Bride of the Wolf

So this was the woman who’d written the letter that Jed had carried like something precious. The woman he’d cared enough about to woo and win and bring all the way to Texas.

She looked in his direction. Her shoulders lifted, and she started toward him, her plain brown skirts swishing with each firm step. He could feel her hostility through his skin and in his bones. She didn’t even glance at the bundle in his arms.

“Mrs. Rachel McCarrick,” Sean said, gliding up beside her. “Holden Renshaw, foreman of Dog Creek.”

At first Heath thought the woman was going to back away, but then he realized her hostility covered something else: fear. He could smell it sure as he could smell a skunk at ten paces.

“Ma’am,” he said coldly, briefly touching the brim of his hat. “Welcome to Dog Creek.”

She studied his face. “Am I welcome, Mr. Renshaw?” she asked.

He didn’t understand the question, and he didn’t much care. She wasn’t denying that she was Jed’s wife, and that meant she was lying. He hated that she was here, hated that she’d invaded this place and claimed it for herself, that a stranger held Jed’s loyalty just because she was human.

But she obviously didn’t know Jed was dead, and neither did Sean.

“So you’re Jed’s wife?” he said, making her feel a little of what he was.

She flinched, so slightly that he knew no human would have caught it. “I understand that Mr. Mc—my husband is away,” she said.

“He’s been in Kansas, selling cattle,” he said. “Surprised you didn’t know that, Mrs. McCarrick.”

Her upper teeth, white and straight, grazed her lower lip. “Of course I knew he had been elsewhere on business, but he was to have returned by the time I arrived.”

Maybe she was telling the truth about that part, maybe not. Heath smiled, not trying too hard to make it friendly. “I don’t know what you’re used to back East, ma’am, but out here, things don’t run by clockwork.”

“You expected me, did you not?”

He knew a challenge when he heard it. Jed had surely planned to meet her when she arrived. Maybe she wondered why his foreman hadn’t known to fetch her in Javelina.

“Jed didn’t say when you was comin’,” he said.

“He told me,” Sean said.

More lies. “You know when he’ll be back, too?” Heath asked with a curl of his lip.

Sean hesitated, and little worry lines appeared between the woman’s straight dark brows. Heath came within an inch of feeling sorry for her.

An inch could be a long way if you wanted it to be.

Sean cleared his throat. “Mrs. McCarrick is weary from her long journey,” he said. “I’ll escort her into the house.”

One long stare shut Sean up again. Heath looked down at the baby, so covered up that it looked like a pile of rags. It chose that moment to stir and whimper. Sean jumped. So did the woman. They both stared in disbelief at the lump curled against Heath’s chest.

“You know anything about kids, Mrs. McCarrick?” Heath asked roughly.

She blinked at him. “I … I beg your—”

He showed her the baby’s pale face. “It’s ailin’. Can you make it well?”

Her gaze moved from the baby’s face to his, astonishment wiping every other emotion from her features. “Where … whose baby is this?”

“Someone left it, and I found it. Can you fix it?”

Surprised as she was, she landed on her feet just like a cat. “How long has it been since it has eaten?”

“It won’t eat at all.”

Accusing eyes met his, and she took the baby from his arms, taking care not to touch Heath more than she had to. “What have you been giving it?” she demanded.

His hackles rose again. “Some cow’s milk and stuff in a bottle. That’s all I had.”

“It must have milk. Fresh milk.”

Relief burned through his body like strong whiskey. She knew what to do. She could keep the baby alive.

Maybe she could do more than that. She was holding the baby close and humming softly, just like a real mother.

Heath cut the thought before it could get any further. He would be gone with the baby as soon as it could travel. “Go on in,” he said. “I’ll see to that milk.”

She met his gaze with a flash of defiance and walked toward the house, still cooing. Heath turned on his boot heel and walked toward the barn. Sean stepped into his path.

“What in hell do you think you’re doing, Renshaw?” he demanded. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but if you think you can order Jed’s wife around like a common servant—”

Heath took a single step toward him.

Sean backed away fast, his hands half raised, but his fear wasn’t enough to shut him up. “Where did you get that baby?” he demanded.

