by T. S. Joyce
“I’m Lorelei Dawson,” said the quieter woman with a shy curtsy.
“What the hell?” I breathed. “You boys got yourselves hitched?”
Luke chuckled deep in his throat. “You should see your face right now. You look like a slack-jawed idiot.”
Lucianna had stepped away during the chaos but I pulled her to me. “Ladies, this is my woman, Lucianna.”
They didn’t hesitate with hugs for my surprised mate.
“Do they know?” I mouthed to Jeremiah.
He nodded. “Things have changed around here.”
I’d say.
The women tugged Lucianna toward the old general store while Kristina chattered on and on about, “Gable looks like he just hitched a train from the mouth of hell, and you look so pretty you could’ve just fell from heaven. What a striking couple you make!”
“We’re going to buy her a few things,” Lorelei said over her shoulder.
My mouth was still hanging open and I snapped it closed before a horsefly got a wise idea.
“We’ll be in there to pay in a little bit,” Luke called. “Come on. You need a horse.”
“Lucianna needs one, too.”
Luke sucked air in through his teeth. “You should ask her what kind she fancies before you start making purchases.”
“What? A horse is a horse. Good teeth and a strong hoof and back are what she needs.”
Jeremiah patted the back of a fancy blue-eyed, painted Indian horse. “Yep, I made the mistake of buying Lorelei a boring horse before I asked her opinion and she wouldn’t have it.”
I pointed to the red mare with the blanket of unusual polka dots across her flank. “Kristina’s?”
“Yeeep,” Luke drawled.
“Fine,” I said, defeated.
The women were in the midst of looking through a rack of ready-made dresses when I came in. “Luc,” I said softly.
She held up a yellow dress and turned at the sound of her name on my lips. The way the morning light hit the green in her eyes made my heart miss a beat or two.
“What color horse you want?”
“Wise man,” Kristina said through a knowing grin.
“I don’t care about the color, Gable. Just get me the oldest, most docile horse you can find.”
I snorted. Of course. I shook my head and bid them ado.
“What’d she say?” Jeremiah asked when I headed to the blacksmith’s barn.
“She don’t care so long as he’s about to keel over dead. She don’t like horses none too much.”
Jeremiah’s dark eyes, so much like Da’s, were steady and serious. “Why’s she limping so badly?”
The question caught me off guard. I suppose I’d become used to her broken gait. Honestly, come to think of it, I hadn’t even noticed her scars last night. I sighed and rubbed the smoothness of my jaw. “Need to talk to you boys about a few things.”
We leaned up against the blacksmith’s corral in the dusty morning light and watched a rowdy trio of stallion colts play fight. “A man, Ralston Bastrop, is after her. He’s insane. He ordered her family killed and I walked in on the massacre. Found Lucianna shielding her baby brother’s body with her own and she’d been shot clean through. Peppered with bullets. Nobody lived but her.”
Matching fury flared in my brother’s eyes. “Shit,” Luke spat.
“He’s got eyes everywhere in England and it was close on getting her to America. She’s been through it.”
“Strong little woman you got yourself there, Gable.”
“You don’t know the half of it. She figured out what I was last night and didn’t even bat an eyelash. She’s tough, sure, but she ain’t invincible. He’ll catch up sooner or later. I didn’t know you had families to care for, and if my nose isn’t messed up, I’d say Lorelei has a little wolf pup in her belly.” At a nod from Jeremiah, I continued. “I brought her here to beg your help, but it’s different now that you have wives of your own to protect. She brings danger.”
Jeremiah looked downright haunted when he spoke. “We didn’t come by our wives easy either. We’ve had to fight tooth and nail and almost died trying to keep them. Lucianna’s one of us now. We don’t abandon pack. We don’t abandon family. If Bastrop comes, he’s gonna have to go through hell to get to her.”
I looked down at the ground to shield my wolf’s reaction to me reliving some of Lucianna’s struggles but it didn’t hide anything. Not from my brothers.
“You got a problem with your wolf now,” Luke said. “You don’t smell like a man at all anymore. Is it permanent?”
