Free McKettrick's Choice by Linda Lael Miller Page B

mid-day tomorrow.

CHAPTER 10
    T HERE 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.
    â€œAngelina!”
    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.
    â€œI’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 old hens,” she muttered. “I ought to make them all come down with the grippe.”
    Despite the unseemly reference, Lorelei took a plate from the cupboard, planning to fill it with whateverAngelina had made for supper and sneak up the back stairs. “Start with Mrs. Malvern,” she said lightly, then lowered her voice to a whisper and cast a glance over one shoulder as the laughter in the study swelled again. “She’s Creighton’s cousin, you know. She’s the one who threw me out of the society.”
    Angelina checked the kettle of potatoes boiling on the back of the stove, then peered into the warming oven at the platter of fried chicken. The heat in the room was almost palpable.
    â€œPut that plate back where you found it,” Angelina said. “It isn’t Bannings in there with your father. It’s the banker, Mr. Sexton.”
    Lorelei was both relieved and unsettled. Mr. Sexton was not the jovial sort, and neither was her father. What were they laughing about in there?
    â€œSince when does the judge socialize with clerks?”
    Angelina met her gaze. “Since today,” she said meaningfully.
    Lorelei smoothed her hair, then her skirts. Sexton managed her father’s accounts, as well as Lorelei’s inheritance from her maternal grandfather. “I guess I’d better greet our guest,” she said.
    Angelina merely nodded.
    A few moments later, after straightening her hair and skirts again, Lorelei tapped circumspectly at the study door.
    â€œCome in,” the judge called.
    Lorelei took a deep breath, wondering if her father had heard about her ousting from the society, and turned the latch.
    Mr. Sexton stood, tugging at his tight collar, and tried to smile. “Miss Fellows,” he said, in greeting. Her fatherregarded her smugly from the chair behind that half-acre desk of his.
    Lorelei summoned up a smile. “Good evening, Mr. Sexton.”
    â€œTell her,” urged the judge.
    Sexton flushed. Whatever he’d been laughing about earlier must have been far from his mind, because he looked miserable, and not just from the cloying heat.
    â€œIt’s about the property you inherited,” he said.
    â€œWhat property?” Lorelei asked.
    â€œWhy, the ranch,” Sexton replied, after a quick glance at the judge. “The hundred acres downriver.” He fiddled with his collar again. “An offer of purchase has been made.”
    Lorelei was confounded. She looked at her father, but his face gave away nothing, as usual. “It’s mine to sell?” she asked.
    The judge cleared his throat. “Not precisely. But your signature is required. Just a formality.”
    â€œI want to see the place first.”
    Her father sighed. “There is no point in that, Lorelei,” he said. “It’s just an old cabin, surrounded by scrub brush and rattlesnakes.”
    â€œMr. Templeton is prepared to be very generous,” Sexton put in nervously,