Читать книгу McKettrick's Choice - Linda Miller Lael - Страница 12

LORELEI WAITED until after her father had left the house the next morning before unlocking her bedroom door and making for the back stairs. Angelina, the family’s long-time cook and housekeeper, turned from the gleaming cookstove to favor her with an encouraging if somewhat strained smile.

“I was about to bring your breakfast on a tray,” Angelina said, in gentle reprimand. “Do you know it’s past ten o’clock?”

The mere idea of food made Lorelei shudder, and she was only too aware of the time; she’d been watching the clock on her vanity table since just after sunrise. “Where’s Maria?” she asked, and was ashamed that she’d almost whispered the words.

Angelina’s generous mouth pursed. “Puta,” she muttered. “She is gone—good riddance to her.” In case she’d offended heaven by calling the errant housemaid a whore, the woman crossed herself in a hasty, practiced motion.

Lorelei stood behind a chair at the kitchen table, realizing she’d been gripping the back of it with such force that her knuckles stood out, the skin white with stretching. “Father sent her away?”

Angelina made a face and waved a plump, dismissive hand. “Men are no good at sending las putas away. I told her to get out, or I’d work a chicken curse and make her sprout feathers full of lice.”

In spite of the lingering tension, and a strange and totally irrational disappointment that the judge hadn’t been the one to dismiss Creighton’s little baggage from under his roof, Lorelei laughed. “You didn’t.”

“I did,” Angelina confirmed with satisfaction, motioning for Lorelei to take her customary place at the table. When she complied, the older woman poured a cup of freshly brewed tea and set it in front of her. “Drink. Your breakfast is almost ready. Hotcakes, brown on the edges, just the way you like them.”

Lorelei lifted the china tea cup in both hands, fearing she’d spill it if she didn’t take a firm hold. “I don’t want anything to eat,” she said, after a restorative sip.

“I don’t care what you want,” Angelina replied crisply, and went back to the stove. “Your papa, he is very angry. You will need all your strength to deal with him.” She paused in her deft labors, regarding Lorelei as though she were a jigsaw puzzle with one piece missing. “Why did you do it? Why did you burn your wedding dress for all of San Antonio to see?”

“You know why, Angelina,” Lorelei said.

“I am not asking why you did not marry Mr. Bannings,” Angelina pointed out. “He is a coyote dropping, not a man. What I want to know is, if you had to burn the dress, why do it in front of the whole town? Now, all the women will be gossiping, and all of the men will avoid you.”

Lorelei took another sip of tea, then sighed. “The men would do well to avoid me,” she said, with a trace of humor, “and the women would gossip, one way or the other.”

“It was a foolish thing to do,” Angelina maintained, setting the plate of hotcakes and scrambled eggs down in front of Lorelei with an eloquent thump. “People will say you are loco in the head.”

Lorelei twisted her hands in her lap. Her father’s words echoed in her mind. I fear you are not quite sane. Would he actually go so far as to commit her to an asylum? Surely not—she’d defied him many times in the past, and he’d never sent her away. On the other hand, he’d never threatened to, either, and there was no question that he had the judicial power to do it. As a female, she had about as many legal rights as the old hound that slept behind the Republic Hotel, waiting for scraps from the kitchen.

“Is that what you think, Angelina? That I’m a madwoman?” She held her breath for the answer.

Angelina spat a Spanish expletive. “Of course not,” she added, when she’d stopped sputtering. “But I know you, Conchita. These others, they do not. They will talk about this for years!”

Lorelei took up her fork, only to push her rapidly cooling eggs apart into little, unappetizing heaps. “I was just so—angry.”

“Sí,” Angelina agreed, laying a hand on Lorelei’s shoulder. “This temper of yours, it will bring you to grief if you do not learn to control it.” She gave a gusty sigh.

“It is done now, and there is no changing it. We will have to deal with the consequences.”

“Father is furious,” Lorelei said, with resignation. “He threatened to have me locked away in a madhouse, and I’m fairly certain he wasn’t joking.”

Angelina blinked, and in that instant her whole demeanor changed. “Madre de Dios,” she muttered, and crossed herself again, and then twice more for good measure. “This is more serious than I thought.”

Lorelei’s mouth went dry. She’d spent much of the night in frantic speculation, but she’d expected Angelina to soothe her fears, not compound them. “What am I going to do?” she murmured, more to herself than the housekeeper.

“For the time being, you must stay out of your father’s way,” Angelina counseled gravely. She paused, thinking, then shook her head. “No,” she reflected. “I do not think he would actually do this thing. The scandal would be too great. After yesterday, he will not be looking for more of that.”

The clatter of horses’ hooves and the rattle of carriage wheels rolling up the driveway silenced them both.

Angelina rushed to the bay window overlooking the long crushed-shell driveway. “Vaya!” she cried. “Go. It is the judge, and Mr. Bannings is with him!”

Lorelei nearly overturned her chair in her haste to be gone, but then her pride got the better of her good sense, as it so often did.

“No,” she said. “I will not run away like some rabbit startled in the carrot patch.”

“Lorelei,” Angelina whispered, her eyes pleading.

Lorelei planted her feet. “No,” she repeated, but her heart was hammering fit to shatter her breastbone, and she felt sick to her stomach.

She heard the carriage doors closing, heard her father and Creighton talking in earnest tones. Oddly, though, another voice supplanted those, an echo rising suddenly in her brain.

It belonged to Holt McKettrick.

Are you crazy?

HOLT TOOK PLEASURE in the look of surprise on the banker’s face when he looked up and saw him standing there, with John Cavanagh beside him.

A moment too late, the man shoved back his swivel chair and stood, extending a hand in greeting. The fancy name plate on his desk read G. F. Sexton. He was probably no older than Jeb, but already developing jowls and a paunch. That was a banker’s life for you, Holt thought. Too easy.

