McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [84]
Tillie hesitated, then did as Mary asked.
They all washed up at the basin, in their turn, and sat down at Mary’s table for tea and cinnamon buns.
Lorelei couldn’t remember when she’d eaten anything better.
“Will you be passing by this way again? On your way back to San Antonio, I mean?” Mary asked, when they’d chatted about weather, eastern fashions and the obscene price of sugar. Time was running out; any minute, one of the men, probably Holt, would come to the doorway and tell them it was time to get back on the trail.
“I don’t know,” Lorelei said.
“Probably,” Melina put in. She’d been careful of her manners throughout the visit, saying little.
“If you could bring me back a bolt of checked gingham,” Mary said, her cheeks pink with the difficulty of asking a favor of strangers, “I’d be mighty grateful. I haven’t had the material to make a new dress since I don’t know when.” She got up from her short-legged stool, probably built by her husband, and opened a canister on the worktable. “I’ve got five dollars saved,” she confided, lowering her voice. “That ought to be plenty.”
“We’ll bring the gingham if we can,” Lorelei said, touched by Mary’s childlike eagerness. “You can pay us then.”
Mary withdrew her hand from the canister, looking baffled and shy. “I do hope you can come back. And not just because of the gingham, either.”
Rafe loomed in the doorway. “Time to go,” he said. “Holt’s chomping at the bit.”
On impulse, Lorelei went to Mary, hugged her. “What color?” she asked.
Tillie gathered up the baby, and Melina said a muffled “thank you.” They both left the house.
“What color?” Mary echoed, confused.
“The gingham,” Lorelei said, thinking of all the grand dresses stuffed into her wardrobe in the San Antonio house. She wished she could fetch them, somehow, and give them all to Mary Davis.
Mary’s eyes twinkled with hope. “Blue,” she said. “I do dearly love blue.”
“Blue,” Lorelei confirmed, and took her leave.
CHAPTER 26
MOUNTED ON SEESAW, but reluctant to leave the Davis place, Lorelei watched from beneath the brim of her hat, tugged down low over her face, as Mary went from one rider to another, platter upraised in both hands, making sure every member of the party got one of her cinnamon buns. That this represented a significant personal sacrifice, Lorelei did not doubt. Sugar, flour, yeast and spices were all hard to come by, especially on a hardscrabble ranch in the middle of nowhere.
She swallowed painfully. When, in all her sheltered life, had she ever made a genuine sacrifice? She couldn’t think of a single instance, and that shamed her.
“You look mighty pensive,” Rafe commented, riding up beside her. He’d pulled off his leather trail gloves to accept one of Mary’s rolls, and he was just finishing it off.
Lorelei swallowed again. “I was just thinking about what a hard life it is, way out here,” she said. “Lonely and dangerous.” That wasn’t all of it, of course, and maybe he’d guessed that, but the regrets she felt were too personal to share.
Rafe adjusted his hat, rested one forearm on the horn of his saddle. “Folks like the Davises here, and the Jacksons, they’re a special breed. They aren’t satisfied with getting by in some safe, settled town. There’s something in them that makes them grit their teeth and step over any line in the dirt, if only to see what’s on the other side.”
“I admire that,” Lorelei said. Holt gave the customary signal, raising an arm and spurring his own horse forward, and the party began its lumbering movement back onto the trail.
“So do I,” Rafe answered. “I’d venture to say you’re a lot like them, Miss Lorelei. Real brave, and real stubborn. You know the truth—that anything is better than living a half life. Even dying.”