Joey closed his eyes. Sean hadn’t even bothered to hide his plan from Joey after he’d let him down from the ropes. Oh, Joey didn’t know all of it. Only that Sean was going to blame Holden for killing Jed, and use the saddlebags to prove it somehow. And it would be a great big joke, because Sean was the one who’d done the old man in.
Sean would never have told Joey those things if he thought Joey could escape. And he was right. The chances of getting out of here and back home in time were about as big as drowning in Dead Man’s Draw.
But they were going to kill him anyway. He might as well die trying to get out rather than just sit here like a trussed rabbit waiting to be skinned.
“I got to piss,” he whined. “You got to let me up.”
Charlie spat. “Get on your knees and turn around,” he said. Joey did as Charlie commanded and felt the ropes around his ankles loosen and fall away. “Take care of your business. Quick.”
Struggling to his feet, Joey went to the corner of the dugout to empty his bladder while he searched for the rusty piece of metal he’d seen there when he’d first been brought in. It was still there, so broken and dull that he couldn’t even guess what it had come from.
Without looking behind him, he leaned to one side and fell, striking the wall with his shoulder and coming down right on top of the metal piece.
Charlie cursed and came after him. “What’re you playin’ at?” he snapped, grabbing Joey’s arm and hauling him back to his feet. “Go back to your place.”
Joey went meekly, the metal tucked in his palm. He stayed still while Charlie bound up his ankles again. Charlie pushed him in the chest, forcing him back against the wall, and got up.
“You stay nice ’n quiet,” he said, “or I might just decide to tell Mr. McCarrick that you was too much trouble to keep alive.”
Whistling through his teeth, Charlie ambled to the opposite corner of the dugout, picked up the saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder. The rickety door shut behind him with a thud. As soon as he was sure Charlie was gone, Joey worked the piece of metal in his fingers until he had it up against the rope binding his wrists. He might bleed to death before he was done, but a little more pain wouldn’t make any difference now.
This was his last chance to do something right.
RACHEL PICKED HER way across the yard, glad for the moonless night but all the more careful because of it. She hadn’t dared carry a lantern, though she wondered how it could matter now if someone learned she was going to meet Holden Renshaw alone in the stable.
But it did matter. She had lost her head when she’d spoken to him on the veranda, so desperate to divert him from his course that she hadn’t considered all the consequences. She had said she wouldn’t care if she was exposed as an impostor and Holden’s lover, but that wasn’t true. Whatever happened, once this horror was over, she would go back to Dog Creek and Gordie. Jed was dead, but Gordie still needed a good home. With Holden so bent on self-destruction, she could no longer trust him to keep the vow he had made by the creek.
I got somethin’ for you, Heath had said. It’ll give you a chance to start over.
Enough to start over with Gordie? Had that been what he meant? What else could it have been?
As long as I am Mrs. McCarrick, no one will try to take Gordie away until I am gone. And there was as yet no sign that any vicious rumors had started, or that Sean planned to speak against her. He had ignored her completely after the fight, but the other ladies had continued to be cordial and sympathetic in spite of the awkwardness that had lingered when the party resumed. Even Amy had been friendly, quickly overcoming her anger at Holden, and there had been no scheming in her manner or false warmth in her eyes. In spite of all that had happened, Rachel found that she could no longer believe what Holden had said about Mrs. Blackwell’s daughter.
I might have been welcome here.
And she would have given it all up if only Holden—
Enough. She must go on, start over, think only of Gordie now. Holden was forever beyond her reach or her help.
A horse nickered as she approached the stable, and a deep awareness in her body told her that Holden was already waiting. As soon as she entered, he touched her arm.
“Come over here,” he said quietly. “Sit down.”
He offered her a wooden stool in an empty stall and stood just outside, his hands at his sides, his face expressionless. There would be no more displays of emotion. Only an ending.
Rachel rested her hands in her lap and stared beyond him at the dark shape of the horse in the opposite stall. Holden seemed to be waiting for her to speak, but she had nothing to say. He reached inside his waistcoat and withdrew a folded piece of paper the size of a letter.
“When I was in Javelina the day after Joey was hurt,” he said, “Sonntag gave me this letter for you.”
She looked up. “A letter?”
“From Ohio.” He turned the paper around in his hands. “I should have given it to you before, but I—” He broke off, reached out and offered the letter. Rachel took it, the brief spark of curiosity flickering out even as she touched the pretty stationery.
She unfolded it. All she could make out was the fine and elegant hand of an educated woman.
“I can’t read it here,” she said dully. “It’s too dark.”
“I can.” He took it back and cleared his throat.
It took some moments before Rachel understood what she was hearing. Three times before, her life had changed utterly: once when both her aunt and Louis had abandoned her, again when Jed had made his proposal, and at last when she had met Gordie and Holden. Now it had changed yet again. Or would if she wished it to.
“My grandmother was wrong, cousin,” Phoebe Kaplan had written. “No one should be compelled to pay for a single mistake for the rest of their lives. You shall have your rightful share of the inheritance. Come home, and we shall be the best of friends.”
