Bride of the Wolf (21 page)

No. No sense at all. Yet if it was all for Gordie’s sake, why did he sometimes behave as if he had only a passing interest in what happened to the boy? Why had he given her the cherished privilege of naming him? Why had he chided her for thinking of giving up when she had declared herself unfit to care for him?

She could think of only one reason in the world, the very reason she had almost dismissed only a few days ago.
I don’t much care for folk who throw their kids away like rotten meat
, he’d once told her. It was so clear, and yet she was as much in the dark as ever. All the things she had learned from his story of his youth, and she still didn’t understand why he would deny his own son.

Or why he would keep thrusting Gordie into her arms, as if he…

Hope for nothing. Believe nothing. Your heart can never be trusted again
.

Rachel gazed past Holden’s worried face. Why should she believe she had any pride left, let alone a future remotely like the one she had so foolishly envisioned?

“I told you I loved Jed,” she said, her voice sounding remote and indifferent even to her own ears. “That was also a lie. I did not believe myself capable of that kind of love anymore.”

She held her breath, but he said nothing, and he was no longer looking at her when she glanced at his face.

“I know now,” she said dully, “that I can never marry
Jed. Not only because he is not likely to want me when he knows how I have misled him, but because I have learned that love is essential to me after all.”

And if Holden Renshaw could not love, if the only affection he truly understood was the little he spared for Gordie, she would never marry at all.

Holden’s boots scraped the ground, stirring last year’s fallen leaves. “You deserve to be happy, Rachel,” he said.

If she once looked into his eyes, she would begin to weep again, and she had had far too much of weeping. “I thank you for that. But no one can be responsible for another person’s mistakes or expectations. I have chosen my own path.”

“No,” he said. “Someone else chose it for you.”

“Is that really what you believe, Holden? That we do not control our own destinies?”

He scraped up a handful of soil and weighed it in his palm. “There ain’t no such thing as destiny,” he said, turning his hand over to let the dirt fall. “Just fightin’ to survive.”

Once, Rachel had believed the same. But something strange happened then, a peculiar, uncanny sensation of lightness that seeped up inside her like clear water rising through a poisonous murk. An inexplicable peace drove the despair from her mind and heart. She had but one responsibility now, and that was to Gordie. Even if Holden could not or would not acknowledge him, the child would never be abandoned. She would stay on at Dog Creek as long as necessary to make certain that he was adopted by loving parents, whether Jed returned today or in a year. If Holden loved Gordie even a little, he would help see that it was done.

She was free to make her own choices again, based not on society’s dictates or the bonds of her own past, but upon the deepest desires of her body. Holden knew she had been reviled for getting with child out of wedlock. He didn’t care. He, of all men, saw
her
, not a hussy who had failed to live as a good woman should. He had given her the only real compliment he knew how to give. Now that she had no dreams to defend, she carried no burdens. No pride to maintain, no use for a mask of prudence and respectability. No expectations, no need to do anything but live in this moment.

She held out her hand. Holden didn’t see it at first. He was staring past the little grove of oaks, beyond the stretch of green that marked the spring, and out to the bleakness of the parched desert he called home.

“Holden,” she said.

His gaze moved to hers as if she had jerked him by a chain bound tightly around his neck. His eyes were wide and strange, like those of an animal driven into a corner. He scarcely seemed to be breathing at all. But when she touched his hand, his fingers uncurled and a deep, shuddering sigh released all the tension in his unyielding frame. When she removed his hat and leaned forward on her knees to kiss him, she felt as if she were releasing them both from a cage built of empty fears and hollow rage.

Holden sprang free like a tiger escaping a lifetime of captivity, dragging her into his arms, hip to hip and thigh to thigh. She opened her mouth, welcoming the thrust of his tongue. His hands, spread across her back, moved down to cup her bottom, pulling her harder against him. His arousal seemed to burn through her skirts. Her breasts, trapped in their restraints of chemise
and corset and bodice, begged for his caresses, and the ache between her thighs flared into something like pain.

