Sherry's Wolf (7 page)

Sherry pulled the heavy blankets up to her chin. This morning Dixie said she should be up front and honest with Stag about her feelings. Sherry tried to imagine telling Stag that he’d made her nervous when he bit her breast because she was afraid he would hurt her worse. But how could she say that to him? He would be offended. Sherry curled her toes in her thick socks, pondering that thought. She was sure Stag would be hurt by her fears. Did that mean that deep down she believed he really wouldn’t ever hurt her?

Where was Stag? Sherry turned onto her side, trembling with the cold and wondering if Stag had already left to go back to the Clan. He wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye, would he? She remembered the anger on his face as he spun away from her that morning. Maybe he
had
left without saying goodbye. Maybe he’d decided he didn’t want her for his mate after all.

Why did that thought make her want to cry?

* * *

In the morning, the sight of Stag setting up tables for breakfast made her almost dizzy with relief. Sherry actually had to lean against the wall for a brief moment to get her balance back. He noticed. With the uncanny speed all the wolves had, he rushed to her side before she could push away from the wall. The concern on his face almost brought tears to her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded anxiously. “Are you sick?”

Yes, what was wrong with her? Was she really that relieved to see him? Yes, she realized with surprise, she really was. “I’m fine, Stag. Where were you yesterday?” That question should have been strong. Instead it came out plaintively.

Sherry squirmed inwardly. “Stag , you don’t have to leave. I mean, you don’t have to go away until Christmas. I, um, I think we can keep talking and getting to know each other better.”

“Good. I agree. We should spend more time together getting to know one another. Let’s talk about it later. You go sit down. You need to eat some breakfast.”

There he went again with that you-need-to-fatten-up thing. Sherry rolled her eyes and made her way to a table while Stag finished setting up the other tables and chairs. Marissa joined her, face glowing.

Marissa’s smile had a happily guilty curve to it. “Actually, it’s been two and a half months. Me and Red Wing were together a few times in the Clan camp before he went to Omaha to look for my son. I haven’t had my period, and I’ve been feeling a little queasy in the morning for the last week.”

For someone with morning sickness, Marissa looked pretty perky. Sherry studied her, smiling at the woman’s pink cheeks and bright eyes. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Don’t tell anyone, though,” she repeated her earlier words. “It’s too early to know for sure and I don’t want Red Wing to be disappointed if I’m not.”

“Sure.”

“I need to see the doctor without making Red Wing freak out.”

A baby. Sherry glanced down at her flat stomach. She and LeRoi decided early that they didn’t want to start a family right away, and she was glad of it. Children would have made things much more difficult for them. But Sherry wanted to be a mother. She wanted to be the mother she hadn’t had. And she wanted the father to be a real father, not like hers was. She looked around for Stag, wondering if he would be a good dad. She thought he would be. Her memories of the Clan camp were a little fuzzy, but she remembered a number of boys in camp. They seemed to be happy and secure. Abused or neglected children didn’t act happy and secure, especially around strangers.

“Doctor Whitten isn’t coming around here anymore, is he?” Marissa asked.

“No, he hasn’t come for weeks.” Sherry tapped her finger against her chin, thinking. She liked the doctor who’d paid daily visits to the Plane Women’s House to treat the injured. A doctor who made house calls was unheard of back home. One who accepted home cooked meals as payment? A myth. But Doctor Whitten did both. “Maybe you should tell Red Wing. If you say you need to see the doctor without telling him why, he really will freak out.”

“Maybe I could sneak off and see him alone?”

Sherry arched a brow. “Girl, don’t be stupid. Can you so much as go out to use the outhouse without at least two of the men keeping an eye you?”

“I guess not, and that’s inside the fence.” Marissa sounded glum. “I’ll wait a while.”

Now that the tables were set up, the women were filling them. Sherry saw Stag standing by the door, speaking to Des with urgent gestures. After a minute the men both glanced at her, then nodded at each other before splitting up. Stag walked to her table and sat down.

“Good morning. Marissa,” he said politely, before leaning over Sherry. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Sherry,” he remarked. “We do need to spend more time together. It’s going to be a beautiful day. I’ve arranged for us to have horses so we can go for a ride after lunch. We can talk and get to know each other better.”

His casual tone seemed off. She blinked at him. “Well…” She hadn’t been riding in years, but she felt like she owed him something. Yesterday morning she hadn’t been kind to him. Besides, it would be nice to leave the compound. “Alright. But I’m on kitchen duty for supper tonight, so we’ll have to get back early.”

“I already talked to Des, so he’ll have someone cover for you. If we’re out late, that is,” he added hastily. “Your name is pretty.” He sounded like a drowning man floundering to catch a rope. “Did your mother name you Sherry? That’s not Korean, is it?”

“No, my mom named me Chantelle after my dad’s mom. She probably hoped it would make my dad want us.” She snorted. “It didn’t. He already had another daughter he’d named Chantelle, so when I came to America my father and his wife changed my name to Sherry. ”

Marissa said indignantly, “They changed your name?”

Sherry nodded uncomfortably.

“They even took your name away from you.” Stag took her hand in his callused one. “What happened to you and your mother would never have happened here. Babies are always welcome. After the Woman Killer Plague during the Terrible Times, there were so few women left that every single birth was celebrated. Only one baby born in three hundred was a girl. Girl babies are still pretty rare, even now. Your father would have been whipped for treating a woman so badly. Your mother would have had her pick from hundreds of men who would have begged her to marry them. You, her little baby girl, would have been taken good care of. Everyone would have loved you and protected you.”

