The warmth of the house enfolded her, and she inhaled with relief, hardly noticing as he turned a wooden chair away from the table and placed her on it. Without speaking he turned on the hot water tap and let it run, then filled a dishpan, frequently checking the water and adjusting the temperature.
Well, she had reached her destination, and though she hadn’t accomplished her arrival in quite the manner she had intended, she might as well get to the purpose of her visit. “I’m Mary Potter, the new schoolteacher.”
“I know,” he said briefly.
Her eyes widened as she stared at his broad back. “You know?”
“Not many strangers around.”
She realized that he hadn’t introduced himself and was suddenly unsure. Was she even at the right place? “Are…are you Mr. Mackenzie?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her, and she noticed that his eyes were as black as night. “I’m Wolf Mackenzie.”
She was instantly diverted. “I suppose you know your name is uncommon. It’s Old English—”
“No,” he said, turning around with the dishpan in his hands. He placed it on the floor beside her feet. “It’s Indian.”
She blinked. “Indian?” She felt incredibly stupid. She should have guessed, given the blackness of his hair and eyes, and the bronze of his skin, but she hadn’t. Most of the men in Ruth had weathered skin, and she had simply thought him darker than the others. Then she frowned at him and said in a positive tone, “Mackenzie isn’t an Indian name.”
He frowned back at her. “Scottish.”
“Oh. Are you a half-breed?”
She asked the question with the same unconsciousness as if she had been asking directions, silky brows lifted inquiringly over her blue eyes. It set his teeth on edge. “Yeah,” he grunted. There was something so irritating about the primness of her expression that he wanted to shock her out of her prissiness. Then he noticed the shivers shaking her body, and he pushed his irritation aside, at least until he could get her warm. The clumsy way she had been walking when he’d first seen her had told him that she was in the first stages of hypothermia. He shrugged out of his heavy coat and tossed it a side, then put on a pot of coffee.
Mary sat silently as he made coffee; he wasn’t a very talkative person, though that wasn’t going to make her give up. She was truly cold; she would wait until she had a cup of that coffee, then begin again. She looked up at him as he turned back to her, but his expression was unreadable. Without a word he took the scarf from her head and began unbuttoning her coat. Startled, she said, “I can do that,” but her fingers were so cold that any movement was agony. He stepped back and let her try for a moment, then brushed her hands aside and finished the job himself.
“Why are you taking my coat off when I’m so cold?” she asked in bewilderment as he peeled the coat down her arms.
“So I can rub your arms and legs.” Then he proceeded to remove her shoes.
The idea was as alien to her as snow. She wasn’t accustomed to anyone touching her, and didn’t intend to become accustomed. She started to tell him so, but the words vanished unsaid when he abruptly thrust his hands under her skirt, all the way to her waist. Mary gave a startled shriek and jerked back, almost oversetting the chair. He glared at her, his eyes like black ice.
“You don’t have to worry,” he snapped. “This is Saturday. I only rape on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” He thought about throwing her back out into the snow, but he couldn’t let a woman freeze to death, not even a white woman who obviously thought his touch would contaminate her.
Mary’s eyes grew so wide they eclipsed the rest of her face. “What’s wrong with Saturdays?” she blurted, then realized that she had almost issued him an invitation, for pity’s sake! She clapped her gloved hands to her face as a tide of red surged to her cheeks. Her brain must have frozen; it was the only possible explanation.
Wolf jerked his head up, not believing she had actually said that. Wide, horrified blue eyes stared at him from over black leather gloves, which covered the rest of her face but couldn’t quite hide the hot color. It had been so long since he’d seen anyone blush that it took him a minute to realize she was acutely embarrassed. Why, she was a prude! It was the final cliché to add to the dowdy, old maid schoolteacher image she presented. Amusement softened his irritation. This was probably the highlight of her life. “I’m going to pull your panty hose off so you can put your feet in the water,” he explained in a gruff voice.
