McKettrick's Choice. Linda Miller Lael

so, perhaps you can reason with her.”

      Judge Fellows stood in the doorway of what was probably his office. He was around sixty, with shrewd eyes, mutton-chop whiskers and a well-fitted suit. Somewhere upstairs a door slammed, and Fellows flinched.

      Holt didn’t bother to put out his hand. “I never met your daughter before today,” he said forthrightly. “I’m here about Gabe Navarro.”

      Fellows’s mouth tightened. “The Indian.”

      Holt did some tightening of his own, but it was all inside, out of the judge’s sight. “The Texas Ranger,” he said.

      The other man shrugged. “I’m afraid Mr. Navarro’s past glories, whatever they might be, were rendered meaningless by the murder of a settler and his wife. He butchered them with a Bowie knife and then stole their horses.”

      “He didn’t kill anybody,” Holt maintained. “Or steal any horses.”

      “You’re entitled to your opinion, Mr. McKettrick,” Fellows said, with false regret. “However, as I said, your friend has determined his own fate. The knife used to cut those poor souls to ribbons was his, and the horses were found penned up outside that lean-to he calls a home.”

      Holt didn’t bother to argue. He knew conviction when he butted heads with it. Evidently, Judge Fellows was as unreasonable and ill-tempered as his daughter. “Who represented him? During the trial, I mean?”

      “Creighton Bannings,” the judge said, nodding toward the front walk, visible through the long leaded-glass window beside the front door. “Here he is now.”

      Holt turned, frowning thoughtfully. Bannings. Where had he heard that name before? The answer tugged at the edge of his mind, staying just out of reach.

      There was a brief, obligatory knock, then Bannings strolled in, fidgeting with his tie. He was tall, as tall as Holt, but leaner, and his clothes, though expensive, were rumpled. The face, fine-boned and too pretty, was as familiar as the name, but Holt still couldn’t place the man.

      “Holt McKettrick,” Holt said.

      “I remember you as Cavanagh,” Bannings replied. He put out a hand, hail fellow well met, and Holt hesitated a moment before shaking it.

      “I guess I ought to remember you, too,” Holt allowed, “but I can’t say as I do.”

      Bannings smiled, showing white but crooked teeth. “We got into a fight once, at a dance, over a girl. I believe we were sixteen or seventeen at the time. John Cavanagh hauled you off me by the scruff of your neck.”

      It all came back to Holt then, clear as high-country creek water. So did the enmity he’d felt that night, when he’d found Mary Sue Kenton crying behind her pa’s buckboard because Bannings, down from Austin to visit his country cousins, had torn her sky-blue party dress.

      Holt felt a rush of primitive satisfaction, recalling the punch he’d landed in the middle of Bannings’s smug face five minutes after he’d turned Mary Sue over to the care of a rancher’s wife. For a reason he couldn’t define, he glanced toward the stairs, where he’d last seen Lorelei.

      “I understand you defended Gabe Navarro,” he said, after wrenching his brain back to the business at hand.

      Bannings grimaced, resigned. “I fear I wasn’t successful,” he admitted.

      Holt’s gaze strayed to the judge, shot back to Bannings. “You a friend of the family?” he asked.

      “I’m about to marry the judge’s daughter, Lorelei,” Bannings said.

      Holt gave him credit for confidence. “Given the fact that she set fire to her wedding dress in a public square this afternoon,” he ventured, “it would seem there’s been a change in plans.”

      Bannings looked pained, but the expression in his eyes was watchful. “Lorelei has a temper,” he admitted. “But she’ll come around.”

      Having been a witness to the burning of all that lace and silk, Holt had his doubts, but he hadn’t come here to discuss what he considered a private matter. “Gabe Navarro,” he said, “is an old friend of mine. We were Rangers together. He’s innocent, and he’s being treated like a dog. Just now, I’m wondering why you didn’t file an appeal.”

      “How do you know I didn’t?”

      “I read the paperwork over at the courthouse,” Holt said. “Along with the clerk’s notes. Seems to me, you didn’t put up much of an argument.”

      Bannings glanced questioningly at the judge, which confirmed a few suspicions on Holt’s part. Gabe’s trial had been a monkey show, as sorry as the case against him.

      “I did my best,” Bannings said, a little defensively.

      “I’m thinking your best is pretty sorry,” Holt replied.

      Bannings flushed. Holt suspected the lawyer would have liked to land a haymaker, but apparently his memory was better than his ethics. He clearly remembered the set-to over Mary Sue and her torn dress well enough to think better of the idea, which showed he was prudent, as well as spineless.

      “Navarro was tried and found guilty,” Fellows put in. “He won’t be missed around here.”

      Holt set his back teeth, pulled hard on the reins of his temper. Gabe was behind bars, and if he, Holt, got Fellows’s back up, Gabe would suffer for it. He’d sent a wire to the governor after leaving the courthouse, but there was no telling how long it would be before he got an answer.

      “I won’t take up any more of your time,” he said.

      The judge nodded.

      Holt reclaimed his hat from its hook on the coat tree, where the maid had hung it after admitting him, and opened the door. There were still several hours of daylight left; he could reach the Cavanagh ranch before sunset if he rode hard. In the morning, he would return to San Antonio, look in on Gabe and find a lawyer with some backbone.

      Deep in these thoughts, he was taken by surprise when Bannings followed him onto the porch.

      “Leave this alone,” the lawyer said, in an anxious whisper, after glancing back at the closed door. He must have seen the judge looking out at him through that long window, because he paled a little. “You’ve got no idea what kind of man you’re dealing with.”

      “Neither have you,” Holt said, and kept walking.

      CHAPTER 4

      GABE FIGURED he must be hallucinating. Roy, the jailer, was standing just on the other side of the cell doors with a covered tray in his hands, and the savory smells coming from under that checkered dish towel made Gabe’s mouth water and his belly rumble.

      He sat up, blinking, and swung his legs over the edge of the cot.

      Grumbling, the jailer set the food down on the floor and fumbled with his keys. Not for the first time, Gabe considered overpowering him—which would be easy—and taking his chances getting past the guards outside—which would not be so easy. He’d most likely get himself gut-shot if he tried.

      “That friend of yours must have himself quite a bank account,” Roy muttered, pushing the door open cautiously and shoving the tray inside with his foot. “That there’s a fancy dinner from over the hotel.”

      Roy slammed the cell door shut and locked it, while Gabe went for the grub. “I’ll be damned,” he murmured, crouching to toss back the dish towel. It was beef all right, and prime rib to boot. There were potatoes, a mountain of them, swimming in gravy, and green beans cooked up with bacon and onion.

      The blood drained from Gabe’s head.

      Roy tarried. “I wouldn’t have figured you had a friend,” he said.

      Gabe sat on the side of the cot, the tray of food in his lap. His hand shook as he took up a fork. “What are