Beloved Wolf (5 page)

River was silent for a long time, and Sophie began to relax, fall back into the sort of comfortable silences they used to share, times when it was enough to be with him, sitting under a starry sky, sharing his world.

“Meredith's full of crap, you know,” he said at last, startling her. “You're a beautiful woman. Even with both your eyes blackened, and bandages, and
scrapes and bruises all over your face, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever known.”

Sophie closed her eyes, digested his words. “You were there? You saw me?”

“I flew the senator to San Francisco within an hour of getting the news about the mugging. So, yes, I saw you. I saw you, and then I broke pretty boy Wallace's nose for him because he let you walk home alone. Didn't he tell you?”

“I—I didn't know,” Sophie said, remembering Chet's visit, vaguely remembering a bandage on his nose. She'd been so worried about her own appearance, and so angry with him, that she'd never really looked at him, never seen more of him than his carefully ironed shirt, his perfectly arranged necktie. “You punched him? You really
punched
him?”

“Real mature, wasn't I?” River said, shaking his head. “I guess I just needed to punch something—and lover-boy accommodated me.”

“It wasn't Chet's fault,” Sophie said, for the first time wondering if perhaps it was, if perhaps, just perhaps, that was why she didn't want to see him…and why he hadn't made any attempts to see her. “I'm the one that left the restaurant.”

“And he's the one who let you leave,” River responded without missing a beat.

“Yes, he was. And he wasn't the first man to let me leave, was he? I don't want to talk about this,” Sophie said, rubbing her arms, as either the evening had turned colder, or her thoughts were sending a chill into her body. “I don't want to talk about any of this. I just want to
forget
it.”

“Fine,” River agreed, positioning his hat back on his head, standing up, holding out his hand to her. “Let's walk. We can talk about this book you want to write.”

“Maybe some other time,” Sophie told him, although she did put her hand in his and allow him to help her to her feet. “It's still just an idea, Riv, and I'd rather keep it to myself for a while longer.”

“You used to tell me everything, including a bunch of stuff that, trust me, no teenage boy wanted to hear. Do you remember how you were so gung-ho to show me your first push-up bra? I damn near had to climb a tree to get away from that one.”

Sophie ducked her head, grinned. “I was a real pain, wasn't I? Well, I promise not to be your resident pest anymore, okay?”

He turned to her and picked up her chin with his crooked index finger. “Oh, I don't know. I think I'd miss my resident pest. I think I have missed her, quite a lot. My pretty little pest, all grown up into a beautiful woman.”

Sophie turned her head, so that he couldn't see her scar, then pulled away from him. “Don't do that, Riv,” she told him, all but begged him. “Don't lie to me. I could always count on you never to lie to me.”

River took hold of her shoulders and forced her to look at him. “What in hell are you talking about?”

“What am I— Oh, for God's sake, Riv! My
face!
I'm not the person you knew. The pest, the hero-worshipper, the idiot teenager who thought the sun rose and set on you. I'm not the career woman, I'm not Meredith's cherished child. I'm not anyone I
know or recognize anymore. I'm scared of my own shadow, and everything I'd ever hoped or believed died in that damn alley. And I most certainly am
not
beautiful.”

“Ah, Sophie,” River said, pulling her into his arms, even as she struggled to be free of him. “Don't let the world win, sweetheart. You can't let the bad guys win.”

 

“Meredith? May I come in?”

Joe Colton stood just inside the door to his wife's bedroom, still able to be shocked by the overblown femininity of its furnishings, the lavish white Restoration French furniture and elaborate decorations that Meredith would once have called silly, and definitely shunned.

Then again, she had always slept with him, sharing his bed as she shared his life. Once, this bedroom had been done up in the Mission style, with hand loomed Native American rugs scattered on the hardwood floors. They'd furnished the room together, choosing each piece, surrounding themselves with memories of trips they'd taken, sights they'd seen, moments they'd shared.

Now Joe slept in a room down the hall, and asked permission to enter his wife's bedroom.

“Joe! How wonderful!” Meredith exclaimed, walking toward him, her long-legged, still slim body barely covered by a white silk dressing gown. “I've just been thinking about you.”

