McKettrick's Choice by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

job.”
    â€œThirty a month, a bed in the bunkhouse and grub,” Holt said grimly.
    â€œYou provide your own horse and gear.”
    â€œDone,” Kahill said, and put out his hand.
    Holt hesitated, then extended his own.
    Â 
    G ABE LOOKED MORE like his old self than he had the day before. He was still in need of yellow soap, clean clothes and a week of good meals, but he was coming along.
    â€œThat was a damn fine supper you sent over last night,” he said. “Thanks.” His gaze moved past Holt to John. Tillie was waiting up front, in the marshal’s office, the ass-end of a jail being no place for a woman.
    â€œHow-do, Mr. Cavanagh. You’re lookin’ spry, for an old soldier.”
    He and John shook hands through the bars.
    â€œI reckon I’ll be returning the compliment,” John said, “once you’ve been out of this cage for a month or two.”
    â€œI had another visitor first thing this morning,” Gabe said, keeping his voice low. “Judge Alexander Fellows.”
    That caught Holt’s interest. “What did he have to say?”
    â€œThat they’re moving me to a cell on the other side of the stockade,” Gabe answered. “So I can watch my gallows being built.”
    Holt felt his back teeth grind, and he must have stiffened visibly, because John gave him a sidelong, knowing look. “Easy,” he warned. “We’ve got the better part of a month to straighten this out.”
    â€œYou’ll understand,” Gabe intoned, “if that doesn’t sound like a real long time to me.”
    â€œI ran into your lawyer yesterday before I rode out to John’s place,” Holt said. “Worthless as tits on a boar, and he’s pretty friendly with the judge.”
    â€œYou’ve got the right of that,” Gabe said. “That wedding dress Miss Lorelei burned in the square yesterday? Bannings was supposed to be the bridegroom.”
    Somehow, remembering Lorelei calmly watching that bonfire with her chin high and her arms folded cheered Holt up a little. It amazed him that a woman like Miss Fellows—beautiful, spirited, and obviously intelligent, even if she did lack the common sense to know how fast a blaze like that could spread—would even consider hitching herself to a waste of hide and hair like Creighton Bannings.
    â€œHe mentioned that when we met,” Holt said. “Seemed to believe the lady would come around to his way of thinking, sooner or later.”
    Gabe gave a snort of laughter. “I’d say later,” he replied. “About a week after the Second Coming.”
    Holt raised an eyebrow, curious. “You seem to know Miss Fellows pretty well,” he observed.
    â€œWe don’t travel in the same social circles,” Gabe said, “but, yeah, I know her.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œShe feeds an old dog behind the Republic Hotel. So did I. Now and then, we ran into each other.”
    â€œAnd you just happened to strike up a conversation?”
    â€œI like to talk to a pretty woman whenever I get the chance—even if she has the disposition of a sow bear guarding a cub.”
    Before Holt could offer a comment, a door creaked open at the far end of the corridor, where there was light and fresh coffee and freedom. The yearning for all those things was stark in Gabe’s face. “She came to the trial every day,” he went on pensively. “Sat right in the front row, and favored me with a smile whenever the judge and Bannings weren’t looking.”
    Holt absorbed this, unsure of how he felt about it. On the one hand, the thought stuck under his skin like a burr. On the other, Lorelei Fellows was the judge’s daughter, and possibly sympathetic to Gabe’s cause. Maybe she knew something that might come in handy when the appeal was filed.
    Which had better be soon, if Gabe’s gallows was going up on the other side of the