Read Online McKettrick's Luck by Linda Lael Miller - Free Book Online Page A

profoundly different now she thought sadly, giving the miniature planet a little spin. New borders. New wars. AIDS and terrorism.
    Cheyenne heard Jesse come in but she didn’t turn to look. For a heartbeat or two she wanted to pretend she was Chloe McKettrick, the schoolteacher bride, and Jesse was Jeb. As long as she didn’t make eye contact, she could pretend.
    â€œThere were never more than a dozen pupils at any given time,” Jesse said quietly. “Just Chloe and Jeb’s kids, their cousins and a few strays or ranch-hands’ children.”
    â€œIt must have been wonderfully simple,” Cheyenne said very softly.
    â€œIt was hard, too,” Jesse answered. She knew he was standing next to the big table, heard him slide the rubber bands off the blueprints and unroll them. “No running water, no electricity. We didn’t have lights out here until well into the 30s. Holt’s place had a line in from the road from about 1917 on, but all it powered was one bulb in the kitchen.”
    Cheyenne forced herself to turn around and look at Jesse. Just briefly, she could almost believe he was Jeb, dressed the way he was with his hat sitting beside him on the tabletop. She knew which was Holt’s place, which had been Rafe’s and Kade’s—everyone who’d ever spent any time at all in Indian Rock had heard at least the outlines of the family’s illustrious history—but hearing it from Jesse somehow made it all seem new.
    She shook her head, feeling as if she’d somehow wandered onto the set of an old movie, or fallen headlong into a romance novel. It was time to stop dreaming and start selling —if she didn’t convince Jesse to part with that five hundred acres, well, the consequences would be staggering.
    â€œIt’s wonderful that the ranch has been so well preserved all this time,” she said as Jesse studied the blueprints, holding them open with his widely placed hands, his head down so she couldn’t see his expression. “But the land we’re talking about has never been part of the Triple M, as I understand it.”
    Jesse looked up, but he was wearing his poker face and even with all the experience Cheyenne had gathered from dealing with her cardsharp father, there was no reading him. “Land,” he said, “is land.”
    Alarms went off in Cheyenne’s head but she kept her composure. She’d had a lot of practice doing that, both as a child, coping with the ups and downs of a dysfunctional family, and as an adult struggling to build a career in a business based largely on speculation and the ability to persuade, wheedle, convince.
    She moved to stand beside Jesse, worked up a smile and pointed to a section in the middle of the proposed development. “This is the community park,” she said. “There will be plenty of grass, a fountain, benches, playground equipment for the kids. If we dam the creek, we can have a fishpond—”
    Too late, Cheyenne realized she’d made a major mistake mentioning Nigel’s plans to change the course of the stream bisecting the property before flowing downhill, onto and across the heart of the Triple M.
    Jesse’s face tightened and he withdrew his hands, letting the blueprints roll noisily back up into a loose cylinder.
    â€œSurely that creek isn’t the only water source—” Cheyenne began, but she fell silent at the look in Jesse’s eyes.
    â€œNo deal,” he said.
    â€œJesse—”
    He shoved the blueprints at her. “You kept up your end of the bargain and I kept up mine. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let you and a bunch of jackasses in three-piece suits mess with that creek so the condo-dwellers can raise koi.”
    â€œPlease listen—” Cheyenne was desperate and past caring whether Jesse knew it or not.
    â€œI’ve heard all I need to hear,” he said.
    â€œLook, the fishpond is certainly