by Linda Howard
Tires crunched on the gravel, and Joe left his post to see who had ventured up on Mackenzie’s Mountain. He was back in a moment, with Clay Armstrong behind him. It was a replay of Friday afternoon, and Mary felt her heart lurch; surely Clay wasn’t going to arrest Wolf now?
“Mary.” Clay nodded at her and touched the brim of his hat. “You doing okay?”
“Yes.” She said it firmly.
“I thought I’d find you up here. Do you feel like going over it again with me?”
Wolf pulled off his gloves as he approached. His eyes were flinty. “She went over it with you yesterday.”
“Sometimes people remember little things after the shock has passed.”
Because she sensed Wolf was about to throw Clay off his property, she turned and put her hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
She was lying, and he knew it, but her mouth had taken on that stubborn set that meant she wouldn’t back down. He felt a tinge of amusement; his kitten was getting back some of her confidence, after all. But no way was he going to let Clay question her alone. He looked at Joe. “Put the horse up. I’m going with Mary.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Clay said.
“It is to me.”
Mary felt dwarfed between the two big men as they walked up to the house; she thought she might soon find such protectiveness smothering. A smile touched her lips. Clay probably felt he had to protect her from Wolf as well as from another attack, while Wolf was determined to protect her, period. She wondered what Clay would think if he knew that she didn’t want to be protected from Wolf. Aunt Ardith would say Wolf had taken advantage of her, and Mary earnestly hoped he would do so again. Soon.
Wolf caught her sidelong glance and stiffened as he felt her interest and warmth. Damn it, didn’t she know how he’d react, and that it could get embarrassing? Already he could feel the tension in his loins. But, no, she didn’t know. Despite their early morning lovemaking, she was still too innocent about sex in general, and the effect she had on him in particular, to know what that look did to him. He hurried his step. He needed to sit down.
When they entered the kitchen, Mary moved around making coffee as naturally as she would have in her own house, emphasizing to Clay that she and Wolf were a couple. Folks in the county were just going to have to get used to it.
“Let’s go through it from the beginning,” Clay said.
Mary paused fractionally, then resumed her steady movements as she measured coffee into the percolator. “I’d just bought new boots at Hearst’s store and was walking back to my car—my boots! I dropped them! Did you see them? Did anyone pick them up?”
“I saw them, but I don’t know what happened to them. I’ll ask around.”
“He must have been standing against the side of Hearst’s store, because I’d have seen him if he had been on the other side of the alley. He just grabbed me and put his hand over my mouth. He held my head arched back, so I couldn’t move it at all, and started dragging me down the alley. I got one hand free and reached back, trying to scratch his face, but he had on a ski mask. He hit me in the head with his fist and I—I really don’t remember much after that until he pushed me down. I kept scratching him, and I think I clawed his hand, because he hit me again. Then I bit him on the hand, but I don’t know if I drew blood.
“Someone yelled, and he got up and ran. He put his hand on the ground right in front of my face when he got up. His sleeve was blue, and he had freckles on his hand. A lot of freckles. Then…you were there.”
She fell silent and moved to look out the kitchen window, her back to the men sitting at the table, so she didn’t see the murderous look in Wolf’s eyes, or the way his big fists clenched, but Clay did, and it worried him.
“I was the one who yelled. I saw the package lying on the ground and went over to see what it was, and then I heard scuffling from the back of the building. When I saw him, I yelled and pulled my revolver, and fired over his head to try to stop him.”
Wolf looked savage. “You should have shot the son of a bitch. That would have stopped him.”
In retrospect Clay wished he’d shot the guy, too. At least then they wouldn’t be racking their brains trying to put an ID to him, and the townspeople wouldn’t be so jittery. Women were carrying an assortment of weapons with them wherever they went, even outside to hang the wash to dry. The mood people were in, it would be dangerous for a stranger to stop in the county.
That was what bothered him, and he said as much. “It looks like someone would have noticed a stranger. Ruth is a small town, and people pretty well know everyone in the county. A stranger would have been noticed right off, especially one with long black hair.”
Wolf gave a wintry smile. “Everyone would have thought it was me.”
At the window, Mary stiffened. She had been trying not to listen, trying to push away the memories that had been called up by her recounting of what had happened. She didn’t turn around, but suddenly all her attention was focused on the conversation behind her. What Wolf had said was true. On seeing her attacker’s long black hair, Clay had immediately had Wolf arrested.
But that long black hair, so distinctive, didn’t fit with the wealth of rust-colored freckles she’d seen on the man’s hand. And hiss kin had been pale. Fair people freckled. The black hair didn’t fit.
Unless it was a disguise. Unless the object had been to frame Wolf.
Her spine prickled, and she felt both hot and cold. Whoever had done it hadn’t known that Wolf had had his hair cut. But the choice of victim was puzzling; it didn’t make sense. Why attack her? Surely no one would think Wolf would attack the one person in town who’d championed him, and she’d made it plain how she felt. Unless she had been a random choice, it just didn’t make sense. After all, there was no link between herself and Cathy Teele, no common ground. It could all be chance.
