Athena stared at her interlaced fingers. "You witnessed this yourself?"
Niall paced to her desk and shuffled the stack of papers and bills. "I was consulting with the gentleman regarding a business venture of some importance when she accosted him on the street. It is fortunate that he caught her. She is now in jail where she belongs."
Niall had always been the hardheaded, ambitious one in the family, Athena the heart and conscience. He was more annoyed with his sister than with the poor young woman who had been driven to such an act.
Annoyed because Athena's work had inadvertently disrupted his business. Because she had failed.
"It is entirely my fault," she said meekly. "I will pay the girl's fine, and—"
"I forbid it. Some people can't be helped, Athena. They only become more entrenched in their laziness and dependence."
She looked up to meet Niall's gaze. The flinty gray of his eyes had softened, and she saw the pity and guilt in his face. Not for those he spoke of, but for her.
"Have you ever tried to help," she asked, "simply for the sake of it? With no hope of profit or gain?"
"Have you?" His mouth was a rigid line, almost cruel. "Hasn't your work paid dividends in the admiration and respect of your ladies? Hasn't it won you a place for yourself where no one can feel sorry for you?"
Athena clutched the iron-rimmed wheels of her chair and jerked it backward as if he had struck at her. "I am sorry that I have disappointed you."
He shook his head and made a slashing gesture with the side of his hand. "No. No. But it is completely unnecessary to exhaust yourself by becoming indispensable to every philanthropic cause in Denver. The Munroes already have the city's—the nation's—respect and admiration. We never had to fight for it. No one stands above us in influence or capital. As long as you are my sister, your position is assured."
Even though I cannot dance, or make a grand tour of Europe, or even enjoy a social luncheon at the Windsor. "Of course you are right, Niall," she said, regaining her composure. "I appreciate all you have done for me."
"Athena…" He grimaced. "I'm poor company tonight. Perhaps you should dine alone."
"No, please. I understand the pressures you face. Let us speak no more of this. M. Savard has prepared your favorite meal, and you would not wish to disappoint him."
He sighed. "Very well." It was impossible for her to take his arm, so he positioned himself behind her chair and pushed her to the dining room. He placed her at one end of the table and assumed his seat at the opposite end. Each setting was elegantly arranged, with a cloisonne vase of fresh flowers at the center of the vast oak table, low enough so as not to obstruct the view down its impressive length.
Brinkley appeared to direct the parlormaid and footman in serving the first course. For a time they ate in silence while Athena searched for some innocuous subject to draw Niall close again.
"I saw Miss Hockensmith today," she began. "She is quite taken with you, I believe. She will be expecting your attentions at the Winter Ball."
"Will she?" He never lifted his eyes from his plate.
How little he truly knew of women, for all his vast experience of the world. How lonely he must be with only those dry businessmen as companions, and how oblivious to his own loneliness. His sister was simply not enough.
Until recently, she had not considered the damaging effects of that loneliness. At the ripe age of twenty-six, she had seen more and more of her peers married and managing households of their own. She remembered a time when even she had held such aspirations.
Selfish aspirations, with no thought of others. It was Niall she must worry about now. She knew his real reason for avoiding the bonds of matrimony.
It was she. Athena Munroe, bound to him with the implacable chains of guilt. All he might have dreamed as a boy, all the old wildness, had been abandoned for her care, her happiness.
But how could she be content when she knew that he was not, even if his ultimate happiness meant that she must be alone? Was that not a small sacrifice to make after all those he had made?
As long as she had her work…
"Miss Hockensmith is rather lovely, you know," she said. "Quite willing to help in the work of the Society, and with the orphans. I seem to remember that you had been considering her father for some sort of partnership."
He peered at her over the top of the flowers. "Do you wish to become my business adviser, Athena, or are you simply matchmaking?"
His attempt at humor warmed her. "It would not hurt you to show occasional courtesies to my friends."
He muttered something too low for her to hear, which was not an easy feat. Her ears still functioned perfectly well, and better than those of anyone she had met in her lifetime.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Nothing." He nodded to Brinkley, who had brought the dessert. He stabbed at the pudding as if it were a tough slice of beef. At last he set his spoon down and looked at Athena. The back of her neck prickled as if at the gathering of a prairie thunderstorm.
"This makes the fifth summer that you have not gone to the ranch," he said. "I don't like it, Athena. The heat and dust is unhealthy for you. You need fresh air and quiet, and by remaining in Denver you are certainly not getting it. I will not have you becoming ill because of your own stubbornness."
Athena sampled her pudding, barely tasting it. "I am in good health, Niall. There is no danger—"
"You think me unobservant, but I have seen the changes in you. You've convinced yourself that you can solve all of Denver's problems single-handedly, without taking any rest for yourself."
"Rest? Look at me." She swept her hand down the length of her body. "I have plenty of rest. It is the people I try to help who have no rest, struggling as they do every day simply to survive."
"Our own father struggled when he first came to Denver, and no one gave him charity. He would have turned it away."
"Not everyone in this world is alike, Niall. You know that as well as anyone."
