Taming the Lone Wolf

by Joan Johnston

  “Hey, boss,” his contact said. “What are you doing here?”

  “There’s trouble,” Harry said. “Stony Carlton is on the prowl. Take what you’ve got, and you and your men get out of here.”

  “There’s only a dozen more head to load, boss. Then we’ll go.”

  “I said now, and I meant now.”

  The man opened his mouth to argue before he caught sight of Harry’s hand resting on the butt of his police revolver. “Sure, boss. Whatever you say.”

  It wasn’t as simple as it should have been for the truck to make its escape. The rear wheels had stuck in the mud caused by melting snow. Harry had only stayed to make sure the men didn’t disobey him, and he was furious when he realized they were going to have to unload the cattle already in the truck in order to break it free.

  “Get the damn chute back in place,” he shouted into the truck window. “And get those cattle out of there!”

  “Not so fast.”

  Harry whirled and uttered a string of foul expletives.

  Stony arched a brow. “Very inventive. Too bad you couldn’t have used a little bit of that intelligence to avoid getting yourself into this situation in the first place.”

  Harry started to reach for his gun.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Stony said. “I’ve already had to kill one man in the past year. I’d hate like hell to make it two.”

  Stony had to keep an eye on the men in the truck, which caused his gaze to waver from Harry for an instant.

  “Don’t, Harry!” Stony said as Harry reached for his gun.

  “I’m not going to jail,” Harry said as he drew.

  Stony shot to kill. It was what he had been taught. A wounded man with a gun could still shoot back. Harry grabbed his chest as he fell backward, the gun flying from his hand. Harry’s bullet caught Stony’s sleeve and ripped through a quarter inch of his arm.

  Stony ran up to Harry, to kick the gun out of his reach and to see if there was anything he could do for the man. From the corner of his eye he saw the two men in the truck take advantage of his distraction to shove open their doors and run. They wouldn’t get far. Help was already on the way.

  “Damn you to hell,” Harry muttered, clutching at his chest.

  Stony knew the wound was serious. He did what he could to staunch the bleeding, but it didn’t look good. He saw from the resignation in Harry’s eyes that he knew he wasn’t going to make it.

  “There’s an ambulance standing by,” Stony said. “The police will call it in as soon as they get here.”

  “How did you find us out?” Harry asked.

  “I’ve been hunting you for months, watching your patterns. I took a guess where you would hit next.” He shrugged. “I was right.”

  “How did you know to wait for me?” Harry insisted.

  Stony’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, we would never have known about you. Unless your men gave you up.”

  “Charlie threatened to do that if I didn’t give him a bigger share,” Harry said. “That’s why I had to kill him.”

  “What?”

  “Shot him with a rifle from the hill behind you.”

  “But I—”

  “Your bullet only wounded him. Mine killed him.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Stony said.

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Why would you tell me the truth now?”

  “Because I’m dying. Because I owe Charlie Lowell something. Because I like Tess. Ask the coroner, if you need proof. He’ll tell you what kind of bullet killed Charlie Lowell.”

  Stony’s eyes narrowed. “You think this will make a difference to Tess?”

  Harry tried to laugh, but coughed blood instead. His voice was weaker, and he had to pause often to catch his breath. “I told her you killed Charlie. She hates your guts. Good luck.”

  “Damn. Oh, damn.”

  “She leaving you, Stony. She’s taking the next bus out of town.”

  They could hear police sirens in the distance. But the light was already dimming in Harry’s eyes.

  “Tell Tess I’m sorry,” he gasped.

  They were the last words Harry said. Stony closed Harry’s eyes and stood to wait for the Jackson police to arrive.

  It took an interminably long time to point out which way the two rustlers had gone on foot, get his arm bandaged and explain the circumstances of Harry’s death. He excused himself as quickly as he could, pleading a family emergency.

  It was an emergency. If he didn’t hurry, he wasn’t going to have any family. He drove like a crazy man along the treacherous curving roads that followed the Hoback River through the mountains from Jackson south to Pinedale.

