McKettrick's Choice. Linda Miller Lael

is it?” John countered lightly. “Sounds pretty fancy.”

      Templeton was watching Tillie again. “Just tell him what I said.”

      “Oh, I surely will.” John maneuvered his horse to block Templeton’s view of the girl. “I doubt Holt’ll take kindly to it, though. My guess is, he’ll wait for you to come to him.”

      Templeton reined his fine Irish horse away, toward home. “He won’t like it if I do,” he said, and before John could answer, he rode off into the trees.

      John gulped back the bile that rose into his throat, then turned and headed down the hillside, toward the draw. “Tillie!” he called. “You get yourself back to the house now, and start supper!”

      GABE STOOD with his back to the bars of the new cell, staring out the window. The rasping of a saw rode the air, along with the steady tattoo of hammers. The gallows was well underway.

      “I don’t suppose you’ve heard back from the governor,” Gabe said, without turning around.

      Holt took off his hat, ran a hand through his hair. “No,” he admitted. “I stopped by the telegraph office on my way here.”

      “Most likely that wire never went out, any more than the one Frank sent to you did.”

      “I’ll ride up to Austin if I don’t hear by tomorrow,” Holt said. He felt every blow of those hammers as if they’d struck his bare bones instead of the new and fragrant lumber of a hangman’s platform.

      Gabe didn’t speak. It was clear he wasn’t holding out much hope.

      “Is there anything in particular you want me to do?” Holt asked quietly. “Besides get you out of here, I mean?”

      At last, Gabe faced him. “I’ve been worrying about Melina. Somebody ought to tell her that I’m not staying away on purpose.” He paused, rubbed his chin with one hand. “She’s carrying my baby, Holt.”

      Holt wanted to avert his eyes, because his friend’s pain was a hard thing to look upon, but he didn’t. “Where will I find her?”

      “Waco,” Gabe answered, relaxing a little. “Her last name is Garcia. Last I knew, she was doing laundry for a rich rancher’s wife. Parkinson, I think they call themselves.”

      “Done,” Holt said.

      Gabe’s throat worked. “If anything happens—”

      “Nothing,” Holt interrupted, “is going to happen. But I’ll tell her, Gabe.”

      “She’ll want to come here, to San Antonio. You’ve got to talk her out of that.”

      Holt’s grin felt more like a grimace. “You don’t know much about women if you think I could say anything to change her mind, once it’s made up.”

      Gabe prowled across the space between them, gripped the bars in both hands. The skin of his face was taut, and his eyes glittered with savage conviction. “There’s nothing for her here,” he said. “They’ll make a whore of her.”

      “And you think I’d stand by and see that happen?”

      Gabe let out his breath, nodded toward the other end of the corridor, where the jailer waited. “I had a hundred dollars when they brought me here. They took it, along with my knife and my boots. You get that money and fetch it to Melina.”

      Holt nodded, wishing there was more he could say, more he could do.

      “How’s John?” Gabe asked, and the change of subject was welcome.

      “He’s holding up,” Holt answered. “I hired a man yesterday and sent six more out to the place today.” He paused, unsettled. “You remember that kid who used to tend the horses back when we rode with the Rangers? Mac Kahill?”

      Gabe hesitated, thinking, then said, “Sure. Sneaky little bastard. I caught him going through my saddlebags one time.”

      Holt reached back, rubbed the nape of his neck. “He’s working for me now.”

      Gabe narrowed his eyes. “You watch him, Holt. Watch him real close.”

      Holt didn’t reckon he’d have time to watch anybody, real close or otherwise, with all he had to do to get that ranch back on sound footing. There were cattle to buy, which meant he’d have to run a herd up from Mexico, and he needed at least another dozen men for a drive like that. He ought to find Frank, and go to Austin to meet with the governor. And then there was Melina, up in Waco.

      All the while, Gabe’s life was getting shorter with every tick of the clock in the town square.

      In the back of his mind, Holt heard Angus McKettrick’s voice. It’s there to do, boy. Best leave off worrying and get on with the business at hand.

      God, what he wouldn’t give to have his pa and brothers with him right now.

      “It might be a few days before I can get back here to see you,” he said aloud. “You getting the meals from the hotel?”

      Gabe nodded, managed a semblance of the old grin. “It’s a lot of food, Holt. I reckon I can count on that coffin being a real tight fit.”

      “You won’t be needing a coffin,” Holt said. “Not for a long while, anyway.”

      Gabe studied him. “You losing your sense of humor, old friend?”

      “That’s a peculiar question, coming from you. Talking about coffins, and your woman ending up a whore.”

      The other man sighed, ran his palms down the legs of his buckskin trousers. “Old Cap’n Jack, he’d have a thing or two to say about all this, wouldn’t he?”

      The mention of the seasoned Ranger cheered Holt considerably. “He surely would,” he said. “And most of it would take the paint off a wall.”

      Gabe gave a low guffaw. “Yes, sir. Call us a pair of down-in-the-mouth yellow-bellied tit babies, probably. Give us the sole of his boot.”

      Holt laughed, heartened. He put a hand through the bars, gripped Gabe’s shoulder. “Don’t pay too much mind to that gallows out there,” he counseled. “One day real soon, we’ll burn it for firewood and dance around the flames, whooping like Comanches.”

      “‘Like Comanches’?” Gabe retorted. “I am a Comanche, White Eyes.”

      “Then act like one,” Holt said, turning to go.

      “Son of a bitch,” Gabe called, in cheerful farewell. Holt laughed.

      It took some doing, but he got Gabe’s hundred dollars out of the jailer.

      He’d stop by the ranch, to look in on John and Tillie and the yellow dog, then ride for Waco. With luck, he’d be there by mid-day tomorrow.

      CHAPTER 10

      THERE WAS A THIRD PLACE set at the dining room table, and the sound of masculine laughter came from behind the closed doors of the judge’s study. Lorelei marched to the kitchen and pushed the door open with the flat of her hand.

      “Angelina!”

      The other woman was just setting a pan of biscuits in the oven. She looked back at Lorelei over one plump shoulder. “Sí?” she asked innocently.

      “I’m having supper in my room tonight. I refuse to sit across the table from Creighton Bannings!”

      Angelina smiled as she straightened, wiping her hands on her apron. “How was the Ladies’ Benevolence Society meeting?”

      The reminder of her summary dismissal made Lorelei flinch, but she recovered almost immediately. “I was asked to leave,” she said, setting her shoulders. “I’m thinking of starting my own group, just to spite them.”

      Angelina drew herself up, indignant. “Hateful