He took half a step toward her, stopped, and made a strange, almost helpless gesture. "Athena. You should not have—" He shook his head, grim about the mouth. "I will take you to her."
"Miss Athena!"
Harry swept out of the hall, barely pausing to step around Morgan, and greeted Athena with a warm smile. "Welcome, welcome! Of course I have no right whatsoever to welcome you to your own home, but we are all so glad you have come. Caitlin will be pleased—"
"How is she?"
The sparkle in his eyes dimmed. "I have been worried about her, as you know, but—" He cast a wary glance back at Morgan. "Now you are here, she will surely make progress. Morgan, would you be so good as to take Miss Athena's bags to her room? Mr. Durant was quite plain that he was saving your chamber for you, my dear, as well as Mr. Munroe's, in case you should come—just as he ought, of course. Not that any of us would dream of appropriating it!" He took the handles of Athena's chair. "I confess that I feel some pity for Mr. Durant's situation. He was not at all prepared for us, even with the addition of the extra staff your good brother hired. I understand that Mr. Durant has been caretaker here for years… but even though most of the troupers are in the bunkhouse, the poor fellow has clearly not had to deal with so many guests. In spite of our efforts to help he seems… quite annoyed."
Athena remembered Mr. Durant as a nervous, efficient, but generally kind older man who had competently handled the large parties her father had given when she was a child. Prominent men and women had come from Denver to talk business or simply relax away from the city's summer heat, but that had been many years ago. Evidently Mr. Durant was out of practice.
"Don't worry, Harry. I will speak to him myself this evening."
"I am sure that he will be quite upset to have missed you—I believe he is consulting with the foreman about a shortage of provisions." Harry pushed her chair away from the door, and Athena was very much aware of Morgan gathering up the baggage and trailing along behind.
"You did not bring your maid, my dear?" Harry went on. "I know there are several young women here to clean and cook and whatnot. Perhaps one of them might attend you—"
"That will not be necessary," Athena said, wishing that she had eyes in the back of her head. "I should be staying for just a few days, and I will need only occasional assistance."
"Quite so, quite so. Nevertheless, I will see if I can locate a girl for you so that you may refresh yourself. Caitlin is sleeping at the moment, but when she wakes—" He paused halfway across the room and gazed at the great oak staircase in dismay. "Oh dear. How extraordinarily foolish of me. Your rooms are on the second floor, are they not?"
"I haven't been to Long Park many times in the past several years. Niall had meant to have an elevator installed, but it seemed unnecessary…" And he always carried me. But he isn't here. Mr. Durant isn't strong enough, and neither is Harry. That leaves—
"Morgan, if I may impose upon you once again," Harry said.
Athena held her breath. Morgan stalked up beside them, bent over Athena, and lifted her into his arms. It was not the first time he had held her so, but since the kiss—since her fantasy of walking—the act was charged with almost unbearable excitement.
And shame for her pitiful expectations.
Morgan mounted the stairs, unspeaking, while Harry puffed along at a much slower pace. "To the right," she whispered when they reached the landing. Morgan carried her to the room she indicated, balanced her weight on one arm, and used his free hand to open the door.
The room's furnishings and decorations were the frothy, unsophisticated selections of a young girl, unchanged since before the accident. Morgan hesitated when he saw the white, lace-canopied bed, and then gently set her down upon it.
She stared up at him. He stared back. The room grew very warm despite the empty fireplace. Huffing like a bellows, Harry appeared in the doorway.
"Morgan," he said between breaths. "The bags—"
Morgan backed away and fled the room. Athena pressed her hands to her face, wishing for a handful of snow to cool her flush.
"There, there, my dear girl. What is the matter?"
She tried to gather herself into a more dignified position on the bed and smiled at Harry, inviting him to sit in the delicate wicker chair at her dressing table. He closed the door, gave the chair a dubious glance and sat down cautiously. The chair creaked, but held.
