McKettrick's Choice (12 page)

“You paid thirty-five dollars for that mule and—”

“He's going,” Lorelei finished.

Holt flung out his hands, startling the Appaloosa, who would have shied if he hadn't taken a firm hold on the bridle strap. “Fine,” he snapped. “Never mind that he threw Raul and almost got you drowned. Never mind that he isn't worth
ten
dollars, let alone thirty-five. Just don't come crying to me if you break your fool neck in the middle of nowhere!”

Lorelei stood straight as a broom handle. “I wouldn't
dream
of crying to you over anything on this earth, Mr. McKettrick.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Holt saw Rafe fold his arms and rock back on his heels, mighty pleased with himself. “You or me, Big Brother?” he asked, circling around to his original question about breaking the mule to ride.

“You,” Holt bit out. “And I hope he throws you clean over the barn roof.”

Rafe merely laughed again, as if the horse—or mule—he couldn't ride had never drawn breath. He helped Melina up onto the pony's back, then mounted Chief and leaned on the pommel of his saddle, waiting. Watching. Grinning that grin that made Holt's back teeth clamp together.

Holt suppressed an urge to drag his brother down off that fancy gelding, with its fine Mexican saddle, and knock out a few of his perfect McKettrick teeth. He held out a hand, and Lorelei hesitated, then gave him her pack. It still weighed half again too much, but he was all argued
out, for the moment at least. He tied it behind his saddle and got on the horse.

Lorelei stood looking up at him, proud and puzzled. Damned if she wasn't a contrary woman, cussed one moment and vulnerable the next.

He bent, with a creaking of saddle leather, and offered his hand.

Lorelei hesitated, then gripped it, gamely placed a foot in the stirrup, and allowed him to pull her up behind him. She fussed with her skirts a little, and the only indication that she felt any trepidation at all was the way she wrapped her arms around his middle, with a sort of tenuous desperation.

He spurred Traveler lightly with the heels of his boots, and headed for the stream. Melina followed, on her pony, and Rafe brought up the rear, leading that demon mule, Seesaw.

The purple, gold and crimson of a first-class Texas sunset rippled on the water as they made the crossing, and it was full dark when they reached John's ranch house.

Tillie and the dog came out to meet them, and he'd have sworn that mutt was smiling as broadly as Tillie was.

Holt reined in the Appaloosa and swung a leg over its neck, leaping to the ground. The dog bounded toward them, barking with delight, as he lifted Lorelei down. Her skirts were wet from the creek, and she shivered under her thin shawl, but she'd probably have eaten weevil stew before she complained.

Something in the way she greeted that dog, laughing and ruffling his floppy ears, got to a place in Holt that he usually kept under guard.

“Who are you?” Tillie asked Lorelei, straight out,
frowning a little as she watched the reunion between Sorrowful and the stubbornest woman on the face of God's earth. Maybe she was afraid of losing the critter. Maybe she was just curious. With Tillie, it was hard to tell.

Lorelei smiled warmly and introduced herself.

“That's my dog,” Tillie said.

“I know,” Lorelei replied.

Tillie considered that. “You can be his friend, if you want to.”

“I would like that very much,” Lorelei said. “Thank you.”

At last, Tillie smiled. “He likes to have his belly scratched.”

Lorelei simply nodded. She looked bone-tired, as well as cold, and watching her with Tillie had taken the edge off Holt's irritation.

“I hope supper's on,” he said.

“Fried chicken,” Tillie told him proudly. Then she turned thoughtful. “Pa said you'd come back with cowboys. I don't see any, except for Rafe.”

“We'll have to make do,” Holt said. “See the women inside, Tillie. Rafe and I will put away the horses.”

She nodded, and three females and a hound dog disappeared into the house.

Tomorrow, Holt told himself, by way of consolation, as he turned the Appaloosa toward the barn, was a brand-new day.

He sure hoped it would go better than this one had.

I
F THERE WAS ONE THING
Holt McKettrick knew about himself, for sure and for certain, it was that he hated losing. Gunfight, wager, flip of the coin—it didn't matter. But in the case of Seesaw the mule, he made an exception.