“Oh.” The word was muffled because her hands were still over her mouth.
His arms were still under her skirt, his hands clasped on her hips. Almost unconsciously he felt the narrowness of her, and the softness. Dowdy or not, she still had the softness of a woman, the sweet scent of a woman, and his heartbeat increased as his body began to respond to her nearness. Damn, he needed a woman worse than he’d thought if this frumpy little schoolteacher could turn him on.
Mary sat very still as one powerful arm closed around her and lifted her so he could strip the panty hose down her hips and legs; the position put his head close to her breasts and stomach, and she stared down at his thick, shiny black hair. He had only to turn his head and his mouth would brush against her breasts. She had read in books that a man took a woman’s nipples into his mouth and sucked them as a nursing infant would, and she had always wondered why. Now the thought made her feel breathless, and her nipples tingled. His roughly callused hands brushed against her bare legs; how would they feel on her breasts? She began to feel oddly warm, and a little dizzy.
Wolf didn’t glance at her as he tossed the insubstantial panty hose to the floor. He lifted her feet onto his thigh and slid the dishpan into place, then slowly lowered her feet into the water. He had made certain the water was only warm, but he knew her feet were so cold even that would be painful. She sucked in her breath but didn’t protest, though he saw the gleam of tears in her eyes when he looked up at her.
“It won’t hurt for long,” he murmured reassuringly, moving so that his legs were on each side of hers, clasping them warmly. Then he carefully removed her gloves, struck by the delicacy of her white, cold hands. He held them between his warm palms for a moment, then made a decision and unbuttoned his shirt as he crowded closer to her.
“This will get them warm,” he said, and tucked her hands into the hollows of his armpits.
Mary was dumbstruck. She couldn’t believe that her hands were nestled in his armpits like birds. His warmth seared her cold fingers. She wasn’t actually touching skin; he wore a T-shirt, but it was still the most intimate she had ever been with another person. Armpits…well, everyone had them, but she certainly wasn’t accustomed to touching them. She had never before been this surrounded by anyone, least of all a man. His hard legs were on each side of hers, clasping them; she was bent forward a little, her hands neatly tucked beneath his arms, while he briskly rubbed his hands over her arms and shoulders, then down to her thighs. She made a little sound of surprise; she simply couldn’t believe this was happening, not to Mary Elizabeth Potter, old maid schoolteacher ordinaire.
Wolf had been concentrating on his task but he looked up at the sound she made, into her wide blue eyes. They were an odd blue, he thought, not cornflower or that pure dark blue. There was just a hint of gray in the shade. Slate blue, that was it. Distantly he noticed that her hair was straggling down from the ungodly knot she’d twisted it into, framing her face in silky, pale brown wisps. She was very close, her face just inches from his. She had the most delicate skin he’d ever seen, as fine-grained as an infant’s, so pale and translucent he could see the fragile tracery of blue veins at her temples. Only the very young should have skin like that. As he watched, another blush began to stain her cheeks, and unwillingly he felt himself become entranced by the sight. He wondered if her skin was that silky and delicate all over—her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, between her legs. The thought was like an electrical jolt to his system, overloading his nerves. Damn, she smelled sweet! And she would
probably jump straight out of that chair if he lifted her skirt the way he wanted to and buried his face against her silky thighs.
Mary licked her lips, oblivious to the way his eyes followed the movement. She had to say something, but she didn’t know what. His physical nearness seemed to have paralyzed her thought processes. My goodness, he was warm! And close. She should remember why she had come here in the first place, instead of acting like a ninny because a very good-looking, in a rough sort of way, very masculine person was too close to her. She licked her lips again, cleared her throat, and said, “Ah…I came to speak to Joe, if I may.”
His expression changed very little, yet she had the impression that he was instantly aloof. “Joe isn’t here. He’s doing chores.”
“I see. When will he be back?”
“In an hour, maybe two.”
