Bride of the Wolf (24 page)

“Funny that Renshaw and Mrs. McCarrick are goin’ to the Blackwells’ party in a week. You’d think Renshaw would want to stay away from Sean when he didn’t have the grit to stick up for you.”

A party? Sean had invited Holden to a party? It didn’t make any sense, but Joey didn’t much care if it did or not. Holden had broken his word. It had all been lies. He
was
betraying everybody, just like Charlie had said.

The biggest shame of all was that Joey had come to think that Holden really cared about him.

I wanted him to be my father
. But that would never happen. Never could have happened.

“Reckon you could go to the Blackwells, tell them what happened,” Charlie said. “Maybe whoever saw it will speak up.”

Joey laughed, but only inside. It looked as though no one knew about the rustling yet, but he could hardly believe Sean hadn’t sent someone for him since he’d been away. Sean could tell the Blackwells about what Joey had done anytime, see Joey strung up before he could say one word in his own defense.

And no one would even try to stop him.

“I ain’t stayin’,” he said.

Charlie nodded sympathetically. “I’m thinking of leavin’ myself. I’d take you with me, ’cept I don’t have much money.”

That was the problem. Joey didn’t have a penny to his name, no kin, and nowhere to pick up decent, lasting work this time of year.

But he knew where to get plenty of money. He didn’t owe Holden anything now. And if Charlie was right and Holden was planning to run off with Rachel, he would probably just take the money himself, anyway.

You’ll be stealin’ from Jed, too
. But Jed hadn’t told anyone about Rachel, had he? He’d lied, too.

“I got to go,” he told Charlie. “Thanks for tellin’ me.”

“Your stuff is still where you left it in the bunkhouse,” Charlie said. “Want me to come with you?”

“No. I don’t want Holden to know I’m back.”

Charlie shrugged, reined his horse around and rode west. Joey kept going toward the house. As soon as he couldn’t hear Charlie’s horse anymore, the tears came. He blubbered for about ten minutes, his eyes all puffed up and snot dripping from his nose. After that, he was able to start thinking again.

He would have to be careful. Holden had a way of hearing and seeing things other people couldn’t, and he would know if Joey went sniffing around in his cabin. The good thing was that he had a habit of riding out most every night alone and was usually gone for hours. If tonight was one of those nights, Joey could get the saddlebags, steal Jed’s fastest horse and leave Dog Creek forever. Maybe Holden would figure out who stole the money, but he would have to kill Joey to stop him.

Once, Joey had hoped to make Holden see him for a man, not a boy. Now all he wanted was to show Holden that betrayal could go both ways.

He dragged his arm across his nose, turned Acorn south and chose a deep draw a few miles from the creek, where he could camp until nightfall. He ate the two hard biscuits in his pocket, and pretended he wasn’t scared and hungry and wishing he were dead. Three hours after sunset, with a three-quarter moon to light his path, he rode within a quarter-mile of the house, left Acorn
in another draw and walked the rest of the way. He stopped behind the bunkhouse, listening, hoping Holden was really gone.

The yard was quiet. So was the house, and he didn’t see any lights in the bunkhouse. Charlie wasn’t anywhere in sight. Joey snuck into the building and found a couple of empty bottles on the table. He tucked them under his arm and slipped into the cookhouse to grab whatever he could find.

Step by slow step Joey crept into the yard. Crickets, the lowing of the milk cow and the stamping of a horse in the corral were all he could hear. The cabin was dark. He went around it and into the stable.

Apache wasn’t there. Holden must be gone. Still, Joey was careful to take a good look around before he went back to the cabin. As he dropped to the floor and crawled toward the bed, he could feel cold sweat trickling inside his shirt, stinging the little places where his wounds were still healing. Reminding him again why all this was worth the risk.

The saddlebags were just where Holden had left them, still stuffed with money. Joey threw the bags over his shoulder and crept out of the cabin, going straight back to the stable. It only took him a few minutes to saddle Twister. He led the horse outside and filled the two bottles from the pump, then rode out of the yard and onto the range. Ten minutes later, when he slowed Twister to a trot, he heard hoofbeats behind him.

Holden
.

Joey pulled Twister to a stop and grabbed his rifle, too scared to think. His sweaty hand slipped, and by the time he got a fresh grip on the stock the rider was too close.

Charlie Wood grinned at him as he pointed his gun, showing his black and crooked teeth.

“Where you goin’ in such a hurry?” he drawled. “Don’t you know Mr. McCarrick’s been lookin’ for you?”

T
HE LAST TIME
Heath had been to a party, the room was filled with whores and the men who used them, drinking themselves blind and dancing clumsily to music from an out-of-tune piano. The stench and noise had been so bad that he’d had to leave after a few minutes.