She cried out in protest when he let her go, but he was far from finished. His fingers fumbled at the tiny hooks of her bodice, and she pushed his hands out of the way to finish the job herself. The edges fell open, and Heath pushed it away from her breasts and worked it over her shoulders until she was compelled to intervene again and remove it entirely.

But the corset still stood in the way. Breathing fast, she tried to focus her attention on unfastening the busk, refusing Holden’s eager assistance. When she was done, she shrugged out of the stiff garment, which soon lay beside the bodice on the blanket behind her.

His hands were on her as soon as she was free, cupping her breasts through her chemise, working feverishly to uncover her naked flesh. She unbuttoned the placket of the chemise and pulled it over her head. Holden lifted her, one hand at her back and one supporting her bottom, until her breasts were at the perfect height to accommodate his mouth.

Then his lips were on her breasts, his tongue following a moment later with hungry little flicks that pulled her nipples into hard, aching peaks. She flung back her head and gave herself over to the wanton inside her, moaning and lacing her fingers through his hair as he suckled her, first one breast and then the other. He was not gentle, but she wanted nothing of gentleness after so long a wait. He kissed her again, almost savagely, and pushed her down on her back.

At last
, the wanton cried.
At last!

She tugged at the heavy folds of her skirts as Holden pushed them up over her ankles and knees and thighs.
The baggy boy’s trousers underneath were a minor impediment, quickly disposed of and tossed aside.

Rachel’s only thought then was to feel the hard length of Holden’s shaft inside her, thrusting deep, filling the empty, aching space inside with his heat and power. Nothing else mattered, not even the fact that she might never feel such sensations again.

But he didn’t lie over her and take her as she wanted so desperately. She felt the brush of warm air between her thighs, and then his mouth was there, moving almost gently now, and his tongue was gliding over those lips, licking and teasing until a gush of wetness spilled out, wetness he lapped up as if it were honey. He circled his tongue around and around until she was aching and thrust inside.

Rachel cried out, arching upward as he filled her, not as she had wanted, but so wonderfully that she forgot she had ever desired anything else. Her body began to quiver as he withdrew and teased her nub until she felt her body release with joyful ecstasy.

Closing her eyes, she lay still, savoring the deep, delicious throbbing and the peace that came after. Holden was pulling her skirts down, covering her again, hiding the vulnerability she had so willingly exposed.

And then he was standing, walking away, leaving her.

As she understood now that
she
had to leave. Because she had made her choice. Because she had betrayed Jed in every way possible. And because there would be no other time like this, no tender reprise, no declarations of devotion.

She had not expected any of those things. But hope, that merciless enemy, would not be silenced.

Until Holden walked away.

You deserve to be happy
, he’d said. But not at Dog Creek. Not with him.

She sat up and began to pull on her clothes, chemise and corset and bodice. She rose and put on the trousers, buttoning them carefully. Then she knelt beside Gordie’s crate. He was awake now, amusing himself with his own tiny fist, pushing it into his toothless mouth.

There was no doubt that he was healthy, changing so rapidly and learning so quickly that she couldn’t remember ever having seen a baby so precocious. Jed would want him. He would find another woman, steady and reliable, to become his wife, to care for this remarkable child.

Or Holden would…

He would have to make his intentions clear once and for all. Even if he were to admit to being Gordie’s father and commit to giving the baby a father’s full care and affection, a bachelor cowhand could certainly not expect to raise a child alone. Or had
he
believed all along that Jedediah would adopt Gordie as he had once taken in an orphan boy named Joey?

One way or another, the issue must be settled before she could go.

“Holden,” she said softly.

He stopped with a saddle in his hands, turning his head without looking at her.

“Swear to me that Gordie will always have a good home.”

His body shuddered once, as if she had asked him for something beyond his power to give. But when he spoke, there was no hesitation in his voice.

“I swear,” he said.

It was all she could ask for. Father or not, Holden had rescued Gordie. He would do what was necessary.

Gordie’s life had just begun. Hers was over. Over and done.

T
HEY DIDN’T SPEAK
again as Rachel gathered up the untouched food and Holden saddled the horses. Gordie gurgled and grinned while she fed him his milk, as if all the world had been made for his enjoyment.

