Bride of the Wolf Read online

  The kid would be taken care of, no matter what Heath had to do to make sure of it. But there wouldn’t be anyone to stand beside Rachel. Sean was a coward and a weakling, all hat and no cattle, but he was smart in his own way, and he did have friends in the county. He didn’t know that the greatest obstacle to his ambitions—Jedediah—was already out of his way, but that wouldn’t keep him from scheming about how to make sure Jed’s wife never got what he thought was his by right. Even once the truth was out and the new will, if Jed had left other copies, made Sean’s claim harder to push through.

  And if Sean ever suspected Rachel was lying about having married Jed…

  She’ll leave, Heath thought. She might think she wants Dog Creek for her home now, but that’ll change. She can’t fight on Sean’s level.

  Heath reached the door to the cabin and stopped. He owed Rachel something for taking care of the kid, but the rest wasn’t his problem. She wouldn’t want his help anyway; she might feel sorry about losing the baby, but she wouldn’t mourn when he was gone.

  Still, it wouldn’t hurt much to give her the means to tide herself over once she left Dog Creek. That would have to be enough.

  Stepping back from the door, Heath went straight for the stable. He had one more job to do before the day’s work was done.

  WHAT WAS WRONG with her?

  Rachel sat up on the bed and dropped her head into her hands, fruitlessly. The baby lay undisturbed beside her, oblivious of her feelings. That was the only blessing.

  Oh, how she had tried to prepare herself for Holden Renshaw’s return. She had been so certain that she could face the foreman again with composure and objectivity, with all the polite and distant neutrality that was absolutely necessary under these precarious circumstances.

  She had failed. She had been so grateful when Lucia had arrived; Renshaw had been gone so long because he had been fulfilling her request for a wet nurse, and that could only count in his favor.

  But then he’d told her that she didn’t have to care for the baby any longer, and it had seemed that her worst fears were being realized. She was just a tool to him, a tool to be tossed aside when she was no longer of use. Just as Sean had said, Renshaw was scheming to drive her away.

  For a little while, anger had bolstered her resolve. She’d felt safer behind that shield, protected from his glittering, uncanny eyes. Then he’d turned the tables on her again. You do what you think is right.

  Trusting her. Forcing her to once again question Sean’s suggestion that Renshaw had been behind the attempted bribe in Javelina. Compelling her to let down her guard again, until she had almost gone so far as to tell him…

  Rachel lifted her head and stared blindly at the bare wall. She’d almost made an admission that would show Renshaw just how desperate she had been to leave her old life behind. And then, afraid that he would think too much about what she’d almost said, she had blurted out the question that had been in her mind ever since she had looked into his room.

  Where do you propose to sleep tonight?

  His gaze had met hers, and she’d felt as if he were stripping off her clothing, dress and corset and petticoats and undergarments, to reveal her quivering nakedness. For one awful moment she had imagined what it might be like to give herself to such a man, feel his long limbs and hard muscles moving against her body.

  She closed her eyes. No matter how resolutely she tried to shut the memories out of her mind, no matter the terrible consequences that had come from her one and only indiscretion, she could still feel it. Feel the ecstasy of Louis lying over her, inside her, arousing such painful joy that she had become a wanton, lost to all reason.

  That wanton should no longer exist. She should have died on the day her aunt had cast her, penniless, into the street. When the life sheltered within her, the fragile flame sparked by what she had thought was love, flickered out.

  But that shameful other self had outlived the infant Rachel had wanted so badly. Oh, she had managed to believe herself cured during the hard years that followed, through Jedediah’s epistolary courtship and her journey from Ohio. She had told herself that what she must do with Jedediah would be only a way of making him happy, a task no different than sweeping the floor or washing his shirts.

  That was all it ought to be, all she should want. But then she had met Holden Renshaw, with his animal intensity and beauty and hint of savagery.

