A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

by Joan Johnston

  The kitchen door not only wasn’t locked, it wasn’t even closed. Nathan shoved it open and roared at the top of his voice, “Harry-et! Are you in here? Harry-et!”

  That was when he saw her. She was sitting on the floor in the corner with a lamb clutched to her chest, her eyes wide with terror at the sight of him. He was so relieved, and so angry that she’d frightened him for nothing, that he raced over, grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her to her feet.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, leaving the back door standing wide open? You’ll catch your death of cold,” he yelled, giving her shoulders a shake to make his point. “Of all the stupid, idiotic, greenhorn—”

  And then it dawned on him what he was doing, and he let her go as abruptly as he’d grabbed her. She backed up to the wall and stood there, staring at him.

  Harry Alistair had a death grip on the lamb in her arms. There were dark circles under her eyes, which were wide and liquid with tears that hadn’t yet spilled. Her whole body was trembling with fatigue and the aftereffects of the shaking Nathan had given her. Her mouth was working but the words weren’t coming out in much more than a whisper.

  Nathan leaned closer to hear what she was trying to say.

  “Get out,” she rasped. And then, stronger, “Get out of my house.”

  Nathan felt his heart miss a thump. “I’m sorry. Look, I only came over—”

  Her chin came up. “I don’t care why you came. I want you to leave. And don’t come back.”

  Nathan’s lips pressed flat. What will be must be. It was just as well things had turned out this way. It would have been a mistake to try to help her, anyway. But there was a part of him that died inside at the thought of not seeing her again. He wanted her. More than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life. But she was all wrong for him. She needed the kind of caretaking he’d sworn he was through with forever.

  It took every bit of grit he had to turn on his booted heel and walk out of the room. And out of her life.

  Chapter 3

  What is accepted dress-for-success garb for country women?

  Answer: Coveralls, scabby work shoes, holey hat and shredded gloves.

  I am not a failure. I can do anything I set my mind to do. I will succeed.

  Over the next two months there were many times when Harry wanted to give up. Often, it was only the repetition of those three sentences that kept her going. For, no matter how hard she tried, things always went awry. She had been forced to learn some hard lessons and learn them fast.

  About a week after the majority of the lambs had been born, most of them got sick. Harry called in the vet, who diagnosed lamb scours and prescribed antibiotics. Despite her efforts, a dozen more lambs died. She stacked them under the tarp beside the barn.

  Early on the lambs had to have their tails docked, and the ram lambs, except those valuable enough to be sires, had to be castrated. Several of the older books described cutting off the lamb tails with a knife and searing the stump with a hot iron. Castration was described even more graphically. Faced with such onerous chores, Harry had known she would never make it as a sheep rancher.

  At her lowest moment a magazine describing a more manageable technique for docking and castration mysteriously arrived in her mailbox. An “elastrator” and rubber bands were placed on the appropriate extremities, which wasted away and dropped off on their own within two to three weeks. She found the process unpleasant, time-consuming work. But with the information provided in the timely magazine, she’d succeeded when she might have given up.

  Unfortunately Harry also lost several ewes during delivery and found herself with more orphan lambs, which she had learned were called bums, that had to be fed with milk replacer. Bottle-feeding lambs turned out to be surprisingly expensive, and she had to dip into the meager financial reserves Cyrus had left in the bank. She would have run out of money except Harley’s Feed Store had a sale on milk replacer. That had seemed a little odd to Harry, but a blushing Slim had assured her that he’d ordered too much replacer, and if he didn’t sell it cheap, it was just going to sit on the shelf for another year. Cyrus’s money had gone further than she’d dared to hope.

  It was a month of exhausting days and nights before Harry could wean the lambs off of milk. But she’d made it. She still had money in the bank, and the lambs had all gotten fed. In fact, Harry was still bottle-feeding some that had been born late in the season. She’d forgotten what it was like to get more than four hours of sleep in a row. When there was work to be done, she’d repeat those three pithy sentences. They kept her awake and functioning despite what felt very much like battle fatigue. But then, wasn’t she engaged in the greatest battle of her life?

