Lone Wolf's Lady

by Beverly Barton

  “I don’t know,” he said calmly. Too calmly. “You tell me, Miss Atchley.”

  “Do you honestly think that I would subject myself to your abuse if I wasn’t desperate to remember everything that happened that night? Why would I be willing to put myself at your disposal night and day, allowing you to treat me any way you want to, if the truth—the whole truth—wasn’t vitally important to me?”

  “Maybe you’ve got a guilty conscience. Maybe after all these years, you actually do want to set the record straight. But you’ve got to admit that it seems odd that you couldn’t remember a damn thing about me walking away, leaving your father alive and well, fifteen years ago, right after it had happened. But now, suddenly, after all this time, you can remember I didn’t kill your old man.”

  “Why can’t you believe me?” She held out her hands beseechingly. “Don’t you know that I’d never lie to you, that I’d give my life if I could change the past. I loved you so much. I...” Emotions so strong they nearly choked her created a blockage in her throat, preventing her from talking.

  “You’re good, lady. I’ll give you that. You know how to twist the knife so it hurts the most, don’t you!”

  Deanna gasped, gulping in air. “If you don’t care, how can I hurt you? If I don’t still mean something to you, then how is it possible for me to affect you so strongly?”

  “You want to know what you mean to me, Deanna? You really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get on your horse and follow me. I’ll show you exactly how I feel about you and why you still have any effect on me at all.”

  Deanna was bewildered by his statement, amazed that he was no longer denying that she did affect him, that he did have feelings of some sort for her.

  Without saying a word, she mounted Fair Weather and waited for Luke. When he stared at her, the corners of his mouth lifted in a hint of a smile. A dangerous, deadly smile. And Deanna’s stomach tightened into knots. Where was he taking her? And what was he going to do to show her exactly how he felt?

  Within a few minutes, she realized where he was taking her. The moment they turned off the path and went right, her heartbeat rolled like thunder in her ears. This passage led straight to the old cabin. The cabin where she and Luke had made love for the first time. Their rendezvous spot, where they had spent hours alone, loving each other, talking to each other, making plans for their future.

  Dear Lord, if he was taking her there, did he actually still care, did he want to tell her that they could find a way to forgive each other and—no, she didn’t dare hope for more. But he knew that the cabin represented their young, passionate love. Even Luke wouldn’t be cruel enough to take her to their most special place on earth to her and tell her that he hated her.

  Although she wanted to hurry, wanted to fly to the cabin, Luke took his time. Before they reached the crook in the trail that led off directly in front of the cabin, Luke slowed, then stopped and dismounted.

  “This path’s not clear the rest of the way,” he said, his voice void of any emotion. “We’ll have to walk.”

  She nodded agreement, then dismounted and followed him. He picked his way through the brush that had grown to cover this northwest dirt path. Why was this trail so overgrown? Hadn’t Luke or anyone else been up here in years? Or did he usually take the other route, up the back side of the hill from the northeast?

  Luke shoved aside the limbs on a tall bush in order for them to pass. The closer they drew to the cabin, the more intense Deanna’s feelings of apprehension grew. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  And then she saw the site where the old cabin had stood for over a hundred years. She moved past Luke, as if in a trance. Realization struck her hard, like a lethal blow from a fighter’s fist. So this was why Luke had brought her here.

  Covering her mouth with her hands, she stifled a scream. The only thing left standing was the rock chimney, a lone survivor of an obliterating fire. She walked through the charred ruins, barely able to believe what she was seeing.

  “Oh, Luke, what happened? Did lightning strike the cabin and catch it afire?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then what happened?” When she stared into his hard, green eyes she saw the truth and that truth hurt her in a way nothing had in a long, long time. “You—you did this, didn’t you? You destroyed our cabin.”

  “It was the first thing I did when I got home from Huntsville.” Luke joined her inside the ruins, his booted feet crunching over sticks and dried leaves and the vegetation that had overrun the sooty remains. “I rode up here, cleaned the land around the cabin, dug a protective trench around the place and then doused the cabin with kerosene, lit a match and watched it burn. I made sure the fire didn’t spread beyond the cabin.”

