McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [103]
Lorelei studied her. “When is your baby due?”
“In a month, maybe two,” Melina replied, rocking placidly. She looked toward the window and sighed. “I do like being in a real house, with curtains on the windows and quilts on the beds. If I lived in a place like this, I don’t believe I’d ever step outside the front door.”
Lorelei forgot her dress and sat down on the edge of one of the beds, both of which had been neatly made. She couldn’t help thinking of her father’s fine home in San Antonio, and all the luxuries she’d taken for granted. She didn’t regret leaving, but she wished she’d been more grateful, if not to the judge, then to a kindly fate for favoring her with things other women only dreamed about.
“You’ll have a place someday, Melina,” she said softly. Her throat tightened, and her eyes burned, but she took her emotions firmly in hand. “You and Gabe and the baby.” The moment she’d spoken, Lorelei could have swallowed her tongue. Gabe was going to hang in less than a month, and Melina and the child would be alone in the world. It was a bleak thought.
Melina looked at her sadly. “Women like you live in houses like this one, Lorelei. Tillie and me, we’re cut out to be cooks and maids.”
“It isn’t right,” Lorelei protested, but her voice was small, and she twisted her hands together in her lap.
“A lot of things aren’t right,” Melina said.
A brief, difficult silence fell.
“You can stay with me, on my ranch, as long as you need to,” Lorelei said, when she couldn’t stand it anymore. “You and the baby.”
Melina smiled. “You won’t live on that ranch for long, Lorelei,” she replied, with as much certainty as if she could look into the future and read it like a book. “You’ll marry Holt and go back to Arizona Territory with him.”
“I wouldn’t marry that man if he were—”
“The last man on earth?” Melina finished, with gentle humor. “Don’t be so sure he isn’t, at least as far as you’re concerned.”
Lorelei felt a twinge of indignation. “I’d be in a sorry state indeed if I needed a husband to survive—especially one like him. Anyway, he wouldn’t marry me. He thinks I’m stubborn and self-centered and heaven only knows what else.”
Melina went right on rocking, but now her smile had a smug air about it. “You drive him crazy, and that’s exactly why he would marry you. A woman could do a lot worse than Holt McKettrick, you know.”
“I don’t see how,” Lorelei retorted, disgruntled. She stood and snatched up her calico dress. “I’m going out to make some purchases,” she said. “Would you like to come along?”
“No, thanks,” Melina answered serenely. “I mean to sit here and pretend that this is my house, and Gabe’s going to come walking through that door any moment and ask me what’s for supper.”
Lorelei’s throat cinched itself shut again, and tears filled her eyes. She was careful to keep her back to Melina while she changed into her calico dress.
Half an hour later, in the second shop she visited, she made her first and most important purchase—a bolt of blue-and-white gingham for Mary Jackson.
She liked to keep her promises, even when she had no earthly idea how she’d go about it.
CHAPTER 30
“WE’RE SCRAPING the bottom of the barrel with this bunch,” Rafe remarked none too quietly, surveying the motley gathering of down-on-their-luck cowpunchers lined up on the sidewalk in front of the Rusty Buckle Saloon. “I think I’ve seen a couple of those mugs on Wanted posters.”
There were twelve in the crew, all told. A more unlikely bunch of disciples Holt had never seen. But, then, he was no messiah. “We’ve got a herd to drive north, and we can’t afford to be choosey,” he told Rafe. “These poor excuses for cowpunchers will have to do.”
Rafe sighed, resigned. “Now what?”
“Get them outfitted with saddles and the best horses you can find,” Holt replied. “The gear they’ve got is pitiful.” He tugged at his leather gloves and ran a glance from one scraggly end of the assembly to the other. Raised his voice. “My brother Rafe is