McKettrick's Choice. Linda Miller Lael

to let us know if anybody’s sneaking around outside the house of a night,” Holt answered, climbing up to take the reins. He released the brake lever with one foot and urged the team into motion.

      He looked up at the stockade as they passed. It gave him a lonely feeling to know Gabe was in there, even if he was feasting on the fried chicken dinner and whole strawberry pie sent over for his supper.

      “He can sleep in my room,” Tillie said.

      “Not unless you scrub him down with lye soap first, he can’t,” John decreed. Clearly, he had misgivings where the dog was concerned, but Holt was confident he’d come around in time. John was a tenderhearted man, though he liked to pretend otherwise.

      Holt pondered how different things were as they headed out of town.

      Once, he’d thought of the Cavanagh place as home.

      Now, home was the Triple M. He wondered how Lizzie was getting along, and the old man and those three knuckleheaded brothers of his.

      Margaret Tarquin never crossed his mind, but Lorelei Fellows sure cut a wide swath through his thoughts.

      CHAPTER 7

      THE WEDDING GIFTS, each one labeled for return to its original owner with many wrapped to mail, filled the twelve-foot table in the formal dining room. They teetered on chairs, crowded the long bureau top and took up most of the floor as well.

      Lorelei surveyed the loot with relief. “That’s the last of them, then,” she told Angelina, dusting her hands together. “Raul can start loading them into the wagon.”

      Angelina, having wended her way in from the kitchen traveling a path between the packages, shook her head at the sight. “Now what?” she asked.

      Lorelei consulted the watch pinned to the bodice of her crisply pressed shirtwaist. After the interview with her father and Creighton in the kitchen yesterday morning, her resolution had wavered a little. The judge hadn’t mentioned an asylum, thankfully, but he did rant about the shame she’d brought upon the family name and threaten to confine her to the house until she’d come to her senses.

      “I’m due at the Ladies’ Benevolence Society meeting in half an hour,” she said, and patted the tidy chignon at the back of her head. “I’d sooner run the gauntlet in a Comanche camp. Unfortunately, I don’t have that option.”

      Angelina’s eyes rounded, then narrowed. “What are you thinking, doing such a thing? Those old biddies will eat you alive!”

      “They’ll try,” Lorelei said, with false good cheer.

      “Then why serve yourself to them like a sponge cake?”

      “If I avoided them,” Lorelei reasoned, “they would call me a coward. And, worse, they’d be right.”

      Angelina sighed. “I suppose there is no talking you out of this.”

      Lorelei looked at her watch again. “If I don’t hurry, I’ll be late,” she said. With that, she took herself to the entryway, where her handbag awaited on the table next to the door, and left the freighting of the gifts to Angelina and her husband.

      “Be careful,” Angelina fretted, hovering at her elbow.

      Lorelei kissed the other woman’s creased forehead. “I don’t know how,” she answered, and left the house.

      The membership of the Ladies’ Malevolence Society, as Lorelei privately referred to them, met once a month, in the spacious parlor of Mrs. Herbert J. Braughm, for tea, social exchange and precious little benevolence. Lorelei attended faithfully, for three reasons. Number one, they didn’t want her there. Thus, being a member constituted an exercise in principle. Number two, it was the best way to keep up with the doings in San Antonio. Number three, on admittedly rare occasions, the group actually did something constructive.

      It was a ten-minute walk to the Braughm house, and the weather was muggy. Inwardly, Lorelei dragged her feet every step of the way.

      Outwardly, she was the very personification of dignified haste.

      Mrs. Braughm’s maid, Rosita, actually gaped when she opened the door to her.

      Lorelei smiled and waited expectantly to be admitted.

      Rosita ducked her head and stepped back to clear the way. “The ladies,” she said, in accented English, “are in the garden.”

      “Thank you,” Lorelei said, adjusting her spotless gloves and shifting her handbag from her left wrist to her right. Her very bones quavered, but her voice was steady.

      Mrs. Braughm’s garden was gained through a set of French doors, standing open to the weighted air. Plump roses nodded, almost as colorful as the hats and dresses of the women seated around pretty white tables, sipping tea and nibbling at dainty refreshments. The chatter ceased the moment Lorelei stepped onto the tiled patio.

      She straightened her spine and smiled.

      “Why, Lorelei,” Mrs. Braughm said, too loudly. The legs of her chair scraped shrilly as she stood, small and fluttery, to greet an obviously unexpected guest.

      “I hope I’m not late,” Lorelei said, meeting the gazes of the other guests, one at a time. Most were cold, but she saw a glimmer of sympathy in some of the younger faces.

      “Of course not,” Mrs. Braughm chirped. “Come, sit down. Have some tea. We were just about to start.”

      No one moved, and every extra chair held a handbag, a knitting basket, or a small, watchful dog.

      Mrs. Eustacia Malvern, who had held the meetings at her home on Houston Street until the task had become too much for her, reached for her cane and used it to steady herself as she raised her considerable bulk out of her chair. Her Pekinese, Precious, took the opportunity to stand on its hind legs and lick the whipped cream off Mrs. Malvern’s dessert.

      “What we were just about to do,” Mrs. Malvern said, ignoring the dog, “was review our standards of membership.”

      Murmurings were heard, here and there. No one dared look directly at Lorelei, who stood still and straight, waiting.

      “As you know,” Eustacia went on, “we have certain criteria.” Among other things, Mrs. Malvern was Creighton’s second cousin, Lorelei recalled. Raul was probably loading her wedding gift, a silver compote, into the back of the wagon at that very moment.

      Lorelei did not speak. Bees buzzed from flower to flower, their drone growing louder with every passing moment.

      Mrs. Malvern took in the gathering. The dog finished the whipped cream and went for a tea cake.

      “I think we are all agreed, Miss Fellows, that you are not our sort.”

      NOT OUR SORT.

      Standing there in Mrs. Braughm’s lush garden, surrounded by the cream of San Antonio society, Lorelei felt a sting of mortification and, conversely, not a little exhilaration. “Do you speak for everyone?” she asked mildly.

      No one spoke. No one met Lorelei’s gaze, save Mrs. Malvern, who seemed intent on glaring a hole right through her.

      With a delicate lapping sound, the Pekinese began to drink tea from the old woman’s cup. Except for that, the hum of a few bees and the nervous tinkle of a cup against a saucer, the silence was absolute.

      “Very well, then,” Lorelei said. With that, she turned, keeping her shoulders and spine as straight as she could, and took her leave.

      She couldn’t go home, not yet.

      She might have visited her old friend, Sorrowful, behind the Republic Hotel, but now even the dog was gone. He would surely be better off on the Cavanagh place, with regular feeding and room to run, but the knowledge of his absence was a thrumming ache in her heart.

      It was sad indeed, she reflected, when a person’s truest friend was an old war veteran of a dog.