Still, that party had been honest. No one had pretended to be what they weren’t. Everyone here was pretending, and some were going to suffer for it.

Heath took a measured sip of his whiskey, watching Rachel laugh and pretend just as much as the others. She was clean and bright in her plain dress, a sparrow among peacocks, beautiful in a way they could never be. If they knew she’d had a kid out of wedlock, or even that she wasn’t married yet, they would scorn her forever. But right now Amy and her parents were being friendly to her for their own hidden reasons.

As for Sean, he was with most of the other ranchers near the table that had been set up for drinks, compelling their attention the way he always did and talking about the wolf hunt he’d arranged for tomorrow. He’d barely spoken to Rachel, and he’d ignored Heath so far, but that wouldn’t last. The question was whether or not Heath could find out exactly what else he was planning.

Swallowing the last of his whiskey, Heath thought about the past week. He and Rachel had avoided each other; he’d tried once or twice to talk to her about the party, but she’d refused to listen. He’d not only failed to convince her to stay away, but he’d upset her more
by telling her that he would have married her. He realized now that in trying to make it easier for her when he left, he’d only made things worse.

And he’d failed in another way. The night after he’d argued with her, Joey had come back to the ranch. Heath hadn’t been there to talk to him, or stop him from what he was about to do. After running himself to exhaustion, Heath had fallen into his bunk with no more awareness than a head-shot human. When he woke the next morning, he’d smelled Joey in his room.

He’d met Charlie in the yard as soon as he ran out to look for the boy. The hand had been apologetic, almost ready to grovel when he’d told Heath he’d seen Joey riding away from the ranch with full saddlebags buckled behind his saddle. He hadn’t tried to stop him; he’d figured Heath knew he was back and where he was going—south, toward the Rio Grande. When Heath went to get dressed and ride after him, he’d found the money-filled saddlebags gone from under his bed.

Following Charlie’s directions, he’d ridden south, but there had been no sign of Joey; his trail had gone cold, and Heath couldn’t smell him out even when he Changed.

Joey had stolen the money, as well as the letters and wills, but it wasn’t his fault. It was Heath’s. Everything he’d done since Rachel’s coming had been wrong, from giving Gordie to her and being blind to Joey’s unhappiness, to letting himself care for a woman and leading her to think he could be what he wasn’t.

He had one last chance to do something right.

He set his empty glass on the table and ambled over to join Sean and the ranchers at the other end of the room. They were laughing at something Sean had said. Sean poured himself a drink and lifted it in salute to
George Saunderson, who owned a good-size spread on the other side of the Pecos River.

“Speaking of wayward beasts,” Sean said, “I have every confidence that we’ll bring down that brute tomorrow. How can we fail, with such good and true gentlemen working together?”

“Seems you got a personal grudge against that lobo,” George said, gesturing at the arm Sean held stiffly at his side. “He got a damn good taste of you.”

Sean kept his smile, though the muscles worked in his jaw. “Yes. And I intend to see that it doesn’t attack anyone else. It’s a big devil, cleverer than most. It’s only a matter of time before it begins attacking your beeves, John, or yours, Finn.”

The men nodded. “We’re with you, Sean.”

“So am I,” Heath said.

None of them had noticed him coming. They all turned to look at him with various expressions of wariness, dislike and curiosity. They knew there was no love lost between Jedediah’s nephew and his foreman, and they didn’t feel any more comfortable with Heath than most humans. They would be more than inclined to take Sean’s side of any argument. But Charlie had said Sean had told everyone a pretty story about deciding to leave Dog Creek on his own, so they weren’t quite ready to condemn Heath yet.

“Ah. Mr. Renshaw,” Sean said.

For a long, heated minute all they did was stare at each other. Heath was sure then that Sean believed he had Heath just where he wanted him. They both knew that what lay between them was going to be settled before the hunt was over, each of them figuring he was going to win.

All Heath wanted at that moment was to come right out and accuse Sean of killing Jed. All he needed was the look on Sean’s face to tell him it was true.

But no one would believe him.
He
would look like a man gone crazy with hate.

The ranchers glanced at each other uneasily. “Renshaw,” George said, lifting a gray eyebrow. “You heard anything from Jed?”

“Nothin’ yet, Mr. Saunderson,” Heath said. “Expect to anytime.”

“I imagine Mrs. McCarrick is a little lonely there all by herself,” John Powell said. “Coming from the East as she does.”

Heath showed his teeth. “Reckon that might be true, since no one’s come to see her.”

