McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [132]
“What about you?” Rafe asked, following along as Holt started for his horse, still saddled and grazing under an oak tree nearby. “You planning to get a good night’s sleep?”
“Unfortunately,” Holt replied, noting his brother’s grin and tolerating it. He hadn’t told Rafe about that round with Lorelei, in the inn at Reynosa, but Rafe knew, just the same. “Yes. I’ll be back here in my bedroll before that game winds down.”
Rafe watched as Holt gathered the reins and mounted. The grin was gone. “Lorelei’s a good woman,” he said. “If you trifle with her, Holt, I will not take kindly to it. You hear me?”
Holt set his jaw. Tugged at the brim of his hat. “With both ears,” he said, and urged the Appaloosa toward the scattering of lights up ahead.
“I TOOK ME A SHINE to John Cavanagh,” Heddy confided, in a loud whisper, “and that’s a fact. I’m wonderin’ if he’d have me. Tillie says he don’t have a wife.”
Lorelei, seated beside Heddy on the back step, was grateful for the darkness, because it hid the expression on her face. Behind them, in the kitchen, Tillie and Melina were busy washing up the supper dishes. “It seems a little sudden,” she ventured carefully. Mr. Cavanagh had never given any indication that he wanted a helpmate, as far as she’d noticed, and she didn’t want Heddy to get her feelings hurt.
“When a body gets to be my age,” Heddy answered, “‘sudden’ don’t cipher up. John likes my cookin’, and he knows I’d be good to his girl. I reckon if he comes back here, I’ll just ask him, straight out.”
Lorelei couldn’t help thinking of Holt. He’d never mentioned marriage, and she wasn’t sure she’d be amenable if he did, but watching Melina’s belly grow, day by day, she had to wonder what she’d do if she was in the family way. The idea stirred a certain warmth in the tenderest regions of her heart, but it also scared her half to death. Suppose she was like her mother, and went mad from having a baby?
Holt had made no secret of his intentions—once he’d gotten Mr. Cavanagh’s ranch on solid footing and cleared Gabe Navarro’s name, he meant to go back to Arizona, home to his daughter and the Triple M. “Be careful, Heddy,” she said gently. “Men are contrary creatures.”
Heddy laughed. “That’s one of the things I like best about ’em,” she said, just as a rider came into the dooryard.
Holt. Even without the showy Appaloosa, or the waning moonlight, Lorelei would have known him by the quickening in her chest and the clench in the pit of her stomach.
He swung down from the saddle, in that easy way he had, and left the horse to drink at Heddy’s trough. He took off his hat as he walked toward the two women, his teeth flashing in a trail-weary grin.
“Heddy,” he said. “Miss Lorelei.”
Heddy smiled and hoisted herself up off the step, smoothing her apron with large, rough hands. “Evenin’, Holt,” she answered. “Where’s Mr. Cavanagh? I want a word with him.”
“He’s in camp,” Holt said. “We’re getting an early start in the morning.”
Lorelei felt Heddy’s disappointment as if it were her own. “I reckon I’ll just have to go out there, then,” Heddy decided. “You mind hitchin’ up my horse and buggy for me, Holt?”
“I’ll do it,” he agreed, but he was looking at Lorelei.
She squirmed a little but didn’t rise off the step. She liked being outside, under the stars. And anyway, Holt was there. Right or wrong, smart or foolish, she needed to be close to him, if only for a little while.
“Don’t you go without me,” Heddy told him. “I’m goin’ in to put on my Sunday dress and get my shawl.”
“I’ll wait,” Holt promised, still watching Lorelei. He stood at a distance of about a dozen feet and didn’t show any signs of coming closer, which Lorelei supposed was a good thing, given past experience.
Lorelei didn’t speak. She was afraid she might say something stupid if she did, or even burst into silly tears. Where this man was concerned, her emotions were a hopeless tangle; she was furious one moment and full of yearning the next, and there was no telling which one would come to prominence if she opened her mouth too