“Won’t he fall?” Rachel asked, keeping her distance.
“They’re all born like this. Ready to run.”
“Won’t he need to…eat very soon?”
As if he agreed, the colt started nosing for Lily’s teats. Rachel’s face took on the color of a Texas sunset. “I must seem a terrible coward.”
There she went again, acting as if she cared what he thought. “You ain’t no coward,” he said roughly.
Her eyes were all confused now, half soft and half wary. “When I said I didn’t know much about horses…when I was very young, I was almost trampled by a team pulling a carriage.”
Somehow Heath managed to swallow his curse before it came out of his mouth. “How?” he asked.
“I was…living in Cincinnati and didn’t look when I was crossing the street. It was very foolish of me.”
“Why weren’t your folks lookin’ after you?”
“They weren’t nearby at the time.” She laced her fingers together in her lap. “I never had occasion to be close to horses after that.”
So she’d had good reason to be afraid, especially if she hadn’t found the chance to stand up to her fears.
“You didn’t have to tell me that,” he said, careful not to look at her again.
“I know.”
They were both quiet for a while, watching the mare and the foal in a kind of easy companionship Heath hadn’t known since Jed had died. His nose had started to clear of the odors of blood and birthing and horse sweat; he could smell Rachel again, the woman-scent, clean soapiness mingled with the musk of her skin. She wasn’t aroused, not yet, but he was starting to be.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll stay with them a spell,” he said. “You rest.”
“I am not tired.”
Make her go. Yell at her, mock her, show her who’s boss.
But he couldn’t. Not after what she’d done, how brave she’d been. He tried to pretend he was easy with her, as easy as he would be with a cross-eyed eighty-year-old spinster.
“Where’re your folks now?” he asked.
Her answer was long in coming, and when she finally spoke, her voice crept as quiet as a pocket mouse.
“They died when I was five years old.”
If Heath had been smart, he would have stopped there, without asking another question or listening to anything else she said.
“How’d it happen?” he asked.
“A fire,” she said, her emotions tucked away where he couldn’t see. “It was an accident. The house burned down, and I was the only one…” She scooped up a handful of straw and let it sift through her fingers. “It was a long time ago.”
But you didn’t forget. Not something like that. “You had other folks to take care of you,” he said.
She dropped the rest of the straw and brushed the chaff from her hands. “Where did you come from, Holden? Have you always lived in Texas?”
She had turned the tables on him, easy as falling off an ornery bronc in a rainstorm. He considered not answering. Maybe she would leave if he didn’t.
“I been here long enough,” he said.
“And your family?”
He’d never told anyone about the Mortons, or the Reniers and the mother who’d thrown him away. “Haven’t seen ’em in years,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
His short laugh was as nasty as he could make it. “Don’t be.”
Any other woman would have had the sense to get up and walk out. Rachel just kept sitting there, her breathing slow and steady.
“Joey is an orphan, isn’t he?” she asked.
“He is. But don’t go askin’ him about it.”
“I didn’t intend to.” Those eyes were on him, hitting him harder than a longhorn bent on murder. “He thinks the world of you.”
Heath shrugged.
“You’d give your life for him.”
Maybe he could get her to leave if he made her disgusted with him again. “I wouldn’t give my life for nobody,” he said.
“You were hurt when you stood up to the men who hurt Joey,” she said. “You could have been killed.”
“If I’d thought that, I wouldn’t have helped him.”
If she’d gotten up and turned her back on him then, he would have been glad. But she only shook her head.
“I think there are many things you would die for.”
She was wrong, but he didn’t know how he could convince her of it without telling her about his years outside the law. Why was it so damn hard to decide whether he wanted her to keep despising him or start liking him? Why was he letting a woman keep setting him off balance when he should have learned better long before he ever met her?
“I confess that I wasn’t sure whether or not you had killed those outlaws,” she said when he didn’t answer. “Now I’m certain you didn’t.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about me. Maybe your first instincts was right.”
“I’m quite certain they were wrong.” She looked away, maybe realizing she was letting him see too much. “What did Joey mean when he said a wolf had saved him?”
Heath was surprised she’d remembered what Joey had said, but he was glad she was ready to talk about something else. He was safe telling her at least part of the truth.
“A wolf attacked one of the outlaws when he was whipping Joey,” he said.
“Attacked him?” She cast him a worried glance. “Is that common here? Are there many wolves in this area?”
“Less than there used to be.” Humans hadn’t yet driven them out of West Texas the way they had in other parts, but mostly they stayed away from Dog Creek because Heath warned them off. “It ain’t usually in their nature to come after people.”
“Then why did this one attack the outlaws?”
“Most animals can smell something rotten. Maybe the son of a bitch was just too big a temptation.”
She shivered. “Then it wasn’t really trying to help Joey?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” He thought of her cowering from him and felt himself starting to bristle. “You ain’t scared, are you?”
“I like dogs….”
“Wolves ain’t dogs. But if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.”
Rachel nodded, but he could see by the way her fingers worked in her skirts that she wasn’t convinced. She glanced around the stable, watched Lily and her colt for a minute, and then settled her gaze on Heath again.