Phoebe Kaplan, a girl so much younger than Rachel had been at the time of her disgrace, a child she had hardly known, now the sole heir to Aunt Beatrice’s fortune. A young woman of astonishing generosity and goodness.
Come home. Rachel could return to Ohio a wealthy woman, to a place where she might be loved. A place where Gordie would have everything to make him happy.
She looked up at Heath. In the brief moment before his face turned cold again, she glimpsed the vulnerability she had seen only a handful of times, a profound pain that sent an echoing stab of agony through her own body.
“You have what you need,” he said in a voice stripped of emotion. “You can go anytime.”
Rachel tried to stand, caught her shoe in the straw and stumbled. She was in Heath’s arms before she could draw another breath.
Heath could have stopped it. It would have been the right thing to do, to push her away and let her go, forget he’d ever known her.
But in just a little while she would be leaving him. And he wanted to remember her the way she was now, looking up at him with skin flushed and lips parted, desire in her eyes. Still wanting him to up and take her and Gordie and run away. Still caring for him, in spite of everything.
So he kissed her. Not hard the way he’d done it by the creek, but gentle. Gentle like he’d almost forgotten how to be. Her lips opened up like a cactus flower, welcoming, wanting. Her tongue tangled with his, and her fingers gripped his hair as if she was afraid he’d stop if she didn’t keep them there. He explored her mouth until there were no more secrets, nothing left for her to withhold.
He still could have ended it. Should have, for her sake. But she didn’t want to let him go, and he didn’t have the will to force her to. She was already working at the buttons of his vest before he put his hands on her bodice and fumbled for the hooks. She closed her eyes and let him do it, helped him take off the bodice and corset and skirts and petticoats, leaving her standing only in her chemise, unmentionables, shoes and stockings.
She shivered a little as he looked at her—not skinny, but sle
nder and strong, with firm arms, a small waist and hips that curved just right. Her breasts were made to fill a man’s hands, brown nipples already hard and waiting for his mouth.
But it wasn’t enough to see her like this. He wanted her naked under him, her flesh against his.
He reached for her underthings, and her hand closed on his.
“Wait,” she said. “I want to see you.”
Now he was the nervous one, even though he had no reason to be. He wasn’t ashamed of his human body any more than he was ashamed of the wolf’s. But it meant more than just letting her see him naked. Somehow it meant she would see all the way to the heart of him, even beyond what she’d already known from all he’d told her.
Before he had a chance to start undressing himself, she was busy with his vest again, unbuttoning it, helping him shrug out of it. She laid it aside and paused for a moment to lean into him, smelling him the way a female loup-garou would smell her mate.
Then she reached for his neckerchief.
Her wrists felt fragile as birds when he stopped her. “Wait,” he said.
She searched his eyes. “Why? What’s wrong?”
He knew she had to remember the last time he hadn’t let her take it off, when she’d been fixing his shoulder. Chances were she’d never heard anything about the wanted poster and the scar on the outlaw’s neck. She wouldn’t know what it meant.
Still, it was hard, because he’d kept it covered so long, hiding it from the men he’d worked with, and the whores and the few “respectable” women he’d known.
Rachel was more than any of them.
He reached up, tugged at the tight knot at the base of his neck and pulled the bandanna away.
Rachel gasped.
“My Lord,” she whispered. “Holden—”
With an effort, he kept himself from touching the scar. “It ain’t nothin’” he said.
“Nothing! Whoever did this must have…he must have almost killed you.”
Damnation, her eyes were getting all wet again. “He didn’t,” he said gruffly.
He thought she was going to ask if he’d killed the man who’d done it, but she only got up on her toes and touched the scar, gently, as she would Gordie’s cheek. He shuddered. No one had ever touched it before ’ cept him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “So sorry.”
He kissed her again, a little harder, just to make her shut up, but as soon as he let her go again she was stretching up and kissing the scar. He closed his eyes and shuddered.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said, as if he needed reassurance.
Maybe he did.
Heath didn’t move as she unbuttoned the placket of his shirt. She uncovered the top of his chest and kissed the hollow of his throat. She worked her way down until she reached the last button and then tugged at the shirt impatiently. He got it off, and she fell to kissing the rest of his chest, running her tongue over his nipples, kissing the arch of his ribs and his stomach.
It was almost more than he could stand. He wanted more of it, but he was afraid. Afraid of how weak and happy it made him feel.
He didn’t have much more time to think about his feelings, because she’d found the buttons of his britches. He stopped her again.
“My boots,” he said.
Rachel stood back just long enough for him to pull his boots and stockings off. Then she was working at his buttons again, her tongue sticking out as if she was unwrapping a package she couldn’t wait to see. She found out quick that he never wore anything underneath his britches. The second his cock came free Rachel’s hands were on him, and he had to concentrate on not coming then and there.
Hellfire. She was good. That other man she’d been with, the one who’d abandoned her…maybe he’d taught her. Or maybe she was just a natural. Either way, Heath wasn’t thinking about how she’d learned. Her hands stroked him, teased him until he was harder than he’d ever been in his life. She fondled the head and caressed it with a fingertip.