The critter wanted gentling, if Lorelei was to ride him to Mexico and back, and since she insisted upon doing so, it was up to either Rafe or Holt to get that mangy devil reconciled to a saddle. When the toss of Rafe's nickel came up heads, Holt was secretly glad he'd called tails.

Rubbing his hands together in the blessedly cool dawn of the last day of August, Rafe approached the mule, who stood untethered out in front of John's barn. Kahill and the six other questionable types Holt had managed to scrape up looked on, their own horses saddled, their gear packed. The Captain and John took an interest, too, though Lorelei, Tillie, Melina and the dog had yet to come out of the house.

Rafe carried a bridle over one shoulder, and the mule accepted that easily enough. Holt himself fetched the saddle and blanket, and when he stepped up to Rafe, he took the opportunity to offer a quiet, “Be careful.”

Rafe just smiled, and his apparent confidence both nettled Holt and made him feel a twinge of guilt. He was the eldest brother, and this was his outfit, for all practical intents and purposes.
He
ought to be the one taking the risks.

With a practiced motion, Rafe put the blanket on the mule's back.

Seesaw quivered and swung his head around, tried to take a nip out of Rafe's upper arm.

The door of the house creaked open, and Holt didn't have to look to know the spectator list had just grown by three women and a slat-ribbed hound. He felt Lorelei's presence as sure as if she'd planted herself square in front of him, and that was troubling. He'd think about it more, once Rafe had either subdued the mule or eaten a few mouthfuls of barnyard dirt.

The mule gave a long shudder when the saddle came to rest on top of the blanket.

“Easy,” Rafe told the animal.

“Easy,” Holt told Rafe at the same moment.

Rafe hooked the stirrup over the horn and reached under Seesaw's belly for the cinch. The mule sidestepped and tried again for a chunk of Rafe's hide. Rafe gave Seesaw's upper lip a firm tug, to let him know who was in charge.

Holt wasn't so sure it was Rafe. He stepped back, to give his brother and the mule all the room they needed, which was likely to be about a square acre.

Rafe slipped the cinch strap through the buckle and pulled it tight.

The mule huffed ominously, all four feet planted to put up a fight, and swelled his belly. Rafe elbowed him, made him let out his breath, and gave the cinch strap another pull. He tested it by slipping his fingers underneath the
leather, and nodded to himself. Then he brought down the stirrup, put a foot in it and mounted. He was a big man, Rafe was, but he was all grace as he settled himself on the back of that contrary mule.

Holt held his breath.

The mule pondered his predicament, lowered his head and propelled himself straight up in the air, just as if he had springs in those dinner-plate hooves of his.

Rafe let out a whoop and spurred the bastard hard with his heels.

The mule pitched forward, then back, living up to his name.

Rafe sat him like a rocking horse. “You can do better than that, you flea-bitten bag of sorry misery!” he yelled.

Seesaw set out to prove him right. He spun to the left, kicking all the way, and then to the right.

Rafe laughed, and that was his undoing. Seesaw took another plunge, dropping to his knees, and sent Rafe sailing over his head.

Rafe landed rolling, Triple M style, and came up laughing even harder. The mule raised a storm of dust, but when it cleared, Rafe was back in the saddle and kicking hard.

The cowboys cheered.

Holt tried to swallow his heart, which had surged up into his throat when Rafe went flying. He felt a tug at his sleeve and knew it was Lorelei, even before he spared her a furious glance.

“There's your thirty-five dollar mule, Miss Lorelei,” he growled. “You'd better hope he doesn't kill my brother, because if he does, I'll drop him in his worthless tracks.”

Lorelei put a hand to her throat. “Maybe I
should
ride behind Tillie,” she said.

“It's a little late to make that concession,” Holt retorted, keeping his eyes on Rafe and the mule. Between them, they were plowing up a whole new field. Dirt flew in every direction, and Rafe cut loose with another whoop, loving every minute of that ride, damn fool that he was.

“You wouldn't really shoot him,” Lorelei ventured, watching the fracas.

“That's what you think,” Holt answered. As proof, his right hand rested on the handle of his .45.

