Bride of the Wolf (16 page)

“Don’t think of going back on your word, Joey,” Sean said, slapping his quirt against his leg so that Joey remembered every blow of the whuppin’ Sean had given him. “If you do, I’ll send the law to bring you in. No one will doubt my testimony as to your crimes.”

Joey didn’t doubt him for one second. “I…I understand, Mr. McCarrick.”

“Good boy.” Sean chucked Joey under the chin as if they were friends. “Go home and wait for my message.”

Cash untied Joey and let him get back up on his horse. Joey could hardly hold the reins. Audie swatted Acorn’s rump so hard that the gelding broke right into a gallop.

Joey didn’t try to slow the horse. He couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t feel any part of himself except his heart, and it was hurting more than he thought anything could hurt.

Tonight he’d wanted to prove to Holden that he was a man and not a kid, smart and not a fool. He’d done worse than fail. Sean had made him just as bad as
he
was.

The worst thing he could do now was return to Dog Creek and wait around for Sean to tell him when to bring the money. Only one thing was going to stop Sean now, and that was Holden.

He’d promised Joey that he would punish Sean, and though Joey didn’t know exactly what he planned to do, it was bound to be soon. Then Sean wouldn’t dare make good on his threat to hang Joey for rustling.

Then maybe I can come back
.

Joey turned west and kept on riding.

R
ACHEL WALKED SLOWLY
around the gelding Maurice had saddled for her, pressing her damp palms to her skirts. The Frenchman had assured her that Jericho was gentle enough for a beginner, and she prayed his judgment in such matters was sound. She had hoped to ask Joey’s opinion this morning, but he, like Holden, was still absent.

Worrying about Joey would serve no purpose until Holden had returned and could look for him. And she certainly didn’t want to think about
Holden
. She smiled at Maurice to conceal her unease and turned her attention to the gelding. He eyed her mildly and blew air through his lips.

“Do not worry,
madame
,” Maurice said, looking almost as nervous as she felt. “He is
un cheval admirable
.”

“Yes.” Rachel wet her lips and looked at the mounting block. It did not seem sufficient to help her climb up on the animal’s massive back, but she was determined to try. At least she would not be compelled to leap into the saddle as Holden seemed so adept at doing.

The idea had come upon her in the sleepless hours before dawn. She had thought it might be easier to go about her work after Holden had left, but the opposite
had proved true. She had scrubbed dirty clothes and sewn and mended until her fingers were raw and her back ached, but not even complete exhaustion had been sufficient to give her a good night’s rest. When she’d slept at all, she had suffered from dreams of Louis and Holden, violence and betrayal.

It was after one of those nightmares that she’d thought of learning to ride. She was beginning to feel just how isolated one could be in Texas. She would be all but useless on a ranch without an ease around horses and an ability to handle them. Once she could ride on her own, she could leave the immediate area of the house, go to town, even visit the neighbors, without relying upon Holden or one of the other men to take her.

If Jed were here, she wouldn’t have to rely on Renshaw for anything.

The more she could reduce her dependence on him, the better. At the moment, she feared his return every bit as much as she feared this docile animal. Conquering one fear might make it easier to conquer another.

Now she stood in the yard, a few stray chickens scratching and pecking around her feet, hoping Jericho couldn’t sense her fear the way some animals were supposed to do. Fixing her mind’s eye on her goal, she approached the mounting block. Maurice murmured to the horse and stroked his cheek. Jericho bobbed his head as if to offer encouragement. She lifted her skirts—the widest and least constricting she owned—and climbed onto the block. The plain Western saddle seemed as far away as Ohio.

Maurice had shown her how to mount. She grabbed the saddle horn, gripping it so tightly that her fingers stung, and put her left foot in the stirrup. Jericho didn’t
move. Rachel pulled her skirts above her knees, revealing her unadorned cotton drawers, and swung her right leg up and over. For a moment she balanced precariously between the saddle and empty air, and then she leaned just a little and plopped onto the hard leather. The air burst out of her lungs in a rush of relief.

“Very good,
madame
,” Maurice said with a grin. “
Très bien
.”

She closed her eyes and let awareness move slowly through her body. It felt very strange to be up so high on the back of such a creature, strange and yet not as terrifying as she had imagined. Jericho was very warm and very solid. He shifted his weight a little, and she found that her balance adjusted without any thought on her part.

She hooked her right foot into the other stirrup, grateful that she’d brought one pair of very worn but practical boots with sturdy heels. She wished she’d had equally sturdy undergarments; she was afraid that after a while the saddle would begin to chafe.