"I suppose I am tired, that is all," she said. "The driver I hired was quite competent, but the wagon was not comfortable, I fear."
"Your brother does not know you have come."
"No. He's away, and I made the decision on my own." Best not to elaborate on that point; sharing such worries with Harry did neither of them any good. And there was something else that she could no longer keep to herself. "Harry… is Morgan… is he upset that I have come?"
Harry leaned forward, eliciting a groan from the chair, and clasped his hands between his knees. "My dear child," he said with uncharacteristic gravity, "How can you ask such a question?"
"He… I…" She turned her face aside. "I have never spoken of this to anyone. It feels very strange… wrong—"
"No, no. Never say so." Harry placed his hand over his heart. "I am honored beyond words that you choose to speak to me as you would to your own father. You see, I have regarded you as something of my daughter from the day we met. And Morgan is like the son I never had."
Casting discretion to the snow-laden wind, Athena met his gaze. "I loved my father very much," she said. "I still miss him dreadfully. But if I could have a second one, I would choose you."
"Thank you, my dear. Thank you." He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. "I have seen much in my time. Very little surprises me. Nothing you may say will disturb me, I assure you."
Athena swallowed. "I hardly know how to begin. Ever since I met you… the circus… I have felt as if you are a second family."
"As we have felt of you."
"And… and—" Oh, why did all eloquence desert her at times like this? Yet how often had she spoken with real intimacy to anyone, discussed anything but charitable work, social affairs, fashion, or household management? Among all the women she considered her friends, why would she never dream of confiding in them as she did this garrulous and good-hearted old man?
Because she trusted him—trusted Harry, and Caitlin, even Morgan more than she did her own kind, the very people whom she regarded as her peers.
And she was not ashamed.
"Tell me what you know of Morgan," she said in a rush. "Where he comes from, who his people were. Please, Harry. I must know."
"I have been waiting for you to ask that for quite some time, my dear. I will tell you what I know, though in many ways Morgan is as much an enigma to me as to you."
Athena hugged herself. "I know what he is. It doesn't shock me—"
"And that is why I find it so easy to love you."
The lump in Athena's throat had doubled in size. She tried, and failed, to remember when she had heard such tender words from anyone since Papa's death. "It is as if he doesn't wish to speak of his past—not his family or what he wants from life. Why, Harry? What happened to him?"
"No one knows. He came to us as a wolf pursued by hunters, and changed into a man before our eyes. Our troupe has always been a home for those who have no place in the outside world, so naturally we took him in. He felt he owed us a debt, and though he did so reluctantly, he repaid us by becoming our 'Wolf-Man' act. He was so successful in drawing audiences that he was almost entirely responsible for saving us from certain ruin. He could have left us many times, and seemed to wish to—and yet he has remained."
"He cares about you."
"Yes, though he will not willingly admit it."
"How did he live before he came to you?"
"That I know. He spent many years as a wolf, among the beasts—deliberately avoiding the haunts of men. But his reasons I cannot tell you. There is great bitterness in him, a desire to see only th
e worst in mankind."
"And you always see the best."
"I try." He studied his plump, interlaced fingers. "He will not speak of his family, except to say that he lost his parents and sister before he fled to the woods. I suspect some dark tragedy, and that he blames himself. They say there is a boy in every man, and the boy that Morgan was came to manhood in sorrow." He gave her a sad smile. "Yet there is something in him that allows one to forgive his rough nature. At heart, he is deeply generous and protects those he considers friends, even though he would deny he has any friends at all."
"And you want to help him," Athena murmured. "You want to find out why he suffers, and mend it somehow…"
"I am certain that there is only one person in the world who can bring about such healing," Harry said quietly. "The one he does not believe exists."
Athena was afraid to decipher his words. "He has never tried to talk to you, as I do now?"
"Never. But in my heart of hearts, I dare to think that he sees me, just a little, as his foster-father."
