McKettrick's Choice by Linda Lael Miller Page B

“Not until you said Gabe was in the hoosegow. Then the idea got real attractive, all of the sudden. If they’re fixing to lynch him, he must have been charged with murder.”
    â€œMurder and horse thieving,” Holt confirmed.
    â€œBullshit,” the Captain said. “Gabe never killed nobody that didn’t need killing. Probably not above helping himself to a horse now and again, though.”
    He paused to savor more coffee, then grunted with lusty satisfaction as he set the cup down again. “Who’s behind this monkey circus, anyhow?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” Holt said, “but I’d say it was a rancher named Isaac Templeton.”
    The name evidently registered with Walton. He sighed and shook his head, but whatever his misgivings, they didn’t seem to affect his appetite. “Now there’s more bad news,” he said. “When do you figure on heading back to San Antone?”
    â€œFirst 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 thewaitress had left for Holt and wiped his mouth, leaving considerable egg yolk in his handlebar mustache. Then he unpinned the badge.
    â€œDamn,” he said. “The wages wasn’t much, but I’ll miss this job.”

CHAPTER 11
    T HE 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.
    â€œSí,” 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.
    â€œWhat?” Raul asked, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.
    â€œA 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.
    â€œBut 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.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œYour father will never allow it,” Raul pleaded.
    â€œMy father can just go whistle,” Lorelei replied, running a hand down the framework of the door. Sturdy.
    â€œYou cannot live out here alone, señorita. ”
    â€œI 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.