  “Why, Luke? Why burn the cabin? Your great-grandfather built that cabin. It meant so much to you. It was our—” She paused as realization dawned. He’d burned it because it had once been their place.

  “You wanted to know how I feel about you.” Spreading out his arms, Luke turned his head from side to side, inspecting the destruction his hatred and bitterness had caused. “Take a good, hard look at this place and you’ll know what I think of you.”

  She had thought Luke couldn’t be this cruel, but now she knew better. He had wanted to hurt her, wanted to destroy any illusions that there was hope for them to forgive and forget. Luke didn’t want to put the past behind him. He intended to use it as a shield to protect himself from her.

  She struggled not to cry, not to show any sign of weakness to Luke. He was like a wild animal poised to attack again if she seemed vulnerable enough for him to come in for the kill.

  “What’s happened to you to turn you into such a ruthless monster?” She stared at him, tears swimming in her eyes. “When I met you at the motel and allowed you to use me and humiliate me, I knew you were filled with hate, but I thought—I had hoped that by letting you vent your anger and take revenge, I could give you back a part of yourself. Give you back your soul. But I see now that you’re beyond help. Anyone’s help. Even mine.”

  Like the trapped animal she was, Deanna ran—away from Luke and away from the pain inside her. With tears blinding her, she couldn’t see where she was going. Didn’t care where she was going. She’d been a fool to think that by discovering the truth about her father’s death, she could gain Luke’s forgiveness and set things right.

  “What’s wrong? Can’t you face the truth?” Luke called after her. “I’m not the one who still cares. You are. You’re the one hurting, not me.”

  Deanna stumbled, but caught herself before she fell. She had to make her way back to her horse and leave this place. Swiping her eyes, she dashed away her tears too late to see the downed tree limb just as she fell over it. She landed with a dull thud, the wind momentarily knocked out of her. She gasped for air, and when her lungs filled again, her chest ached.

  Before she could move, she felt strong hands grasping her, turning her over onto her back. She gazed up into Luke’s dark green eyes. She saw him study her carefully as if making sure she was okay. But once he ran his hands over her face and body and was assured she had suffered no injury, the concern disappeared from his eyes, replaced by an angry, mercenary look. This wasn’t the Luke she had loved. The wild, passionate boy who had been capable of tenderness and compassion. No, this man was a stranger.

  He dragged her up and onto her feet, all the while keeping his arms around her. She trembled from head to toe, still badly shaken from the fall and frightened by this man who had so easily ripped out her heart.

  “Why the hell did you have to come back!” He clasped the back of her head with one hand as he held her in place with the other. He lowered his head and took her mouth in a savage kiss. Deanna stood there—shocked, frightened and yet strangely aroused by his brutal kiss. He plundered and pillaged, thrusting his tongue inside, pressing her body into his as he gripped her head in his big hand.

  She had no fight left in h
er. Luke had drained every ounce of life from her by his cruelty. She let him maul her with his mouth and hands, making no protest by word or action to indicate she wanted him to stop.

  When he cupped her buttock and lifted her up and into his arousal, she shivered, her body responding traitorously to his intimacies. He lowered her to the ground, his lips madly covering her face and neck. He hovered over her like a giant, large and powerful. Stunned by his passion, dazed by her own acceptance, she stared up at him and saw desire burning in his eyes.

  He wanted her as she wanted him. He was as powerless as she was over the driving need that forced his actions. He could hate her. He could willingly hurt and humiliate her. He could deny that she meant anything to him. But he could not hide his body’s reaction to hers.

  “Oh, Luke,” she whispered and reached up to touch his face.

  The moment her hand made contact with his beard-stubbed chin, his body jerked and he closed his eyes, as if trying to shut out the pity he obviously saw on her face.

  Rising from the ground, he lifted her up and into his arms. Deanna draped her arm around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. Silent and strong, Luke carried her down the path to where their horses waited. He set her on her feet, then grasped her hand in his.