That could be good or bad, Joe knew, trying not to wince. Mostly it could be bad. “Really, Meredith?”

“Yes, Joe, really,” she snapped back at him, then smiled as she very noticeably tried to control her temper. “I've been thinking, to be precise, about your birthday party. The plans are coming along nicely. Your sixtieth will be quite a memorable event.”

“They've all been memorable, Meredith,” he reminded her. “We always have a party—”

“I do not consider throwing a pig on a fire and standing around eating from paper plates a
party,
Joe,” Meredith told him, rolling her eyes. “This will be a
real
party. Senator Joe Colton's sixtieth birthday party.”

She turned back to the small marble-topped secretary and picked up several sheets of monogrammed paper. “Look who's coming—members of congress, past and present, the governor of California, of course. Business leaders, the cream of the social crop, celebrities. Black tie, Joe, definitely. I have my eye on this Versace gown, and there's this new thing Frank has been dying to have me try with my hair—”

“Are you nuts?” Joe said before he could leash his tongue.

Meredith's brown eyes widened as her full mouth drew into a thin line. “Don't you say that, Joe Colton. Don't you
ever
say that,” she told him through clenched teeth. “I am the mother of your children, remember?”

“You're the mother of children, yes,” Joe said, pain slicing through him at the thought of Teddy, whom the woman had been vicious enough to name after Joe's father, and a man Joe would rather forget had ever existed. “Not all of them mine.”

Meredith threw up her arms and sat down on the bench of her dressing table. “Here we go again, don't we? One small mistake, and I'm forever cursed. And none of it was your fault? You haven't touched me since the—”

“Do you want me to touch you, Meredith?” Joe asked, hating himself for still loving this woman, and yet thankful he could still remember the happy years, if only vaguely, as those memories were so encumbered by the baggage of the past decade.

“Joe Junior made this for me,” Meredith said, changing the subject as she picked up a small blue misshapen clay vase painted with yellow daisies. “Isn't it sweet? Not that I'll keep it in here, of course.”

Joe stabbed his fingers through his graying hair. “Yeah, it's great, Meredith. Really nice. Look, about this party—”

Meredith put down the vase, patted it, then turned to Joe once more. “You're going to love it, Joe. Our media companies will cover it, naturally, but there will be other press as well. I want everything to be perfect—even if that means having to put up with that awful old Sybil flying in from Paris. Can't stand her, but saying that guests have traveled from as far as Paris—well, it doesn't hurt.”

“You've got your heart set on this, don't you, Meredith?” Joe asked, wondering when he'd gotten so tired that he couldn't even say no to his wife and have any chance of having her at least agree to listen to his protests.

“We're going to have a party, Joe,” Meredith said,
her eyes flashing, her tone steely. “We'll have all the little chicks gathered to celebrate your birthday. A very special birthday, I promise you that.” She stood up, walked over to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “I've got such plans, Joe. You wouldn't believe the plans I have.”

He felt cold, not warmed by her closeness. As she lifted her face for his kiss, he pecked at her cheek, then removed her arms from his shoulders. “It's late,” he said, moving away from her. “But I did want to talk to you about Sophie.”

“Sophie? What about her? Poor little thing.”

Joe's jaw tightened. “Sophie is
not
a poor little thing. She's your daughter, Meredith. How dare you tell her she's ruined.”

Once more Meredith rolled her eyes. “And I'm telling her something her own mirror hasn't told her? I don't think so. And now I have to explain to Joe Junior and Teddy why she looks the way she does without frightening them. Did you think of that? Did you think of how upset my boys will be? Go away, Joe. I'm tired and I want to go to bed.”

“Just stay away from her, okay? If you can't be supportive, stay away from her.”

Meredith waved a hand at him as she walked toward her dressing room, obviously having dismissed him, and Joe left the room where his children had been conceived, where he had loved, and laughed, and once believed himself the happiest, luckiest man in the world.

He could divorce her, had thought about divorcing her when she had presented him with her pregnancy,
but that wasn't the answer. She was Meredith, she was the woman he loved—had loved, still loved. And she was sick, ill. Mentally unstable, and unwilling to seek help. Could he force the issue? Have her committed, treated?

