And there was always the chance, however small, that she had come.
He entered the house by a side door reserved for the servants and followed the narrow hall to the ground floor guest rooms that had been reserved for Harry, Caitlin,
Ulysses, and a few of the others. Since Morgan slept in the barn, Harry and Ulysses shared a room, while Caitlin had one to herself.
The door to Harry's room was open, releasing the smell of pipe smoke into the hall. Caitlin's door also stood ajar.
"… can think of no reason why Harry writes so incessantly unless he hopes to effect a particular response from Miss Munroe," Ulysses's voice said. "I know he is fond of the young lady, but he has never been an admirable correspondent. I am bound to conclude that you have had some influence upon him, Caitlin."
"Me? What a suspicious mind you have, Uly. Naturally Harry wants to keep her informed of—"
"The gravity of your condition? His deep concern about your state of mind and indefinite prospects for recovery?"
"Can I help it if Harry exaggerates?"
"He knows as well as I that your injury is almost healed."
"But Athena heard the doctor say it was serious. She had no reason to believe I would recover so quickly."
Morgan folded his arms and leaned against the wall just outside the room. Ulysses coughed discreetly.
"Miss Munroe is of a naturally altruistic and accommodating nature and is apt to consider the welfare of others before her own. She made certain promises to her brother as a condition of our remaining here for the winter. Have you weighed the practical consequence of fomenting domestic rebellion?"
"If you mean that Niall Munroe might not get his own way for once—"
"You may grant, Firefly, that my preference for reason over passion has given me reliable powers of observation. It is my judgement that Mr. Munroe may only be pushed so far before he pushes back."
"And it is mine that Niall is not nearly as heartless as he thinks he is."
"Your heart tells you this because you believe that you are in love with him."
Caitlin burst-out laughing. "Your almighty powers of observation, Uly? When were you ever in love?"
Ulysses was silent just a beat too long. "A man of my nature—and stature—is wisest to avoid the tender emotions and the complications that result therefrom. But I am human. I can recognize infatuation when I see it."
Morgan waited for Caitlin to deny it. When she did not, he let his hands fall to his sides and took an involuntary step toward the open door.
"I don't know," Caitlin whispered. "He and I—we have nothing in common. I'm no innocent, Uly. I am much older than I look. I know that Niall Munroe is a man—only a man—and I will not let him destroy the lives of the people I care about."
"Athena and Morgan."
"And you, and Harry, and the others. All we need do is get through this winter, and our luck will change for good. I know it."
Ulysses sighed, and his feet rapped on the floor as he hopped from his seat. "I have no right to tell you what you should or should not do," he said. "It is even possible that your faith and loyalty will prove more formidable than the untrammeled wealth and power of a man like Munroe. But be careful. Devotion exacts a heavy price."
Morgan stepped aside as Ulysses walked through the door. The dwarf paused, looked up at Morgan, and gently closed the door behind him.
"I will not ask if you overheard our discussion," he said.
"What is this about letters to Athena?" Morgan demanded.
"That you must ask Caitlin. I see that you have decided to remain with us another day."
"What makes you think I was planning to leave?"
"It has never been a question of if you would go, but when. It is not loyalty to the troupe that keeps you here."
"You shouldn't listen to Caitlin's wild fancies."
"Are they so improbable?" Ulysses glanced toward the closed door. "Miss Munroe did not seem, at first glance, to match Caitlin's strength of will. It has been brought to my attention that first impressions are deceiving." He turned toward the room he shared with Harry. "Do not be too severe upon the girl. If you find yourself with a desire for rational conversation, you know where to find me."
Unmollified, Morgan strode into Caitlin's room. She looked unsurprised to see him. Her lids fell halfway over her eyes.
"Hello, Morgan," she said weakly. "How was your run?"
"Are you in love with Munroe?"
"We've had this conversation before. I could ask the same—"
"I do not love Athena Munroe!"