“I don’t know. I can’t stay human for very long these days.”
Jeremiah clapped me on the back. “Let her heal you and your wolf. I was as bad off as you after Anna died, but Lorelei put me back together again.”
I’d only met Anna once before I left for the war, but I knew her loss had resonated through our crippled pack in my absence. I thought about losing Lucianna and swallowed hard. I didn’t know how Jeremiah was still standing. I was grit for leaving them to deal with the aftermath of something that heavy on their own. I had to know. “How’d she die?”
“Hunters tortured her because of what we are,” Luke said. “They used her blood to draw us in.”
Bile rose in my throat as my chest ached for the loss of a family member. Even if I’d barely known her, death was a scar a pack carried forever. “Da told me you met some Hell Hunters.”
“Ha,” Luke said stretching his neck to show me a clearly defined hanging scar. “That was a totally different adventure. We’re still recovering from the last fight.”
“Is that what happened to Kristina’s neck?” Oh, I hadn’t missed the maiming burns that covered one side. No one could.
Luke smiled sadly. “I got me a strong woman, too.”
I cursed softly and pulled my hat on. A woman had to be strong to handle the violence and chaos of living with werewolves. “That’s my horse.” I pointed to a deep chestnut with long legs. He looked fast as a whip crack and something told me I’d need his speed sooner rather than later.
“Great,” Jeremiah grumbled. “Another stallion to keep separated.”
“That one looks nearly deceased,” Luke said, jabbing a finger at a white and gray dappled filly tied to a post and waiting on shoes.
“Let’s go see if she’s for sale.”
Beufort Wheaton had been the blacksmith in this town for as long as I could remember. It was no surprise that the hunchbacked old man was still working away. That man was tougher than a badger in a hornets nest. I was highly suspicious he would actually live forever.
“The Gable has finally returned,” he crowed when he saw me.
I really hated that nickname. “How you been, old man?”
He dropped a red hot horseshoe into a bucket of water and it hissed and steamed in an effort to cool the metal. “Fine, fine, what can I do you for?”
I pointed to the chestnut stallion. “Wanted to know what you’re asking for him right there.”
“Four dollars,” he said without missing a beat.
“Are we going to play this game all day, Beufort?” Luke asked. “Just give us a fair price and we’ll pay it.”
While they haggled, I pulled back the lips of the docile filly. She wasn’t as old as I’d thought. She didn’t even balk at me checking her teeth. Instead she swatted lazily at a fly with her tail and propped her back leg up in relaxation. A lazy personality was likely her problem. “You selling this mare?”
The old man’s eyes glistened with intelligence. “Well, I was set on keepin’ her for my wife.”
“Buefort,” Luke said tiredly. “You’re wife died fifteen years ago.”
Buefort squinted his eyes testily at my brother and said, “But I can see parting with her for four dollars.”
“Dammit, Buefort,” Luke hollered.
I couldn’t help the chuckle that bubbled forth from my throat. He shouldn’t be encouraged but it felt so damned good to be arguing prices wi
th that burly old blacksmith again like nothin’ had changed.
With the horses saddled, we made our way back to the general store, dragging the reins behind. Lucianna limped out of the general store with an armload of goods and Luke hopped the stairs to pay.
“The crops and herd pay well last year?” I asked. Jeremiah didn’t miss it. What I’d really asked was, where’s all the money coming from?
“We turned lawmen for a spell to repay the sheriff for helping us with the Hell Hunters.” His eyebrows waggled. “We collected bounties.” He took a wrapped paper package from Lorelei and kissed her on the cheek.
Huh. Bounty hunting was actually the perfect occupation for a werewolf. Few rules, lots of blood. I took the stacks of packages from Lucianna’s filled hands and out emerged such a bewildered look I’d never seen on a woman. “They take good care of you?” I asked.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Is that my horse?” She pointed to the white dappled filly.
“Sure is.”
Her eyes said the horse was terrifying, but her mouth said, “He’s pretty.”
“What are you going to name him?” Kristina asked in a note above what was comfortable to my sensitive ears.
“Barney.”
