Bride of the Wolf

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The man held out the pouch. Rachel raised her hands as if she could ward off disaster before it could truly become real.

Changed his mind. It was not possible.

“I do not believe it,” she said, finding her courage again.

The messenger let his hand fall. “I only know what he told me. If you’d only—”

“I wish to be taken to Dog Creek.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, ma’am.”

Perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps she would only face further humiliation and the extinction of her last hopes. But she could not go running back to Ohio with her tail between her legs. Not without being absolutely certain.

“If you will not take me,” she said, “I shall find another way.”

The man’s expression of embarrassment underwent a rapid transformation. He scowled and pushed the pouch back under his coat.

“You’re making a mistake, ma’am,” he said. With a curse and a flick of the reins, he sent his horses off at a fast clip. Rachel began to tremble. She had convinced the messenger of her sincerity, but the effort had taken its toll. She felt breathless and weak.

But the decision had been made. She could not afford to return to Ohio now, even had she wished to. This had become a matter of survival.

Taking a firm grip on her bag, she went into the store. Mr. Sonntag offered to find someone to drive her to Dog Creek in the morning.

“You can stay here, Fräulein Lyndon,” he said. “I have several rooms in the back. It is the nearest thing we have to a hotel. No one will trouble you.”

Rachel was prepared to refuse. She had no money to repay such unexpected kindness. But in the end she agreed because she could not imagine spending the night on the street like a woman of ill repute.

Are you any better? she asked herself as she settled in the small, plain room Herr Sonntag had assigned to her.

She was. She must be. And Jedediah McCarrick would make it possible.

RACHEL WOKE EARLY the next morning. Mr. Sonntag insisted that she share his breakfast of bread and jam, and she was too hungry to refuse. A few hours later a man from the livery stable arrived with a wagon, and Rachel took out a few of her remaining coins, hoping they would be enough.

“It’s not necessary,” the grizzled driver said. “Sonntag arranged it.”

Rachel hurried back into the store to thank the German, but he’d gone out on some business. She resolved that she would pay him back as soon as she was in a position to do so.

The driver, Mr. Sweet, was not inclined to conversation, and Rachel had no desire to reveal herself to a stranger. She concentrated on absorbing the landscape. Beyond the tiny patch of green that marked the spring near which Javelina was situated, this was a stark, unforgiving world, in every way unlike the East. Rachel knew if she allowed herself, she would be very much afraid.

This will be my home. I will learn to love it.

The ride was long and dusty and hot. The road, if such it could be called, was rutted and hard. There was little shade, but the driver seemed to find it whenever there was a need to rest the horses. They passed over dry streambeds and rocky hills, and expanses of brown, hardy grasses.

The landscape changed abruptly as they drew alongside a strip of low green trees and shrubs that marked a rare watercourse. Sweet drove the wagon through the scrub and under a handsome live oak to the bank, where he let the horses drink from the clear, bubbling stream.

“Where are we now?” Rachel asked, breathing in the crisp, welcome scent of water and growing things.

“On the border of Blackwater, the Blackwell ranch,” Sweet said. He waved his hand at the opposite bank. “They own all the land to the north of Dog Creek. We’re only about five miles from Dog Creek Ranch.”

“Then we’re nearly there.”

“Hardly, ma’am. We got another fifteen miles past the border before we get to the house. There’s a good place along the creek about seven miles east of here where we can stay the night.”

The prospect of spending the night alone in the wilderness with a stranger did nothing to salve Rachel’s worries, but she forgot her concern when she saw a rider approaching from the opposite bank. Even from a distance she could see that he was not like the driver, or the man who had come to tell her that McCarrick had “changed his mind.” He rode erect, and his clothing was of a better cut and far cleaner. A gentleman, she thought.

The rider guided his horse down the bank and crossed the stream, the water splashing at his horse’s knees. “Mr. McCarrick,” Sweet said as the stranger stopped before them.

Rachel’s heart bounced beneath her ribs. She stared up at the rider’s blue eyes, long blond hair and tanned, handsome face. He was much too young and too tall. But his name …

“Good day, ma’am,” the rider said, touching the brim of his hat and smiling down at Rachel with bright curiosity. His voice was smooth, a pleasant tenor that bore an accent more evocative of the East than the Texas drawl Rachel had been hearing since her arrival. For just a moment it reminded her of Louis, and she stiffened.

“This here’s Miss Rachel Lyndon,” Sweet said before Rachel could respond. “She came in on the stage yesterday.”

Something flickered across the rider’s face, an emotion too quickly gone to grasp. “I’m Sean McCarrick, Miss Lyndon. Jed’s nephew. I was just on my way to meet you.”

A great wave of relief threatened to wash the starch out of Rachel’s spine. She offered her hand. “Good day, Mr. McCarrick. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He took her hand in his and bent over the saddle to kiss the air above it. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Lyndon. We’d heard that the stage was delayed and wasn’t expected until this evening.”

Of course. That explained everything. Everything but the man who had tried to send her away.

“I understand completely, Mr. McCarrick,” she said.

“Sean, please.”

“Thank you.” She hesitated, afraid to push too much. “Is Mr. McCarrick indisposed?”

Sean McCarrick shifted his weight in the saddle. “No, ma’am. He’s away from the ranch at the moment and asked me to watch out for you.”

Away from the ranch? “I see,” she said, suppressing a new spark of panic. “Can you tell me when he’ll be returning?”

“He’s up north on business that couldn’t wait. I expect him anytime now.” Sean McCarrick gazed at her with concern. “I’m sorry for the disappointment, but I know Jed will be happy to have Sonntag put you up in town until he comes back.”

Rachel’s unease blossomed into terror. The man who’d try to buy her off had been correct. Jed didn’t want her. He’d sent his gentlemanly nephew to approach her in a subtler fashion, but the result would be the same. She would wait and wait in town until it became clear that Jed was never coming back. Not for her.

Once upon a time, fear and humiliation would have sent her scurrying in retreat. But she’d come too far. Anger bubbled up from some long-quiet source inside her heart.

“I wonder if you might tell me who came to meet me yesterday evening,” she said abruptly.

Because she’d learned to watch people’s faces, Rachel caught the almost imperceptible flash of dismay in Sean’s expression before it transformed into puzzlement. “Someone came to meet you?” he asked.

“Yes. A man who said that Mr. McCarrick had changed his mind and wished me to return to Ohio. He offered me money to leave Javelina.”

Sean frowned. “What did this man look like?”

She began to think more clearly. “Lean of frame, of average height, brown hair. He did not give his name.”

Sean’s frown deepened. “That description fits any one of a dozen men around this part of the Pecos.” He drummed his fingers on his saddle horn. “What exactly did he say?”