  If she had been vigilant, she would never have allowed the wanton to notice Renshaw’s whipcord body or the way his hat brim didn’t quite hide the sensual depths in his eyes. She would not have minded his being so near, his strong hands resting on the table within a few inches of hers, because she would not have been aware of him as a man at all.

  But she had not been vigilant enough. The wanton had wormed her way back into Rachel’s body, little by little, so that Rachel hadn’t even known it was happening. When Renshaw had insinuated that she was inviting her into his bed, she had known it was no less than she deserved. He had sensed what she was, even if he didn’t know the circumstances of her fall.

  She scrubbed at her face as if she could wipe away her shame. Had the foreman been testing her fidelity to Jedediah, or had the desire she’d seen in his face been real? Either possibility was damning.

  Rachel rose from the bed and walked slowly back into the parlor. Holden’s gun still lay untouched on the table. He hadn’t said he wouldn’t kill a man he hated, but she had sensed that he’d done something extraordinary when he’d taken off the weapon and left it with her. It was as if he’d cut off a part of himself.

  Hesitantly, she reached out, and her fingers grazed the evil-looking thing. Who was telling the truth? She could no longer make herself believe that Holden had sent the driver to warn her away from the ranch. He would confront her directly, not hire someone else to do it. So who was behind the bribe? The only obvious alternative was Sean McCarrick himself.

  Feeling more than a little unsteady, Rachel sat down again and rested her forehead against her palms. If Sean had hired someone to bribe her, then nothing he said could be believed. He certainly did not wish her well. And if he had known she was coming, he could not be as ignorant as Holden believed. He must have known she and Jedediah were not married, yet he was clearly unwilling to refute her claim and arouse suspicion against himself. For the same reason, it seemed unlikely that he would tell anyone else.

  But why was he her enemy? Yes, Holden had said he would do anything to see the ranch fail, but how could driving her away further that goal when Jedediah was soon to return? Could Sean be jealous of Jedediah’s attention? He must have known she would tell Jed what had happened, but he clearly believed she would continue to take his word for Renshaw’s guilt. He had even asked her to take his part against Holden.

  There were far too many mysteries at Dog Creek. Rachel knew she ought to share her thoughts about Sean with Renshaw, but she was not yet prepared to trust him completely, nor could she trust her own judgment where he was concerned.

  Who was Holden Renshaw? If she didn’t make sense of the enigma she knew lay beneath his rough exterior, she would have no defenses against him at all.

  And she would need every available defense before Jedediah returned. Against Holden, against Sean…and—most of all—against herself.

  THERE WAS EVEN less left of Jed’s body than the last time Heath had seen him. The worst of the stench was gone, but the ground and air all around his bones were thick with the musk of scavengers.

  It wasn’t possible to keep Jed in one piece, so Heath moved the body in three pieces, laying it back down under the overhang. He crouched there for a little while, staring into the empty eye sockets and wondering whether he should just make sure once and for all that no one ever knew the bones belonged to Jedediah McCarrick. All he would have to do was take away the belt with its unusual buckle and Jed’s gold tooth.

  But ruining what was left of Jed seemed wrong, and in the end it wouldn’t change anything. Whether or not Jed was found, he w
ould eventually be declared dead in the eyes of the law, and what was going to happen would happen anyway.

  Heath rolled a few stones over the old man, covered him with a good layer of brush and dirt, and returned to the place where he’d buried the saddlebags. The ground hadn’t been disturbed; he dug up the saddlebags, refilled the hole and buckled the bags to Apache’s saddle. He didn’t let himself relax again until he was back at the foreman’s cabin.

  The gnawing guilt that Heath had begun to feel much too often made his hands clumsy when he reached into one of the bags. He weighed a handful of coins in his palm. Plenty here to give to Rachel, and more for Joey. Jed would have wanted them safe.

  Heath reached inside again, feeling deeper until he touched the bundle of letters and the sheath holding the wills. If he’d wanted to know more about Rachel Lyndon—if her hopes and dreams and fears really mattered to him—he could have read the rest of those letters.

  But he didn’t want to know. She could keep her damn secrets to herself.

