McKettrick's Choice (22 page)

Lorelei wasn't so fortunate. She lay staring up at the ceiling for a long time, watching the shadows and wondering if Michael could have beaten her at five card stud.

N
OT MUCH WAS STIRRING
in Laredo just after dawn when the party gathered at the edge of town, ready to head out. Tillie and the baby stayed behind, with Heddy, but to Holt's consternation, Lorelei and Melina were present and accounted for, and they looked a sight more alert than the ragtag crop of cowpunchers he and Rafe had hired the day before. Hell, even the dog looked more alert than they did.

They hadn't traveled five miles when the Captain spotted a rider coming up fast from behind, and spurred his way to the front of the dust-raising throng to tell Holt. He and Rafe immediately turned their horses around, circling back to see who it was.

R. S. Beauregard drew back on the reins of the spavined nag he was riding, and his grin was as wide as some of the ravines back home in Arizona. “You owe me twenty-five hundred dollars, Mr. McKettrick,” he told Holt, when he and Rafe came up alongside.

Holt waited, keeping his face straight, but a wild surge of hope sprang up inside him just the same.

Beauregard pulled a folded piece of paper from inside the pocket of his ratty waistcoat and held it out. “This is
a wire from Judge Benjamin T. Hawkins, up in Austin. He's ordered a new trial for your friend Navarro.”

Holt's heart thudded against his breastbone as he read the telegram, then passed it to Rafe. “You wouldn't be so foolish as to try and trick me, now would you, R.S.?”

The lawyer's eyes were bloodshot, and he still needed a haircut and a shave, but he looked sober enough. He tipped his dusty bowler and bowed slightly. “I assure you that I would not. And because our association is so new, I will overlook the fact that you just impugned my honor.”

“That's generous of you,” Holt allowed. He didn't fully trust R. S. Beauregard, but he liked him well enough.

“I'll set out for San Antonio by stagecoach—as soon as I receive my fee,” Beauregard said smoothly. “Our original agreement, of course, was that I would travel north with your outfit upon your return from Mexico, but as an officer of the court, I feel I ought to be on hand to look after Mr. Navarro's rights until Judge Hawkins gets there.”

“You ever heard of this Hawkins yahoo, Holt?” Rafe inquired, handing back the telegram.

“Yes,” Holt said, studying R.S. for any sign of perfidy.

“He's a federal judge, all right.”

R.S. smiled benignly and stood in his stirrups a moment, stretching his legs. “Right about now,” he boasted, “Judge Fellows ought to be getting word that an appeal has been granted. I don't imagine he'll like it much.”

For the first time, Holt smiled back. “I don't imagine he will. When's this trial supposed to start?”

“Soon as Hawkins gets to San Antonio—maybe a week or ten days.” R.S. cleared his throat. “About my twenty-five hundred dollars…”

Holt gave him the telegram. “You acquainted with Heddy Flett?”

R.S. nodded. “We've met,” he allowed.

“Show her that wire, and she'll pay you what you're owed,” Holt told him. The Appaloosa danced and nickered, eager to catch up with the rest of the outfit. “When I get back to San Antonio, I'd better find you hard at work on Gabe's case.”

R.S. doffed his hat, tucked the telegram inside the sweat-stained crown, and bowed again. “Your confidence in me—such as it is—is well placed. I will see you in San Antone.”

“You surely will,” Holt replied. Then, with a nod of farewell, he reined Traveler around and gave the animal his head. Rafe kept pace on his gelding.

“You trust him?” Rafe asked.

“Right now,” Holt answered, “I don't have a choice.”

 

L
ORELEI, RUMMY FROM
lack of sleep, half expected the whole Comanche nation to be waiting around the first bend in the trail. When there was no sign of them, she let herself wonder who it was Rafe and Holt had ridden back to meet. Curiosity woke her up like a splash of cold well water against her face.

Only minutes had passed when they returned, Holt passing within a dozen feet of her and Seesaw and never so much as glancing in her direction.

Lorelei told herself she ought to be glad to go unnoticed, given that she was fairly sure Holt had seen her tuck the parcel containing Mary Davis's bolt of gingham under the wagon seat before they left Heddy's that morning. He was bound to plague her about it, strict as he was about what he considered superfluous cargo. For all that,
she felt snubbed, as surely as if she'd just been expelled from the Ladies' Benevolence Society all over again.

