Bride of the Wolf (26 page)

This was his last chance to do something right.

R
ACHEL PICKED HER
way across the yard, glad for the moonless night but all the more careful because of it. She hadn’t dared carry a lantern, though she wondered how it could matter now if someone learned she was going to meet Holden Renshaw alone in the stable.

But it
did
matter. She had lost her head when she’d spoken to him on the veranda, so desperate to divert him from his course that she hadn’t considered all the consequences. She had said she wouldn’t care if she was exposed as an impostor and Holden’s lover, but that wasn’t true. Whatever happened, once this horror was over, she would go back to Dog Creek and Gordie. Jed was dead, but Gordie still needed a good home. With Holden so bent on self-destruction, she could no longer trust him to keep the vow he had made by the creek.

I got somethin’ for you
, Heath had said.
It’ll give you a chance to start over
.

Enough to start over with Gordie? Had that been what he meant? What else could it have been?

As long as I am Mrs. McCarrick, no one will try to take Gordie away until I am gone
. And there was as yet no sign that any vicious rumors had started, or that Sean planned to speak against her. He had ignored her completely after the fight, but the other ladies had continued to be cordial and sympathetic in spite of the awkwardness that had lingered when the party resumed. Even Amy had been friendly, quickly overcoming her anger at Holden, and there had been no scheming in her manner or false warmth in her eyes. In spite of all that had
happened, Rachel found that she could no longer believe what Holden had said about Mrs. Blackwell’s daughter.

I might have been welcome here
.

And she would have given it all up if only Holden—

Enough. She must go on, start over, think only of Gordie now. Holden was forever beyond her reach or her help.

A horse nickered as she approached the stable, and a deep awareness in her body told her that Holden was already waiting. As soon as she entered, he touched her arm.

“Come over here,” he said quietly. “Sit down.”

He offered her a wooden stool in an empty stall and stood just outside, his hands at his sides, his face expressionless. There would be no more displays of emotion. Only an ending.

Rachel rested her hands in her lap and stared beyond him at the dark shape of the horse in the opposite stall. Holden seemed to be waiting for her to speak, but she had nothing to say. He reached inside his waistcoat and withdrew a folded piece of paper the size of a letter.

“When I was in Javelina the day after Joey was hurt,” he said, “Sonntag gave me this letter for you.”

She looked up. “A letter?”

“From Ohio.” He turned the paper around in his hands. “I should have given it to you before, but I—” He broke off, reached out and offered the letter. Rachel took it, the brief spark of curiosity flickering out even as she touched the pretty stationery.

She unfolded it. All she could make out was the fine and elegant hand of an educated woman.

“I can’t read it here,” she said dully. “It’s too dark.”

“I can.” He took it back and cleared his throat.

It took some moments before Rachel understood what she was hearing. Three times before, her life had changed utterly: once when both her aunt and Louis had abandoned her, again when Jed had made his proposal, and at last when she had met Gordie and Holden. Now it had changed yet again. Or would if she wished it to.

“My grandmother was wrong, cousin,” Phoebe Kaplan had written. “No one should be compelled to pay for a single mistake for the rest of their lives. You shall have your rightful share of the inheritance. Come home, and we shall be the best of friends.”

Phoebe Kaplan, a girl so much younger than Rachel had been at the time of her disgrace, a child she had hardly known, now the sole heir to Aunt Beatrice’s fortune. A young woman of astonishing generosity and goodness.

Come home
. Rachel could return to Ohio a wealthy woman, to a place where she might be loved. A place where Gordie would have everything to make him happy.

She looked up at Heath. In the brief moment before his face turned cold again, she glimpsed the vulnerability she had seen only a handful of times, a profound pain that sent an echoing stab of agony through her own body.

“You have what you need,” he said in a voice stripped of emotion. “You can go anytime.”

Rachel tried to stand, caught her shoe in the straw and stumbled. She was in Heath’s arms before she could draw another breath.

Heath could have stopped it. It would have been the right thing to do, to push her away and let her go, forget he’d ever known her.

But in just a little while she would be leaving him.
And he wanted to remember her the way she was now, looking up at him with skin flushed and lips parted, desire in her eyes. Still wanting him to up and take her and Gordie and run away. Still
caring
for him, in spite of everything.

So he kissed her. Not hard the way he’d done it by the creek, but gentle. Gentle like he’d almost forgotten how to be. Her lips opened up like a cactus flower, welcoming, wanting. Her tongue tangled with his, and her fingers gripped his hair as if she was afraid he’d stop if she didn’t keep them there. He explored her mouth until there were no more secrets, nothing left for her to withhold.

