McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [95]
“I knew a Holt Cavanagh once,” came the unsmiling response. “Never heard the name McKettrick before, as I recollect.”
“It’s the same man,” Lorelei said. “He sent us here.”
Instantly, the woman’s countenance brightened, and the transformation was startling. “Why’d Holt go and change his name?” she asked. “He in some kind of trouble with the law? Don’t seem likely, since he was a Ranger when I knew him, but then, there’s a few of them go bad.” She paused, beaming. “Oh, never mind. I’ll ask him myself when I see him.”
Lorelei smiled, put out her hand, grimy though it was, and introduced herself.
“I’m Heddy Flett,” was the response. “You bunkin’ in with Holt, or will you be requirin’ a room of your own?”
Lorelei flushed. “I’ll be sharing with my friends, Tillie and Melina.” She gestured toward the barn. The two women stood outside the barn door, with Sorrowful and the baby, and although neither of them glanced in her direction, Lorelei saw by the way they held themselves that they were waiting for a verdict.
“Well, tell ’em to come on in,” Heddy boomed. “I’ve got a nice room with two big beds in it. The men will have to bunk on the sun porch, with the dog, ’course. You ladies can wash up and rest yourselves a while, while I get supper on.”
“Thank you,” Lorelei said.
“I’m in the business of hirin’ out beds,” Heddy stated, in happy dismissal, and turned to trundle back up the dirt path to the porch. There, she paused to call to Tillie and Melina, “You ladies get that baby inside, pronto. Don’t want the poor little snippet to take a chill, now do we?”
Tillie and Melina smiled as they hurried over with the baby, and Lorelei felt a pang at their obvious relief. Sorrowful stayed behind, sniffing the grass, and John and the Captain went on tending the stock.
Heddy showed them to the big front bedroom—said she was saving the quiet one at the back for Holt, since she had a soft spot for him—and Lorelei almost wept at the sight of real beds, with sheets and plump pillows and quilts. There were lace curtains at the windows, clean towels hanging over the washstand.
“Settle in, and I’ll get you some hot water,” Heddy told them.
“Pearl’s wet,” Tillie said. “And we’re down to our last bandana.”
“Don’t you fret,” Heddy replied, with brisk good cheer, from the doorway. “I’ve got plenty of clean rags downstairs. I’ll bring them up when I come back with the water.” She tilted her head to one side, almost coquettishly. “That’s a right pretty little girl,” she added.
“Pearl’s a boy,” Tillie pointed out.
Heddy puzzled that one through, and finally dismissed the whole question with a shrug. “I’ll be back before you can say ‘flapjack,’” she promised.
Melina tested one of the mattresses with her right hand, rubbing the small of her back with the left. “Featherbeds,” she said softly. “If I didn’t want supper so bad, I declare I’d lay myself down right now and sleep until noon tomorrow.”
“I could bring up your supper,” Lorelei volunteered. Melina did look exhausted; her face was drawn, and there was a fitful look in her eyes.
“You’d do that?” Melina asked, almost in a whisper.
“Of course I would,” Lorelei said.
Melina sat down cautiously on the edge of the bed, as though she expected to be expelled at any moment.
“Wouldn’t that be something?” she murmured. “An Anglo woman waiting on me.”
Before Lorelei could think what to say to that, Heddy returned with a stack of neatly folded flannels and a steaming bucket of hot water.
“Found these in the back of the storeroom,” she said, indicating the cloth. “Used to be a nightgown. Knew I’d want them for somethin’ one day.”
Tillie laid Pearl down on the nearest bed and took them from Heddy’s grasp. “I thank you, ma’am,” she said.
“I don’t answer to ma’am,” the older woman replied. “Name’s Heddy.”
Tillie smiled shyly. “You sure are bein’ nice to us.”
“Any friend of Holt Cavanagh’s—or whatever name he’s going by now—is welcome in this house. There’s a commode through that door there. Just empty the basin into that.” While Tillie changed Pearl into a fresh diaper, Heddy