Bride of the Wolf

by Susan Krinard

  “If you have no objection,” she said, “I would like to try a longer ride tomorrow.”

  For no good reason, the back of his neck started to prickle. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Away from the house. Along the creek, perhaps. I could ride Jericho again.”

  It wasn’t such a bad idea, considering that she would need to ride on ground a lot less even than what was around the house.

  She don’t need to learn anything of the kind, he told himself. She’ll be going back to a place she won’t ever need it.

  “I thought we might take Gordie,” she said, as if she felt the need to fill up his silence. “I think it would do him good to get out in the sunshine, if we go when it’s still cool.”

  That was what made Heath decide in favor of a longer ride. It would be a good test of Gordie’s fitness to travel.

  And having him along would make it damn near impossible for anything to start up between himself and Rachel.

  “All right,” he said, watching the swish of Banner’s tail so he wouldn’t have to look into her eyes. “Day after tomorrow. We’ll leave at dawn.”

  She nodded, began to move toward the house, then stopped again. Heath could feel that heat building up between them, heat that had nothing to do with the way the sun was starting to bake the ground and bleach the sky.

  “Thank you, Mr. Renshaw,” she said. And kept on going until she was inside and he was outside, with a solid door between them.

  Charlie was out on the range, but Heath was in no mood to join him. He searched for Joey again, riding south this time. He left Apache in the shade of an abandoned, half-collapsed dugout and Changed, running another twenty miles toward the Rio Grande and back around.

  It was no use. Wherever Joey had gone, the desert had done a good job of wiping out his trail. At least he hadn’t met with an accident; a rotting body was one thing Heath could have found without any trouble.

  He tried to make sense of the situation as he rode north toward the creek. Why had the kid run away? Last time they’d talked was the night Joey had seen the money, and Heath had told him Jed had left it for the ranch. He remembered Joey had wanted to go with him to punish Sean, and Heath had said he should get that idea out of his head.

  Was that why Joey had lit off? Was he mad because Heath wouldn’t take him along? The boy could be flighty sometimes, but most of his kit was still in the bunkhouse, and he would still be hurting from the whipping.

  “Fool kid,” Heath muttered, earning a curious look from Apache. “Reckon you’ll be back when you’re good and ready.” Better to think that way than think Joey was gone for good.

  But worry gnawed at him, and he knew Rachel would be upset again, the way she was every time he told her Joey was still missing. Instead of going straight home, he turned east instead and went on to Javelina.

  Sonntag was sweeping the street in front of the store as if it were paved instead of dirt. He watched Heath dismount, set the broom down and followed him inside. Heath pretended to look around and wandered up to the message wall. The wanted poster for the murderer Heath Renier was gone.

  “Can I help you, Herr Renshaw?” Sonntag asked, coming up behind him. “Another cradle, perhaps?”

  “You got one?” Heath muttered, staring at the blank space where the poster had been.

  “Nein, but I can easily order—”

  “Did they catch the outlaw?”

  Sonntag moved to stand beside him and slid his spectacles farther up his nose. “So it would seem. The bounty hunter came in yesterday and took it down. He said the man had been caught elsewhere and he was returning to San Antonio.”

  Heath felt as if a whole passel of ants were scurrying around inside his skin. Someone else had been taken for him. Maybe someone innocent.

  They’ll let him go when they find out he’s not the man they want. Meanwhile, Heath had just been given a little more time. Luck was on his side. Luck he didn’t deserve.

  “A relief, nicht wahr?” Sonntag said.

  “Yeah.” Heath turned for the door.

  “Herr Renshaw, I have more of that jam you like.”

  Without thinking, Heath followed the storekeeper to the counter and bought two jars. It was Joey who liked the jam, not him. But Joey would be coming back. And Rachel would like it, too.

  He walked out of the store wondering why he felt like a jail-cell door had just slammed in his face.

  “THE BOY AIN’T come back,” Charlie said.

  Sean slapped the yearling calf’s rump so hard that it jumped and kicked and raced away, tossing its short-horned head. The other beeves in the corral kept well away from Sean, sensing his sudden anger.

