Spirit of the Wolf (13 page)

Those were the hands that had built a makeshift litter for Matthew. She could almost picture him, gently laying her little brother onto it, and just as gently draping a blanket over the boy.

And those were the hands that had hovered so near the Texan's throat just hours ago on the Baltimore dock.

Could those
be the hands of a
murderer
?

Now she heard him sigh, a long, lingering inhalation that wrapped round her like the hauntingly sad notes of the whippoorwill's song. Bess glanced over just in time to see him run the tip of his tongue over his full, almost-pouting lips.

Those same soft lips had touched hers that night, fanning the flickering flame that had sparked the moment she'd first seen him. Bess closed her eyes, hoping to shut out the memory of the sensations that had bubbled inside her as she'd stood, wrapped in the protective circle of his embrace, accepting his kisses...and returning them.

She'd been held by a man before, had been kissed a time or two. But not like
that
. A girl was supposed to remember her first kiss with ultimate clarity, wasn't she? Wasn't her first experience with such intimacy
supposed
to stand out from all others like a mountain? It was Bess who sighed now, because, try as she might, she could not remember a single moment with any man that could even begin to compare to
—

You're behaving like a silly schoolgirl
, she chided,
thinking about a kiss when you could be sitting beside a cold-blooded
killer
!

Bess took a deep breath, gave a little nod of her head.
Well,
she admitted,
the kiss is a far more pleasant memory than that scene on the dock!

Exhaling slowly, Bess slipped off her gloves, one white-cottoned finger at a time, and stuffed them into her purse. She removed her hat, too, and tucked it under the wagon seat. She should have taken more care to put it in a safe corner, folding the broad satin ribbon inside the bonnet to prevent wrinkles. But her mind couldn't have been further from proper headwear care....

She rubbed her eyes, hoping to destroy the image of him, standing there on the dock, fists clenched, facing his opponent. Nothing
but
murderous thoughts could have turned his warm blue eyes cold as ice. Nothing
but
deadly deeds could have changed his cool, detached grin into an vile and vicious scowl.

Immediately, Bess blinked away the ugly sight. In its place, she got another picture...one that was disturbing in a very different way....

He'd lifted her chin on a bent forefinger, forcing her to meet his eyes.
T
he message he'd sent on the invisible thread connecting them had been clear: He would not take advantage of her.

She refused to believe a man like that could have done anything so vile as what the Texan had accused him of.
If
he'd done something that earned him a death sentence, there
had
to be a reason!

Someday
,
she'd ask him what that reason was. She had a right
,
no, a
duty
,
to get to the bottom of this mess, for her father's safety, her brothers',
her own
.

Without turning her head, she looked at him again. He sat tall and straight now, blond brows drawn together in a serious frown, the muscles of his broad jaw clenching and unclenching, the reins wrapped so tightly around his big hands that the leather seemed part of his bronzed skin.

Suddenly, Bess felt an incredible urge to cry
—not
tears of fear, for something deep inside told her
Chance
would never harm
her—but
tears of
regret
. She didn't want to believe he'd committed a crime, especially one so heinous as
murder.
But it went far deeper than that, far deeper: Bess didn't want to believe that falling in love with him had been a mistake.

It's your own fault that you feel this way,
she scolded herself.
If you'd stuck to your plan--never to fall in love, never to wish for marriage--you wouldn't be sitting her now feeling....

Exactly what
did
she feel?

A little angry, for one thing, that
Chance
seemed to have no intention of telling her what the fight on the dock had been all about. They'd been
o
n the buckboard for hours if
Chance
had intended to tell her, wouldn't he have done it by now? Hurt, too, that his silence meant he didn't trust her enough to tell her the truth about his past. And that evoked a sadness, an incredible,
immeasurable
sadness.

Mostly, though, she was afraid. About as afraid as she'd ever been in her life.

Because
if
the Texan hadn't been mistaken (or lying),
and
Chance
had been convicted of the murder
—and
sentenced to hang for it
—her
dreams of a future with him would remain just that. And the mere thought of losing him, even for a reason like that, woke an ache inside her that she'd thought long buried, a pain as cutting and as deep as Mary's death had caused.

Almost immediately, grief became guilt. How could she sit there and compare what she felt about this man she barely knew with the feelings of loss she'd experienced when her
dear
mother died!
Get hold of yourself, Bess, and do the right thing.

But what
was
the right thing?

Confront him, of course! Force him to explain what happened back there.

The huge box on the wagon bed shifted, groaning slightly as
Chance
guided the horses around a soft bend in the road. It reminded her how, even before he'd even climbed up onto the wagon seat beside her, she'd asked him what had been housed in the mammoth container. He'd said he didn't know what was in the box. But that hadn't been the truth; she could tell because his pupils had constricted and his lips had thinned, just the way Matt and Mark's always did when she caught them in a fib.

