McKettrick's Choice by Linda Lael Miller

with the utmost reluctance.
    Lorelei, peering over his shoulder, had already deduced that. She’d blinked at the sum, then her gaze had shifted to the debit column. Judging by the long list of tidy figures, her father had made regular withdrawals over the past ten years.
    â€œI’m afraid I must insist that Judge Fellows’s wishes be respected,” Sexton had said, closing the book. His jowls were flushed, his eyes skittish.
    Lorelei had insisted that the funds be moved to another account, and when Sexton balked, she threatened to fetch the constable. At last, he’d relented, but with the greatest reluctance.
    She’d narrowed her eyes at him as she prepared to leave the bank with a purseful of cash and move on to the mercantile. “If you run to my father,” she’d warned,“I’ll move every cent to another bank and have you audited.”
    Now, facing Angelina as she was about to leave her bedroom and the house as well, perhaps for the very last time, Lorelei, having recounted the conversation to the older woman, shook her head. “He wouldn’t dare go to my father,” she said.
    â€œMr. Sexton is afraid of the judge, like almost everyone else in San Antonio,” Angelina maintained, a bit frantically, but she stepped aside to let Lorelei pass into the corridor. “If you had any sense at all, you would be, too.”
    â€œIt’s my land, and my money,” Lorelei maintained, starting down the rear stairway. “Are you and Raul coming with me or not?”
    Angelina crossed herself, but she nodded. “My cousin Rosa is coming to look after the judge,” she said. “Still—”
    Lorelei opened the back door and peered toward the carriage house. “Where is Raul?” she fretted. “Mr. Wilkins promised to deliver my order by noon. We have to be there to meet the wagons.”
    Mr. Wilkins, as it happened, was not among the judge’s many admirers. He’d been a vocal supporter of the other candidate during the last election and had written several letters to the editor of the local newspaper complaining about the decisions Judge Fellows had handed down. The merchant had been suspicious at first, then pleased to keep quiet about the wagonload of provisions and supplies Lorelei had purchased and paid for on the spot.
    Raul came out of the carriage house, driving the buckboard. Even from a distance, his lack of enthusiasm was readily apparent.
    Lorelei felt a pang. Her father was a difficult man, buthe was aging and perhaps even ill. He could get along without her just fine, but losing Angelina and Raul would be a blow.
    â€œIf you want to stay here and look after Father,” she said, “I’ll understand.”
    Angelina dragged a valise of her own from its hiding place in the pantry. “And let you go off alone, to live in the wilderness, with wolves and savages and outlaws and the Madre only knows what else? No. Rosa and her Miguel will take our places.”
    â€œI promise you will not regret this,” Lorelei said, well aware that the statement was a rash one. Once the judge realized she’d not only taken her funds out of his keeping but helped herself to his housekeeper and handyman, he would be enraged.
    Angelina looked doubtful but resolved. “I think I already regret it,” she said. Raul came to the door, looking woebegone, and claimed both the valises. “By all the saints and angels, when your father learns of this, the ground will shake.”
    As if to lend credence to Angelina’s words, thunder clapped in the near distance. The horses nickered and tossed their heads, and Lorelei looked up at the sky as she descended the back steps. Fast-moving gray clouds were gathering over San Antonio, churning with mayhem.
    Angelina looked up as well and opened her mouth to speak, but at the look Lorelei gave her, she held her tongue.
    Raul helped his wife onto the wagon seat, then Lorelei, before