  “I told you not to come openly,” he snapped, opening the gate.

  The cowhand glanced around, scanning the outbuildings, corrals and the distant house. “I don’t see no one around.”

  In Charlie’s small and unimaginative mind, that would be enough. He was lucky that he happened to be right. Sean removed his gloves and tucked them into the waistband of his trousers.

  “Do you think he’s left for good?” Sean asked the hand as he strode toward the barn, forcing Charlie to keep up as best he could.

  “Don’t know, Mr. McCarrick. Could be he got too scared to stay.”

  Sean scowled. The situation had seemed so promising until he’d learned that Joey had never returned to Dog Creek. Now he appeared to have lost one of his best sources of information…not to mention the location of the hidden saddlebags.

  I should have had him followed, Sean thought. But he hadn’t seen the need when he was so certain that Joey wouldn’t dare cross him. It had simply never occurred to him that the boy would ride away from the only place he could call home, certainly not without the resources his secret cache could buy.

  Of course, there was still the unpalatable possibility that there had never been any money at all, and Joey had believed that Sean would take full revenge when he learned the truth. In that he was certainly correct.

  Perhaps the boy was a better liar than Sean had judged possible, but he wasn’t clever enough to evade a determined, skillful pursuit. Sean would gladly have hired someone to hunt Joey down…someone like that bounty hunter Constantine, who had apparently left the area not long after he’d arrived. But with only a little over a week remaining until the party, it was unlikely that the boy would be found in time to tell Sean what he wanted to know.

  “What d’you want me to do, Mr. McCarrick?” Charlie asked, aware enough of Sean’s mood to keep his distance.

  “Renshaw is still looking for him?”

  “Yessir. He’s startin’ to seem a mite worried.”

  Worried because he was concerned for the boy, or because he and Joey shared secrets he didn’t want uncovered?

  “Continue to keep watch,” Sean said. “If he does return, I want to know about it first thing. And if he looks as if he’ll run off again, you get him alone, secure him and bring him to the old dugout at Dry Spring.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Go. And don’t let yourself be seen.”

  Charlie disappeared, and Sean turned for the house. The setback was hardly to be dismissed, but he was by no means prepared to relinquish his plans. Tomorrow Amy and her mother would tender the party invitation to Mrs. McCarrick and her foreman. Sean had the will from Heywood in his possession, and the unquestioning loyalty of enough men to do whatever needed to be done.

  The Fates had not abandoned him yet.

  HEATH FINISHED saddling Jericho and Apache before the sun was up. Rachel’s scent drifted to him across the still air as he tied the blanket roll onto the saddle, and he half turned to watch her walk across the yard.

  She was dressed in the brown calico skirts she always chose for riding, and he figured she was also wearing the boy’s britches he’d given her to protect her legs from chafing.

  Hellfire. Last thing he needed now was to think about her legs and what they could wrap around. He looked away so he wouldn’t h
ave to notice the luster of her dark hair, the curve of her lips, the unconscious sway of her body. Lucia was right behind her, carrying Gordie all wrapped up in enough blankets to keep a horned toad comfortable at the North Pole in December.

  “Buenos dias, señor,” Lucia said.

  “Mornin’.” He glanced at Rachel. “You ready?”

  Her hesitation was so slight that he almost didn’t notice it. “Yes,” she said. “Nothing about Joey?”

  He shook his head. “He’ll turn up.”

  Her tongue darted out the way it did sometimes when she was worried or scared, but she knew as well as he did that there was nothing more to be done. After a few seconds she moved closer to Jericho’s head. “Hello, boy,” she murmured.

  “You ain’t scared?” Heath asked.

  “We’ve been through this before, Mr. Renshaw.”

  Her voice was crisp and businesslike, allowing for no argument. As long as she was prickly, he could keep pretending to forget the times when she’d been soft. Soft all through her body, ready to forget about Jed. Ready to let him in.