  “The only power you have left over me is this.” He placed her hand on his crotch, pressing her palm against the bulge in his jeans. “And I know dozens of women who can ease this ache. I don’t even need you for sex. I got what I wanted from you at the motel the other night, so I won’t be bothering you with my unwanted attentions anymore.”

  “Luke, I—”

  “Oh, I’m not kicking you off the ranch,” he said. “Feel free to stay on as long as it takes for the rest of your memory to return. That shouldn’t take long, should it? Just look how quickly you remembered seeing me walk away and leave your father alive that night. Heck, within a week, your memory should be fully restored.”

  Luke lifted her up and into the saddle, then handed her the reins. “Who really killed Rayburn? Was it good ole Eddie? Was it Junior or maybe even Benita? Or did your mother actually sully her hands and plunge that pitchfork into the old bastard herself?”

  Deanna shook her head sadly. “No matter what I say, you won’t believe me, will you? You’re so eaten alive with hatred that you aren’t willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. Dammit, Luke, what are you so afraid of? Are you scared that I may actually be telling the truth? That I didn’t mean to betray you? That after all these years, I still care about you?”

  Luke slapped Fair Weather on the rump and set the chestnut mare into motion. Deanna didn’t glance back as she rode away, up the path and down the hill.

  Luke watched her until she disappeared from sight, then he mounted Cherokee and headed in the opposite direction. He wasn’t going home tonight. Hell, he might not ever go home again. Not as long as Deanna was staying in the guest cottage. He had told her that he didn’t need her for sex anymore and the look on her face had been almost as priceless as it had been when she’d first realized the old cabin was gone forever.

  He wasn’t going to feel guilty for hurting her, and he knew he had. He had taken the knife out of his own heart and plunged it into hers. What he didn’t understand was why the pain wouldn’t go away. Why did he hurt even more now than he had before he’d gutted her with his cruelty? She deserved what he’d done to her and more, didn’t she?

  Luke accelerated Cherokee’s speed, racing him across the open range. All the while memories chased him like demons. Memories of Deanna’s face when he’d told her he had burned their cabin to the ground. If she didn’t still care about him, seeing the cabin ruins wouldn’t have hurt her so deeply. But he’d known before he took her there how she would react. He’d counted on it. He had known Deanna still cared.

  And God help him, so did he.

  Chapter 9

  Standing on the front porch of the guest cottage, Deanna stared at the main house. It was after nine o’clock, so Luke would have been up for a good four hours now. She wondered where he was and what he was doing. Yesterday when she’d taken a walk around the inner sanctum of Montrose, she had overheard two young hands talking about old man Cooley finally selling Hercules to Luke. Apparently for the past year, Luke had been trying to persuade Otis Cooley to sell his prize bull. Maybe that’s where Luke was, she thought. Gone to bring Hercules home to Montrose.

  Whatever else he was doing, Luke was doing a good job of ignoring her. He hadn’t spoken to her in over a week—not since the evening he’d taken her to the old cabin site. The evening he’d made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want anything to do with her. She supposed he’d expected her to pack her bags and leave Montrose, but she’d been hell-bent on staying.

  It had become apparent that Luke didn’t want to help her, that his distrust of her outweighed his need to discover the truth. She realized that perhaps her only hope of learning the identity of her father’s real killer lay in regaining her memory of that fateful night. To pass the time, she rode Fair Weather up into the hills every day, but always avoided the remains of the cabin. She didn’t think she could bear to see it again without crying. It had never entered her mind that Luke might have destroyed their special place. If there had been any doubts in her mind that Luke truly hated her, he had erased those doubts.