  By now even a novice like Harry had figured out that in its best days, Cyrus’s sheep ranch had been a marginal proposition. With all the neglect over the years, it took every bit of time and attention she had simply to keep her head above water. But she was still afloat. And paddling for all she was worth. She hadn’t failed. Yet. With a lot of hard work, and more than a little luck, she just might surprise everyone and make a go of Cyrus’s ranch.

  In the brief moments when Harry wasn’t taking care of livestock—she had six laying hens, a rooster, a sow with eight piglets and a milk cow, as well as the sheep to attend—she’d thought over her last meeting with Nathan Hazard.

  Perhaps if she hadn’t been quite so tired the morning he had come to see her, or if he hadn’t woken her quite so abruptly or been quite so upset, she might have been able to listen to what he had to say. If he had offered help, she might have accepted. She would never know for sure. Harry hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since.

  Nor had anyone else come to visit. She’d made a number of phone calls to John Wilkinson at the bank for advice and had managed to get a few more tidbits of information from Slim every time she made a trip to Harley’s Feed Store. But, quite frankly, Harry was beginning to feel the effects of the extreme isolation in which she’d been living for the past two months.

  Which was probably why she hadn’t argued more when her mother, father and brother had said they were coming out to Montana to visit her. Unfortunately, with the time it had taken her to finish her chores this morning, she only had about fifteen minutes left to put herself together before she had to meet them at The Grand, the bed-and-breakfast in Big Timber where they were staying.

  The varnished wooden booths that lined one wall of the luncheon dining room at The Grand had backs high enough to conceal the occupants and give them privacy. Thus, it wasn’t until Nathan heard her exuberant greeting that he realized who was soon to occupy the next booth.

  “Mom, Dad, Charlie, it’s so good to see you!” Harry said.

  “I’m sorry I can’t say the same, darling,” an uppity-sounding woman replied in a dismayed voice. “You look simply awful. What have you done to yourself? And what on earth is that you have on your head?”

  Nathan smiled at the thought of Harry-et in her Harley’s Feed Store cap.

  A young man joined in with, “For Pete’s sake, Harriet. Are you really wearing bibbed overalls?”

  Nathan grinned. Very likely she was.

  Before Harry had a chance to respond, an older man’s bass voice contributed, “I knew I should have put my foot down. I didn’t think you could manage on your own in this godforsaken place. And from the look of you, I wasn’t wrong. When are you coming home?”

  Nathan listened for Harry-et’s answer to that last question with bated breath.

  There was a long pause before she answered, “I am home. And I have no intention of going back to Williamsburg, if that’s what you’re asking, Dad.”

  Nathan took advantage of the stunned silence that followed her pronouncement to take a quick swallow of coffee. He knew he ought not to eavesdrop on the Alistairs, but it wasn’t as though he’d come here with that thought in mind. He’d been minding his own business when they’d interrupted him. He signaled Tillie Mae for a refill of his coffee and settled ba
ck to relax for a few minutes after lunch as was his custom. He didn’t listen, exactly, but he couldn’t help but hear what was being said.

  “I’ve been to see John Wilkinson at the bank,” her father began. “And he—”

  “Dad! You had no right—”

  “I have every right,” he interrupted. “I’m your father. I—”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a child anymore,” Harry interrupted right back. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Darling,” her mother said soothingly, “take a good, close look at yourself. There are dark circles under your eyes, your fingernails are chipped and broken and those awful clothes you’re wearing are filthy. All I can conclude is that you’re not taking good care of yourself. Your father and I only want the best for you. It hurts us to think of you suffering like this for nothing when in the end you’ll only fail.”

  “I’m not suffering,” Harry protested. “And I will not fail. In fact, I’m doing just fine.” That might have been an overstatement, but it was in a good cause.

