by Maddy Barone
He shook his head, forcing himself to stay by the door. “You did. Something Sky said bothered you.”
“Oh, that.” She put the cloth back in the washbowl and shrugged. “Sometimes he calls me Mandy.”
Sand raised a brow. “And?”
“And that’s not my name. I’m Amanda. Mandy makes me sound like I’m five years old.”
“No, you sure aren’t five.” His voice came out husky when he surveyed his mate, her black leather costume showing off the most gorgeous, alluringly tempting body he’d ever seen in his life.
She laughed, a burst of surprise and pleasure. The sound poured happiness through him. “Thank you. I think. Looks like I’m going to have an early night for once. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Sand straightened from his lean on her door. “Wait. Aren’t we sleeping together tonight?”
“No.” The disappointment that slammed through him lightened when she went on with a crooked smile. “If we’re in the same bed together I’m not sure I could keep my hands to myself. I’m only human, you know.”
“Me too,” he admitted huskily.
Amanda rose from the fragile chair and came to lay her hands on his hair where it lay over his shoulders. “Give me a kiss good night, and then you need to leave.”
Her scent reminded him of a cool breeze brushing over a field of prairie grass, clean and lightly touched by flowers. He drew a deep intoxicating breath at the tender spot behind her ear. “How many kisses?”
“One!” she laughed, clenching her hands in his hair.
“Okay.”
He wanted it to be a kiss she would remember. He touched his lips lightly to hers, intending a gentle tease before he tasted the inside of her mouth, but she surprised him by taking control. Her tongue played with his, at first lazy, then turning hot and demanding. The feel of her hands sliding through his hair made him hum his pleasure. When her hand slid around his waist to squeeze his ass he shuddered.
It really wasn’t fair that one moment he was drowning in her kiss and the next he was standing in the hall, blinking down at her smiling face. “Good night, Sand,” she whispered. “I’m looking forward to being courted by you.”
He blinked passion-dazed eyes at her closed door for long moments while he tried to get his breathing back under control. Courting. Yeah. He swallowed and went to find Sky. His cousin would know how to court a woman.
He stopped dead on the step, remembering Sky’s spectacular failure with Rose. Maybe he wasn’t the best person to talk to about courting his mate. Sand shook his doubt off, continuing down the stairs. That was a long time ago. Surely, after years of running a business like this, Sky had learned what women liked.
*
Amanda woke the next morning feeling oddly happy. She hadn’t felt this sort of fragile hope since her early childhood, before she learned lavish Christmas presents only came to rich little girls. A set of pretty clothes that were brand new instead of hand me downs had been at the top of her childhood wish list for years, until she realized a sanitation worker couldn’t afford them, even one who cherished his daughter above anything else.
Sand wasn’t her Christmas present, but he could be. She lay on her back between cool sheets and cast her mind back over the events of last night. A giggle escaped when she remembered Paul’s misunderstanding. The giggle died. Sand’s violence had been controlled, but was there any doubt he could have killed Paul? No, not in her mind. What would it be like being married to him? The sex part would be fine, no matter what sort of lover he was. In seven years she had plenty of experience. Some men were good at it, others weren’t. She shrugged, her shoulders moving against the pillow. As long as he wasn’t cruel she could accept his lovemaking. Sex was only one slice of the marriage pie. There were other things that outweighed sex. Love. Devotion. Sharing. She had a month to decide if Sand could give her what she wanted from a husband.
She got up and threw on a robe. Unlike her sexy working robes, this one was bulky and comfortable. Summer was winding down, and the morning air was a bit chilly. Was it always this cold in the morning? Since she normally slept until noon, Amanda wasn’t sure.
She opened her door to go downstairs to breakfast and nearly tripped over a foot. Sand’s foot. He sat with his back against the wall, but he jumped up to steady her.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She tightened the sash of her robe. “I’m going to use the bathroom and then have breakfast. Have you eaten yet? I’ll meet you in the dining room in a couple of minutes.”
