Once A Wolf (38 page)

"Do you love him?"

The question, from Kavanagh, was ludicrous. But he wasn't mocking her now. The perpetual

sneer was gone from his face. And as she realized his perfect seriousness, she felt his words

strike her heart as surely as any bullet.

"Answer me," he said. "I'll know if you're lying."

He couldn't. Not unless he were a werewolf, and perhaps not even then. And why should she

lie? She had nothing to hide. The very idea of her being in love with Tomás was simply—

She covered her mouth with her hand. After a moment she remembered that it was necessary

to breathe upon occasion, and that the world had not stopped to wait for her recovery. Tomás

was still talking to a possible enemy, and Esperanza was in Kavanagh's hands, and… and…

"Yes," she whispered.

She didn't move when Kavanagh withdrew. He looked out the window again and sat on the

edge of the bed.

"Do you know how to use a gun?"

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The second question was so startlingly different from the first that it brought her back to sanity.

"Yes," she said. Should she curse Quentin for having shown her the workings of a pistol when

they were hardly more than children, or thank him?

"Take this." Kavanagh thrust a length of cool metal and polished wood into her hand. Instead of

dropping it, her fingers closed over the grip. He pressed his hand on hers until she held it

correctly, and stepped back. "It's loaded."

Had she wished, she could have shot him then. She pointed the weapon toward the floor. "Why

are you doing this?"

"Get Tomás out of here." She couldn't think of a single response while he went to the door,

looked up and down the hall, and walked away.

The revolver hung like a dead weight from her hand. She looked out at the street. Tomás and

the deputy were no longer in sight. With a feeling of mingled dread and unreality, she stuffed

the gun in the canvas sack that served as her farmwife's reticule and ran into the hall.

She saw Tomás as soon as she reached the street. He was walking briskly toward her; the

deputy was talking to someone else at the door of the saloon. She paused to look up and down

the length of the street.

Perhaps her senses, so much on edge, were keener than usual, or it might have been sheer luck

that she saw the one recognizable face among a group of men clustered in front of a row of low

buildings two blocks away.

Cole. He stood at the center of the group, tall and commanding even from this distance. The

others were dressed as Westerners, every one armed; he wore the same type of expensive,

neatly pressed suit he adopted in New York, incongruous among the rough gunmen to whom

he spoke.

Cole. She'd expected to feel strong emotions when she saw him again, but not this… this dread

in the pit of her stomach. As if she believed the tales Kavanagh told of him. As if he might shoot

Tomás down right here in the streets of Las Vegas.

Tomás stopped in mid-stride and followed her gaze. His muscles tensed into complete stillness.

She knew that within a few moments Cole would turn his head and see him—if Tomás did not

act first.

"Get Tomás out of here," Kavanagh had said. Clutching the canvas bag in a stranglehold, she

rushed to Tomás and grabbed his arm.

"Come on," she said. "It's time to leave."

"Cole," he said softly.

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"Tomás, don't be a fool. We must go."

He turned his head to meet her gaze. "Still worried about me, dulzura?"

She hissed under her breath and walked quickly to the horses Tomás had left tied in front of the

saloon. Tomás remained where he was. The group with Cole was breaking up, the men going

their separate ways. Cole was still occupied. But one of the gunmen looked directly toward

Tomás, and something in his posture set an alarm ringing in Rowena's head.

She put down her sack and worked at the slipknot in the first horse's reins, fingers clumsy with

agitation. Tomás's gelding swung his head sideways and bumped her temple. Her kerchief fell

over her eyes. She yanked it off and dropped it on the ground at her feet. The reins slid from

the hitching post, and she wrapped them around her arm while she untied the other horse.

Only then, as she led the horses into the street, did she dare to look toward Cole again. He was

not in view, but his gunman had begun to walk toward her. She could have sworn that his gaze

focused directly upon her face. And upon her uncovered hair.

He stopped. His right hand shifted to his gun, his gaze to Tomás. He stared.

"Mr. MacLean!" he shouted.

Rowena didn't wait to witness the results of his warning. "Tomás! Hurry!"

Tomás might as well have been a statue for all his response. Cursing him with words that would

have astonished anyone who had known her in England or New York, Rowena freed one hand

to tug open the mouth of the sack. She grabbed the gun and let the sack fall. Shoving the

revolver into the waistband of her skirt, she summoned her werewolf strength, released one of

the horses, and leaped into the saddle of the other.

The gunman was in the midst of drawing his weapon when Rowena cocked and aimed hers at

his chest.

"Don't move," she said. "Drop the gun."

He blinked. "Lady—"

"Put it down!"

He moved, but not to obey. His gun pointed straight at Tomás. "Randall! Mr. MacLean, it's

Randall!"

Rowena felt the change come over her then, the first waves of ferocious, protective anger

swamping all reason and civilized restraint. Her senses grew preternaturally keen, and the

blood pounded in her ears: Enemy, enemy, enemy.

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She adjusted the aim of her revolver and fired it. Dirt exploded a few inches from the gunman's

feet. He yelped and danced aside. She prepared to shoot again. He dropped his weapon. Behind

him, men were responding to his shout and the commotion, preparing to intervene. If Cole was

there, she couldn't see him. She couldn't think of anything but Tomás and the need to fight.

She felt more than saw or heard Tomás break free of his paralysis and chase down his skittish

horse. Then he was beside her.

A bullet whistled close to Rowena's ear. Startled, she looked for the new enemy. There, and

there—men half hidden at the corners of buildings, armed with rifles. Cole's men, like the first.

