McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [127]
Melina looked at her curiously, took her by the arm, and led her to one side. “What’s the matter with you, Lorelei? You’re not coming down with something, are you?”
Lorelei peered at her friend. “Coming down with…?” She paused. Shifted from one foot to the other. “What?”
“When Holt came in from the herd this morning, he said you were probably late because you felt puny or something. That’s when he sent Mr. Cavanagh to fetch you.”
Lorelei felt a little better. Her heart, riding behind her navel all morning, rose to its proper place. “Holt spent the night with the cattle?” she asked carefully.
“Sure,” Melina said. She frowned. “Where did you think he was?”
As tired as she was, with her shoes pinching and dust clodded in her hair and imbedded in every pore, Lorelei wanted to jump for joy. Not that she would have done anything so undignified, that is. Not in broad daylight, anyway.
“I didn’t know,” she lied.
Sorrowful leaped over the tailgate of the wagon, found a rock to do his business against and trotted over to nudge at Lorelei’s thigh with his big head. She laughed, bent to pick up a stick and threw it for him.
He dashed after it.
“You ladies come and have some of this cold chicken from last night’s supper,” John said. “No tellin’ how long it will be till we stop again.”
The herd was blessedly quiet, lining the stream banks to drink, grazing on what grass they could find, but they’d brought legions of flies with them, and they buzzed around the horses and people, looking for something to bite.
Lorelei nodded to John to let him know she’d heard, and walked downstream a ways, away from the herd, to visit the bushes and then wash her hands. Fortunately, she had left the brush and was crouching beside the water when Holt approached, leading his horse.
He’d taken care not to let the company know he’d spent the night in her bed, she knew that now, but she was still irked by the way he’d treated her when they were leaving Reynosa.
“You feeling all right?” he asked, when she didn’t speak first. Hell would have frozen over before that happened, and maybe he knew it.
“I’m feeling just grand, Mr. McKettrick,” Lorelei said, getting to her feet and starting past him. She’d splashed her face and swallowed about a gallon of water by that time. Now, she wanted some of that chicken John had mentioned, before the flies got to it.
Holt reached out and caught hold of her arm, and his touch brought back a rush of memories. Oddly, they didn’t come from her head, where memories usually resided, but from the secret folds and curves of her body. “There’s no call to be snippish,” he said.
“Maybe not from your point of view,” she replied, trying in vain to pull away.
He had the nerve to glare at her. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” Lorelei snapped. “I give my virtue to a new man every night, and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest when, the very next morning, he acts as if he’s never met me before!”
Holt slammed his hat against one thigh. “Dammit, Lorelei, what would you have me do? Hand you a rose in front of the whole outfit? Quote poetry, maybe?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it again.
He wouldn’t let her off the hook. “Well?” he demanded.
She folded her arms, rocked back on her heels. “You wanted to give me a rose and quote poetry?”
Color surged up his neck and flared beneath his new beard. “It was a figure of speech!”
“Holt!” It was Rafe, galloping toward them on his dusty horse. “There’s a signal fire to the east—might be Comanches.”
Holt swore, took a startled Lorelei by the waist and literally flung her up onto Traveler’s back. He was behind her and reining the gelding toward the rest of the party before Lorelei caught her breath.
As soon as they reached the wagon, he threw her off again, with such haste that she landed on her backside in the grass. Sorrowful wandered over and licked her face.
Melina helped her to her feet, and Mr. Cavanagh thrust a rifle into her hands.
“Get under that wagon!” he ordered.