He still could have ended it. Should have, for her sake. But she didn’t want to let him go, and he didn’t have the will to force her to. She was already working at the buttons of his vest before he put his hands on her bodice and fumbled for the hooks. She closed her eyes and let him do it, helped him take off the bodice and corset and skirts and petticoats, leaving her standing only in her chemise, unmentionables, shoes and stockings.

She shivered a little as he looked at her—not skinny, but slender and strong, with firm arms, a small waist and hips that curved just right. Her breasts were made to fill a man’s hands, brown nipples already hard and waiting for his mouth.

But it wasn’t enough to see her like this. He wanted her naked under him, her flesh against his.

He reached for her underthings, and her hand closed on his.

“Wait,” she said. “I want to see
you
.”

Now
he
was the nervous one, even though he had no reason to be. He wasn’t ashamed of his human body any
more than he was ashamed of the wolf’s. But it meant more than just letting her see him naked. Somehow it meant she would see all the way to the heart of him, even beyond what she’d already known from all he’d told her.

Before he had a chance to start undressing himself, she was busy with his vest again, unbuttoning it, helping him shrug out of it. She laid it aside and paused for a moment to lean into him, smelling him the way a female
loup-garou
would smell her mate.

Then she reached for his neckerchief.

Her wrists felt fragile as birds when he stopped her. “Wait,” he said.

She searched his eyes. “Why? What’s wrong?”

He knew she had to remember the last time he hadn’t let her take it off, when she’d been fixing his shoulder. Chances were she’d never heard anything about the wanted poster and the scar on the outlaw’s neck. She wouldn’t know what it meant.

Still, it was hard, because he’d kept it covered so long, hiding it from the men he’d worked with, and the whores and the few “respectable” women he’d known.

Rachel was more than any of them.

He reached up, tugged at the tight knot at the base of his neck and pulled the bandanna away.

Rachel gasped.

“My Lord,” she whispered. “Holden—”

With an effort, he kept himself from touching the scar. “It ain’t nothin’” he said.

“Nothing! Whoever did this must have…he must have almost killed you.”

Damnation, her eyes were getting all wet again. “He didn’t,” he said gruffly.

He thought she was going to ask if he’d killed the man who’d done it, but she only got up on her toes and touched the scar, gently, as she would Gordie’s cheek. He shuddered. No one had ever touched it before ’ cept him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “So sorry.”

He kissed her again, a little harder, just to make her shut up, but as soon as he let her go again she was stretching up and kissing the scar. He closed his eyes and shuddered.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said, as if
he
needed reassurance.

Maybe he did.

Heath didn’t move as she unbuttoned the placket of his shirt. She uncovered the top of his chest and kissed the hollow of his throat. She worked her way down until she reached the last button and then tugged at the shirt impatiently. He got it off, and she fell to kissing the rest of his chest, running her tongue over his nipples, kissing the arch of his ribs and his stomach.

It was almost more than he could stand. He wanted more of it, but he was afraid. Afraid of how weak and happy it made him feel.

He didn’t have much more time to think about his feelings, because she’d found the buttons of his britches. He stopped her again.

“My boots,” he said.

Rachel stood back just long enough for him to pull his boots and stockings off. Then she was working at his buttons again, her tongue sticking out as if she was unwrapping a package she couldn’t wait to see. She found out quick that he never wore anything underneath his britches. The second his cock came free
Rachel’s hands were on him, and he had to concentrate on not coming then and there.

Hellfire
. She was good. That other man she’d been with, the one who’d abandoned her…maybe he’d taught her. Or maybe she was just a natural. Either way, Heath wasn’t thinking about how she’d learned. Her hands stroked him, teased him until he was harder than he’d ever been in his life. She fondled the head and caressed it with a fingertip.

And then she did something he would never have expected in a hundred years. She knelt in the straw and took him into her mouth.

The groan came up out of his chest unbidden as she licked and suckled him, taking as much pleasure in it as he did. No, that wasn’t possible. But she seemed to enjoy it the way he’d enjoyed tasting her. She was a long time about it, and after a while he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer.

He took her head gently between his hands and made her stop, though his whole body screamed to make it last just a little longer. She looked up at him, and he raised her by her shoulders. Before she could speak, he pulled her chemise over her head and started on the ties of her drawers. They fell down around her ankles, and she stepped out of them.

They were both naked now, on equal terms, like a pair of gunfighters ready to duel. Heath tugged the pins out of her hair, and it fell around her shoulders. She looked down. He tilted her chin up, bent to kiss her, then eased her to the straw.