Joe winced, shook his head. No. No, he couldn't think about that, wouldn't think about that. Because she'd get better. Sophie was home, and that would help her. And they'd have the party, and she'd get all caught up in the plans, and she'd be happy.

And if it doesn't work? a voice in his head asked. If the party doesn't change things, if nothing changes things? What if she gets worse? What will you do then? How long are you going to wait before you do something?

“I'll do what I have to do,” he said out loud, hearing the quaver in his own voice. “But, please God, not yet. This is my wife. My wife. I can't give up hope yet. I just can't.”

R
iver didn't know where to put his hands. He held Sophie, let her cry. Patted her shoulder, rubbed her back.

And wanted so much more.

Her cane had dropped to the ground earlier, and she leaned heavily against him, her sobs slowly reduced to sniffles as he murmured some undoubtedly ridiculous, banal words of comfort that she didn't hear and he would probably hate himself for in the morning.

When was the last time she'd cried in his arms? Well, that was easy, because Sophie rarely cried, had always been the bravest person in the world, with her jutted-out chin, shining eyes, and a firm resolve not to let the world know when she was hurting.

He knew. The last time, the only time, had been the night of that damn silly senior prom.

He hadn't gone to his own—what would have been the point? He hadn't interacted in high school, hadn't given much of a damn, and would have skipped his own graduation if Joe and Meredith hadn't told him how sad they'd be to miss this great milestone in their foster son's life.

So he'd agreed to take Sophie to the dance. He'd dressed himself up in a monkey suit, clubbed his hair at his nape with a black ribbon, and even bought her an orchid corsage. Hating every moment of it.

Hating it, that was, until he'd watched Sophie come into the great room, her light-brown hair done in this fancy upsweep, her creamy shoulders bare above a simple white full-length sheath that clung to parts of her he'd been trying hard to forget existed.

“I know you'll take care of her, son,” Joe had said as they'd passed into the night, on their way to a Prosperino hotel that boasted a ballroom. It had been a request. It had been an order.

And it had been a promise, a promise River had been doomed to break.

Sophie had set him up for a fall. With her hair, those maddening tendrils that so artfully curled against her slim neck. With her gown, that skimmed the soft swell of her breasts. With her perfume, a clean, wildflower scent that raised instincts in him that had been far from protective.

With her smile. With her arms around him, the top of her head against his chin as they danced. With her
huge eyes, that looked up at him so trustingly, so eagerly.

He'd kissed her. How could he not kiss her? How could he let her leave in the morning, off to her internship, then straight to college, without holding her at least once, kissing her at least once?

But then she'd cried, begged him to tell her not to go. Begged him to tell her he loved her, as she loved him.

God. How he'd wanted to tell her anything and everything she wanted to hear.

What did she want to hear from him now? What could he say now that she'd believe? That he loved her? That he had always loved her?

She wouldn't believe him. Not now, with her life torn apart, her confidence in the cellar. She wouldn't even look at him, let him see her face. She was wounded, mind and body. She was weak, defeated. If he told her he loved her, she'd hate him, and he wouldn't blame her.

“I…I'm sorry,” Sophie said, pushing herself away from him, bending down to pick up her cane. She took the square-folded blue-and-white handkerchief he offered her and wiped her eyes, blew her nose. “I don't do this, Riv. I never do this. And yet, it's all I've been doing this whole damn day.”

“It had to happen sometime, Sophie,” he said, believing himself to be very reasonable.

Her head shot up. “Why? Why did it have to happen?”

River felt about as helpless as a man trying to whistle a wild stallion to heel. “Why? Because you were
mugged, Soph. You were injured, you've broken your engagement, you—”

Sophie raised her hands and turned her head, as if shielding herself from his words. “No. I know all that. I know
what
happened. I want to know
why
it happened. Why to
me?
”

River was nonplussed. Of all the questions she might have asked, it had never occurred to him that she'd ask this one. “Why not you?” he responded, a man who had been a child of so much unhappiness that it had ceased to amaze him when the world didn't run the way it did on the television sitcoms. “Do you think you have some sort of immunity to the bad stuff? How do you do that, Soph? Take a shot for it, like with measles? Man, wouldn't there be a long line for that immunization shot. It would probably stretch halfway around the world.”

