McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [66]
Melina leaned forward to catch the other woman’s eye. “What’s wrong with Tillie?”
Tillie shrugged. “It’s plain,” she said. She sighed, stood up. “I guess I’d better put Pearl to bed. She’s had a real long day.”
“Haven’t we all?” Lorelei replied. She would have sold her soul for a hot bath, but there was no sense in wanting what she couldn’t have. “Where are we sleeping tonight?”
Melina, too, got to her feet, gently dislodging the dog in the process. “Holt said we ought to put our bedrolls in the mission.”
Despite the truce they’d agreed upon earlier, Lorelei tightened her mouth a little. Holt said this, Holt said that. It made her want to rebel, with or without a valid reason.
“I think I’ll stay up a while longer,” she said.
“Don’t be too long,” Melina counseled, stretching.
“We’ll be rolling again before you know it.” With that, she departed, as Tillie had, with the feckless Sorrowful trotting at her heels.
Lorelei sighed, watching the fire. The wood was beginning to crumble into embers, and the sparks rose like lightning bugs, bursting toward the sky as though trying to reach the moon.
Most of the cowboys had already spread their blankets on the ground and stretched out for the night, but Holt, Rafe, Captain Walton and Mr. Cavanagh crouched nearby, in a tight circle. Holt drew in the dirt with a stick, and the others nodded and made comments.
Presently, the conference ended, and the four men stood wearily and went their separate ways.
Holt nodded to Lorelei as he passed, headed in the direction of the stream, but he didn’t speak. She was at once relieved and disappointed by that, and, being embroiled in this small paradox, she failed to notice that she wasn’t alone until the Captain sat right down beside her.
“You ever played poker?” he asked.
Lorelei laughed. “No,” she said.
“A person can learn a lot from a good game of five-card stud,” he told her, his eyes twinkling. “When to hold and when to fold, for instance.”
“I have no earthly idea what those terms mean,” Lorelei said, tossing the dregs of her coffee into the fire.
“Holding and folding, I mean.”
“That’s plain to see, Miss Fellows,” the Captain told her good-naturedly. “When you hold, it means you’ve got good cards, or a chance to bluff your way through if they aren’t what you’d hoped for. It’s knowing when to fold that’s tricky. If you’ve drawn a losing hand, you’d best throw in your cards.”
Lorelei frowned. “Are you trying to tell me that I ought to give up?” she asked. Even mustering up some indignation would be too much work after the day she’d put in, but she felt the stirrings of it, just the same.
“No, ma’am,” the Captain said. “I’m just saying that some battles are worth fighting and others are a pure waste of time and effort.”
“If you’re not talking about my ranch—”
The Captain patted her hand. “You think about it,” he said. With that, he stood up again, tugged at the brim of his hat in mannerly farewell and disappeared into the darkness, going from substance to shadow to nothing at all.
Lorelei felt a peculiar tightening in her throat, along with a twinge of confusion. You think about it, the Captain had said.
Think about what?
She was too weary and sore to wrestle with a mystery, but she knew she’d worry at it until she went to sleep. She carried her cup to the spring, rinsed it thoroughly and returned it to the supply wagon, as she had seen the others do.
Mr. Cavanagh handed her a roll of blankets. “Tillie and Melina have already bedded down,” he said. “You’d best do the same, Miss Lorelei.”
She nodded and yawned. If she’d had the strength, she’d have asked him about the Captain’s cryptic remark, but she would be lucky to get inside the mission before she collapsed from exhaustion, so her questions would have to wait.
She crossed the grassy camp, the bedroll in both arms, and resigned herself to a stone floor and a short night.
Tillie was already asleep, cradling her doll under her chin. Sorrowful lay curled at her feet, Melina a few feet away, eyes closed, her