“I should look at your shoulder,” she said suddenly. “It must be painful after what you did for the mare.”
The last thing he needed was for her to touch him again. It was crazy she didn’t know better herself. Maybe if he showed her he didn’t need her help anymore, she would leave him alone. Maybe she would even get a little spooked wondering how he could have healed so quick.
He removed his vest, tossed it aside and unbuttoned the top of his shirt, pulling the collar wide open.
Rachel gasped. He let her look her fill and then buttoned the shirt again.
“It’s gone,” Rachel whispered.
“I told you I heal fast.”
“But that’s not poss—”
He grabbed his vest and jumped to his feet. “Joey needs your tendin’, not me. I’m goin’ to get some grub. You sleep.”
He didn’t get far out the door. Rachel came after him, her little feet moving fast and sure.
“Who are you, Holden?” she asked. “What are you running from?”
Only a loup-garou could move as fast as he did then. He spun around, and she stumbled back, raising her hands and turning her face aside.
“What’re you runnin’ from, Rachel?” he asked hoarsely. “When you answer my question, I’ll answer yours.”
He turned and kept on walking.
Chapter Nine
THE LETTERS LAY on Heath’s table, the bundle from the saddlebags and the one he’d just brought from Javelina.
Leave them be, he told himself. All this time he’d managed to keep from l
ooking at the bunch from Rachel, except for the one he’d read when he’d found the saddlebags. He’d told himself he didn’t care enough to read them. He didn’t want to know more about who she was or where she came from, or why she’d wanted to marry Jed. He’d been safer staying ignorant.
But the last couple of days had changed things. She wasn’t just a puzzle anymore. She was starting to wear away at his strength and certainty, making him question and doubt when he had to be most sure of himself and what he had to do.
For all the good she’d done, she couldn’t possibly be what she seemed: kind and brave and worthy of trust. He’d seen her weaknesses, like her stubbornness and sharp temper. But there had to be more, and worse. Somewhere in those secrets he knew she was keeping, in the wildness he sometimes saw in her eyes. Why she lusted after Heath when she was marrying another man. Why it was so important to her to make a home with a man she might never have met in a place as hard as the Pecos.
She’s an orphan. She didn’t have no one to take care of her. Was that why she clung to the baby so hard? Had she grown up like Heath, more a slave than a daughter?
Heath rested his chin on his fists and stared at the letters without seeing them. He was going to make sure Sean couldn’t bother her anymore, but he was still taking the kid. There had never been any question about that. She wouldn’t even suspect it was coming.
If it hadn’t been for what had happened in the house and the stable, the way they’d talked and the soft things she’d said to him, maybe Rachel would have known better than to believe anything he said. Maybe she wouldn’t feel betrayed, knowing that he had lied to her all along. Lied to her about more than she could ever guess.
But she was lying, too. And if he knew why, he wouldn’t have to care that she’d started to trust him. He wouldn’t have to feel anything but relief when he rode out.
He picked up the bundle, untied the string and spread the letters on the table. They had been put in order by date. He looked for the oldest one and started reading.
It was the first letter Rachel had written to Jed after he’d answered her advertisement in the marriage catalog. Heath could hear her voice speaking the words, telling Jed about herself in formal sentences written in a fine, delicate hand. She’d written about a few things she’d never told Heath, like the jobs she’d had—shopgirl and housekeeper and teacher—and her education at the orphanage, where she’d lived from the age of five, and later at a teachers’ school. She talked about what she wanted in a marriage: a good, steady husband, a home of her own, a chance to work and make a new life.
But there were things she hadn’t told Jed. About her fear of horses. How fiercely she could stand her ground, even when she was afraid. How good a mother she was. She didn’t mention kids at all.
Heath set down the first letter and began the second. This one wasn’t as formal. There was a kind of excitement in the words, as if she’d begun to realize her dreams just might come true. She was letting her heart show a little, letting Jed see more of what was inside her. The vulnerability she tried so hard to hide from Heath. The warmth and generosity.
That wasn’t what Heath wanted to find. He threw the letter down and started the next. But none of the others said much more about her past. They were full of hope, plans she’d shared with Jed, talking about their first meeting and what would follow. If she felt any doubts, she didn’t show it. She sounded happy.
Heath crushed the last letter in his fist. She’d been happy before she came to Dog Creek, expecting so much, wanting what she was never going to have.
Slowly Heath retied the little bundle of letters. Nothing. Nothing to condemn Rachel, nothing to make it easier on him. She hadn’t complained to Jed about suffering, but Heath had a pretty good idea what her life had been like with no kinfolk on her side, taking any job she could so she could eat and have somewhere to sleep. Ready to take any chance at finally having a place of her own.
Knowing what she’d been through only made things worse. But Heath could rest easy about one thing: she’d never talked about having children, or even wanting them. She might be a little upset when she lost the baby, but she would get over it. With the money Heath left her, she could still make a new life somewhere. And if she really wanted to stay in Texas, there wasn’t any reason why she couldn’t find another man to marry her, out here where women were hard to come by.
Another man.
The wolf inside Heath stirred, growling, ready to attack. He sat very still until he could think with his head instead of his animal appetites.
