Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers)

by Rhoades, Jacqueline

  He didn't seem to realize that while their six permanent 'guests' paid for their rooming privileges, those fees weren't one hundred percent profit. Guests had to be fed two meals a day and wolvers ate an expensive diet of meat, meat, and more meat. Their bedding and towels had to be washed, and their rooms and bathrooms cleaned. He'd refused to raise Rachel's housekeeping allowance and she'd been forced to pinch her pennies so tightly, President Lincoln, whose head was embossed on each of those copper coins, was beginning to squeak.

  She'd done everything she could. She'd bought a brood of chicks and put them in a pen on the other side of the tall board fence out back where no one would see. The eggs were a help, but she'd need twice as many chickens to meet the daily demands and the only reason the venture was profitable was because her labor was free.

  She'd started cutting back a little on meat and adding a few more vegetables to the pot. Not enough to be noticeable, she hoped, and a guest had yet to complain. She'd thought about raising her own pork, but for that she'd need a freezer and Papa refused to petition the Alpha for the purchase, saying he couldn't ask for something they didn't need.

  "Your mother never complained," was another of his excuses.

  He was right. Mama didn't complain, but Rachel often thought that if she had, her mother might still be with them today. If she hadn't had to deal with the constant drudgery of keeping the hotel, if she'd had more time to recover between miscarriages, if she hadn't had to care for a mate and cub…"

  "Them eggs and that pan are already dead. Stabbin' at 'em with that fork ain't doin' you a bit of good."

  "Oh!" The fork went clattering to the floor as Rachel clutched her chest. "Bertie! You frightened me half to death. I didn't hear you come in."

  Bertie, the only hired help Rachel was allowed to have, hung her shawl and bonnet on the peg from which she took her apron. "I'm not surprised seeing how you was beratin’ them eggs. I gather Mr. Kincaid said no."

  Rachel picked up the fork from the floor and took the slightly browned eggs from pan to platter. "A resounding no to both my housekeeping money and a raise for you. He did, however, ask if I'd thought of selling some of my eggs to Mr. Samuel over at the General Store."

  "Hmph. Bet he didn't offer to give up the three dozen he eats every week to do it, though, did he? Cheap bas…"

  "Bertie!"

  "Well, he is," the older woman argued as she poured the coffee into the china pot used at the table.

  "You know I don't like such language."

  "I don't like a lot of things, but it seems I got to put up with them. Roll them sleeves down and take your apron off. I won't have our guests thinking you're the maid."

  Rachel almost laughed at the older woman's repetition of Papa's words. A tiny terror with a face like a prune and the disposition of a rattle snake, Bertie had only two soft spots in her heart; one for her mate, Victor, an Outlaw Gang Member who regularly got shot in the saloon or during bank robberies, and the other for Rachel. Her dislike of Josephus Kincaid wasn't based on the opinions he held, which were the same as most men in the pack. Her resentment stemmed from the burden she felt those opinions placed on Rachel.

  "I love you, Bertie." Rachel smiled as she bent to kiss the woman's weathered cheek. She didn't know what she’d do without Bertie, who'd been a tower of strength disguised as a cook from as far back as Rachel could remember.

  Bertie handed her the coffee pot and the platter of eggs. "Love don't put food on the table. Now git, before it all turns cold. I'm right behind you with the rest of it."

  "I hear the new sheriff's coming today," Mr. Coogan said during a lull in the breakfast conversation. Like the other permanent guests, he'd been living in the hotel for about six months, from the time Rachel's father had finally conceded and given her permission to advertise. He was the only guest she didn't like.

  He winked at Rachel as if his words contained some shared secret and she felt her jaw tighten. She hated it when he did that, mostly because she couldn't respond. No one else noticed and she would sound like a whining cub complaining about a littermate 'looking at me'. He made suggestive comments as well, comments that had grown bolder during recent months and worse, he'd taken to 'accidently' brushing up against her parts that shouldn't be brushed against. He always made sure Rachel was alone with no one else around to hear or see.