His roar bounced about the room. The corners of Caitlin's lips curled up in satisfaction.
"Then why don't you leave?" she asked. "Athena may arrive any time."
"She is not coming here."
"Are you so sure?"
"What have you and Harry been doing?"
Caitlin examined her nails. "Oh, nothing. Athena has been worried about me, so we've been—"
"Lying. Telling her you're worse than you are. Caitlin—"
"You had better not growl at Athena the way you do at me. She's likely to growl back."
Morgan froze. "What do you mean by that?"
"Women in love can be very fierce creatures."
"She is not—"
"I know, I know. She is not in love with you." She rolled her eyes. "And you haven't been stomping about the place like a bilious bull because Athena is out of your reach."
Morgan stepped back from the bed. "Do you think she binds me here, Firefly? Do you think I couldn't leave now and never look back?"
"I think you could try. But I hope you will not, my friend."
As she had done many times before—as only she and Athena, had the power to do—she left him silent. Caitlin was like the hare that he had neatly caught and released out of maudlin sentimentality. Like a lesser wolf in the pack whom he had failed to teach its place. She and Athena could twist him round and round their fingers, spinning him this way and that until he didn't know east from west or sky from earth.
Athena. When she looked into his eyes with that slight lift of her chin and that warmth in her hazel eyes, he almost forgot why he wanted to run.
"After all these months," Caitlin said softly, "I still don't know where you come from, or why you were hiding as a wolf in the wilderness. I know you were hiding—we all are, one way or another."
"You are wrong. I was free. The only kind of freedom worth having."
"Free from ties to other people. That is it, isn't it? It's what you've always been most afraid of. Owing us for saving your life. Making friends even when you didn't want to. Athena increases your dilemma a thousandfold."
"I choose my own path."
"I wonder if any of us do." She frowned at the bare toes that protruded from the cast on her leg. "Something happened to you, Morgan. Something bad enough that you never wanted to risk it happening again. People you cared about—they got hurt, or they hurt you. Ulysses's own family drove him out because he couldn't possibly be a true Wakefield looking the way he does. But he still writes to them, hoping to be reconciled." She looked up. "I know it's difficult to keep hoping when you don't want to. Love is the worst of all, because it's like a lantern shining on everything you don't want to see. Or remember."
Morgan clenched his fist around the top of the bedpost. "I don't like you as a philosopher, Firefly."
"I don't think I do, either." She laughed. "That's what happens when you are stuck in a bed listening to Ulysses read from musty old books written by dead Greeks and Romans."
The room around Morgan changed, its cheerful yellow walls closing in to become a gray, crumbling cell. "The dead should be forgotten."
"No one should be forgotten."
"You live in a dream, Firefly."
"And you, Morgan? Have you forgotten what it is to dream?"
Morgan released his aching fingers from the bedpost. "Men dream. Wolves do not. I know which is better off."
"We fool ours
elves," she said. "I pretend just as much as you do that nothing really matters. At least I know I'm pretending."
"Then you know that Niall Munroe cares nothing for you," Morgan said cruelly. "He may take your body if you offer it, as he would from any whore."
"Perhaps I'll choose to give it to him. Have you forgotten the pleasures of the body, Morgan? Oh, no—I do remember you have enjoyed Tamar's company from time to time. She must be very skilled, and she knows exactly what she wants. Athena is only half a woman, isn't she?"
Her words slashed at Morgan from heart to belly. "Athena—" he began, choking, "Athena is… more than a woman. More than you can—" He broke off, breathing hard. Caitlin stared at him, her freckles as lurid as wagon paint.
A light tap came on the door. Harry stepped in, oblivious, filling the room with his voluble and sunny presence.
"Ah, Morgan, my boy. Ulysses said I would find you here. Caitlin, how are you on this very fine afternoon?"
"Isn't it snowing outside?" Caitlin asked, craning her head toward the lace-curtained window.
