Taming the Lone Wolf

by Joan Johnston

  He had wanted her body, and he had been honorable enough to marry her when she had gotten pregnant. But Charlie had never loved her. He had been incapable of the emotion.

  Here she was making the same mistake again. She didn’t want to feel what she was feeling. But she didn’t know how to stop. She turned and stared at Stony, who was sleeping beside her. She had to get out of here before she let this man sneak past her guard and into her heart.

  He didn’t like children. He liked living alone. He had no room in his life for her and her child. She would be a fool to trust another man, to give her heart to him. Especially this one.

  She had asked Harry about Stony Carlton and gotten few answers. Stony wasn’t a lawman, yet he hunted outlaws—rustlers—for a living. She wondered if he knew all about her husband’s activities. Her thoughts shied away from contemplating such a possibility. It was better not to know.

  Theirs was clearly a relationship doomed at the start. Yet she had let it start. Better to end it now, before she got hurt. Although, there would be hurt, even now. Because, though she wouldn’t have wished it, would never have dreamed it, this lonely man already possessed a part of her soul...the part that had been missing all her life.

  Tess dressed quickly and left quietly, closing Stony’s bedroom door behind her. She was relieved that Rose wasn’t yet awake and took advantage of the slight respite to spend some time alone in the living room.

  She sat cross-legged on the comfortable sofa in front of the wood stove and watched the flames flickering inside the glass door.

  She should leave.

  Only, where would she go? Her situation hadn’t changed one iota since she had accepted Stony’s charitable job offer. She didn’t want to continue imposing on him now that she was well. But she had tried to find a job in town once the cast was off her arm and discovered there was no job to be had until the season began. She was stuck here until spring.

  She felt Stony’s presence before she heard him. She supposed a man used to sneaking up on rustlers had to be able to move quietly. It irritated her nonetheless that she hadn’t heard him coming. Although, when all was said and done, there was nowhere she could run.

  She turned and found him standing right behind her dressed in nothing more than a pair of jeans. He had left the top button undone, and it was plain he wasn’t wearing anything beneath them. The aged denim hugged his body like a glove, revealing the vivid outline of his arousal.

  She wrenched her gaze away and turned to stare at the fire.

  “We have to talk,” he said, vaulting over the couch and settling softly beside her, his legs crossed Indian style.

  She was aware of him, the heat of him, the musky male scent of him. “I have nowhere to go—”

  “—or you’d leave,” he finished for her.

  “Yes, I would,” she said, her chin jutting. “This...thing...between us is...disturbing.”

  “What if I said I understand what you’re feeling?”

  She glanced at him quizzically. “You do?”

  “Something...unusual...has happened—is happening—between us.”

  “Something magical,” she said quietly, almost wistfully.

  His gaze softened as he met her eyes. “You felt it, too?”

  She nodded, then ruffled her hair with her hands. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “All I know is I don’t want you to leave right now,” he said.

  Her lips twisted cynically. “Lucky for you, I can’t get another job until the season begins in the spring.”

  He smiled. “That settles it, then. You’ll stay.”

  “But this...thing...between us... What are we going to do about it?”

  “If this is something we both want, I don’t see why we can’t enjoy each other—take physical pleasure from each other—without letting it go any further than that. I don’t want a wife.”

  “Or kids,” she reminded him.

  “Or kids,” he agreed. “But I do want you.”

  “And I want you,” she admitted. “So we merely take what physical pleasure we can from each other for a few weeks or months without any other commitment between us?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Stony said.

  Tess saw more than a few pitfalls in his plan, but she looked at him and realized she wanted to feel again the wholeness she experienced when he held her in his arms. “All right,” she said. “Until spring. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  She held out her hand, and he took it. Electricity arced up her arm. She tugged her hand free and stood, needing to put some distance between them before they ended up in bed again.

  “When’s supper?” he asked. “I’m hungry.”

  “I’m hungry, too,” Rose said, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “You’re barefoot again, young lady,” Stony admonished.

  Rose yelped and raced back toward the bedroom.

  “Where’s she going?” Stony asked.

  “To get socks, I imagine,” Tess said with a smile.

  “Can she get them on by herself?”

  “I’ll have to help her. The sock drawer’s too high for her to reach.”

  “You’re busy,” Stony said, rising from the sofa. “I’ll do it.”

  Tess arched a disbelieving brow. “You don’t like kids,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, well, I’d like it even less if she got sick. Besides, I’m hungry, and you’re putting supper on the table.” He winked, a charming gesture that made her heart flutter. “I think I can handle it.”

  It was impossible not to smile back at him. “Be my guest,” she said.

  Stony didn’t hurry down the hall because he knew Rose would be there waiting for him. He hadn’t counted on the little girl’s resourcefulness. She had pulled out the bottom drawer of the chest and was standing on it in order to reach the top drawer of the chest, which she had managed to open. The whole chest was in danger of tipping over onto her.

  “Rose!” he said, his voice harsh with fear.

