Bride of the Wolf (17 page)

“No, I…am not.”

“Good.” He started toward the door, and she moved hastily out of his way. He went past her without a single glance.

“Holden.”

A tremor went through him, making him seem for a moment as skittish as Jericho had been in the presence of the wolf.

“There is something you should know about the baby.”

He swung around to face her, his expression suddenly open and raw with emotion. “What about him? Somethin’ wrong?”

“Nothing at all. It is simply that I have taken the liberty of giving him a name.”

His expression closed again. “You named him?”

She bristled. “You seemed uninterested, and no child should be without a name.”

Two steps took him to the door and out of the room. Rachel followed him into the parlor, where Lucia was still holding Gordie. She rose as Holden stopped before her.

“Señor Renshaw?”

Holden peered into Gordie’s face. The baby looked back at him with serene interest. Rachel came up behind Holden, careful not to get too close, and smiled at Gordie. He smiled back.

“What’s his name?” Holden asked, his voice little more than a whisper.

“Gordon, after my father.”

Holden’s lips moved, silently repeating the name. He lifted his hand toward Gordie and let it fall again. “Ain’t too bad,” he said gruffly.

With those three words he did more than grant his approval. He gave her a gift that she sensed he gave rarely, if ever: his trust. And oh, how terrible a gift it was.

“I call him Gordie,” she said.

“Gordie.” Holden raised his hand again, brushed the blanket near Gordie’s face with his fingers, moved them just enough to touch the soft, pink skin. Gordie cooed, batted at Holden’s hand with his own and took firm hold of Holden’s finger.

Standing frozen, as if he feared a single movement might injure the boy, Holden cleared his throat. “He’s strong,” he said.

“Very strong,” Rachel said. “And very precocious, which you would know if you spent more time—” She broke off, cursing herself for being so ready to quarrel again. Heightened emotions of any kind were perilous.

She searched Holden’s face for some telltale sign of anger. Not so much as the twitch of an eyelid gave him away. He slipped his finger from Gordie’s grasp.

“Looks like he’s well now,” he said. “Reckon you can take him out of the house if you want.”

Her pride in Gordie made her risk a smile. “Indeed. I do take him into the yard when I work near the house, but he should do well with longer outings very soon, provided it is not too warm.”

“He’s a Texas boy,” Holden said. “He’ll get used to
the sun.” He glanced at the floor, seemed to remember his shoeless state and edged toward the door. “I got to look for Joey.”

“You knew he was gone?”

“Didn’t see him in the spare room. I’ll find him.” He looked straight at her for the first time since they’d left the bedroom. “You stay away from the horses until I come for you tomorrow.”

His bare feet made no sound as he left the house. Lucia offered Gordie to Rachel, and she reached out to accept him into her arms.

Tomorrow she would be very close to Holden. What could he be thinking? How was she to be near him and pretend that nothing had happened?

What in God’s name was she to do now?

“
Señora
, you are shaking,” Lucia said.

Rachel was afraid to look up. How much had Lucia heard, or guessed? What would such a good woman, a selfless wife and mother of four, think of her employer now?

“It is nothing,” Rachel assured her. She hesitated. “You must miss your family very much.”

Lucia smiled with the warmth of deep affection. “They are spoiled,
mis muchachos
,” she said, “but they understand what I do is necessary.”

“And so very deeply appreciated,” Rachel said, pressing the other woman’s arm. “I hope they realize what a treasure they have in you.”

“When do men ever realize such things?” Lucia met Rachel’s gaze, the warmth mingled with compassion and sympathy. “Sometimes it is separation that brings such understanding.” Still smiling, she lifted Pepito from the cradle and carried him into the hall. Rachel felt
the weight of silence and isolation fall over her like a shroud.

Love could be a miracle. Lucia was living proof of the great good it could do when it was given and received in equal measure. But it could also be a curse.

“Why does love cause so much pain, Gordie?” she murmured. “Why were we given hearts at all?”

He raised his chubby arm and waved his fist until it connected with her chin. She kissed his dimpled knuckles. He had answered her question in his own wise little way. She would accept all the pain in the world as long as she had the heart to love this child. Even if that was the only kind of love she would ever know.