“My wife kept meanin’ to visit her,” Finn O’Hara said. “Only, Adam’s been sick, and Addy’s ailin’, too. They’re gettin’ better now, though.” He scratched his chin nervously. “Heard about the baby. Right good of her to take it in.”

“Jed done right in pickin’ her,” Heath said, fixing his gaze on each man in turn. “But it ain’t polite to talk about ladies when they ain’t around.”

“You surprise me, Renshaw,” Sean said. “I never would have thought you’d be interested in such niceties.”

“I’m surprised at
you
, Sean, gettin’ up the courage to go after the animal that brought you low.”

Rage and hate transformed Sean’s face just long enough for Heath to see. “Oh, I intend to make the vermin suffer once I have it,” he said. “Take my vengeance and rid us all of a killer. Two birds with one stone, as it were. Wouldn’t you feel the same?”

Heath knew his guess was right for the second time. The wolf hunt was where Sean planned to get both enemies if he could.

But Sean was human. He didn’t know about
loups-garous
. Or…

Crazy thoughts spun through Heath’s head. Did Sean somehow suspect there was a connection between the wolf and Heath? That it wasn’t an accident that Heath had shown up right after the wolf had savaged him?

That was crazy. Crazier than Sean. “Yeah,” Heath said. “I’d feel the same.”

“I wonder if Joey would agree?”

H
EATH ALMOST HIT
him. Just as he began to raise his fist, he realized that was exactly what Sean wanted: to set him up as the villain in front of people who already disliked him.

“Joey has more grit in his little finger than you have in your whole body,” Heath said, smiling through his teeth. “He can hold his own…in a fair fight.”

Saunderson frowned, obviously knowing there was some particular battle going on that he couldn’t quite understand. John Powell shifted from foot to foot, and Finn poured himself another drink.

“I wonder if
you’ve
ever been in a fair fight?” Sean asked with a savage smile of his own.

“I thought we were talking about a wolf hunt?” George said quickly.

“So we were,” Sean said, turning to refill his glass. He sipped it almost delicately. “Are you certain you wish to join us, Renshaw?”

“I am, and I’ll do you one better, McCarrick. I’ll wager I can bring the wolf in first.”

He couldn’t mistake the way Sean weighed his proposal, searching it for traps. “What would you propose as stakes?” he asked.

“Whoever loses leaves the county for good.”

It felt as if the whole room went quiet, though the women were across the room and only a few others could have heard them talking. “That’s ridiculous,” Sean snapped.

“Afraid you’ll lose all this?” Heath said, waving his hand at the room.

Sean’s face went red, and he took a step closer to Heath.

“I suggest you retract that remark,” he said softly.

“Do you accept or not?”

A man like Sean could only be pushed so far. He swung. Heath dodged the blow easily. Saunderson and O’Hara dived at Sean and caught his arm before he could try again.

“Mr. Renshaw!”

Rachel caught Heath’s arm and pulled him away with a determined jerk. Everyone was staring now: the Blackwells, the handful of women, the other ranchers and their foremen in their best duds.

“I believe Miss Blackwell was about to suggest a dance,” Rachel said in a carrying voice.

Amy Blackwell joined them. “Yes, indeed.” She looked pointedly at Sean, and he had no choice but to ask her. George Saunderson’s daughter Annie, just growing into her womanhood and eager to show off her skill, sat down at the piano. She bent over the keyboard and struck up a waltz.

If they’d been alone, Heath would have told Rachel just what he thought of dancing. He’d maybe done it three times in his life, and he hadn’t been good at it any of those times. But she wasn’t likely to give up when her purpose was to separate him and Sean.

So he did what he had to, placing his hands the way he remembered, feeling Rachel’s hand in its white glove
rest on his back. Her waist was small and firm, her gaze steady as he began to move his feet. A few other couples joined them on the polished wooden floor of the Blackwells’ big parlor, and instinct took over. After a minute or two he and Rachel were spinning around the room. Rachel’s whole body transformed into something made of light and air. Her skin was flushed, and her eyes shone like sunlight on still water, and all Heath could think about was the way she’d looked after he’d loved her by the creek.

He was amazed to find himself thinking the dance had finished too soon. Rachel pulled free before he thought to let her go. She gave him a long look, a warning and a plea, and walked with Amy and Eunice O’Hara to the table stocked with vittles brought by the guests.

Sean came up behind him.

“Did you find that amusing, Renshaw?” he asked in a low voice.

Heath turned slowly to face him. “I ain’t laughin’.”

Sean looked across the room at Rachel, who was listening with a smile to Mrs. O’Hara babbling about her new stove. Rachel glanced briefly at Heath and Sean, her brows drawing down in worry.