Still without turning around, she asked, “Wolf, do you know Cathy Teele? Have you ever spoken to her?”
“I know her by sight. I don’t speak to little Anglo girls.” His tone was ironic. “Their parents wouldn’t like it.”
“You’re right about that,” Clay said wearily. “A few months back Cathy told her mother you were the best-looking man around, and that she wouldn’t mind dating Joe if he weren’t younger than she was. The whole town heard about it. Mrs. Teele pitched a fit.”
That chill ran down Mary’s spine again. There was a link, after all: Wolf. Nor could she dismiss it as coincidence, though something about the whole thing was skewed.
She twisted her hands together, and turned to face them. “What if someone is deliberately trying to frame Wolf?”
Wolf’s face went hard and blank, but Clay looked startled. “Damn,” he muttered. “Why did you think of that?”
“The long black hair. It could have been a wig. The man had freckles on his hand, a lot of freckles, and hiss kin was pale.”
Wolf got to his feet, and though Mary knew she never had anything to fear from him, she fell back a step at the expression in his eyes. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to. She had seen him angry before, but this was different. He was enraged, but it was an icy rage, and he was in perfect control of himself. Perhaps that was what alarmed her.
Then Clay said, “Sorry, but I don’t think it’ll wash. Once we had all thought about it, it didn’t make sense that Wolf would have attacked you, of all people. You’ve stood up for him right from the beginning, when the rest of the people in town—”
“Wouldn’t spit on me if I were on fire,” Wolf finished.
Clay couldn’t deny it. “Exactly.”
The coffee had finished brewing, and Mary poured three cups. They were silent and thoughtful as they sipped, all of them turning things around in their minds, trying to make the pieces fit. The truth was that no matter how things were arranged, something was always off, unless they went with the idea that a criminal had chosen Mary and Cathy at random, and had perhaps used a long black wig for disguise by pure co
incidence.
Everything in Mary rejected the idea of coincidence. So that meant someone was deliberately trying to implicate Wolf. But why choose her as a victim?
To punish Wolf by hurting the people who had championed him?
It was all supposition, without a shred of evidence. Wolf had lived here for years without anything like this happening, even though his presence was like salt on the wound of the town’s conscience. They didn’t like him, and he didn’t let them forget. Still, they had all existed under a silent truce.
So what had triggered the violence?
She rubbed her temples as a sudden twinge of pain threatened to become a full-scale headache. Since she seldom had headaches, she supposed the tension was getting to her, and determined not to let it. She’d never been a Nervous Nellie and didn’t intend to start now.
Clay sighed and pushed his empty cup back. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll get the report finished tomorrow. I’ll bring the papers by the school for you to sign—uh, are you planning to go to work, or stay home?”
“Why, work, of course.”
“Of course,” Wolf muttered, and scowled at her. Mary lifted her chin at him. She saw no reason why she should suddenly become an invalid.
Clay left soon afterward, and Joe came up from the stables to join in the dinner preparations. It felt right, the three of them together, working together as comfortably as if they had done so for years. Joe winked at her once, and she blushed, because it was fairly easy to read the expression in his young-old eyes. Awareness, amusement and approval were all there. Was he simply assuming she and Wolf had become intimate because Wolf had spent the night at her house, which she supposed was the commonsense thing to assume, or was there something different about her? What if everyone in town could just look at her and know?
Wolf curved his hand around her waist. She had been standing motionless for several minutes, the pan in her hand forgotten, as she both frowned and blushed. The blush told him what she was thinking, and the familiar tension in his body made his fingers tighten until they dug into her ribs. She looked up at him, her gray-blue eyes wide and startled; then awareness shot into them, and her eyelids dropped to half veil the desire she couldn’t disguise.
Joe reached to take the pan from her nerveless fingers. “I think I’ll go see a movie somewhere,” he announced.
Mary jerked her head around, tearing herself from the sensual spell Wolf spun about her so easily. “No! Your lessons, remember?”
“Another night won’t hurt.”
“Another night will hurt,” she insisted. “The Academy isn’t something you can take for granted just because Senator Allard is going to recommend you. You can’t afford to let up for a minute.”
Wolf released her. “She’s right, son. You can’t let your grades slip.” He could wait. Barely.
It was after nine when Mary closed the books she and Joe had been using and stretched her arms over her head. “Could you take me home now?” she asked Wolf, barely suppressing a yawn. It had been an eventful day.
His face was impassive. “Why don’t you stay here.” It was more of a command than a suggestion.
“I can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“It isn’t proper.”
“I stayed with you last night.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I was upset.”
“Your bed’s too small. Mine’s bigger.”
“I’m getting out of here,” Joe said, and suited the action to the words.
Mary got huffy. “Did you have to say that in front of him?”
“He knew anyway. Remember what I said about no going back?”
She stilled and said, “Yes.” That warm look entered her eyes again. “I don’t want to go back. But I can’t stay here tonight. I have to go to work in the morning.”
“No one would think any less of you if you didn’t.”
“I would.” She had that look again, the stubborn, determined expression of a fierce will.