"So it is, so it is. But that should not dampen our pleasure in a most unexpected visit. One of the ranch hands just came to report a wagon coming up the lane. Some hired conveyance and driver, no doubt, for these mountain passes." He rubbed his hands. "Is it not wonderful news, Morgan? Our very own Miss Athena has come at last."
Chapter 14
Morgan stood toe to toe with Harry, looking down a full foot at the older man. "You brought her here," he accused. "You and Caitlin."
Harry's brows arched toward the ceiling. "Why, my boy, this is her property, after all!"
Morgan growled and walked around him. His heart sent jolts of lightning up and down his body with every beat. Had he not been waiting every day for this? Had he not sensed, deep in his soul, that she could not stay away any more than he could stop thinking about her?
But Harry and Caitlin had arranged this between them, played with his life and Athena's as if they were ivory pieces on Harry's chessboard. Morgan wouldn't have been astonished if Caitlin had planned her own injury, just to push him and Athena together.
But he could refuse to play by the rules they had set.
A cool, supple body blocked his path. If he had not been so preoccupied, he would have smelled Tamar a mile away, and avoided her.
"My wolf," she said. "What makes you frown so? Have the hunters set one too many traps for your liking?" She smiled, and he was driven back to the memory of kissing those lips, holding that willing body against him in the night.
He could have had her a thousand times since, if he had so much as looked at her. But he had kissed Athena. One kiss, lacking even the most basic intimacies of the flesh, and he was ruined for the taste of another mouth.
Tamar could have taken any number of lovers in the troupe, for all her strangeness. Instead, she chose to pursue him. She had schemed her way into one of the rooms in the main house, and had become impossible to avoid completely. Morgan had finally realized that she believed she had some claim on him because of their brief liaison.
Why, he did not understand. He had offered her nothing. Whatever ambition lay behind her calculating eyes, he could not fulfill it. Her beauty was like a jungle flower he had heard of, intoxicating to look at but thick with the smell of rotten meat.
"Yes," he said. "Too many traps." He tried to pass, but she held out an arm to stop him. She had great strength for a woman, coiled and always lying in wait.
"You will never have her," she said. The very calmness of her voice set his hair on end. "She would spit on you, my wolf, like all gadje."
"Do not speak of her, Tamar."
"Ah, the fierce growl." She laughed softly. "Why should I not speak of her? The others do. They all love her, the little helpless one." She drew her long nail down his cheek. "Do you love her, too? Do you dream of her useless legs coming to life and wrapping around you in the night? Do you imagine living in her big house in the city, with a fine lady's golden collar about your neck, or do you think she will follow you to rut in the woods like a beast?"
He grasped her wrist and pulled it away. "No."
"Men are children," she said in that same calm, passionless voice. "They want only what they cannot have or what will make them sick in the belly. She will make you sick. And when you have need of the cure, come to me."
She left him, gliding away without a single seductive glance. And a strange sensation washed through him, startling in its truth.
He was sorry for Tamar. He pitied her and her inexplicable obsession with him. He wondered what had made her what she was, and why she saw in him, of all men, a cure for her private pain.
Was this what humans called compassion? Had Athena taught him its meaning?
He wanted no part of it. He began to walk again, hardly knowing which direction he was headed. Tamar was just like the others, aiming to bend him to her desires.
He found himself at the end of the hall, where it opened up into the great parlor. The place echoed with emptiness, not quite as grand as the public rooms of Athena's Denver home, but large enough to hold a pair of average cabins or an ordinary farmhouse within its high walls. The wooden floor and rustic embellishments did little to make it seem less palatial. Padded and polished furniture was grouped around sumptuous woven carpets and a thick bearskin rug. The hearth was immense, its perpetual blaze constantly fed with the trunks of small trees.
The parlor's door stood open to the entrance hall. Snow blew in from the outer doors. Athena wheeled in, one of the ranch hands behind her with a pair of carpetbags.
