Heart of the Wolf

by Lindsay McKenna

  “I told you, I’m not going to any hospital. My feet feel fine! They just hurt a little.”

  “Probably feel like they’re on fire.”

  “How could you know?” Sarah probed his darkened face in the dim dusk light that filtered through the window.

  “I’ve had a few pulled and torn muscles myself.”

  Silence stretched between them, and Sarah chewed on her lip. It was a nervous habit she’d never been able to get rid of. “What did you mean, ‘tomorrow morning’?”

  “After you fainted, the storm broke. I was able to drive within a quarter of a mile of your cabin. My truck’s down by the creek. When I tried to radio for help, the radio was broken. Then, when we made it here, I found that you had a phone—but it’s not working, either.” Wolf grinned. “By now my new boss probably thinks I’ve either left the country or am dead.”

  His smile sent a sheet of warmth through Sarah. Her gaze was riveted on his mobile mouth, which was curved with faint irony. How incredibly his entire face changed when he smiled. He must not do it often, she thought, noting how few laugh lines surrounded his mouth and eyes. Realizing her privilege in seeing him smile made Sarah feel better for no obvious reason.

  “You need a four-wheel drive for this road,” she agreed. “Still, I’m not going to the hospital tomorrow morning with you.”

  “How do you think you’re going to get around, then?”

  The softly asked question was underlined with amazement. “I’ll hobble.” She shot him a disparaging look. “You act as if a woman can’t take care of herself. I’ve lived up here all my life, and I’ve weathered some pretty bad things alone.” She motioned toward her blanketed feet. “I’ll get by, don’t worry.”

  Wolf sat back in the chair, digesting the hurt in her lowered voice. He saw real sadness and pain in her eyes. Perhaps Sarah was trusting him enough to show her true feelings. He was surprised at the feeling of elation that soared through him at the thought.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean about being alone and having to handle things,” Wolf agreed. With a sigh, he sat up and folded his hands between his legs. “You’re going to need crutches, Sarah.”

  “So pick me up some if you want to help so badly. I’ll pay you for them. Anyone in town will accept my checks.”

  She was right: He did want to help her, Wolf thought. “I can do that, but…”

  Sarah saw a scowl work its way across his brow. “Never mind. Folks back in these mountains don’t ask for help. We just get along without. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Whoa.” Wolf held up both his hands. “You really jump to conclusions, don’t you?”

  Sarah frowned.

  “Forget I said that. I’ll bring you the crutches. I was hesitating because you need medical care, Sarah. I don’t think you understand the extent of your injuries. You’re going to be laid up for weeks.”

  “Weeks!” Sarah’s voice cracked. “That’s impossible! It can’t happen! I’ve got bills that need to be paid. My jewelry distributors are waiting for the sapphires I mine….”

  The urge to go over and simply fold his arms around Sarah was almost tangible. Wolf sat there digesting that feeling. She was bringing out a weakness in him that he didn’t dare indulge. He looked over and saw tears of frustration glittering in her eyes. He grimaced, forcing back his own rising swell of emotion.

  “Just what the hell are you doing, living up here by yourself? What mine are you talking about?” he growled.

  Sarah gulped back her tears, dismayed by the sudden change in him. Wolf’s face had gone hard again, his eyes hooded.

  “Blue Mountain is made up of what’s known as sapphire gravel,” she explained. “The gravel sits about a foot below the soil. The sapphires in their raw state are brownish-white pebbles anywhere from the size of a pinhead to much larger. I dig the gravel out from beneath the fir roots with my prospector’s hammer, then put it through three screen boxes to separate the gem from the dirt.” She sighed. “I’ve got some rough sapphires in a tin can on the drainboard out in the kitchen if you want to look at them. It’s mostly small stuff—quarter carat to half carat, maybe. Not very big.”

  “Sapphires?” Wolf shook his head. “I had it in my mind that you had to dig tunnels in the ground and go after that gem with a pick and a sledgehammer.”

  “Most places around the world you do. But here on Blue Mountain, it’s easy to dig them by hand.” Sarah shook her head, “Summers’s land parallels ours. He owns three-quarters of Blue Mountain. I own the last quarter. His bulldozers and backhoes take tons of the dirt and gravel every day. He makes millions.”

