McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [138]
He gave Seesaw the heels of his boots, wishing he’d worn spurs. “It’s bad enough that my brother took an arrow,” he said, letting the words grind past her right ear. “You could have been killed out here, or taken captive, which would have been a whole lot worse.”
He felt her shiver against his chest. “I know you said to stay with the wagon if the Indians came,” she said, keeping her face forward and dragging each word up out of some deep part of herself, “but when we heard the shots, knowing you and Rafe were out here—well—I couldn’t bring myself to hide.” Her spine straightened, but she still didn’t look back at him, which was a good thing, because he wouldn’t have wanted her to see his face right then. “I had to do something, Holt. Even if it was wrong.”
He hoped she didn’t sense the softening in him. He was trail boss, and he couldn’t afford to show weakness. Up until that moment, he hadn’t realized he knew how to let down his guard, especially in the wake of a life-and-death fight like the one he’d just been through.
“When I give an order,” he rasped, as furious with himself as he was with Lorelei, “I expect it to be obeyed. Is that understood?”
She didn’t answer.
The herd was up ahead, and a quick count showed that all the wranglers were still intact. The wagon bristled with arrows, though, and there was no sign of the other women, or the dog.
Holt’s belly clenched up again.
“Lorelei,” he prompted, in a growl.
She turned her head, searched his face. “I don’t work for you, Holt McKettrick,” she said. She sounded tough, but her lower lip wobbled.
He might have laughed out loud if his brother hadn’t been shot.
“While you’re traveling with this herd, you will do as I say,” he told her. The softness was gone; he felt hard from the center of his soul.
He quickened the mule’s pace again and felt as though he’d just tossed back a double-shot of rotgut whiskey, the relief was so intense, when the other side of the supply wagon came in sight. Rafe was lying on the ground, with a saddle for a pillow, while Heddy and Tillie knelt on either side of him. Tillie stood a little distance away, Pearl in her arms, the dog panting at her side.
“Thank God,” Lorelei whispered, on a long breath.
“They’re all right.”
Holt rode up to the little gathering beside the wagon, hooked an arm around Lorelei’s waist and removed her none too gently from the mule’s back. She stumbled slightly before getting her footing, and glared up at him in humiliated fury.
“We’ll see if the same can be said of the herd,” he said, and reined Seesaw around. Off to his left, some thousand yards distant, he saw the Captain headed in on horseback, leading Holt’s gelding and Rafe’s, one on either side. It was another weight off his mind, but he kept reviewing everything that could have happened to Lorelei, riding into the middle of a fight like that, so he didn’t feel one whit better.
It turned out his count was wrong. One of the wranglers had taken a header from his horse when the second contingent of Comanches came after the herd, and had broken his left leg. John and a couple of the other men were loading him up in the wagon.
Holt heard his pa’s voice in the back of his mind. God looks after fools, drunks and cowboys, boy, Angus had said one day when the two of them were rounding up strays on the Triple M. One time or another, I’ve been all three, so I’m obliged to Him for the favor.
Holt spotted Frank and trotted the mule over to him. There were half a dozen dead Indians scattered on the ground; the others had gotten away. It was hard to tell how many there had been from the tracks, since the herd had churned up plenty of ground in all the excitement.
Kahill