Call of the White Wolf

by Carol Finch

  “How is dinner coming along?” John asked the girls, without taking his eyes off Tara.

  “Thirty minutes,” Maureen predicted. “C’mon, Flora, we don’t want our part of the meal to burn on the stove.”

  When the children resumed their tasks, Tara forced herself to glance away from John. Staring too long into those silvery pools surrounded by long thick lashes gave her strange, tingling sensations. If she wasn’t careful she might get lost in those hypnotic eyes. They were entirely too magnetic, too entrancing, too overpowering.

  “So…what do you suggest I do to alleviate this situation that has developed with Samuel and Derek?” Tara asked.

  “Pretend to show interest elsewhere,” he replied.

  His husky voice drew her gaze. Mistake. Big mistake. He was watching her in that unique, soul-searching way that sent all sorts of warm ripples undulating through her body. Mercy, she was exceptionally aware of John Wolfe. Tara wondered if the Apache had a medicinal herb to cure infatuation. If so, she needed it—desperately.

  “You could use me,” he murmured. “After all, I owe you a favor.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Tara tweeted, then was startled by the strangled sound of her voice.

  “Why not?”

  “If you don’t know the answer to that then your instincts and your Apache training have failed you.”

  Tara wheeled around to seek shelter in the house. Behind her she heard a bark of laughter, not unlike the hysterical fit she’d pitched that morning. Also behind her she heard Cal say, “Oh no, now John has turned into a hyena!”

  John knew he was being ignored by Tara at supper, which turned out to be an exceptional feast. The rabbit meat was tender and juicy. The vegetables, seasoned with mesquite seeds, had a marvelous flavor. While the children chatted on—and on—about their survival excursion, Tara stared at her plate and ate her meal in silence.

  All right, so John knew that crack he’d made about using him to discourage the boys’ amorous interests was way out of line—and too dangerous for his own good. And certainly, he’d told himself several times not to become attached to Tara. But hell, he was, damn it! She didn’t seem to have a clue about how attractive she was, especially in those trim-fitting breeches and shirts that accentuated every alluring curve and swell. She seemed to think that because she was a woman, with all the necessary body parts, a man would regard her as nothing more than a possession to be used for his lusty purposes. She didn’t seem to realize that it was her personality and character, as well as her ravishing good looks, that attracted male interest.

  Why get into this? John asked himself as he chewed on the medley of wild vegetables. He was going to be the perfect gentleman while he shared the same space with Tara. He’d be gone soon and he didn’t want to hurt her in any way. She’d be hurt if he did something really stupid like…oh, say, forge a physical liaison.

  If he felt the urge to satisfy an itch, then he could get himself into Rambler Springs to find a woman who made her living appeasing men. He’d made a pact to keep his hands off Tara, no matter how tempting she was. Furthermore, she’d find her own way to resolve the male rivalry going on between Samuel and Derek, without breaking their tender young hearts.

  And so, being ignored as he was by Tara, he was thunderstruck when she pushed away from the table, came to her feet, strode to the head of the table where he was sitting and planted a kiss on his lips—right in front of five startled children, God and every deity known to the Apache nation. True, it wasn’t much of a kiss, as kisses went, yet the feel of her soft lips melting upon his sent his male body into a slow burn—and left him burning long after she withdrew. John struggled to draw a breath that wasn’t thick with her fresh, clean, alluring scent.

  “Good night, John dear. I have some sewing to do before I go to bed.” She glanced surreptitiously at Samuel and Derek, whose eyes were bulging and whose jaws were scraping the table. “Somebody around here ripped their shirts during the Battle of Paradise Valley, and I’m the one who has to stitch the fabric back together.”

  No one uttered a word. No one moved until Tara exited the room to retrieve her sewing kit, then reversed direction to breeze out the front door. Just as John predicted, all goggle-eyed gazes zeroed in on him.

  “How come you kissed Tara when I’m the one who loves you and told you so, huh?” Flora demanded that very second.