"Thank you, Harry." Despite the brevity of their conversation, Athena felt both drained and exhilarated. Harry loved Morgan. So did Caitlin. What she felt could not be so unthinkable.
But what did she feel?
"You must rest now, my dear," Harry said, rising to his feet. "I will find a maid to attend you, and inform you as soon as Caitlin is awake." He cupped the side of her face. "Sleep well, my child. And have faith."
She covered his hand with hers. "Thank you, Harry."
He opened the door and nearly tripped over the bags Morgan had left just outside. With a brief shake of his head, he lifted them one by one and set them in the room.
The ache in Athena's chest continued long after he was gone. A maid arrived within the hour to bring water for washing and help her unpack the bags. Mr. Durant, too, found time to come to her, apologetic for having neglected her but clearly overwhelmed by his additional responsibilities.
She absolved him of any need to personally look after her and arranged to have the hired girl within calling distance. She remained on the bed rather than ask Durant or some stranger to lift her in and out of her chair. Harry failed to return, and Morgan stayed away. At last she grew too sleepy to wait. The maid helped her into her nightdress, and she buried herself beneath the quilted coverlet.
Exhaustion overcame worry, and she closed her eyes. Out of the mist of half-sleep, she woke to an intense pain in her legs, so sharp and sudden that she cried aloud.
Pain in her legs. She reached down to touch them, certain she must still be dreaming. She closed her eyes again, willing herself back to sleep—but instead, she plunged into another dream, this one even more fantastic.
For she was running. Running, not on two legs, but four—running as a wolf, jaws wide to catch the falling snow. And at her side…
At her side was Morgan. Morgan as a magnificent black wolf, dwarfing her with his size and power. Yet for all his strength, she matched his blistering pace; her paws were like snowshoes, skimming over the soft quilt of fresh snow. The cold did not reach through the lush density of her coat, and her nostrils were filled with smells as rich and subtle as the colors on an artist's canvas.
They raced the wind itself, she and Morgan. And he looked sideways at her, yellow eyes brilliant with pain, and laughed. With a burst of speed, he lunged ahead of her.
She faltered. For an instant, she knew that this could not be happening, that she had no hope of catching up to him.
But Harry's gentle voice was there, inside her: "I am certain that there is only one person in the world who can bring about such healing." And she understood that she must help Morgan, though she did not know how or why; she must heal him, and heal herself as well.
Heal myself? The sheer incongruity of the thought hurled her forward, and at the same time she could feel the snowy world dissolving around her, replaced with hard-edged shadows and woven carpet.
Carpet firm and warm beneath her feet. Two feet. She could see her toes in the darkness, very white at the end of a long column of fabric. They wiggled at her.
Another cruel, intolerable jest at her expense. She looked for her bed, determined to end it.
The bed was several feet away. She would have to walk to reach it. Walking meant standing.
She was standing. Her legs hurt, oh, they hurt most terribly, the way her hands felt when they had been exposed to the cold and then held before a fire.
This was no dream.
She put her hands to her cheeks. Not a dream. Not the pain, and not the fact that her muscles were far too weak to hold her up much longer.
Impossible, her heart told her as she turned carefully toward the bed. Impossible, echoed her mind as she measured out the distance she must cover—the same distance she had traveled unconsciously only moments ago.
She began to tremble. Not only her legs, overtaxed as they were, but her entire body. It was joy. She gulped on laughter and tasted saltiness on her lips.
I can stand. I can walk. I am free.
It seemed only natural that Morgan should come then, to share her triumph. Completely right that he should walk up to her—his feet bare, trousers half-buttoned and shirt open at the neck—and kiss her.
This time… oh, yes. This time it was real.
Morgan had carried the memory of their one previous kiss for weeks, obsessed with an impulsive act he should have dismissed a moment after it was done.