“It ain’t your concern, McCarrick,” Heath said slowly and clearly.

“It is my concern if it affects Dog Creek.”

“You never gave a damn about Dog Creek.” Heath leaned into Sean, who took another step backward. “Where did you meet her?”

Sean rolled his eyes like a horse about to spook, then took himself in hand. “In Javelina. Jed told me to watch for her.”

“Jed never told you a damn thing.”

“He never told you, either.” Sean attempted a grin. “If only I’d had a mirror to show you the look on your face when you found out who she was.”

Heath bared his teeth. “Take a look at it now.”

Hunching his shoulders, Sean laughed nervously. “Wondering what else Jed was hiding from you?”

“I knew he was fixin’ to marry.”

“But not that he was married.”

So Sean believed it. Heath saw no reason to set him straight and a couple of good ones not to. Sean would be boiling in his own juices by now, much as he tried to hide it by trying to defend the woman. He’d always expected Dog Creek to be handed to him on a silver platter once Jed was gone. He didn’t have to know about the wills, or Jed’s death, to realize that his plans for Dog Creek were in trouble, but he was just smart enough not to let on. For now.

“You know what I think?” Heath said, wanting to twist the knife a little deeper. “You didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout the woman until she showed up. Jed knew you’d be riled about it. He didn’t trust you.”

Sean stood straight and put on an offended look that probably would have fooled most of the folks he liked to impress. “Why should I be anything but pleased that my uncle has found happiness with a woman?”

“You was never interested in anyone’s happiness but your own.”

“Amusing that you of all people should say that, Renshaw. You’ve been manipulating my uncle since you first arrived.”

Hitching his thumbs in his gun belt, Heath half closed his eyes. “That’ll always stick in your craw, won’t it? That he chose me over you to run Dog Creek?”

Sean sneered. “He made a serious mistake. There’s always been something wrong about you, Renshaw. Eventually I’ll find out what it is.”

If Sean had been anything more than a weak, puling shadow of a man, full of empty bluster, Heath might have taken his threat seriously. He hadn’t forgotten the risk of his being here, but Sean didn’t know just how much things had changed, and he sure as hell wouldn’t do anything that would push Jed into taking Heath’s side over his.

Heath didn’t know that Jed had chosen against both of them.

Heath glanced back at the house, where Apache was still waiting patiently. “Look on your own time, McCarrick. Now you’re nothin’ but a hired hand, and you got work to do. See to my horse.”

“I’m not taking any more orders from you, Renshaw,” Sean spat. “Mrs. McCarrick’s in charge now. Once she realizes what a low-bred barbarian you are, she’ll have the sense to turn you out and hire someone more suitable.”

“Like you? That why you’re bowin’ and scrapin’ to her?”

“I am a gentleman, Renshaw. I have an excellent reputation in this county. The same can’t be said of you. In fact, I would think that the good people of Pecos County would be inclined to believe that you might be a danger to Mrs. McCarrick. A woman alone—”

Heath struck faster than any human eye could follow, clenching his fingers in the fabric of Sean’s coat and lifting him off his feet.

“You got a filthy mouth, McCarrick. Too filthy for the likes of Jed’s wife.” He let Sean drop, and the other man fell to his knees. “You got fifteen minutes to pack up your kit and clear out.”

Scrambling to his feet, Sean bunched his fists and crouched as if he was thinking about launching an attack of his own. He had just enough sense to think better of it.

“You can’t throw me off the ranch,” he said. “I am my uncle’s closest kin. You have no right—”

“This is my right,” Heath said, laying his hand on his gun. “Until Jed comes back, you won’t set foot on Dog Creek again.”

Sean’s hand hovered near his own shiny new gun with its fancy silver scrolling and ivory grip. “You aren’t the only one with—”

“Even if you knew how to use that fancy piece, you wouldn’t draw it. Not when you’d be the one left bleedin’.”

Sean opened and closed his mouth like a gasping fish. “You won’t get away with this, Renshaw. I swear you’ll live to regret it.”

Heath stepped around Sean as if he were no more than a pile of steaming cow dung and took Apache to the corral himself. Almost since he’d come to Dog Creek, he’d wanted to do what he’d just done. Jed had made that impossible. But there’d been nothing to stop him now, and even if Sean worked up the grit to try acting on his threats, Heath wouldn’t be around to deal with them.

