McKettrick's Choice

“Maybe,” Holt agreed. “And maybe you figured a man who made a habit of feeding a starving dog wouldn’t be inclined to butcher a rancher and his wife just for something to do of an evening.”

Even under the brim of the hat, he saw her eyes shift away from his face, then back again. “He’s going to hang,” she said flatly. “If you knew my father, you wouldn’t waste your time thinking otherwise.”

“If you knew me,” Holt answered, “you wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

She took a step toward him, index finger raised for shaking, then stopped. Sighed heavily. Her shoulders sagged a little. “I don’t know who you think you are, Mr. McKettrick, but you don’t want to come up against my father and—my father.”

“Your father and Isaac Templeton?” Holt prompted.

“Is that what you were going to say?”

Color suffused her face. “Just leave. Go back to your wife and children.”

“I don’t have a wife,” Holt said. “My daughter is with people who love her. And I’m not leaving until I’ve finished my business here.”

Lorelei opened her mouth, closed it. Smacked the now-empty dishpan against her thigh in apparent frustration. Turned away.

He whistled to the dog, and she spun about, watching as the hound trotted over to lick his hand.

“Don’t tease him,” she said anxiously.

“I’m not teasing him. I’m taking him back to my ranch. We could use a good watchdog.”

She almost smiled, Holt decided, but damned if she didn’t catch herself in time. “His name is Sorrowful,” she said, in a soft voice. She was a complicated woman, Holt decided. Setting fire to wedding dresses, watching murder trials and loving an abandoned dog enough to bring him supper scraps.

Holt ruffled the critter’s floppy, misshapen ears. “Howdy, Sorrowful. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Since when do you have a ranch around here?” she pressed, sounding worried. “I know everybody in this county, and you’re a stranger to me.”

“Since I bought the Cavanagh place,” Holt answered, watching for a reaction.

Her throat worked. “Next to Mr. Templeton’s spread,” she murmured.

“You friendly with him, too?” Holt asked lightly. “Or maybe your father is.”

She bristled. “What are you implying, Mr. McKettrick?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing, Miss Fellows. Nothing at all. Now, if I were you, I’d get on home. There are lots of unsavory types in San Antonio these days.”

She looked him over. “I’m well aware of that,” she said. Then she stiffened her spine, and hitched up her chin again. “You’d better be good to my dog,” she finished. She turned on one heel and marched away into the gathering twilight.

Sorrowful lived up to his name and gave a forlorn whimper, watching Lorelei go.

Holt felt like doing the same.

“A DOG!” Tillie cried joyously, a couple of minutes later, when Holt hoisted the mutt into the back of the buckboard, where he immediately commenced to sniffing the groceries.

“Sure enough,” agreed John, not so joyously. “He the kind to kill chickens?”

Tillie was already unwrapping the leftovers from the fancy supper they’d taken in the dining room of the Republic Hotel and offering them to the hound.

“He’s the kind to let us know if anybody’s sneaking around outside the house of a night,” Holt answered, climbing up to take the reins. He released the brake lever with one foot and urged the team into motion.

He looked up at the stockade as they passed. It gave him a lonely feeling to know Gabe was in there, even if he was feasting on the fried chicken dinner and whole strawberry pie sent over for his supper.

“He can sleep in my room,” Tillie said.

“Not unless you scrub him down with lye soap first, he can’t,” John decreed. Clearly, he had misgivings where the dog was concerned, but Holt was confident he’d come around in time. John was a tenderhearted man, though he liked to pretend otherwise.

Holt pondered how different things were as they headed out of town.

Once, he’d thought of the Cavanagh place as home.

Now, home was the Triple M. He wondered how Lizzie was getting along, and the old man and those three knuckleheaded brothers of his.

Margaret Tarquin never crossed his mind, but Lorelei Fellows sure cut a wide swath through his thoughts.

CHAPTER 7

THE WEDDING GIFTS, each one labeled for return to its original owner with many wrapped to mail, filled the twelve-foot table in the formal dining room. They teetered on chairs, crowded the long bureau top and took up most of the floor as well.

Lorelei surveyed the loot with relief. “That’s the last of them, then,” she told Angelina, dusting her hands together. “Raul can start loading them into the wagon.”

Angelina, having wended her way in from the kitchen traveling a path between the packages, shook her head at the sight. “Now what?” she asked.

Lorelei consulted the watch pinned to the bodice of her crisply pressed shirtwaist. After the interview with her father and Creighton in the kitchen yesterday morning, her resolution had wavered a little. The judge hadn’t mentioned an asylum, thankfully, but he did rant about the shame she’d brought upon the family name and threaten to confine her to the house until she’d come to her senses.

“I’m due at the Ladies’ Benevolence Society meeting in half an hour,” she said, and patted the tidy chignon at the back of her head. “I’d sooner run the gauntlet in a Comanche camp. Unfortunately, I don’t have that option.”

Angelina’s eyes rounded, then narrowed. “What are you thinking, doing such a thing? Those old biddies will eat you alive!”

“They’ll try,” Lorelei said, with false good cheer.

“Then why serve yourself to them like a sponge cake?”

“If I avoided them,” Lorelei reasoned, “they would call me a coward. And, worse, they’d be right.”

Angelina sighed. “I suppose there is no talking you out of this.”

Lorelei looked at her watch again. “If I don’t hurry, I’ll be late,” she said. With that, she took herself to the entryway, where her handbag awaited on the table next to the door, and left the freighting of the gifts to Angelina and her husband.

“Be careful,” Angelina fretted, hovering at her elbow.

Lorelei kissed the other woman’s creased forehead. “I don’t know how,” she answered, and left the house.

The membership of the Ladies’ Malevolence Society, as Lorelei privately referred to them, met once a month, in the spacious parlor of Mrs. Herbert J. Braughm, for tea, social exchange and precious little benevolence. Lorelei attended faithfully, for three reasons. Number one, they didn’t want her there. Thus, being a member constituted an exercise in principle. Number two, it was the best way to keep up with the doings in San Antonio. Number three, on admittedly rare occasions, the group actually did something constructive.

It was a ten-minute walk to the Braughm house, and the weather was muggy. Inwardly, Lorelei dragged her feet every step of the way.