He did again what he’d done by the creek, kissing and licking and suckling her breasts while she lay gasping with her hair spread out like a halo around her
head. He kissed her all the way down, under her breasts and her belly and the place between her thighs. She was hot and pink and swollen, her body already weeping with joy. When he tasted her, she bucked like a half-broken filly, her breath coming in short, eager little puffs. He ran his tongue over her lips and around the nub between, sucking it into his mouth. He licked up her juices, taking time to let her know how much he liked the taste of her, liked seeing her quiver and pant.

She was as close to coming as he was, and he didn’t want her released until he was inside her. She felt the same, clamping her fingers around his shoulders and pulling him down on top of her.

He touched her with the head of his cock. He was too far gone to take her gently. He thrust into her warmth and wetness, felt her clench and let go as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

Arching her back, she moaned as he began to move, pushing as deep as he could and pulling almost all the way out before he thrust again. He kept going until she was close to coming, and then he withdrew, silencing her protest with a long kiss. He lifted her, held her against him and turned her over onto her hands and knees. Raising her hips, he entered her again, her round bottom soft against his belly. She rocked with his motion, eager to take him in as far as he could go.

She came just before he did, lifting her head and crying out as her body clenched around him. He finished right after, holding her hips as he shuddered and let go.

He wrapped his arms around her waist, turned her around, held her tight and kissed her forehead, her chin, her lips, her hair. She held him with the same kind of
desperation. They both knew this would never come again.

Easing her down beside him, Heath lay on his back in the straw. Rachel tucked herself into the hollow of his shoulder, her fingers brushing the hair on his chest and her leg wrapped around his. Heath closed his eyes and let all the tightness flow out of his muscles.

Was this what it felt like to be happy? To be able to pretend that he was like any other man…able, no matter what he’d done, to leave the past behind him?

Happiness had never been meant for him. But maybe Rachel could find it someday. He never prayed, but now he did. For her. He held her for a while longer, until he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer.

H
EATH ROSE SILENTLY
and walked naked out the doors of the stable. Rachel watched him, reveling in the grace and power she loved almost as much as his fierce tenderness and stubborn refusal to let her share his pain.

She had come to the stable prepared to take whatever he’d promised to give her and walk away. There was nothing left to hope for now. And yet she’d offered herself willingly, wanting to hold him within herself one last time. She had no regrets.

Brushing off the straw as best she could, she got up and looked for Holden. She could see no sign of him when she reached the doors and looked outside. Without his clothing he could not have gone far and neither could she, but she crept out after him, glancing toward the silent house.

A dark shape, swift and low, glided toward her from across the yard. She knew it was the wolf well before it reached her, black and sleek and unpredictable. She could not have run even if she wished to.

The wolf slowed a few yards away, its tongue lolling from its long muzzle, and made a sound like a low moan.

Rachel did her best to keep still. “Please,” she said. “I don’t mean you any harm, and there are men hunting for you. I don’t want you to die.”

Yellow-green eyes blinked, and the wolf made another sound that in a man would have indicated the greatest pain. The air seemed to shimmer around the animal like waves of heat hovering over the horizon, and a blackness darker than the night settled over her vision. She scraped at her eyes in terror. When she opened them again, the wolf was gone.

Holden stood in its place, naked and so rigid that each of his muscles stood out in sharp relief.

“Rachel,” he said in a broken voice, “I never wanted you to know.”

But she
did
know.

The wolf was Holden Renshaw.

T
HE LOOK ON
Rachel’s face was enough.

She tried to control it. Maybe a part of her remembered that he had never harmed her or Gordie, that she had once wanted him enough to forget everything else he had been and done. But the horror reached her eyes and painted her face with the animal fear Heath had seen so many times before, a fear that went deeper than any respect or desire or the feeling fools called love.

He wanted to howl to the skies, tear at the ground, run straight into the hunters’ guns and let them take his life. For a brief time, carried away by their loving, he’d seen those heavenly gates again.

But wasn’t this what he’d always expected? Rachel was human. Tomorrow or the day after, once she got over the shock, she might make herself pretend that it didn’t bother her. Maybe, unlike the others, she would try. But her acceptance would always be a mask, a skin worn over her terror and disgust.

“Gordie’s my son,” he said. “He’s like me. Now you understand.”

Her lips parted. She tried to speak, but her voice was gone, along with her trust and the faith she’d clung to in spite of all the lies. Heath Changed, spun on his hind paws and burst into a run.

He didn’t see Rachel again, and she didn’t come out of the house the next morning to watch the hunters saddle their mounts and check their rifles. Heath closed off his senses, praying he wouldn’t smell her before he left with the others.