Holden’s touch was impersonal as he lifted her and Gordie onto Jericho’s back. They rode back in the silence of strangers.

It was late afternoon when they reached the house. Lucia took Gordie off to feed him, and Rachel retired soon thereafter. She heard voices through the window as Holden talked with Charlie, and a little while later, he rode out again.

Rachel lay dry-eyed on the bed for several hours, unable to rest. Just after dark, Lucia came to inquire about her, passing on Maurice’s concern, as well. She was able to answer quite steadily, and even ventured outside to thank Maurice for his interest and ask if Mr. Renshaw had gone to look for Joey. The Frenchman answered in the affirmative but eyed her intently, and she wondered if it was possible that her fresh sin was visible on her face.

Holden was still away the next morning when Mrs. Adelaide Blackwell and her daughter, Amy, arrived.

Lucia answered the door as Rachel changed Gordie’s
diaper. She was astonished to hear strange women’s voices after weeks of hearing no one else but Lucia, and she guessed immediately who it must be. She threw on her shawl, gave Gordie to Lucia in the hallway and continued with her heart in her throat.

“Fine ladies, the both of them,” Holden had told her, and he hadn’t meant it as a compliment. That, of course, meant little. They were the wife and daughter of the chief landowner in the county. Sean, whom she had hardly thought of for days, had gone to them when Holden had thrown him off the ranch. They might well think her unspeakably rude for not making herself known to them, though she knew it was usually the practice for the more established resident to call upon the newer.

What might Sean have said to them? Rachel had already concluded that he had very likely been behind the bribery attempt in Javelina and that he couldn’t wish her well. He had certainly made no attempt whatsoever to renew any acquaintance with Mrs. Jedediah McCarrick. He might even have told them that he suspected she wasn’t married, if he believed it would not incriminate him.

If they had even the slightest suspicion that she had been living at Dog Creek under false pretenses, let alone that she was a fallen woman…

Rachel laughed silently.
Remember that you have no pride left to lose.

The ladies were looking around the parlor when she went to greet them, their expressions far too neutral to be approving. But they smiled pleasantly enough when she welcomed them and asked them to sit, painfully aware that she had nothing but hard, rustic chairs to offer them.

They were both attractive women, very “fine,” just
as Holden had indicated…rosy and blonde, dressed in fashionable, snug-fitting gowns more appropriate to a very different setting. While Mrs. Blackwell was prim and formal, Amy’s hazel eyes sparkled, and her smile held a surprising degree of warmth.

“My dear Mrs. McCarrick,” she said. “I have been so longing to meet you. I see that everything Sean has said about you was true.”

Rachel was sufficiently in control of herself that she didn’t stiffen at Miss Blackwell’s ambiguous remark. Miss Blackwell continued before she had a chance to reply.

“We sincerely hope that we haven’t inconvenienced you by arriving so unexpectedly,” the girl said. She glanced down at her gloved hands. “We have been unconscionably remiss in not calling upon you before. I hope you can forgive us.”

Rachel would gladly have wished them to the devil, but there was no help for it now.

I could tell them the truth and be done with it.
But she had no understanding of what such a revelation might set in motion. Holden clearly wanted her to maintain her masquerade, and she intended to do so until Gordie’s future was secured.

“It is no inconvenience at all,” she said, returning Amy’s smile as if she truly meant it. “I have been remiss myself. May I get you tea?”

“That would be delightful, wouldn’t it, Mother?”

Mrs. Blackwell nodded briefly, and Rachel rushed into the kitchen. She had nothing better than a few stained china cups to serve in, and only the common sort of tea offered in the store in Javelina.

She returned to the parlor while the tea was brewing and pulled a chair nearer the Blackwells. “You must
think me quite a hermit, Mrs. Blackwell, Miss Blackwell. I am afraid that I was a little overwhelmed by the country when I first arrived, and with Mr. McCarrick absent…” She smiled again. “That is no excuse, of course, but I do very much appreciate your call. I am sure that Jedediah would be equally pleased if he were present.”

“Thank you, Mrs. McCarrick,” Amy said. “That is very gracious of you. We had been concerned that you have been finding it lonely here in your husband’s absence. How difficult it must have been to arrive in a strange place only to find no one to meet you.”

