefoot, wearing a fitted T-shirt, her long, firm legs revealed by a pair of denim shorts, she looked like a wood nymph. The dog was nowhere in sight.

“Wow,” Cora said, admiring Eddie’s work as well as Echo’s. “The place looks great.”

Echo smiled and descended the ladder, laying her paint roller in the tray and resting her hands on her hips. “The first shipment of books is due to arrive on Thursday,” she said. “I might be open for business by Saturday morning.”

It pleased Cora to see the old shop coming alive again. She’d bought it years ago, along with the space next door, planning to expand her own business one day. As it turned out, though, she’d had her hands full with the Curl and Twirl, and now she was thinking more and more often of retiring, maybe doing a little traveling.

Of course, she couldn’t do that with Rance still running hither and yon like some crazy man, trying to work himself into an early grave, or outrun memories of a past he tended to idealize.

Cora had loved her daughter, but Julie had been a flesh-and-blood woman, with all the accompanying faults and foibles, not a paragon of virtue. In some ways, it was unfair, Rance’s remembering her the way he did. He’d forgotten the way the two of them butted heads, because they were too much alike. Stiff-necked, both of them. Used to getting their own way.

A curious expression came over Echo’s face; she seemed to be pondering Cora, like the blank spaces in a crossword puzzle.

“I haven’t seen the girls in a few days,” Echo said, brightening.

“Rance took them camping up on Jesse’s ridge,” Cora explained, relieved. “Where’s Avalon?”

“Hiding under my bed, I think,” Echo replied. “All this hammering and sawing is probably giving her a headache.”

Eddie grinned sheepishly and waded into the conversation. “Almost done,” he said.

Cora had known Eddie all his life. Known his mother, and his grandmother, too, God rest their souls. He wasn’t a bright boy, but he was good with his hands. When somebody in Indian Rock needed shelves put up, or walls painted, or pipes and wiring fixed, Eddie was the person they called. That was why Cora had recommended him to Echo.

“Looks like you did a good job,” Cora told him. “Just like always.”

Eddie beamed, already putting away his tools. The floor was covered with sawdust, and Cora, being Cora, found a broom in the corner and started sweeping.

“You don’t have to do that,” Echo protested, a slight frown puckering her brow.

Cora remembered that she’d come from Chicago. Like as not, folks in a big city like that didn’t sweep one another’s floors, but this was Indian Rock, not Chicago. Cora went right on with her sweeping.

Echo watched solemnly, and she looked like a person with something to say. When Eddie finished up, Echo wrote him a check, and he left with his toolbox.

Avalon came downstairs the moment the door closed behind him.

“How ya doin’ today, little mama?” Cora asked the dog. She’d always liked critters, but she had a special place in her heart for this one. Echo had told her about finding Avalon outside a truck stop down by Tucson, lost and soaked to the skin.

“I was walking her on Saturday night, after I got back from the party,” Echo said suddenly, patting the dog’s head. “We came to a park, so I let her off the leash for a run. She headed straight for an RV parked on the opposite side and about clawed the door down trying to get in.”

Cora considered that. The implications were obvious.

“I want to find her family,” Echo said, very softly, and very sadly. “I truly do. But I swear it’s going to kill me to give her up.”

If ever anybody looked like they needed a hug, it was Echo Wells, in that moment. “You’ll do what’s right,” Cora said, dumping a dustbinful of sawdust and wood chips into the trash. “That’s the kind of person you are.”

Echo’s eyes glistened. She blinked and looked away.

“I might be out of line asking this,” Cora ventured carefully, “but do you have any folks?”

Echo met her gaze, though Cora could tell she didn’t want to. “An aunt and uncle, a few cousins,” she said. “We’re not close.”

“I see.” Cora told herself she was an old busybody and she ought to keep her mouth shut. She didn’t, though. “No husband or boyfriend?”

Echo shook her head. Looked away. Looked back. “I almost got married once,” she said. “Justin and I booked a slot in one of those gaudy little chapels in Vegas. I flew in on schedule, put on my dress and took a cab to the McWeddings place. Justin was—detained.”

Cora set the broom aside. “You mean he stood you up?”

“He said he had a meeting at the last minute,” Echo said, trying to smile and failing miserably.