She looked at him a little disbelievingly. “Are you Joe’s father?”
“Yes.”
“His mother is…?”
“Dead.”
The flat, solitary word jarred her, yet at the same time she was aware of a faint, shocking sense of relief. She looked away from him again. “How did you feel about Joe quitting school?”
“It was his decision.”
“But he’s only sixteen! He’s just a boy—”
“He’s Indian,” Wolf interrupted. “He’s a man.”
Indignation mingled with exasperation to act as a spur. She jerked her hands from his armpits and planted them on her hips. “What does that have to do with anything? He’s sixteen years old and he needs to get an education!”
“He can read, write and do math. He also knows everything there is to know about training horses and running a ranch. He chose to quit school and work here full-time. This is my ranch, and my mountain. One day it will be his. He decided what to do with his life, and it’s train horses.” He didn’t like explaining his and Joe’s personal business to anyone, but there was something about this huffy, dowdy little teacher that made him answer. She didn’t seem to realize he was Indian; intellectually she knew it, but she obviously had no idea what it meant to be Indian, and to be Wolf Mackenzie in particular, to have people turn aside to avoid speaking to him.
“I’d like to talk to him anyway,” Mary said stubbornly.
“That’s up to him. He may not want to talk to you.”
“You won’t try to influence him at all?”
“No.”
“Why not? You should at least have tried to keep him in school!”
Wolf leaned very close, so close that his nose was almost touching hers. She stared into his black eyes, her own eyes widening. “He’s Indian, lady. Maybe you don’t know what that means. Hell, how could you? You’re an Anglo. Indians aren’t welcome. What education he has, he got on his own, without any help from the Anglo teachers. When he wasn’t being ignored, he was being insulted. Why would he want to go back?”
She swallowed, alarmed by his aggression. She wasn’t accustomed to men getting right in her face and swearing at her. Truthfully, Mary admitted that she wasn’t accustomed to men at all. When she had been young, the boys had ignored the mousy, bookish girl, and when she had gotten older the men had done the same. She paled a little, but she felt so strongly about the benefits of a good education that she refused to let him intimidate her. Big people often did that to smaller people, probably without even thinking about it, but she wasn’t going to give in simply because he was bigger than she. “He was at the head of his class,” she said briskly. “If he managed that on his own, think of what he could accomplish with help!”
He straightened to his full height, towering over her. “Like I said, it’s up to him.” The coffee had long since finished brewing, so he turned to pour a cup and hand it to her. Silence fell between them. He leaned against the cabinets and watched her sip daintily, like a cat. Dainty, yeah, that was a good word for her. She wasn’t tiny, maybe five three, but she was slightly built. His eyes dropped to her breasts beneath that dowdy blue dress; they weren’t big, but they looked nice and round. He wondered if her nipples would be a delicate shell pink, or rosy beige. He wondered if she would be able to take him comfortably, if she would be so tight he’d go wild—
Sharply he brought his erotic thoughts to a halt. Damn it, that particular lesson should have been etched into his soul! Anglo women might flirt with him and twitch themselves around him, but few of them really wanted to get down and dirty with an Indian. This prissy little frump wasn’t even flirting, so why was he getting so turned on? Maybe it was because she was a frump. He kept imagining how the dainty body beneath that awful dress would look, stripped bare and stretched out on the sheets.
Mary set the cup aside. “I’m much warmer now. Thank you, the coffee did the trick.” That, and the way he’d run his hands all over her, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. She looked up at him and hesitated, suddenly uncertain when she saw the look in his black eyes. She didn’t know what it was, but there was something about him that made her pulse rate increase, made her feel faintly uneasy. Was he actually looking at her breasts?
“I think some of Joe’s old clothes will fit you,” he said, face and voice expressionless.
“Oh, I don’t need any clothes. I mean, what I have on is perfectly—”
“Idiotic,” he interrupted. “This is Wyoming, lady, not New Orleans, or wherever you’re from.”