But she didn’t intend to do too much today. Just enough so that when she saw Holden again, he would see she was not utterly dependent upon him. He would understand that she had no need to put up with his outrageous behavior. And that she would be a good wife for Jedediah, in every way.

“You are all right,
madame?
” Maurice asked, shading his eyes against the rising sun.

“Very well, thank you. Would you be so kind as to lead him a few steps, Maurice?”

The Frenchman obligingly pulled on the lead rope, and Jericho began to move. Rachel rocked backward and held on to the saddle horn for dear life. But as Maurice led her in a wide circle, step by slow step, she
began to glimpse—oh, so distantly—what it must be like to be one with such an animal, riding fast across the desert.

She laughed at such an image of herself and concentrated on matching her body’s movements to the horse’s gait. Jericho and Maurice were wonderfully patient. A dozen circles increased her confidence beyond anything she would have believed possible, and she found herself looking across the yard, past the stables and corrals and outbuildings to the vastness that had intimidated her for far too long.

“Maurice,” she said, “I would like to ride a little farther out.”

Following her gaze, Maurice scratched the thinning brown hair under his cap. “Are you sure,
madame?
”

“Quite sure. If anything should happen, I will not hold you accountable. It is entirely my decision.”

He gave her a dubious frown, shrugged and pulled Jericho forward. Rachel let the gentle rocking lull her into a kind of contentment she had almost forgotten was possible. Before she knew it, nothing blocked the view of the creek, desert and distant mountain beyond. Soon it would be time to turn back, leave old Jericho to his rest, and return to Gordie.

She was just about to say as much to Maurice when Jericho pricked his ears, flared his nostrils and stamped one large, iron-shod hoof. Maurice tried to quiet him, but it was clear the horse had seen or heard something Rachel and the Frenchman could not. Rachel dug her feet into the stirrups, feeling a shiver race through Jericho’s muscles.

The wolf seemed to rise up out of the very earth, its black coat grayed with dust. In the instant it took for
Rachel to recognize it for what it was, her only thought was that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Maurice cried out in his own language. Jericho snorted, ears back, and crow-hopped. Rachel lost her seat, her right foot slipping from the stirrup and her body tilting sideways. She grabbed frantically at the saddle horn, but her fingers could find no purchase. Her next try caught Jericho’s mane, and with a desperate burst of strength she pulled herself back into the saddle.

As swiftly as it had appeared, the wolf was gone. Maurice murmured soft, singsong words to Jericho, who settled almost as if nothing had happened.

“Madame?”
Maurice said, gazing anxiously up at her. “
Êtes-vous bien
?”

“Yes. Only a little startled. May we go back?”

Quickly Maurice turned Jericho toward the house. Rachel leaned forward and wrapped her arms as far as she could around Jericho’s neck. As they passed the inner corral, a man came running from the direction of the foreman’s cabin.

Holden—hatless, bootless and naked except for his neckerchief and half-buttoned trousers—came to a sudden stop a few yards shy of Jericho and continued at a walk, his brows a solid dark line over his eyes. He went directly to Jericho’s left side and held up his arms.

Suddenly boneless, Rachel let herself slide into his embrace. He swept her up, spoke brusquely to Maurice and carried her into the house.

Lucia, sitting at the kitchen table with Gordie in her arms and her own Pepito in the cradle on the chair beside her, rose quickly as Holden entered. Gordie stirred and wriggled, trying to turn his little body toward
the door. Holden continued into the hall, nudged Rachel’s bedroom door open with his foot, kicked it shut behind him and laid her on the mattress. He sat on the edge and leaned over her, his arms braced to either side of her shoulders.

“What in hell do you think you were doing?” he demanded.

Rachel was not quite dazed enough to ignore the accusation in his voice. She lifted one hand to push him away, preparing an equally scathing reply. The moment her palm touched his chest, she forgot what she had been about to say.

Holden sucked in his breath. She could feel his heart under his ribs, beating almost as fast as hers. His skin was slightly damp, muscle and flesh hard as stone under her fingers. The fierce anger in Holden’s eyes changed to another kind of passion, and she had perhaps a moment of warning before he caught her lips with his own.

Rational thought had no part in her response, or in anything she did then. She raised her arms and pulled him down, opened her mouth to his, let his probing tongue silence her gasp of pleasure. She ran her hands over the bunched muscles of his back and shoulders, glorying in every powerful line and plane. She closed her eyes and let his sheer masculinity sweep her along a path she had shunned for so many long, lonely years.

