McKettrick's Choice

Outwardly, she was the very personification of dignified haste.

Mrs. Braughm’s maid, Rosita, actually gaped when she opened the door to her.

Lorelei smiled and waited expectantly to be admitted.

Rosita ducked her head and stepped back to clear the way. “The ladies,” she said, in accented English, “are in the garden.”

“Thank you,” Lorelei said, adjusting her spotless gloves and shifting her handbag from her left wrist to her right. Her very bones quavered, but her voice was steady.

Mrs. Braughm’s garden was gained through a set of French doors, standing open to the weighted air. Plump roses nodded, almost as colorful as the hats and dresses of the women seated around pretty white tables, sipping tea and nibbling at dainty refreshments. The chatter ceased the moment Lorelei stepped onto the tiled patio.

She straightened her spine and smiled.

“Why, Lorelei,” Mrs. Braughm said, too loudly. The legs of her chair scraped shrilly as she stood, small and fluttery, to greet an obviously unexpected guest.

“I hope I’m not late,” Lorelei said, meeting the gazes of the other guests, one at a time. Most were cold, but she saw a glimmer of sympathy in some of the younger faces.

“Of course not,” Mrs. Braughm chirped. “Come, sit down. Have some tea. We were just about to start.”

No one moved, and every extra chair held a handbag, a knitting basket, or a small, watchful dog.

Mrs. Eustacia Malvern, who had held the meetings at her home on Houston Street until the task had become too much for her, reached for her cane and used it to steady herself as she raised her considerable bulk out of her chair. Her Pekinese, Precious, took the opportunity to stand on its hind legs and lick the whipped cream off Mrs. Malvern’s dessert.

“What we were just about to do,” Mrs. Malvern said, ignoring the dog, “was review our standards of membership.”

Murmurings were heard, here and there. No one dared look directly at Lorelei, who stood still and straight, waiting.

“As you know,” Eustacia went on, “we have certain criteria.” Among other things, Mrs. Malvern was Creighton’s second cousin, Lorelei recalled. Raul was probably loading her wedding gift, a silver compote, into the back of the wagon at that very moment.

Lorelei did not speak. Bees buzzed from flower to flower, their drone growing louder with every passing moment.

Mrs. Malvern took in the gathering. The dog finished the whipped cream and went for a tea cake.

“I think we are all agreed, Miss Fellows, that you are not our sort.”

NOT OUR SORT.

Standing there in Mrs. Braughm’s lush garden, surrounded by the cream of San Antonio society, Lorelei felt a sting of mortification and, conversely, not a little exhilaration. “Do you speak for everyone?” she asked mildly.

No one spoke. No one met Lorelei’s gaze, save Mrs. Malvern, who seemed intent on glaring a hole right through her.

With a delicate lapping sound, the Pekinese began to drink tea from the old woman’s cup. Except for that, the hum of a few bees and the nervous tinkle of a cup against a saucer, the silence was absolute.

“Very well, then,” Lorelei said. With that, she turned, keeping her shoulders and spine as straight as she could, and took her leave.

She couldn’t go home, not yet.

She might have visited her old friend, Sorrowful, behind the Republic Hotel, but now even the dog was gone. He would surely be better off on the Cavanagh place, with regular feeding and room to run, but the knowledge of his absence was a thrumming ache in her heart.

It was sad indeed, she reflected, when a person’s truest friend was an old war veteran of a dog.

Pausing in the shade of an oak, Lorelei pulled a lace-trimmed handkerchief from beneath her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, she scolded silently. You still have Angelina.

She hadn’t heard the horse approaching, and by the time she realized she wasn’t alone, it was too late.

“Morning, Miss Fellows,” said Holt McKettrick, swinging down from the back of a fine-looking Appaloosa gelding. “Maybe I’m mistaken, but you give the appearance of being a damsel in distress.”

Lorelei’s throat ached. Her eyes felt puffy and red, and the edges of her nostrils burned. It galled her that this man, of all people, had to be the one to catch her weeping. “I’m perfectly fine,” she said, with a sniff.

His smile was slow and easy, and it pulled at something deep inside her. “Whatever you say,” he allowed. His eyes twinkled with good-natured skepticism.

“How do you expect to make that ranch pay if you spend all your time in town?” Lorelei challenged, taking in his fine suit.

He chuckled, belatedly removing his hat. The band, made of hammered silver, caught the light and made it dance. “I’ll make it pay, all right,” he said, with quiet confidence. “And it happens I have business in town.”

Lorelei knew she should simply walk away, but she couldn’t find it within herself to do that, so she simply stood there, with one gloved hand against the trunk of the oak tree. “How is Sorrowful faring?” she asked. It was a safe topic, as far as she could tell.

Again, that slow, lethal grin. His teeth were good—white and straight. He’d probably never had a cavity in his life. “Sorrowful,” he said, “is glad of a bed behind the stove and table scraps twice a day. He’s a fair hand at chasing rabbits, too.”

Lorelei smiled. “Good,” she said.

“You’re welcome to visit him anytime, if you’re so disposed.”

“Thank you,” she replied softly.

“I could see you home,” Holt ventured, turning the fancy hat in his hands.

She shook her head. “I don’t think I’m ready to go there just yet,” she said.

He didn’t press for a reason. “Well, I guess I’d better get along.”

He turned, put a foot in the stirrup and mounted with an ease Lorelei couldn’t help admiring. She yearned to ride, just get up on a horse’s back and race over the ground, travel as far and as fast as she could, with the wind buffeting her face and playing in her hair. Her father had forbidden her that pleasure, along with many others, claiming it was not a suitable enterprise for a lady.

In reality, it was because her older brother, William, had been thrown from a pony when he was nine. He’d struck his head on a rock and died three days later. The judge’s mourning had been terrible to behold.

Holt tilted his head to one side, watching her face. “Something the matter?”

Lorelei was swamped with memories—her father’s utter grief. All the mirrors in the house draped in black crepe. The sound of the rifle shot, ringing through the heavy air of a summer afternoon, as William’s pony was put down.

All of this had happened the day she turned six. Raul had led away the little spotted Shetland that was to have been her birthday gift, later admitting that he’d given it to a rancher.

Child that she was, she’d mourned the lost pony more than William, at the time, and the recollection of that caused a sharp pang of guilty sorrow.

She sighed. “No,” she lied, catching hold of his question, left dangling in the air for a long moment. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“I don’t believe you,” Holt answered quietly.

Then he took the reins in one hand, touched the brim of his hat and went on, toward town.