Wolf Bride

  Matthew hadn’t a chance to run because Luke’s hand was around his throat and dragging him, gasping, back to me. He unbuckled the man’s gun belt and tossed it over the saddle of the horse I was tied to and threw him in the mud beneath me.

  Something in the tone of Luke’s voice raised the hair on the nape of my neck. “It’s time for your first shooting lesson. This man is yours to kill. You can give retribution for your abuses or you can charge me with carrying it out. Either way, you’ll hold a gun to his head and make the decision who pulls the trigger.”

  He dragged his knife across the leg of his pants, leaving two smears of crimson, then cut the ropes that bound my wrists in one confident motion without nicking my chafed skin. My arms sagged to my sides and I swallowed a sob at the relief.

  Luke looked like an avenging angel in his damp duster and hat and as he moved his jacket aside, he pulled a dry pistol and handed it to me, grip first. He pointed to the hammer but I shook my head.

  “This ain’t my first shooting lesson.”

  His gaze collided with mine and surprise pooled in the emerald depths. He nodded and gave me some room. Pulling the hammer back was an effort because of my injured wrists but I kept my face straight and pointed the barrel down at Matthew’s forehead.

  “You thought you was home free, and now look at you,” I said in a trembling voice, repeating his calloused words.

  The sniveling man began to cry, and his words were no longer understandable. He reeked of urine and fear.

  “She’ll send more people,” I said to Luke. “The woman who’s after me will keep sending them until I’m dead or back at the brothel.”

  Silence filled the woods. “You want to send her a warning?”

  “I do.”

  Luke nodded once and I eased the hammer back down before lowering the Peace Maker. In a motion as fluid as stream water, he had my tormenter pinned against a tree while he choked the life from him. “Who sent you here?”

  “She knows,” Matthew rasped, pointing at me.

  “What’s her name?” Luke ground out.

  “Evelynn French.”

  “You tell Evelynn French and all of her known associates what’s happened here today. You tell her if she sends even one more person, I’ll travel to Chicago and personally slit her throat. Repeat it.”

  Matthew floundered for air and gasped, “If she sends anyone else for the girl, you’ll travel to Chicago and slit her throat.”

  “Now, run before my woman changes her mind.” Luke dropped the man and waited until Matthew was fleeing on horseback before he returned to me.

  My legs shook and twitched so badly, I was struggling to stay upright. He shed his duster and draped it around my shoulders. “Did they hurt you where I can’t see?”

  I knew what he was asking but there hadn’t been time for them to get that far. I shook my head. He tried to pry my swollen eye open enough to get a look at it, and the tenderness with which he touched me ripped my heart right open.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. A tear streaked down my cheek but I was helpless to stop it. “I thought I was going to die before I got to tell you I was sorry. I wanted to tell you but I didn’t want you to throw me away.”

  “Shhhh,” he crooned. “It’ll mend.”

  He let out a sharp whistle and Jeremiah appeared through the trees, dragging two horses behind him.

  “Can you hold on and ride?”

  Well why the hell not? I’d been dragged behind one of the giant creatures and it hadn’t killed me or even kicked at me once. Why not try my hand at riding one like a normal person. “Sure.”

  He slung himself gracefully into the saddle and grasped my elbow as Jeremiah hoisted me from below. I didn’t look so elegant, but at the moment I didn’t give a fig about how I looked. After I was upright and had my arms around Luke’s taut waist, he made a clicking sound with his tongue and kicked the horse under us. He held my arms in front of him like he thought I would fall asleep and slide off. Wise man.

  Chapter Nine

  Luke

  Kristina’s face was seven shades of blue by the time we arrived back home. I wanted to slit her kidnapper’s throat all over again every time she winced. Evelynn French, whoever she was, would pay for the injustice done to Kristina’s body, and that was a promise. The warning wouldn’t be enough. Not for a woman who’d sanctioned this kind of torment, and sooner rather than later, I was going to have to handle Kristina’s past personally. If I didn’t, we’d never be free of the threat.

  She was white as a corpse when I lifted her from my horse and carried her into the house. Jeremiah hadn’t said a word since we realized she was missing, but I’d seen the ghosts in his eyes. Kristina’s treatment likely conjured memories of Anna. My brother wouldn’t sleep for days. It’d probably be best he run as an animal until he could repress the pain again.