  Wolf saw the anger and disgust in Sarah’s eyes. “Are you making millions?” he asked, looking around the spare, clean cabin.

  “No. But then, my quarter of the mountain has fewer sapphires per square foot than anywhere else on the mountain. And one person can only dig and facet so much material. Summers has fifteen men in his employ and ten faceters.”

  Sarah shook her head, and Wolf watched the emotions play across her features. “What’s Summers done to you to make you this gun-shy?” he asked quietly.

  Tears stung Sarah’s eyes, and she looked toward the darkened wall. “Six months ago, he murdered my father.”

  Wolf sat very still. “Murdered?”

  “Yes. The sheriff says it was an accident, but I know better.” Blinking, Sarah turned her head and met Wolf’s gaze. “My father bought this mine thirty years ago. He was an explosives expert in construction before that, for a silver mine up near Anaconda. Six months ago my dad was driving a small load of dynamite and caps to our mine when his truck blew up.” Her voice grew scratchy. “There wasn’t a thing left of him, and not much of the truck. Dad never carried ‘hot’ explosives. He never wired detonator caps to the dynamite until he was ready to use them at the mine site. The sheriff said he’d wired them before he drove the truck. He said a bump on the road must have caused the dynamite to go off.”

  Wolf saw Sarah’s small hands clench into fists in her lap. “Is Summers the local land baron?”

  Clearing her throat, Sarah nodded. “Yes. He’s a greedy bastard who wants it all. He owns a silver smelter in Anaconda, and all of Blue Mountain’s sapphires except for our small claim. He’s already rich beyond anyone’s dreams. Why does he have to have our little piece of land?”

  The tragedy was clearly mirrored in Sarah’s pale features. Wolf got up, resting his hands on his hips. “You’re looking tired, Sarah. Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll get a blanket and use the couch in the other room, if you don’t mind.”

  Wolf paused in the darkness near the doorway, and Sarah thought he looked forbidding. His face was set and impassive again, his mouth a thin line holding back whatever feelings he might be experiencing. Skeet remained on a braided rug next to her bed.

  “Good night, Sarah. If you need anything, call. I won’t come in otherwise.”

  Silence filtered into the growing darkness. Sarah stayed sitting up in bed for a long time afterward. When she was sure Wolf was bedded down on the creaky old couch in the next room, she finally lay down. She fell asleep immediately, her exhausted body finally overriding her overactive brain.

  Chapter Three

  Sarah struggled awake. Someone was knocking at her bedroom door. Who—? Suddenly her eyes flew open as the memories flooded back: the tree, the storm, the man who’d rescued her. Wolf. Light streamed through the window, and she glanced at the clock. Six a.m.

  “Come in….” she called, her voice still hoarse with sleep.

  Wolf opened the bedroom door, and Sarah’s heart slammed against her ribs—but not out of fear. Wolf stood in the doorway, bathed in sunlight, his green cotton shirt open to show a white T-shirt underneath. His feet were bare beneath his muddy green gabardine trousers.

  There was something endearing, even vulnerable, about him this morning, Sarah thought. Perhaps it was his tousled black hair, with short strands falling across his now-smooth brow, or his open, peaceful exp
ression. As her gaze traveled to his mouth, she read an earthiness in his flat lower lip that sent an unexpected wave of heat flowing through her—an unbidden sensual awareness that caught her off guard.

  Swallowing against a dry throat as Wolf slipped silently through the door, she met his drowsy gray eyes. Although her legs throbbed with pain, Sarah responded to the warmth smoldering in his gaze and momentarily forgot her discomfort. Taken aback by her heart’s response to Wolf, Sarah reminded herself that she didn’t have a whole lot of experience with men. Working her father’s mine claim and caring for her mother had long overshadowed more personal needs. Was she wrong to think she read an answering longing in his eyes?

  Wolf ran his fingers through his hair, pushing the strands aside. Sarah looked like the kind of ethereal spirit that his mind used to conjure up in the jungle after a cool night: Fog would rise in steamy, twisting columns, sometimes taking on human or animal shapes in his imagination.

