McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [86]
Once or twice, they spotted figures on the distant hills. Indians, most likely, watching the party pass from the backs of their war ponies. Lorelei remembered what Rafe had said his pa had taught him and his brothers, and decided not to be afraid. It wasn’t as easy as he’d made it sound, but just the effort helped, because it kept her mind off all the things that could happen if the Comanches descended upon them.
She fixed her mind on purchasing blue gingham for Mary Davis, once she got to Laredo, and finding a way to get the material back to Mary. She thought about the cattle she’d buy, when they got to Mexico, and prayed that Raul and Angelina were all right.
She considered the prisoner, Gabe Navarro, jailed in San Antonio and sentenced, by her father, to hang by the neck until dead. If Holt believed in Navarro enough to come all the way to Texas to take his part, maybe he really was innocent. Melina certainly thought so. And his care for Sorrowful spoke in his favor.
Just before sunset, they stopped for the night at another mission. This one wasn’t abandoned, though. It had walls and a couple of small houses, with garden plots, recently harvested, and an apple orchard. The padre, a rotund man in a rope-belted robe and sandals, came out to welcome them.
His bald head gleamed in the fading sunlight, and his smile was broad. “Travelers!” he exulted joyously, gesturing to the open gate behind him. “God has blessed us with travelers! Come in, come in. You must be weary of the road.”
Holt tipped his hat in acknowledgment of the invitation and led the way through the rustic portal into a large courtyard. The horses and mules gravitated to the spring-fed fountain, tumbling clear water into a wide brick pool.
“You all alone here, Father?” Mr. Cavanagh asked, glancing around from his perch on the wagon seat. Lorelei had been about to ask pretty much the same question, confused that the priest had used the word us when there didn’t seem to be another soul around.
“Of course not,” the padre said happily. “All my brothers are here.”
Lorelei looked around again, in case she’d missed them, but if there were other friars at the mission, they were inside the various buildings, or up in the branches of some of the apple trees. Her mouth watered, just from thinking of those apples.
“Make yourselves at home,” the padre boomed, moving from man to man and horse to horse. “That’s the stable, over there. And Brother Lawrence’s kitchen is that way. I dare say the ladies will appreciate their own quarters—just past the fountain, there, on the right.”
Lorelei dismounted and took Seesaw’s reins to lead him toward the big stone barn. Lord, it would be a pleasure to sleep in “quarters,” maybe on a real bed. And there might be a bathtub, too.
She was only a little surprised when Holt came up alongside her, leading his own horse. He looked thoughtful.
“Is it just me,” he asked, “or is there something strange about this place?”
Lorelei felt a small dust-devil of delight spin up from her center, and she would have quelled it if she could have. It galled her that a simple question from this man could excite her that way. “It does seem a little—quiet,” she said, without looking directly at him. There was a danger that he’d see something in her face if she did.
“Where is everybody?” Holt asked, though whether he was putting the question to her or to himself she didn’t know.
Lorelei answered with a question of her own. “Have you ever been here before?”
Holt shook his head. “I’ve seen the place from a distance,” he said. They’d reached the doorway of the barn, and he stopped to let her and Seesaw go in first. “Always thought it was deserted.”
There were stalls on either side of the long stable, every one of them empty. The place was immaculate, and when Lorelei peered inside one of the large wooden bins just inside the door, she found it full of grain. The next one held oats.
Holt left his gelding in the aisle and took Seesaw by the reins, leading