Now he knew why he had been unable to forget it. Her mouth opened under his so sweetly, with such trust, that he knew she had been thinking of it, too. Wanting it as much as he did.
But it hadn't been mere desire that had driven him that final step. He had been running… running as he always did when the company of others became unbearable. Especially the company of this woman. He had found little peace in the outing, for he had not been alone.
Somehow she had followed him. He had become aware of her presence as the first hint of false dawn seared the edge of the sky, outlining the jagged, snow-topped profiles of the mountains. The silence had been absolute. One minute he ran alone, and the next he felt her by his side, a ghost-wolf, racing him as he raced his own fears.
He had known it was impossible. She was not really there. But her spirit had come to him, as the Indians said sometimes happened in the night. She had challenged him on his own ground, unafraid. And he had sensed that there was more to this vision than a dream they both shared.
As the stars faded overhead, he doubled back on his tracks and loped to the ranch, not knowing what he might find. No one stirred on the grounds or in the house when he entered it. Up the stairs he had run, soundless, to the door of Athena's room.
And there she stood—stood, in the center of the carpet, on her two legs. Her face bore the look of a startled deer. Then she began to shake, and Morgan felt the mingled fear and triumph as if it were his own.
Triumph, and pride. Pride in her, in the achievement she had made against all the odds. Deep and unexpected joy that she could be whole, and free.
He did not question. He went to her, took her in his arms, and kissed her.
This was a kiss as the other had not been—lingering, ardent, and shared with equal fervor. In it Morgan poured all the desire he had kept so tightly sealed away, unfettered by Athena's new strength.
She could do more than stand. Her arms were strong and sure about his neck. The she-wolf who had run beside him was present in full measure, and her teeth locked on his lower lip with a ferocity for which he was unprepared.
The wolf in him cried out for conquest. He explored the velvet interior of her mouth with flickers of his tongue, and then deeper thrusts. She seemed ready to devour him. If she had never kissed a man before that night in her bedchamber, she learned very quickly.
It was as much the werewolf blood that sang in her heart as it did in his own. Powerful, undeniable attraction. The wolf she could not be while bound to her chair had awakened to all the possibilities of liberation.
He gathered her thick, loose hair in his fists and pulled her head back, kissing and nipping her bared neck. She hissed with pleasure. A distant part of him wondered at so vast a change in her, and cast the thought aside.
Take her, the wolf demanded. She wants you. You want her. Nothing else matters.
No one would see. No one need know. A single frenzied coupling, and he would be gone again with none the wiser.
Gone? Did he think he could run from such a binding? Once it was done…
As if they were truly of one mind, they drew apart at the same moment. Athena was panting and flushed, her lips slightly swollen, her eyes vivid, more golden than green or brown. She swayed. He caught her again and carried her to the bed.
She lay back without protest. He could see how her legs trembled, pushed to the very edge of their strength. It was remarkable that they had supported her so long. Surely they would not have done so had she been of pure human blood.
"Morgan," she whispered. "I did it. I… stood up."
Already the kiss was relegated to the back of her thoughts. He could not blame her. He should be relieved, though his body ached and cursed him for his cowardice.
"Yes," he said. He considered the edge of the bed and chose to crouch beside it instead. "How did it happen?"
"I don't know. One moment I was dreaming, and the next—" She ran her tongue over her lower lip. Morgan winced. "I dreamed that I was running as a wolf. With you."
"I felt it," he said. "I saw you, in my mind."
"You did?" She smiled, as if she had just discovered that there was a joy greater than recovering the use of her legs. "It wasn't only a dream?"
He began to understand. She had dreamed of running, of her wolf blood carrying her to freedom, and her body had acted. It had defied the doctors and naysayers who had declared that she would never walk again… including herself. He should have sensed from the beginning that her paralysis was made up of denials and assumptions, not of a ruined body. That was why he had kissed her the first time, goaded her to defy her brother, allowed himself to get so close…
TO CATCH A WOLF Page 20