After a good fifteen minutes, Seesaw began to tire. Fifteen minutes after that, he came to see the situation Rafe's way and settled down with a halfhearted bray and a quiver of powerful muscles.

Rafe rode the mule around in a circle, spurred him to a trot, and finally dismounted, directly in front of Holt and Lorelei. He, like the mule, was coated from head to foot in good Texas dust, and his grin was as wide as the Rio Grande.

He executed a bow and handed the reins to Lorelei.

She stared at them, then at Rafe. Holt noticed she didn't look at
him,
and it was a good thing, too. He wouldn't have wanted her to see what was probably plain in his face—cold fury, and a conflicting desire to keep her off that mule at all costs.

Gamely, she stepped in close to Seesaw. Rafe steadied him while she gripped the saddle horn, stepped into the stirrup and swung herself up. She was wearing a pair of Tillie's trousers, a cotton shirt and a floppy hat, and as she sat there waiting for the mule to explode, the way he'd done with Rafe, she almost looked like a cowpuncher.

Holt breathed his way through the tension, and a rush
of admiration that boiled up out of nowhere like a flash flood.

The mule nickered. Rafe stroked his nose, then let him go, stepping away easily but obviously ready to leap back in if old Seesaw decided to unwind.

“Give him a tap with your heels,” Rafe told her. Holt wished he'd been the one to say it, but the fact was, he couldn't have gotten a word out if it meant his life.

Lorelei did as she was told, and the mule took a few tentative steps, swung his head to take Rafe's measure, and decided to listen to his better angels. Next thing Holt knew, Lorelei had Seesaw up to a canter. She bounced a bit in the saddle, but with some practice, she'd get in stride with the animal's gait.

Rafe stood beside Holt, watching, arms folded, dirty face split by a wide grin. Sunlight spilled, golden, over the eastern hills, flooding the landscape with a heated glow.

“She's something, isn't she?” Rafe said with frank admiration. “If I weren't a happily married man, I believe I'd court Miss Lorelei in earnest.”

“But you
are
a happily married man,” Holt pointed out. He'd meant to speak the words lightly, but they came out sounding fierce.

Rafe chuckled, whistled to Chief and mounted up.

John drove up alongside Holt in the supply wagon, with the dog on the seat beside him. Tillie was on her mule, Melina close behind on her pony. The Captain, too, was ready to hit the trail.

“Are you going to stand there all day?” John demanded, gazing down at Holt with a look of knowing amusement in his eyes.

Against his will, Holt sought Lorelei, sitting atop See-
saw's back as if she'd been born there. Rafe was next to her, on Chief, still grinning.

Holt muttered a curse, waded through the horse flesh to find Traveler and climbed into the saddle.

They hadn't even left the dooryard, and already he felt as though he'd been dragged across three states and a territory behind a freight train.

 

W
HEN SHE THOUGHT
no one was looking, Lorelei consulted her watch, which was pinned to the pocket of the cotton shirt she'd borrowed from Tillie, along with her trousers, boots and hat. Ten o'clock.

Only ten o'clock? By the ache in her thighs and lower back and the oppressive glare of the sun, it should have been at least four-thirty in the afternoon.

With every jostling step Seesaw took, Lorelei questioned her decision to undertake this journey, but she would have bitten off her tongue and swallowed it before admitting as much to Holt McKettrick.

He rode at the front of the party, with Rafe alongside, back straight and head high, like a king about to conquer a rebellious country.

“You doin' all right, Miss Lorelei?” John Cavanagh called kindly from the seat of his wagon. Sorrowful rode with him, tongue lolling contentedly as he surveyed the countryside.

Lorelei managed a taut smile—it still took all her concentration to ride, since she was so new at the enterprise—and nodded. It wouldn't do to let Mr. Cavanagh know she envied the dog, and would have traded places if it were feasible.

He seemed to read her mind. “We've still got a long way to go before this day is done, if I know Holt. Maybe
you ought to ride with me a while. I could stop and tie the mule behind.”

Lorelei looked ahead, to Holt. He thought she was unfit for a cattle drive, he'd made that plain enough; her riding with Mr. Cavanagh, blissful respite though it would surely be, would only prove him right. “I'll be fine,” she said. “But thank you kindly.”