But someone did meet me
, Rachel thought. “I am grateful for your concern, Miss Blackwell,” she said carefully, “but I’ve found so much to do here that I’ve scarcely had time to be lonely.”

Amy nodded sympathetically. “One becomes almost accustomed to the isolation, though we do our best to lighten it with gatherings among the various ranchers in this and the surrounding counties.” She smoothed a crease in her gown. “Have you heard from Mr. McCarrick?”

There was no turning back now. “Not recently, but…” She bit her lip. There was no reason why she couldn’t tell as much truth as possible. “I confess that I’ve been a little worried.”

The young woman’s eyes sharpened with interest. “In what way?”

“Jedediah and I corresponded for a year before he married me,” she said. “It is not like him to fail to write, knowing that I would have arrived weeks ago.”

Amy reached across the space between them and rested her hand on Rachel’s knee with a gesture that seemed impulsive. “Please don’t worry. I’m sure there’s
a simple explanation. Jedediah is not only a good man, but he has spent many years in Texas and knows what he is about. What is your foreman’s opinion? I know that he and Jedediah have been close.”

Amy’s mention of Holden raised Rachel’s guard. If Sean was living with the Blackwells, they might very well share his opinion of Holden. In fact, she was certain of it. Though she had seen Holden with very few people, all of them at Dog Creek, she would be willing to wager all four of her dresses and her threadbare shawl that he had far fewer friends than Sean McCarrick. And Sean had certainly been eager to tell
her
of Holden’s manifold sins against him.

“The last time we spoke of it,” she said, “Mr. Renshaw was not overly concerned.”

“There you are.” Amy met Rachel’s gaze. “You must find Mr. Renshaw invaluable.”

“He is accustomed to running the ranch.”

“But he is hardly personable.”

“I expect nothing from him but that he keep Dog Creek in working order until Jedediah—” She broke off. “I am sorry about the quarrel between Mr. Renshaw and Mr. McCarrick. I was ignorant of the situation when Mr. McCarrick left.”

“Of course you were. It was best that they be separated. They were never well disposed toward one another, and Sean now has an excellent job as our foreman.”

The girl spoke lightly, but Rachel sensed a thread of anger underneath the casual words. Though there was no reason for her to think so, Rachel was suddenly struck by the thought that Amy might regard Sean as something other than her father’s employee. They were
both young and attractive, and Sean, in addition to being handsome and well-spoken, had displayed a keen ability for the same scheming he had attributed to Holden. A man of ambition and modest means would regard the daughter of a wealthy family as a very profitable catch, as Rachel well knew.

But what were Sean’s ambitions? She had only the vague notions that Holden, and Sean himself, had put in her head. That and the fact that Sean obviously hadn’t wanted her at Dog Creek.

“Men can be trying at times, can’t they?” Rachel said, rising. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll check on the tea.”

By the time she returned with the tea things, such as they were, Amy seemed uninterested in resuming the topic. Instead, she brought up one just as uncomfortable.

“And how is the child, Mrs. McCarrick?” she asked.

Of course Sean would have told them about Gordie.

“Very well, Miss Blackwell,” Rachel said. “He has thrived since Mr. Renshaw brought him to Dog Creek.”

“And you have not located his parents?”

“Unfortunately, there was no way of finding them, since they had abandoned him at a deserted farmhouse. In any case,” she said more brusquely, “his parents clearly did not want him.”

Amy nodded approvingly. “May we see him?”

Irrational as her feelings might be, Rachel didn’t want to show Gordie to the Blackwells. Nevertheless, she rose, went to the bedroom and took Gordie from Lucia, holding him close as she brought him into the parlor.

She expected Amy to ask to hold him, but the young
woman only extended one delicate, silk-clad fingertip and brushed Gordie’s cheek. “How delightful,” she said. “It is clear he has your affection.”

“Yes.”

“It would be ideal if Mr. McCarrick were to adopt him. Surely he will be glad to see such a strong, handsome boy when he returns.”

Rachel swallowed. “I hope he will.”