She moaned in protest as Holden drew back, mourning the loss of what he denied her. But he didn’t apologize. Nor did he rise and walk away. He continued to lean over her, his eyes searching hers.

“Rachel,” he said softly. “You could have been killed.”

His words had the effect her ever-weakening discipline could not. The jolt of realization took the strength
out of her arms, and she lowered them close to her sides. Her skirts were in disarray, pushed up almost to her knees, but she was in no position to straighten them. Holden still had her trapped, pinned to the bed, but she could not have moved if she tried.

What in heaven’s name have I done?

Holden seemed not to notice the tears of shame stinging her eyes. “You should have waited for me to come back,” he said. “I would have showed you what you needed to know.” His finger drifted close to her face and stroked across her forehead, pushing a damp tendril of hair back among the others.

“I…I didn’t need your help,” she whispered.

“Sure you didn’t.”

He wasn’t taunting now. His voice had a sound that in any other man she might have called tenderness.

“Maurice…” She firmed her voice. “Maurice said Jericho was Jedediah’s gentlest horse.”

In one fluid motion Holden rose from the bed and went to stand at its foot, every hint of uncharacteristic tenderness erased from his expression. The name of his employer hung between them as if it were written on the air in scarlet letters.

“I don’t know what got into Jericho,” Holden said, his jaw so tight that Rachel was amazed he could speak at all. “He ain’t usually spooked so easy, not even by—”

He broke off, and Rachel knew she had found a subject she could grasp as a shield against her humiliation and the raging assault on her senses.

“Did you see the wolf?” she asked.

“I saw it.”

His answer was curt, and Rachel could almost feel
him withdrawing into himself, so far that no words of regret or apology, even if she could speak them, could possibly reach him. But she knew he wasn’t only regretting that he had broken faith with his employer, just as she had done with the man she was to marry. If he felt contempt, it was not only for her.

He had also been afraid for her, as if she was something precious. Someone to cherish, and not only for Gordie’s sake. He was furious at his own weakness. He didn’t want to want her any more than she wanted to desire
him
.

Oh, yes. She was quite safe now. As long as she didn’t so much as glance at his superbly displayed physique, the symmetry of his broad shoulders, his eyes, his lips. She rose onto her elbows and tried to decide how she might get up without doing anything that might be deemed provocative.

“Was it the same wolf that attacked the outlaws?” she asked stubbornly.

Holden went to the window and simply stood there, his hands at his sides, his trousers riding low around his hips. “Looked like it.”

“Why did it come here?”

He turned his head so that his profile was limned in golden light. “He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have been so close to the ranch after dawn.”

“You won’t…you won’t shoot him if he comes back?”

His laughter cracked like brittle glass. “You don’t want me to?”

Rachel scooted across the bed and swung her legs over the side, smoothing her skirt as she stood. “He was beautiful,” she said.

Every muscle in his back seemed to clench at once. “Most people wouldn’t agree with you.”

“I know I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. He didn’t try to hurt anyone.” She walked backward until her shoulders rested against the door. “I think he meant to help Joey.”

“Don’t make the mistake of believin’ a lobo thinks like a man.”

“Perhaps more men should think like lobos.”

He looked straight at her, his remarkable eyes suffused with so much pain that she could hardly keep from gasping. “Don’t get too fond of that lobo, Rachel. Sometimes wolves take calves and sheep. That’s their nature, ’specially when folks drive off their natural prey. He’s likely to get himself kilt sooner or later.”

“Please. Don’t speak that way.” She heard the rising emotion in her voice and calmed herself with great effort. “Will you give your word that you won’t hurt him?”

“Not if it matters to you so much.”

“It does.” She swallowed. “I want to…thank you for your assistance.”

“It won’t happen again.”

He wasn’t talking about the wolf now. He was giving her the same warning he was giving himself: don’t get into any more trouble. Because it wasn’t just words now, innuendo and blunt questions about her carnal needs and desires. One more misstep…

There wouldn’t be one. She could still draw back from the brink, and so could he. Holden Renshaw, for all his roughness, had a conscience. She had her past. And what was left of her honor.

“If you’re goin’ to ride,” he said, his voice as easy
and cynical as always, “you’ll have to learn to do it right and proper. I’ll take you out tomorrow.”

“You needn’t,” she said. “Maurice is willing—”

“
I
need to see you in the saddle and able to handle Jericho before I’ll be satisfied,” he said, looking at the door instead of at her. “I’ll put you on Banner this time. You afraid to try again?”