LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 3

      UNTIL HE DROVE INTO TOWN the next morning and saw the carnival setting up in the vacant lot behind the supermarket, Keegan had forgotten, first, that it was Saturday and, second, that it was the Fourth of July. Later there would be a community picnic and barbecue at the park, and when it got dark enough, the fireworks would begin.

       Muttering, he reached for his cell phone and speed-dialed Shelley’s number in Flagstaff. He’d promised to call Devon the night before, so they could make plans to spend the weekend together in the Triple M, but because of the situation with Psyche and Molly Shields, he’d neglected to do it.

       “Hi, Dad,” Devon said eagerly.

       “Hi, babe,” Keegan replied, pulling over to the side of the road, across from Echo’s Books and Gifts and the Curl and Twirl, so he could concentrate on the conversation with his daughter. “Got your bags packed? I can be there in forty-five minutes.”

       There was short, pulsing silence. Then, “Mom said you forgot me. That’s why you didn’t call.”

       Keegan grasped the steering wheel tightly with his free hand. “I blew it big-time, Devon,” he replied, “and I’m sorry. But you’re my best girl, and I could never forget you. I’ll explain on the drive down here from Flag, okay?”

       “Okay,” Devon answered, brightening a little.

       “On my way,” Keegan said.

       “I’ll be waiting,” Devon promised.

       And she was. Long-legged and gangly, with blondish-brown hair reaching to the middle of her back and huge brown eyes, she sat on the steps in the portico at Shelley’s, an overnight bag and a giant pink teddy bear beside her.

       Seeing Keegan pull up, she leaped to her feet and snatched up the bag and the bear to hustle toward his car.

       Behind her the front door opened, and Shelley stepped out. She was a beautiful woman, and someday Devon would look just like her. A one-time flight attendant for an upscale charter jet outfit, as well as a former Playboy centerfold, Shelley had a face and body that were categorically perfect. Unfortunately, her personality wasn’t.

      Shit, Keegan thought. He’d hoped to avoid his ex-wife.

       Hell, he’d been trying to do that since about an hour after he married her.

       He got out of the car, came around to meet Shelley while Devon stowed her gear in the backseat of the Jag, then jumped in on the passenger side up front to buckle her seat belt.

       “She waited all evening for you to call,” Shelley said. She was wearing a skimpy tank top and jean shorts with frayed hems—designer stuff, probably, made to look as though it came from a discount store.

       Keegan thrust out a sigh. “You could have called me, you know.”

       “It’s not my job to monitor your schedule,” Shelley retorted.

       Conscious of Devon watching them through the windshield, Keegan kept his temper. “I should have called,” he said tersely. “I didn’t. Shoot me.”

       Shelley smiled bitterly. “Oh, I’d love to shoot you, Keegan. If only there weren’t that troublesome little matter of prison, I probably would.”

       Keegan unclamped his back molars by an act of will. “Sucks to be you,” he said.

       “You wish,” she retorted. “Thanks to our divorce settlement, and Rory, it’s really pretty excellent to be me.”

       “I’m so happy for you,” Keegan told her.

       She grinned. “No, you’re not,” she countered.

       “You don’t miss much, do you?”

       “Bite me, Keegan.”

       “That’s Rory’s job, thank God.”

       Shelley’s saucy little smirk faded to a pout. “Rory and I want to live in Paris,” she said. “I surfed the internet and found a wonderful boarding school for Devon.”

       It wasn’t the first time Shelley had mentioned moving to Paris, but the boarding school was a new element. “You and Rory can go live in Riyadh, for all I care,” Keegan told her. “But you’re not taking my daughter out of the U.S. Period.”

       “She’s not your daughter,” Shelley said.

       Keegan felt nothing for Shelley, but the words struck his solar plexus like a ramrod, just the same. He stole a glance in Devon’s direction. It would have been impossible for her to overhear, but for all he knew, the kid read lips. Thank God she was smiling blissfully at the prospect of a weekend on the Triple M.

       “We were legally married when Devon was born,” he said evenly. “Unless you want to go on TV and let Maury Povich announce the results of a DNA test to the nation, you’re up shit creek and the paddle’s miles downstream.”

       Shelley glared.

       “I guess Rory could adopt her,” Keegan went on, having no intention of letting that happen while he still had a pulse, “but it would mean the end of the child support, wouldn’t it?”

       “I freaking hate you, Keegan McKettrick.”

       He chucked her chin, because he knew it would piss her off. “Right back at you, kiddo,” he said. Another glance at Devon told him the kid was worried. He smiled at her, then gave Shelley a jaunty wave and turned his back on her.

       “Fuck you, Keegan,” Shelley told him.

       He faced her again, smiled warmly, for Devon’s sake, and kept his voice low. “We might still be married,” he said, “if you’d limited yourself to that. Sleeping with me, I mean. But that would have cramped your style, wouldn’t it, Shell?”

       “Like you were so perfect,” Shelley challenged, but she’d pulled in her horns a little.

       “Nice talking to you,” he said. Then he opened the door on the driver’s side and slipped behind the wheel.

       Shelley stood watching from the portico as they drove away, her face like a gathering storm.

       “I don’t want to go to Paris,” Devon told him.

       Startled, Keegan gave her a sidelong glance. Maybe she’d heard all or part of his conversation with Shelley after all. God, he hoped not.

       “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

       They pulled out onto a quiet, tree-lined street, in one of the best neighborhoods in Flagstaff. Despite her coffee-tea-or-me experience with the airline and the centerfold, Shelley probably would have been renting a single-wide in some trailer park if it hadn’t been for him. She had the financial instincts of a crack addict.

       “I can’t speak French,” Devon told him.

       He reached across to squeeze her shoulder, found it stiff with tension. “You’re not going to France,” he said.

       “Mom says it’s romantic. Paris, I mean. She gets all dreamy when she talks about it. She and Rory are going to hold hands in the rain.”

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