McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [116]
Her hands shook slightly, Holt noticed, as she reached out for it.
The guilt came back.
Holt shoved a hand through his hair. Wished he could walk over there and tell her he was sorry for baiting her the way he had, but the truth was that he’d meant what he’d said, so he couldn’t rightly take it back. He’d wanted Lorelei Fellows from the moment he saw her burning that wedding dress back in San Antonio, but it had taken a while to face the fact.
Did he love her?
No, he decided. Probably not.
On the other hand, he’d believed the same thing about Olivia, Lizzie’s mother. And he’d found out, too late, that he was wrong.
The problem was, he reckoned, that he didn’t have an adequate definition for love. He got it confused with passion, and a host of other emotions.
He thought of his father, and Angus’s second wife, Concepcion. Their alliance had begun as a partnership; after Rafe, Jeb and Kade’s mother, Georgia, had died, Angus was left with three boys to raise. Concepcion, a widow herself, had stepped in, and at some point their common goal had turned into the best kind of love—the sort that endured.
Then there was Rafe and Emmeline. They’d done battle from the beginning. Now, they had a happy home and a child together.
Same with Kade and Mandy. What started out as warfare became an unbreakable bond.
Jeb—and Chloe. She’d come after Jeb with a buggy-whip, called him all manner of worthless and borne him a beautiful child. Once a rascal, Jeb was now the most devoted of husbands.
Holt sighed. For a while, he’d believed he loved Chloe, loved her fire and her intelligence and her go-to-hell attitude. But he’d known, even in the grip of the quiet passion he’d felt, that she could never care for any man but Jeb, and he’d been prepared to get himself out of the way, leave the Triple M for good, if that was what it took. If it hadn’t been for Jeb, he’d have pursued Chloe, used all his powers of persuasion to win her. They’d be long-married by now, and Lizzie would no longer be an only child.
Back then, Angus had said the feelings would pass, and he’d been right. Holt thought of Chloe as a sister now, and that was the way it should be.
Here, today, watching Lorelei drinking that coffee, he knew this was entirely different. If she’d loved one of his brothers, nothing in the world would have driven him away. He’d have fought, tooth and nail, foul or fair, any way he had to, for any length of time. And if she’d married Rafe or Kade or Jeb, he wouldn’t have interfered—but he would have bided his time. Waited as long as need be.
The implications of this scared him in a way the whole Comanche nation couldn’t have done. What the hell did it mean?
Rafe startled him with a nudge, nearly causing Holt to spill his coffee. “Better pull your tongue back in your head,” Rafe advised, “before you step on it.”
Holt felt heat gather in his neck and rush into his face. Rafe was his brother and one of his closest friends, but right then he could cheerfully have knocked his brother’s teeth down his throat. He whirled on Rafe, one hand bunched into a fist.
Rafe chuckled and pretended to leap back.
“Damn you, Rafe,” Holt bit out.
His brother was undaunted. As usual. “Why don’t you sweet talk her a little, instead of always trying to get her mad?”
Holt relaxed, even smiled. “I like the way she looks when she’s furious,” he said. “Which is most of the time.”
“I felt that way about Emmeline in the beginning,” Rafe remarked, slurping his coffee and squinting a little in the smoke from the campfire. “Still do, sometimes. But life’s a lot easier when I just accept that she’s the boss and do as she tells me.”
Holt lost his sense of humor right then. “No woman is going to give me orders,” he vowed. And he was dead serious.
Rafe shook his head. “You poor fool,” he lamented, and gave Holt a sympathetic slap on the back.
CHAPTER 32
LORELEI HAD NEVER seen so many bawling, whirling, dust-raising cattle in her life. There must have been a thousand of them, churning about within