But there had been no will, only a handful of receipts and random papers stashed in a hole in the wall behind the massive kitchen range that Jed had hauled in all the way from San Antonio.
Sean nicked Ulysses’s sides with his spurs, and the stallion leaped into a run. The cursed thing had to be somewhere. Maybe Jed had it filed away in some bank for safekeeping. If it was anywhere to be found, Sean would find it.
He rode at a reckless pace back to the house, running Ulysses to complete exhaustion. Most of the other hands, including Renshaw, were still on the range, and Maurice was nowhere in sight. Sean rubbed Ulysses down and returned to the tiny foreman’s cabin he’d taken when Holden moved into the house with Jed. He threw a chair across the room, smashed the mirror over the washstand and nearly put his fist through the window. When he could think again, he sat on the edge of the bed and composed his thoughts to an icy calm.
Jed had said the woman would be arriving on the next stage. The stage only came to Javelina twice a month, and Jed had been dead less than a week. Another was due in a matter of days. Rachel Lyndon would arrive expecting to marry a settled rancher who would provide for her needs.
But Jed was gone and she had no lawful claim on Dog Creek. If Sean planned things right, Rachel Lyndon could be encouraged to turn right around and go back to where she came from.
Sean allowed himself a smile and stretched until his bones popped. He would have a little talk with the drifter who’d come by the other day looking for work. Like most men, he was a sheep, easily led and ready to obey a man who knew how to balance bribery and threat.
Whistling a tune he’d heard last week at the Blackwells’, Sean went to clean himself up.
Chapter One
THE BABY THRUST its tiny fists in the air and wailed.
“It’s yours,” Polly said, pushing the bundle toward Heath. “Frankie said so right before she died.”
Frankie was dead. It was strange to think the woman he’d visited every month for two years, who’d given him what his body had to have, was gone. For just a minute he almost felt sorry. Whore that she was, she’d done nothing to deserve dying before her time.
But this…
Heath backed away, staring at the red and wrinkled face.
His? It wasn’t possible.
But it was. The last time he’d seen Frankie had been about eleven months ago. Heath didn’t know a damn thing about babies, but he thought this one was pretty new.
“He’s two months old,” Polly said impatiently, holding the baby closer to her chest. “Frankie died bringin’ him into the world. The least you can do is own up to your part in it.”
The letter in Heath’s pocket was fit to burn a hole through his vest. It had been waiting for him at the house the day he’d found Jed. He’d gotten only a handful of letters before, all from the old man. Never one like this.
Come right away, the letter said in Frankie’s stiff, uneven writing. You have a son.
The first thing he’d done was laugh. Frankie was a whore, but she did like her little jokes. Only after he’d read it twice more did he start to think she meant it.
If he’d been in his right mind, he would have ridden north, the way he’d planned, crossing the Pecos at Horsehead and heading into the Llano Estacado before anyone knew he wasn’t coming back.
He didn’t know if it was the human part of him or the wolf that made him turn south to Heywood, or which part was most scared when he looked at this helpless little mite that had spit on its face and a head almost smaller than Heath’s fist.
“It could have been any of the men she saw,” he said roughly, heading for the door. “Find someone else.”
“Renshaw!” Polly yelled, coming after him. “We can’t keep him here!” She shifted the baby in her arms and gestured with one hand at the garish wallpaper and cheap, gaudy furniture that made Polly’s room of a piece with the rest of the whorehouse. “We don’t have time to look after him, and what kind of life could he have as a whore’s son?”
Heath shoved his hat farther down across his forehead. “That ain’t my problem.”
“He’s your kid, Renshaw!”
The hair on the back of Heath’s neck bristled. He turned around and closed his eyes, letting the wolf take over.
At first all he could smell over the rank stench of the bordello were traces of the kid’s scat, the soap someone had used to wash it away, and a kind of milky musk. Below that was a human scent, but different, like the smell of a colt was different from its dam.