I frowned at the horse. She did actually resemble the dappled gray ancient horse we’d rode to Liverpool on. I pointed under the filly’s legs. “Well, he’s a she, so now what’re you going to name her.”
“Still Barney,” Lucianna murmured as I packed her new wares into the saddle bags.
“Barney’s a fine name,” Lorelei said.
Kristina punched her fists onto her hips and cocked her head. “She looks like a Barney, don’t she?”
I checked the cinch one more time and motioned for Lucianna. “Barney’s a sound name,” I agreed. “Use your good leg to swing you over.”
“You hurt?” Kristina asked.
Lucianna put a foot in the stirrup. “I’m on the mend.”
“We got salve for scars at the house if you have them.”
She hoisted herself over the saddle without so much as a pained grunt. “I’ll take you up on that. I have presents for you two sent all the way from our mother-in-law in Boston.”
The way she claimed Ma as family made me jerk my gaze up. She looked down at me with a serious expression, and I wanted to kiss her lips right here and now. I would’ve done it too if the whole damned town weren’t watching.
When she was settled in the saddle and I’d given her a short lesson on steering her new horse, I mounted my own and the rest of the Dawson’s followed suit. We pointed our ponies toward home and a thrum of excitement trilled through me at the prospect of seeing our house again.
A bigger part of me anticipated showing Lucianna who I was and where I’d come from. After so many years of hurt and fear about the animal I was turning into, I was coming home.
Chapter Fourteen
Lucianna
Barney had to be the least frightening horse to ride in all of creation. She did everything I asked and never got irritated with my pitiful riding skills. Gable’s horse on the other hand, was a monster. He sidestepped constantly and chewed at his bit. His legs had gathered a thin, white layer of sweat before we were even a mile out of town and he kicked at Luke’s black horse on several occasions.
If the smile on Gable’s face was anything to go by, he liked his livestock naughty. “I’m going to run him.”
He took off like his tail was on fire. Gable’s shirt billowed behind him and it looked like he and the horse were one being. His elated laugh echoed over the slow-paced clomping the rest of our horses had adopted.
“That horse is made to run. Gable will get him settled down in a hurry though,” Luke explained.
“You won’t ever catch me running like that,” I mumbled. I’d be a smear on the road if I even tried.
“How do you know you won’t like it if you never try?” Luke asked.
“I can guess. I guessed I wouldn’t like whiskey and I was right.”
“You just have to get used to the burn is all.”
Kristina pulled her horse beside mine. “Let her be, Luke. Give her at least a day before you start taintin’ the lady right out of her.” She turned conspiratorially to me. “I bet Lorelei’s glad to have another proper woman around. Luke’s been trying to corrupt her non-stop for months.”
“What about you?” I asked. “He doesn’t pester you?”
“Oh, no, he can’t corrupt me. I’m worse than he is.” She ducked forward. “You know Gable’s secret yet?”
“The one where he grows fangs and fur?”
“That’s the one.”
“I figured it out last night. Are they like him too?”
Jeremiah and Luke turned in their saddles and grinned from much too far in front of to have heard. Well, that answered my question.
Lorelei dropped in on my other side. “How’d you figure it out? It took me forever.”
Memories of what we’d been doing when I figured it out heated my cheeks. “Um, well—”
Kristina puffed air through her lips. “Hells bells, you found out when he was beddin’ you? Well, don’t that beat all?” She frowned to herself. “Whoa, that’s actually kind of sexy.”
I opened and shut my mouth, then looked at Lorelei. She shrugged like Kristina was a flavor I was just going to have to learn to enjoy.
“I’d shared a room on a ship with a caged wolf, who eventually became my friend. Here I was, missing Gable terribly, and he was right there with me the entire time.”
Kristina squinted. “I like the way you talk.”
Lorelei rolled her eyes heavenward. “What kind of ship did you come over on?”
“As close to a pirate ship as I’ve ever imagined. Gable had to smuggle me out of the country to escape my fiancé, Ralston. I traded my engagement ring for safe passage to America.”
Lorelei’s expression turned dreamy. “That sounds dreadfully romantic.”
