Sarah sat very still, realizing the agony Wolf was experiencing. In a hushed tone, she said, “Go on.”
A tremor went through Wolf. He shut his eyes. “I’ve never told anyone about it…about Maria. After it happened…Not even Morgan.”
Sarah felt Wolf’s fragility, the secret pain he carried, so evident in his roughened voice. “You told me talking about a trauma was a good thing. Why don’t you apply it to yourself? You’ve already helped me. Maybe you don’t realize it, but you have…and I’m grateful for your understanding.”
Wolf glanced up at Sarah. He realized how privileged he was to see the vulnerable side of her, and the thought was like sweet, molten heat flowing through his ice-cold soul. “It’s ugly,” he warned her.
“What about Maria? You said you loved her?”
Wolf cleared his throat—suddenly constricted with tears. “Yeah…She was a beautiful Peruvian woman, your age.” Wolf stared down at his bruised, swollen hands, his mind and heart going back to that time and place. “We met over a pig drowning in a pond, if you can believe it. She was up to her knees in the water, the red skirt she was wearing hiked up around her hips. The pig was thrashing around out in deep water because a jaguar had chased it into the pond to catch and drown it. Maria was there when it happened. She yelled at the cat, and he took off.”
Wolf tried to smile and failed. “She was so damned angry at that pig because he was swimming farther out into the pond instead of back to the shore. I offered to go get it for her. When I brought the pig out and put it in her arms, she offered me and my men a meal at her village. A real hot meal. I took her up on it in a second. She was one hell of a cook, and I was grateful for village hospitality. But Maria was kind to everyone.”
Wolf closed his eyes and then opened them, staring at the opposite wall of the bathroom. “I was stationed near her village for over a year, and eventually, we fell in love. Because I’m part Indian, and her people were of Incan heritage, I was respectful of their laws. I courted Maria. I had plans for us—lots of plans. When my mission was completed, I was going to marry Maria and bring her back to the States with me.”
Wolf’s gaze moved back to Sarah. There was such compassion and understanding in her shadowed eyes. “Maria’s village was surrounded by coca plantations, and there was a lot of drug activity—the making of cocaine from the coca leaves. The head of the village, Juan Renaldo, forbade his people to get involved with the drug trafficking. Instead, they asked for protection from the Peruvian police. It was a clean village, and that’s why I was assigned with my team to protect them from the drug armies. More than once, men from the village had shown us caches of cocaine and pointed out those from surrounding villages who were in the drug trade. It made for a lot of enemies and bad blood.”
“My team fell for a trap, and we left the village unprotected for the day. When we returned, the village had been burned to the ground, most of the men killed, and the women—raped.” Wolf’s voice fell. “It was a warning from Ramirez, the drug lord, to the survivors.”
Sarah took in a shaky breath. “My God, I’m so sorry, Wolf. Poor Maria.”
Wolf nodded dully. “The rape really messed her up in the head. My men and I, along with another U.S. team, helped rebuild the village and get the people back on their feet physically. But the emotional scars it left behind couldn’t be erased.” He shook his head. “The survivors were scared. They lost their joy, their natural optimism. No one smiled very much after the raid. Even though I loved Maria, she was afraid of me. I mean, really afraid of me.”
“Because you were a man, and it was men who’d hurt her?” Sarah guessed.
“Yeah.”
The unhappiness in his face was almost too much to bear. “What eventually happened to you and Maria? Did she decide not to marry you?”
It hurt to talk, to feel so deeply again. Wolf squeezed his eyes shut. “I tried to love her the best I knew how, to convince her I loved her. Maria couldn’t stand to be touched by me. She couldn’t stand being held. It reminded her too much of being pinned down by those bastards who raped her. I tried to understand. I tried…” Wolf stopped, the pain working up through his chest. More than anything, he owed Sarah the last of the story. The real truth that would show him to be the miserable failure he really was.
“Ramirez set us up again, and I fell for it. I fell for all of it,” Wolf told her bitterly. “A second time, we left the village unprotected. When we were out chasing Ramirez’s men, he came into the village and killed again.” Wolf desperately struggled to control his wildly fluctuating emotions. “Maria was murdered by the bastard,” he rasped.