She looked at him for long moments, then blinked, lowered her eyelids, shook her head. “How do you do it, Riv? How do you make it all sound so simple? Except now I'm a whining idiot, aren't I? Poor little Sophie.”

“You're not an idiot, Sophie,” River told her, squeezing her shoulders. “You've been knocked down. Now you've got to take it easy for a while, get your strength back and give yourself some time to heal. You'll be back in fighting form before you know it.”

“I don't know,” Sophie said, sighing. “I think all the fight's gone out of me. I feel so useless, so used…so ugly and undesirable. I mean, even my own mother says—”

“Aw, hell, Sophie,” River said, pulling her closer, wanting to shake her, wake her up, shock her out of her despair. “Does this look like you're undesirable?”

He slanted his mouth against hers, gripped her shoulders so that she couldn't move away from him. He kissed her in anger, with a desire he'd fought as long as he could remember, with a hunger that clawed through his body.

She stiffened, resisted, but only for the length of a heartbeat. Then the cane hit the ground and her arms were around him, her fingernails gripping his back through his denim shirt. Her mouth opened under his and he plundered her with his tongue, slipped one jean-clad leg between her thighs, fused her to him from mouth to hip.

Let her father comfort her. Let her doctors reassure her. But the only way to make her forget what she saw in her mirror, and the words Meredith had lashed her with so painfully, was to
show
her how desirable she was to him. How very much he wanted her.

He wasn't gentle. She didn't need to be treated as if she was fragile, an invalid. She needed to know that she was a woman, a woman this man needed.

He kissed her, kiss after drugging kiss, each one longer, deeper than the one that came before it, so that his heart pounded, his ears buzzed and he lost all thought of time or place…or the years and circumstances that divided them.

Slipping an arm under her knees, he lifted her high against his chest, still kissing her, branding her throat and the V of skin above her blouse with his lips. He
carried her inside the stable, moving through the darkness, past the softly blowing horses, to the birthing stall lined with sweet fresh hay in anticipation of one of the ranch's prize mares foaling in the next day or so.

River went to his knees, then laid Sophie on a bed of straw and followed her down as she reached her arms up to him, her eyes squeezed shut, her breath coming quickly, her mouth slightly open as she tried to regulate her breathing.

He didn't want her to regulate her breathing, catch her breath in any way at all. Because then she might think, give him time to think.

This was not the time for thinking. This was the time for actions to take the place of words, for want and need that had been repressed for so long to explode and take control.

He kissed her again, even as his fingers fumbled with the buttons of her blouse, worked to pull her shirttail out of her jeans. His mouth left hers, traveled down her slim form. His tongue trailed down over her breasts, and he pressed kisses against her flat midriff even as he worked to open the front closure of her bra.

Then her breasts were free, and he claimed them with hands and mouth, fingers and tongue. He felt her raise up from the straw so that he could touch her, learn her, feel her swell against his palm, stiffen against his tongue.

Sophie held him tightly, dragging her hands over his back, tugging at the denim as if longing for the
feel of his skin but unable to do anything about removing his shirt.

River went back on his heels, grabbed the lapels of his shirt and ripped it off, fighting his way out of the long sleeves then throwing the ruined shirt across the stall. Sophie moaned, and reached for him again as he yanked off his boots. She unzipped her jeans as he opened his belt buckle and rid himself of his jeans and his briefs.

They were in the dark. Hot and tense and yearning in the dark. Coming together with an urgency that stripped them of inhibitions, revealed the core of their desire, an almost animal heat that could not be denied.

Until River got slapped in the head by a belated dose of common sense. He stilled, his hand cupping Sophie's hip, his long legs tangled with hers, his mouth against her ear. “Damn,” he whispered. “Damn, damn,
damn.
”

Sophie was still kissing him, tasting him, exploring his upper body with her hands. It took her a few moments to realize that he'd gone still in her arms, had begun slowly withdrawing his body from her reach.

“What?” she asked, half sitting up, reaching for him in the darkness. “What's wrong?”