“You certainly appeared to enjoy your dance with Mrs. McCarrick,” Sean said. “Can it be that you two have become friends?
More
than friends, perhaps?”

Hellfire
. Heath saw that he’d been a fool, so intent on his need to get Sean that he’d assumed McCarrick wanted to make friends with Rachel and manipulate her with the Blackwells’ help. It wasn’t that at all. He wanted to ruin her.

“You watch your mouth,” Heath growled.

“Would you prefer to discuss the subject here? I’m
sure several of our guests might find the conversation quite fascinating.”

Heath’s muscles tensed with the need to Change and finish what he’d begun.

“Perhaps we should retire to the veranda?”

Another dance had started, and Rachel was accepting Rufus Mayhew’s hand. Without answering, Heath strode out of the parlor and along the hall to the kitchen. One of the Blackwells’ servants, a cook in cap and apron, glanced up from her pots in astonishment as he pushed through the door to the section of the porch that extended to the back of the house. Unlike the rest of the porch, which was lit by hanging paper lanterns, this area was dark except for the light of the moon.

Sean strolled out after him, whistling softly. He looked Heath up and down, leaned against the railing and smiled.

“Well, Renshaw. It seems you’ve been keeping more than your share of secrets.”

Bide your time
, Heath told himself. “You got somethin’ to say, say it.”

The railing creaked as Sean adjusted his position. “Tell me…how long have you and Rachel Lyndon been lovers?”

Sean never had a chance. Heath laid him low before he finished the last word. “You filthy son of a bitch,” he snarled.

Blood dripped from Sean’s nose onto the porch. He shook his head, got up on one elbow and kept on smiling. “I see I was right.”

Heath dragged Sean to his feet by the lapels of his pretty frock coat. “Where did you hear these lies?”

“It couldn’t be more obvious, Renshaw. The way
you look at each other, watch each other constantly…there are dozens of clues.”

Heath shook Sean so hard that the man’s teeth rattled. “If you’ve said this to anyone else—”

“I haven’t. Not yet.” Sean shook his head in mock regret. “Which do you think would cause a greater scandal, your diddling Jed’s wife—or the fact that she’s not Jed’s wife at all?”

It wasn’t any real shock to find out Sean knew, considering what Heath had already guessed. But why had Sean waited to bring it up now?

Because he wanted a fight. Heath had thought that Sean meant to do whatever he’d planned during the hunt, but maybe he had something else in mind, after all.

Heath let Sean go with a push. “You think you’ll ever get the chance to tell anyone, McCarrick?”

“What do you propose to do, Renshaw? Kill me here?”

A howling storm raged inside Heath’s head, a blackness that was nothing human. “You want a fair fight? I’ll give it to you.”

Sean pulled a clean white handkerchief from inside his coat and patted at his nose. “A pity Jed won’t have a chance to witness such a novelty.” He sighed. “Perhaps it’s best that he’ll never know how his fiancée betrayed him.”

The storm shredded Heath’s insides like paper. It wasn’t just what Sean had said, but the way he’d said it, grinning at Heath because he
wanted
him to know. He wanted Heath to react so he could say Heath knew Jed was dead. Just like
he
did.

He’d murdered Jed. Heath was certain of it now, and he planned to make Sean suffer for that before he died.

Heath backed up, took off his hat and Jed’s second-
best coat, and unbuttoned his vest. Sean did the same, the sneer never leaving his face.

No fair fight was possible between a human and a
loup-garou
, but Heath managed to hold back just enough. Sean feinted a few times and connected once when Heath let him, but he mostly kept his distance, dancing around like a possum on a tin roof in summer. When Heath let Sean slip under his guard, Sean didn’t even try to hit him. Instead, he reached for Heath’s neck, caught hold of the tails of Heath’s neckerchief and yanked down hard.

Warm air hit Heath’s scar like scalding water. He fell back and jerked the neckerchief back into place. Sean took the chance to hit him in the mouth. Heath’s fist smashed into Sean’s face a second later. He jumped on top of Sean and drew his arm back again.

Someone screamed.

Heath let his hand fall and sprang to his feet. Amy was standing in the kitchen doorway, her hands pressed to her mouth. Crowded among the other women, Rachel hovered behind her, such a look of horror in her eyes that Heath almost felt ashamed.

George Saunderson moved past the women and helped Sean to his feet. “What the hell’s goin’ on here?” he demanded.

Sean held the handkerchief over his split and swelling lip. “A friendly disagreement,” he said. “It was meant to be a private affair.”

Amy hurried to him and began dabbing at a cut on his cheek with her own lacy handkerchief. “This is intolerable!” she cried. She turned to glare at Heath as she worked. “My father will have you thrown out!”