  “She kissed me,” John corrected.

  “I never saw Tara kiss anybody on the mouth before,” Calvin said.

  Samuel and Derek slouched down, as if their breath had been knocked clean out of them. Maureen slumped in her chair, staring at him as if he’d just broken her heart in about a million pieces. John had the uneasy feeling he had a silent admirer. Well damn, he was as oblivious as Tara, who hadn’t realized Samuel and Derek were infatuated with her.

  And Tara, damn her ornery hide, had dropped a live grenade in his lap, then walked off, leaving him to answer awkward questions. He ought to storm outside and shake the living daylights out of her for that.

  John sat there, wondering how to extricate himself from this situation, then decided changing the subject was the best strategy he could come up with. “While you children are clearing the table, I’m going to brew a poultice to pack on my wounds.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t going to go outside to kiss Tara again?” Flora asked suspiciously. “Maureen says that’s how people make babies.”

  “Flora! Shut your flapping jaws!” Maureen shrieked, humiliated.

  Calvin blinked. “We’re gonna have more babies around here?”

  Damn, could this situation get any worse? John wondered. Strangling Tara for her mischief was becoming more appealing by the second.

  “Babies don’t come from kissing,” Samuel told Maureen, whose face had turned the color of cooked beets. “Damn, don’t you know anything?”

  John’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. He stared nonplussed at Samuel, then tried to speak, but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  “Tara said not to curse in front of the children,” Derek scolded. “And what do you know about making babies, anyway?”

  Flora glanced up at John. “Where do babies come—?”

  John flung up both hands to forestall the barrage of questions he didn’t want to answer. “Enough! We’ll discuss this later.” In about a hundred years, if he had his way about it!

  “You mean tomorrow while we’re on another survival excursion?”

  Leave it to little Flora to pin him down, he thought in dismay. “Yeah, sure. That’d be good.”

  Samuel and Derek perked up immediately. John wanted to swear, but there’d been enough of that already. Apparently, Maureen had recovered from her humiliation, for she was staring curiously at him, as if she had a million questions to ask on the subject of the birds and bees. Hell!

  John got up, limped out the door and went looking for Tara. He found her perched on a quilt, taking advantage of the last rays of sunset. Her nimble fingers flew over the rips in Samuel and Derek’s grass-stained shirts.

  “You, Irish, have a devilish sense of humor,” John muttered.

  She glanced up, grinning elfishly. “Oh, are you referring to that kiss I bestowed on you at the table?”

  “Hell, yes, damn it,” he snapped. “Next thing I knew Flora was spouting off that she’s the one who loves me, and then she wanted to know if kissing is what makes babies.”

  He could see Tara battling back a giggle. He wished he was in possession of a chain—one size smaller than the swanlike column of her neck.

  “Is it?” she asked, eyes glinting with humor.

  John was so exasperated that he found his train of thought derailed. “Is it what?” he asked, befuddled.

  “Is kissing what makes babies?”

  John rolled his eyes when she cackled and flung herself back on the quilt to bust a gut laughing—at his expense, damn her.

  “Hell’s bells, Irish, I don’t know how to ha
ndle these kids,” he grumbled, exasperated.

  “You were doing a grand job this afternoon,” she said between snickers.

  “Survival training I can handle. Discussions on sex I cannot. You pull another stunt like that and I’ll have your scalp, hear me?” He bared his teeth for effect—not that it did a damn bit of good. And that irritated him, too, because he knew for a fact that he could freeze outlaws in their tracks with his steely-eyed glare. It was one of his finest trademarks. Unfortunately, Tara seemed to be immune to it.

  She levered herself upright, wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes and retrieved her discarded needle. “Well, you asked for it.”

  “I most certainly did not!” he all but shouted at her.

  Eyes dancing with mischief, she peered up at him. “Did, too. You told me to use you to discourage Samuel and Derek, because according to you, they’re suffering bouts of puppy love.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to kiss me at the blasted table,” he exclaimed.

