RANCE TORE OFF HIS LINED denim jacket, soaked on the outside but relatively dry on the inside, and, dropping to one knee, bundled the garment around Rianna’s small, shivering form. Her teeth chattered, and her lips were blue. She had a few visible cuts and scratches, but at least she was conscious.
Echo, lying on her side in the grass and stones and mud, rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky. Between the pounding rain and the roar of the storm-swollen creek, it was no use talking, but her gaze found Rance’s and locked on.
“Are you hurt?” he mouthed.
She shook her head, raised herself onto her elbows and promptly collapsed again. Rance yearned to gather her up, but he had Rianna.
Keegan crouched, lifted Echo into his arms and started up the bank toward the road. Jesse did the same with the dog, falling in behind Rance, still carrying Rianna, trying to will his own strength into his daughter.
Once they reached high ground, they stopped for a brief conference.
“It’s too far to town, especially in this weather,” Keegan yelled, over the rain. He opened the door of the pink car and set Echo gently in the passenger seat. Rance placed Rianna on her lap and buckled them in together, while Jesse maneuvered the sodden dog into the back, from the driver’s side.
“You’re going to be all right,” Rance told Echo, Rianna and the dog, hoping to God it was true.
Echo nodded, holding Rianna close.
“We’ll take care of the horses,” Jesse said, catching hold of Rance’s gelding’s reins before getting back on his own. Keegan nodded and mounted up, too.
And Rance squeezed behind the wheel of the Volkswagen.
Echo stared out through the windshield, which was practically opaque with steam and rain. Rianna rested her head against Echo’s chest and closed her eyes, then gave a slight, shuddering sigh.
Back at the ranch house, Rance parked as close to the back door as he could, flipped the seat forward so the dog could get out, and rounded the car for Rianna.
“Sit right here till I come back for you,” he told Echo.
Of course she didn’t. She’d lost her shoes somewhere, and picked her way barefoot over the dirt, keeping pace with Rance as he sprinted for the kitchen door, where Maeve stood waiting, framed by the light behind her.
Once they were inside, Echo spoke for the first time since Rance had found her down there by the creek, clasping his daughter in her arms. “Get her out of those wet clothes,” she said, with a nod to Rianna.
Rance nodded. “You’ll be okay here for a few minutes?”
Echo returned his nod.
“I’ll get you a bathrobe,” Maeve told Echo.
“Thanks,” Echo answered, dropping into a chair at the kitchen table. The dog slumped down at her feet, in a pool of water, and sighed.
Rance took Rianna upstairs, stripped her to the skin and wrapped her in a blanket.
“You hurt anywhere, honey?” he asked her. His voice sounded gruff.
Rianna started to cry. “No,” she said. “I thought I was going to get drowneded, Daddy. Then Snowball came and she bit my shirt. Then Echo—”
Rance drew her close for a moment, held her tightly. “You rest,” he told her, silently thanking the good Lord for big favors. “I’m going downstairs to make sure Echo’s okay and call the doctor.”
Rianna lunged for his neck with both arms. “Take me with you, Daddy,” she pleaded.
He blinked his eyes dry and lifted her off the bed. “No problem, short stop,” he said.
When the two of them reached the kitchen, Jesse and Keegan were there. Jesse crouched in front of Echo’s chair, chafing her hands between his, while Keegan built a fire in the old wood stove they used on winter mornings, more for atmosphere than heat. A fresh pot of coffee chugged away on the countertop.
Maeve watched the whole scene from a little distance, as though longing to be part of it and, at the same time, afraid of being swept away in some invisible current.
Rance squeezed her shoulder lightly as he passed, then set Rianna in the antique rocking chair over by the stove.
Echo, swathed in one of his old bathrobes, looked up at him.
“I called the clinic,” Jesse told Rance, rising and stepping back. “Doc says it’s better to stay put, if everybody’s breathing and nobody’s bleeding. He’ll get here was soon as he can.”
Keegan turned from the stove, bent to ruffle Rianna’s hair and straightened. “Jesse, we ought to go out and see to those cattle,” he said.
Jesse nodded, and in the next moment, they were gone again.