  “Fine?” her father questioned. “You can’t possibly know enough about sheep ranching to succeed on your own. Why, even ranchers who know what they’re doing sometimes fail.”

  “Dad…”

  Nathan heard the fatigue and frustration in Harry-et’s voice. Her father shouldn’t be allowed to browbeat her like that. Nathan ignored the Western code that admonished him not to interfere, in favor of the one that said a woman must always be protected. A moment later he was standing beside the next booth.

  Harry was explaining, “I know what I’m doing, Dad. I’ve been reading all the articles I can find about sheep ranching—”

  “And she’s had help from her neighbors whenever she ran into trouble,” Nathan finished. A charming smile lit his face as he tipped his hat to Mrs. Alistair and said, “Howdy, ma’am. I’m Nathan Hazard, a neighbor of your daughter’s.”

  Nathan bypassed Harry’s stunned expression and turned an assessing gaze to her father and brother. “I couldn’t help overhearing you, sir,” he said to Harry’s father. “And I just want to say that we’ve all been keeping an eye on Harry-et to make sure—”

  “You’ve been what?”

  Nathan turned to Harry, who’d risen from her seat and was staring at him with her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open in horror.

  “I was just saying that we’ve been keeping a neighborly eye on you.” Before Harry could respond he’d turned back to her father and continued, “You see, sir, we have a great deal of respect for women out here, and there isn’t a soul in the valley who would stand by if he thought Harry-et was in any real trouble.

  “Of course, you’re right that she probably won’t be able to make a go of Cyrus Alistair’s place. But then it’s doubtful whether anyone could. That’s why I’ve offered to buy the place from her. And I have every hope that once she’s gotten over the silly notion that—”

  “Don’t say another word!” Harry was so hot she could have melted icicles in January. She hung on to her temper long enough to say, “Mom, Dad, Charles, I hope you’ll excuse us. I have a few words to say to Mr. Hazard. Alone.”

  Harry turned and stalked out to the front lobby of The Grand without waiting to see whether Nathan followed her. After tipping his hat once more to Mrs. Alistair, he did.

  Just as Harry turned and opened her mouth to speak, Nathan took her by the elbow and started upstairs with her.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Harry snapped, tugging frantically against his hold.

  “Upstairs.”

  “There are bedrooms upstairs!”

  “Yep. Sarah keeps all the doors open to show off her fancy antiques. We can use one of the rooms for a little privacy.” He pulled her into the first open bedroom and shut the door behind them. “Now what’s on your mind?”

  “What’s on my—?” Harry was so furious she was gasping for air. “How dare you drag me up here—”

  “We can go back downstairs and argue. That way everyone in the valley will know your business,” he said, reaching for the doorknob.

  “Wait!” Harry made the mistake of touching his hand and felt an arc of heat run up her arm. She jerked her hand away and took two steps back from him, only to come up against the edge of the ornate brass bed. She stepped forward, only to find herself toe-to-toe with Nathan.

  “Hold on a minute,” she said, trying desperately to regain the upper hand. “How dare you insinuate to my family that I haven’t been making it on my own! I most certainly have!”

  Nathan shook his head.

  “Don’t try to deny it,” she retorted. “I haven’t seen a soul except Slim Harley for the past two months. Just who, may I ask, has been helping me?”

  “Me.”

  Harry was so stunned that she took a step back. When the backs of her legs hit the bed, she sat down. Her eyes never left Nathan’s face, so she saw the flash of guilt in his blue eyes and the tinge of red growing on his cheeks. “You helped me? How?”

  Nathan lifted his hat and shoved his fingers through his hair in agitation, then pulled his hat down over his brow again. “Little ways.”

  “How?”

  He cleared his throat and admitted, “Dropped off a magazine once. Broke the ice on your ponds.”

  That explained some things she’d wondered about. She’d needed the knowledge the magazine had provided, but it wasn’t as though he’d come over and helped with the docking and castration of the lambs. And while she’d appreciated having the ice broken on her ponds, she could have done that herself. His interference didn’t amount to as much as she’d feared.