Once he’d unsaddled the gelding, brushed him and given him a bag of oats, his thoughts quickly turned back to Mrs. McCarrick.

Rachel. He didn’t know what to make of her. He’d known a few females in his life, but she wasn’t much like any of them. Not like Polly or Frankie, hardened by a life of catering to the lusts of men. She talked like she had plenty of book learnin’, all fancy and proper with her words, looking down her nose at him. But she wasn’t soft, like the ladies in San Antonio with their fine airs and frilly dresses.

And she’d taken the baby right away. She’d held it like she cared about its welfare.

Because she didn’t know what it really was. And she never would. It didn’t really matter if she was lying about being Jed’s wife, or what would happen when she found out she never would be. For now, he had a use for Rachel Lyndon. The baby needed her. And as long as that was true, Heath had to try to forget how much he hated her.

SEAN DROVE HIS spurs into Ulysses’s heaving sides. His rage had gone beyond shock into a low-burning anger that only strengthened his determination.

“I am Mrs. McCarrick.” When the woman had spoken the words, Sean had believed at first that he’d heard her wrong. “Miss Rachel Lyndon,” Sweet had said when he’d introduced her. According to the drifter, who had fled as soon as he’d reported his failure to Sean, she had answered to that name in town.

It was a flat-out lie. “As soon as we’re married,” Jed had said. He wouldn’t have phrased it that way if they had already been wed. He’d wanted to make Sean suffer, so he wouldn’t have hesitated to announce that the deed was done and his worldly goods would be going to his wife upon his passing.

So Rachel Lyndon was a fraud. Sean could think of several reasons why she might prevaricate, among them her desire to go to Dog Creek in spite of Jed’s unexpected absence. She might see it as a way to protect her reputation in a strange place and assert her authority until Jed returned. Clearly she did not believe that he would resent her pretense.

Ulysses stumbled, and Sean sawed on the reins to bring the horse up again. Renshaw might have known that Jed intended to be married, but Sean was certain he hadn’t realized that Jed’s fiancée was on her way, or he wouldn’t have been gone when the stage was due. Renshaw had assumed that Sean hadn’t known, either, undoubtedly believing that Sean’s meeting with “Mrs. McCarrick” had been the merest chance.

It had been a blessing that Renshaw hadn’t believed Sean when he’d made the mistake of saying he’d expected Rachel’s arrival. If anyone ever found out what he’d told the drifter to do, or what Jed had said just before he died …

Sean laid his quirt to Ulysses’s flank, letting the wind burn his eyes. At least Renshaw didn’t know that Jed had intended to disinherit his nephew, or he would surely have rubbed it in Sean’s face long since.

But he had known Sean would be angry. As barbaric and uncouth as he was, he was not without a certain low animal cunning, and few in the county were inclined to cross him. Sean could still feel Renshaw’s hands clutching the lapels of his coat, feel that almost inhuman strength that could put even the most superior of men at a disadvantage.

The bastard would pay for that, of course. And that payment had been a long time coming. Too long. Renshaw had claimed Sean’s rightful place as Jed’s right hand and confidant. If Jed had done his duty and atoned for his brother’s sin of abandonment, it would have been different. But the money and education and petty privileges he had given his brother’s cast-off son had never been enough. They hadn’t filled the hole Sean had worked so hard to ignore.

If only Jed had loved—

Sean hit Ulysses again, pleased by the stallion’s grunt of pain. Those pitiful desires and the weakness that came with them were as dead as Jedediah McCarrick. Sean had set his own path, and it was as clear as daylight.

Renshaw’s bizarre rescue of an apparently abandoned infant might play into Sean’s hands in ways he couldn’t yet predict. Renshaw’s open hostility toward the Lyndon woman would certainly work to Sean’s benefit. And her apparent belief that Renshaw had tried to bribe her to leave, along with his brutish behavior, made it unlikely that she would ever regard Renshaw with any favor, no matter what she might think about the infant. Sean hadn’t lied when he’d told her that Renshaw would hate any woman who set foot on Dog Creek, and not even a brute would be tempted by her dubious charms.