“It wasn’t,” I assured her. “We were boarded by British swordsmen who were hired by Ralston. I would’ve died except I unlocked the wolf’s cage and he escaped in time to save me. Before that, I was seasick for two weeks, which was just long enough not to keep down any of the perishables. I recovered just in time for gruel, hard tack, and salted fish.”
“What an adventure!” Kristina exclaimed.
I tumbled on, fueled by their excitement. “Before we even boarded the ship, I was arrested and locked in a barred cell, and Gable swooped in with the pirate captain and saved me from Ralston’s reach.” All right, when I told the story like this, it did sound terribly romantic and adventurous.
“Where’d you get your limp?” Kristina asked, fingering a horrendous burn scar that covered the side of her neck.
“That part really isn’t romantic.”
“Maybe in time it will be,” she said.
Luke’s saddle creaked as he turned in it. He gave her a narrow-eyed warning glance. “Don’t push her. She’ll talk when she’s ready.”
I sighed heavily. “It’s okay.” She probably wanted to hear of someone else’s story to not feel so alone with hers. I understood that. I was curious about hers too. “I was shot by Ralston’s men. Three bullets went right through me, and the other lodged in my hip. Gable knew a doctor. He even offered me the bone slivers he’d picked out as a souvenir.”
Lorelei gasped and pulled her hand to her mouth. “That’s awful, Lucianna,” she said in a quivering voice. She looked positively green.
Kristina’s eyebrows arched. “Did you keep ’em?”’
“No, I didn’t keep much from my old life. Except for my new limp.”
Luke pulled his horse back. “You should’ve. There’s big magic in that kind of stuff around here.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I know an Indian or two who’d trade decently for some bones of the living.”
Lorelei slid from her horse and rushed for the fallen trunk of a tree on the side of the di
rt road. I turned to dismount too, but Jeremiah was there faster than humanly possible. One moment he was on his horse in front, and the next he was rubbing Lorelei’s back as she got sick in the brush. His horse trotted away nervously and Luke ran to catch up to the runaway steed.
“She’s with child,” Kristina explained. “Just found out yesterday.”
“How’d she find out?”
“The boys smelled it on her. Gable likely smelled the baby the first time he laid eyes on her today. Their senses are uncanny.”
“And disturbing,” I mumbled. What did I smell like to Gable after a twelve day jaunt by train and carriage?
I dismounted as best I could and pulled my trusty old canteen from Barney’s saddle bag. “Here,” I offered to Lorelei.
She was pale and a light sheen of sweat covered her forehead but she gave me a shaky smile and took the water.
“I’m sorry I told that story. I’ve played it over and over in my head until it just seems like its normal, but it isn’t. I won’t tell you that stuff anymore.”
“No, please. Sit with me.” She nodded to Jeremiah and he loped back to his horse with a graceful gait that rivaled even Gable’s.
“I’ve learned the hard way you shouldn’t keep those things to yourself.” She watched Jeremiah mount his horse fluidly. “Secrets are like a poison, Lucianna. Hold them in and they’ll kill the good in you. Kristina and I have had a hard time, but have found solace in speaking of it until it doesn’t hurt to do so anymore. We’ve been thrown into an unstable life because of the men we love. If we can’t lean on each other, everything falls apart.” Her face paled again and she wretched over the tree.
“Shh,” I cooed as I held her dark tresses away from her face. I’d seen the underbelly of seasickness and didn’t wish it on anyone. Hopefully, her morning sickness would be over soon. I handed her the canteen again when she was finished and we walked carefully back to the horses.
Gable blasted through the trees. “What’s happened?” he asked from his skittering mount.
I hoisted myself into Barney’s saddle. “We’re fine. Lorelei wasn’t feeling well.”
Gable didn’t leave my side after that. Apparently he’d ridden the excitement out of his horse, because the beastly creature was on his best behavior. Gable’s hair was a shade lighter than his brother’s but even with their different colored eyes, it was obvious they were related. Their height was commanding, and their backs all straight like they’d learned to ride from the same person. Likely their Da, if I had to guess.