McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [148]
For all that she’d tried to prepare herself, the sight of what had once been her ranch house nearly knocked the wind out of her. Gone, the cabin that had been her mother’s childhood home, with all the earthly belongings she could rightfully claim inside.
Here, in this place, Lorelei had first planted her two feet and declared her independence. Now, there was nothing left but ash and charred wood; even the trees, old-timers with their roots going deep into the land, had been desecrated.
An unholy rage welled up within Lorelei as she took it all in, there on the bank of the creek, herself and her mule dripping water from the crossing.
Holt stayed close by.
“The trees,” she whispered brokenly.
“They’ll come back, Lorelei,” he said gravely, and reached across, from his horse, to touch her arm. “Even now, the seeds are there, under the dirt, fixing to grow.”
She turned to him. There were times when he amazed her, this complicated man. He’d fight the very devil himself, bare-handed, and laugh when he told the tale. The Comanche had never drawn breath who could make him break a sweat. And yet, in the face of this murderous destruction, he spoke of seeds, and the promise of life stirring under the soil.
“Holt McKettrick,” she said, “if I live to be an old, old woman, I will never figure you out.”
He grinned. “Waste of time trying,” he said, taking Seesaw by the bridle strap and deftly steering both mule and woman forward—always forward. “When you get down to it, I’m not sure there’s anything to make sense of, anyhow.”
Her throat felt tight. There were so many things she wanted to say in that moment, but they wouldn’t come together in her mind.
“Give that mule your heels, Miss Lorelei,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. Into her very soul, it seemed.
“We’re burning daylight.”
She laughed, but the sound came out tangled with a sob. She prodded Seesaw hard, and he took off for the hillside leading up to the road, a streak of jackass, gobbling up ground with his plain, sturdy legs.
Holt stayed with her easily, on that Appaloosa of his, but he pretended it was a battle, keeping up with her and the doc on his squat, trotting pony.
She loved him for the effort. Loved him for the things he’d said about the trees coming back.
Loved him.
The realization of that was far more shattering than her father’s betrayal could ever have been.
She couldn’t love Holt McKettrick. She wouldn’t. After that talk in Reynosa, when he’d suggested forming a “partnership,” he’d never mentioned marriage again. He’d either been talking through his hat, or he’d changed his mind since then.
He’d leave, that was what he would do, provided he lived through the confrontation with Isaac Templeton that was bound to happen. He’d leave, when Gabe Navarro was free.
He would leave and never come back. That was the pure, brutal truth of the matter.
What would comfort her then? What seeds would stir beneath the ashes of her dreams, destined to grow tall and strong against the fierce Texas sky?
The answer made her press the palm of one hand hard to her middle. She was startled by a swift and terrible joy, a certainty too elemental to explain. She was carrying Holt’s child. Her eyes widened, and her heart began to beat like the hooves of a wild horse, running free. Life would be hard from now on, but it would be wonderful, too.
“Lorelei?” Holt asked worriedly, from beside her. “You all right?”
“Sturdy as a Texas oak tree,” she replied, and even though there were tears standing in her eyes, she smiled.
DR. BROWN tipped his hat to Holt and Lorelei at the outskirts of San Antonio. “Raul and Angelina will have a place with me as long as they want it, Miss Fellows,” he said, in parting. “Holt, you keep that brother of yours off the trail for a while. I don’t want that wound getting infected. Send for me if the boy has trouble with his leg, but the splint should hold.”
Holt nodded and tugged at his hat brim. “Obliged, Doc,” he said.
Lorelei watched Dr. Brown until he disappeared