T
HE EARLY-MORNING
light hurt Sean’s aching eyes. Ulysses was sluggish after the work of retrieving the cattle Joey had stolen, but Sean was in no mood to indulge him. He was eager to get back to the house and a hot bath, where he could think in peace. If it hadn’t been for the very satisfactory conclusion to his encounter with Joey, he would have been in a thoroughly bad temper.

But he wasn’t. Seeing Joey so terrified of him had been gratifying in itself. That—and the knowledge that he now had complete control over the boy—would almost have been enough to make up for his failure to find the wolf. When one included the money…

The money. Found, Joey had said, buried in a hole. Its very existence might, of course, be a lie, but Sean didn’t think so. The boy knew he would die if he’d lied, just as he knew he would be punished if he spoke of this second encounter to Renshaw or anyone at Dog Creek.

That left the question of who had buried the money, and why.

Kicking Ulysses into a canter, Sean worked to put his thoughts in order. He had known very well that Joey could not have forgotten where he’d found such a treasure, and in hindsight, he knew he ought to have pressed the point. But he had developed his own theory, and it was far more intriguing than any lie Joey might have told him.

Joey had found Jed’s saddlebags.

If he had, he must have found them between the day Jed had died and Sean’s return to the scene of the old man’s death. Which meant Joey must have seen Jed’s body. But he hadn’t told anyone about it, or all of Texas would know by now.

Unless he had told only one man: Holden Renshaw. And if Renshaw did know that Jed was dead, he had carried on a very effective masquerade for the past two and a half weeks. In which case he hadn’t wanted anyone else to know that his boss was gone for good—including Jedediah’s “wife.”

Sean smiled acidly. That, of course, would alter a great many things, answer some questions and raise others. Perhaps Joey hadn’t found the money and the body at all. Perhaps Renshaw had. If, even in the absence of any knowledge of the multiple wills, Renshaw knew or guessed that Jed had planned to disinherit Sean, he was unlikely to think that the inheritance would come to him instead. Renshaw would naturally assume that Jed’s final heir would be his wife.

And that would explain the attraction Charlie had observed between Renshaw and Rachel Lyndon. Renshaw would have every reason to curry her favor,
even seduce her, to ensure that he would remain in control of Dog Creek when the “bereaved widow” found herself stranded in Texas with no knowledge of how to run such an outfit.

But Renshaw’s understanding was still fatally flawed. His contempt for Sean would temper his ability to recognize Sean’s intelligence and strength of purpose in fighting for what should be his. And the wills…

In a matter of days, the lawyer’s office in Heywood would be lost to an “accidental” conflagration, leaving no evidence of the break-in that had occurred immediately before. As far as the world was concerned, Jedediah McCarrick’s will would have been lost along with the office.

One will, however, would be on its way to Sean. The one he could use to destroy Holden and raise himself above any future suspicion with regard to Jed’s death. The tissue of possibilities Sean had constructed was still fragile; until he questioned Joey again, much more thoroughly, he could not be sure that his theory would hold.

Oh, but if it did…

The vision of perfect revenge distracted Sean so much that he hardly noticed when Ulysses snorted and came to a stop a quarter mile north of the creek. With a sudden sense of danger, Sean jerked the horse in a tight circle. A mounted figure was riding toward him out of the west at an easy lope, and after a few moments’ observation Sean was certain it wasn’t one of the hands or a member of the Blackwell family.

Instinctively he reached for his gun with his right hand, remembering that he had moved the holster only when the searing pain dropped a red veil behind his
eyes. He’d been a fool to ride back alone, but at least he wasn’t far from the house. And the rider wasn’t coming from Dog Creek, at least not directly.

Of course, Holden Renshaw might use just such a trick to catch Sean off guard.

Reaching across his waist with his left hand, Sean eased the Remington from its holster. A trespassing stranger could hardly object to a man being careful. Sean wouldn’t shoot until he was sure. Until he could plausibly claim that Renshaw had drawn on him first.

As if he recognized the danger, the rider slowed his mount. Though he didn’t move his hands from the reins, Sean sensed that the stranger was ready to draw on an instant’s notice. He was tall and lean, like Renshaw, but Sean didn’t recognize the horse. He lifted the revolver halfway and hesitated.