  “And I talked Slim into putting his milk replacer on sale,” he finished.

  That was another matter entirely. Without the sale on milk replacer she’d have run out of money for sure. “You’re responsible for that?”

  “Wasn’t a big deal. He really did order too much.”

  “Did anybody else get their milk replacer on sale?” she asked in a strained voice. “No.”

  Harry’s chest hurt. She couldn’t breathe. “Why did you bother if you were so certain I’d fail in the end?”

  “Thought you’d come to your senses sooner than this,” he said gruffly. “Figured there was no sense letting all those lambs starve.”

  Harry turned to stare out a window draped with antique lace curtains. Her hand gripped the brass bedstead so hard her knuckles were white. “Did it ever occur to you that I’d rather not have your help? Did it ever occur to you that whether I was going to fail or succeed I would rather do it all by myself?”

  Nathan didn’t know how to answer her. He willed her to look up at him, but he could tell how she felt even without seeing her face. Her pulse pounded in her throat and her jaw worked as she ground her teeth.

  To tell the honest truth, he didn’t know why he’d interfered in her life. If he’d just left well enough alone, she would probably have quit and gone home a long time ago. Maybe that had something to do with it. Maybe he didn’t want her to go away. He still felt the same attraction every time he got anywhere near her. And it was impossible to control his protective instincts whenever she was around. Just look what had happened today.

  He reached out to touch her on the shoulder, and she jumped like a scalded cat. Only, when she came up off the bed, she ran right flat into him. Instinctively his arms surrounded her.

  The only sound in the room was the two of them breathing. Panting, actually, as though they’d just run a footrace. Nathan didn’t dare move, for fear she’d bolt. It felt good holding her. He wanted more. Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised a hand and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. It was so smooth!

  She looked up at him then, and he saw her pupils were wide, her eyes dark. Her mouth was slightly open, her lips full. Her eyelids closed as he lowered his mouth to touch hers. He felt the tremor run through her as their lips made contact. Soft. So incredibly soft, and moist.

  When he ran his tongue along the edge of her mo
uth, she groaned. And her mouth opened wider to let him in.

  He took his time kissing her, letting his lips learn the touch and taste of her. He felt the tension in her body, felt her resistance even as she succumbed to the desire that flared between them.

  Nathan felt the same war within himself that he knew she was fighting. Lord, how he wanted her! He knew he shouldn’t be kissing her. But there was something about her, something about the touch and taste of her, that drew him despite his resolve not to become involved.

  When he broke the kiss at last, she leaned her forehead against his chest, and all the starch seemed to come out of her. “Why did you do that?” she asked in a whisper.

  “I can’t explain it myself. I don’t want…I don’t think we’re very well suited to each other.” He felt her tense in his arms. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m only telling you the truth as I see it.”

  Harry dropped her hands, which she discovered were clutching either side of Nathan’s waist, and stepped away from him. She raised her eyes to meet his steady gaze. “I can’t disagree with you. I don’t think we’re well suited, either. I can’t explain…” A rueful smile tilted her mouth up on one side. “You’re quite good at kissing. You must have had a lot of practice.”

  Harry didn’t realize she was fishing for information until the words were out of her mouth. She wanted to know if she was only one of many.

  “I…uh…don’t have much time for this sort of thing,” he admitted. “Kissing women. A relationship with a woman, I mean.”

  “Oh?”

  “Haven’t had time for years,” he blurted.

  Harry was fascinated by the red patches that began at Nathan’s throat and worked their way up. But his admission, however much it embarrassed him, gave Harry a reason for their tremendous attraction to each other. “I think I know why this…thing…is so strong between us,” Harry said, as though speaking about it could diffuse its power.

  This time Nathan said, “Oh?”

  “Yes, you see, I haven’t had much time for a relationship with a man. That has to be it, don’t you think? We have these normal, primitive urges, and we just naturally—”