She bared her teeth and kicked her horse into motion. It burst forward with a jump. A rifleman

stepped out from cover and sighted down the barrel, at her or at Tomás. It made no difference.

She drove her horse directly at him.

An obstacle appeared as if by magic in her path: a mounted man, swinging his horse sideways

to hers. Her horse half reared and skidded to a stop. Another bullet passed, very near; the man

on the horse twisted in his saddle and shot back. "Get the hell out of here!" he snarled.

"Rowena!" Tomás rode up beside her and snatched her horse's reins from her hands. "Ride!

Now!"

They rode. Rowena caught glimpses of gaping mouths and heard shouts and the boom of

gunfire behind them. Tomás led the way, dashing full out down the street and careening

around a corner toward the edge of town. Her mount followed almost without her guidance.

Elation beat in her heart to the rhythm of drumming hoof-beats. Not fear, not shame, but a

turbulent, fiery joy. They had won. They had beat the ones who'd catch them and cage them up

like hopeless creatures in a zoo. Tomás was at her side, crouched low over the back of his

horse, graceful and beautiful. She felt the strength in her own body, free of all constraint.

Nothing could stop them now.

The hired gun staggered back from Cole's blow, colliding with the man behind him. He regained

his feet, and the hate in his eyes suggested that he might actually try to fight back. Cole braced

himself, hoping the man would give him the excuse he needed.

At the moment he very much wanted something to kill. Slowly.

The human wiped his bloody mouth instead. "I'm sorry, Mr. MacLean—"

"Sorry." He smiled and flexed his fist. "You're lucky you didn't hit the Lady Rowena. If you had,

you'd be dead."

"But we didn't know it was her—she was with Randall, not—"

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Cole simply looked at him. The gunman's mouth worked, blood running in a dark trickle from

his cut lips. The other men melted from his path as he backed away, turned, and began to run.

Cole let him go. The rest never turned their attention away from the man who'd hired them,

not even to watch their colleague's flight. Not one dared to move his hand anywhere near a

gun.

Cole fought down the urge to reduce them all to whimpering, cowering, mindless slaves. They'd

be of no use to him in that state. It was almost enough to look at them one by one and watch

them cringe.

"You've failed in everything I hired you to do," he said, "all of you. You couldn't find Randall, let

alone his hideout. Now he walks right into town, and only Beck had the brains to see it."

Beck also had the brains not to look smug. He'd failed as much as the rest—because Rowena

had pulled a gun on him.

Rowena. It was the first time he'd seen her in three weeks, but it was nothing like the reunion

he'd anticipated. She might not have been in the best of circumstances when she returned with

Sim Kavanagh, but he had envisioned her sinking gratefully into his arms and then retiring to be

cosseted by his servants while he dealt with the outlaw. He'd see to it that her admiration for

him didn't suffer—that, in fact, it increased when she heard the story of his tireless quest to

recover her from Randall.

Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined she would return with Randall himself.

He had only observed the farce from a distance, after the gunfire began. It had taken him a full

minute to realize that the woman on horseback was Rowena. By then Kavanagh had appeared…

but not to steal Rowena from Randall and deliver her to Cole. He'd actually given diem the

chance to get away.

He, too, was gone now, in the opposite direction. But he was the last thing on Cole's mind.

Cole clenched his fist so hard that his knuckles threatened to split the fine kid of his glove.

Randall hadn't merely kidnapped Rowena and eluded all pursuit, but he had somehow

corrupted her. How else to explain her bizarre and treacherous behavior? How else could she

be seen to dress in a poor settler's rags, hold a gun on one of his men, and help Randall escape

instead of attempting to escape herself?

It was possible. More than possible. Randall was a werewolf, with the potential power to make

others do as he wished. Some of the loups-garous, like himself, could even influence the minds

of others of their kind, and Rowena's rejection of her werewolf heritage made her doubly

vulnerable. If Randall had that power…

He bared his teeth. "Listen to me," he said. "This time there will be no excuses. You will follow

Randall and bring him back—with the lady. You will not allow anyone or anything to get in your

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way. If you haven't returned in twenty-four hours, I will get Deputy Vasquez to gather a posse

and ride after you. And if I am obliged to go myself-—" He swept the men with his gaze, letting

them complete the statement in their own weak minds. He was a far more merciless enemy

than Randall could ever be: Most of these men were wanted on some charge or other. He could

see each of them hanged. Or worse.

"We'll get him, Mr. MacLean," Beck said. "If we ride now—"

"Go." As Beck and others turned to leave, he caught the gunman by his sleeve.

"Remember, the lady isn't to be harmed, whatever she does." It wasn't necessary for him to

restate the penalty should any of the men fail in that provision.

Beck nodded and Cole let him go. The men mounted and rode off in uncharacteristic silence. A

handful of the less cautious townsfolk stood and gawked at him until he turned his stare on

them, one by one. They retreated quickly back to their respective occupations. Deputy Vasquez,

he noted, no longer lingered by the saloon. Beck said he'd been seen talking to the man who

turned out to be Randall himself. How Randall must have laughed.

They were half-wits and oafs, these humans. He knew how far he could trust them. Vasquez

would gather a posse in record time, or know the reason why. Rowena would be in his hands

again, soon.

The sound of tearing pulled his attention to his left fist. The glove had split over the knuckles.

He yanked it off with his teeth and tossed it to the ground.

He would have sworn he could trust Rowena to remain pure and utterly loyal to him, no matter

what trials she suffered. He'd never felt the need to use his will on her, so well had he trained