McKettrick's Choice

Gabe hesitated, thinking, then said, “Sure. Sneaky little bastard. I caught him going through my saddlebags one time.”

Holt reached back, rubbed the nape of his neck. “He’s working for me now.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes. “You watch him, Holt. Watch him real close.”

Holt didn’t reckon he’d have time to watch anybody, real close or otherwise, with all he had to do to get that ranch back on sound footing. There were cattle to buy, which meant he’d have to run a herd up from Mexico, and he needed at least another dozen men for a drive like that. He ought to find Frank, and go to Austin to meet with the governor. And then there was Melina, up in Waco.

All the while, Gabe’s life was getting shorter with every tick of the clock in the town square.

In the back of his mind, Holt heard Angus McKettrick’s voice. It’s there to do, boy. Best leave off worrying and get on with the business at hand.

God, what he wouldn’t give to have his pa and brothers with him right now.

“It might be a few days before I can get back here to see you,” he said aloud. “You getting the meals from the hotel?”

Gabe nodded, managed a semblance of the old grin. “It’s a lot of food, Holt. I reckon I can count on that coffin being a real tight fit.”

“You won’t be needing a coffin,” Holt said. “Not for a long while, anyway.”

Gabe studied him. “You losing your sense of humor, old friend?”

“That’s a peculiar question, coming from you. Talking about coffins, and your woman ending up a whore.”

The other man sighed, ran his palms down the legs of his buckskin trousers. “Old Cap’n Jack, he’d have a thing or two to say about all this, wouldn’t he?”

The mention of the seasoned Ranger cheered Holt considerably. “He surely would,” he said. “And most of it would take the paint off a wall.”

Gabe gave a low guffaw. “Yes, sir. Call us a pair of down-in-the-mouth yellow-bellied tit babies, probably. Give us the sole of his boot.”

Holt laughed, heartened. He put a hand through the bars, gripped Gabe’s shoulder. “Don’t pay too much mind to that gallows out there,” he counseled. “One day real soon, we’ll burn it for firewood and dance around the flames, whooping like Comanches.”

“‘Like Comanches’?” Gabe retorted. “I am a Comanche, White Eyes.”

“Then act like one,” Holt said, turning to go.

“Son of a bitch,” Gabe called, in cheerful farewell. Holt laughed.

It took some doing, but he got Gabe’s hundred dollars out of the jailer.

He’d stop by the ranch, to look in on John and Tillie and the yellow dog, then ride for Waco. With luck, he’d be there by mid-day tomorrow.

CHAPTER 10

THERE WAS A THIRD PLACE set at the dining room table, and the sound of masculine laughter came from behind the closed doors of the judge’s study. Lorelei marched to the kitchen and pushed the door open with the flat of her hand.

“Angelina!”

The other woman was just setting a pan of biscuits in the oven. She looked back at Lorelei over one plump shoulder. “Sí?” she asked innocently.

“I’m having supper in my room tonight. I refuse to sit across the table from Creighton Bannings!”

Angelina smiled as she straightened, wiping her hands on her apron. “How was the Ladies’ Benevolence Society meeting?”

The reminder of her summary dismissal made Lorelei flinch, but she recovered almost immediately. “I was asked to leave,” she said, setting her shoulders. “I’m thinking of starting my own group, just to spite them.”

Angelina drew herself up, indignant. “Hateful old hens,” she muttered. “I ought to make them all come down with the grippe.”

Despite the unseemly reference, Lorelei took a plate from the cupboard, planning to fill it with whatever Angelina had made for supper and sneak up the back stairs. “Start with Mrs. Malvern,” she said lightly, then lowered her voice to a whisper and cast a glance over one shoulder as the laughter in the study swelled again. “She’s Creighton’s cousin, you know. She’s the one who threw me out of the society.”

Angelina checked the kettle of potatoes boiling on the back of the stove, then peered into the warming oven at the platter of fried chicken. The heat in the room was almost palpable.

“Put that plate back where you found it,” Angelina said. “It isn’t Bannings in there with your father. It’s the banker, Mr. Sexton.”

Lorelei was both relieved and unsettled. Mr. Sexton was not the jovial sort, and neither was her father. What were they laughing about in there?

“Since when does the judge socialize with clerks?”

Angelina met her gaze. “Since today,” she said meaningfully.

Lorelei smoothed her hair, then her skirts. Sexton managed her father’s accounts, as well as Lorelei’s inheritance from her maternal grandfather. “I guess I’d better greet our guest,” she said.

Angelina merely nodded.

A few moments later, after straightening her hair and skirts again, Lorelei tapped circumspectly at the study door.

“Come in,” the judge called.

Lorelei took a deep breath, wondering if her father had heard about her ousting from the society, and turned the latch.

Mr. Sexton stood, tugging at his tight collar, and tried to smile. “Miss Fellows,” he said, in greeting. Her father regarded her smugly from the chair behind that half-acre desk of his.

Lorelei summoned up a smile. “Good evening, Mr. Sexton.”

“Tell her,” urged the judge.

Sexton flushed. Whatever he’d been laughing about earlier must have been far from his mind, because he looked miserable, and not just from the cloying heat.

“It’s about the property you inherited,” he said.

“What property?” Lorelei asked.

“Why, the ranch,” Sexton replied, after a quick glance at the judge. “The hundred acres downriver.” He fiddled with his collar again. “An offer of purchase has been made.”

Lorelei was confounded. She looked at her father, but his face gave away nothing, as usual. “It’s mine to sell?” she asked.

The judge cleared his throat. “Not precisely. But your signature is required. Just a formality.”

“I want to see the place first.”