Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers) (3 page)

Bertie winked at Rachel. "Never a door closes, but God doesn't open a window."

"We'd be grateful for the help," Rachel told Mrs. Hornmeyer and meant it.

They worked for a while in companionable silence and then, seemingly out of nowhere, Mrs. Hornmeyer asked, "Do you think he'll be handsome?"

"Who's that?" Rachel and Bertie asked together and all three women laughed.

"The new sheriff."
Mrs. Hornmeyer giggled shyly at the look she received from Rachel and Bertie. "It would be nice for Miss Kincaid to meet someone new and handsome that would sweep her off her feet."

"Only if he used a broom, Mrs. Hornmeyer," Rachel laughed. "I'm quite content to leave things as they are. I have no wish to mate. No wish at all."

Sensing an ally, Bertie told their new kitchen mate, "She says she sees no reason to mate. I say it ain't natural, holdin' herself off like that. A wolver woman needs a mate," she said bluntly.

Like
she needs another ten pounds of petticoats, Rachel thought, but didn't say. It didn't matter what she said. Once Bertie got going, there was no stopping her, so Rachel went about her work and only listened with half an ear. She knew the lecture by heart.

Every wolver woman, or rather the wolf
who lived inside her, had an innate need to breed and to breed, one needed a mate. It wasn't good. It wasn't bad. It was there, she supposed, to ensure the perpetuation of the species, but Rachel had decided long ago that the species would have to perpetuate itself without her help. It was the one aspect of her life she could control. What could a mate give her that she didn't already have? Intimate relations and more work, that's what, and after the long days she already worked, intimate relations sounded like work, too.

Those first few years
, after her decision was made, were hard. Her wolf was constantly yammering to be let out, whining uncontrollably at every unmated male she scented. What made it worse was the fact that in the Gold Gulch pack, men far outnumbered the women.

After a while, her wolf settled down and eventually went to sleep, so deeply asleep that Rachel sometimes thought the she-wolf was dead. A part of Rachel was glad the animal no longer raised her head, but another part missed her terribly. A wolver spent their whole life with another being inside them, voicing their silent opinions and sharing life's joys and sorrows. Without the inner voice of her wolf, half of Rachel
felt dead, too.

"I don't need a mate," Rachel stated, as she had a thousand times before.

"Yes, you do," Bertie argued as she had those same thousand times, but this time she added something new, something Rachel refused to acknowledge.

"Your Papa isn't going to live forever. What happens to you when this place is deeded to someone else?"

Bertie was referring to the pack's rules of inheritance. Females couldn’t inherit family property through their fathers or their mates. Property would be passed to the oldest male, or the female’s mate, or revert to the ownership of the pack. For immature female offspring, the property could be held in trust by an assigned guardian, hopefully a relative, until the cub reached adulthood and mated. If her father died, Rachel would lose the hotel.

Her lecture finished, or realizing Rachel wasn't going to respond, Bertie
put on her shawl. "I've got to run home and get Victor his lunch. I'll be back in time to serve Luncheon here."

Bertie had just proven Rachel's argument. Mates were just more work.

Chapter 2

He'd done it again, the
loathsome wolver.

Luncheon in the large, public dining room was over. The little cakes and iced cookies were ready for Tea and Mrs. Hornmeyer promised to arise from her nap in time to make the little sandwiches the tourists found so delightful. Bertie was cleanin
g the kitchen, a perpetual duty, and Papa should have been watching the front desk, but as usual, he was not. Having already tidied up the dining room and brushed down the upper stairs, Rachel was clearing the accumulated dust from the front hall. She'd just bent to sweep her neat little pile of debris into the pan when he spoke above her.

"What's freckled and pink and red all over," he
asked his riddle with a snickering laugh and then sang his detestable ditty. "Tell me Rachel dearest, if what they say is true, are you like other redheads and red all over, too?"

Anger rose in Rachel so quickly and violently that it should have frightened her.
Her spine snapped to attention, shoulders back and squared. Gripping her broom with two hands, she spun it upright like a soldier presenting arms, and then she swung that broom like she knew what she was doing and had done it before. She thrashed that obnoxious wolver, who was now hunched over with his arms curled around his head to protect himself from the blows of the tightly woven fan of straw.