Uh-oh, Cora thought, as she registered the word meeting. She’d been toying with the idea that Rance and Echo might get together ever since the party—the girls liked Echo, and she and Rance surely looked good together—despite their bristly beginning. But Rance was a workaholic, and evidently this Justin yahoo had been, too.

“So you were all alone in Vegas? He didn’t show up at all?”

“I told him not to bother,” Echo said. Her voice sounded small and faraway.

“But when you got back home…?”

“Justin lives in New York,” Echo replied, when Cora’s sentence fell apart in the middle, like a suspension bridge bearing too much weight. “I lived in Chicago. Neither of us wanted to move at the time, so it wouldn’t have worked out, anyway.”

“Still,” Cora said, wanting to cry.

“Justin was all business,” Echo went on, evidently trying to make Cora feel better. The effort, just like the smile she’d attempted earlier, fell flat. “He cared more about his company than anything else. I wanted—”

“What did you want, Echo?” Cora asked, after a few moments of gentle silence.

“A dog,” Echo said. “A husband and kids.”

Cora’s hopes sparked again. “You’re young—twenty-nine? Thirty? You oughtn’t to give up.”

Echo leaned down, stroked Avalon thoughtfully. “Twenty-nine,” she said. Then she gave Cora another of those pensive looks. “What about you, Cora? You haven’t mentioned a husband. Are you planning to fall in love one day soon?”

It was an odd question. Made Cora think of the little package snugged away in her handbag. “Julie’s dad died years ago. Best husband a woman could ever ask for, my Mike. Nope, I’m not in the market for a man. After all, I’m sixty-three years old. I’ve saved up some money, and I’d like to take me one of those cruises.”

“What stops you?” Echo asked. She put the question carefully, as though expecting it to blow up in her face.

“Rance,” Cora admitted, after weighing the matter in her mind first. “I’m afraid he’d hire another airheaded nanny and fly off someplace. Leave Rianna and Maeve at her mercy.”

Echo’s gaze drifted to the display window, and suddenly she looked flushed and flustered. “Speak of the devil,” she said.

Cora turned, watched as Rance got out of his SUV, fresh from the camping trip. His hair was rumpled and he needed a shave. His jeans and white T-shirt looked as though he’d slept in them. He started toward the Curl and Twirl, noticed Cora and Echo watching him through the window, and changed direction.

“Where are the girls?” Cora asked the minute he stepped over the threshold.

He sighed, and a muscle bunched in his jaw. Then he grinned, that tilted McKettrick grin. “I knew I was forgetting something when I broke camp this afternoon,” he joked.

“Very funny,” Cora said, but she had to chuckle a little.

“They’re at Keegan’s, with Devon,” Rance explained, and even though he was speaking to Cora, he was looking at Echo. Taking in the paint splotches, the long bare legs, the form-fitting T-shirt.

“I just remembered something I need to do before the Curl and Twirl closes for the day,” Cora announced, and made a beeline for the door.

Outside, on the sidewalk, she paused and allowed herself the smallest of smiles. If Rance kept his back turned long enough, she might just be able to slip the contents of that little package under the seat of his truck.

She thought about the Web site, and all the testimonials, and the thirty-day money-back guarantee.

Time to take a chance on magic.

“ABOUT THE OTHER NIGHT,” Rance began awkwardly, giving the dog a sidelong glance. At least it hadn’t gone for his throat, so maybe he’d be able to work his way into its good graces after all.

Echo, looking like a strawberry ice cream cone in her tight pink shirt and little bitty jeans shorts, stayed on the other side of the room. She said nothing, just waited. Maybe she wanted to watch him squirm for a while.

Rance shoved a hand through his hair, wishing he’d taken the time to shower and change clothes before driving into town. He’d come to let Cora know he and the girls were back from the camping trip, or at least that was what he’d told himself when he’d dropped the girls off at Keegan’s. Now, facing Echo Wells, he knew it for the lie it was.

“I was a little short-tempered at the party,” he said awkwardly. “I’d like to apologize.”

Her eyes widened. Whatever she’d expected him to say, it hadn’t been that. “No need,” she said, still cautious, just when he was beginning to think she wasn’t going to speak to him at all.

“I caught a mess of fish while we were camping,” he heard himself say. “I thought I’d fry them up for supper tonight.” He paused, cleared his throat, trying to remember the last time he’d felt like a sixteen-year-old asking out the most popular girl in school. “Maybe you’d like to join us?”

