Linda Lael - Mckettrick's Choice

“First thing tomorrow,” Holt answered, pulling a dollar from his pocket and laying it on the table for the bill. “In the meantime, I’d better get a horse and head for the Parkinson place.”

Walton helped himself to the checkered napkin the waitress had left for Holt and wiped his mouth, leaving considerable egg yolk in his handlebar mustache. Then he unpinned the badge.

“Damn,” he said. “The wages wasn’t much, but I’ll miss this job.”

THE RANCH certainly wasn’t prepossessing in any way, Lorelei decided, taking in the property from the seat of Raul’s wagon. The house leaned to one side, and the barn had disintegrated to a pile of weathered board, but there was a well, and plenty of grass.

Raul wiped his sweating face with the bandana around his neck. “Just over that hill,” he said, quite unnecessarily, gesturing to the east, “is Mr. Templeton’s place.”

Lorelei had fixed her gaze on the far bank of a wide, deep stream, where a few cattle grazed. “And that’s Mr. Cavanagh’s northern boundary,” she said.

“Sí,” Raul said, seeming to wilt in the heat. “It was—until he sold it to the man from Arizona.”

Lorelei gathered her skirts and scrambled down off the wagon. “I’ll need a horse,” she said, pushing aside the thought that “the man from Arizona” was none other than Holt McKettrick.

“What?” Raul asked, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.

“A horse,” Lorelei said, proceeding toward the ranch house. Perhaps Raul could shore up the walls. She could plant a garden, have the barn rebuilt and buy a few head of cattle.

“But you don’t know how to ride,” Raul pointed out hastily, sounding worried as he left the wagon to follow her. “Watch where you step, señorita—there are snakes.”

“I can learn to ride,” she said. “And I’m not afraid of snakes.”

She approached the house. Her mother must have lived here. Played just outside the door, skipping rope, perhaps, or making mud-pies.

She inspected the log walls, peered inside. There was only one room, with a rusted stove, warped wooden floors and evidence of mice, but with a little bracing and some sweeping, the place would be habitable.

“Your father will never allow it,” Raul pleaded.

“My father can just go whistle,” Lorelei replied, running a hand down the framework of the door. Sturdy.

“You cannot live out here alone, señorita.”

“I won’t be alone,” Lorelei said. “Angelina will come with me.”

Raul crossed himself and muttered a prayer in rapid Spanish. That done, he pointed wildly toward the Templeton property, then across the wide stream, toward Mr. Cavanagh’s land. “There is a range war coming,” he told her frantically. “And you will be in the middle!”

Lorelei shaded her eyes with one hand. “Mr. Cavanagh is a very nice man,” she said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do anything violent.”

“But I told you, señorita, he is not really the owner anymore.”

Lorelei bit her lower lip. John Cavanagh was a man of peace. He worked hard and kept to himself. Holt McKettrick, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity. He might or might not make a good neighbor.

“I will not permit a range war,” she said, after due consideration. “Mr. Templeton, Mr. Cavanagh and Mr. McKettrick will simply have to work things out between themselves.”

“But, señorita—”

Lorelei proceeded to the well. Tried in vain to hoist the heavy wooden cover.

Raul moved it for her, and she peered down the shaft.

“I see water down there,” she said. She squinted, and her stomach turned. “And a dead animal of some sort.”

“Madre de Dios,” Raul whispered.

“We’ll need shovels,” Lorelei decided, already making a list in her mind. “Perhaps Mr. Wilkins, at the mercantile, will know of some substance that will purify the water.”

“Ay-yi-yi,” lamented Raul.

“Can you teach me to shoot a gun?” Lorelei inquired, dusting her hands together. “If you can’t, I shall have to learn on my own.”

“A gun, señorita?”

“Yes, Raul,” Lorelei said, waxing impatient. “A gun.”

Raul began to pace, waving his arms and ranting in Spanish.

Lorelei consulted her bodice watch. “I guess we’d better get back to town,” she said. “I have to meet with Mr. Sexton, at the bank, and we must order supplies.” She assessed the sky, which was blue as Angelina’s favorite sugar bowl. “What we need is a tent. Just until the house is habitable. You don’t think it will rain in the next few days, do you?”

Raul stopped his pacing and raving and let his hands fall to his sides. “Sí,” he said hopefully. “There are dark clouds—there in the west.”

Lorelei turned. Sure enough, there were.

“All the more reason to invest in a tent,” she said.

Raul lapsed into Spanish again. Since she suspected he was cursing, Lorelei did not attempt to translate. She made for the wagon, her strides long and purposeful, and Raul had no choice but to follow.

He helped her back into the wagon box, then climbed up beside her, breathing hard, his thin shoulders stooped with defeat.

“We must have chickens, too, of course,” Lorelei said, scrabbling through her bag for a pencil stub and something to write on. “We can probably eat fish from the creek, and a fifty-pound bag of beans would do nicely for provisions. Angelina can do marvelous things with beans.”

The wagon jostled into motion.

“Chickens,” Raul fretted. “Beans.”

Lorelei concentrated on her list. “Coffee,” she said. “And sugar. Flour and yeast—”

Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.

Lorelei paid it no mind.

What was a little rain?

THEY FOUND Melina Garcia in back of the Parkinson’s rambling log ranch house bent over a tub of hot water, clasping what looked like a shirt in both hands and scrubbing it against a washboard. She was a little bit of a thing, by Holt’s measure, anchored to the earth only by the jutting weight of her lower belly. Her dark hair was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck and coming loose from its pins, and her brown face gleamed with sweat.

She’d watched them approach, and there was no welcome in her eyes.

“A good day to you, Melina,” the Captain said, resettling his hat.

She spared him an unfriendly nod and left off the washing to set her hands on her hips and look Holt over good. From her expression, he’d have said she found him somewhat short of spectacular.

Holt dismounted, hung his hat on his saddle horn and took a step toward her.

“I’ve met this old coyote once or twice,” she said, with a terse nod in the Captain’s direction, “but who the devil are you?”

Wisely, Holt stopped in his tracks, folded his arms to show he meant no harm and answered her query with his full name.

She mirrored his stance, but there was no promise of peace in her posture or in her face. She was expecting trouble, that was clear. Either she had good instincts where impending misfortune was concerned, or she’d had a lot of experience in that area.

Holt figured it was probably a little of both.

Her dark eyes flashed with wary temper. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to bring you word about Gabe Navarro.”

She stiffened, and he glimpsed a shadow of fear behind her facade, but it was quickly displaced by a wintry fury. She spat fiercely into the hard, hot dirt.

“He’s alive,” Holt felt compelled to say.

“Maybe not for long,” the Captain put in. He hadn’t bothered to get off his horse.

Melina’s eyes widened, and her gaze flickered from Holt to the Captain and back again. “What’s happened?” she asked. She was interested, all right, but she didn’t seem to want anyone to know it.