Heart of the wolf (9 page)

Skeet barked once in greeting when Sarah climbed into the truck with Wolf's help. The dog thumped his bushy tail.

Sarah rallied at Skeet's enthusiasm, offering a slight smile as she patted the dog's huge head. "I'll bet you thought you'd gotten rid of me, huh?"

Wolf climbed in the driver's side and shut the door. "He won't mind the company. In fact, he'll like it."

"Will
you?"
Sarah asked sourly as Wolf drove away from the hospital.

With a shrug, Wolf glanced over at her, feeling the tension building between them once again. "Does it matter what I think?"

Sarah set her lips and stared straight ahead. "Yes."

Wolf didn't want to lie to her, but he couldn't tell her the truth, either. It was just too painful to talk about. "It will take some getting used to," Wolf admitted, "but I'll handle it."

Inwardly Sarah sighed. Living with Wolf was going to be like living with a wild animal. He was so unpredictable. And so were her wildly fluctuating emotions whenever he was near her.

"We have some talking to do now that we're alone," Wolf said seriously after a few minutes of driving in silence.

Sarah looked at him. She was trying to hold herself apart from him—trying to pretend she didn't
caie
what he would say.
"About what?"

"I snooped around your mine this afternoon and took a closer look at that tree that fell on you yesterday."

"Yes?"

Wolf held her gaze. "The tap root and half the roots on the other side of the tree had been sawed through. Did you know that?"

His words sunk in, and Sarah gasped. "Someone deliberately sawed through those roots?"

Sarah folded her arms defensively against her breasts as Wolf nodded confirmation. "
Summers
," she bit out. "It was that bastard
Summers
! He sent some of his hired guns up there to do it." She closed her eyes, suddenly feeling very alone and afraid.

Wolf forced himself to pay attention to his driving. "Look, I'm filing a police report on this with the sheriff's office, Sarah. Something has to be done about it. Before, I figured you were blowing things with
Summers
out of proportion." His straight black brows dipped. "Now I know you aren't."

"Sheriff Noonan
will
circular-file your report, just like he did mine on my dad's murder, Wolf."

The sound of Sarah saying his name moved through Wolf like a heated wave, thawing his once-frozen emotions. "You're paranoid, but in some ways, after looking at what someone did to that tree,
I
don't blame you." And then, trying to lighten the darkness he saw in her fearful eyes, he said, "I
kinda
grow on people like moss on a rock. This week at the house won't be too bad on you." He desperately wanted Sarah to believe he could help her through this period. But could he? He didn't know. He'd failed before—and a life had been lost. But as he stared over at Sarah, painfully aware of her situation, Wolf knew he'd never wanted to protect anyone more.

Sarah sighed, fighting the emotions his gruff kindness aroused in her. "When are you going to file the report?"

"Tonight.
I'll get you comfortable at the house,
then
drive up to your cabin. My last stop will be at the sheriff's office."

The news of the cut roots had shattered Sarah, although she fought to appear calm. She not only felt the fear, she could taste it.
Summers was
out to get her claim—one way or another. Never had she felt so nakedly alone. But Wolf's voice was a balm to her raw nerves. His nearness enforced a sense of safety she desperately knew she needed, even as she struggled against
it. With a shake of her head, Sarah muttered, "I'd just never have believed a stranger would come into Philipsburg and help me out so much." She looked deep into his gray eyes. "Are you sure there isn't a reason why you're doing this?"

Wolf didn't want to think about reasons. Was it to atone for—to somehow try to change—what had happened in South America? Could he really help Sarah? Even as he wrestled with his own uncertainty, Wolf still saw clearly that if he didn't reach out to help her, Sarah would be in even more immediate danger. He tried to smile to reassure her. "Like I said before—I'm Cherokee, and we'll open our homes to a stranger who needs help."

Sarah stared out the window of the truck, not convinced by Wolf's explanation. She sensed that there was more that he hadn't said. She saw the turmoil in his eyes, and felt the sudden tension around him. Wolf was an enigma, hiding behind something she couldn't identify—yet.

Frustrated, Sarah forced her focus to the town they were driving through. Philipsburg was a small, hundred- year-old silver-mining town that had gone bust. The streets were narrow but paved. Most of the buildings were of wood-frame construction, not more than two stories tall. Many needed a coat of paint from weathering the harsh Montana winters where the wind swept down off the rugged Rockies and through the small valley.

On Broadway, at the edge of the town, they pulled up in front of a yellow one-story house. Red geraniums lined the walk, but the grass was predominantly brown, in dire need of water because of the scorching summer heat. Wooden stairs led up to a wide, screened porch with a swing. Wolf turned off the truck engine and motioned to the house.

"We're home."