  He must have cursed, because Rachel gave him a wary look and backed away. Heath busied himself with buckling on the saddlebags—filled with a hearty breakfast Maurice had insisted on preparing—to Apache’s saddle, while Lucia helped Rachel fix up the sling she would use to carry Gordie against her chest. When they were finished, Lucia took the baby and Rachel approached Jericho again. Heath bent and made a stirrup out of his hands.

  “Shouldn’t I use the mounting block?” she asked, her voice quivering a little.

  “Ain’t no mountin’ blocks on the range,” he said. “Go on.”

  Her little foot fit easily in the cupped palms of his hands. He waited until she had a firm grip on the saddle horn and boosted her up. She settled easily, the skirts falling around her legs so that the hem brushed the tops of the boy’s boots he’d found for her. She took up the reins and sat upright and easy, as if she’d been born in the saddle.

  Another reason to admire her. Another strike of the brand, burning its way through flesh and bone and into his heart.

  Except you couldn’t burn what wasn’t there. And never would be again.

  Taking the sling from Lucia, he helped Rachel ease it over her head, then lifted Gordie and tucked him inside. Heath’s fingers brushed her bodice, and she gasped. He clenched his teeth and went to mount Apache.

  They started toward the creek, Heath in front. His human ears tried to stretch behind him to catch the creak of her saddle, the clop of Jericho’s hooves, every little sound she made and breath she took. The smell of her, sharp in his nostrils, made his cock so hard that it was almost painful to sit in the saddle.

  Rachel caught up, riding beside him but far enough away so they couldn’t touch by accident. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “About seven miles west of here there’s a bend in the creek with a stand of oaks for shade. Think you can ride that far?”

  “Of course I can.” She bent her head to smile at Gordie. “Isn’t that so, little one?”

  Setting his jaw, Heath pulled ahead again. They rode the first few miles along the creek in uncomfortable silence, broken only by Rachel’s quiet chatter to Gordie, pointing out this bird or that scurrying lizard. Heath could see how interested she was in everything she saw. She gave a little cry of surprise when a jackrabbit bounded across the trail ahead of them, and listened intently to a meadowlark’s call.

  He’d been telling himself from the beginning that a woman like her couldn’t find anything to like in a place so brown and hot and barren. But he was beginning to wonder if he’d been wrong.

  No future, no past. That was what he had to keep on remembering.

  An hour after they’d left the house, Heath called a stop for rest. He dismounted, took Gordie from Rachel and held the baby in the crook of one arm as he helped Rachel down, catching her around the waist as she climbed out of the saddle. He heard her suck in her breath and hold it until she was firmly on her feet and reaching for Gordie.

  “You need to drink and stretch your legs,” Heath said, letting Gordie go as soon as he was safely in Rachel’s arms. “If you’re hungry—”

  “I’m not, thank you.” She made a fuss over Gordie’s blankets. “I believe that Gordie would like a drink from his bottle.”

  Angry again for no reason at all, Heath took the bottle out of the saddlebags and gave it to Rachel. She looked along the bank of the creek, picked out a rock big and flat enough to sit on and set about feeding Gordie. She acted as if Heath wasn’t there, humming under her breath, and kicking at small rocks and pebbles with the toe of her boot.

  Heath crouched a little distance away, not even trying to ignore her. He’d given up trying to figure out when she’d stopped being plain to him and started to be beautiful, or when he’d begun to think she could be the kind of woman who could love someone else more than herself. She and Gordie together were something whole and perfect, like a circle that could only be broken if someone else stepped into it.

  He’s my son. But that was just a bunch of words that Heath still didn’t understand. Just like he still didn’t know how to be a father. Or a—

  Heath saw the scorpion scuttling from underneath the rock the second after Rachel kicked the stone aside. She didn’t notice the creature climbing onto her boot until Heath was beside her, snatching her and Gordie off the ground and sweeping the scorpion away.

  Rachel let out a woof of surprise and stiffened in his arms, turning her body as if to shield Gordie from his touch. “What do you think you’re—”

  “Don’t move.” Heath let her go and looked for the scorpion. It had disappeared, but he had a good idea where it had gone. He turned the nearest rock over with the toe of his boot. The ugly thing snapped up its tail, and he stomped down hard. Rachel gasped.

