Wyoming Strong

by Diana Palmer

  “It will wash,” she said. “Oh, hurry, she’s in so much pain!”

  He turned and put the big dog on the seat beside him and sped away.

  * * *

  SARA HAD A SHOWER and washed her clothes. She hoped the dog would be all right. Gabriel had gone to see Eb Scott. She wished he was home, so that she could get him to call Wolf and ask about the dog. She was too intimidated by the big man to do it herself.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee when she heard a car drive up.

  She went to the door, peering out through the security port, and saw Wolf Patterson striding up to the porch.

  He was wearing ranch clothes, denim jeans and a chambray shirt with a battered black Stetson and tan boots that had seen better days. Tan batwing chaps flapped when he walked.

  She opened the door before he could knock.

  “How is she?” she asked.

  He nodded. “She’ll be fine. It’s Sunday and the staff was off, so I had to help Dr. Rydel hold her while he cleaned the wounds and stitched her up. He set the break in her leg. She’s pretty sick, but he says she’ll mend.” He hesitated. “Thank you for stopping.”

  “I could never leave an animal hurt on the road.”

  “Someone did. And I’ll find out who,” he added coldly.

  Looking into those piercing pale eyes, she was glad she wasn’t the person who left his dog bleeding on the highway.

  “Would you...like coffee?” she asked.

  “Yes. Is Gabe here?”

  “He went over to Eb Scott’s, but he should be back soon. Did you need to see him?”

  “Yes. I’ll wait, if I may.”

  “Of course.”

  She poured black coffee into a mug while he straddled a chair at the kitchen table. He watched her move around the room, gathering up cream and sugar to put on the table.

  “Do you cook?” he asked suddenly.

  She laughed softly. “Yes.”

  He was looking at the rack of cookbooks on the counter. “French cuisine?”

  “I like French pastries,” she said. “We never lived close enough to a city to buy them, so I learned to make them. My father loved éclairs,” she recalled with a sad smile.

  “Did your mother cook?”

  Her face closed up. “Do you take cream or sugar in your coffee?” she asked instead.

  His eyes narrowed on her suddenly pale face. He shook his head. “Your mother blamed you for what happened.”

  She sat down and wrapped her hands around her mug. “Yes.”

  “She saw you as a rival, I gather.”

  He made it sound as if Sara had been grown when it happened. But it was too painful to discuss. “I don’t know how she saw me. She hated me. I never saw her again, after the trial. She died some time back.”

  He lifted the mug to his lips and raised an eyebrow. “You could float a horseshoe in this,” he pointed out.

  She managed a smile. “I like strong coffee.”

  “So do I.” He sipped it again. “My mother turned me out when I was about four. She hated my father. I had the misfortune to look like him.”

  She didn’t betray that Gabriel had already told her about this part of Wolf’s past. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what a sweet mother was. Gabriel and I never had much love from ours.”

  He turned the cup in his hands. “Neither did I.”

  “Is she still alive?’

  His eyes were terrible to look into. “I don’t know. I don’t give a damn.”

  She sighed. “I would feel the same, if mine was still alive.”

  He sipped coffee. “That was one damned expensive sweater you had on,” he said after a minute. “You didn’t even hesitate to lift Hellie.”

  “Is that her name? Hellie?” she asked with a smile.

  He nodded. He didn’t add that it was short for Hellscream. She wouldn’t understand the reference, anyway. Hellscream was a male orc in his video game, and he thought the name was amusing for a female dog. He hated Hellscream as leader of the Horde forces.

  “I bought her when I moved here. She’s three years old. My best girl,” he added with a smile, one of the few genuine smiles she’d ever seen on his hard face.

  She was studying the backs of his hands. There were fine scars on them.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Something you want to say?” he mused.

  “You said that you got scars on your hands from rappelling from helicopters in the FBI,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “How do you get scars on the backs of your hands when you’re rappelling? You wear gloves, don’t you?”