“Mr. Cavanagh!” Sexton cried, fixing his attention on John. “It’s good to see you.”

John regarded the pale, freckled hand for a long moment, then shook it. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “it’s good to see you, too.” Sexton’s gaze shifted to Holt, full of wary curiosity.

Holt didn’t offer a handshake, or an explanation. “We’re here about those loans you called,” he said.

A flush stole up Sexton’s neck, if that narrow band of pallid flesh could be called a neck, and pulsed along the edge of his jaw. “You understand, of course, that business is business—”

“I understand perfectly,” Holt said.

Sexton tugged at his celluloid collar. A fine sheen of sweat glimmered on his forehead. His gaze kept flitting back and forth between Holt’s face and John’s, skittish about lighting too long on either one. “I’m afraid the foreclosure is quite legal, if you’ve a mind to discuss that,” the banker said. He consulted the calendar on the wall behind his chair. “In two weeks, the ranch will be sold for outstanding debts.”

Holt indulged in a slow smile. “Will it?” he asked softly.

Sexton took a half step back. “Mr. Cavanagh owes—”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Holt interrupted, and laid a telegram from his bank in Indian Rock on the desk.

“They’re sending a draft by wire. You should have it by tomorrow morning.”

Sexton got even redder. He fumbled in his breast pocket for spectacles, put them on, read the telegram and blanched. “My God,” he said, and sank heavily into his chair.

“There’ll be another draft sent to First Cattleman’s, up in Austin,” John put in. “You see, my son here just bought my place, lock, stock and barrel. I could have deposited the money here, I reckon, but—you’ll understand, business being business—that I had some concerns about its safekeeping.”

The banker was a few horse-lengths behind. “Your son?” he squeaked.

Holt swallowed a laugh.

“Foster son,” John relented, having had his fun. “Holt’s taken his real daddy’s name—McKettrick—but he went by Cavanagh for a good part of his life.” He braced his work-worn hands on the edge of Sexton’s desk and leaned in. “You tell Mr. Templeton he’ll find Holt a sight harder to deal with than an old black man and a slow-witted girl.”

“Mr. Templeton?” Sexton croaked. “What does he have to do with this?”

“A whole lot, I reckon,” John said smoothly. “You ever think about punchin’ cattle for a livin’, Mr. Sexton? Mr. McKettrick, here, he’s hirin’. Lookin’ for thirty men or so. A season in the saddle might put some color in your cheeks.”

“My knees are bad,” Sexton said fretfully.

“I reckon your conscience smarts some, too,” John replied. “If you’ve got one, that is.” He turned to Holt, his eyes gleaming with the old spirit. “Best we be goin’. Tillie’ll be through at the general store, and there’s Gabe to be looked in on before we head back out to the ranch. Make sure he’s getting the meals my son arranged for, over to the Republic Hotel.”

Sexton rallied. His train was still back a couple of stations. “Austin’s a long ways from here. You might want to reconsider that deposit, Mr. Cavanagh.”

“Then again,” John answered lightly, “I might not.”

Holt chuckled.

“What about you, Mr. McKettrick?” Sexton asked anxiously, standing up again. Even on his feet, he was knee-high to a burro, but he was still steaming along. “You’ll need banking services, I’m sure.”

Holt, in the process of turning away, paused. John had already gained the door.

“You’ve got more guts than I would have given you credit for, Mr. Sexton,” he said. “Goodbye. And don’t forget to give my best regards to Isaac Templeton.”

He joined John on the wooden sidewalk.

“Damn,” John said jubilantly, “that felt good.”

Holt laughed and slapped him on the back. “Let’s collect Tillie and pay Gabe a visit. How long do you figure we have before Templeton comes to call?”

John made a show of taking out his watch. He’d fought on the Union side during the war, and the timepiece, a gift from his captain, was the only memento he’d kept from his days as a Buffalo Soldier, except, of course, for that chunk of cannonball lodged deep in his right thigh. “I reckon he’ll get word by sundown.”

“You think he’ll order a raid on the herd?”

Cavanagh shook his head. “Not without sizing you up first,” he said. “Mr. Templeton, he likes to have the facts in his possession before he makes a move.”

They stepped into the cool dimness of the general store, and the typical mercantile smells of clean sawdust, saddle leather, onions and dust greeted them.

Holt scanned the room for Tillie, found her standing alone at the counter, with a pile of goods stacked in front of her, while the clerk jawed with a cowboy a few feet away. Tillie might as well have been one of the outdated notices pinned to the wall for all the attention she was getting, and her eyes were huge as she watched Holt and her father approach.

“What can I do for you—gentlemen?” the clerk inquired.

“You can wait on the lady, for a start,” Holt said, with a nod toward Tillie.

“I don’t see no lady,” the clerk replied. Scrawny little rooster.

Holt smiled broadly, reached across the counter, took a good, firm hold on the man’s shirtfront and thrust him upward, off the floor. “Then there’s something wrong with your eyesight, my friend,” he drawled, as John stepped between him and the cowhand. “You might want to invest in a pair of those fine spectacles on display in the front window.”

“Mac,” the clerk choked. “Ain’t you gonna do somethin’?”

“No, sir,” Mac said cheerfully, and Holt turned his head long enough to take in the cowboy. “I reckon you’ve got this coming.” He turned easily, resting his weight against the counter. “You Holt McKettrick?” he asked.

“I heard on the street that you might be looking for ranch hands.”

Holt eased the clerk down onto the balls of his feet. “I might be,” he said.

The clerk scrambled along the counter to face Tillie with a feverish smile. “Mornin’, ma’am,” he said. “What can I do for you today?”