McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [77]
“What?” Holt rasped, and started in that direction.
Rafe reached out and grasped his arm. “Wait. They haven’t been gone more than a couple of minutes.”
Holt stared at his brother, baffled and furious. “Goddamn,” he growled. “Just when I’m thinking Lorelei might have sense enough to pound sand into a gopher hole after all, she goes wandering off in the dark, to lather herself up in some pond!” He wrenched free of Rafe’s grasp, pulled his .45 from the holster and spun the cylinder to make sure it was loaded.
“Hold on, Holt,” Rafe reiterated. “They’ve had a hell of a day, just like we have. And women need to fuss with such things.”
“This isn’t a fancy hotel in some big city,” Holt retorted.
“It’s the goddamn middle of Comanche territory!”
“You know those bastards are off celebrating somewhere, Holt. Most likely roasting up whatever cattle they managed to scavenge from this pitiful place. I say we let the women have their baths. We’ll just follow along and make sure nothing happens. We don’t have to let them know we’re there.”
Holt peered at Rafe, even angrier than before. “If you think you’re going to watch Lorelei take off her clothes—”
Rafe laughed. “As enjoyable as that would be, I’m a married man, and a happy one. I’d like to stay that way. What I’m suggesting is that we just hang around, within shouting distance. If they need help, we’ll be right there handy.”
Holt considered. Lorelei, naked in the moonlight.
His groin ached, and he was glad as hell that it was dark.
“All right,” he said.
They started toward the pond.
“Why don’t you just admit you’re sweet on her?” Rafe taunted, as they walked.
“I’m not sweet on anybody,” Holt growled.
Rafe laughed, real low. “Bullshit,” he said. “If looking at a woman was the same as bedding her, you’d be in jail.” The word jail made Holt think of Gabe, which would have been a welcome distraction if his old friend wasn’t a step closer to the gallows with every day that passed. “You’re full of sheep-dip,” he snapped. “I don’t even like that woman.”
“You don’t have to like a woman to take her to bed,” Rafe reasoned, and given his colorful history, pre-Emmeline, he could claim a certain authority. “You don’t have to like her to love her, either.”
“Now you’re just running off at the mouth,” Holt accused, exasperated. “I might expect crazy talk like that from our little brother Jeb, but you’re supposed to have more sense.”
Rafe chuckled. “Just answer one question, and I’ll let the matter drop.”
“That depends on the question.”
“If that rider hadn’t shown up when he did and prevented the wedding, would you have made love to your bride?”
“Hell, yes,” Holt admitted, because he knew Rafe wouldn’t buy it if he said no. “But I don’t see what that has to do with anything. I liked Margaret.”
“Exactly. You liked her. But she didn’t get under your hide the way Lorelei does. She didn’t piss you off. And I never once saw you kiss her the way you kissed Lorelei that day after you jerked her off that bucking mule, back there on her so-called ranch.”
Holt lengthened his strides. He could hear Lorelei and Melina up ahead, talking. Did they think they were being quiet? Hell, every Indian within fifty miles could probably hear them.
“I’m glad you didn’t decide to be a lawyer,” he bit out, “because you don’t have the knack for it. What does kissing Lorelei have to do with liking or loving or any of that other bull crap?”
“I’m saying,” Rafe answered, with exaggerated patience, “that you may not like Lorelei, but it seems to me that there’s a pretty good chance that you love her.”
“You,” Holt said, wishing he had the time to stop and beat the hell out of Rafe, right there on the spot, “are three kinds of an idiot, and blind on top of it. The sooner I get shut of that woman, the happier I’m going to be!”
Rafe didn’t say anything more, but he was smirking.
Holt jerked off his hat and struck his brother in the belly with it.
Rafe laughed, under his breath.
Up ahead, the women rustled