  She leaned back, startled. Her weight, added to that of the open drawers, was all it took for the chest to begin its tumble.

  He snatched her off her precarious perch and caught the falling chest with his hip. He grunted in pain as everything on top came thumping down onto the braided rug.

  “What’s going on in there?” Tess called from the kitchen. “Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Stony called. “Hunky dory,” he muttered under his breath. He clutched Rose tight while he gave his adrenaline-laced heart a chance to slow down. His hip throbbed where the chest had caught on the bone. He leaned his weight back to force the chest upright.

  “What’s hunk-dory?” Rose asked, apparently oblivious to the danger she had been in.

  “It means you nearly got killed, but you didn’t,” Stony retorted as he shoved in the bottom drawer of the chest with his bare foot. He shifted her onto his arm so he could look her in the eye. “You should’ve asked for help. You could’ve been hurt.”

  “I was getting socks,” she said in a small voice, “like you said.”

  Which made the whole thing his fault, he supposed. It surprised him to realize he cared enough about her to be worried that something might happen when he wasn’t around to keep an eye on her.

  She pointed to the mess on the floor. “Everything fell down,” she said, her chin trembling.

  “Yeah, well, nothing’s broken,” he said gruffly. “We can put it all back again.” He knew he was an idiot to be trying to placate a three-year-old, but there wasn’t anyone around to catch him at it, so he could do as he pleased.

  She wriggled, her sign to be let down, picked up a pewter bookend and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “I can help put it all back.”

  They worked together over the next several minutes. He picked Rose up at her insistence so she could rearrange everything to her liking on top of the chest. By the time they were done, she was smiling again. Seeing that smile m
ade him feel ten feet tall. It was ridiculous to let her under his skin. Especially when she wasn’t going to be hanging around very long. But he didn’t call Tess to come get her kid. Hell, he was enjoying himself.

  “You still need socks, young lady,” he said, folding his free hand around her ice cold toes.

  She giggled. “Can you do piggies?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know. Piggies.”

  He was afraid he did know. It sounded like fun. But he wasn’t going to let her make a substitute father out of him. “You need socks,” he repeated.

  He opened the top drawer and pulled out a pair of pink socks.

  “Not those,” she said firmly.

  “What’s wrong with these?”

  “I want the ones with Mickey Mouse.”

  Stony started to argue with her, saw the mulish cast of her mouth and changed his mind. Tess would be wondering what had happened to them. He searched through the whole drawer and came up empty. “There are no socks in here with Mickey Mouse on them.”

  “Where are they?” she demanded.

  “How should I know?” Frantic to avoid the tantrum he could see coming, he grabbed a pair of socks with white lace and pink bows along the edge. “How about these?”

  Her eyes widened, and she said with three-year-old reverence, “Those are only for Sunday school.” And then, “They’re my very favorite.”

  “You want ’em, you got ’em, kid.” He sat down on the bed and tugged the socks on, despite the resistance of her curling toes.

  Rose looked first at the lacy socks and then up at him with something akin to awe. He felt absurdly delighted to have pleased her so well. He took her hand and headed back down the hall. “Come on. Let’s go see your mom.”

  The first words out of Tess’s mouth when she saw the two of them was, “Those are her Sunday school socks. She’ll ruin them if she walks around in them without shoes.”

  “I’ll buy her another pair,” Stony said, exchanging a glance with Rose, who beamed back at him.

  “I don’t want you spending your money on us,” Tess countered.

  “It’s only a pair of socks,” he argued.

  “Maybe to you it’s only a pair of socks,” Tess said, meeting his gaze. “To me it’s an hour of work behind a counter.” She turned to Rose and said, “Go put on a pair of shoes. Now.”

  Rose turned to Stony. “Do I have to?”

  Stony saw the alarm on Tess’s face at this clear sign of rebellion in the ranks. His own mother had died when he was very young, so his father’s word had always been law. Now he saw what might have happened if his mother had lived. When there were two adults in a child’s life, there was room for appeal. Only, Rose wasn’t his daughter, and he had no right to be making decisions that affected her life.

  “Do as your mother says, Rose. She’s the boss.”

  To his surprise, Rose didn’t argue, just stomped her way back to the bedroom.

  He let Rose go, then had an awful thought. “Where do you keep her shoes?”

  “On the floor of the closet,” Tess replied.

  He heaved a sigh of relief. At least she couldn’t knock anything over. He realized he was worrying about her—as if she was his responsibility or something. Which she wasn’t. And never would be.

  But he was plagued with guilt at the thought of how dire Tess’s circumstances must be if she had to be careful not to ruin a pair of child’s socks. It was small solace that her husband would probably be in jail now, if he weren’t dead. Perhaps a good lawyer might have gotten Charlie Lowell off with a short sentence. Perhaps he would already have been out of prison and back helping his family.

  They needed help from someone. For a while, so long as Tess and Rose stayed, it might as well be him.