Sarah gave a little cry and pressed her hands against her lips. She stared down at Wolf and saw the terrible carnage of what had happened. Suddenly she realized why he’d made all those oblique references over the past week; that he was a failure, that he couldn’t protect anyone, including her. Reaching out and placing her trembling hand on his slumped shoulder, she whispered, “Did you feel like you killed her?”
“I did,” he muttered harshly. “I lost it after I found Maria dead. I went crazy. Ramirez was still running around loose. I’d already seen the daily fear and agony Maria had gone through. Who knows what she suffered at the end? I was helpless. What were words? Even while she was still alive, I hadn’t been able to reach her. I couldn’t even comfort her, one human being to another, when she needed to feel safe. I couldn’t even do that for her. I failed her. I’d left her unprotected….”
Wolf rubbed his face savagely. “I went on a rampage. I swore I’d kill those bastards who’d murdered Maria.”
“Those scars on your chest,” Sarah whispered. “Don’t tell me—”
“I tangled with Ramirez and his army,” Wolf told her. “We fought several pitched battles around his home. I got too bold—I wasn’t thinking straight—and Ramirez captured me. Killian, one of my men, tried to rescue me, but they got him, too.”
Sarah shook her head. “What did they do to you?”
“Tortured me,” he said numbly.
“My God! How did you survive?” she cried.
“One minute at a time. One second at a time. Ramirez had me in his special torture chamber for a month until Jake, the third man on my team, along with the Peruvian police, was able to bust me out and get me to a hospital. Killian was tortured, too, but thank God, not as bad. Ramirez was paying me back for killing his men. I was the one he wanted, because I was the leader of the team.”
Shakily, Sarah covered her face with her hands. “And I thought I had problems. My God, I don’t. I really don’t.”
Wolf forced himself to sit where he was. If he moved, he’d get up, pull Sarah in his arms and hold her. Not because she might need him, but because he needed her. And that wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve her comfort. “Your problems are similar. Summers isn’t as overt as Ramirez, but his goals are the same, Sarah.” With a sigh, Wolf added, “That’s why I promised I’d help you.” Holding her tear-filled gaze, he continued. “Summers sees you as a continuing threat to him, and he’s going to keep going after you. He doesn’t have much to fear from the judicial system here. It’s the old-boy network in action. He’s got his connections. That’s why I’m going to walk at your side through this mess. We’ll find your attackers, and we’ll find out who wanted you to die trapped beneath that fir. With or without Noonan’s help.”
Sarah studied him for a long time in silence. “I need to tell you about the phone call I got, Wolf.”
Wolf took the washcloth and pressed it to his swollen cheek. He heard guilt in Sarah’s voice. “What call?”
Rubbing her brow, she rattled, “The phone rang, and I picked it up. A man on the other end said, ‘You’re dead.’”
Wolf scowled, and it hurt. “Sarah—”
“I know, I know. I should have told you.” She reached out and touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Wolf. I thought it was just one more of Summers’s harassment tricks to scare me off. Oh, God, if I’d thought he wa
s going to have his men jump you at my cabin, I’d have told you—I was trying to keep you out of it!”
Wolf awkwardly patted her hand. “It’s all right,” he told her in a gravelly voice. “We’ll get through this.”
Sarah stared down at him, tears in her eyes. “Why are you doing this for me?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I’m doing it for a couple of reasons. One of them is guilt. Every night, I see the faces of those who died in Peru. There isn’t anything I don’t remember about the massacre at the village, Sarah.” He was loath to give voice to the other reason: He cared about Sarah—one hell of a lot. He’d been given a second chance to rectify his poor choices in Peru. He found it shocking that Sarah hadn’t condemned him for his failures. Instead, she seemed to take hope as never before. He knew he couldn’t divulge how he felt about her.
“It must be a living hell for you.”
“We all live in a hell of some sort,” he muttered.
Sarah said nothing, realizing Wolf was living with one of the worst emotions she could name—guilt. “It wasn’t your fault that it happened, you know,” she finally said.
