Spirit of the Wolf (17 page)

It did her heart good to hear his warm chuckle.

"This is the perfect place for soul searching." She squeezed his hand, content to keeping up the idle banter until
Chance
felt ready to join in. "
After
Mama died
, I spent a whole lot of time up here,
maybe because it seems so close to heaven...."

Bess shook her head.
This isn't working....
And then it dawned on her:
Maybe,
she told herself,
what he really needs is silence. Just the quiet assurance of a friend....

Chance
leaned down and scooped up a handful of pebbles, cast them, one by one, into the murky water far below. Side by side, the two listened to the rocks' distant
blips
and
plops.
After awhile,
Chance
said, "Folks are probably wondering where you are."

"Let them wonder," she said, lifting her chin in challenge. "And speaking of 'folks'...how long did you know about this shin-dig?"

Chance
shrugged. "Just about from the get-go, I reckon."

"You could have given me a hint, at least."

"And spoil your surprise? Now, why would I go and do a fool thing like that?"

"Because if I'd suspected a party was afoot, I'd have worn my new dress, instead of this old thing." She patted the blue gingham that covered her knees.

"You'd look just as beautiful in a
burlap
sack."

"Stop," she teased, nudging him with her shoulder, "you'll make me blush." Bess made no mention of his red-rimmed eyes. Said nothing about the catch in his
usually
controlled voice. Instead, she simply sat, his hand sandwiched between hers.

"Thanks, Bess."

It was the second time in as many weeks he'd said those same words. She faced him. "Thanks? For what?"

Chance
hesitated, as if unable just yet trust himself to speak. Then he gave her a crooked grin and draped an arm across her shoulders. "For being you," he answered. "Just for being you."

She thought of the scene on the dock, the things he'd said about her at the party, and everything that had come before. Somehow, Bess knew the moments she'd treasure most were these, shared here, in this special place.

She'd witnessed Micah, grieving for Mary. Had seen various farm hands cry at the loss of a friend or loved one. Matt and Mark had shed tears when a beloved pet breathed its last. But she'd never seen
—or
heard
—a
man as miserable as
Chance
had been moments ago.

What kind of life had he lived before coming to Foggy Bottom?
W
hat tragedies had he survived, what losses had he suffered? He was an amazing mix of tough and tender, and she wondered what experiences had made him so....

When he'd learned that she loved daisies, he picked them wherever and whenever he found them. Yet, when he saw one of his men haphazardly brushing a mare,
Chance
severely reprimanded him in plain sight of his co-workers.

When he'd discovered she enjoyed guitar music, he taught Bess to play Micah's beat-up old instrument. But when he caught a farm hand trying to steal a saddle blan
ket,
Chance
fired him without even asking
why
.

When he'd heard that blue was her favorite color, he bought her a whole bolt of cobalt satin, and told her that a dress made of the stuff would bring out the muted blue that ringed her dark brown irises.

"You're a harsh God," she'd heard him say. She wanted to know about every harshness he'd suffered and
survive
d
. Wanted to know every detail, from the moment he was born to this very one, about the man she'd come to cherish so deeply.

Her mama had been a woman of great faith, but since Mary's death, Bess hadn't done much praying. Still holding
Chance
's hand, she bowed her head and closed her eyes. Yes, he'd stolen her heart, but he was no murderer. She would stake her own life on it, if it came to that.

Lord,
she prayed silently,
show me the way to help heal his heart-wounds. Teach me how to love him as he deserves to be loved....

***

At Foggy Bottom he felt, for the first time since losing his folks, that he belonged. In the years he'd been running from the law, he'd never called a place his own. But here, where towering pines shadowed grasslands that rolled like a wide, wind-rippled river, he felt
home
.

Likewise, in the years he'd been dodging Texas Rangers and bounty hunters and U.S.
Marshal
s,
Chance
had never allowed himself to become attached, not to a place, and certainly not to the people in it. Many folks for whom he'd worked had invited him to stay on, indefinitely. With genuine gratitude, he'd declined their kind offers and headed out, giving no explanation for his departure and no reason why he wouldn't stay.
Caring about a town--or anyone in it--was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not if he wanted to avoid the dreaded hangman's noose.

Often, as he traveled from one place to the next,
Chance
ruminated on those invitations, figuring they'd been extended because he'd given his employers their money's worth and then some. Not once did he consider they might have asked him to stay because they liked
him
rather than the hard-work and dedication that made him worth his pay.

Now, sitting here, in her private place,
Chance
glanced down at his thigh, where her tiny hand rested in his calloused palm. Now and then, she'd sigh, or tuck a wayward tendril of dark hair behind her ear, or incline her head toward a bird's song. Time and again, she'd squeeze his hand, or point across the valley at a hawk or an eagle, soaring high on a sultry summer air current.

Chance
thought he knew how those winged creatures felt, coasting way up there in the clear blue sky, where the wind caressed the treetops and held billowy white clouds aloft. The big birds could glide from lofty nests and survey the landscape below, or slip silently by, or slow their flight should something catch their eye. And when their mighty wings grew tired, they could rest on a bouncing birch bough. Remain in flight, or pause in some protected perch: the choice was theirs, for this was their home, and here, they were free.