“I never thought I’d drive a pink car,” Rance said, just to get the conversation started.
Echo smiled, then a laugh bubbled from her throat. “I won’t tell anybody if you don’t,” she said.
He grinned, paused to cup the curve of her cheek in one hand. He’d hardly known this woman any time at all, but she’d changed everything. When he’d seen her on that creek bank, wet and bedraggled because, with the help of her dog, she’d just saved his daughter’s life, a lot of rusted cogs and gears had suddenly ground into motion.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She beckoned, and he leaned down to listen. Whispered the name she’d kept from him up to then.
He grinned.
“I like it,” he said.
“Tell us!” Rianna pleaded from the rocking chair. The fire in the stove was snapping behind its murky glass door, brightening the room.
Echo put a finger to her lips and smiled.
“Not yet,” Rance told his daughter.
He poured coffee for Echo, when the pot stopped perking, and started a batch of hot chocolate for Maeve and Rianna.
Rianna accepted her cup eagerly, and slurped, but Maeve, busy towel-drying the dog, shook her head when he brought her the mug and wouldn’t look at him.
He put the cup on the table and dropped to his haunches beside her. “Maeve,” he said. “Talk to me.”
“It’s my fault that Rianna and Echo and Snowball almost drowned in the creek,” she told him, still averting her eyes.
He caught her chin in one hand, made her look at him.
Rianna got out of her rocking chair, trundled over and climbed into Echo’s lap, wanting to be held.
“Mommy wrote love letters to another man,” the child announced.
Echo caught Rance’s eye, but she didn’t say anything.
“Not letters, e-mails,” Maeve corrected, a stickler for facts even in her current state of almost unbearable guilt.
“I know about the e-mails,” Rance said. “It’s not what you think.”
Maeve’s eyes widened with bruised hope. “I didn’t mean to look at them,” she said. “They fell out of Granny’s purse—”
“It’s okay,” Rance told her. He hooked an arm around his daughter’s neck and pulled her close so he could plant a kiss on top of her head.
“How can it be okay?” Maeve asked.
“It just is,” Rance said, glancing at Echo again.
“Was my mommy bad, like one of those ladies on the soap operas?” Rianna inquired, and she looked really worried about the answer.
“No,” Rance replied. “Your mommy wasn’t bad. Just lonely sometimes.”
“I wish I hadn’t told Rianna,” Maeve confided, as though Echo and Rianna had suddenly vanished and they had the room to themselves. “She’s just a little kid.”
“But you had to tell somebody, didn’t you?” Rance asked gently.
Maeve bit her lower lip, nodded.
Rance got to his feet, went into the pantry and brought out a big can of chicken noodle soup. By the time he’d heated the stuff on the stove, and Rianna, Maeve, Echo and the dog had all had some, Doc arrived.
He examined Rianna, pronounced her fit, gave her a shot and ordered her to bed.
She was asleep before Rance left her bedroom.
Echo came under Doc’s attention next, but she preferred to stay in the kitchen, in Rance’s bathrobe, with her feet curled beneath her.
Maeve went upstairs to look in on her sister.
Doc, meanwhile, checked out the dog. “Looks like we’ve got a third patient here,” he said, feeling Snowball’s belly.
Echo instantly tensed. “Is she hurt?”
“No,” Doc answered. “She’s fixing to spring a few puppies on us, though.” The older man looked up at Rance. “You got an old blanket around here?”
Rance went upstairs and plundered the linen closets until he found one.
Maeve followed him back down.
The first pup was born five minutes later. A second followed, then a third. There were four by the time Doc said the whole thing was over.
Rance, feeling as though he’d just witnessed the birth of quadruplets, sank onto the bench lining one side of the kitchen table.
Echo had been kneeling on the floor the entire time, across from Doc, stroking Snowball and whispering words of encouragement. Her eyes shone with tears when she looked up at Rance.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked.
Rance could hardly bear the naked emotion in her face. She was going to have to give this dog up one day soon, and all the puppies with it. She grieved, and yet she seemed suffused with joy.
“Shouldn’t there be more than four?” Maeve asked, frowning. “I thought dogs always had big litters.”