“What?”
“Maria’s rape.”
Wolf shook his head. “Sarah, I’ll go to my grave being sorry about that—for being stupid enough to be tricked by Ramirez into leaving her unprotected. Hell, I left the whole village wide open for a second attack.”
“Still,” Sarah said softly, “with time, some of the pain will dull. At least that’s what everyone tells me about Dad’s death.” She rubbed the area where her heart lay. “It felt pretty raw in here, until I cried in your arms last night….”
“At least you cried,” Wolf whispered huskily. “That’s a good sign the healing process is going on. While I was recuperating in the hospital, I started doing some investigation on rape and what it does to a person’s head and emotions. I had to try and understand Maria’s actions toward me. If I’d known then what I know now, I would have gotten her to a therapist in the nearest city. She needed help, and so did I.”
“But you didn’t know how to help her,” Sarah said, feeling deeply for Wolf. “That’s not your fault.”
He rallied beneath her warm blue gaze, which was sparkling with unshed tears. How easily touched Sarah was beneath that tough shell she wore to defend her own fragile, wounded emotions. “No, I didn’t know,” he agreed heavily. “But—” he tendered her an intense look “—I do know now, and that’s why I’m treating you the way I do. You’re a victim of violence, too. And you need time to heal. I was never able to help Maria. All I did was make things worse for her, and what we shared between us died.”
Sarah didn’t have the words to help Wolf. Gently she steered him to another topic. “You said there were a couple of reasons for helping me. What’s the second one?”
Wolf wrung out the cloth and placed it back against his cheek. If he told Sarah the truth—how much she touched him, made him feel alive again—she might run. Or, worse, tell him to go away, as Maria had. Clearing his throat, he said, “I’ve always had a place in my heart for underdogs.” Wolf glanced up to see what affect his words had on her. Her young face was so grave and serious.
“There isn’t a woman alive who isn’t an underdog,” Sarah said. She’d finished cleaning up his face, and now she treated his scraped, bloodied hands. Her own hands shook slightly as she dressed his wounds, her mouth a tight line, as if she were trying to stop herself from crying. Her reaction moved Wolf deeply.
“Well, we’ll see if I can help even out this situation. I don’t know if the men who hit me at your cabin were Summers’s men—”
“They’re Summers’s men, all right,” Sarah gritted out, washing her hands off in the sink and putting the bandages away. “That’s how they work. They sneak up behind you, and they always work in pairs or a trio.”
Wolf’s face was aching like hell. “There’s some aspirin in there, Sarah,” he said, indicating the medicine cabinet. “Get me a couple of tablets?”
“Sure.” She glanced down at Wolf’s features. They looked washed out beneath the harsh glare. It was nearly 10:00 p.m., and he was exhausted. She handed him the aspirin and a glass of water.
“You have to report this to Sheriff Noonan. Tomorrow morning.”
Wolf choked down the bitter-tasting tablets and finished off the water. He handed her the glass and thanked her. “First things first. I’m going over to the hospital emergency room tomorrow morning to find out if any of those jokers went over there. I know for sure I busted one guy’s nose, and I’m pretty positive I heard the jaw of a second one crack. They’ll need X rays and medical help, and the hospital’s the only place around here to get them. When I’ve got their names, I’ll start an investigation on my own, before I go to Noonan.”
Sarah winced. “Sounds like you gave them worse than you got,” she said, pride seeping into her voice.
“We’ll see,” Wolf rasped. “Look, I need to lie down.”
“Yes, you do. On your bed.” Sarah gave him a hard look. “And don’t argue with me, Wolf. Ever since you started sleeping on that couch, you’ve had circles under your eyes.”
Wolf slowly rose to his full height. How beautiful and defiant Sarah looked in her cotton nightgown and robe, her silky golden hair like a cloud around her shoulders. He longed to lose himself in those wide blue eyes.
“No, Sarah, I’ll be fine out on the—”
“Damn you!” Sarah grated out. “Don’t you dare argue with me, Wolf Harding!” She grabbed him by the arm and used all her strength to haul him out of the bathroom and toward the bedroom.