"Do you really want to know
the answer?" she hissed at him, continuing the broomstick battering. Whomp. "Because I'll gladly tell you, Mr. Coogan.” Whomp. “Your whole body will be red, that's what.” Whomp. “Or it will be by the time I'm finished with you! Now get out of here before I really lose my temper.” Breathless, she gave him yet another swat. “And don't come back!"

"Aw, Rache, I was just trying to get your attention,"
Coogan complained as he scuttled around the edge of the large vestibule, Rachel right behind him threatening another bout of violence. "It was just a bit of fun."

"It's Miss Kincaid, and the next time you think that's the way to get a lady's attent
ion, you'd better think twice. Do you hear me, Mr. Coogan? I have neither time nor tolerance for your fun. Now get out and do not dare to enter this establishment ever again."

She
drove him to the open door with the threat of her broom. Someone stepped aside when, with one last stroke of her menial weapon, and as if she was sweeping the last of the dirt out the door, Rachel chased the man out.

A large, booted foot connected with
the seat of Jack Coogan's trousers with enough force to send him sprawling over the porch and down into the dirt.

"Always
happy to help a beautiful woman," said a deep voice.

Cheeks flushed
from the heat of battle, green eyes blazing with a hundred grievances ready to explode, and trusty broom at the ready, Rachel turned to the owner of the boot.

"Whoa,
little lady, whoa." He waved his hands in front of him to ward off the imminent attack. "I'm on your side," he laughed. "No guy in his right mind would say that to a lady." He laughed again. "I would have helped you more, but you looked like you were doing fine without me."

Rachel felt her mouth open,
yet no sound emerged. With a conscious effort, she forced it shut, but could do nothing about her wide and staring eyes. To calm herself, she drew in a breath deep enough to make her corset creak, and caught the heady scent of a prime alpha wolver.

"Are you okay?"
he asked.

No, of course she wasn't 'okay'. How could she be?
She'd just lost her temper in the most unladylike manner in front of this, this…

"Oh dear," she breathed and looked at the broom in her hands as if she'd never seen one before. "Oh dear," she said again.

Reason tried to reassert itself when she spotted the dog, sitting at the wolver's heels. Out of all the thoughts whirling in her head, only one made it to her tongue.

"You can't bring the dog in here
, and out there, it must be on a leash."

"Actually, I was looking to rent a room for a few days."
He stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind him. "Miss Kincaid? I think you should sit down."

Her face fell into a different kind of frown
. Etiquette, practiced for years, was lost. Words of polite discourse were nowhere to be found. "How do you know my name?" she asked rudely.

"You told the guy you just gave the ass whuppin' to.
It's Miss Kincaid, you said."

She started to reprimand him for his language and the
n her befuddled brain kicked in and she realized what he'd said. "How much did you hear?" she asked in a high pitched squeak that sounded nothing like her own well-modulated voice.

"From the minute
the bastard spoke," he told her, grinning. "I was standing in the doorway, admiring your, um, dustpan skills, when the jackass made a crack about your…"

"You saw the whole thing? Why didn't you speak?" And save her from making a fool of
herself.

"Should I have? You looked like you had it under control
." He winked at her. "Next time I'll remember to step in."

"There won't be a next time,
Mr.… I'm afraid I didn't get your name."

"Challenger McCall
, though most folks just call me…"

"
Sheriff McCall." She rolled her eyes heavenward with a silent prayer to the Good Lord to strike her dead without delay.

"I hope so," he said, starting to laugh. "Is that a problem?"

"No, sir, of course not. Why would it be?"

"I don't know. You just seem a little upset by it, that's all."

Upset? Why would she be upset? It couldn't be because the visitor, who should be as all visitors were, gone in the next day or two never to return, a visitor who witnessed the most improper, unrefined and disrespectable circumstance she'd ever found herself in, turned out to be the very handsome and unsettling new sheriff. Oh, heavens no. That wouldn't be upsetting at all. Her stomach rolled and fluttered in unaccustomed discomfort, as if she’d ingested something alive and still moving. Panic started to rise.