  She'd once complained about it to her father, but only once, and she hadn't been able to bring herself to repeat what the odious man had said.

  "A lady shouldn't remark upon such things and I'm sure you are mistaken, my dear. Mr. Jack Coogan is a gentleman," was Papa's reply, which in her father's world meant Jack Coogan paid his poker debts with alacrity. "It was probably only a little harmless flirting. You'd do well to smile and flirt a little in return. Mr. Coogan would make a fine mate."

  Her father was still trying to find her a mate. It had been a running argument for the past fifteen years, but about this one thing, Rachel held her ground and refused to give in. In the past, there’d been a string of eligible bachelors invited by her father to dine, but slowly the word had spread. Rachel Kincaid had no interest in finding a mate.

  "I've heard he's only been invited to interview for the position. He's not the new sheriff yet," she said just to be perverse and to quash any lingering hopes her father might have.

  Ignoring her remark, her father asked, "Where will he be staying? Do you know?"

  "I should think they'll give him Porter's house. It came with the position, I believe," Mr. Doughman said quietly.

  He was a sweet, older man with mutton chop whiskers who'd lost his mate two years before and moved to the hotel with the others last spring. Rachel secretly hoped he'd take an interest in Mrs. Hornmeyer, the widow who lived in genteel poverty in Room 6.

  "I think it's awful to replace our dear Sheriff Porter before his grave has had time to settle," said the widow. She shivered a little. "I shouldn't like to live in a house that had so recently seen death."

  "You didn't mind living in your mate's house after he passed," Mr. Coogan stated, a little meanly, Rachel thought.

  "That was different." Mrs. Hornmeyer sniffed into her ever present handkerchief. "I would have welcomed dear Mr. Hornmeyer's ghost."

  "Is he the one Sheriff Porter recommended?" Rachel asked when she saw Mr. Coogan's mouth open. "Or is he someone the Mayor found?" she went on, not because she cared, but because she wanted to head off any snide remarks about dear Mr. Hornmeyer leaving his mate penniless after almost sixty years together. There was a mean streak in Jack Coogan that had been there since he was a cub.

  "Ah now, Miss Kincaid, that's not something you need to worry about," Mr. McKinley said in his usual condescending manner. "You just leave those things to the folks who know best."

  "I wasn't worried, Mr. McKinley, and I have every right to…"

  "Rachel," her father warned, "It isn't your place to argue with Mr. McKinley."

  The grandfather clock in the hall bonged the hour and Rachel, smarting from her father's reprimand, stood, ready to begin her day.

  "Well," she said, nodding her head to those still seated around the table, "That's our signal and we'd best be off. The tourists will be here before we know it."

  Gold Gulch was a tourist attraction. If it weren't for the tourists in their modern shorts and sandals, a person would have thought they'd stepped back in time. Gold Gulch was an old Western town straight out of the late 1800s. With a wide dirt road running down the center bordered by wood plank sidewalks fronting each of the buildings that flanked the street, you could easily imagine ladies in long skirts wearing bonnets or fancy hats, cowpunchers in their chaps and spurs, bankers in pinstripes and high collars.

  But you didn't have to imagine, because there they were, walking among the tourists, going about their daily lives, stopping to chat, and then hurrying on their way. Make a purchase in the General Store, cash your check at the Bank, buy a hat or a parasol at the Ladies' Emporium. Gentlemen could purchase a suit or a
hat at the haberdasher's or relax with a hot towel shave at a barber shop with the traditional striped pole out front.

  The barbers were always busy with two men in the chairs and more waiting and the sign in the window advertised the prices for a haircut or shave along with tooth pulling for one dollar and burials for five.

  Down a short side street and set outside the hubbub of the town, stood a little white church complete with graveyard surrounded by a white picket fence. Most tourists didn't realize the grave markers were real, nor did they fully understand that the people who lived here still lived in the past, shunning the modernity of the world outside.