And then she did something he would never have expected in a hundred years. She knelt in the straw and took him into her mouth.
The groan came up out of his chest unbidden as she licked and suckled him, taking as much pleasure in it as he did. No, that wasn’t possible. But she seemed to enjoy it the way he’d enjoyed tasting her. She was a long time about it, and after a while he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer.
He took her head gently between his hands and made her stop, though his whole body screamed to make it last just a little longer. She looked up at him, and he raised her by her shoulders. Before she could speak, he pulled her chemise over her head and started on the ties of her drawers. They fell down around her ankles, and she stepped out of them.
They were both naked now, on equal terms, like a pair of gunfighters ready to duel. Heath tugged the pins out of her hair, and it fell around her shoulders. She looked down. He tilted her chin up, bent to kiss her, then eased her to the straw.
He did again what he’d done by the creek, kissing and licking and suckling her breasts while she lay gasping with her hair spread out like a halo around her head. He kissed her all the way down, under her breasts and her belly and the place between her thighs. She was hot and pink and swollen, her body already weeping with joy. When he tasted her, she bucked like a half-broken filly, her breath coming in short, eager little puffs. He ran his tongue over her lips and around the nub between, sucking it into his mouth. He licked up her juices, taking time to let her know how much he liked the taste of her, liked seeing her quiver and pant.
She was as close to coming as he was, and he didn’t want her released until he was inside her. She felt the same, clamping her fingers around his shoulders and pulling him down on top of her.
He touched her with the head of his cock. He was too far gone to take her gently. He thrust into her warmth and wetness, felt her clench and let go as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
Arching her back, she moaned as he began to move, pushing as deep as he could and pulling almost all the way out before he thrust again. He kept going until she was close to coming, and then he withdrew, silencing her protest with a long kiss. He lifted her, held her against him and turned her over onto her hands and knees. Raising her hips, he entered her again, her round bottom soft against his belly. She rocked with his motion, eager to take him in as far as he could go.
She came just before he did, lifting her head and crying out as her body clenched around him. He finished right after, holding her hips as he shuddered and let go.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, turned her around, held her tight and kissed her forehead, her chin, her lips, her hair. She held him with the same kind of desperation. They both knew this would never come again.
Easing her down beside him, Heath lay on his back in the straw. Rachel tucked herself into the hollow of his shoulder, her fingers brushing the hair on his chest and her leg wrapped around his. Heath closed his eyes and let all the tightness flow out of his muscles.
Was this what it felt like to be happy? To be able to pretend that he was like any other man…able, no matter what he’d done, to leave the past behind him?
Happiness had never been meant for him. But maybe Rachel could find it someday. He never prayed, but now he did. For her. He held her for a while longer, until he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer.
Chapter Eighteen
HEATH ROSE SILENTLY and walked naked out the doors of the stable. Rachel watched him, reveling in the grace and power she loved almost as much as his fierce tenderness and stubborn refusal to let her share his pain.
She had come to the stable prepared to take whatever he’d promised to give her and walk away. There was nothing left to hope for now. And yet she’d offered herself willingly, wanting to hold him within herself one last time. She had no regrets.
Brushing off the straw as best she could, she got up and looked for Holden. She could see no sign of him when she reached the doors and looked outside. Without his cl
othing he could not have gone far and neither could she, but she crept out after him, glancing toward the silent house.
A dark shape, swift and low, glided toward her from across the yard. She knew it was the wolf well before it reached her, black and sleek and unpredictable. She could not have run even if she wished to.
The wolf slowed a few yards away, its tongue lolling from its long muzzle, and made a sound like a low moan.
Rachel did her best to keep still. “Please,” she said. “I don’t mean you any harm, and there are men hunting for you. I don’t want you to die.”
Yellow-green eyes blinked, and the wolf made another sound that in a man would have indicated the greatest pain. The air seemed to shimmer around the animal like waves of heat hovering over the horizon, and a blackness darker than the night settled over her vision. She scraped at her eyes in terror. When she opened them again, the wolf was gone.
Holden stood in its place, naked and so rigid that each of his muscles stood out in sharp relief.
“Rachel,” he said in a broken voice, “I never wanted you to know.”
But she did know.
The wolf was Holden Renshaw.
THE LOOK ON Rachel’s face was enough.
She tried to control it. Maybe a part of her remembered that he had never harmed her or Gordie, that she had once wanted him enough to forget everything else he had been and done. But the horror reached her eyes and painted her face with the animal fear Heath had seen so many times before, a fear that went deeper than any respect or desire or the feeling fools called love.
He wanted to howl to the skies, tear at the ground, run straight into the hunters’ guns and let them take his life. For a brief time, carried away by their loving, he’d seen those heavenly gates again.
But wasn’t this what he’d always expected? Rachel was human. Tomorrow or the day after, once she got over the shock, she might make herself pretend that it didn’t bother her. Maybe, unlike the others, she would try. But her acceptance would always be a mask, a skin worn over her terror and disgust.
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