Sean didn’t even look at him. He waved to Amy, who stood with her mother on the porch, and kicked his stallion into a gallop. Heath turned Apache away from the rest of the hunters, all the male guests and most of the Blackwater hands, and set off toward the south. He knew Sean expected him to try setting his own trap. It wouldn’t matter if he made it look obvious by riding in another direction.

He couldn’t feel his heart anymore, but his brain was still working. He wasn’t sure what Rachel would do now that she had the letter, but he knew she wouldn’t try to take Gordie. Gavin would be waiting at Dog Creek, and if Heath didn’t return, he would see to the boy.

It wasn’t his own possible death Heath mourned with what little feeling he had left, but the knowledge that he might never see Rachel or Gordie again. Even if he survived, the half-life that remained would have meaning only because of his son, and it would end when Gordie no longer needed him.

R
ACHEL REACHED AGAIN
for the gun tucked in the waistband of her skirt. It felt cold and evil under her finger
tips. She had thought long and hard about bringing it, but in the end she had decided such bitter precautions were necessary. She prayed she would never be compelled to point it at anyone. Not even Sean McCarrick.

In the distance, the dust left behind by the riders was still visible, but she was rapidly falling behind. She kicked her horse’s sides and he broke into a trot, responding at last to her desperate need.

Her decision to follow Holden and the hunters had required only as much time as it took for her to dress, creep from the stable back to the Blackwell house and crawl into her bed. The world had become a maelstrom of emotion and disbelief—astonishment and horror and all the sensations that followed hard on their heels. The shocks had come one after another, building until it seemed as if her mind could contain no more.

Yet she had accepted all the rest because her feelings had not changed. It might be over for Holden, but not for her. There was a bond between them, between them and Gordie, that could never be broken.

And she came to understand, as she lay in bed shivering with the covers pulled up to her chin, that there was nothing in the world that could destroy them. Love was enough to overcome even the greatest fears and the gravest doubts. Even the impossible.

She hadn’t slept during what remained of the night. She had thought back to every discussion or experience that had involved the wolf, and everything began to make sense. The dream in which the outlaw had been replaced by the wolf that had attacked Louis, the story of the wolf attacking Sean. The meeting with the wolf at Dog Creek, and the conversation with Holden that had followed.

He shouldn’t have been there
, he had said.
He shouldn’t have been so close to the ranch after dawn
.

Rachel had asked him not to shoot the wolf if he came back. She had said the wolf was beautiful, and he had told her most people wouldn’t agree with her.

Because his own foster father didn’t shoot his friend the wolf. He tried to kill Holden.

She had wept, remembering the story of his life on the run. How much sense it made now. No one could accept him. He had nowhere to go, no home, no hope. Until he had come to Dog Creek.

Don’t make the mistake of believin’ a lobo thinks like a man
, he had said. But Holden
was
a man. A man capable of compassion and loyalty and great devotion.

And Gordie was his son. That was why he had so often questioned her about her own devotion to the baby. He was afraid she would become like the Mortons. He was afraid to trust anyone with his secret. It was why he had seemed so driven to tell her about himself, to explain his past, and yet never spoke of a future. Why he had loved her with such fierce tenderness and then walked away as if it meant nothing.

Yet still he had told her not to give up on Gordie when she had thought herself unworthy to keep him.
Carin’ don’t mean givin’ up when times get hard, or just because you made a mistake.

In the end, he had tried to trust her, but she had betrayed that trust, recoiling from the great gift he had offered her, rejecting the miracle of his transformation. She had despised herself as she had lain in bed, her tears soaking the pillow, knowing there might never be a chance to set things right.

So she had risen before dawn, as the hunters were
just beginning to assemble. She had dressed in the skirt she wore for riding and secured Holden’s gun. When Amy had come out of her own room a short time later, Rachel had told her that she wished to ride that morning. Amy had agreed, though with notable reluctance. She had offered to ride with Rachel, but Rachel had said she needed time to think over all that had happened at the party and promised she would not go far. She had asked in the kitchen for a bottle she could fill with water and a little food to take with her.

She had waited impatiently for one of the hands to saddle the Blackwells’ gentlest horse, a gelding Amy had ridden when she was younger. By the time she rode away, the hunters had already left. Soon they had become little more than specks in the distance. Rachel knew they were bound for a place along the creek called Willow Bend, where the wolf had last been seen. She followed the dust trail until it had blown away on the wind, then continued in the same direction, following the prints of their horses’ hooves on the hard ground.