  Kristina shivered violently against the cool air of the morning and I started a roaring fire in the stone hearth. She emerged from her room in the navy dress but it wasn’t lost on me that she left tiny pools of bloody footprints in her wake and stepped with a significant limp. My hands shook with the anger that promised to drag me down into the mouth of hell. She sat in the chair I’d pulled in front of the warmth of the fireplace and I checked her ravaged feet as gently as I could. I had to focus on her needs and then I could let the beast take me over. I could run and kill things and relieve the red savagery that scorched me from the inside out.

  She pressed her hand tenderly on the side of my face and the touch of her quelled the darkness roiling inside.

  “Thank you for saving me,” she whispered.

  Her pooled blue eyes were so earnest I had to steady my breathing. Sighing, I slid a hand over hers and said, “Anytime,” and meant it.

  I warmed a pan of water over the stove and set it beneath her to wash her feet in. Once the dirt was washed away, the damage was easy enough to see. Long gashes and punctures dotted her skin and a small rock still clung to the depths of one of the slices nearest her big toe.

  “Best if you don’t watch,” I said before pulling it out.

  Such a brave little thing she was. The arms of the chair gave an uncomfortable creak under her white knuckled grasp, but that was the only sound she gave the entire time I tended her wounds. And I’d seen the fierceness in her face when she spat on that man. No matter what, they wouldn’t have broken her, and a swelling pride filled me up like an underwater spring feeding a well. My woman was a stouthearted one. Maybe she’d be able to handle my dark secrets yet.

  Her wrists were rubbed raw and would likely scar, but there was nothing to be done about them but keep infection away. Her face was an awful sight and she could only open the one good eye, but it just needed time and tenderness.

  The tiny hairs on my ears warned me of the sound a split moment before the wolf’s howl rang out, a long and lonesome cry that told of pain and sorrow. With my brother changed, I couldn’t leave Kristina alone to satisfy to my own animalistic needs. With Jeremiah out of commission, the running of the ranch fell to me. My wolf would have to wait, so I accepted that the pain in my bones wouldn’t find relief for a while yet.

  The rain pelted on the window glass as I pulled a blanket over her lap. “You can’t be moving around too much for a while, you hear?”

  Even the slight nod she gave seemed an effort. Stouthearted though she may be, invincible she was not.

  ****

  Kristina

  The pounding rain was relentless in the days that followed my kidnapping. Jeremiah had disappeared with the sunshine and left Luke to run himself ragged with the daily chores that came with running a ranch. I was no use at all as he wouldn’t let me stand on my feet until they were healed. He checked in often, but it was easy to see the strain etched into the weariness in his face. On the second day, he placed a book on the small table beside my bed, and though I smiled my thanks, unless it was a picture book, it wouldn’t keep the boredom at bay. Unless I felt like finding all the
letter M’s from cover to cover. I dog eared the pages in a different place each day and said a silent prayer every evening that Luke wouldn’t want to discuss the storyline.

  I wouldn’t admit it to him, but I’d happily found something else to occupy my time. The sewing basket Jeremiah had dragged in for me to ruin that dress was actually a well of knowledge. It housed unsewn quilt pieces and needles and every thread color you could imagine. It held thimbles and measuring ribbons, and yarns, and most importantly, in the bottom of the basket I found a small picture booklet that illustrated the different stitches. Now here was a book I could wrap my head around.

  My pride was wounded with the maiming of that first dress and the sewing basket presented a tantalizing challenge. If I couldn’t be of any use around the ranch until my feet healed enough, then by golly, I was going to teach myself to sew if I had to prick every inch of skin my fingers possessed. By day four, I’d successfully sewn together six quilt pieces and mastered every stitch and knot in the booklet.

  Luke would be in at any time to eat a hurried lunch before heading back out, and I sat staring at the door like a cat hunting a mouse. The miniature quilt was pulled taut in my hands as I tested and retested the strength of the stitches. By the time his boots sounded on the porch, I was so strung out, I hobbled excitedly to the door before he could even lift the latch.

  I threw open the barrier between us. “Look what I did!”

