Bride of the Wolf

Looked like he was getting her.

“Sean tell you why?” he asked. “Or did he just howl like a burnt coyote?”

Her gloved hands tightened on the reins as she shifted on her sidesaddle. “Must there be a reason when a gentleman is run off his own ranch by a jealous cowhand?”

Heath let her see the edges of his teeth. “It ain’t his ranch yet, Miss Blackwell. If he promised to sell you Dog Creek, he’s layin’ you a false scent.”

Amy edged her mount a few steps back and flung up her head like a rebellious filly. “You may be interested to know that we intend to employ Mr. McCarrick at Blackwater. He is not without friends.”

“You want Sean for a friend, Miss Blackwell, that’s your lookout. But he’ll use you, just like he uses anyone he thinks he can string along.”

Amy swung her arm up, and for a split second it looked as if she might try to hit him with her quirt. She didn’t. She just stared at him, hate and confusion in her eyes.

“When Sean’s uncle returns, he will hear about this,” she snapped.

“It’s Sean who should be scared of that, ma’am.”

With a sharp, angry cry, Amy jerked her mare around and kicked it into a run.

“The señorita is very angry,” Lucia said solemnly.

“Yeah.”

“When will Señor McCarrick return?”

“Soon.” Heath took the mule’s lead. “Let’s get on home.”

It was near evening when Heath and Lucia reached Dog Creek. He smelled something wrong as soon as they got near the house.

Joey was waiting for him in the yard, his wiry body vibrating with tension. “Holden!”

Heath dismounted and helped Lucia dismount. “What is it?”

“The hands! They all up ‘n left …’ ceptin’ me ‘n Maurice. They rode in from the range a few hours ago. Didn’t say a word, just lit out again right away.”

Heath pulled off his hat and raked his hand through his hair. “Where the hell’d they go?”

“Don’t know. But—” He bit his lip. “Maurice says Sean was here talkin’ to El and Gus last night.”

Sean. Heath hadn’t seen this coming, and he should have. The son of a bitch would have made the most of Heath being gone. He had a way of making people follow him. People like Amy, too blind or stupid to see through his lies.

The force of his own anger pulled him up short. Why was he so mad? It wasn’t as if he had to worry about problems like this much longer.

“This here’s Señora Gonzales,” he said to Joey. “You show her into the house.”

“But, Holden, we ain’t done brandin’! What are we gonna do?”

“We would have let most of the hands go in a couple of weeks, anyway. Now git.”

Joey didn’t like it, but he did as he was told. He touched his hat to Lucia and led her to the house. When he returned, Heath set him to unsaddling the mule.

“How’d it go with Lucia?” he asked.

“Mrs. McCarrick was sure happy to see her. They showed each other their babies like they was prize bulls.”

Heath was in no mood for laughing. He saw to Bess, shouldered the saddlebags and headed for the house, aware that he stank of sweat and horse and needed a bath.

And he needed a run. A good, hard run to clear his mind and remind himself that he was almost free.

He entered the house without knocking. The whole place smelled of warm human bodies, strong coffee and something good cooking in the kitchen. Rachel was sitting at the table, the baby in her arms. Lucia sat beside them with her own kid, and Heath could see that he’d interrupted their talk. The dim light made Rachel seem different somehow. Not sharp and skinny, with a tongue like a knife, but gentle, like Lucia. It gave him a strange, unsettled feeling in his chest.

Especially because she didn’t look scared now, or suspicious, or angry. She almost looked happy, as if she’d just been given some pretty ribbon or one of those shiny copper pots he’d seen at Sonntag’s.

She almost looked glad to see him.

“I have been speaking with Lucia,” she said with a smile that gave a sparkle to her eyes. “I am grateful that she is willing to help us.”

Grateful. He hated that word; it bothered him worse than her smile. He didn’t want to hear in Rachel’s voice or see it in her eyes, or care if she was glad to see him or not. None of it was real.

He’d planned to do whatever she told him, treat her right so she would stay as long as he needed her. But now that he saw her again, all “grateful” as she was, the old bitterness was rearing up, stronger than reason or sense. Rachel Lyndon troubled him too much, and a day and night away hadn’t eased that feeling. Every time he was around her, it only got worse.

Lucia didn’t make him feel that way. She was quiet. She hadn’t tried to argue or order him around. And she would never betray him, because she would never know any more about him than she knew now.

If Lucia took over the baby’s care, Heath might never have to speak to Rachel again.

“You mind leavin’ us alone, señora?” he said to Lucia.

She gathered up her baby, nodded to Rachel and went into the hall.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Rachel said, some of the light going out of her eyes.

“How’s the kid?” he asked.

“Much better than when you brought him. He will be better still when he has …” She hesitated, getting a little red in the face. “When he has the nourishment he needs.”

Heath didn’t let his relief lead him off track. “Now that Lucia’s here,” he said, “you won’t have to look after the kid no more.”

She blinked and clutched the baby a little tighter. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard what I said.”

“Perhaps you misunderstood my request for a nurse. Mrs. Gonzales has a family of her own. I would not impose upon her any more than necessary. And I certainly have no plans to surrender the baby’s care to anyone else.”

Confusion wasn’t a feeling Heath suffered often, but this woman had him balancing on a broken fence rail with prickly pear thick on either side. She couldn’t really care as much as she pretended. She was acting on some female instinct, the way any animal did, the same way the wolf in him knew how to be a wolf without ever being taught.

Animals could turn on their own get, and so could human females. They could throw their young away if they got too troublesome, turn from love to hate in an instant. And Rachel Lyndon wasn’t even the kid’s real mother.

Rachel looked up then, and Heath saw that her eyes were wet. She was afraid again, but not in the same way as before.