  “Morning…” he mumbled.

  How could she have not trusted Wolf? No longer was his face hard and unreadable. Sarah felt his presence powerfully, and her lips parted as he made his way to her bedside.

  Wolf longed to reach out and graze Sarah’s upturned face. This morning she looked fragile and beautiful, even though her hair was in dried, uncombed strands about her face. The wariness he’d been learning to expect in her huge blue eyes was missing, and inwardly he breathed a sigh of relief. He halted near the bed.

  “How do you feel?”

  Sarah averted her eyes from his burning, intense ones. The man should have been named Hawk, not Wolf, she thought uncomfortably. Retreating within herself, she attemped to block out the oddly heated emotions buffeting her heart. “Okay, I guess,” she offered, struggling to keep her tone impersonal.

  Wolf froze internally as he saw Sarah suddenly close down and become distant. A good reminder, he thought, disgusted with himself—he had no need for confusing emotions. “Let me take a look at your ankles and feet,” he said, his voice brusque as he leaned over to pull back the sheet and blanket. Sarah tucked her arms against her nightgowned chest at his action, and Wolf winced. She still didn’t trust him—but why did it matter? Unwillingly Wolf admitted to himself that he knew why. A bitter taste coated the inside of his mouth as he struggled with the memories. Leaving South America should have been enough. Now this waif of a woman was reminding him of what he desperately needed to forget.

  Wolf’s eyes narrowed as he removed the loose bandages around her right ankle. His gaze held her hostage.

  “You’re okay?” he ground out, disbelief in his voice.

  Sarah shrugged. “I’ve been hurt before, Harding. Pain’s something everyone experiences, don’t you think?”

  “I won’t argue that with you,” he whispered. As the bandages came off her slender feet were revealed, looking like bloated black-and-blue sausages. “Look, Sarah, you’ve got to go to the hospital,” Wolf said, his tone no-nonsense. “Your feet are worse. You won’t be able to walk on them this morning.”

  Stiffening, Sarah reached down and jerked the blankets back over her feet. “I can’t leave!” she cried. “I told you why. If Summers finds out I’m in the hospital, he’ll send his men in to start stealing my sapphires.” Her voice cracked. “I can mine just enough sapphires monthly to pay my mother’s nursing-home bill and the mortgage on this mine. Don’t you understand? I’ll lose everything if I go to the hospital! I don’t have any money saved. I live month to month. My mother’s depending on me. What if I can’t pay her nursing-home bill? They’ll throw her out. And then what will I do?”

  Wolf straightened, her pain cutting through him. The despair, the fear, in Sarah’s voice and eyes shook him as nothing had in years. He actually felt her desperation and anguish. It was disturbing to realize he was feeling deeply again since meeting Sarah.

  He held out his hands. “All right, slow down. What’s this about your mother?”

  Fighting back welling tears—something she hadn’t done since her father’s death—Sarah rasped out, “When my dad was murdered, my mother suffered a stroke the same day. She’s only fifty, but the shock of having my dad die so suddenly was too much for her to cope with. She was very dependent on him. The stroke affected her memory, so if she isn’t watched closely, she’ll wander off. She was in the hospital for a month, and it ate up our savings. We couldn’t afford health insurance, so it took everything we’d saved.”

  “When I got Mother out of the hospital, I tried to keep her at the cabin. That first night when I returned from the mine, she was gone. I found her wandering around in the woods, frightened and confused.” Sarah took a huge, ragged breath. She would never make the same mistake her mother had—becoming dependent on someone she loved. The price of leaning on another person was just too high. “I tried to keep her with me out at the mine, but half the time I was watching her and not working. Sapphire production fell off. I knew if I didn’t do something, I wouldn’t be able to make the money I needed to pay the mine mortgage.” Her eyes hardened. “Summers is just waiting. If I default on one payment, he’s going to have the bank foreclose on my mine so he can buy it.”