They'd traveled miles when a stream appeared, shimmering like a river of silver in the near distance, and Holt raised a hand to signal that they'd be stopping there. Lorelei suffered no illusions that he was giving mere humans a chance to rest—most likely, he was concerned about the livestock.

The banks of the stream were grassy, and probably softened by the recent rains. Lorelei slid from Seesaw's back and felt a jolt of pain as the balls of her feet made contact with the ground. She rested her forehead against the side of the saddle and closed her eyes until the worst of it passed.

Something bumped her arm, and she turned to see Rafe standing beside her, offering a canteen and an understanding smile.

She took it with a murmur of thanks, and drank deeply of the clean, cool water.

“You ought to ride in the wagon for a while,” he said quietly.

Lorelei betrayed her thoughts by glancing in Holt's direction. He was crouched beside the water, conferring with one of the cowboys. “No,” she said, feeling a surge of heat rise into her cheeks.

“Might be better for your pride to smart a little,” Rafe ventured, “than your legs and…other parts. It's going to be a long time until we make camp for the night. You're
bound to be sore as all get out, this being your first real ride.”

Tears of fatigue and frustration burned behind Lorelei's eyes, but she'd be damned if she'd let them show. She took another long draught from the canteen and then wiped her mouth with the back of one hand, the way she'd seen the cowboys do. “Don't worry about me, Mr. McKettrick,” she said. “I can keep up just fine.”

“Rafe,” he said. A grin quirked at one corner of his mouth. “I figure you and I ought to be friends, since I'm the one who ironed out the kinks in your mule.”

Lorelei laughed, despite the numbness in her limbs and the ferocious ache in the lower part of her back. She felt as though her spine would crumble into powder at any moment, and the big predawn breakfast Tillie and Melina had served up back at the ranch had long since worn off. Her stomach seemed as empty as a windswept canyon.

“I can't argue with that…Rafe,” she said. “You might as well call me Lorelei.”

He turned to glance at Holt, and Holt looked up at the same moment.

His expression was unreadable, but something unsettling passed between the two men before Holt's gaze shifted to Lorelei. He stood, then started toward them.

“I reckon I'll check Chief's hooves and make sure he hasn't picked up a stone along the way,” Rafe said, but, curiously, he didn't move from Lorelei's side.

Facing them, Holt took off his hat with one hand and pushed the fingers of the other through his hair. “Change your mind yet, Miss Fellows?” he drawled.

Lorelei planted her feet, much the way Seesaw had, just before Rafe took the saddle that morning. “About what?”

Holt's smile didn't reach those watchful hazel eyes of his. “It's a long way to Mexico,” he said. “Time we get there, you might just be bowlegged.”

Anger rushed through Lorelei's system like heat through a teakettle ready to boil. “Don't you worry about my legs,” she said tersely, and Rafe's low whistle made her regret her choice of words. She watched, her face hot, as he walked away, leaving her alone with Holt. A raw ache took shape in her most private place, and her face grew even warmer.

Something flickered in his eyes—humor, perhaps—and Lorelei yearned to slap him again, with even more force than she had after he kissed her. He gave an insolent, barely perceptible shrug. “Suit yourself,” he said, and turned away.

At his orders, the cowboys mounted up.

John Cavanagh hoisted Sorrowful into the back of the wagon, and the dog lay down to sleep. Lucky creature.

Lorelei's thigh muscles screamed in protest as she hauled herself back into the saddle. Once again, she wanted to weep, but she didn't. She
wouldn't.

Rafe rode alongside her as they crossed the stream, holding Seesaw's bridle with a firm hand. Lorelei's boots filled with water, and she was wet to her hips. She was terrified, remembering her near-drowning the day before, and bit down hard on the inside of her lip to keep from crying out.

Once they'd gained the other side, Rafe left her on her own and spurred his horse to catch up with Holt. The younger man said something, gesturing angrily, and Holt shook his head.

Lorelei's body hurt so badly that she retreated into a corner of her mind, wondering how Raul and Angelina were faring at Dr. Brown's, and if her father's temper
might have cooled a little, now that he'd had some time to think.