“Not necessarily,” Doc said. Rising, with a creak of old bones, he went to the sink and scrubbed his hands.
Snowball licked her babies and gave Echo a grateful glance as she helped them nestle against the dog’s belly.
Rance almost had to turn away, because it was a powerful thing to see.
“Best I get back to the clinic,” Doc told them, reaching for his bag. “On the other hand, on a day like this, only the hypochondriacs make it in.”
“The roads are pretty bad,” Rance said, and though he was talking to the doctor, he was looking at Echo. “Maybe you ought to stay the night.”
Doc shook his head. “Can’t do it,” he said. “If I were you, Rance, I’d call Cora. She hears about this through the grapevine, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Grimly, Rance nodded.
He saw Doc out to his car, then came back inside and made the call to Cora. He had to talk fast to keep her from jumping into her truck and wheeling it on out there, and by the time he hung up, Echo was back in the rocking chair and Maeve was sound asleep in her lap.
Gently, Rance lifted Maeve into his arms, carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed.
She opened her eyes once, while he was still standing over her, yawned and said, “I’m sorry, Dad.”
He bent, kissed her forehead. “I love you, little girl.”
She hugged his neck for a long moment. Then she went back to sleep.
ECHO WATCHED AS THE puppies nursed and Snowball snoozed.
Rance came back, refilled Echo’s coffee cup, this time adding a dollop of Southern Comfort, and drew the chair from the end of the table over next to hers.
“Thanks,” he said.
“All in a day’s work,” Echo joked.
“I should never have bought Rianna that damn pink car,” Rance mused.
Echo reached over, took his hand. Squeezed.
“How did you happen to be traveling that road just when my daughter needed your help?”
She knew she ought to let go of his hand, but she couldn’t quite do it. Their fingers interlaced. “Maeve called me at the shop,” she said.
He kissed the backs of her knuckles. Closed his eyes for a moment.
“Don’t, Rance,” Echo whispered. “Don’t imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t found her in time.”
He stared at her, clearly confounded.
She grinned. “I’m psychic,” she teased. She wasn’t psychic, but she was a woman, and that was enough.
He pulled her out of the chair and onto his lap. She snuggled up against him, just the way the girls had done earlier, when she held them.
“I suppose it’s too soon to ask you to move in here with us,” he said, after a very long time.
Echo’s heart fluttered, and she tugged at his collar. Kissed the cleft in his strong McKettrick chin. “Way too soon,” she said.
“I love you,” he told her.
She sat bolt upright, stunned.
“I know, I know,” Rance said, before she could get a word out. “It’s too soon for that, too. But I’m in love with you, just the same.”
“Rance,” she said reasonably, “you’re just over-wrought. So much has happened and—”
He laid a finger against her lips. “No,” he said. “It isn’t what happened down there by the creek, or the puppies being born, or any of that. I love you, woman.”
Echo’s heart picked up speed, hammered at the base of her throat. “Are you trying to seduce me?” she asked.
He grinned, and the flash rivaled the lightning bolts still ripping the dark sky over their heads. “I wasn’t, but that’s not such a bad idea, either.”
“Rance McKettrick, your children are in this house.”
“They’re asleep. Zonked. Out like lights.”
“Still,” Echo said, ashamed of how much she wanted to lie in Rance’s bed while the storm raged, and give herself up to his lovemaking.
He put his hands on either side of her face. “Do you love me?” he asked.
She swallowed hard. “Of course I do,” she said.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“When did you know?”
“When I saw you coming down over that bank a little while ago. I thought to myself, ‘Everything’s going to be all right now, because Rance is here.’”
He smiled, shifted beneath her, gave her a nibbling kiss on the mouth. “If you’re planning to hold out until we’re married,” he told her, “it’s going to seem like a really lo-o-ong engagement.”
Her eyes widened. “Married?”
“When I love a woman,” Rance said, still grinning, “I like to marry her.”
“Just how many women have you loved?”
“Two.”
“You want to get married—now?”
“Well, that depends on whether or not you’re willing to sleep with me in the meantime.”
She punched him in the chest, but not very hard. That was when she realized that he was still wearing wet clothes. He’d been so busy looking after Maeve, Rianna and her—not to mention Snowball—that he hadn’t gotten around to changing.