"Papa!
" Rachel called more loudly than was necessary. "Papa?" she called again, but didn't wait for an answer. Hand pressed against her rumbling stomach, she went directly to the door of the Gentlemen's Lounge where Papa often napped.

"Papa!"

There was a snort and grumble of someone being disturbed from sleep. "Wha…what?"

"We have a guest in need of a room," she said impatiently and glanced back at the
wolver. He was grinning again and eyeing her in a way that made her nervous.

"Well don't just stand there snarling
. Get him checked in while I pull myself together," said the disembodied voice of her father.

Rachel felt the color rise up her
neck and flood her cheeks. She'd been insulted, embarrassed, and now humiliated. She fought down the explosion that was forming in her chest

"
Of course, Papa, I'll take care of it," she said and her stiffened shoulders slumped as she let out a tired breath. "We've just been so shorthanded lately," she said to excuse herself.

"What do you mean shorthanded? Where's Debra?"

How could Papa have already forgotten their conversation of this morning? There was an odd feeling inside her, as if her corset was too tight, and if her wolf had been with her, it would have growled. She took her next breath and was proud of her quiet response, though it was tinged with snappish impatience.

"She's been gone for t
hree weeks, Papa. Remember?" Her shoulders slumped again. "Never mind." She turned back to Mr. McCall, naming the price for the night and by the week and looked down at the dog sitting quietly at his heels.

"No dogs allowed in the room and it needs to be on a leash to go anywhere else. There's a place outside where you can tie it for the night."

"Dog doesn't do leashes or tying up. We'll sleep in the truck, but there are things I'm uncomfortable leaving out there and I'd like to get them stored away before dark."

Sleep in the truck with his dog?
She looked up at that, but made no comment. Instead, she spun the old fashioned register around for him to sign. "Just to make you aware," she said in a low voice, "Only our kind spends the night."

McCall nodded. "Good to know."

"Room seven," she said after taking down a skeleton key with a wooden tag attached. "It's at the back, so you can keep an eye on your dog. You can park in the private lot where it says Hotel Parking and follow the path up."

Mr. McCall shrugged as if unconcerned. "Dog and I
will be all right. It’s my gear that needs looking after."

"Now
Rachel, dearest, don't be so hasty with our new guest," her father admonished as he came through the door. He was wearing a dark green pinstriped suit with a yellow vest and high collared shirt. He straightened his tie and reset the gold stickpin.

Rachel rolled her eyes heavenward in long suffering patience and sighed again. "Very well, Papa, I'll let you handle it from here." She passed him the key and started around the desk, back toward the
kitchen, but stopped short when her father issued more instructions.

"Be a good girl and fetch Eustace to help
you with our guest's bags."

"Yes, Papa," she
said with a slow release of breath.

As s
he waited for Eustace to finish his latest tale to a group of children on the porch, Rachel had time to think of the consequences of her indelicate temper tantrum. How often had her mother warned her about action without thought?

"It takes years to build a solid reputation, sweetheart, and only a thoughtless moment to destroy one. Remember, action without thought
brings dire consequences."

She could hear it now, her name bandied about the saloon
as the new sheriff regaled the regulars with his introduction to Gold Gulch in the Tale of the Insane Spinster. Jack Coogan would become the star instead of the villain. And how would she know what coarse story was being told, except through the smirks of men as she went about her business in town?

"Tell us another. Please? Please?"

In the child's cry for another story, Rachel saw a possible solution to her dilemma. Eustace, a pack omega who earned his way as a storyteller and helped where he was needed, could repeat any story after hearing it once. The same went for any conversation he heard, which made him the most reliable gossip in Gold Gulch.

"I
want to know everything he says," she whispered to him when he answered her beckoning finger, "Everyone he talks to. Don't leave him alone for a minute. It's important."

"Rachel!"

"Coming, Papa." She pointed her finger at Eustace's nose. "I'll pay you for it, but I want every word."

"Don't you worry, Miss Rachel, y
ou can count on me."

There was nothing Eustace liked better than gossip.