McKettrick's Choice (27 page)

“Anybody come forward to claim that baby?” Holt asked, when the silence stretched too thin for his liking.

Lorelei shook her head. “According to Heddy, the marshal says we might as well keep him. He'll send word to San Antonio if someone steps forward.”

Holt sighed. “The trip we're about to take is too rough, and too dangerous, for a kid. Especially one that's still in diapers.”

“Tillie won't leave him behind,” Lorelei said, though she was sure Holt already knew that. It was just his way of worrying.

“No,” Holt agreed, with another sigh, this one gustier than the first. He looked weary for the first time since
Lorelei had known him, and she felt a pang, tallying up the weight of the burdens he usually carried so easily on those broad shoulders of his.

She wanted to reassure him somehow, rise from that step and put her arms around him, tell him everything would be all right, but she wasn't so bold in Heddy's backyard as she had been in that room in the inn at Reynosa. Anyway, how could she assure him of such a thing? Fate had yet to confide in her. “You'll be shut of me in a few days,” she said, because that was all she had to offer.

He cocked his head to one side, turning his hat slowly in his gloved hands. “Is that so?” he asked.

Again, Lorelei was glad of the darkness, because she blushed. “What happened between us,” she began awkwardly, “well, it didn't make you beholden, if that's what you're thinking. I knew what I was doing.”

“With all due respect, Miss Lorelei,” Holt drawled, and in the dim light pouring out of the kitchen, she could see that his eyes were twinkling and one side of his mouth was quirked up, “that's about as far from what I was thinking as Texas is from Paris, France.”

Her heart tripped over a few beats, regained its balance with a flailing tremor. “What
were
you thinking, then?” she managed. He was going to say he had cattle on his mind, of course. Gabe Navarro, probably. And Comanches.

She'd been a fool to ask such a question.

“That I'd like to buy your land and your share of those cattle out there,” he said, with a nod in a southerly direction.

Lorelei tensed reflexively; it was as if he'd drawn back his hand and slapped her. Her eyes stung and watered,
and it was a moment before she could catch her breath.
“What?”

“You've proven your point, Lorelei. You broke away from your father and acquitted yourself on the trail as well as anybody I've ever seen. Now, it's time to be reasonable. With what I'm willing to pay you, you can start over in some other place. Maybe buy yourself a rooming house like Heddy has here.” No mention of the marriage he'd proposed; no doubt, he'd changed his mind.

“What makes you think I
want
to ‘start over in some other place'?” she demanded in a furious rush, but inside, she already knew the answer. She was a fallen woman now, tainted goods. If she was pregnant, everyone in San Antonio would know it soon enough, and they'd make her life a misery, brand the child as illegitimate. If she moved to San Francisco or Denver or Boston, she could pretend she was a widow, and open a respectable business.

It wasn't her land or her cattle Holt wanted. He was buying
his own
way out. Whether Lorelei was carrying his child or not, he'd be able to ride away with his conscience clear when he'd finished his business in Texas. He'd dallied with her, taken the most precious thing she had, and when he was gone, back on the Triple M, he'd probably never give her a second thought. Never wonder if he had another child somewhere, besides Lizzie.

“What's going through your head right now?” he countered, watching her quizzically.

Heddy chose that moment to return. “Where's that buggy?” she demanded. “I'm ready to go out there and get me a husband!”

Holt's mouth dropped open and, blessedly, Lorelei was able to forget her own quandary for a few moments.

“Heddy means to marry Mr. Cavanagh,” she said.

“Get that buggy hitched,” Heddy commanded.

Holt started to speak, stopped himself. He'd made a half gesture with his hat; now, he put it on his head. “Yes, ma'am,” he said, and headed for the barn.

“Heddy,” Lorelei pleaded, while they waited, taking both the woman's hands in her own, “what if Mr. Cavanagh says no?”

“He won't, 'less he's a damn fool,” Heddy replied, bristling a little.

“What about your rooming house? All your things? Will you just walk away and leave everything you've worked so hard to build?”

“Don't amount to a hill of beans if you're lonesome,” Heddy told her. “I'd as soon set a match to the place as live in it one more day, once Tillie and that baby are gone.”