“You’re going to catch your death,” she said.
“I guess I could use a hot shower.” He paused, wriggled his eyebrows. “In the bathroom by the pool. Long way from the girls’ rooms. Long, long way.”
“Are you suggesting…?”
“That you join me? Yeah. That’s what I’m suggesting. Among other things.”
Echo squirmed. Except for a breath of air, when she’d been struggling to get hold of Rianna in the creek and the water kept splashing her face, she’d never wanted anything so much as she wanted to get into a shower with Rance.
He slipped a hand inside the bathrobe, cupped her breast. Chafed the nipple with the side of his thumb.
“Jesse and Keegan will probably be back any minute,” Echo fretted, with a little shiver.
“They’ll figure it out.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Echo said.
Rance laughed. And then he stood, lifting Echo with him as he rose.
Ten minutes later, making love with Rance under a blessedly hot spray of water, Echo stepped into her real name.
Stepped into her real self.
And it was a strange and wonderful place to be.
SATURDAY MORNING, ECHO awakened to the mewling of puppies.
Smiling, she got up, stretched and bent over the airbed to watch as Snowball nursed her babies.
“I’m thirty,” she told the dogs.
Snowball eyed her with the usual adoration.
Echo patted the dog’s head, caressed each of the puppies in turn and went to the sink to wash her hands and get the morning coffee started. She stood at the front window while she waited for it to brew.
The streets were quiet, and as Echo looked out over the town, she speculated that everybody must be sleeping in that day, resting up for tonight’s dance.
The telephone rang, and she hurried to answer it. If it was a last-minute order for a love-spell, she’d provide one, but it would be a gift. She’d already closed down the Web site, and when the last of her supplies were gone, that was it.
She was out of the spell-casting business. It seemed there was magic under way in Indian Rock, but she didn’t want to be responsible for so many hearts. She had enough trouble managing her own.
“Echo’s Books and Gifts,” she said, even though she was upstairs and still in her pajamas. It was just easier that way. “May I help you?”
Rance’s low chuckle rumbled in her ear. “I hope so,” he said. “It’s been a couple of days.”
She blushed and laughed at the same time. After she and Rance had made love in the shower, they’d gone to bed and made love again.
In the morning, they’d tried to pretend it was normal for Echo to be in the ranch kitchen making pancakes and still clad in Rance’s bathrobe, and while Rianna had seemed to buy the story, Maeve was thoughtful.
Rance and Echo had agreed to give the dust a few days to settle.
“Still in love with me?” Rance asked now.
“Ridiculously,” Echo answered. “How about you?”
“Ready to buy a ring and round up a preacher,” Rance said. “I’m taking you to breakfast, so get dressed. Maeve and Rianna are going to Cora’s to spend the whole day getting ready for the dance.”
“I’m supposed to open the shop in less than—”
“It can wait,” Rance said. “Can’t it?”
She smiled. “I guess so.”
“Good.”
They said their goodbyes, and Echo hurried to shower and get dressed. After fortifying herself with fresh coffee, she went downstairs to see if there were any customers waiting on the sidewalk.
Ayanna was just letting herself in.
“I’m going out to breakfast with Rance,” Echo said. “Can you hold down the fort for an hour or so?”
Ayanna smiled. “Sure,” she replied. “How’s the new mama?”
Snowball and her puppies had made the front page of the Indian Rock Gazette a few days before, with a full account of Rianna’s rescue in the article beneath, and they’d been holding court ever since. Echo usually moved the airbed downstairs every morning, then carefully carried the puppies down, too, one by one. Snowball, of course, followed. Today, they’d been resting so comfortably that she hadn’t wanted to disturb them.
“She’s bouncing back,” Echo said.
“How about you?” Ayanna asked. “Are you bouncing back?” She was referring, of course, to Echo’s plunge into the water to get Rianna.
“Couldn’t be better,” she said, but before the words were out of her mouth, a giant RV pulled up in front of the shop.
She knew, even before the door opened on the passenger side and an older, balding man climbed down, that the Ademoyes had finally arrived to reclaim their lost dog.
