McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [81]
As luck would have it, Holt was the next person to come to the campfire. He’d slept in his clothes, like all the other men, but he still managed to look good, damn him.
He gave her a slanted grin, helped himself to one of the row of metal coffee mugs John had set out and filled it from the pot sitting at the edge of the fire. Leather gloves protected his hands from the heat.
“Morning, Miss Fellows,” he said.
Lorelei couldn’t answer. She just stood there, burning up on the inside.
“You look real nice,” he allowed, after looking her over from head to foot. “I like your hair that way.”
She blushed even harder. Dreams were supposed to fade with the coming of day, weren’t they? Well, hers hadn’t. And she felt as if he could see right through her clothes, to her pinkened, leech-bitten flesh.
“Thank you,” she said, but the words were hard-won.
“I think there’ll be a mutiny if I serve these cowboys beans again,” John said, busily slicing salt pork into a skillet. “We’ll need to get us some perishables in Laredo. Eggs and the like.”
Holt sipped his coffee, tilted his head back to assess the sky. “You’re getting soft in your old age, John,” he said.
Mr. Cavanagh laughed. Cowboys began to stir from their bedrolls, muttering, shoving their hands through their hair, getting a fix on the coffeepot and coming straight for it.
Lorelei’s anxious plea was out before she could catch it. “Please don’t say anything,” she whispered.
Holt gave her a sidelong glance and took another sip of coffee. Spared her a nod. “Like I said last night,” he whispered back, meeting her eyes, “when I run across a woman in the altogether, I like to savor the experience. Keep it private, for my own entertainment.”
Her cheeks throbbed. “When are you going to let this drop?” she hissed.
“Oh, Miss Lorelei,” he beamed, “when I’ve been in heaven ten thousand years, I’ll still be thinking what a fine thing leeches are.”
Lorelei clamped her back teeth together, nearly bit off her tongue. “I wouldn’t count on going to heaven if I were you,” she said.
He raised his coffee mug in a toast. “Even hell would be bearable,” he said, “with an image like that in my head.”
“I truly despise you.”
“So you’ve said,” Holt replied, and walked away.
After breakfast, the cowboys saddled the horses and mules, and John hitched the team to the wagon. Holt put the fire out with a bucket of water, carried from the homesteaders well, and mounted up, bold as Hannibal about to cross the Alps.
Lorelei led Seesaw over to the copse of trees where the four fresh graves were. “We’ll take care of your little boy,” she said, very softly. When she turned to mount the mule, she saw Holt nearby, on his Appaloosa gelding, watching her from under the brim of his hat.
She braced herself, expecting him to reprimand her for holding up the rest of the party. Instead, he simply reined the gelding away and galloped off.
The men seemed especially watchful as they rode, Lorelei noticed uneasily. They traveled more slowly than the day before, staying close by the wagon. She knew they were on the lookout for Indians, mainly, and probably a few other deadly perils she had yet to think about.
All morning long, the women of the party took turns riding in the wagon with John, Sorrowful and the baby. The child was an amazingly durable little creature; except for a happy gurgling, he didn’t make a sound.
Lorelei was sorry when it was time to give him up to an eager Tillie and get back on the mule.
AROUND NOON, they came upon another homestead. This one, blessedly, was still standing, and there were welcome signs of life everywhere.
Chickens, pecking at the dirt.
A black and white milk cow, grazing on lush green grass.
A man came out of the shed that probably served as a barn, carrying a rifle and looking earnest. He gestured at the house with a stay-back motion of his hand—a warning, no doubt, to his wife.
“Howdy,” he said cautiously, looking the party over with measuring eyes.