“Savannah,” she supplied.
He grunted, which seemed to be one of his basic means of communication, and took a towel from a drawer. Going down on one knee, he lifted her feet from the water and wrapped them in a towel, rubbing them dry with a touch so gentle it was at odds with the thinly veiled hostility of his manner. Then, standing, he said, “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the bedroom.”
Mary stopped, blinking at him, and a bitter smile twisted his mouth. “Don’t worry,” he said harshly. “I’ll control my savage appetites, and after you get dressed, you can get the hell off my mountain.”
Chapter Two
Mary drew herself up to her full height and lifted her chin, her mouth setting itself in a prim line. “It isn’t necessary to make fun of me, Mr. Mackenzie,” she said calmly, but her even tone was hard won. She knew she fell short in the come-hither department; she didn’t need sarcasm to remind her. Usually she wasn’t disturbed by her mousiness, having accepted it as an unchangeable fact, much like having the sun rise in the east. But Mr. Mackenzie made her feel strangely vulnerable, and it was oddly painful that he should have pointed out how unappealing she was.
Wolf’s straight black brows drew together over his high-bridged nose. “I wasn’t making fun of you,” he snapped. “I was dead serious, lady. I want you off of my mountain.”
“Then I’ll leave, of course,” she replied steadily. “But it was still unnecessary to make fun of me.”
He put his hands on his hips. “Make fun of you? How?”
A flush tinged her exquisite skin, but her gray-blue eyes never wavered. “I know I’m not an attractive woman, certainly not the type to stir a man’s—er, savage appetites.”
She was serious. Ten minutes ago he’d have agreed with her that she was plain, and God knew she was no fashion plate, but what astounded him was that she honestly didn’t seem to realize what it meant that he was Indian, or what he’d meant by his sarcasm, or even that he had been strongly aroused by her closeness. A lingering throbbing in his loins reminded him that his reaction hadn’t completely subsided. He gave a harsh laugh, the sound devoid of amusement. Why not put a little more excitement in her life? When she heard the flat truth, she wouldn’t be able to get off his mountain fast enough.
“I wasn’t joking or making fun,” he said. His black eyes glittered at her. “Touching you like that, being so close to you that I could smell the sweetness, turned me on.”
Astonished, she stared at him. “Turned you on?” she asked blankly.
“Yeah.” She still stared at him as
if he were speaking a different language, and impatiently he added, “Got me hot, however you want to describe it.”
She pushed at a silky strand that had escaped from her hairpins. “You’re making fun of me again,” she accused. It was impossible. She had never made a man…aroused a man in her life.
He was already irritated, already aroused. He had learned to use iron control when dealing with Anglos, but something about this prim little woman got under his skin. Frustration filled him until he thought he might explode. He hadn’t intended to touch her, but suddenly he had his hands on her waist, pulling her toward him. “Maybe you need a demonstration,” he said in a rough undertone, and bent to cover her mouth with his.
Mary trembled in profound shock, her eyes enormous as he moved his lips over hers. His eyes were closed. She could see the individual lashes, and for a moment marveled at how thick they were. Then his hands, still clasped on her waist, drew her into firm contact with his muscled body, and she gasped. He took instant advantage of her opened mouth, probing inside with his tongue. She quivered again, and her eyes slowly closed as a strange heat began to warm her inside. The pleasure was unfamiliar, and so intense that it frightened her. A host of new sensations assailed her, making her dizzy. There was the firmness of his lips, his heady taste, the startling intimacy of his tongue stroking hers as if enticing it to play. She felt the heat of his body, smelled the warm muskiness of hiss kin. Her soft breasts were pressed against the muscular planes of his chest, and her nipples began to tingle in that strange, embarrassing way again.
Suddenly he lifted his mouth from hers, and sharp disappointment made her eyes fly open. His black gaze burned her. “Kiss me back,” he muttered.