  Stony was glad he hadn’t turned out to be the one responsible for Charlie Lowell’s death. It would make it easier in later years when Rose was old enough to be told how her father had died. But he had a feeling his innocence wasn’t going to help much where Tess was concerned. He had lied to her. Even though he hadn’t known it at the time.

  He skidded his Jeep to a stop in front of the Buttermilk Café, where the bus that was headed north from Rock Springs along U.S. Route 191 would stop.

  She wasn’t there.

  For a panicked moment he thought the bus had already come and gone. Then he saw a couple of people with traveling bags drinking coffee and realized he had arrived in time.

  Except, if she wasn’t here, where was she?

  He tried several other restaurants within sight of the Buttermilk Café, figuring maybe Tess hadn’t wanted to wait there because of Bud. She wasn’t in any of them. He thought of Mrs. Feeny’s place, but the elderly woman said Tess had picked up Rose around noon. She had no idea where Tess had gone from there.

  Stony was getting frantic. Maybe Tess had hitchhiked, caught a ride with some tourist passing through town. Didn’t she realize how dangerous that was? Surely she would have rejected such an idea, in consideration of Rose. He felt like going from door to door through town looking for her, but he knew the futility of that.

  He realized there was one other place she might be.

  As he made the last turn up the winding road to his cabin he saw the smoke coming from the chimney and felt his heart begin to pound.

  Let her be there. Let her be waiting to hear my explanation. Let her be understanding.

  There was no one in the living room when Stony stepped inside. There was a stew bubbling on the stove with the familiar scents of sage and bay filling the room—and making his senses soar.

  He followed the hallway to Rose’s room, where he found Tess reading Little Red Riding Hood. He saw the moment she realized he was there. Her body tensed, and she hesitated ever so slightly before she continued reading.

  “What big teeth you have, Grandma,” Tess said.

  “The better to eat you with,” Stony finished in his best big-bad-wolf voice.

  “Stony!” Rose cried.

  He opened his arms, and she threw herself into them.

  “You’re home! You’re home! I want to go ride a pony. You promised.”

  “Yes, I did,” Stony said. “As soon as you wake up from your nap, we’ll go.” He paused and added, “If that’s all right with your mother.”

  “Please, Mama. Oh, please,” Rose begged.

  Tess kept her back to Stony as she put the book between the pewter bookends on top of the chest. She turned to him at last, and he saw the damage his lies had done.

  “Stony and I have to talk, Rose. You take a nap, and we’ll decide later whether there’s still time for a ride before...dark.”

  Before...they left?

  So she hadn’t forgiven him. This was only a respite. His work was still ahead of him, convincing her that she belonged with him. That she could trust him with her life.

  And with her love.

  Rose started to whine. “I want to ride now.”

  “Do what your mother said, Rose. Lie down and go to sleep,” Stony ordered in a v
oice the little girl immediately obeyed. He couldn’t promise her the ride would come later. He had no idea what Tess would do or say. He had no idea whether the two people he loved most in all the world would still be here at the end of the day.

  He followed Tess into the living room and sat with her on the couch. The wood stove was lit to take the chill from the room. They watched the flames through the glass door in silence.

  “How can I make you believe you can trust me?” Stony asked at last.

  “Why, Stony? Why did you lie?”

  He took a breath and let it out. “I was afraid of losing you.”

  She turned to stare at him. “Did you really kill him, then?”

  He shook his head, unsure what to say. “I thought I did. It turns out Harry DuBois actually killed him.”

  “What?”

  “I caught the rustlers I’ve been hunting since the fall. It turns out Harry was the brains of the outfit. Charlie worked for him. He killed Charlie because Charlie asked for a bigger piece of the action.”

  “Oh, Charlie. Oh, no,” Tess moaned.

  He reached for her but she jerked herself out of his way. “Please, don’t touch me. Not yet.”

  He had the terrifying feeling she wasn’t going to let him back in, that she was going to shut him out. He kept talking. So long as they were talking nothing was settled.