  “What good would it do to kiss you in private?” she asked reasonably. “That would defeat the whole purpose of letting the boys know my interest lies elsewhere.”

  “With that piddly peck on the mouth?” he said, then smirked.

  “What was wrong with my kiss?” she demanded, offended.

  He swooped down and hoisted her to her feet. Then he bent her over backward and gave her a kiss that was part frustration, part hungry need, part revenge…well, whatever. He couldn’t calculate fractions when his brain shut down the instant he tasted her deeply, felt her supple body pressed intimately against his masculine contours. His heart slammed against his tender ribs when she responded rather than shoving him away—which was what she should’ve done if she’d had a lick of sense.

  Before some insanely curious kid came bursting through the front door, asking the kind of questions that John didn’t want to answer, he hauled Tara upright and stepped away from her. He enjoyed a smidgen of satisfaction when her legs folded up like a tent and she landed in a tangled heap at his feet. Well, good. He was glad to know he wasn’t the only one around here who came unwound because of the mind-boggling sensations ignited by that kiss.

  “And that, Irish,” he said, striving for a steady—and yes, he’d admit it—arrogant tone of voice, “is the kind of kiss that’ll work as effectively as leaving your horse tied up for four days in front of a wickiup. But don’t even think about giving me another one like that in front of those kids without granting me fair warning. And next time, if there’s a next time, I’m going to be the one who walks off and leaves you to field their unnerving questions. You got that, Irish?”

  John leaned on his crutch and hobbled off. He was going to stir up a sure-cure poultice that would heal his wounds so he could get the hell out of Paradise Valley while the getting was still good. And maybe he’d whip up an antiaphrodisiac while he was at it. He was in dire need of a strong, fast-acting potion to counter the ungovernable cravings that kissing this green-eyed leprechaun aroused in him.

  Gawd, thought John. He didn’t even want to think what would happen to him if he actually kissed that woman for no other reason than to appease his pure, pulse-pounding desire. He’d kissed her once to counter the maddening pain. She’d kissed him once for show, then he’d kissed her in frustrated anger. Yet the effects were pretty much the same—devastating. There was not going to be a fourth kiss, because, damn it all, he just wasn’t sure he could handle that kind of physical and emotional suicide! The woman was so potent that she left his head spinning!

  John staggered off, and he couldn’t remember where the hell he’d been intent on going when he left her lying there, staring up at him with those kiss-swollen lips and passion-drugged eyes that were more compelling than a siren’s spell.

  He definitely needed to find someplace to cool off.

  Chapter Five

  Tara’s hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t sew a straight stitch. Her mind was whirling like a cyclone and her body was buzzing with white-hot sensations. For goodness sake! Being kissed—really kissed—by John Wolfe was like nothing she’d ever experienced. She should’ve known that when he got serious about kissing he’d be intense….

  And why’d he have to go and do that, anyway? The kiss she’d given him at the table was quite enough to heighten her awareness of him and to discourage two smitten teenagers. Tara had seen her opportunity and she’d taken it. How was she to know the children would bombard John with embarrassing questions? Well, she certainly wasn’t to blame for that, was she?

  It took considerable effort for Tara to get herself under control and concentrate on mending the garments. She drew in another fortifying breath and tried to block that amazing, spellbinding kiss from her mind. Things were getting out of hand between John and her. It was one thing to deal with him while he was flat on his back, helpless and overcome with pain. It was something else entirely to deal with him as a virile, dynamic man. Tara was definitely going to have to establish some ground rules around here. Sort of like how he claimed the Apache culture dealt with tricky situations so everyone knew how to act and react.

  When the mending was completed Tara entered the house, to see that the children had washed the dishes and put them away. Flora and Calvin had left the cabin to walk the lambs. Maureen had buried her nose in a book, and Samuel and Derek cast her deflated glances, then focused their rivalry on a checkerboard.