  * * *

  IN THE MONTHS that followed, whenever he went out hunting the ever-elusive rustlers, Stony wore the navy blue mittens and scarf Tess had knitted and given him for Christmas. When he was home, he spent his days playing in the snow with Rose, and his nights loving Tess.

  If he let himself think about it at all, Stony had supposed Tess would have less time for him because of the child. It had been that way with his father. Time and attention given to his new family had taken away from time and attention given to him.

  Somehow, Tess managed to make him feel a part of the time the three of them spent together. Her warmth and joy enfolded both him and the child. The jealousy he had expected to feel toward Rose—akin to the shameful resentment he had felt toward his halfbrother—never materialized. He wondered if it was because he didn’t want or need Tess’s attention as much as he had wanted or needed his father’s love.

  Actually the opposite was true. What he needed from Tess far exceeded the care and respect he had wanted from his father. It dawned on him as he lay in bed with her spooned against his groin, his arm under her breasts, that he wanted her love.

  The thought terrified him.

  What if Tess was like his father? Would he always come second behind the child? Would he always end up with whatever love—and time—was left over after she had given to Rose first. It was selfish to want Tess’s love all to himself. But he did.

  He was unaware he had made a disgusted sound in his throat.

  “What’s wrong?” Tess whispered into the darkness. She turned in his arms and pressed herself against him. His body instantly hardened.

  “Don’t, Tess.” He didn’t want to need her any more than he already did.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He heard the caring in her voice. She had plenty of time for him now. Rose was sound asleep. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  She sat up. “You’ve been moping around for the past three days. You might as well tell me what’s troubling you. Neither of us is going to get any sleep until you do.”

  “It’s nothing,” he insisted.

  “Fine,” she said turning her back on him. “Keep it to yourself.”

  When he tried to put his arm around her, she shoved him away and said, “Leave me alone.”

  Here at last was the rejection he had expected from her all along. He refused to accept it.

  “Don’t turn away from me, Tess.”

  Tess heard the longing in his voice and recognized the need for what it was.

  “Oh, Stony.” She turned back into his waiting arms, pressing herself against him. And felt the fire ignite between them as it always did.

  She tried not to let her love show, tried not to give too much of herself. When Stony thrust inside her she arched into him. When his mouth captured hers, she surrendered to his passion. When their bodies joined at last, she knew her soul was lost. To a man who didn’t want to love her, a lone wolf who couldn’t be caged.

  Chapter Five

  STONY HAD REALIZED over the course of the winter that he couldn’t live without Tess. He resented the time he had to spend away from her hunting down rustlers. He was ready to admit he needed her in his life. However, he had some daunting hurdles to get over before that was possible.

  He had to tell Tess that he was the man who had killed her husband. And he had to come to terms with the fact that he would always have to share her with Rose, in the same way he had been forced to share his father with a half brother. Both obstacles loomed, seemingly insurmountable, before him. The need to resolve them consumed his waking moments and haunted his dreams.

  He knew Tess was aware of his distraction, yet she didn’t confront him about it. He was glad, because he had no idea how he could explain why he had kept his part in her husband’s death a secret from her all these months. He was living a lie. Unfortunately he knew exactly how Tess felt about lies.

  The second time he had returned to his cabin, having left it to return to Jackson following his brief Christmas holiday with Tess and Rose, he had found things achingly familiar, even to the savory stew bubbling on the stove.

  At supper he had said, “I don’t know when my house has ever seemed so much like a
home. Thank you, Tess.”

  She had blushed, those marvelous roses appearing in her cheeks. “Do you mean it, Stony? Really?”

  “I don’t lie. Especially about important things.”

  “That means a lot to me,” she said, her eyes downcast. He thought she wasn’t going to explain herself, but the rest of it came tumbling out. “I was devastated when I found out that Charlie had been lying to me—about the rustling, I mean. To this day, it’s the one thing I can’t forgive him.”

  He had felt a pang of remorse at the lie of omission he was perpetrating. Tess, there’s something I have to tell you. I killed your husband. The words were on the tip of his tongue. He could hear himself saying them. They remained unspoken.

  Surely, when the time came to tell Tess everything, he would find a way to make her understand why he had kept the truth from her. Fear of what she might say and do when she learned his part in her husband’s death upset his stomach. He had laid down his fork, the pleasant meal abruptly ended.

  During the past four months, the right time had never come to confess. The longer the lie lay between them, the more difficult it became to tell her the truth.

  He was running out of time. The snow was melting off the mountain. It was already gone in town. Soon the tourists would begin to arrive, and Tess would leave him to return to her life in town.

  Unless he could make things right about what had happened with her husband. Unless he could offer love, even when it meant accepting second place to someone else in her life.

  Stony turned on his side in bed and stared at Tess in the early golden light of morning. She was more beautiful to him than ever. And infinitely precious. He should wake her up and confess the truth.

  Now was not the right time, either. He had gotten a call last night, a lead on the rustlers who had proved so elusive all winter. He was closing in on them. He had to leave this morning and return to Jackson. He didn’t know how long he would be gone.