  “Never kick things over out here,” he said harshly. “You don’t know what you might stir up.”

  “Is that a…?”

  “Scorpion.”

  He turned around just in time to see her legs start to give out. He grabbed her again, circling her and Gordie in his arms. She shook her head frantically.

  “Take Gordie. I’m not sure I can—”

  “Hold on.” He whistled sharply to Apache, who moved within his reach, and untied his bedroll with one hand. He shook it out, tossed it on a bare patch of ground and eased Rachel down, making sure she had the baby secure before he let go. She was trembling so hard that he thought she might shake right out of her clothes. Gordie’s face was all bunched up in confusion.

  Heath crouched beside them. “Ain’t nothin’ to be scared of now,” he said gruffly.

  The sound she made wasn’t exactly crying, but it wasn’t laughing, either. “It…it could have—”

  “No one out here ever died of a scorpion sting,” he said. “It would have hurt, maybe swelled up a little, but it couldn’t have stung through your boot anyway.”

  She stared at him, all dark eyes in a white face, rocking Gordie back and forth, back and forth. “My boot?” she echoed, as if what he’d said hadn’t made any sense. “It could have stung Gordie!”

  Only if he’d been blind and deaf, but he could see that Rachel wasn’t listening to reason. She wasn’t scared for herself. She was thinking of what could have happened to the baby. Because of her.

  “Listen, Rachel,” he said in the kind of voice he would have used with a badly spooked horse. “It ain’t your fault. You didn’t know—”

  “Take him!” She held Gordie out to him, the tears running down her cheeks. “I can’t…I almost—”

  “Hush.” He knelt in front of her and took her in his arms again, the baby snug between them. “It ain’t your fault, Rachel,” he repeated.

  The sobs came tearing out of her throat like a sickness he had no power to heal. Her fingers bit into his arm, and she pressed her face into his shoulder. Gordie started to cry, and all Heath could think about was keeping them both safe in his arms as long
as they needed him, even if he had to hold them for the rest of his life.

  Sometime later—he didn’t know how long—Apache bumped his shoulder and nibbled on his ear. He came to his senses again. Rachel and Gordie had stopped crying. Gordie was settled in a cradle made by his chest and Rachel’s arm. Rachel’s fingers were still caught in his shirtsleeve, and her head was still tucked into the hollow of his shoulder. They were so quiet he wondered if somehow they’d cried themselves to sleep.

  He eased away just enough so he could see Rachel’s face. She stirred, her hand slipping away from his arm. Her eyes were red and puffy, and there were creases in her face where it had rested against his vest. She met his gaze, too exhausted to be wary or afraid or ashamed.

  “I think Gordie’s asleep,” Heath said.

  She looked down at the baby, and for a second Heath thought she was going to smile. Instead, she leaned away and wedged her arms under Gordie so she could hold him. Heath had no choice but to let them go. It was like dropping through a scaffold at the end of a noose.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you.” All proper again, but humble and sad and weary. “You…you should take Gordie now.”

  He dropped back onto his heels, every muscle stiff and sore, a fist-size rock in his throat. “He’s where he belongs.”

  Her hair, which had come loose sometime during her panic, fell across her face like a ripple of black velvet. “Don’t you see? I’m not fit to care for him. I’m not—”

  “You ain’t perfect? Is that it, Rachel?”

  He hadn’t meant the words to be gentle, and she didn’t take them that way. She stared at him through her hair while Gordie kept right on sleeping in her arms.

  “You said you cared about him,” Heath said. “Carin’ don’t mean givin’ up when times get hard, or just because you made a mistake.” He leaned toward her, holding her with his eyes. “You always run away when you think you ain’t good enough?”

  The paleness of her skin gave way to hot color. “You don’t know,” she whispered. “You have no i—” She closed her eyes and touched Gordie’s cheek with hers. “No. I don’t always run away.”