They stared at each other. There were two subjects they almost never brought up between them: Athena's accident, and the nature she had inherited from her mother. Athena deliberately avoided thinking about either; the first could not be undone, and the second she had left behind forever.
She had not known her mother. Perhaps that was why she felt so deeply for the orphans, who had lost much more.
"I have kept my promise to you," Athena said, the words sliding past the lump in her throat. "You promised not to interfere in my chosen occupation."
He scowled, rising from his chair. "I did not promise to let you do whatever you pleased, no matter what the cost. Your insistence upon visiting the tent city and the warehouse district is foolhardy in the extreme."
Her skin went cold. How had Niall learned of that? She had been so careful to go incognito, cloaked and hooded and accompanied by a brawny former soldier she had employed after her orphanage administrator had urged her to take some protection. Had it not been for her immobility, she needn't have feared any man, even in the worst part of the city.
Do not think of what might have been. Do not.
"You have paid employees to send on such tasks," Niall continued. "No one, least of all the members of your Society, expects you to dirty your hands or endanger your person. You are no common shopgirl, Athena. Your fine Miss Hockensmith could not approve of such impropriety."
In her heart Athena knew he was right, but she had chosen to take the risk, knowing that the other ladies would not expect a cripple to be capable of such adventures.
They were the only adventures permitted her, now. Among the orphans, or the inebriates, or the poor folk in their threadbare tents along the South Platte, she could not possibly be an object of pity. It was she who held the advantages, she who gave. No one reminded her, however inadvertently, of what she had lost.
And they needed her.
"They are people, Niall," she said earnestly. "It is not enough to have someone deliver the food and see that th
ey have fresh water and clothing and coal enough to get through the winter. They must be encouraged, led to see that there is a better life to strive for. Without real examples, how can they learn?"
"Let someone else do the teaching. Someone who is… unencumbered."
She pushed away from the table and spun her chair about. "Am I not an encumbrance upon you, Niall? Your worry for me is distracting you from your important work, and wouldn't it be so much easier if I would sit quietly and knit stockings until you find some use for me?"
Her outburst hung in the air like a choking haze. Athena touched her throat, amazed and chagrined. Had that self-pitying, selfish tirade come from her, or had some harpy assumed her shape and voice? What had possessed her?
Have you any use at all, Athena Munroe?
Niall walked the length of the table and stopped before her, grave and strangely quiet. "Yes, Athena. It is what I would prefer—to see you safe and content. But I know that is not possible."
"But I am… I am content! Don't you see—"
"I am sorry. You leave me no choice. Either you agree to cease these clandestine visits to the slums, and reduce your commitments to a reasonable number, or I must take steps to see that you are removed to a place where you can reconsider your priorities."
Icy terror swept through her. "The Winter Ball—you cannot expect me to give that up, or abandon the orphans. Papa's money made it possible. I am only doing what he wished."
"It is your choice, Athena. I could see to it that you are relieved of all your self-imposed duties—and I shall, if I believe it will save you from yourself."
"If only you thought of something besides making money—"
"The money you are so glad to have?"
Tears burned behind her eyes. "Where did you get your hard heart, Niall? It was not from Papa. Your mother—"
"Leave our mother out of this."
"She was never my mother. She did not wish to be."
Niall's fair skin reddened. "She acknowledged you as hers, when she might have—"
"I know what she might have done," Athena said quietly. "I know." She wheeled about and started toward the door. "If you will forgive me, Niall, I am tired. I will go up to my room now."
"Athena—"
"Good-night."
She heard the bang of Niall's fist on the table as she entered the hall. Brinkley appeared, ever bland and efficient, to help her to her room. He steered her into the Otis hydraulic safety elevator at the end of the hall and closed the gate.
After two years Athena was used to the curious motion of the device, which Niall had insisted was the perfect solution for the problem of stairs. And now, of course, the grand Windsor hotel had an elevator of its own. Niall's foresight matched their father's in every way.
So did his devotion to her. A devotion that imprisoned him as surely as her chair did Athena.
At the second floor, Brinkley met her to roll back the gate and step aside. He had been too long with the family to ask if she wished to be taken to her room. Fran would be waiting in the small chamber adjacent to hers, and all Athena wished to do now was retire.
How had things gone so wrong? How had she managed to quarrel with her brother, when they so seldom lifted their voices to each other? She could never beat Niall in an argument, and she did not make the mistake of doubting his threats.
Fran helped her undress and get into bed, and she lay staring up at the ceiling for a long while. She had wanted Niall's happiness; she needed to continue her work without hindrance. Somehow she must distract Niall from his focus on her, and at the same time prove that she was fully capable of caring for herself.
If you were truly independent…
But how? Niall still controlled her inheritance, according to the terms of Papa's will. She could not demand her portion unless Niall agreed. And he saw her as what she was—a cripple.
She tried to move her legs. They remained lumps under the blankets, only the toes capable of wiggling. She had given up on walking long ago.
There must be some other way of convincing Niall that she was a sensible, mature, strong woman in mind and spirit if not in body. Some way to relieve him of his guilt once and for all.