As soon as Amy withdrew her hand and Mrs. Blackwell had looked her fill—without comment—Rachel took Gordie back to the bedroom. When she returned, Amy seemed content to pursue more mundane subjects, such as the weather, the lack of the most basic women’s sundries at the general store in Javelina and the social opportunities in San Antonio.

“Of course, we are limited here, but, as I said, we make the best of what we have,” Amy said. “In fact, we had hoped, Mother and I, that you might consent to join us at a gathering at Blackwater in ten days’ time. All the ranchers in Pecos and Crockett Counties will be invited, and you shall be the guest of honor. I know that everyone will wish to hear about your life in Ohio and your correspondence with Mr. McCarrick.”

Rachel set down her cup with such force that it rang against the tabletop. “I…I am very flattered, Miss Blackwell, but—”

“Come, Rachel! May I call you Rachel? You cannot disappoint so many people, and I assure you that you will find a warm welcome. All the women—and there are not many of us—are eager to bring you into the fold. I do so much want to get to know you!”

At a loss for words, Rachel raised her cup and drank the cooling tea. Amy Blackwell had made an invitation
she could not politely refuse. Rachel would ordinarily assume that it had been tendered in all goodwill and friendliness, with no ulterior motive. And in fact, that was almost certainly the case, and her unease was no doubt only due to a lingering fear of exposure. Indeed, what harm could all the Amy Blackwells of the world and their judgment do her now?

But in her determination to maintain her fiction just a little while longer, she had never considered the necessity of entering the local social sphere. She had intended to live quietly until Jed returned or she could creep away like a little field mouse when the first snow covers the autumn stubble.

“Mother,” Amy said, sensing Rachel’s hesitation, “tell her she simply can’t refuse.”

Mrs. Blackwell gave an almost imperceptible sigh. “Let me add my pleas to my daughter’s, Mrs. McCarrick.”

“Come, do,” Amy said warmly. “Mr. Renshaw may escort you.” She waved a hand in airy dismissal. “I don’t expect there will be any trouble between the two men, not with everyone else there. Sean is arranging a hunt for that horrible brute of a lobo who so badly injured him nearly two weeks ago. I suspect that Mr. Renshaw will wish to join in, whatever his quarrels with Sean. After all, any wolf is a threat to every cattleman in the county.”

Rachel went suddenly cold. She couldn’t imagine why Sean would suffer Holden as a guest if he had any influence at all over the proceedings. But this mention of a wolf…

“A wolf attacked one of the outlaws when he was whipping Joey.” That was what Holden had said that
night in the stable. She had asked if there were many wolves in the area, and he’d replied that there were not as many as there used to be.

He had also said they almost never went after people.
Nearly two weeks ago
. Could two wolves have attacked two different men in the same area at the same time?

Rachel came very close to bolting, but somehow she managed to keep her seat. If it was the same wolf, the black wolf she had seen at Dog Creek, there could be only two possible explanations. Either the lobo was indeed a dangerous animal that had to be eliminated before it hurt someone again.

Or Sean McCarrick and the “outlaws” were one and the same.

“May we count on you, then?” Amy asked eagerly.

Rachel blinked at her, too dazed to do more than mumble her assent.

Amy clapped her hands.

“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “We shall expect you on the twenty-third.” She rose, lending her mother her arm. Rachel rose with them, belatedly aware that she had just committed herself to something that had awakened a sense of alarm she could not dismiss. Alarm that had nothing to do with her tenuous position, and everything to do with Holden and Sean McCarrick.

You need not go. Leave today. Tomorrow.

Somehow she managed to accompany the Blackwells to the door, where she took Amy’s offered hand.

“I have so much enjoyed our visit,” Amy said. “I know we shall become fast friends.”

Rachel stood on the porch while the ladies ascended into their carriage—an actual carriage, not a wagon—and set off. Holden rode into the yard a few moments
later, staring after the carriage with a hard, set look on his face. He dismounted, left Apache by the hitching post and joined her in the doorway.

“What were they doing here?” he demanded.

Rachel went back into the house and sat at the table, poised between fury and fear. “They have invited us to a party,” she said, gazing bleakly at the door.