Sand was still at the head of the stairs when she finished in the bathroom. He walked beside her down the stairs, through the empty reception rooms still littered with the debris of last night’s guests to the dining room. There she found a half a dozen women seated at the long table. They were what Amanda considered day staff. Debbie and Patty were laundresses, and Virginia and Heather were housemaids.
Sand said a quiet good morning and headed over to the buffet under the window and loaded his plate with enough eggs and sausage to feed an entire family. Amanda filled a plate more modestly.
Sand wasn’t one for chatting while he ate. Amanda watched him empty his plate one forkful at a time. He ate neatly, she noticed, but steadily. When he got up to fill his plate again, Amanda met Heather’s wide eyes with wide eyes of her own and a little shrug.
He finished his second plate before she finished her first. He leaned an elbow on the table and put his chin in his hand to watch her. “What would you like to do today?” he asked. “Are there chores you need to finish first?”
Ginny snorted, a sound loaded with sarcasm. Amanda put all her attention on finishing the last of her raspberries. “Let’s go for a walk,” she suggested when she put her fork down. “Give me five minutes to dress, and I’ll meet you by the front door.”
Without looking at Ginny, Amanda went back upstairs. She put on ankle boots, jeans, and a loose blouse of pale green cotton. Because it was a little cool, she added her mother’s shawl. It seemed right to wear the shawl her mother had knitted when being courted by Sand.
Sand stood in the foyer, deftly braiding his long black hair into a single braid that dangled between shoulders blades to his tailbone. Amanda’s fingers itched to do it for him. He had gorgeous hair.
“If I decide to marry you, you’ll have to agree to let me play with your hair.”
Surprise lit his face before melting into a smile. He ducked his head almost bashfully. “It’s just hair. You can play with it anytime you want.”
She laughed and went past him through the door he held open for her. “You’re making it too easy for me. You should hold your hair hostage. Tell me I can’t touch it until I agree to marry you.”
Sand stopped her by touching his fingertips to her shoulder. “No.” His face was very earnest. “I want you to accept me. I want that so bad it’s all I can think of. But I won’t use blackmail to get you. I want you to be my mate because you want it too.”
She swallowed a quick stab of emotion. What exactly the emotion was she wasn’t sure, but it brought tears crowding the back of her eyes. She hurried past him to the steps. He fell in beside her.
“Let’s go down to the park,” she said quickly. “I like to walk in the garden there.”
“Sure.” They walked in companionable silence for a few blocks before he spoke again. “Why doesn’t Virginia like you?”
Amanda sighed. “Ginny is an unhappy person. Her family paid nearly all they had for her to marry. They belong to a church that believes all women should be married. They don’t approve of my profession.”
“Hm.” Sand’s face looked interested. “Where is her husband?”
“He died a year ago. Ginny is twenty-nine. The city ordinance requires all women from eighteen to forty to pay a tax to remain single, or go to work in one of the brothels.”
“Even widows?”
“Even widows. The Limit might be a brothel, but Sky doesn’t force anyone to accept appointment
s. It’s a good place for Ginny. Her sons live with her parents, but she has two days off a week to visit them.”
“So why does she not like you?”
“Well, I’m a whore.” She laughed lightly. “Which according to her church, means I’m evil and going to hell. Besides that, I make more money than she does, and I don’t have to do any of the labor she does. Other people wash my clothes, cook my food, and clean the house I live in.”
Sand’s brow was furrowed as he tried to understand. “Is she jealous?”
Amanda shrugged. “I figure it’s got to be part of it.”
The entrance to the park came in sight. She grabbed his hand. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore. I want to show you my favorite spot here. Years ago this was a botanical garden, but now it’s a park.”
She rushed Sand past the elegant wrought iron fence, through the profusion of blooming beds of flowers, to a small area in the rear section of the garden. There weren’t any colorful blossoms here, only over-grown ornamental grasses lining the gravel pathway. There was a fountain in its center, a collection of logs and stones for the water to pour over, but it was dry now. Amanda pulled Sand to one of the benches scattered around the clearing.