And under that…
Heath tried to tell himself he’d imagined it. It wasn’t as if he’d smelled loup-garou cubs before. But it was there, undeniable, faint but true. The odds against Frankie lying with another loup-garou at just the right time were bigger than Heath could calculate.
Hellfire.
Without warning, Polly pushed the infant into Heath’s arms. He nearly dropped it; only his animal reflexes spared it a nasty fall.
“Be careful!” Polly scolded. “Here. Hold him like this.”
She adjusted his arms so that they supported the baby’s head and tiny body. “There you are, little one,” she said in the gentlest voice Heath had ever heard out of her. She tickled the baby’s shapeless face with a fingertip. “See? Your daddy’s here.”
Heath was too numb to say a damn thing. Polly moved to the bed and gathered up a threadbare carpetbag. “This is what you’ll need at first. All of us pitched in. Warm blankets, cloths for diapers, a bottle. Enough cow’s milk to get you through tonight, and a bottle of formula for afterward. It would be good to find him a wet nurse.”
“I don’t know any wet nurses,” Heath mumbled.
She put her hands on her hips and stared at him with disgust. “You ain’t got no tits yourself, do you? If you don’t know how to keep him, take him where they’ll never know he’s a whore’s son and find some woman who wants him.”
Some woman. Heath caught himself before he could bare his teeth and snarl in Polly’s face.
But Polly didn’t know what the kid was. What could happen to a ’breed if he ever ended up being raised by people like the humans who’d taken him in, then rejected him as a monster. Or like his real mother, who’d thrown Heath out for being half-human.
Quarter werewolf might never be able to Change at all.
Heath felt the fragility of the wriggling form beneath the blanket and thought of the future he had planned. He couldn’t just ride aimlessly into the plains with a baby tied to his saddle.
He would know better what to do when he was away from this place and out on the range where he belonged. Where he’d always belonged.
Polly tossed the carpetbag on the stained rug. “You’d better git. I heard Will Bradley thinks you cheated him at poker last time you was here, and I’m sure you don’t want no trouble.” She put up her hand to give Heath a shove, then thought better of it. “Mind you do right by him, Renshaw. If we find out any hurt has come to—”
Heath looked hard into her eyes, and she drew back. “Forget you ever saw him—or me.”
Her throat bobbed. Someone gave a raucous laugh, and a drunken cowhand, leaning on a skinny whore’s shoulder, staggered past the open doorway. Polly rushed out the door and closed it behind her. The baby opened its blue eyes and seemed to look at Heath with a kind of yearning. As if it knew…
With a curse too profane even for the most jaded harlot, Heath transferred the baby into the crook of one arm and picked up the carpetbag. He walked out of the room and left by the back stairs. They creaked under his boots, laughing at him all the way down.
It wasn’t easy to figure out how to carry the kid. In the end he rigged up a sling out of one of the well-worn blankets, tying it around his neck so the small, warm bundle was cradled against his chest. Apache snorted in surprise and craned his head around to stare.
“I don’t need no lip from you,” Heath muttered, reining the gelding away from the bordello. The baby yawned, showing naked pink gums, and Heath’s
stomach dropped to the soles of his boots. It was so damn alien. He could kill it without even meaning to.
That day was just about the longest of Heath’s life. He managed thirty miles by dawn, using his night vision to steer Apache along a path over the rough terrain of the desert. Just after dawn the kid started to cry, and it didn’t take Heath long to realize that he wasn’t saying he was hungry. Heath used one of the other diapers and water from his canteen to clean the baby as best he could, fumbling with fingers made clumsy with uncertainty. Then he found the bottle, filled it from the small flask of milk and stuck the Indian-rubber teat near the baby’s lips. It only yelled louder.
Patience was a virtue Heath had learned in long years of running from the law, but it did him no good now. The baby wouldn’t take the teat. It was pretty clear that nothing Heath did was going to make it suckle, so he mounted up again and kept on going. The kid was strong. It was loup-garou. It would eat when it was hungry.