  He kept the handful of coins, buckled the saddlebags and pushed them under his bed. He would have looked for a better hiding place if he had to keep it here more than a few days, but none of the few people left at the ranch was going to go snooping around his cabin. The money would be safe until he figured out a way to give it to Rachel without raising too many questions.

  He didn’t sleep much that night; the cabin held in the heat, and he’d let himself get used to the bed in the house. At dawn he rode out to help Joey hunt for strays. When he came in off the range, Charlie Wood was waiting for him.

  The man looked more than a little sheepish; he’d lit out with the rest of the hands, and Heath was none too pleased to see him back.

  “Reckon I didn’t like the idea of workin’ at Blackwater,” the man said, scratching at his raggedy three-day beard. “I been here a long time. Don’t seem right to leave.”

  Charlie’s words only confirmed what Heath had suspected. “All the men went to Blackwater?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Ain’t you gettin’ better pay there?”

  “That don’t matter to me, Mr. Renshaw. I don’t much trust Sean. He’s got sneakin’ ways about him, ’n he’s a liar. He told the Blackwells that he chose to leave Dog Creek, not that you threw him out.”

  “Too bad you didn’t think of stayin’ earlier. Maybe we don’t need you no more.”

  Charlie removed his hat and turned it around in his hands. “I know I made a mistake, Mr. Renshaw. I really want to come back.”

  Heath grunted. If he didn’t take Charlie back, Joey would try to do all the rest of the early-summer work himself. He was just that way.

  “You can stay, Charlie,” he said. “Long as you prove your worth.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Renshaw.” Charlie saluted and ambled toward the corral, leading his piebald gelding. Heath frowned. Charlie had been with Jed a long time, but he’d never struck Heath as the kind who would give up good pay for loyalty.

  Shrugging off his speculation, Heath looked after his mount, then fetched the account books from his room in the house—glad that Rachel was in Jed’s room—and went over the figures in the foreman’s cabin. Dog Creek was still solvent, but without Jed’s money, Sean wouldn’t have nearly as much as he wanted once the ranch was sold. As soon as Heath was finished, he headed for the cookhouse to talk to Maurice, who had come back with a wagonload of supplies from Javelina.

  He knew he was only putting off going back into the house to clear out his things. Rachel wouldn’t always be hidden away in Jed’s room. He’d have to talk to her again sooner or later, if only to see how the kid was doing.

  Rachel must have heard him thinking about her, because she came out of the house a moment later, wearing a different but still plain dress and carrying a worn-looking parasol. Her gaze went straight to the horizon, as if she was expecting Jed any minute. The shadow of her parasol made her eyes hard to read.

  What did she see when she looked out over the Pecos? She couldn’t love this country, not the way Jed did. How could she, coming from the green, settled land of the East? This territory was good for hunters and cattle, not for women. Not even the Blackwell females, who were rich and had the leisure to stay inside and keep their pretty hands clean.

  According to Joey and Maurice, Rachel had only been out of the house a few times while Heath was gone fetching Lucia, once to walk along the bank of the creek, once to study the ground near the house, and once to talk to Maurice about the supplies she needed. Maurice had told him that she’d asked only for things a woman required for cooking and cleaning and such, nothing for herself. No pretty dresses or perfume or lace or the kinds of fripperies “real” ladies were supposed to want.

  She’d also insisted on taking on some of the washing. Heath had seen the shirts hung out on a line she’d stretched between the house and the old pecan tree. She’d been touching things men had worn close to their skin. Things he had worn.

  Heath shoved those thoughts far back inside his mind the way he’d shoved Rachel’s letters into the saddlebags, and turned to walk away. But she had seen him. Her body went stiff as a fence post.

  Damn if he would let her run him off now. He went to join her.

  “How’s the kid, Mrs. McCarrick?” he asked.

  “The child is still improving, Mr. Renshaw,” she said. “As you would know if you had come to see him.”