Until coming to Foggy Bottom,
Chance
hadn't allowed himself to taste freedom. Glorious as it was, he'd spent his entire adult life in the shadow of it, knowing full well that he'd never bask in the warmth of that hard-earned, elusive thing.

Until this place,
Chance
hadn't recognized how much he
wanted
to belong, to call one place
his
. And until Bess, he hadn't admitted, even to himself, how much he yearned to be enveloped by the unconditional love of a woman,
this
woman.

He glanced over at her, sitting there, thick dark hair blown back from her pretty little face, long lashes curling up from her high cheekbones as she surveyed the vast valley beyond.

In recent years, the thought had crossed his mind a time or two that letting the marshals catch up with him might just be a blessing. Why had he been running all this time, after all? In truth, lately, the longer he ran, the less he feared the end.

But since Bess....

How still, how hushed she sat! he acknowledged, smiling to himself. Ordinarily, she'd be chattering like a chipmunk.
Chance
knew what her silence meant. It meant that she'd sensed his need for quiet, just as she'd sensed his need to pretend she hadn't seen his tears or heard his sobs.
And he loved her all the more for that.
"Have you opened all your birthday presents?"

She blinked a time or two before facing him, then sent him a smile he could define only as serene. "All but yours...."

He looked into her teasing, smiling face. "How do you know I even
got
you a present?"

The grin faded into a slow, small smile of certainty. "I just
do
." Just as quickly as it had disappeared, the mischief in her eyes reappeared. "I only hope you didn't spend
all
your pay on me
. Before you know it,  it’ll be
Christmas
.
..."

If he'd earned himself a fortune in his years on the run, it wouldn't be enough, because what he wanted to give her couldn't be bought with money.
Chance
wanted to give her his true name: Walker Atwood.
The worst of his torment behind him now,
Chance
grinned. "Folks are going to wonder where you are," he repeated.

Bess lifted her chin and raised both brows. "Let them wonder," she said again in her matter-of-fact way.

This time, it was he who squeezed her hand. "They've gone to a lot of trouble to bring you gifts
,
to make a fine party for you."

She'd lowered her head to hide her thoughts from him, he realized. But she hadn't done it quickly enough. For in that instant before she focused those incredible eyes on some unknown spot between her tiny boots,
Chance
had read her lovely face, and saw that she'd already had the same thought
,
had probably considered it even before she made her ascent to join him on the big boulder.
Without releasing her hand, he stood. "Let's head on back," he drawled, "before Micah rounds up a posse to hunt us down."

Bess sat for a moment, looking up at him through those lush, black lashes. She'd never said she loved him straight out, but h
e'd long suspected it.

She didn't iron the
other
hired hands' shirts, or darn their socks, or polish their boots. She'd never invited any of them to join her on the porch after supper to sip tea and enjoy the breeze.

He'd never heard her ask any of Micah's other employees what their favorite color was, and if their answers had been 'red', he'd never seen them sporting bulky red sweaters she'd knitted to warm them when
bitter
winds blew through the valley.

Never had she studied the others as they ate, to determine a food preference, then whipped that favorite dish into a tasty lunch the very next day, wrapped in a line-dried napkin.

No
,
she hadn't told him how she felt
. Instead,
she'd
shown
him. And now, what she felt shone from her eyes like twin beams of radiant light.

And he loved her for that, too.

"C'mon," he said, tugging her arm 'til she stood beside him, "or they'll cut into the cake without you."

Love still sparkled in her eyes when she grinned. "They wouldn't dare."

Chance
knew he shouldn't have pulled her into that tight embrace. Knew he shouldn't press his mouth against her waiting, parted lips. He'd known he ought to keep his calloused fingers out of those satiny waves. But the swell of emotion that rose inside of him at the lovelight in her eyes gave him no choice.

All right. So he'd weakened on that score. But
Chance
was determined to exhibit strength elsewhere.

He mustn't tell her that the love she felt for him flashed in her eyes like lightning. Mustn't let her know how good it felt to have someone as warm and wonderful as she in love with him
.
Mustn't ever allow her to discover that he'd never held another woman as tenderly, nor kissed another woman as passionately. He mustn't speak aloud the
trite, poetic
thoughts that roiled in his head:
You taste like honey and smell like lilacs.

Chance
didn't believe words existed to describe the way her soft murmurs set his pulse to pounding, for they were like musi
c to his ears
.

Bess could never know that loved her more than life itself, more, even, than his precious freedom.

Because to be with her night and day as husband and wife, he'd gladly forsake his precarious hold on freedom. If
a prison sentence awaited him instead of the hangman’s noose,
he'd wait out the marshals.
And if she’d have him, he’d endure the time, knowing when it ended, he’d spend his remaining days in her arms
.

But no. He loved her too much to subject her to that kind of pain.
Chance
would
shelter her from gloom that had shadowed him
since leaving Lubbock
. He loved her, true enough
, a
nd leaving her would be harder than anything he'd done to date. Harder, even, than burying his parents, for they hadn't left him by choice, as he'd be leaving Bess.