Sean didn’t hate her. She was simply an obstacle to be removed. A woman who lied about her marital state must have secrets, and he intended to find them. He could beguile any woman he set his sights on, beautiful or ugly, old or young. Charm her into revealing her greatest weakness.

In the meantime, he would assign one of the hands to keep an eye on the woman—and on Renshaw. And he had to find and get rid of the will before he arranged for Jed’s body to be found. Jed had used a lawyer in Heywood once or twice to draw up contracts, and such a man might very well have handled the will, as well. Sean would send his most loyal sheep to look for the man. Then he would consider how to approach the lawyer without betraying an untoward interest in Jed’s posthumous intentions.

Plenty of ifs, and no guarantees. But Sean had never doubted his destiny. It was as inevitable as the sunrise.

He pulled Ulysses to a sharp stop before the Blackwells’ fine two-story house. He would not tell them the entire truth about his eviction from Dog Creek. Amy was very close to dropping from the vine into his waiting hand, and her parents were not far behind. A little finesse and he would simply increase their resentment of the man they believed had persuaded Jed to refuse their generous offer for Dog Creek, thwarting their ambition for undisputed dominance of Pecos County.

They didn’t know what ambition was.

Sean dismounted in an almost cheerful mood. As he ran up the steps to the wide, shaded veranda, the door opened and Amy walked out, dressed in a tight pink gown that must have come all the way from Paris.

“Sean!” she said. “I didn’t expect you this morning!”

He removed his hat. “Something has happened, Amy. I don’t like to trouble you, but—”

“What is it?” She hurried to meet him, gazing anxiously into his face. “Come inside and tell me at once.” She took his hand, and as she led him into the hall, Sean knew that he need have no more worries. When he had Dog Creek, he would have this woman. And when he had her, he would have this house and all the country from Dog Creek to the Pecos.

And when he was governor, Jed wouldn’t be the only one he left lying in the dry West Texas dirt.

Chapter Three

IF IT HADN’T been for the infant, Rachel wasn’t sure she could have done anything but stare and bawl like a child.

At first all she had noticed was the primitive look of the place—the ramshackle unpainted buildings, the piles of unrecognizable metal objects heaped around them, the barren earth beyond the single tree by the house and the meager stretch of green that marked the creek. Jedediah’s descriptions had always been vague, but she had pictured something very different. The house itself was far smaller than she had expected here in the West, where everything seemed so vast. There was no garden that she could see, no whitewashed fences, no evidence that anyone had ever attempted to make the house a home.

That is why I am here, she’d told herself. But then she’d seen the grim-faced man standing in front of the house, and she knew even before she had been introduced who he must be. When she had first looked into his lean, predatory face, she had known that this was a man capable of doing exactly what Sean McCarrick had suggested. His eyes—as much golden-green as gray etched steel that reflected light like those of an animal—emanated hostility as hot as the stark Texas sun.

Eyes that weighed her with a single glance and found her unworthy. A rival. A threat to his power. He had claimed he didn’t know about her imminent arrival, but of course he would have no compunction about lying to her if he had already tried to buy her off.

When he had said “So you’re Jed’s wife?” in such a sneering voice, she’d been almost certain that he meant to accuse her of deception. She had, after all, answered to Rachel Lyndon when the wagon driver had approached her in Javelina. Perhaps he hadn’t persisted in his challenge because he feared being exposed himself.

You are no less a liar just because he’s a liar, too, she told herself. But she had lied only because she had needed a reason for coming to Dog Creek after she’d learned that Jedediah was away. If her worst, most irrational fears were realized and he no longer wanted her, she would compel him to tell her so to her face. Unless and until that happened, turning back, even staying in Javelina, was not an acceptable option.

And if Jedediah had simply been detained on business, as Sean had said, he would surely understand her reasons for claiming a privilege she did not yet possess.

Rachel opened the door to the house, easing the infant into the crook of her arm as she pushed. She had no reason to disbelieve anything Sean had said; his interest in her seemed strictly and benevolently impersonal, and he had accurately predicted Renshaw’s reaction. If not for the baby, she would have deemed Holden Renshaw a thoroughgoing and unredeemable villain.