But he knew there was something wrong when he was forty miles from Javelina and it still wouldn’t take the bottle. Its cries got soft, like the whimper of a pup, and it didn’t look so pink anymore.
The slow panic Heath had felt only a few times in his life welled up like foul water. There wasn’t much of anything between here and Javelina. Dog Creek was ten miles to the north.
There weren’t any women there now, unless the Lyndon female had come in on the stage while he was gone. He hadn’t figured he would be around to see the spectacle, but instinct told him to run for the only place he’d ever thought of as home.
Instinct had a way of getting him in trouble almost as much as his human heart. The wolf wasn’t always right. But he could get the kid proper shelter and a bed at Dog Creek. Even if Jed had already been found, Heath didn’t see that he had any choice. He would find himself a wet nurse to look after the boy until he was well again, even if he had to drag some female to the ranch kicking and screaming.
RACHEL LYNDON STOOD at the door of the small general store, watching the dust rise from the street as a heavily laden wagon rolled by. The aged woman crossing the single main street hardly seemed to notice. She brushed absently at the sleeve of her drab dress, her gaze fixed on the faded sign of the tavern next to the store.
She was the only other woman Rachel had seen. It was a rough place, Javelina. A world away from Ohio. A world dominated by the plain, hardy folk of West Texas, a country with far more cattle than people.
Or so Rachel had read. Yet not all the reading in the world could have prepared her for this.
I will have a home, she thought. A home, and a husband who would be steady and respectable and would care nothing about her former life.
But she was still afraid. Afraid of the horses that seemed to be everywhere, snorting and stamping. Afraid of the riders who stared at her as if she were a rare and exotic beast in a cage—she, who was as plain as a sparrow.
She straightened and lifted her chin. Let them stare. They would never see her nervousness. She had as much right to be here as anyone.
Mrs. Jedediah McCarrick. Ellie Lyndon would cease to exist, along with her past. No more loneliness. No more taking any employment she could find, hoping that she might at last outrun the scandal. The end of wondering where her next meal would come from. Of fearing to get close to any man, lest he turn his back on her.
Lest he be like Louis.
She shook off the thought. Here she could be useful. Here she would never be tempted to return to what she had become.
Here she could forget.
A cowhand tipped his hat as he rode by. She nodded, unsmiling. A spotted hound wandered past the door, wagging its tail. She offered a pat. Dogs had always been kind to her. Forgiving.
The sun sank a little lower, driving long shadows before it. She had sent a letter to Jedediah informing him of the anticipated date of her arrival, but the stagecoach had been late. Apparently he had decided not to wait in town all day.
Lamps were lit inside the houses and public buildings, such as they were. The saloon door swung open, and a pair of inebriated men staggered out, singing off-key. Rachel hugged her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.
Everything had gone so well until now—at least compared to the rest of her life. She’d advertised in the Matrimonial News, only half daring to hope that some respectable man from a place far away from Sheffield, Ohio, might respond. I am a single woman, aged twenty-eight, dark haired and with brown eyes, five feet four inches tall and slender, seeking correspondence with an honorable man of some means. Hardworking, excellent housekeeper, experienced in teaching and good with children.
Jedediah McCarrick had been the fourth to answer. His reply had been the best that could be hoped for: Dear Miss Lyndon, I am a gentleman of fifty-two years, height five feet ten inches. I own a ranch in Texas and am seeking a wife who will work hard to make Dog Creek a going concern.
There was nothing the least romantic in it. Why should there be, when there had been nothing the least romantic in her advertisement? Indeed, he met her needs perfectly. He owned property, so she would never be without food or shelter; he would not be a doddering old man at fifty-two, and he wanted exactly what she could provide.
And he had said nothing about wanting children of his own.
The wind, so warm during the day, had grown cooler. So much hope rested on this meeting. Hope she had not dared allow herself for so long.
“Fräulein?”