Wolf got to his feet. “All right. I’ll take you home.” He went into his bedroom and several minutes later reappeared with a small shaving kit in his hand and a change of clothes slung over his shoulder. He knocked briefly on Joe’s door as he passed it. “I’ll be home in the morning.”
The door opened. Joe was barefoot and shirtless, having been preparing to take a shower. “Okay. Are you going to take her to school, or do you want me to?”
“I don’t need anyone to take me to work,” Mary interrupted.
“That’s tough.” Wolf turned back to his son. “Baugh is bringing a couple of horses up in the morning, so I’ll have to be here. You take her to school, and I’ll get her in the afternoon.”
“I’m driving my own car, and you can’t stop me!”
“That’s okay. You’ll just have an escort.” Wolf crossed the floor to her and took her arm. “Ready?”
Realizing that he’d made up his mind and there wasn’t anything she could do about it, Mary walked with him out to the truck. The night air was growing cold, but his big body radiated heat, and she moved closer to him. As soon as they were in the truck, he roughly took her in his arms and bent his head to hers. She opened her mouth beneath his onslaught and thrust her fingers into his thick hair. The warm taste of his mouth filled her; the pressure of his arms around her rib cage, of his hard-muscled chest on her breasts, drugged her more surely than any sedative. If he had pulled her down onto the seat and taken her right then, she wouldn’t have objected.
As it was, when he put her from him, her entire body was throbbing. She sat silently on the drive down the mountain, thinking of their lovemaking that morning, aching for it to be repeated. A thought echoed in her mind: so this was what it meant to be a woman.
Woodrow was waiting patiently on the back doorstep. Mary fed him—her!—while Wolf showered and shaved. He didn’t have a heavy beard, but two days’ growth had darkened his jaw, and her face burned a little from contact with his when they had kissed. She felt that deep, almost painful sense of waiting again as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
He silently entered and stood for a moment watching her before she sensed his presence and turned. “The shower’s yours.”
He was naked, and slightly damp from the humidity in the bathroom. His black hair glistened under the light, and glittering droplets of water were caught in the dark curls of hair on his chest. He was already aroused. The throbbing in her body became acute.
She showered, and afterward, for the first time, sprayed perfume on her pulse points. She had never bought perfume in her life, but luckily one of her students in Savannah had given her the bottle for Christmas. The scent was sweetly exotic.
She opened the bathroom door, then gasped and fell back. Wolf was waiting for her in the doorway, his eyes narrow and fierce as they raked her. She had boldly left off her nightgown, and under his perusal the deep throbbing intensified. He put his big hands on her breasts and lifted them slightly so that they were plumped in his palms. Her nipples tightened even before he began rubbing them with his thumbs. Mary stood very still, her breath quick and shallow, her eyes half closed as she tried to deal with the pleasure his hands brought.
Wolf’s own eyes were narrow black slits. “I wanted to do this the day I found you on the road,” he murmured. “Such a pretty little body inside that ugly dress. I wanted to take it off of you and see you naked.”
The heat in his eyes, in his voice, made her shiver and sway toward him. He pulled her out of the doorway and into the dark hall, then put his hands on her waist and lifted her. She remembered when he had done that before and moaned even before his mouth closed over her nipple. He sucked it so strongly that her back arched, and she cried out as her legs parted and wrapped around his hips for balance. He groaned, unable to wait a minute longer. He had to get inside her or go mad. He shifted her, guided himself and entered her.
Mary shuddered, then went very still as he slowl
y pushed into her. It was even better than before. Her inner muscles gently clasped and relaxed as she accommodated him, sending waves of pleasure radiating out through her body. She clung to him, gasping. Desire worked its magic on her body, tightening some muscles, loosening others, so that she was both taut and pliable as she lifted herself, then sank back down. The effect of that small movement had both of them gasping, and Wolf shifted to brace his back against the wall. She did it again, then again. He put his hands on her buttocks to take control of the motion and began driving into her. Her skin felt on fire. She radiated heat, making her skin feel tight and smooth and so extraordinarily sensitive that she could feel each of his fingers on her bottom, the rasp of his chest hair on her breasts, the tiny nubs of his nipples, the muscled wall of his belly, the coarse hair at his groin. She could feel him deep inside her.
Her back arched, and her nerves convulsed. Wolf fought his own response, not wanting it to end so quickly, and held her until she quietened. Then he carried her into the bedroom, her legs still locked around him, and eased her down on the bed.
She swallowed and relaxed her hold on him. “You haven’t—?”
“Not yet,” he murmured, and began moving strongly into her.
She didn’t want it to end. She took his thrusts, cradled him when a harsh groan tore from his throat and the powerful shudders of completion shook him, and afterward held him as he rested on her body. She didn’t want him to withdraw, to leave her empty again. She had existed in a sort of genteel limbo all her life until she had met him and begun to live. In just a few short months he had so completely taken over the focus of her life that the years before were hazy.
He gathered himself and tried to move off her. Mary tightened her legs around him, and he grunted.
“Let me up, sweetheart. I’m too heavy for you.”
“No you aren’t,” she whispered, and kissed his throat.