  She rubbed her wrinkled brow. “I didn’t know what to do. Eventually I figured out that if I worked seven days a week, dawn to dusk, I could make the money it took to keep Mother in a nursing home and pay the mortgage.” Sarah looked away, biting on her lower lip. “I know it’s not the whole answer, but it’s the best I could come up with. At least she gets three square meals a day, and is taken care of…”

  Wolf stared at Sarah’s profile, aware of the suffering she was valiantly trying to handle by herself. How brave she was in the face of such overwhelming odds. He allowed his hands to drop to his sides. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Six months.”

  “And you’re making ends meet?”

  Sarah nodded. “I’m a little ahead. I’ve got a bit of money in the bank, but I have to get more to help us make it through the winter. I can’t mine during winter and early spring. The ground freezes and then turns muddy. The dirt has to be dry for me to sift the gravel.”

  Wolf looked around the quiet cabin. He’d felt at home in its comfortable simplicity as soon as he’d entered it yesterday. Blue-and-white calico curtains at the windows enhanced its hominess. The handmade furniture was of the same cedar as the floors. A few framed pictures of wildflowers hung on the walls. His gaze returned to Sarah, who was watching him with open curiosity. The wariness came back into her eyes, but not as much as before.

  “Why are you entrusting me with all this information?” he asked. His tone was gentle.

  Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “Maybe you don’t look as threatening to me this morning as you did last night.” She gestured to his bare feet.

  For the first time, Wolf genuinely smiled. The people of South America had always regarded him as a giant and stood in awe of him. He was sure he looked far more human this morning, barefoot and out of uniform.

  “Big feet,” he noted ruefully.

  “They sure are. What size do you wear?”

  His smile widened, and an ache seized him. Sarah’s mouth was pulled tentatively into a smile. It was the first time he’d seen her lips in something softer than a tight line or frown. “Thirteen,” he admitted. “I have to have my shoes specially made.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “They keep me upright, though.”

  Sarah leaned back against the brass headboard and studied Wolf. The smile had eased the harshness from his darkly tanned features, and she felt her heart opening to him. She didn’t know this man, she tried to remind herself. A huge part of Sarah, the inexperienced woman, longed to know Wolf better, to find out why that haunted look remained deep in his eyes. But she’d already learned the hard way the folly of putting her trust in anyone but herself, and she tamped down her unruly heart’s yearnings.

  “Now you see why I can’t go to the hospital,” she said quietly.


  “As bad as your feet are, Sarah, you can’t afford not to be in the hospital for a couple of days.”

  “I can’t afford it.”

  “I can.”

  She snapped a look up at him.

  “I’ve got money, so don’t worry about it.”

  Her mouth flattened. “I don’t take money from anyone. Especially strangers.”

  Wolf reined in his impatience. “It’ll be a loan, until you can get on your feet again, so to speak.”

  Sarah ignored his pun. “The bottom line is, if I leave the mine unattended, Summers will send his men to steal everything I own.”

  “No, he won’t,” Wolf said smoothly, “because I’ll check up on it. Most of my duties involve patrolling the forest area, the creeks, and checking for licenses. It will be easy to run by your cabin a couple times a day.”

  Her eyes grew huge. “What?”

  “You heard me. I’ll be your guard dog while you’re recuperating.” Wolf felt a tightening in his chest at his own confident words. Him, a guard dog. Sure. He’d failed miserably at that once before. So why was he reaching out to protect Sarah? Caught in his own damning trap, Wolf wrestled with his conflicting emotions.

  The offer sounded too good to be true. Sarah hedged. “I don’t want your money.”

  “Fine. Use your own, then.”

  “If Summers finds out I’m hospitalized, he will send his men up here, Harding.”

  “I’ll deal with it,” Wolf said with a shrug. Moving over to her dresser, he rummaged through the drawers until he found a tank top, lingerie and a pair of jeans for her. He brought them over to the bed. “Get dressed, and I’ll take you in.”

  Sarah held on to the clean clothes in her lap. “I made a promise never to trust anyone again,” she flung back heatedly.

  Wolf turned at the door and studied her grimly. He was sure Sarah sensed that he was incapable of protecting her, but somehow he had to try. “You don’t have a choice.” There was a sadness in his voice that he wished he could have disguised. “You’re caught between a rock and a hard place.”