  But she could endure Luke’s hatred, his avoidance of her, his cold, bitter glares whenever he saw her wandering around the ranch—she could endure almost anything—because she knew it was only a matter of time until her memory returned. All of it. Every lost fragment. Dr. Kirkland had been right—facing Luke, confronting her love for him and her guilt over what she’d done had acted as a catalyst, accelerating the return of memories her mind had blocked for fifteen years. Every day, she remembered something new. Tiny pieces of a giant puzzle, but added together they represented a part of her life that trauma had destroyed. More and more flashbacks from the trial haunted her. Testimony of the key witnesses—Eddie Nunley and Phyllis Atchley, who swore they’d seen Luke running away and found Deanna huddled over her father’s lifeless body. She hadn’t questioned the validity of their sworn statements—not once in all these years. But now she did. She didn’t know why—not yet—but she knew that her mother and Eddie had lied. They hadn’t seen Luke. She knew they hadn’t! Somewhere buried in her subconscious was that memory—the memory that Luke had left long before Phyllis and Eddie had come to the stables. If only she could recall the details. But the harder she tried to bring them forth, the deeper the memories buried themselves.

  If only Luke would talk to her, tell her what he remembered about that night...If only he would live up to his end of the bargain and really try to help her.

  Who was she kidding? Luke had gotten what he’d wanted—her subjugation and her humiliation. And he’d allowed her to stay on in the guest cottage. The way he looked at it, they were finished. Maybe he was right. Maybe staying on here at Montrose was foolish. Her memory seemed to be returning steadily, even if only in bits and pieces. She could stay with Patsy Ruth, who’d given her an open invitation. Or she could go home to the Circle A. Junior called her every day. To check on her, to make sure she was all right, he’d said. “Why don’t you come home where you belong?” he’d asked her more than once. “Don’t let Luke McClendon hurt you any more than he already has.”

  Even with her brother and her best friend from childhood both advising her to leave Montrose, to give up on saving Luke from himself, she found it hard to say goodbye to a dream. Yes, a dream. For the past ten years—since the day she’d left Millones—she had dreamed of being reunited with Luke. In her dream, he always forgave her, always loved her again, always promised her a future with him. If she left Montrose, she would have to stop dreaming the impossible dream. And without that dream, she had nothing.

  She had to talk to Luke, to give him one last chance. But if he turned his back on her again, she would leave Montrose. She’d taken all she could stand. And without a
ny hope of Luke changing his mind about her, there was no point in staying. He wasn’t going to help her. And he certainly wasn’t ever going to care about her again.

  On her way to the stables, Deanna rounded the side of the barn and came upon Luke corralling a big Beefmaster bull. Was this the famous Hercules, the bull Luke had been trying to buy for over a year now?

  A potbellied elderly man stood behind a shiny new Ford pickup. He scratched his head, mussing the sparse white strands that barely covered the round bald spot in the center. If the animal was Hercules, then the man had to be Otis “Ole Man” Cooley.

  Maybe Luke would be in a good mood this morning, now that he had captured the prize. Years ago, when Baxter McClendon was alive, Luke had told her how much he loved Montrose, how desperately he wanted to be a real part of the family and how be longed to follow in his father’s footsteps and take over the reins of the eighteen-thousand-acre ranch. Montrose was a family-owned cow-calf operation with a herd of around twelve hundred cattle. Herefords mostly. And a few registered Longhorns. And now a Beefmaster bull.

  “If he gives you any trouble, pull one of these on him,” Old Man Cooley said as he dragged a pitchfork out of the back of his truck. “My pappy never went into a corral with a bull unless he had his protection. Done the same all my life.”

  Luke glared at the pitchfork. Deanna’s heart skipped a beat. Damn that old man. Didn’t he have any idea what he’d just said to Luke? Obviously not. Mr. Cooley was probably eighty years old and half senile and it never entered his mind to consider the fact that Luke had been sent to prison for killing a man with a pitchfork.

  The longer and harder Luke glowered at the pitchfork the longer Deanna gazed at it. Within minutes she felt a strange tug, as if something was drawing her into a whirlwind. Her head spun around and around. Dear Lord, was she going to faint?

  The pitchfork in Mr. Cooley’s hand grew larger and larger until it was the size of a tree and then he disappeared altogether. Blood dripped from the pronged weapon. Rivulets of red liquid poured onto the ground