“You look a little down in the mouth,” Rafe said, startling her. Thinking about Holt, she hadn't heard his horse draw up beside Seesaw.

She hoped the shadow cast by the brim of her hat would hide her expression. “I'm fine, Rafe,” she replied pleasantly.

He resettled his hat. “You're not much of a liar,” he said, with a companionable grin. “Guess that's one of the reasons I like you.”

Lorelei's smile was genuine, if a bit wobbly. “Thank you,” she said. “I think.”

He laughed. His gelding strained at the bit, wanting to run on ahead, and Rafe controlled the animal with barely perceptible motions of one hand. “I guess I should have warned you against playing poker with my brother,” he said. “He's an old hand at it.”

“It was my lesson to learn,” Lorelei replied, “and I've learned it.”

“I thought maybe you'd want a chance to win your money back.”

Lorelei shook her head. “I might be gullible, but I'm not
that
foolish,” she said.

“So you mean to cut your losses and run?” Rafe asked easily.

“Cut my losses, yes,” Lorelei said. “Run? Never.”

Rafe smiled. “That's something I can't even imagine. You running away, I mean.”

They rode in companionable silence for a while, and Lorelei wondered why it was so easy to be around Rafe and so difficult to be around Holt. If consulted on the matter, Melina would surely have said it was love. Lorelei had no intention of consulting her.

Holt was demanding, opinionated, unreasonable and reckless. He seemed to think the whole world was a trail ride, and he was in command. She couldn't love a man like that.

Could she?

 

T
HEY TRAVELED OVER
hard terrain all that day. The heat was brutal; the glare of the sun, relentless. More than once, Lorelei thought with yearning of the shade trees back home on her ranch, of the soft featherbeds and savory meals at Heddy's place. She watched the horizon for Indians, and stayed out of Holt's way as much as possible.

Not a word passed between them, though her eyes tracked him until it seemed his image was burned like a brand on the inside of her forehead.

At sunset, they stopped to make camp alongside a lonely spring. There were no trees, and Lorelei felt exposed. If the Comanches came, there would be no place to take shelter.

To keep busy, and thus occupy her worried mind, she helped John Cavanagh build the campfire and put the inevitable beans on to boil. As usual, they'd been soaking in water all day. Heddy had sent along a batch of biscuits, and because John and the Captain had laid in supplies in Laredo, there were canned vegetables and fruit to complement the meal.

Lorelei was seated on a rock, eating her supper, when Holt appeared, crouching beside her. His manner was easy, but she sensed a certain tension in him, too. He hadn't wanted to approach her, she concluded, but for some reason, he'd done it anyway.

“How are you holding up, Lorelei?” he asked, very quietly.

She looked into his face, against her better judgment, and felt the same quivery jolt she always did. “I'm all right,” she said carefully. Holt was easier to deal with, she'd learned, when he was giving orders or issuing some challenge. She knew how to handle his temper, but when he was kind, or pretending to be, she was at a loss. She set her fork down on her tin plate, her supper half-finished. “When will we be in Mexico?”

He gestured toward the south. “See those low hills in the distance? We'll cross them in the morning. Be in Reynosa by noon or so, if we don't run into any trouble.”

“And once we're there?”

He turned his hat in his hands, pondering it. “We'll leave the wagon in town and ride out to a ranch I know of. Buy the cattle we need.” He paused, drew a deep breath, then thrust it out audibly. His gaze came reluctantly to her face. “The trip back will make this part look easy, Lorelei. It's only right to tell you this—we're bound to tangle with the Comanches.”

Lorelei shivered involuntarily, and she knew he'd seen it. “I've been expecting them right along,” she admitted.

“They're keeping an eye on us,” Holt said, still watching her intently. “Right now, we don't offer much sport, and they're probably still a little spooked because we passed the night at that mission. Once we've got the cattle, though, they'll want a share—and they'll come after it.”

If Lorelei had been talking to anybody but Holt McKettrick, she would have put both hands over her face and wept for sheer terror and exhaustion, but her pride straightened her spine and made her jut out her chin. Her throat had gone dry as a dead man's bones in a desert,
though, and anything she tried to say would have come out as a humiliating croak.