Tears sprang to Echo’s eyes.
“Echo?” Ayanna said, giving her a concerned look before glancing back to see the RV.
The man hurried toward the front door of the shop, beaming with anticipation. Echo stood rooted to the floor, wondering how a person could be happy at the same time as their heart was breaking.
Herb was on the threshold when Marge appeared, a plump, middle-aged woman in pastel pedal-pushers, espadrilles and a ruffled blouse. Her smile was even broader than Herb’s.
“Is she here?” Marge asked breathlessly when they were both inside.
Upstairs, Snowball gave an uncertain woof.
“Snowball!” Herb whooped.
The dog barked joyously and shot down the stairs and across the shop.
Herb and Marge, on their knees a few feet inside the open door, enfolded Snowball in their arms, while she wriggled and lapped at their faces, making a soft, happy whining sound.
Behind them, Rance stepped in. His gaze went straight to Echo’s face.
She nodded, because she couldn’t speak. She surely looked like a crazy woman, she thought, smiling while tears wet her cheeks.
“You must be Echo,” Herb said, when he’d recovered enough to notice her. Marge was still on the floor, her face buried in Snowball’s neck, weeping with relief.
Echo nodded, swallowed. Put out her hand.
“We can’t thank you enough,” Herb told her.
“It was a pleasure,” Echo said, and she meant it. Snowball had come along when Echo needed a friend, and they’d made a journey together that had little to do with the miles they’d covered getting from Tucson to Indian Rock. As reluctant as she was to part with the dog, she knew the time had come, and that it was right.
Rance cleared his throat. “Did you tell them about the puppies?”
Marge, swabbing at her face with a handkerchief, brightened.
Herb’s smile widened.
“Puppies?” the two of them chorused.
“Four of them,” Echo confirmed. “All healthy and beautiful.”
Snowball, as if on cue, started for the stairs. Paused and looked back at Marge and Herb.
“It’s all right,” Echo told them. “Go ahead. Snowball wants to show you her babies.”
Herb and Marge followed Snowball upstairs.
“I wish I’d made the bed,” Echo lamented.
Rance crossed the room, took her in his arms and propped his chin on top of her head.
“I think I’ll go out and buy a newspaper,” Ayanna announced, even though one had already been delivered, and vanished.
“You okay?” Rance asked Echo.
“Yes,” she said, burying her face in his shoulder. “And no.”
Presently, the Ademoyes came back down from upstairs, into the shop, each carrying two tiny white puppies. Snowball was at their heels.
“You’ll need the airbed,” Echo said. “Snowball loves the airbed.”
Tears filled Marge’s eyes. “I’d give you one of these puppies,” she said, “but they’re too little to be away from Snowball.”
Rance went upstairs to get the airbed.
“I know,” Echo said, stroking one warm little ball of fur, then another.
“We’ll come through next spring,” Herb said, his voice hoarse all of the sudden. “We’ll bring you a pup then, if you want one.”
“I want one,” Echo replied.
Snowball went to the door, turned and came back. Looked up at Echo with what she would have sworn was a smile.
Echo sat on her heels, ran her hands lightly over Snowball’s ears. “Goodbye, sweet dog,” she said. “Thank you for everything.”
Snowball licked her face, gave a yearning little whimper.
“You have to go now, huh?”
Snowball whimpered again. Went back to the door.
Echo stood.
Rance returned with the airbed, went outside with Herb to put it in the back of the RV. Snowball followed eagerly and didn’t once look back.
Marge lingered, still cradling two of the puppies in her arms. “I know it’s hard,” she said.
Echo nodded.
“We’d be glad to pay you a reward of some kind.”
“One puppy,” Echo said. “Come spring.”
“Come spring,” Marge agreed. Then she crossed to Echo and gave her a motherly kiss on the cheek. “We’ve got two daughters, Herb and I,” she said. “They’ll each want one of the puppies. We’ll keep one for ourselves and Snowball, and bring one to you. I promise you that.”
“Thank you,” Echo told her.
She followed Marge outside. Watched as the other woman handed the puppies through the open door at the side of the RV. Rance came out, stood on the sidewalk with Echo, one arm around her shoulders.