Yet when he’d held the child out to her and demanded that she help in that rough, deep voice, she’d been struck dumb as a lamppost. What sort of villain would bring a foundling home with him and express such concern about its well-being?

Glancing around the rustic parlor immediately inside the door, she saw that the chairs, like the table they surrounded, were handmade, simple and rough-hewn. She went to the nearest and sat, gently unwrapping the infant as soon as she was settled. Its skin was gray, its face far too thin.

It could not have been more than two months old. She cooed to it, waiting for it to open its eyes. Afraid, though she could see it breathing, that it might die in her arms.

A precious life. Small and fragile in body, just as she felt in her soul.

She lifted the baby so that its downy head rested against her cheek. A curled fist flailed, bumping her mouth. Alive. Wanting to live. Giving her the courage she so sadly lacked.

Whoever you may be, she told it silently, wherever you have come from, I am here to protect you.

Blue eyes opened. All babies had blue eyes at first, but this child’s were startling, as bright and intent as if they could focus on hers.

“Yes,” she murmured. “I see you.”

The baby—a boy, she saw, checking under his diaper—gave a gusty little sigh as if he understood. Nursery rhymes crowded into her head, pushing away her fear.

Once, she had sung such songs to the baby within her, certain he could hear her long before he was born. She had felt him move, kicking and punching as if to declare his coming independence.

Little Timothy had lived so short a time. Only long enough for her to sing a few verses of the song she loved most.

Hush little baby, don’t say a word,

Mama’s going to buy you a mockingbird …

The door opened, and Renshaw walked in with a pail in one hand and saddlebags over his shoulder. He set down the pail and moved past her to lay the saddlebags over a chair. In the pail, the milk steamed, fresh and pungent.

Rachel found her composure again and hugged the baby as if it needed protection from the very person who had found him. No one, least of all this man, would see her vulnerable.

“We will need something to feed him with,” she said briskly.

Without a word, Renshaw rummaged in the saddlebags and produced a bottle and several squares of white cotton fabric.

“Where did you get the bottle?” she asked.

“It was left with the kid,” he said. He went to the pail to fill the bottle, but Rachel stopped him with a cry of protest.

“Your hands must be clean,” she said.

He glared at her, though his face remained expressionless. He strode into the adjoining kitchen. A moment later she heard the squeak of a pump handle working and a gush of water.

Her heart was beating fast when he walked back into the room, looking like nothing so much as a panther with his lowered head and silent feet. Muscles bunched and flexed under his shirt and trousers, lending power to his grace.

He is handsome, she thought, surprised. It wasn’t easy to see at first because of the harsh lines of his features, but she could not deny it.

Handsome, like Louis. And nothing like him. There was a leashed energy in him, a feral quality she couldn’t put a name to. It was more than a sense of danger, more than the gun at his hip or a question of dubious intentions. It felt almost as if he could look into her eyes and make her do anything.

Anything at all.

Renshaw startled her by holding his hands in front of her face. “Clean enough for you, Mrs. McCarrick?”

His voice was milder than she had expected, and all at once her certainty of his guilt seemed less secure than it had been only minutes before. She looked up at Renshaw with all the confidence a married woman should display.

“Thank you,” she said. “Would you kindly fill the bottle?”

He stared at her a moment longer, then removed the cork, tube and rubber nipple from the bottle, knelt beside the pail and pushed the bottle into the milk. When the bottle was full, he thrust it at her.

“Feed it,” he said.

Swallowing fresh resentment, she took the bottle and rested the nipple against the baby’s lips. His tiny nostrils flared, and his mouth opened a hairbreadth.

“Mr. Renshaw,” she said, fixing her gaze on the baby’s face, “I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. I am not an employee at Dog Creek. I am not under your command.”

She couldn’t see his reaction, but she heard the sudden intake of his breath, as if he was about to speak. She concentrated on the baby again … on the way the rosebud lips opened wider, the miniature fists flailed toward the bottle.

“There now,” she said. “That’s it.” She nudged the bottle into his mouth, and he took it.

Renshaw’s worn, dusty boots shuffled on the scratched wooden floor. “Is it goin’ to be all right?” he asked.