Athena loosened the collar of her thick wool coat. "Please set the bags down anywhere, Sterling," she said to the hand. "I would appreciate it if you will make sure that my driver is given a meal and a bed for the night."
"I'll do my best, Miss Athena," Sterling said, dropping the bags onto the floor, "but it's mighty crowded here what with the circus folk and all. The foreman ain't none too happy with the tight quarters at the bunkhouse and them trick horses in the barn, and I hear Mr. Durant is thinking of quitting—begging your pardon, ma'am."
Athena smiled, tugging at her gloves. "Poor Mr. Durant. For many years all he has done is keep the house in readiness for guests that seldom arrive. I will be certain to tell him and the foreman that they will be very well compensa—"
She saw Morgan and stopped. Morgan was vaguely aware that Sterling had vacated the room, leaving them alone. Athena continued to stare, her lips slightly parted, and Morgan felt as if he had been shot, skinned, and hung on the wall for a trophy.
He had told Caitlin that he could leave any time and never look back. He had lied. He could not make himself move a single step away from the woman across the room.
"Morgan," she whispered.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, the old saw proclaimed. Now Athena understood exactly what it meant. One look at Morgan, standing so still by the hall, and she knew her coming had been inevitable. One breath of the air he breathed, and she wondered how her heart had continued to beat in the cold void of their separation.
A thrill of almost painful sensation shot up her legs from heel to hip. Morgan's eyes burned, compelling her. Commanding.
Come. Come to me.
It was as if he had been calling every moment of the past five weeks, and only now did she truly hear him. Her fingers clutched at the arms of her chair. The muscles in her legs, so long dormant, began to quiver and twitch.
Come. He smiled, lifting the burden of her fear. He held out his hand.
Come.
Athena pressed all of her weight onto her arms and pushed up. Her feet touched the floor. Her knees quivered, but only for a moment. Then they locked, steadying her, and she rose. Slowly, carefully she stood up, the chair at her back, and swayed from the dizzying height of her own five and a half feet.
She had no time to contemplate the miracle. Morgan summoned her, his eyes ever more demanding, his fingers curled to beckon. She slid one foot along the smo
oth wooden floor. The second followed the first.
One step taken. Another. A third. She dared to look up from the ground again. Morgan's eyes flashed triumph and pride—for her. But he waited—waited until she had taken all the steps between them and only one more led directly into his arms.
She made it. She reached up and wrapped her arms about his shoulders—not for support, not out of need, but because she wanted him. With her own strength she drew his face to hers. She opened her mouth and inhaled the warmth of his breath.
And she kissed him. She kissed him, free to make that choice as she was free to stand and walk and feel again.
Morgan's mouth opened over hers, seizing what she offered. Some great mystery waited to be revealed in his embrace, a tale only he could illustrate with his lips and his tongue. She felt its erotic promise all the way down to her toes.
Let it not end too quickly. Let it never end…
"Athena."
Something was wrong with Morgan's voice. She opened her eyes, and the shock of reality flung her back into her chair.
The chair she had never left. She was not on her feet, not in Morgan's arms. She remained exactly where Sterling had left her, and Morgan still waited by the hall.
All a dream. All a cruel, treacherous fantasy concocted by her addled mind. She could have wept, but many years of practice had taught her how to swallow the tears.
You forgot why you are here. You saw Morgan, and everything else disappeared, even Caitlin. This is your rightful punishment for such base selfishness.
Punishment, and a stark reminder that Morgan was not what her childish dreams made of him.
"Athena," he said. His eyes were not welcoming, but wary. "Are you ill?"
"No." She managed a smile. "I am quite well. How is Caitlin? I have come to make sure she is recovering as she should."
"You came here without your brother's permission?"
She couldn't tell if it was censure or admiration she heard in his voice. Hadn't he encouraged her to defy her brother in the past? "Niall is away on business." She lifted her chin. "Will you show me to Caitlin's room?"
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