The owner of the store, a small, wiry German with a sharp, friendly smile, bustled up beside her and introduced himself. “I could not help but notice that you are still waiting, Fräulein Lyndon,” he said with what appeared to be genuine concern. “Wouldn’t you like to come in? I have coffee, and it is much more comfortable inside.”
Rachel summoned a smile, warmed by the offer in spite of her wariness. Perhaps people really were different here.
“That is kind of you, Mr. Sonntag,” she said, “but I prefer to remain here.”
Mr. Sonntag gave her a long, quizzical look. “You are a relative of Herr McCarrick’s, Fräulein?”
Her throat tightened. “Yes. I am.”
He waited for further revelations. When none were forthcoming, he nodded briskly and vanished into the store.
So no one knew. Surely if anyone in Javelina had guessed her purpose in coming, the owner of one of the town’s few businesses would be aware of it.
But she had not really deceived him; she would be Jed McCarrick’s relative in a matter of days, if not sooner.
Mrs. Jedediah McCarrick.
The thought kept her from panic as another hour passed, and then another. She grew colder. Something must have kept Mr. McCarrick. Perhaps his wagon had broken down or there had been some emergency at the ranch.
The noise from the saloon increased. Rachel picked up her bag. Perhaps it would be best if she went inside rather than make a spectacle of herself, or become an object of derision. She turned to open the door.
The rattle of wheels stopped her. A wagon—a buckboard, they called it—had drawn up in front of the store. The lean, dusty man on the bare plank seat touched the brim of his hat as he settled the horses.
“You Miss Lyndon?” he asked.
Relief nearly choked her reply. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”
The man’s face clouded. “Well, ma’am, it’s like this. Jed ain’t coming.”
She barely registered the words. “I beg your pardon?”
There was no mistaking the man’s discomfort. He squirmed on the seat and cleared his throat.
“Jed sent me,” he said, “to tell you that he’s changed his mind.” He felt inside his coat and produced a leather pouch. “Jed said to give you this, for fare back to Ohio and a little extra for your trouble.”
Rachel had never swooned in her life, but the weakness in her legs was such that she feared she might not keep her feet. “There must be some mistake,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The man held out t
he pouch. Rachel raised her hands as if she could ward off disaster before it could truly become real.
Changed his mind. It was not possible.
“I do not believe it,” she said, finding her courage again.
The messenger let his hand fall. “I only know what he told me. If you’d only—”
“I wish to be taken to Dog Creek.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, ma’am.”
Perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps she would only face further humiliation and the extinction of her last hopes. But she could not go running back to Ohio with her tail between her legs. Not without being absolutely certain.
“If you will not take me,” she said, “I shall find another way.”
The man’s expression of embarrassment underwent a rapid transformation. He scowled and pushed the pouch back under his coat.
“You’re making a mistake, ma’am,” he said. With a curse and a flick of the reins, he sent his horses off at a fast clip. Rachel began to tremble. She had convinced the messenger of her sincerity, but the effort had taken its toll. She felt breathless and weak.
But the decision had been made. She could not afford to return to Ohio now, even had she wished to. This had become a matter of survival.
Taking a firm grip on her bag, she went into the store. Mr. Sonntag offered to find someone to drive her to Dog Creek in the morning.
“You can stay here, Fräulein Lyndon,” he said. “I have several rooms in the back. It is the nearest thing we have to a hotel. No one will trouble you.”
Rachel was prepared to refuse. She had no money to repay such unexpected kindness. But in the end she agreed because she could not imagine spending the night on the street like a woman of ill repute.
Are you any better? she asked herself as she settled in the small, plain room Herr Sonntag had assigned to her.
She was. She must be. And Jedediah McCarrick would make it possible.
RACHEL WOKE EARLY the next morning. Mr. Sonntag insisted that she share his breakfast of bread and jam, and she was too hungry to refuse. A few hours later a man from the livery stable arrived with a wagon, and Rachel took out a few of her remaining coins, hoping they would be enough.
Bride of the Wolf Page 2