She flushed. Fidgeted a little. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea—”

“The girls will be there,” he put in quickly when she faltered. He grinned, more out of nervousness than amusement. “You can bring the dog.”

Echo moistened her lips. “Look, you don’t have to—”

“Do you ever speak in complete sentences?” Rance asked, relieved when she relaxed and even laughed a little.

She looked down at her clothes, which Rance would have liked to peel away so he could taste everything underneath in slow, wet nibbles.

“I’m a mess,” she said.

Some mess, he thought, shifting uncomfortably when a vision of those legs, draped over his shoulders while he knelt between them, flashed into his mind. “You look fine to me,” he answered, silently crediting himself with the understatement of the century.

He saw the decision, tentative and hopeful, take shape in her face.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay,” he agreed.

“I’ll just grab a shower and meet you at your place later.”

Another vision exploded in Rance’s mind. Echo, naked and slick with water, coming apart in his arms as he slammed into her in a single thrust of his hips.

He had to swallow again. If he didn’t get out of there quick, he’d have to step behind the counter to hide his rising interest.

“Six o’clock?” he asked.

“Six o’clock,” she confirmed.

He turned, started for the door, then looked back over one shoulder. “You need directions?”

Her smile melted something inside him. “That would help,” she said.

He told her how to find the house and made his escape.

Outside, feeling distracted and three kinds of grubby, he noticed that the door of his rig was a little ajar.

Weird, he thought. He’d slammed it shut after getting out.

With a shrug, he climbed into the SUV and started the engine.

All the way back to the ranch, he thought about Echo.

He wasn’t a psychic.

He didn’t call hotlines, hang crystals or consult tarot cards.

And he didn’t need any of those things to tell him what the future held.

He was going to make love to Echo Wells—and soon.

“IT DOESN’T MEAN A THING,” Echo told Avalon as she shinnied into a pair of jeans, after her shower, and then pulled a white eyelet top on over her bra, a lacey number she wore whenever she wanted cleavage. “He’s just trying to make up for being rude at the party.”

Avalon tipped her head to one side and panted.

“We shouldn’t read anything into this,” Echo went on, fluffing her hair. Should she braid it, pin it up or wear it down?

She decided on the braid. Pinning it up implied too much getting ready, and wearing it down was too sexy. Not to mention that, being damp from the shower, it was bound to frizz out around her head and make her look as though she’d just stuck her finger into a light socket.

Makeup?

Echo sighed. Too much getting ready again.

She settled for lip gloss and a touch of mascara.

Perfume?

Not a chance.

“Come on,” she said to Avalon, hooking a leash to the dog’s collar and grabbing for her purse. “We’ll drive slowly, so we don’t seem too eager.”

Avalon sighed.

They descended the stairs, into the shop, and Echo paused a moment to enjoy the new shelves and the smell of sawdust.

Outside, she locked the shop door and approached the Volkswagen. She’d bought it with a windfall, last year. Now, looking at it, she wondered if she shouldn’t have chosen a more circumspect color.

She opened the passenger-side door, and Avalon leaped obediently into the seat, waited while Echo unhooked the leash again and fastened the seat belt.

“Can’t be too careful,” she said. “After all, you’re probably preggo.”

A minute later, they were zooming out of town.

They’d traveled several miles before Echo remembered that she didn’t want to seem eager, and slowed to approximately the speed of a lawn mower.

Avalon panted, watching the scenery drag by.

Echo turned the radio on, then off again.

Flipped on the CD player.

Mozart. That was what she needed. Nice, soothing Mozart.

So why did everything inside her vibrate to “Boot-Scootin’ Boogie?”

The ranch house was built of logs and mortar, and stood facing a shimmering creek, dancing in the fading sunlight of a summer evening.

She pulled the Volkswagen up alongside Rance’s SUV, and smiled when Rianna and Maeve burst out onto a side patio and raced toward her.

“I’ve got a pink car, too!” Rianna shouted when Echo rolled down her window to greet them.

Avalon gave a joyous yelp and strained at her seat belt.

After determining that it was safe to turn the animal loose, Echo got out and went around to the other side of the car to do so.

Avalon sprang out with a happy woof and ran in ecstatic circles around Rianna and Maeve, who seemed equally delighted.