The Mckettrick Way. Linda Miller Lael

the soles of their boots were still rooted to the floor. “And you’re at the top of my list, Meg McKettrick.”

      “You’re at the top of mine, too,” Meg retorted. “But I don’t think we’re talking about the same kind of list.”

      He laughed. God, how she’d missed that sound. How she’d missed the heat and substance of him, and the sun-dried laundry smell of his skin and hair…

      Stop, she told herself. She was acting like some smitten fan or something.

      “You bought me an engagement ring,” she blurted, without intending to do anything of the kind. “We were supposed to elope. And then you got on a bus and went to Nashville and married what’s-her-name!”

      “I was stupid,” Brad said. “And scared.”

      “No,” Meg replied, fighting back furious tears. “You were ambitious. And of course the bride’s father owned a recording company—”

      Brad closed his eyes for a moment. A muscle bunched in his cheek. “Valerie,” he said miserably. “Her name was Valerie.”

      “Do you really think I give a damn what her name was?”

      “Yeah,” he answered. “I do.”

      “Well, you’re wrong!”

      “That must be why you look like you want to club me to the ground with the nearest blunt object.”

      “I got over you like that!” Meg told him, snapping her fingers. But a tear slipped down her cheek, spoiling the whole effect.

      Brad brushed it away gently with the side of one thumb. “Meg,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

      “Oh, that changes everything!” Meg scoffed. She tried to move away from him again, but he still wouldn’t let her go.

      One corner of his mouth tilted up in a forlorn effort at a grin. “You’ll feel a lot better if you forgive me.” He curved the fingers of his right hand under her chin, lifted. “For old times’ sake?” he cajoled. “For the nights when we went skinny-dipping in the pond behind your house on the Triple M? For the nights we—”

      “No,” Meg interrupted, fairly smothering as the memories wrapped themselves around her. “You don’t deserve to be forgiven.”

      “You’re right,” Brad agreed. “I don’t. But that’s the thing about forgiveness. It’s all about grace, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be undeserved.”

      “Great logic if you’re on the receiving end!”

      “I had my reasons, Meg.”

      “Yeah. You wanted bright lights and big money. Oh, and fast women.”

      Brad’s jaw tightened, but his eyes were bleak. “I couldn’t have married you, Meg.”

      “Pardon my confusion. You gave me an engagement ring and proposed!”

      “I wasn’t thinking.” He looked away, faced her again with visible effort. “You had a trust fund. I had a mortgage and a pile of bills. I laid awake nights, sweating blood, thinking the bank would foreclose at any minute. I couldn’t dump that in your lap.”

      Meg’s mouth dropped open. She’d known the O’Ballivans weren’t rich, at least, not like the McKettricks were, but she’d never imagined, even once, that Stone Creek Ranch was in danger of being lost.

      “They wanted that land,” Brad went on. “The bankers, I mean. They already had the plans drawn up for a housing development.”

      “I didn’t know—I would have helped—”

      “Sure,” Brad said. “You’d have helped. And I’d never have been able to look you in the face again. I had one chance, Meg. Valerie’s dad had heard my demo and he was willing to give me an audition. A fifteen-minute slot in his busy day. I tried to tell you—”

      Meg closed her eyes for a moment, remembering. Brad had told her he wanted to postpone the wedding until after his trip to Nashville. He’d promised to come back for her. She’d been furious and hurt—and keeping a secret of her own—and they’d argued….

      She swallowed painfully. “You didn’t call. You didn’t write—”

      “When I got to Nashville, I had a used bus ticket and a guitar. If I’d called, it would have been collect, and I wasn’t about to do that. I started half a dozen letters, but they all sounded like the lyrics to bad songs. I went to the library a couple of times, to send you an e-mail, but beyond ‘how are you?’ I just flat-out didn’t know what to say.”

      “So you just hooked up with Valerie?”

      “It wasn’t like that.”

      “I’m assuming she was a rich kid, just like me? I guess you didn’t mind if she saved the old homestead with a chunk of her trust fund.”

      Brad’s jawline tightened. “I saved the ranch,” he said. “Most of the money from my first record contract went to paying down the mortgage, and it was still a struggle until I scored a major hit.” He paused, obviously remembering the much leaner days before he could fill the biggest stadiums in the country with devoted fans, swaying to his music in the darkness, holding flickering lighters aloft in tribute. “I didn’t love Valerie, and she didn’t love me. She was a rich kid, all right. Spoiled and lonesome, neglected in the ways rich kids so often are, and she was in big trouble. She’d gotten herself pregnant by some married guy who wanted nothing to do with her. She figured her dad would kill her if he found out, and given his temper, I tended to agree. So I married her.”

      Meg made her way back to the table and sank into her chair. “There was…a baby?”

      “She miscarried. We divorced amicably, after trying to make it work for a couple of years. She’s married to a dentist now, and really happy. Four kids, at last count.” Brad joined Meg at the table. “Do you want to hear about the second marriage?”

      “I don’t think I’m up to that,” Meg said weakly.

      Brad’s hand closed over hers. “Me, either,” he replied. He ducked his head, in a familiar way that tugged at Meg’s heart, to catch her eye. “You all right?”

      “Just a little shaken up, that’s all.”

      “How about some supper?”

      “They serve supper here? At Jolene’s?”

      Brad chuckled. “Down the road, at the Steakhouse. You can’t miss it—it’s right next to the sign that says, Welcome To Stone Creek, Arizona, Home Of Brad O’Ballivan.”

      “Braggart,” Meg said, grateful that the conversation had taken a lighter turn.

      He grinned engagingly. “Stone Creek has always been the home of Brad O’Ballivan,” he said. “It just seems to mean more now than it did when I left that first time.”

      “You’ll be mobbed,” Meg warned.

      “The whole town could show up at the Steakhouse, and it wouldn’t be enough to make a mob.”

      “Okay,” Meg agreed. “But you’re buying.”

      Brad laughed. “Fair enough,” he said.

      Then he got up from his chair and summoned the bartender, who’d evidently been cooling his heels in a storeroom or office.

      The floor felt oddly spongy beneath Meg’s feet, and she was light-headed enough to wonder if there’d been some alcohol in that iced tea after all.

      The Steakhouse, unlike Jolene’s, was jumping. People called out to Brad when he came in, and young girls pointed and giggled, but most of them had been at the welcome party Ashley and Melissa had thrown for him on the ranch the night before, so some of the novelty of his being back in town had worn off.

      Meg