“Sit down,” she invited, settling herself on the bench.
He sat, leaving a few inches between their thighs. It surprised her; she’d expected him to take advantage of their privacy. “This is your favorite place?” he asked, looking around.
Maybe he thought it was plain here. Just a few yards from where they sat the gardens blazed with the heavy blooms of gold chrysanthemums and red asters. She liked that too, but this was her special place. It was unkempt and ignored by the city employees who struggled to keep the front areas up, so the grass grew up around the bench and almost hid it, but she loved it here. She was surprised by how much she wanted to share it with him.
“Yes. When I come here I feel close to my mom.”
New interest brightened his dark eyes. “Your mom comes here?”
The grief, dulled by time though it was, rose in her throat. “No. She died when I was ten, but this is where I remember her. On Sunday afternoons me and my mom and dad would come here. It used to be kept up a lot better. The grass was mown and I would run around the path while mom sat on a bench with my dad.” She drew the edge of the shawl higher on her neck and gave it a surreptitious caress. “She always had her knitting with her.”
Amanda dropped her hand from the shawl to curl over the edge of the stone bench, remembering her mom’s knitting bag on the ground under this very bench, a colorful strand of yarn rising from the bag to the needles flashing in her hands, on its way to becoming a sock or a sweater or a shawl. Her parents leaned toward one another with loving smiles, speaking quietly to one another and glancing at their cavorting daughter from time to time. The love between them was something the child didn’t totally comprehend, but she recognized it as something that made her feel safe. Even today, the twenty-five-year-old woman looked back on it as something beautiful, the perfect example of marriage.
Sand touched a hand to hers. “Is it a good memory? You look sad.”
Looking sad was a thing she didn’t allow herself, so she took her hand away from him with a smile and changed the subject. “What do you have to offer me if I marry you?”
He didn’t look surprised by the abrupt change of topic, only thoughtful. She considered that a point in his favor. “I’m not rich. I don’t live in a fancy house. I don’t wear pricey clothes or talk in big pretty words.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of considering you?” she laughed.
He didn’t laugh. “No. Just trying to be honest with you. If you accept my mate claim I promise to take care of you. You’ll always have enough to eat, and we’ll have our choice of places to build our house in the Clan’s land. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy.”
Money had been scarce in her house while she was growing up. Her father worked on the city’s sanitation crew, and cleaning outhouses didn’t bring in much. They always had enough, though, and her dad always said that his girls were more important to him than anything else in the world. If wealth were counted in love, he was the richest man in Omaha.
“You haven’t said anything about love.” She looked up at him beneath her lashes. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“No.” His eyes were solemn. “Lust at first sight, yes.” Now a corner of his mouth kicked up in a quick grin, but it settled immediately back into solemnity. “Love is something different, though, something better.”
She could agree with that. “You’re right. But you said you picked me at first sight yesterday.”
“My wolf chose you to be my mate,” he corrected.
“So it’s your wolf that fell in love with me at first sight?”
His chuckle was soft. “I guess you could put it that way.”
She glanced sideways at him, trying to understand how that lean, slimly muscled body could house a wolf. “What if the man doesn’t want the same woman the wolf wants? Does that ever happen?”
“No …” He trailed off, frowning at the grass at their feet. “Maybe. One of my cousins sent his mate away. They were unhappy together, but they’re just as miserable apart.” He focused his gaze on her face. “We can be happy together, Amanda, I know it. We can learn to love one another. As long as we are honest with each other and talk things out we can make it work. Please, promise me to always tell me how you feel. If I do something wrong, talk to me about it, okay?”
She tried to imagine one of her clients saying that to her, especially in that gentle, earnest tone, and failed. “Okay, I promise. I’ll start by saying I’ve never brought any other man here to my special place. Only you.”