She drifted into a twilight world between sleep and waking, and it seemed that she was running—running on four legs instead of two. Four whole, healthy, powerful legs. And she was not alone.
In dreams, she could pretend.
Chapter 2
Southern Colorado, June 1880
Voices.
They drew him toward flickering light and the smell of human habitation, though he had left that world behind in a time beyond memory. He could not have said, even had he been capable of speech, why he fled the hunters into the arms of other men instead of to the deep wilderness.
Madness. Yet the pain drove him, and the knowledge that he was near death. The voices were very close.
Firelight seared his eyes. He plunged into the circle made by the many human dwellings and staggered to a stop. The baying of hounds resounded from the forest's edge.
Raised voices, cries of alarm, shouting like the howls of wolves. He braced himself for more pain, ready to expend the last of his strength if they came with ropes to bind him.
None did. Tall shapes darted in and out of his blurred sight. Human scent washed over him. His legs buckled, and he fell to his side. Each breath brought searing agony. Little by little, the light and the remnant of his senses faded. Then came the darkness.
Peace.
He returned to himself slowly, and the voices were still there. They flooded his mind like tainted water: human words, human thoughts, human images.
But now he understood what he heard. And he, himself, was human.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Did you see that?"
"Remarkable," said the second, deeper voice. "Quite astonishing."
A murmur of agreement and disbelief followed. "Since we all witnessed it," said a third voice, marked by a gentle drawl, "we must conclude that it was not a delusion."
"Delusions don't bleed," the first voice said. "Whatever he is, he's been shot."
"He may be dangerous," came a fourth. "Do not touch him, Caitlin."
"Can't you see that he is too badly hurt to be a danger to anyone?"
He opened his eyes and tried to bring the world into focus. His senses were dulled, hearing and smell filtered through awkward human organs. The body he now wore refused to respond to his commands.
Memory came, and understanding. Between his lower ribs lodged the hunter's bullet, the same that had caught him as he fled the human's dogs. It would not have been a fatal injury had he remained a wolf.
But he had not. Somehow, in some way beyond his will, he had Changed. The wolf had run to men, and the man within him had betrayed the wolf. And now he lay in his own blood, firelight dancing over naked skin, suspended halfway between life and death.
He could not make out the faces around him, but he smelled them clearly: woven cloth, leather, sweat, and horseflesh. A dozen men and women whose voices came more swiftly now, like midsummer rain.
"He appears to be regaining consciousness."
"He will bleed to death if we don't help him."
"Help him? We know nothing about him."
"It's possible that whoever shot him had good reason."
"Maybe he can't talk at all!"
He struggled to remember how to move his mouth and tongue to form words, how to speak the name he had worn in that past life.
Morgan. Morgan Holt, who accepted help from no one. No debt, no obligation, and no charity. Yet he had come here. He was completely in their power.
With a fierce act of will, he shut away the distractions of thought and memory. He summoned up his dwindling strength and called upon the wolf within.
Nothing. Nothing but pain, and night. Blood whistled behind his ears. His heart stuttered, stopped, sprang to sluggish life again.
One of his would-be rescuers came near, and he tried to pull aw
ay. Calloused skin brushed his. He was too weak to shudder in disgust. He floated, disembodied, in a limbo where only the voices were solid.
"Come, children," the first voice said. "Help me move him to my tent."
"We hardly have enough food left to keep ourselves alive, let alone an outsider."
"An outsider? Just look at him! He's like us!"
"Caitlin and Harry are correct. We cannot leave him to die, and I believe I hear sounds of pursuit."
"You know as well as anyone how the townies are, and how they treat those who are different."
A face, round, male, and bewhiskered, took solid form from the fog. "Can you hear me, young man? We wish to help you. My name is Harry, Harry French. You find yourself among the troupers of French's Fantastic Family Circus. Never fear, you are quite safe here—"
"He will die if you keep talking, Harry."
Another face drew near: younger, more delicate, framed by a mass of red hair. "He won't die. He came here for a reason, I know it. To help us, as we help him."
"One of your 'feelings,' Firefly?" said the gentle drawl.
"Something made him come to us. We've needed a miracle. Maybe this is it."
"If he survives and is willing to aid us."
"I agree with Caitlin," the old man said. "He is the good luck we have waited for, and we must save him. Tor!"
Heavy footfalls approached. Broad hands seized Morgan, and he was lifted in arms bulging with muscle and tight as a vise. A great void opened up around him as he lost contact with the earth. From the depths of his throat came a single, pathetic snarl.
"Do not worry, Tor. You won't bite, will you, young man? No, indeed. Caitlin, come with me. The rest of you had better watch for those dogs and whoever is with them."
"They won't make it past us, Harry."
That voice was the last for a very long time. When he woke again, he lay on a cot under several blankets, surrounded by the scents of animals and humans. He tried to sort through the smells, connecting each to its name: canvas, straw, rope, oil, metal, mildew, old cooking. His limbs were weighted; his chest ached with every breath.
TO CATCH A WOLF Page 2