  His eyes had an odd expression. “You’re perceptive.”

  She studied his face. “That means you aren’t telling me a thing, Mr. Patterson.”

  He searched her eyes and then averted his. She was so formal with him. Well, she was young and he wasn’t. Thirty-seven to her twentysomething. It made him feel cold inside, those years that stood between them. Even if he was tempted, and he was, she was far too young for a man with his jaded past. Not to mention he was friends with her brother. He couldn’t afford to get involved with her. She was mysterious in her way, and she’d tempted her stepfather away from her mother. She might pretend to be innocent, but was she? Ysera had tried that trick on him. He didn’t trust women. Lying seductresses, the lot of them.

  “You never stay down here on the ranch when Gabe’s out of town, do you?” he asked, for something to break the uncomfortable silence.

  “No,” she said. “I’m...nervous if I’m alone at night.”

  “You have an apartment in San Antonio, don’t you? You’re alone there.”

  “I have neighbors that I know,” she replied. “Out here, there’s just me.” She swallowed. “Gabriel has enemies. One of them targeted me, in the past. I was very lucky that he was home at the time.”

  He scowled. He hadn’t considered that Gabe’s line of work would put her in danger. But of course it would. He had enemies of his own. One had tried to kill him, although he wondered now if Ysera hadn’t sent the man after him. She’d sworn bloody vengeance when he turned her over to the authorities.

  His eyes went to the silky blue blouse she was wearing. It had fine pearl buttons all the way down the front. Under it, he could see the outline of her breasts, firm and tip-tilted. They made him ache.

  “Could you...not do that, please?” she asked, folding her arms across her blouse.

  He leaned back in his chair and just looked at her. There was a world of sensual wisdom in his pale eyes. “You seem like two people sometimes,” he remarked. “One brash and hot-tempered, the other nervous and vulnerable.”

  “We all have different sides to our personalities, I think. More coffee?” she asked, for something to say.

  He nodded. His eyes were calculating, but she didn’t notice until it was too late. As she reached for his cup, he reached for her, and pulled her gently down onto his lap.

  “Nothing heavy,” he promised, his voice deep and soft, like velvet. His big hand spread across her cheek, holding her face so that he could see her black velvet eyes. They were huge in her beautiful face, sad and apprehensive. “Your brother will be home any minute,” he reminded her.

  Yes. But she worried about what could happen in the meantime. She put her hand on his broad chest, and it encountered the thick hair where the shirt was open at his throat. She caught her breath and tried to jerk her hand back.

  He spread it into the opening, watching her face as he pressed her long, cold fingers into the thick hair. She shivered a little at the feel of him, so intimate. There was warm, hard muscle under the hair. His heart was beating heavily, like hers. She really should protest and get up.

  But just as she thought about it, his thumb brushed over her full lower lip and teased it away from the upper one. He felt her shiver.

  It was obvious that she hadn’t had a lover who knew what to do with her. He shouldn’t be touching her, of course. He w
as only going to make things worse.

  While he was considering that, his head was bending. He brushed his open mouth over hers, tenderly parting her lips. It was like that day in the pasture when he’d pulled her off the horse, terrified that she was going to kill herself. He hadn’t been able to get her shy response out of his mind. It haunted him.

  He reminded himself that innocence could be faked. Ysera had taught him that.

  His fingers stroked up and down her long throat, making her breath jerk, while his mouth gently explored her soft lips.

  He was damaged. So was she, in some sort of way. Perhaps the man she’d taken away from her mother had been rough with her. He scowled, remembering that she’d sent a man to prison for being intimate with her. It disturbed him.

  He lifted his head and looked into her wide, fascinated eyes. His own narrowed as the heat began to build in him. It had been a long time. Too long. He wanted her. He hated himself for it.

  His big hand slid down over her breast and cupped it, teasing the nipple with a forefinger until it went hard, and her body stiffened.