Lorelei thought of the featherbeds, and the pretty dishes. The hooked rugs and the lace curtains. Nobody knew her in Laredo. No one would point at her, if her belly started to swell, and say she'd made a fool of herself with Holt McKettrick.

She could start over right here.

The thought filled her with sweet sorrow. She almost made Heddy an offer on the spot, but there was still the matter of Mr. Cavanagh's accepting or refusing the other woman's proposal of marriage.

“Will you be back tonight? After you've talked to Mr. Cavanagh, I mean?”

Heddy beamed. “Maybe,” she said, full of coarse confidence. “I reckon that depends on how things go when I put my question to him.”

Lorelei kissed Heddy's cheek. “Good luck,” she said, and blinked back tears of sadness and admiration.

Holt drove the buggy out of the barn and jumped to
the ground. Heddy trekked over, climbed aboard, and took up the reins.

“Took you long enough,” she told Holt, and drove away.

Holt stared after her, baffled.

“Do you think he'll say yes?” Lorelei asked. “Mr. Cavanagh, I mean?”

“Hell,” Holt growled, resettling his hat and watching the buggy disappear into the darkness, “I don't know.”

“You wouldn't try to head out tomorrow, without Tillie and Melina and Pearl and me, would you?”

Holt turned back to Lorelei, and though his face was in shadow, she saw exasperation in every line of his body. “I might, if I didn't think you'd follow and get yourselves killed by Comanches.”

She smiled, enjoying his discomfiture. All the while, her heart mourned. Her dreams were dying, dreams she hadn't even known she had until Holt McKettrick offered to pay her off like a discarded mistress.

“John will come by with the wagon first thing,” he said, when she didn't respond to his gibe. “Be ready.”

Lorelei ducked her head, because all of a sudden, there were tears in her eyes, and she'd die if he saw them.

He took a step toward her.

Lorelei froze, waiting.

But then he turned away, took Traveler's reins and mounted up. “Good night,” he said. And then he was gone.

Lorelei stood on that very spot until she couldn't hear his horse's hooves on the road anymore. Then she went inside, expecting Melina and Tillie to be there, either giggling over Heddy's impulsive decision, or waiting, wide-eyed, for an explanation from Lorelei.

But the kitchen was empty.

Lorelei sagged into one of the chairs, folded her arms on the tabletop and laid her head on them. Heddy's clock ticked loudly on the wall. The house settled noisily on its foundations, as if to sleep. A piece of wood collapsed in the stove, with a whoosh of invisible sparks.

I should get up,
Lorelei thought groggily.
Get myself to bed.

But she didn't move. She simply didn't have the will to lift her head, let alone climb the stairs, exchange her calico dress for a nightgown and all the rest.

 

T
HE NEXT THING
she knew, someone was shaking her awake.

She started, looked up blearily. Heddy stood over her, rimmed in the first pinkish light of a new day.

“Better get a move on, Miss Lorelei,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. “My man'll be here with that wagon before you know it.”

Lorelei sat bolt upright, blinking. “You mean he said yes?”

Heddy's grin stretched even wider. “Soon as we get to San Antone,” she said, “we'll make it legal.”

“Drink this,” Tillie said, appearing from behind Heddy's girth with a cup of steaming coffee in one hand.

“You done slept too long to get breakfast, but Melina's packing up your things right now. She said to let you sleep as long as you could, so I did.” She paused for a breath. “Pearl and me, we're ready to go.”

“You put a couple of pieces of bread together, with some bacon between,” Heddy told Tillie. “Can't have Miss Lorelei fall off her mule from hunger.”

“Yes'm,” Tillie said. Dandling Pearl on her hip, she crossed to the stove to do as she was bidden.

“You're just going to leave?” Lorelei marveled,
getting out of her chair to make a hasty trip to the outhouse. “What about your animals? What about your chickens?”

“Gave 'em to the neighbors,” Heddy said dismissively. “Pack of trouble, anyhow. Now hurry up with you. Nobody in this outfit is in any mood to wait while you dawdle.”

Lorelei rushed out. She was washing her hands and face at the pump when John Cavanagh drove in with the wagon. His grin was as broad as Heddy's, but it faded when he took in Lorelei's calico dress. Sorrowful barked a happy greeting from behind the box.

“You plannin' to ride twelve hours on a mule in that getup?” John asked.