“If you're scared,” Holt said, with a gentleness that was very nearly her undoing, “that just shows you've got good sense.”

Lorelei swallowed. “Are you?” she asked, in a ragged whisper. “Scared, I mean?”

One side of his mouth quirked upward in that trademark grin. “I'm the trail boss,” he said simply. “I can't afford to be scared.”

“I don't see how you can
help
it,” she admitted.

“It's a matter of riding herd over my thoughts,” he said. “Some of them stray into some bad places, but I just drive them back onto the trail. When this is over, maybe I'll sweat a little, but right now I have to keep my mind on the work at hand. Trouble is a certainty, but when it sneaks up on a man, he's got nobody to blame but himself.”

“I've never met anybody like you,” she said. It wasn't a compliment, precisely, but it wasn't an insult, either. It was a pure statement of fact.

He grinned again, inclined his head toward Rafe, who was hunkered on the ground, playing cards with the Captain and some of the cowboys. “Haven't you?” he challenged.

Lorelei studied Rafe, then turned her attention back to Holt. “I think he's much nicer than you are,” she said frankly. “More reasonable, too.”

He laughed. “That's because you've never crossed him,” he said, rising gracefully to his feet again. “If you ever meet up with his wife, Emmeline, you might ask
her
how ‘reasonable' he is.”

Lorelei looked up at Holt. She'd never meet Emmeline or any of the other McKettricks, most likely. Never set
eyes on Holt's daughter, Lizzie, or the Triple M. Knowing that filled her with an inexplicable sadness.

“Once you've got the cattle and helped your friend Mr. Navarro, what will you do?” she asked. Her cheeks flamed the minute the words were out of her mouth, but she'd said them on purpose, and for some reason she needed to know the answer. She braced herself for the expected response—
mind your own business.

He surprised her, as he so often did. “Go home to the Triple M,” he said. “I miss my daughter, and I miss the land.” He grinned again. “Hell, I even miss my brothers and the old man.”

“I envy you that,” Lorelei said. Maybe it was fatigue that was loosening her tongue. Maybe it was fear. Some need to connect with another human being, if only for a few moments. “I don't miss anybody, except Raul and Angelina, and they're probably better off without me around.”

Holt frowned. He'd been about to put his hat back on, but now he hooked a finger in the crown and gave it a distracted spin. “What about the judge? I mean, I know hard words have passed between you, but—well—he
is
your father.”

“He was William's father,” Lorelei said wistfully. “Never mine.”

“William?”

“My brother,” Lorelei replied, figuring she was in so deep now, she might as well drown herself. “He was killed in a riding accident when he was nine. My father never got over that. Never got over wishing it was me that died, if somebody had to, instead of his only son.”

Holt shook his head, as if he couldn't credit such a thing, though whether it was the judge's feelings he was rejecting, or Lorelei's perception of them, she couldn't
tell. “If that's true, Lorelei,” he said gravely, and at some length, “then I'm sorry for you, and even sorrier for him.”

Lorelei's throat went tight. There it was again, that dangerous kindness. Dear God, she was helpless against it. “You've never wished Lizzie'd turned out to be a boy?” she asked. If he got mad, it would be a relief, because she'd have cause to fight back. She didn't like talking about her father; it made her feel desperate, lost and alone. Somehow, she'd never won his love, though God knew, she'd tried.

He set his jaw. “Never,” he said. Then, without any warning, he held out a hand to her. “Walk with me a little while?”

She surprised herself by setting aside her plate and letting him help her to her feet. Her appetite was gone, but fear made her restless, despite her fatigue, and she told herself some exercise might help.

“What happened to your mother?” he asked, when they'd started a wide circle around the camp. A few people glanced their way, most notably Rafe and the Captain, but no one else seemed to be paying them much mind.

Lorelei wondered why she didn't bristle at the question. Maybe she was too tired, and too scared. She knew now that she should have stayed behind in Laredo with Heddy, if only because, that way, Melina would have stayed, too. But since it was too late, and since it was Holt she was talking to, she decided to keep that admission to herself. “She died when I was very young.”