The rider brought his mount to a stop and raised both hands level with his head. “Easy there,” he said. “I come in peace.”

Sean lowered the gun and let the man advance, certain now that he was indeed a stranger. It wasn’t any wonder he hadn’t been sure: there was a superficial resemblance between the man and Renshaw.

Resemblance or not, Sean didn’t like being caught at a disadvantage by anyone. “Who are you?” he demanded. “This is private property.”

“Is it?”

“The Blackwells own this range.”

The stranger squinted, deepening the sun-sculpted lines bracketing his eyes. “I didn’t see any fences.”

“No one contests our borders.”

The man pushed his hat back, revealing strangely pale golden-brown eyes and close-cropped brown hair.
“My name is Jacob Constantine,” he said. “I have business with the Blackwells.”

Sean was hurting and in no mood for polite conversation. “What business?”

Constantine twisted to reach for his saddlebags. Sean went for his gun again, but the rider had his own weapon out and aimed before Sean could lift his own gun again.

“It isn’t polite to threaten a peaceful stranger,” Constantine said softly. “Stand down.”

Sean’s fingers twitched as if they had a mind of their own. He couldn’t beat Constantine under these circumstances, as much as he enjoyed the idea of teaching the man some manners. Slowly he replaced his gun in its holster and waited, jaw clenched, as the rider pulled a rolled paper out of one saddlebag.

Constantine unrolled the paper and held it out so that Sean could see it. “I’m looking for this man.”

The broadsheet was crudely printed; the drawing of the wanted man, dark with a heavy beard and thick black hair, showed light-colored eyes and a strong nose, but little else of the features. The crimes were rustling, robbery and murder. The reward was very generous.

Sean shrugged. “Who did he kill?”

“A man he was working for in New Mexico.” Constantine snapped the paper to straighten it against the wind. “Ever seen him?”

“No.”

“His name is Heath Renier.”

“I haven’t seen him, and I assure you the Blackwells haven’t, either. I’m the foreman here.”

Constantine cocked his head and looked Sean over in a way that was just short of insulting. “Mighty fine for a foreman.”

Sean jerked on Ulysses’s reins. “You’re welcome to be on your way.”

The bounty hunter rolled up the poster and tucked it back in his saddlebag. “He may be clean-shaven now,” he said. “And one thing that doesn’t show too well in the picture—Renier has a deep scar across his neck. He probably keeps it covered.”

A fleeting thought darted through Sean’s mind, there and gone in an instant, before he had a chance to grasp it. “There’s no such man here.”

“Have you seen a lone wolf in the area? Black fur, bigger than most?”

Startled as he was, Sean kept his countenance. “What does that have to do with this man?”

“Some say Renier keeps it as a kind of pet.”

That ephemeral thought returned, tinted by the memory of the wolf’s attack and the shame of his own fear. Sean drove it away.

“No wolves like that,” he said coldly.

“What about the ranch south of the creek?”

“Dog Creek. It belongs to my uncle. I know every hand employed there. No stranger in Pecos County stays anonymous for long.”

If Constantine was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Thanks for your help, Mr.—”

“McCarrick.”

“Mr. McCarrick.” Constantine touched the brim of his hat, turned his horse and rode south toward the creek.

Fuming with anger, Sean watched until the man become a speck on the horizon, then turned Ulysses back toward the house. Constantine was like so many men in Texas: crude, unmannered, believing himself
the superior of men with twice his ability and intelligence. If he’d been the one to catch Constantine unaware…

Sean jerked the reins so sharply that Ulysses skidded and reared. The thoughts that had passed so quickly through Sean’s head during the conversation returned, crystal clear and astonishing.

It couldn’t be. The wolf. Renshaw. It had seemed complete coincidence at the time, as it would to any sane man.

But what if it weren’t? What if Holden Renshaw…

Holden Renshaw. Constantine was looking for a man named Heath Renier. H.R. A man with a scar hidden by a neckerchief.

Sean laughed, giddy and disbelieving. It was too fantastic. Renshaw always wore his neckerchief, but so did nearly every other cowman in Texas. He had black hair and light-colored eyes….