Now, as the gelding carried her after the riders at a maddeningly slow pace, she wondered again what she thought she could possibly do if she caught up with them. The odds were very much against her. Yet she had too much to fight for, and fight she would, even if her greatest enemy proved to be Holden himself.

Three hours after she had left the house, she realized she had lost the hunters’ trail. Nor had she found the creek. She had remembered Holden’s warning about the desert, but remembering hadn’t been enough when she had been so bent on finding him. She didn’t dare dismount for fear that she might not be able to get into the saddle again.

The gelding blew out his breath and dropped his head. Rachel looked up at the sky. Holden had taught her a little about the angle of the sun and using the compass, and after a few minutes she realized she had gone in the wrong direction. Once again she set off, shaking her weariness away with a toss of her head.

She was certain her decision was correct when the sun reached its zenith and began its downward arc toward the west. But the gelding was beginning to droop, his pace slowing more and more, and Rachel had still not reached the creek.

By late afternoon her body had grown heavy and her eyes refused to focus. She dozed in the saddle, and when she woke again the gelding was standing still, his hip cocked as he, too, rested. The poor animal could go no farther, and in a few hours the sun would begin to set.

She knew then that she had made a terrible mistake—not in attempting to help Holden, but in failing to provide for Gordie in the event of her death. Lucia would certainly not abandon him, but even if she and Maurice found a good home for him, he would be alone, like Holden. Forever alone.

I must get back
. She could rest the gelding for a while, share her water with him and wait until morning. She would not allow herself to die so easily. Someone was sure to find her sooner or later.

But Holden…

She did her best not to think at all and slid gingerly from the gelding’s back. She offered the horse water in her cupped hands, drank, herself, and took a little of the food she’d brought. After a while she lay down, hoping to sleep a little to gather her strength for the next day.

But the sun was still in the sky when she woke to find a long shadow spilling over her and a rider watching her from the back of a big gray horse. She scrambled to her feet, shading her eyes against the light.

The rider dismounted and touched the brim of his hat. His face wore an expression of strain and worry. “I’m sorry if I frightened you, ma’am,” he said. “I didn’t expect to find anyone alone out here.”

Rachel hardly heard him. She was lost in astonishment over the man’s obvious resemblance to Holden, not only in face and coloring, but in build and natural grace. She backed closer to her gelding and laid her hand on his neck.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Gavin Renier.”

She didn’t know the name, but that didn’t lessen her unease. She saw with relief that he wasn’t wearing a gun and wasn’t making any attempt to come closer.

“Are you lost, ma’am?” he asked.

Rachel wasn’t prepared to admit any vulnerability to a stranger, especially not this one. “My name is Rachel McCarrick,” she said. “I am a guest of the Blackwells.”

“I’ve heard your name, Mrs. McCarrick. You live at Dog Creek.”

“Yes,” she said. “I have been looking for a band of hunters searching for a wolf.”

“A wolf?” Renier’s face became grim. “A black wolf?”

His sudden change of demeanor made her shiver. “Yes. Have you seen them?”

“Not yet. I’m also looking for a wolf of that description.”

Rachel wished she dared reach for her gun. “Do you intend to hurt him, too?”

“I intend to save him.” He searched her face with eyes more gold than green. “Why do you care, Mrs. McCarrick?”

Telling the truth was out of the question. “He…he is my friend.”

“Your friend?” He took a step toward her. “How is that possible?”

“He saved the life of a boy I know.”

He was silent for nearly a minute. “I understand that you have a foreman named Holden Renshaw. Do you know where he is?”

Rachel moved closer to the saddle, knowing that even if she could mount without help, she couldn’t get away before this man caught up with her.

“If I knew,” she said, “I wouldn’t tell you.”

The sun-etched lines around his eyes deepened. “I need to find him. He’s my brother.”

It couldn’t be true. Holden had never mentioned kin other than the mother who had abandoned him. But she could not deny the amazing resemblance between Holden and this man.

A man who was looking for a black wolf.

“Mr. Renshaw doesn’t have a brother,” she said defiantly.

“He didn’t know he had one until yesterday,” Renier said. “I spoke to him and asked him to come back with me to our family. He said he had business to attend to, and I knew he was going to get himself into trouble.”

Holden had known? He’d discovered he had family who might want him? Did that have something to do with why he had revealed his true nature?

He was in trouble. And he had no allies but her. Unless this man was telling the truth. Unless…

“Do you know what he is?” Rachel asked, throwing all caution aside.

Renier stared at her, and she could almost feel the threat radiating from his body. “What do you mean?” he asked softly.