McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [41]
Sorrowful got to his feet as Rafe and Holt turned to leave the bar.
Rafe’s gelding, Chief, was tied to the hitching rail out front, and Holt was irritated with himself for not having noticed the horse earlier. None of the McKettrick horses were branded, but the familiar mark, three M’s, interwoven, was tooled into the leather of Rafe’s saddle, for anybody to see.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Rafe asked, untying Chief and mounting up with the ease of a man who’d been riding longer than he’d been walking on his own two feet.
Holt climbed into the saddle and whistled to the dog. Sorrowful jumped up in front of him and perched on the pommel like a bird on a branch. “Like what?” he asked, honestly baffled.
“Like Margaret,” Rafe said.
Holt swore under his breath. He ought to be shot for a rounder, the way he treated women. First he’d gone off and left Olivia alone and carrying his baby, then he’d completely forgotten the mail-order bride he’d sent for and courted and finally abandoned.
Rafe’s grin flashed white in his unwashed face. “No need to fret about her, Big Brother,” he said. “Seth Bates, over on the Southern Cross, asked her to dance right after you rode out. When the preacher finally showed up, Margaret put her fancy gown back on and married old Seth on the spot.”
“I’ll be damned,” Holt said, thinking he was a son of a bitch for being irritated. “Didn’t take her long.”
Rafe laughed. “I guess she had her mind set on getting married that day. Hell, we had the cake right there handy, and the preacher, and all those people dressed up and primed to celebrate. Seemed like a practical decision to me.”
They headed for the outskirts of town, following the river road.
There was a ripping sound. The dog looked up at him with confidence in his charitable nature, and Holt decided the pickled eggs had been a bad idea.
“WHAT WAS SHE LIKE?” Lorelei asked numbly. Seated on a rock down by the stream, she held a cup of Angelina’s tea in both hands. “Was my mother really insane?”
Angelina stared out at the water, watching light frolic on the surface. “No,” she said, in a tone of remembrance. “It began after William was born. She grew morose. Wouldn’t eat and wandered the house at all hours of the night, as if she’d misplaced something and wanted to find it. The judge was patient at first—took her to doctors as far away as Houston. They said it sometimes happened after a woman had a child, and there was nothing they could do. She was better for a while, and then—”
“And then she had me,” Lorelei murmured. “Is that what you were going to say?”
Angelina met her gaze. Her eyes were swollen with misery. “Yes,” she answered. “She used to push you around in a little carriage, then leave you places and forget where. Once, when I’d gone to do the marketing, she decided to give you a bath, and then got distracted and went off to do something else. You would have drowned if little William hadn’t climbed up onto a stool and pulled you out of that basin.”
Lorelei closed her eyes.
“The judge sent her away, then—to this ranch. Said her own people would have to look after her. But poor William cried so—sometimes he couldn’t catch his breath, he’d get so wrought up. Night and day, he called for her. So, finally, your father brought her back home.” Lorelei waited.
“When you were three, Selma finally broke down completely.” Angelina choked, dashed at her cheek with the back of one hand. “William fell out of a tree in the backyard—just a little gash to his head, but there was a lot of blood. Didn’t even knock him out. When Selma saw him lying there, stunned and bleeding, she started screaming and didn’t stop until Dr. Carson came and gave her medicine. She didn’t speak at all then—didn’t seem to know any of the rest of us were there. Even seeing that William was all right didn’t bring her around. She just sat in that rocking chair in the parlor and stared at the wall, like she saw horrible things happening there.”
Lorelei put a hand over her mouth, waiting out a wave of emotion. “How long did Mama live, after