  “The rustlers were so successful eluding me because Harry was informing them every time I came hunting for them. Harry knew what I was doing because whenever I was working you asked him to give you a ride back and forth from town.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Pretty nifty work on his part, I have to admit.”

  “I’m sorry if I was responsible—”

  “If he hadn’t been using you, he would have figured out some other way to keep tabs on me. It’s harder to catch the bad guys when the good guys are the bad guys.”

  She shook her head. “I think I know what you mean.”

  “About us—”

  Tess interrupted him. “I want to believe you lied to me because you were afraid of losing me. I want to forgive you.”

  “But...”

  “But I’m afraid, Stony. I gave you my trust, and you let me down. Just like Charlie.”

  “I’m not at all like Charlie,” Stony countered. “I would never purposely do anything to hurt you. I love you, Tess. I want to marry you.”

  She gasped and turned wide eyes toward him.

  He hadn’t known he was going to propose until the words were out of his mouth.

  “You must be desperate,” she said, the hint of a smile teasing at her lips.

  His features remained grim. He wouldn’t believe she belonged to him until she said yes. “Will you marry me, Tess?”

  “I have a daughter, Stony.”

  “I know that. I love her, too, Tess. Will you marry me?”

  Tess had done a great deal of thinking in the hours since Harry had given her and Tess a ride to Stony’s cabin. It was a known fact you could never really tame a wolf. Stony Carlton had been a lone wolf for a very long time.

  Still, he had come a long way in the months she had known him, from the man who wanted no commitments, the man who wanted no children, who had rescued her in the Buttermilk Café, to the man who had proposed to her and waited now for her answer.

  The truth was, there was a great deal of risk involved in loving any man. She had to choose between loving Stony, and spending her life without him. Given those two choices, she knew what her answer had to be.

  “I love you, Stony.”

  Stony let out a whooshing breath and scooped Tess into his lap. “Lord, woman, don’t ever leave me in suspense like that again!”

  Tess tunneled her fingers into the hair at his nape and pulled his face down for her kiss. “Love me, Stony.”

  “I do, Tess. More than life.”

  His mouth came down hard on hers, and Tess willingly surrendered to his strength.

  “Are you going to marry me?”

  “Anytime you want,” she said with a grin.

  A small head popped up behind the sofa. “Are you going to be my daddy?” Rose asked.

  “Rose!” they both exclaimed together.

  Rose stood her ground. “Does it?” she demanded.

  They looked at each other and grinned. She was a proper wolf’s cub, all right—all spit and fight.

  Stony grabbed Rose by the arms and dragged her over the top of the sofa into Tess’s lap, so he was holding both of them. “Yes,” he said. “I’m going to be your daddy. Is that all right?”

  “Do I still get to ride a pony?” she asked.

  Stony laughed. “Yep. You might even get one of your own.”

  “Yippee,” she said, bouncing up and down. “I’m gonna have a daddy and a pony!”

  “You have a nap to finish first, young lady,” Stony admonished. “And where are your slippers?” he asked, catching her bare feet in his hands.

  Rose slipped out of Tess’s lap. “I’m gonna go take a nap,” she said. “So I don’t need any slippers.”

  She was gone an instant later.

  “Good Lord,” Stony said. “Do you suppose they’ll all be like that?”

  “All? How many did you have in mind?” Tess asked.

  “At least one more,” he said. “If that’s all right with you.”

  “I’d love to have your baby—as many babies as you’d like.”

  “Come here, Tess. I want you.”

  His eyes were feral, dangerous. The predatory beast was back, wanting her, loving her, a lone wolf who had finally found his mate. Some other woman might have tried to tame him, but Tess was perfectly satisfied with the wily rogue who had claimed her for his own.

  * * * * *

  From New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author

  JODI THOMAS

  A compelling, emotionally resonant series set in a remote west Texas town—where family can be made by blood or by choice.

  Don’t miss these great titles in the new Ransom Canyon series!

  RUSTLER’S MOON

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  ISBN: 9781459290938

  TAMING THE LONE WOLF

  Copyright © 1995 by Joan Mertens Johnston.

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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