Wolf gripped her arm and gently drew her to a halt. “Now listen…” he rasped in the darkness of the hall, wildly aware of how close she stood to him. “You sleep on the bed. No argument, Sarah. Your feet are still healing up.”
“I thought I was stubborn, but you’re worse than I am! I refuse to sleep in your bed tonight!” She jerked out of his grasp and spun around to head for the living room and claim the couch before he could.
His patience thinning, Wolf gripped her shoulder. “All right,” he muttered, “we’ll both sleep in my bed. Now come on.”
Gasping, Sarah was propelled ahead of him into the bedroom. “Wolf, this is ridiculous! I—”
He shut the bedroom door with finality and stared at her through the gloom. The defiance in her eyes made him want to smile, but his face hurt too much for him to attempt it. “Relax, will you? We both need a good night’s sleep. I’ll be damned if you’re going to sleep on that rickety old couch.”
Sarah’s eyes widened as Wolf stripped out of his blood-spattered green shirt, then pulled his white T-shirt over his head. Her mouth went dry, and her heart started to leap and flutter. The sight of Wolf’s powerful chest made her take a step back, but when Wolf turned, she saw a huge black bruise midway down on the right side of his back and gave a low cry of alarm.
Wolf froze at the sound of Sarah’s cry. Before he could turn to see what had upset her, he felt the coolness of her hands against his back.
“What happened here, Wolf? Look at this. Look at this! It’s awful!”
He stood very still, a groan threatening to rip out of him. Sarah’s hands fluttered like a butterfly around the injury. She placed one hand flat against his rib cage beneath his right arm. The other gently touched the bruised area.
“I got hit from behind. The bastard tried to take me out with a kidney punch.”
Biting down hard on her lower lip, Sarah explored the bruise. “It’s so swollen, Wolf. You ought to go to the hospital. Really, this looks bad….”
Wolf turned and gently placed his arm around her small shoulders, drawing her in front of him. The genuine concern in her eyes melted him, and he ached to cup her small face and kiss those delicate lips.
“Honey,” he rasped, “I’ll be all right. Just you touching me made the pain less.” Without thinking, because Sarah invited his tender side, Wolf grazed her deeply flushed cheek with his lips. Her skin was
as firm and soft as a ripe peach. “Look, let’s get some sleep. I’m about ready to fall over.” The statement was a blatant lie now that Sarah was standing so close to him. Wolf tried to separate right from wrong. She was so damned enticing, yet he saw fear lurking in the recesses of her eyes. He didn’t want to hurt Sarah as he’d unthinkingly hurt Maria. He removed his arm from her shoulder.
“Come on,” he coaxed huskily. “You get in bed and turn your back to me. You’ll be safe, understand?”
Swallowing, Sarah nodded, her cheek tingling where his lips had brushed it. The burning fire in his hooded eyes made her ache with a longing she’d never experienced in her life. Confused she whispered, “Sure…” Turning away from him, she did exactly as he asked and took one side of the bed. She pulled the sheet up to her waist, her back to him.
Sarah lay there, hearing Wolf’s clothing drop to the floor beside the bed. She swallowed again, convulsively, unable to contain her vivid imagination, raging over the image of what it would be like to be pulled into Wolf’s powerful arms in passion rather than comfort. He could crush her, he was so large in comparison to her. Yet his touch was always gossamer, painfully arousing her needs as a woman.
When the bed sagged and creaked beneath his weight, Sarah stiffened momentarily. And then she relaxed as he spread his weight out across the mattress, leaving plenty of room between them.
Wolf pulled the sheet up across his hip to his waist. He couldn’t lie on his right side, his normal side to sleep on, because of the bruised kidney. Instead, he had to lie on his left side, facing Sarah’s back. Just the way her golden hair lay in silky abandonment made him want to reach out and thread his fingers through it. Her cotton nightgown was cut low in the back and revealed her long, deeply indented spine. Wolf ached to reach out and pull her against him. He could almost feel her small breasts against his chest, the light warmth of her breath caressing his neck, her hands wrapping around his waist…
Heart of the Wolf Page 13