His smile beamed as bright as any lamp. It turned him from a handsome man into a gorgeously appealing one. She leaned closer to him, wanting to kiss that smiling mouth.
He flowed to his feet with such smoothness it almost didn’t seem abrupt. His crouched posture was that of a wild animal protecting something. “What?” she began.
“Shh,” he hissed. “Someone’s coming.”
*
Sand stood in front of his mate, using his own body to shield her from whoever approached. He tasted a familiar scent on the warming morning air. He identified it only a moment before two men came around the shrubs into the fountain area. One was a tall skinny man in the uniform of the City Guard. The other was Terry Askup, his mate’s appointment from last night.
“See?” said Askup loudly. “There he is!”
Sand heard the brush of Amanda’s jeans over stone when she stood and forced down his immediate desire to push her behind him. She stood beside him and smiled at the Guardsman.
“Good morning, Jimmy!” she said brightly. “How’s Leanne?”
The guardsman gave her a small smile in return. “She’s doing fine. Not here to chat, though, Miss Amanda. Mr. Askup wants to file a complaint against your companion.”
Sand tensed, but Amanda just blinked at the men with an expression of confused innocence. If Sand hadn’t smelled her anger, he would have accepted it as genuine.
“Really? What on earth for?”
Askup stabbed a finger in Sand’s direction. “He refused to allow me to keep my appointment with you last night!”
When Sand began to growl Amanda looped an arm around his. The warmth of her skin pressed to his eased the growl to a hum so low human ears probably couldn’t hear it.
“That’s right. I’ve cancelled all my appointments for the rest of the month.” Her voice dripped honey that Sand could almost taste. “I’m so terribly sorry for the short notice, but it couldn’t be helped.”
Askup had a mean nature. Sand didn’t have the best nose in the Pack, but he could smell the sour stink of it. The thought of this man laying his hands on Sand’s mate brought the growl back.
Askup’s eyes were narrowed in rage and narrowed further when the Guardsman said, “Mr. Askup, I see no g
rounds for a complaint.”
“He laid his hands on me! My shoulders are bruised! I want him arrested for assault.”
The guardsman turned slightly away from Askup to face Sand more fully and said politely, “I am Sergeant James Rush of the Omaha City Guard. May I see your Visitor’s Permit, sir?”
Sand dug the paper out of his pocket and handed it over. The sergeant took the time to read it thoroughly before handing it back. “Thank you, Mr. Wolfe. Would you care to comment on Mr. Askup’s accusation?”
“I didn’t assault him. I told him his appointment was cancelled, and when he wouldn’t leave I picked him up and carried him down the stairs.”
Sergeant Rush glanced from Sand to Askup and Sand knew he was wondering how he could carry the much larger man down the stairs. “Did you strike him or kick him?”
“No.” Sand remembered wanting to, but he’d restrained himself.
“Mr. Askup, in what way did Mr. Wolfe assault you?”
Askup curled a lip. “He touched me. He forced me out.”
Amanda spoke up. “Of course he did.” She directed that same innocent smile at the guardsman. “He is employed by Sky Wolfe to keep the peace at The Limit. As I wasn’t taking appointments, Sand escorted Terry out. He is allowed to use necessary force if an appointment becomes unruly.”
“I asked you to marry me!” Askup yelled. “Last week I asked you to marry me.”
“You did, and I declined.”
“Why?” Askup spat. “So you can slither all over this ... this …”
Showing his teeth in an expression that didn’t really feel like a smile, Sand took one step forward. Only the weight of his mate hanging fiercely onto his arm kept him from invading Askup’s personal space.
“I refused you before I ever met Sand. Who I choose to … slither over is my concern, not yours. Sergeant, it seems clear to me that Mr. Askup is trying to cause trouble, not file a legitimate complaint.”
“I agree.” The guardsman frowned at Askup. “Unless you have some evidence that Mr. Wolfe caused you unnecessary harm, I am dismissing your complaint.”