  There were about two dozen individual buildings, most clad in weathered wood with hand painted signs, though a few, like the bank, were built strong in solid brick. Some were two-story with outside stairs leading to the upper floor. Halfway down the street was the obligatory saloon with swinging doors that allowed the honkytonk piano to be heard outside. Cowboys regularly rode up and tied their horses to the rail before going inside.

  The place was a town within a town; real and unreal; a place where wolvers could live and work, yet remain hidden from the world. It should have been perfect.

  Rachel began to gather dishes from the table and Mrs. Hornmeyer began to help. Mr. Kincaid stopped her. "No, no, my dear lady, you mustn't do that. You are our guest. Rachel will take care of it."

  Mrs. Hornmeyer tittered bashfully. "It's quite all right, Mr. Kincaid, I do miss my little domesticities and I'd like to help."

  "I do hope you don't mind," she said hesitantly to Rachel when the kitchen door closed behind them, "I feel so useless sometimes and it gets lonely sitting all by myself in my room. I'd be grateful for any little chores you might find for me to do."

  Encouraged by a nod from Bertie, Rachel smiled. "Suppose," she suggested, "You wash and dry the breakfast dishes and I provide you with lunch." She knew there were days when Mrs. Hornmeyer didn't eat lunch and thought it might be because she couldn't afford it.

  "Oh! I didn't mean…"

  "I know you didn't, but I think it only fair, don't you? Besides, Bertie and I sometimes tire of each other's company. It will be nice to have a new face at the kitchen table."

  "I could keep the Ladies' Lounge tidy for you, too. I never minded working in the Sweet Shoppe," she admitted wistfully, "But now that my son and his family have taken over, I feel like I'm in the way. His mate and I, well, we don't always see eye to eye."

  Bertie winked at Rachel. "Never a door closes, but God doesn't open a window."

  "We'd be grateful for the help," Rachel told Mrs. Hornmeyer and meant it.

  They worked for a while in companionable silence and then, seemingly out of nowhere, Mrs. Hornmeyer asked, "Do you think he'll be handsome?"

  "Who's that?" Rachel and Bertie asked together and all three women laughed.

  "The new sheriff." Mrs. Hornmeyer giggled shyly at the look she received from Rachel and Bertie. "It would be nice for Miss Kincaid to meet someone new and handsome that would sweep her off her feet."

  "Only if he used a broom, Mrs. Hornmeyer," Rachel laughed. "I'm quite content to leave things as they are. I have no wish to mate. No wish at all."

  Sensing an ally, Bertie told their new kitchen mate, "She says she sees no reason to mate. I say it ain't natural, holdin' herself off like that. A wolver woman needs a mate," she said bluntly.

  Like she needs another ten pounds of petticoats, Rachel thought, but didn't say. It didn't matter what she said. Once Bertie got going, there was no stopping her, so Rachel went about her work and only listened with half an ear. She knew the lecture by heart.

  Every wolver woman, or rather the wolf who lived inside her, had an innate need to breed and to breed, one needed a mate. It wasn't good. It wasn't bad. It was there, she supposed, to ensure the perpetuation of the species, but Rachel had decided long ago that the species would have to perpetuate itself without her help. It was the one aspect of her life she could control. What could a mate give her that she didn't already have? Intimate relations and more work, that's what, and after the long days she already worked, intimate relations sounded like work, too.

  Those first few years, after her decision was made, were hard. Her wolf was constantly yammering to be let out, whining uncontrollably at every unmated male she scented. What made it worse was the fact that in the Gold Gulch pack, men far outnumbered the women.

  After a while, her wolf settled down and eventually went to sleep, so deeply asleep that Rachel sometimes thought the she-wolf was dead. A part of Rachel was glad the animal no longer raised her head, but another part missed her terribly. A wolver spent their whole life with another being inside them, voicing their silent opinions and sharing life's joys and sorrows. Without the inner voice of her wolf, half of Rachel felt dead, too.

  "I don't need a mate," Rachel stated, as she had a thousand times before.

  "Yes, you do," Bertie argued as she had those same thousand times, but this time she added something new, something Rachel refused to acknowledge.