The knowledge that she'd be able to tell if he ever told her another fib...or an outright lie...lifted her sagging spirits a bit. She
would
confront him about what had gone on back there on the dock.
And while you're digging for information
, she grinned,
you may as well see if you can get him to tell you what's in that crate!

Several more moments passed in total silence before Bess took a deep breath.
The time was ripe
.
"We both know you owe me an explanation."

He'd just
chick-chicked
to quicken the horses' pace. Her question seemed to hit him like a bolt, and his hands froze in mid-air.
Chance
cocked his head and gave her a half-hearted grin.
Raising o
ne blond brow, he
said
, "About what?"

After another exasperated sigh, she said, "About what that awful man said, of course...."

She probably wouldn't have said 'spit and vomit' with as much disdain in her voice as she'd said 'that awful man.'
Chance
had only known her for three months, but in that short time, if he hadn't learned anything else about Bess, he'd learned this: for all her stubborn determination to appear in-charge and tough, she was more sensitive and tenderhearted than anyone he'd ever known. She hid her soft side well, he'd discovered, but for the lucky few who took the time to look, her warmth and compassion showed in her eyes...and in her voice. She was trying to sound casual, as though the almost-brawl hadn't upset her in the least. But it had troubled her
,
scared her, even
.

"That man threatened you," she was saying. "He said
—“

"That man,"
Chance
interrupted, "doesn't know what in Sam Hill he's talking about!" He said it with such ferocity that Bess drew back slightly. Immediately, he regretted his harshness. "
He’s
nothing but a drunken sailor."

She flexed her hands. Smoothed her skirt. Tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. "You don't really expect me to believe all that fuss and bother was nothing more than a case of mistaken identity...."

This woman could never play poker
, he thought
,
because she doesn’t know the meaning of the word
subtle
.

Bess ignored his quiet chuckle. What should have been a rapid-fire inquisition never happened. Bess sat back and stared straight ahead, one dainty finger tapping lightly on her knee. "So
I take your silence to mean
he
was
mistaken, then?
That he has
you confused with some
other
fellow from Lubbock...
one
who killed a man and escaped before they could hang him for it
, and just so happens to look like
you
."

Ordinarily, her straight-forward way of putting things was admirable. For a reason he couldn't explain, the way she'd put
that
rattled him
.

As they'd left the docks,
Chance
told himself if she didn't ask about what happened, he wouldn't volunteer any information. But a nagging voice inside him kept saying,
you know
she will
,
Chance
ole boy.
The only surprise, really, was that
it had taken
this long. He'd known full well that, as she sat there beside him, fidgeting with her purse and fiddling with her hat, she'd been reliving the scene, word for word. And he'd known why:

Bess didn't want to believe he'd done anything so contemptible as to take a man's life. It was part of her character to look for even the dimmest glimmer of good in every situation, in every person
. H
er sighs,
her shrugs,
the nervous toe-tapping,
Chance
realized, were evidence that she was building a case, a defense of sorts, to excuse what he'd done...if indeed he'd done it.

Too bad
you
weren't in the courtroom that day, Bess!
he told her silently.
Things might have turned out a mite
different, with you
on my side....

Th
e voice of reason that lived in
his head had saved his hide a time or two
,
because he'd had the good sense to heed it. He should have listened to it earlier
, b
ecause if he had, he'd have come up with a story that would satisfy her, an explanation that would ease her mind and soothe her fears. Not knowing for sure if he'd killed a man or not was driving her to distraction.

"Well...?" she said, interrupting his reverie.

Part of him wanted to stop the wagon, right there in the middle of the road, tell her the whole
ugly
story. She deserved to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. Maybe, if he fessed up, he'd find out it didn't matter one whit to Bess that somewhere, far from this idyllic place, a judge and jury had branded him a murderer and a thief. Knowing her, once he'd told his sordid story, she
might just
wrap her arms around him and insist he couldn't possibly have done harm to another human being.

But the lone, dark-spirit part of him warned him never
to
tell her the truth. Because what if, after
everything was out in the open,
instead of acceptance
and
understanding, he saw fear
—or
worse, disgust
—in
those big brown eyes? It would cut right to the bone, that's what. He'd survived snakebites and gunshots and a knifing, but
Chance
didn't believe any of those wounds had hurt
half
as
much
as Bess's rejection would.

"Men amaze me sometimes," she huffed, turning slightly
o
n the seat to face him. "You can be such a gentle man,
Chance
. But if looks could kill, that Texan would be stone cold dead right now."

"Gentle?
Me?
You don't really think that...." His voice was so soft, he wondered if she'd heard his question.

Bess rested her hand on his forearm. "No. No, I guess not."

He frowned, because her admission hurt.

"I don't
think
you're gentle, I have
proof
that you are.
Lots of it.
What you did for Matthew, for starters...."