Sherry had to blink back tears. How different her life would have been if she’d been born here. “I probably would have been a spoiled brat.”

“No. Your nature is too sweet for that.”

Stag really didn’t know her if he thought her nature was sweet. She cast about for a new topic. “Why do some of you in the Clan have Indian names like Jumping Stag and Red Wing, and some of you have white names like Des?”

Stag stacked five big pancakes on her plate and only frowned when she transferred three of them to his plate. “Most of us have both names. Many of the women in the Clan were from towns, so they gave their children English names. Sometimes we’re given Lakota “baby” names, usually something descriptive about us. Like my cousin Jelly is named He Eats Jelly. Guess why?”

Sherry chewed her bite of pancake, looking at him thoughtfully. His hair was freshly washed, his braids thick and shiny. He didn’t look like a Nathaniel to her. “Do you like being called Nathaniel?”

He shook his head. “The only person to call me that was my mother.”

A gagging sound from the other side of the table jerked Sherry’s eyes to Marissa. The other woman’s previous happy glow had faded to greenish nausea. She leaped up from the table and hurried out of the big room.

“Oh, dear,” said Sherry. “Where’s Red Wing?”

“Patrolling the fence. Is Marissa sick? Should I go get her mate?”

The urgent concern in Stag’s voice made Sherry smile. All the wolves were hyper-concerned about the women’s health. It was actually cute in an overbearingly protective way. “No. It’s just a woman thing. I’ll go check on her.”

* * *

This was Stag’s idea of a beautiful day? Sherry hunched further into her coat and dug her mittened hands into her horse’s mane for extra warmth. The sky was a deep clear blue, and the wind was light, but it was the end of January and it was
cold
. She hadn’t been riding in ten years, and her legs ached. Stag led the way at a bone jarring trot about ten feet in front of her. She thought this would be a leisurely amble around the town, while they chatted and got to know each other better. Instead, Stag had headed straight out of town and was out of chatting distance, riding as if he had a destination and was anxious to get to it. As they rode, she saw big gray wolves slinking along at a distance, clearly shadowing them. It reassured her to know they weren’t actually alone. How crazy was that? Werewolves creeped her out. But she knew what had happened to Tami when she’d been captured and sold to bad men, and she wasn’t sure that Stag would be able to fight off any men who tried to kidnap her by himself. Then again, he could turn into a wolf and shred them with his teeth. Sherry shuddered, and it wasn’t from the cold.

“Stag,” she shouted. “I’m getting cold. I want to go back.”

He was wearing only an unlined leather jacket. She knew wolves didn’t feel the cold as much as humans did, but it was only twenty freaking degrees. Couldn’t he at least button the coat all the way closed? He called over his shoulder. “There’s a cabin up ahead we can stop at to get warmed up.”

He nudged his horse into a canter, and hers followed suit. Sherry didn’t know how long it was before they got to the little house, but it felt like hours. Being outside town gave her a strangely vulnerable feeling, like driving a hundred miles an hour on a motorcycle without a helmet. The house, when she finally saw it, was a welcome sight. It was well hidden by folds in the land. She noticed that it was painted gray and had big black shutters, but what her eyes fixed on was the smoke coming from the chimney. That meant a fire to warm up at. Stag led the way around the back, to a stable almost as big as the house. When she dismounted she almost fell. Her legs refused to support her weight, but Stag caught her.

The house was toasty warm inside. It was just one room, with a kitchen and eating area on one end, and a bed and chest of drawers on the other, with a big stone fireplace on the opposite wall. Stag carried her to the bed and set her down carefully. “I’ll be right back.”

Sherry took her hat off and looked around. It wasn’t a large room, but it was clean and uncluttered. The wood floor wasn’t polished, but the planks were smooth, covered with a few rugs. There was a square table with a couple chairs around it under one of the small windows. The bed was obviously homemade, a little smaller than her queen-sized bed at home. A simple quilt made of fabric squares in cheerfully clashing purples, oranges and reds covered it. Opposite the bed was the fireplace with a small fire snapping brightly. The scent of burning wood filled the room. Even here, ten feet away, she could feel the warmth of the flames. On top of the beat up chest of drawers beside the bed was a canvas sack that looked a lot like the bag she kept her knitting in, and on the floor was a duffel bag. She saw no knickknacks or personal items in the room.

Who lived here and where were they? Sherry hoped they wouldn’t mind that she and Stag were stopping here to warm up.

Stag came in a few minutes later and took his jacket off to hang on a peg by the door. He went to the fireplace to lay another log on the fire before moving the chairs by the window over in front of the fire. His eyes fixed on her with a strange intensity as he came over to squat at her feet.

“You can take your coat and boots off,” he said. “Here, I’ll help you with your boots.”

Sherry watched Stag set her boots beside the door and arrange them so they were at just the perfect angle to the door, and then hang her coat up for her. Why was he being so careful about it? He’d been acting strange all day.

“The fire is warm,” he said. “Come sit and relax. Should I get you a blanket to wrap up in?”

She stood up and walked over to the chair he indicated. Without her cane, she walked carefully, but it was only six or seven feet, an easy walk even for a saddle-sore woman whose legs had been broken three months before. But she was glad to sit down, since her legs still felt like jelly. She had left her cane behind at the Plane Women’s House, since she didn’t think she would need it for a leisurely horseback ride. “I’m good. Whose house is this?”