“If I could have two minutes to change—”

Mr. Cavanagh shook his head. “Herd's already moving. We got to catch up as it is.” He got down from the wagon box, marched into the barn and came out leading Seesaw and carrying his saddle and bridle over one shoulder.

Lorelei listened, her heart thundering, and heard the distant complaints of all those cattle. Felt the faint tremor of their passing in the ground, through the soles of her shoes. John threw the saddle into the wagon and tied Seesaw to one side, humming cheerfully under his breath.

Heddy, Melina and Tillie marched out of the house, possessions bundled. Tillie handed Lorelei the bacon and bread, then hoisted Pearl into the back of the wagon, scrambling up after him. John solicitously helped Heddy up into the box, then Melina.

“You comin' or not?” Heddy called, looking back at Lorelei, but not sparing a glance for her fine house, with all its simple treasures.

Lorelei hurried behind the wagon, handed her breakfast up to Tillie to hold, and climbed in with her and the baby and the bags of beans. John released the brake lever, and the buckboard shot forward so suddenly that Lorelei would have fallen on her face if Tillie hadn't taken a strong grip on her arm.

She rode with her legs dangling over the lowered tailgate, holding on tightly with one hand and eating her breakfast with the other.

Goodbye, Laredo,
she thought, with mixed emotions, as they rattled and jolted down the main street of town, still mostly empty at that early hour. The windows of the shops and businesses were pinkish-purple, reflecting the first light of the morning. They passed a church, and the attendant cemetery, and then they were in open country.

Dust roiled as John drove straight through the center of the herd. Lorelei drew her legs back, lest she be gouged by one of those long-horned cattle, and Tillie helped her snap the tailgate into place.

After that, she rummaged through her pack for trousers and a shirt, and wriggled into the pants as inconspicuously as she could. The cowboys were too busy to look at her, but she wasn't about to take off her dress and put on the shirt, so she contented herself with the odd mixture of garments she was already wearing.

“Heddy's going to be my mama,” Tillie told her, when they reached the front of the herd, and there was a lull in the noise. “Soon as they come across a preacher.”

Lorelei reached out to take the baby for a while. He pulled at her hair, with a chubby little hand, and cheered her up immeasurably. “Does that make you happy?” she asked, unsure of Tillie's feelings on the matter of her father's sudden and imminent remarriage.

Tillie's smile was sudden, and brilliant as a flash of sunlight on clear water. “Yes'm,” she said. “Now I can get a husband of my own. Give Pearl a daddy. I reckon I'd marry up with Holt, if he wasn't my brother. Sort of. Anyhow, he's sweet on you.”

Lorelei nearly swallowed her tongue. Pearl planted a sticky kiss on her cheek and chortled, and she hugged him close. “Tillie Cavanagh,” she teased, carefully avoiding the subject of Holt, sweet on her or otherwise. “I didn't know you wanted a husband!”

“'Course I do,” Tillie answered. “I'd like a black man, but I ain't seen many of them lately. I heard once that there's some in Austin. I might go up there and find me one.”

Lorelei laughed. “You've been with Heddy too long,” she said.

Tillie looked puzzled at that. Her gaze shifted to Pearl's blond head, and she frowned. “You don't reckon it'll matter if I get him a daddy that ain't the same color, do you?”

Lorelei's heart ached. She put an arm around Tillie's shoulders and hugged her. “No,” she said. “No, I don't.”

“Heddy says folks will give me trouble about it,” Tillie confided.

Lorelei thought it was unlikely that Tillie would ever travel to Austin or anywhere else to find a husband. Mr. Cavanagh probably wouldn't allow it. But she saw no reason to throw cold water on the young woman's hopes, fragile as they were. Since leaving her father's house, she'd learned that, sometimes, hope was all a person had to keep them going.

“I think you'll be very, very happy,” she said gently, praying it was true.

At noon, they stopped at a deserted homestead, the herd streaming past on both sides, to draw up water from the well so the horses could drink. Lorelei used the time to saddle Seesaw, and climbed onto his back to ride astraddle, her calico skirts drawn up to reveal her trousered legs, her hat offering scant protection against the relentless sun. Soon, they were moving again, everyone gnawing on hardtack and jerky as they made their way to the front of the herd.