  "Your Papa isn't going to live forever. What happens to you when this place is deeded to someone else?"

  Bertie was referring to the pack's rules of inheritance. Females couldn’t inherit family property through their fathers or their mates. Property would be passed to the oldest male, or the female’s mate, or revert to the ownership of the pack. For immature female offspring, the property could be held in trust by an assigned guardian, hopefully a relative, until the cub reached adulthood and mated. If her father died, Rachel would lose the hotel.

  Her lecture finished, or realizing Rachel wasn't going to respond, Bertie put on her shawl. "I've got to run home and get Victor his lunch. I'll be back in time to serve Luncheon here."

  Bertie had just proven Rachel's argument. Mates were just more work.

  Chapter 2

  He'd done it again, the loathsome wolver.

  Luncheon in the large, public dining room was over. The little cakes and iced cookies were ready for Tea and Mrs. Hornmeyer promised to arise from her nap in time to make the little sandwiches the tourists found so delightful. Bertie was cleaning the kitchen, a perpetual duty, and Papa should have been watching the front desk, but as usual, he was not. Having already tidied up the dining room and brushed down the upper stairs, Rachel was clearing the accumulated dust from the front hall. She'd just bent to sweep her neat little pile of debris into the pan when he spoke above her.

  "What's freckled and pink and red all over," he asked his riddle with a snickering laugh and then sang his detestable ditty. "Tell me Rachel dearest, if what they say is true, are you like other redheads and red all over, too?"

  Anger rose in Rachel so quickly and violently that it should have frightened her. Her spine snapped to attention, shoulders back and squared. Gripping her broom with two hands, she spun it upright like a soldier presenting arms, and then she swung that broom like she knew what she was doing and had done it before. She thrashed that obnoxious wolver, who was now hunched over with his arms curled around his head to protect himself from the blows of the tightly woven fan of straw.

  "Do you really want to know the answer?" she hissed at him, continuing the broomstick battering. Whomp. "Because I'll gladly tell you, Mr. Coogan.” Whomp. “Your whole body will be red, that's what.” Whomp. “Or it will be by the time I'm finished with you! Now get out of here before I really lose my temper.” Breathless, she gave him yet another swat. “And don't come back!"

  "Aw, Rache, I was just trying to get your attention," Coogan complained as he scuttled around the edge of the large vestibule, Rachel right behind him threatening another bout of violence. "It was just a bit of fun."

  "It's Miss Kincaid, and the next time you think that's the way to get a lady's attention, you'd better think twice. Do you hear me, Mr. Coogan? I have neither time nor tolerance for your fun. Now get out and do not dare to enter this establishment ever again."

  She drove him to the open door with the threat of
her broom. Someone stepped aside when, with one last stroke of her menial weapon, and as if she was sweeping the last of the dirt out the door, Rachel chased the man out.

  A large, booted foot connected with the seat of Jack Coogan's trousers with enough force to send him sprawling over the porch and down into the dirt.

  "Always happy to help a beautiful woman," said a deep voice.

  Cheeks flushed from the heat of battle, green eyes blazing with a hundred grievances ready to explode, and trusty broom at the ready, Rachel turned to the owner of the boot.

  "Whoa, little lady, whoa." He waved his hands in front of him to ward off the imminent attack. "I'm on your side," he laughed. "No guy in his right mind would say that to a lady." He laughed again. "I would have helped you more, but you looked like you were doing fine without me."

  Rachel felt her mouth open, yet no sound emerged. With a conscious effort, she forced it shut, but could do nothing about her wide and staring eyes. To calm herself, she drew in a breath deep enough to make her corset creak, and caught the heady scent of a prime alpha wolver.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  No, of course she wasn't 'okay'. How could she be? She'd just lost her temper in the most unladylike manner in front of this, this…

  "Oh dear," she breathed and looked at the broom in her hands as if she'd never seen one before. "Oh dear," she said again.

  Reason tried to reassert itself when she spotted the dog, sitting at the wolver's heels. Out of all the thoughts whirling in her head, only one made it to her tongue.