  That was when he lost it. His mouth crushed down over hers in a fever of hunger. She tasted like honey. Her body was warm and soft in his arms. He turned her, so that her breasts were crushed against his shirt. He groaned, on fire to have her.

  She wanted to protest. But the feel of his mouth on hers was drugging her. She clung to him, whimpering softly as she felt her body begin to swell. She’d never felt anything like this, never wanted so much to have a man’s mouth on hers, demanding and insistent. She wasn’t even afraid. That was a first.

  He stood up, with her in his arms, and his eyes were flashing like blue lightning. He couldn’t think past relief. He could put her down on the sofa in the next room, smooth his aching body on top of hers. He could jerk those tight jeans off and go into her, hard and fast, make her scream with pleasure.

  Except that it was broad daylight, and he could see Ysera’s face, mocking, laughing. He was a weakling, she taunted while he died in her arms, a weakling who couldn’t control his desire, who looked ridiculous when his face went rigid, when his body corded over hers as he drove for satisfaction...

  He shuddered.

  Sara saw nightmares in his pale eyes. She’d been uneasy when he picked her up, afraid of what he might intend. They were alone, and she wasn’t really sure when Gabriel might come home. She’d never tried to be intimate with anyone. There were reasons why she might not be able to at all, and one was very physical, a reason she was too shy to speak of, especially to a man like Wolf Patterson.

  But her nervousness left her when she looked up into his eyes. He looked tormented. He smelled so good, clean and manly, as if he’d showered before he came here. He must have, because he picked up the dog, and it had been covered in blood. His face was corded with anguish.

  “It’s all right,” she said softly. She lifted her hand and traced down his hard cheek. “It’s all right,” she whispered.

  He shivered. His face clenched. “Damn it!” he bit off.

  He put her down on the chair and walked out of the house. She heard the door slam. But she didn’t hear his car start up.

  She didn’t understand her own reactions to him. She felt such a kinship with him, as if they shared secrets that they could never share with other people. She knew he wasn’t going to leave. She wasn’t sure how she knew it, but she did.

  Sure enough, a minute later he came back in. His hat was jerked low over his eyes. He looked ice-cold.

  He walked back into the kitchen and stood over her.

  “I don’t need pity or compassion or anything else from you,” he said coldly.

  “I know that,” she replied gently. Her eyes were soft with compassion. She understood anger and pain; she’d lived with both for long enough to be intimate with them. “Sit down. I poured more coffee.”

  “You knew I’d be back?” he drawled with biting sarcasm.

  She drew in a long breath. “Sometimes the most terrible part of being so damaged is not being able to tell anybody,” she said, her eyes on her own coffee cup. “Even Gabriel doesn’t know everything. I...couldn’t tell him.”

  He felt a kinship with her that had nothing to do with blood. He took off his hat, tossed it into a vacant chair and straddled the one next to his coffee. He held the cup with his elbows resting on the back of the chair. His eyes were brilliant with subdued pain.

  “How long did you know her?” she asked, giving him an opening, if he wanted to talk.

  He sipped coffee. “For three years, on and off,” he said quietly. “She was going with another man in my unit. But she threw him over for me. I was flattered at first. She was...extraordinarily beautiful. She could play the piano, speak several languages, even sing. I’d had women. But she was sophisticated. She knew more than I did. I’d never been with anyone who was so uninhibited.”

  It hurt her to hear that. She was shocked, but she managed to hide it.

  “At first, it was intoxicating,” he said, not looking at her. “I went in headfirst. She was all I could think about. I fell in love. I was sure she felt the same way. She was always doing things for me, giving me things, and in bed she was any man’s most erotic dream.” He drew in a slow breath. “I’d never done it with the lights on,” he said through his teeth. “I had inhibitions. A couple of the foster homes I lived in were deeply religious. They schooled me in things that a man never did. Sensual pleasure was a sin. It belonged in marriage. So I thought that way. Ysera was a very guilty pleasure.”

  She searched his face. It grew harder as the memories washed him in misery.