He reached for the letter Rachel had received from Ohio. He knew from what she’d written to Jed that she didn’t have any real kinfolk or friends, not any who’d been willing to help her. But someone had cared enough about her to write.
There wasn’t much left of the wax seal after the letter’s long journey from the East. Heath broke it open and took the scented paper out, wrinkling his nose against the stench of perfume.
He read it three times to make sure he understood. He felt as if all his blood had hardened and cracked like mud baking in the sun.
Rachel did have somewhere to go. She had a future waiting for her, even if she never married.
But the letter said something else. No one should be compelled to pay for a single mistake for the rest of their lives.
One mistake. A mistake that had cost Rachel the easy life she could have had. Only, Heath still didn’t know what that mistake had been.
He tucked the paper back inside the envelope and took the bundle of letters back to the saddlebags thrown across his bunk. He took out both bags of money and turned them upside down, spilling the coins across the blanket.
Rachel wouldn’t need Jed’s money anymore. She wouldn’t need anything from Heath at all.
“Holden?”
Turning fast, Heath saw Joey standing the doorway. He cursed himself for letting the kid slip under his awareness again, but there wasn’t any undoing it now. The boy was staring at the money, all wide-eyed and wondering.
Heath stepped in front of the bunk. “What the hell are you doing up?” he demanded. “Git on back to bed.”
Leaning one hand against the door frame, Joey stood up tall, grimaced and quickly smoothed his expression. “I’m all right,” he said.
“Sure you are. You’re pale as a lizard’s belly. How’d you get away from Mrs. McCarrick?”
Joey took a step toward Heath and staggered. Heath caught him.
“She doesn’t know,” Joey gasped. “I snuck out.”
Heath half carried the boy to the rickety wooden chair and made him sit. “Soon as you’re able to walk, I’m takin’ you back to the house.”
The boy’s jaw set. “First you tell me where all that money came from.”
It was clear Heath would have to tell Joey something. The boy seemed amiable to most folk, but he could be pretty damn stubborn when he was riled.
He also looked up to Heath, just the way Rachel had said. Heath had never craved that kind of worship. And it didn’t mean that Joey wouldn’t turn out just like Jed if he knew even part of the truth.
Trust wasn’t possible anymore. Heath didn’t want Joey to suffer any more than he had to. The boy would be hurt when Heath disappeared, even more when he found out Jed wasn’t coming back. But Heath couldn’t stand to see the look in his eyes when he realized just how much Heath had deceived him.
“Jed left it,” Heath said slowly. “He thought there was a chance he could be delayed comin’ back from Kansas, so he left this money so Mrs. McCarrick could keep things goin’.”
Joey chewed that over for a minute. “You knew he was gonna be comin’ home late?” he asked.
“Jed thought there might be a chance.”
“Then why didn’t he tell you to watch out for Mrs. McCarrick?”
“I don’t know. I don’t always know what’s goin’ on in Jed’s mind. Maybe he didn’t expect her to show up when she did.”
“Sean lied when he said he knew she wa
s comin’.”
“’Course he did.”
Puffing up his chest, Joey shook his forelock out of his eyes. “When’re you goin’ after Sean, Holden? What’re you gonna do to him?”
“He ain’t comin’ near you again. That’s all you need to know.”
“But I want to help!” Joey started to get up, grew even paler and plunked back down again. “I can distract him or somethin’. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“I want you to go inside and rest.”
“But, Holden, I’m tough! I’m good with my rifle, and—” His face was going red. “I want to kill him.”
“I know you do,” Heath said grimly. “But you won’t.”
“We could get him somewhere so no one would ever know. You don’t have to do it. I’ll shoot him myself!”
Heath got up and stood over Joey, arms crossed to show he was serious. “There ain’t goin’ to be no shootin’ of any kind. You’re no killer, and you’d be more a danger to yourself than Sean.”
Joey went stock-still, as if someone had punched him in the face. “You think I’m a baby because I didn’t fight Sean.”
“Don’t be a fool, boy. You’re goin’ back to bed.” Heath picked Joey up before the kid could protest, carried him into the house and laid him facedown on his bed. Joey stayed where he was, refusing to look up when Heath left the room.
Without meaning or wanting to, Heath went across the hall to Rachel’s room and stopped before the closed door. He could hear the call of a coyote somewhere on the range, the nicker of a horse in the stable, the scuffling of a mouse on the other side of the wall.
And he could hear Rachel’s breathing, soft and deep. She moved around on the bed, cloth brushing cloth. The baby was stirring, as well; Heath could smell milk and that particular scent that had gradually become so much like his own that he wondered how he could ever have doubted the boy was his.
Laying his palm against the door, Heath opened it very slowly. Rachel was on her back, her face turned up, her hands gently cupped as if to gather the moonlight. The sheets were bunched around her feet, leaving only the thin nightdress between her skin and the warm night air. Heath walked into the room, his boots as silent as a wolf’s paws, and watched the rise and fall of her breasts, the brown of her nipples and the shadow between her thighs. Her lips were parted, her face softened in sleep. She was almost beautiful.
Bride of the Wolf Page 13