Rachel slipped past the crows clustered at the
doorway. “I do not believe that Mr. Renshaw provoked the fight,” she said.

Lips tight, Amy stepped away from Sean and stared at Rachel. “You didn’t see it any more than I did,” she said.

“Mr. Renshaw,” Rachel said, “did you start the fight?”

He met her gaze. “Depends on what you mean by ‘start.’”

Saunderson looked from Heath to Sean and back to Heath again. “You should know better than to tussle around the womenfolk.”

“I apologize,” Sean said with a stiff bow. “I did not intend for the matter to get so out of hand.”

Heath couldn’t believe that Sean would take the blame so easily. “Reckon it was wrong,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

No one knew just what a lie that was. Heath nodded shortly and picked up his vest. Amy was still glaring at him as she chivied Sean into the house. The other women followed, whispering loudly and shaking their heads.

Rachel stayed behind. “If you intended to let everyone know that you hope to kill Sean,” she said, “you could not have gone about it more skillfully.”

“I had my reasons.” He touched the already healing cut on his chin and sniffed the air. No one was near, not even the cook, who’d probably been the one to tell everyone about the fight. “You should have stayed away.”

She drew a handkerchief from somewhere in her dress and held it out to him. “Nothing has changed, Holden,” she said.

“Plenty has changed.” He ignored the handkerchief and stared down at her as if she was still a stranger. He knew what he was about to say would hurt her, but if
there was any chance of getting her to leave, he had to take it.

“Do you know what he said, Rachel?” he asked. “He knows you ain’t married. And he’s guessed that you and me…”

He didn’t have to finish. Rachel’s face lost its color. “How?” she whispered. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. But you don’t want to be out here with me right now.”

Her jaw set. “I am here holding a simple conversation with my husband’s foreman. No one—”

“Sean will tell everyone what he’s guessed if it suits his purpose. Do you want to be anywhere around here when that happens?”

Her eyes were nearly black in the darkness, wide and scared. But her gaze never wavered. “Are you so certain he will be believed?”

“He can make anyone believe anything he wants.”

“I am not so certain. I have spoken with Amy. She was far from pleased that Sean let himself be drawn into a fight. I’m no longer convinced that she intends to manipulate me on Sean’s behalf.”

Heath laughed. “You’re makin’ a mistake if you think that. She wants Sean as much as he wants her.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not afraid of either one of them.”

Oh, she was afraid, all right, but she was ready to face the humiliation and disgrace of exposure if it meant she could stop Heath from going after Sean. He grabbed her shoulders, afraid that if he let himself soften even a little, he would take her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right.

“If Sean says anything before the hunt,” he said, “I’m goin’ to have to kill him here.”

She didn’t even try to get away. “The hunt,” she said. “That’s when it will happen, isn’t it?”

He let her go. He wasn’t going to tell her that had been his idea all along.

A warm evening wind picked a few dark strands free from Rachel’s tightly bound hair and caught at her skirts, pressing them against her legs. “Sean planned the hunt, too,” she said. She flung her arm toward the darkness beyond the house. “It
is
a trap. Anything can happen out there, can’t it?”

Heath remembered Sean’s mocking grin. He’d
wanted
Heath to believe he’d murdered his uncle. He knew Heath would never accuse him openly. It was still just between them. But Heath saw now that Rachel had to know everything about Sean, because the weak, soft part of him still wanted her to understand.

“Sit down,” he said.

“You haven’t answered my—”

He took her by the arm and marched her to the rocking chair by the kitchen door, pushing her down onto the seat. “Jed’s dead, Rachel,” he said.

It was hard telling her the rest, hard to look at her face…the shock and horror at first, then the despair that came over her when she was clearheaded enough to realize how badly Heath had betrayed her. Her breath was ragged, her face etched with grief and anguish.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she said in a voice hoarse with unshed tears. “Why didn’t you tell
me?
”

It wasn’t a long story. Heath had made it a point not to remember all the details of his life since he’d left the Mortons, and he’d already told her part of it. Just not enough.

So he told her about the weeks of near starvation
after he’d run from the Mortons, the desperation, the petty theft just to keep himself alive. The hard fights he so seldom lost. The petty crimes that got bigger as he learned from the most skilled and hardened outlaws west of the Mississippi. Years of rustling horses and cattle, and never being caught. The first bank robbery. The first train. The first time he’d killed a man who’d planned to kill him first. The killing he hadn’t done but had been blamed for, setting him on the run again. The new life Jed had offered him. Everything but the betrayals, his real name and the wanted poster with the scar.