  Tara put away her sewing kit, then paced the bedroom from wall to wall, trying to decide how to go about calling a truce with John. They had to reach a working arrangement so she could settle back into her normal routine with the children. Well, except for that smitten business with the boys. Tara wanted them to think of her as an older sister, not a potential sweetheart.

  The boys obviously needed to meet girls their own age. A trip to town was in order, she decided.

  Tara sighed heavily, then plunked down on the edge of her bed. She supposed this complication with John was mostly her fault. He’d assured her, after their first kiss, that it wouldn’t happen again. She’d initiated the second one. And no matter what her reasons, the second kiss had led to that third scorching kiss, which made her burn in places she hadn’t been aware she had!

  Well, she’d strive to reestablish the camaraderie and friendship they’d enjoyed the past week. They’d be honest and direct with each other. They’d avoid touching, and she’d try very hard not to get lost in the depths of his stunning eyes. Yes, that’d be a good place to start, she decided. Not touching. Not staring.

  Tara came to her feet and squared her shoulders. Things were most definitely going to return to normal around here. For the children’s sake, she didn’t want tension flowing between John and her. The children needed security, stability and harmony. Her whimsical feminine desires weren’t going to interfere with what was best for the children.

  The night she’d fled from Texas she’d made a solemn pact with herself that she’d never ask for more than a home to call her own. She’d dedicated her life to providing for these children no one else wanted—except perhaps to overwork or enslave. But Tara wanted these children. No matter what their strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities, they were her family to keep, and she’d asked the Lord above for nothing more than that. She couldn’t change the rules now. She and the Almighty had made a pact and she meant to keep it.

  John was relieved to see that the poultice he’d smeared on his ribs and thigh showed immediate results. In fact, he could put limited weight on his leg without burning pain spreading in all directions. The long soakings he’d been taking in the springs also contributed to his recovery. The only thing making him uncomfortable was the anticipation of that dreaded discussion on the facts of life he’d promised the children.

  Two days earlier, a thunderstorm that began in the afternoon and lasted all night had provided the perfect excuse to postpone the hike with the children through the canyon. Like a coward—and he’d never considered him to be one before—he’d feigned
the need for rest and had closeted himself in the bedroom, hoping Flora and Cal wouldn’t intrude to fire all sorts of embarrassing questions he didn’t want to answer.

  That night, while thunder rolled and lightning crackled, Flora and Maureen had scurried into his room like frightened mice and snuggled up on the bed so they could be near him while he slept on the pallet. It hit him right where he lived that these little girls felt they could come to him for comfort and protection. Damn, how was he supposed to keep his emotional distance when these kids kept boring into his heart like worms into a blasted apple?

  Tara had left John pretty much to himself the previous day, and she’d rattled off dozens of chores to keep the children occupied in the house, barn and root cellar. John discovered that she conducted reading and arithmetic classes for the children three days a week, regular as clockwork.

  John had heard the boys object, claiming they already had more education than they needed, thank you very much, but Tara would hear none of their grumbling. Clever as she was, she’d requested that the older boys tutor Flora and Calvin, then had presented them with reading material and math problems that challenged their adolescent minds.

  John had noticed the previous evening, while he was brushing down his stallion, Pie, that Samuel and Derek had withdrawn from him and had very little to say in his presence. It didn’t take a genius to realize Tara’s kiss at the table had had the desired effect. Now, however, the boys perceived John as a rival for Tara’s affection. It’d take some doing to return to their good graces, he predicted.

  Limping along on his quest to gather fresh herbs for a salve and poultice, he heard the hum of a human voice near the bathtub-size spring beside the south canyon wall. Crouching down—well, as close to a crouch as he could manage with his gimpy leg—he peered through the underbrush…and nearly swallowed his tongue. Damn, he’d assumed Tara was at the cabin, supervising the children’s chores. Unfortunately, here she was, sprawled naked in the springs. Her back was to him, her head tilted upward. Sun rays danced in her glorious mane of red-gold hair.