  “She wanted to watch me come, she said.” He glanced at Sara and had to stifle laughter at her expression. “Too blunt, Sara?” he asked softly.

  She swallowed. She flushed, but she shook her head. “You can’t talk about this to anybody else, can you?”

  “No,” he said through his teeth.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not... I don’t know a lot about that. But I can listen.”

  He wondered just how much she did know. She seemed honestly embarrassed, but he averted his eyes. He needed to talk about it. Inside, the past festered like a wound.

  “So I turned on the lights. She watched me. Then she started to laugh.” His hands clenched around the coffee cup. “The hotter I got, the more insulting she got. When I lost it, she laughed like a demon and said that I looked ridiculous...”

  She winced.

  He saw that. He sipped coffee, and it burned his mouth, but he hardly noticed. “Of course, she apologized. She was innocent, she told me, and she didn’t realize how it might have hurt me that she laughed. She promised that she wouldn’t do it again. But she did. Over and over again. She’d arouse me to the point of madness and then turn on the lights and make fun of me when I was the most vulnerable.” His eyes closed. He was oblivious to the sympathy on Sara’s pale face. “Ironically, the more she hurt me, the more I wanted her. She could turn me on faster than any woman I ever knew. I can’t tell you what it felt like.” He drew in a breath and sipped more coffee. His face was rigid with remembered pain. “A man’s ego is his soft spot. None of us like to be vulnerable, even at the best of times. I grew to hate her. But I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t stop wanting her. Then...”

  He hesitated.

  Her soft hand slid over one of his.

  He put down the coffee cup. His fingers tangled with hers. The unexpected comfort made it easier to speak of it.

  “We were in a dangerous area, just outside a compound in a war-torn African nation. We’d gathered intel on a rebel leader who was torturing young women. Ysera said she knew who he was. She drew a map and had one of her informants lead us right to his door.” His eyes closed. He shivered. “She told us that he was heavily armed and that he knew we were coming. She said if we didn’t go in hot, we’d be dead. So we went in. Hot.”

  His fingers were crushing hers, but she didn’t say a word. She just waited.<
br />
  “We killed a man and his wife...and his three-year-old son.”

  She gasped.

  “It was vengeance. He was a handsome man and she’d wanted him, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with her. He said his wife was worth ten of her. It made her angry. She got even.”

  His expression was terrible. She got up out of her chair and pulled his head to her breasts, holding his cheek there, rocking him, kissing his dark hair.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

  He shuddered. His arms went around her and held her, crushed her. He’d never told a soul. Only the men in his small unit had known. It was the greatest shame of his life. It was why he’d come back here, left the unit, shunned the world.

  “How long ago?” she whispered.

  “A year. Almost two now.” He groaned. “It was an honest mistake on our part, and the house had been used as a safe house for insurgents. There were no charges pressed, and the media never got wind of it. But we had to live with it. One of my men couldn’t. He killed himself. The other became an alcoholic.”

  She laid her cheek against his cool, thick hair. “It’s why you came to live here.”

  “No. I moved here three years ago. There were other memories, not as terrible, but disturbing. I wanted a change of place, a change of scenery. I thought it would help.”

  She drew in a breath. “But the memories are portable,” she said aloud, reminding him of what she’d told him earlier. “You can’t leave them behind. They go with you.”

  “I know that. I have...nightmares.”

  “So do I,” she whispered.

  His head burrowed closer to her breasts. He turned it, and his mouth found one soft breast, exploring it through the soft fabric.

  She shivered.

  “Let me,” he said roughly when she stiffened. “Oh, God, let me!”

  She felt him stand up, lift her. His mouth covered hers, and he shivered as he carried her into the living room. He slid her onto the sofa and followed her down, his heavy body covering hers, his mouth devouring on her soft lips.

  “I haven’t touched a woman since then,” he whispered against her mouth. “I haven’t trusted a woman since then. But I’m so...damned...hungry!”