  She was right. He needed to know just when the boy was healthy enough to travel, but he wasn’t going to admit it.

  “I just saw him yesterday,” he said. “Or was it me you wanted to see?”

  Damn him for a fool, taunting her with what he wanted to forget. But Rachel didn’t take his bait.

  “I know you are a very busy man,” she said in her most formal voice.

  Heath cleared his throat. “Maurice told me that you took in some of the washing.”

  “Does that surprise you, Mr. Renshaw?”

  “I thought you wanted to take care of the baby.”

  Her chin jerked up. “I keep him with me when Lucia is not feeding him. Many women are capable of doing more than one thing at a time.” She folded her arms across her chest, and Heath couldn’t help but notice that she was fuller in the bosom than he’d realized. “I am not accustomed to being idle, nor did I come to Texas to drink tea and lounge about in the parlor.”

  Trying to figure her out was worse than useless. Heath knew she’d already been cooking. She’d offered to cook for him. She intended to be just the kind of wife Jed would have needed, baking pies and cleaning and washing and doing everything else women were supposed to do.

  But Jed wasn’t here. Heath would have expected her to wait until her husband came back before taking on so much.

  With a speed that left her no defense, he seized her hands and turned them palm up. The fingers were long and slender, but her fingertips were marked with calluses that could only have been earned with steady labor.

  She snatched her hand away. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly, and she looked about ready to hit him.

  “I’ll ask you to keep your hands to yourself,” she snapped.

  He almost laughed, but it wasn’t from humor. “You done hard work before,” he said.

  The cool, prim lady was gone now, replaced by that wild thing he’d glimpsed yesterday in the parlor. “Have you seen enough?” she demanded.

  He didn’t want to speak the real answer to that question. “Dog Creek has gone a long time without the services of a lady,” he said.

  “Then you had best begin getting used to it.”

  She looked so ornery that Heath was dangerously inclined to admire her spunk. “You should be inside with the kid,” he said.

  “He is sleeping, and Lucia is watching him.” She glanced toward the barn, and her voice got a lot quieter. “There must be cows that need milking.”

  He tipped his hat back on his head. “You want to milk the cow?”

  “Do you doubt that I am capable of it, Mr. R
enshaw?”

  “That’s usually Joey’s job.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, you need all your remaining hands on the range with the cattle. Isn’t that so?” She waved her hand to the north, where the desert grassland stretched out beyond the creek. “Shouldn’t you be out there yourself?”

  It sounded too much like another order, and Heath let himself be provoked. “You plan on bein’ the one runnin’ things once Jed comes back, Mrs. McCarrick?” he asked. “You figure you can bully him the way you did the men you knew back East? You should know it ain’t quite the same out here, ma’am. Or do you need more proof of that?”

  She dropped her parasol and her body curled inward all at the same time, as if he’d called her a whore to her face. He reached out and caught her arm. It was so tight that he was afraid it would snap if he pressed too hard.

  “You’d best get back into the shade, ma’am,” he said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. Anger not at her, but at himself. He’d sunk pretty low by using Jed against her when Jed was never coming back.

  He picked up the parasol, keeping his grip, despite her resistance, all the way back to the shade, and sat her down in the old rocking chair Jed used to favor on summer nights, when he would smoke his pipe and talk to Heath about his dreams.

  Rachel recovered quickly. Whatever had made her so upset didn’t stop her from standing again and pushing her face up to within an inch of his.

  “This cannot go on, Mr. Renshaw,” she said. “You may not like me, and I may feel the same about you, but we must both live here until Mr. McCarrick returns. I will no longer engage in these ridiculous battles with you. I will treat you with the respect due your position, and you will do me the same courtesy.”

  Heath didn’t have any choice but to look straight into her eyes. They weren’t just plain brown like he’d thought, but all kinds of tawny colors, like the pelt of a panther when the sun hit it just right. His gaze dropped to her mouth. Her lips weren’t as thin as he’d remembered, either. In fact, they were the prettiest thing about her face, besides her eyes.