The words sounded so good that Sarah's throat tightened. Once she'd had a home. And two parents. Now she lived in an empty cabin. The loneliness of the past six months cut through her. Sarah's imagination caught fire, and she wondered what it would be like to wait for Wolf to come home every night.

"Yes," she
whispered,
her voice cracking. "We're home."

"Ranger Harding, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill." Sheriff
Kerwin
Noonan eased back in the creaking leather chair and held Wolf's opaque stare.

"Aren't you interested in who sabotaged Sarah Thatcher's mining claim? You know, if I hadn't taken a wrong turn and gone down that road, she could have died out there." Wolf was quickly getting the impression that Noonan abused his power. He had
a cockiness
, a know- it-all attitude, that automatically rubbed Wolf the wrong way. He had to struggle to keep his voice neutral and hide his mounting anger.

Noonan stroked his steel-gray mustache. "Sarah's always been a precocious thing, Harding. I watched her grow up from a skinny kid who was always in trouble and fighting with someone at school into a young woman who still had axes to grind. She
ain't
got the sense God gave a goose,
jumpin
' at shadows and
accusin
' Mr. Sum-
mers."
With a shrug, Noonan added, "She's always been a troublemaker. If you're smart, you won't get mixed up with her."

Wolf dropped his written report on Noonan's cluttered desk. The jail was quiet, with only a lone drunk in one of the two cells. "I don't think," Wolf said softly, "that Ms. Thatcher's personality has anything to do with the fact that someone sawed through those roots. She certainly didn't do it to herself."

Eyeing the report, Noonan sighed. "All right, Ranger, I'll look into it. But I can tell you right now—
ain't
nothin
'
gonna
come from my investigation. She pulled the same stunt when her daddy blew himself up with that box of dynamite in the back of his pickup. That girl came loose at the hinges, a wild banshee
swearin
' up and down that Mr. Summers had murdered him. Well, wasn't
no
such thing. Thatcher blew himself to smithereens all by himself.
Pure and simple."

"I'm interested in anything you find, Sheriff," Wolf said, settling his hat back on his head.

"How's the girl
doin
'?"

It was obvious to Wolf that Noonan didn't respect women. Nor, plainly, did he see Sarah as the woman she had become. "She's going to be on crutches for a week."

Noonan's eyebrows rose a bit.
"Too bad.
I suppose she's heading back to her cabin out there in the middle of nowhere?"

Wolf shook his head. "No, I've offered her a place to stay until she can get mobile again. The doctor wants her off her feet for a while."

"Harding, the
town'll
talk."

"Let them."

"Your landlady, Mrs. Wilson, won't take kindly to that sort of arrangement."

Giving him a flat stare, Wolf said, "The only arrangement Ms. Thatcher has with me is that I've offered her a roof over her head and some food to eat."

With a grin, Noonan nodded his head. "Just remember, Harding—you've got a wildcat living under the same roof with you. Better watch
it,
or she'll turn around and bite the hell out of you. Anybody who gets mixed up with her is
courtin
' big trouble."

Wolf said nothing, turning on his heel and leaving the small, cramped jail facility. Sarah's paranoia about people in general—and especially strangers like himself—was becoming more understandable all the time. No wonder she feared trusting anyone but herself. What the hell had happened to her? Grimly he walked back out to the forestry pickup, where Skeet was waiting in the cab. He'd already picked up Sarah's clothes—what there was of them.

She'd also had him pick up some of her lapidary equipment. There was a large grinding machine with several wheels attached that would polish a stone to perfection. And the faceting machine, about as large as a dinner plate, with a round, movable surface, would allow her to continue working and bringing in some income while she stayed off her feet. Faceting was easy, she'd assured him.

As he'd moved through her cabin, collecting her few belongings, the financial deprivation Sarah suffered became very clear to Wolf. She hadn't embellished the reality of her situation.

Driving out of the parking lot, Wolf headed home. How good that word sounded to him.
Home.
Having Sarah there made it seem like one. Wolf couldn't hide from the fact that for many years he'd dreamed about a home and a family. But his life had veered off in another direction, one that he'd never forget, not until the day he died.

Twilight washed Philipsburg in an apricot hue as the sun dipped behind the mountains. The orange color softened the aging Victorian buildings, built during the silver and copper boomtown period so many years before. It was a town that had relied on mining to keep it alive. Now that the mining, for all intents and purposes, had been stolen from the earth and sold, Philipsburg had died. But, like many towns Wolf had seen, this one was resurrecting itself slowly, one new building at a time, because of tourism and Montana's nationwide reputation as a hunter's and fisherman's paradise.

With a grimace, Wolf thought how his own life paralleled that of the town. So much of him had died down in South America. The rebuilding had barely begun. Taking leave from
Perseus
had been the first step. Wolf knew instinctively that Sarah was touching the new, emerging chords within him as a man, touching his soul in some wonderful yet undefined way.