McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [155]
A rider came up alongside her, from behind, and she was wrenched off Seesaw’s back and onto the other mount before she could react. Mac Kahill smiled down at her.
“Welcome to the Templeton ranch, Miss Fellows,” he said cordially.
Lorelei squirmed, but it was no use. Both her arms were pinned.
Kahill laughed. “Life,” he said, “is full of sweet surprises.”
She found her voice. “Let me go!”
He spurred his horse toward the house. “Not a chance of that,” he told her. He dumped her to the ground, a few feet from the porch steps, and dismounted before she could get up, grabbing her hard by the arm. He paused, listening. “Hear that?” he asked mildly.
Lorelei held her breath. Riders.
“They’re on their way, boys,” Kahill called out, and a dozen men appeared, streaming out of the house, rifles ready. “Get ready for a shindig.”
“Holt,” Lorelei whispered.
“Hope you won’t miss him too much,” Kahill said, and flung her toward the steps.
“This ain’t no time for sparkin’,” one of the men remarked, leering, as Kahill grabbed the back of Lorelei’s shirt and propelled her inside, through an entryway, and up a grand set of stairs.
At the top, he took both her hands, bound them together with his bandana, and pushed her to the floor with such force that she struck her head against something. Stars swam in front of her eyes, and darkness rose up around her, gulped her down whole.
She awakened, maybe seconds later, maybe minutes, dazed and sick to her stomach. Gunfire erupted outside, and she sat up, her heart in her throat.
Tillie raced past her, running down the stairs. “My pa is out there!” she screamed. “Don’t nobody hurt my pa!”
Lorelei blinked, sure she must be hallucinating. “Tillie!” she screamed, in abject horror. “No!”
Tillie disappeared through the front door.
Another volley of gunfire, followed by a howl of enraged grief, rising above the other sounds.
“Your woman is in there, McKettrick!” It was Kahill’s voice, taunting. Full of frenzied hatred. “The kid, too!”
Desperate, Lorelei finally wriggled free of the bond on her wrists. She got to her feet, collapsed, and got up again.
Bullets shattered the windows and thudded into the floor of the entry hall.
“Have it your way, Mr. Boss Man!” Kahill shouted. Lorelei watched, stricken, as he stepped over the threshold, overturned the fancy lamps on the long bureau just inside the door, and tossed a lighted match into the spilled kerosene.
The blaze caught on the fancy Oriental rug and raced toward the walls.
Pearl, she thought, suddenly and with a clarity that slammed into her middle like a sledgehammer. She tried to orient herself, hurried along the upstairs corridor, flinging open doors. So many doors.
Smoke billowed up from downstairs, and the gunfire went on, deafening, ceaseless. It sounded as if two armies were clashing outside, and Tillie had gone straight into the melee, but Lorelei couldn’t think about that now. Couldn’t think of the cry of sorrowing fury she’d heard a moment afterwards. She had to find Pearl.
The baby was in the last bedroom, sitting on a blanket on the floor, his face crumpled with silent sobs. Lorelei snatched him up, burst out into the corridor again, choking on smoke, looked wildly around for a rear stairway, but there was none.
There was only one way out.
By the time she reached the landing, the smoke was dense, and flames were leaping everywhere. A wall of heat met her as she tried to descend the stairs, bent low, gripping Pearl in both arms. The roar of the fire was thunderous, but beyond it lay a world of sudden and peculiar silence.
It was over, she thought.
She and Pearl were going to die, together, in a burning house.
But she had reckoned without Holt McKettrick.
Through the shifting smoke, she saw, or thought she saw, that big Appaloosa of his come right through the front door. Holt bent low over the animal’s neck, spurred him up the broad stairs, and leaned down to grab her around the waist. Holding Pearl as tightly as she could, Lorelei felt herself hoisted