The Ademoyes drove away.
Echo trembled.
Rance gave Echo a light squeeze.
Echo lifted her hand and waved.
Marge honked the horn in farewell.
And then the big RV rounded the corner and disappeared.
“Still want breakfast?” Rance asked quietly, after a long time had passed.
People going by in cars glanced curiously their way.
“Yes,” Echo said with a sniffle, because life went on. Because Snowball was back with her people, where she belonged, and because, despite it all, she was ravenously hungry.
After they’d eaten pancake specials at the Roadhouse, Rance drove Echo back to the shop and returned to the ranch. Both of them had work to do, after all.
The store was busy that day, which helped, but there was a hollow place in Echo’s heart, just the same.
At six o’clock, just as she was about to close and force herself upstairs to dress for the dance, Rance’s SUV whipped up to the curb out front.
Maeve and Rianna spilled out, wearing their pretty new dresses.
Cora came over from next door, along with Ayanna, who had told Echo she was going home to get ready for her date with Virgil Terp.
Echo smiled.
“Happy birthday to you!” Rianna crowed, flying into her arms for a hug.
Echo embraced the child, looked up again.
And there was Rance, standing in the doorway, with a sizable white box in one arm and a small, squirming dog in the other.
Echo gasped and put a hand to her mouth.
“He’s an ugly little critter,” Rance said, of the dog, who was gray and short-haired, a mixed breed of some kind, and sporting a red neckerchief for the occasion. “But the folks at the pound said he really needed a home.”
Echo laughed and cried, both at the same time.
“You do want Scrappers, don’t you?” Maeve asked, looking worried.
“I want him, all right,” Echo said.
Rance set the dog down, then put the box on the counter. “Open it,” he said.
Echo crossed the shop, lifted the top of the box and looked inside.
It was a cake, and there was writing on top.
Echo gazed at Rance, loving him more than she’d ever believed she could love any man. Scrappers, meanwhile, sniffed at her shoes and licked her ankles.
She lowered the sides of the box.
There were candles, a 3 and an 0, but it was the words, scripted in blue frosting, that almost made Echo’s heart stop.
Happy Birthday, Emma.
“Emma,” she said. “My name is Emma.”
Maeve and Rianna were delighted to have the mystery solved, but Scrappers quickly distracted them.
“Darned if I didn’t forget the plates for the cake over at the Curl and Twirl,” Cora said, her eyes gleaming with happy tears.
“I’ll help,” Ayanna told her.
They both rushed out.
Rance took her hand.
“Will you marry me, Emma Wells?”
She nodded, too stricken to speak.
He lifted the 3-candle off the cake, and Echo—now Emma—gasped.
An engagement ring lay beneath it.
Rance slipped it onto her finger, frosting and all.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he said, and then he kissed her.
When their lips parted, Emma dabbed a bit of frosting onto Rance’s mouth, and kissed it off again.
Some things, like wonderful white dogs found outside a truck stop in the rain, were meant to be loved for a while, and then given up with as much grace as humanly possible. Other things, like the land that made up the Triple M, and like Rance McKettrick’s love, were made to last forever.
Whenever you’re ready, Rance had told her.
Well, Emma was ready.
She was ready to love and be loved.
She was ready to trust.
She was ready to raise two beautiful little girls, now watching her with shining eyes.
“You’ll be our stepmom, right?” Rianna asked hopefully.
“We promise to be good,” Maeve added.
Echo-now-Emma embraced both girls, leaned to kiss the tops of their heads. “I’ll be proud to have you two for stepdaughters,” she said. Then, knowing her heart was shining in her eyes, she looked up at Rance. “What do you say we make some history, cowboy?” she asked.
Rance grinned, jutted out his elbow. “Don’t we have a dance to go to?”
She laughed. “We do,” she agreed.
The gym at Indian Rock High was decorated to the hilt, with streamers and balloons dangling from the ceiling, and a live band on stage. It was, Emma thought, like going back in time, like attending all the proms she’d missed, rolled into one.
Rance led her to the middle of the dance floor, turned and opened his arms. Emma moved into them.
And it was a perfect fit.