River scrubbed at his face with both hands. “I…I'm not…prepared.” When she remained quiet, he tried to peer down at her, but it was too dark to see her face.

Darkness, however, didn't keep him from hearing her. “You're not— Oh, Riv, that's so wonderful.”

He turned his back on her. “
Wonderful?
How in hell could you think—”

Sophie sat up completely, pressed her cheek against his back. “Face it, Riv, it would be a lot less wonderful if you carried a gross of the things around with you in your wallet, like you were hoping to get lucky every night of the week.”

River let his head drop toward his chest, his long hair falling forward around his face. “Only you, Sophie. Only you could see this as a
good
thing. But it is, you know. We shouldn't even be here.”

She pulled away from him and gave him a two-handed push in the back. “Oh, really? Is that right, Riv? Joe's little girl and the charity foster child? Is that it? Because if it is, you've been playing that record too damn long, and I'm sick of it.”

“I never said—”

“No, you never said,” Sophie agreed, pulling at his shoulders, forcing him to turn and face her. “But I knew, Riv. I always knew. You could have had me all those years ago. You could have been my first, my last. And now here we are, lying in the straw like teenagers, and you've dreamed up another excuse. Did it ever occur to you that you really
don't
want me? That I was just the forbidden fruit you could dream about and never have to do anything about? I ran, Riv, I know I ran. But you
hid.
You hid, and now you're here because you pity me. Well, let me tell you something, River James, I don't want your pity. And I don't want you.”

She reached for her blouse, feeling for it in the straw, a sob escaping her lips as she struggled to locate her bra.

River lifted his hands, trying to grasp something he
couldn't quite see, couldn't quite hold. An answer. A reason. Something. “I don't pity you, Soph,” he said at last. “I want you so bad it hurts.”

“Oh, really? Well, you have a damn funny way of showing it, Riv, because I've never felt
less
wanted in my life.”

Those were either the right words or the wrong words—he'd figure that out later—because they spurred River into grabbing hold of Sophie's forearms as she tried to push them into her bra straps. “I want you, Sophie. I do want you.”

“Then prove it, Riv. Prove it. Lose your mind, lose control, and for once in your life
do
something without worrying about consequences.” She moved forward, pressed her mouth against his. “Don't let me leave here, Riv. Please don't let me leave here like this.”

He let go of her forearms, gathered her into his arms and deepened their kiss as they fell, together, back onto the sweet straw.

 

Dr. Martha Wilkes leaned back in her chair and looked out over her Jackson, Mississippi, neighborhood of pretty little houses on a pretty little street.

She shouldn't be here, at least not in her role as a psychologist specializing in repressed memory. She should be in her impersonal downtown office, where she could keep up her own defenses as she carefully, skillfully broke down those of her patients, getting them to open up, talk to her—really talk to her—and fight through the accumulated baggage of a lifetime, to the truth.

But she was here, at only seven in the morning, still sipping on her first cup of coffee, dressed casually, without hose or heels, watching Louise Smith pace the oriental carpet.

Dr. Wilkes liked Louise. Really liked her. She'd come into the office for the first time almost five years ago, frightened, withdrawn, obviously carrying more than just baggage. She'd come in stumbling under the weight of a steamer trunk of trouble.

Louise was a pretty woman, a woman whose problems somehow didn't show in her face, unless you looked deeply into her soft brown eyes. Then a person could see a depth of despair that would stagger someone stronger than Louise, sometimes still did stagger the woman.

Like this morning, when Louise had phoned and begged for an immediate appointment.

“Someone needs me, Dr. Wilkes,” Louise said now, turning toward the psychologist. “I can feel it. I'm needed somewhere.”

Dr. Wilkes sighed. Not a good thing to do, sigh. Not in front of a patient. Even if Louise was much more than a patient. She was a friend. Their sessions may have begun all those years ago as strictly professional, but their relationship had evolved into something deeper, more personal.

And that was wrong. Dr. Wilkes knew it. She had stepped over the line, become too involved with Louise's problems. Maybe today was the day to pull back, restate the obvious and get them back onto that less level doctor–patient playing field.