  “Whoa,” he yelled, putting his arm up defensively. “Woman, you scared the dickens out of me. Ain’t you supposed to be resting?”

  “My feet don’t hurt very much anymore. Look!” My voice actually squeaked.

  “Did you sew this?” He fingered the stitches and the corner of his mouth turned up in the most delicious smile.

  I breathed for that smile. “Mmm hmm.”

  “Is this what you’ve been doing while I’m out?”

  I couldn’t even control my smile if I wanted to. “Yep!”

  “Well, Ms. Yeaton. We may make a frontier woman out of you yet.”

  “Eeee,” I squealed and jumped into his arms.

  No doubt he was surprised, but he recovered nicely. The sound of his laugh was a sweet vibration against my chest and he hugged me soundly. “I have something I want to show you.”

  “Well, sir, I’m sorry to say you may not be able to top a partly sewn quilt.”

  “Probably not. Wait here.” He disappeared around the edge of the house and I limped to the stairs to strain my neck after him. What could that man be up to?

  What he brought around that corner topped my tiny quilt a hundred fold. In his hands lay a slack, simple rope and behind him walked the most beautiful horse I’d ever laid eyes on. She wasn’t as big as Luke’s great black beast, but she was slim, muscular, and made for speed with a fine little head. Her face was completely white, but from the neck on, she was the most appealing red chestnut color that shone in the sun. Four white socks made a beautiful contrast, and the red in her coat ran until it stopped suddenly at a white snowcap blanket that cloaked her hind end. And in that snowcap were perfectly round spots of chestnut fur.

  Luke had tracked down a polka dotted horse for me.

  His eyes never left my face. “Do you like her?”

  “She’s beautiful. Where’d you find her?”

  “Traded with Kicking Bull for her. He brought her in a couple of days ago, but I needed to work on riding her with a saddle. She’s been ridden bareback since she was big enough and needed to get used to the extra weight. She still won’t take a bit though so you’re going to have to steer with a rope until we get her used to it.”

  “Did Kicking Bull breed her?”

  “No, he’s Ute. The spotted horses come from the Nez Perce but they trade them pretty regularly. They call her a Palouse horse, for the river that runs through their territory.” He fluttered his fingers toward her red mane that lifted in the wind. “I tried to take the feathers out, but they’re tied in there to last a while.”

  A long, three feather bunch hung from wisps of her hair. “Leave them. They suit her.”

  “You ready to get on her?” he asked.

  He was a tricky one. I really hadn’t any intention of learning to ride a horse other than the buggy. I thought if I gave him some impossible task such as getting me a spotted horse, I’d never be pressured to ride one on my own. And here he showed up with this magnificent creature and exactly what I challenged him for in just a few days? Impressive, Mr. Dawson. “Is she gentle?”

  “She’s got a sweet disposition, but she’s used to being ridden fast. She’ll go when you need her to go.”

  Tendrils of uncertainty filled my stomach. “Right. Just let me put shoes on.”

  By the time I was back, the mare was tied to the rail out front and Luke was nowhere to be seen. I hobbled back into the house and snatched a carrot out of the root cellar. If she was to be my horse and mine alone, I had to make a good first impression.

  She whinnied and tossed her head as I approached, and though my muscles tensed with an edge of fear, I stepped in front of the rail and offered my bribe. She crunched off a good bite and wiggled her lips at me for more. I couldn’t help the delighted giggles that came from me at her silly face. I petted her while she finished the treat and spoke softly. When she was finished, she nudged around my dress pockets for more, then left her head resting close to my body as I stroked her.

  “What are you going to name her?” Luke asked. He pulled his great black horse easily behind him.

  “What did the Nez Perce call her?”

  “Something you won’t want to pronounce. Best if you pick a new one for her.”

  Her coat was a shining deep red, and I ran my hand down the side of her to touch the spots. “She looks like a Spotted Rose to me. I’ll call her Rosy for short.”

  “That suits her fine, I think. Let me help you up.”

  After showing me how to use the stirrup and the proper side to mount from, he hopped on his own horse in a graceful arch. With a few instructions on steering, stopping, and going, we were off on a delightfully unexpected trail ride. Rosy was content to walk side by side with Luke’s mount, and before I knew it, my muscles relaxed and I eased into the gentle rocking motion of the saddle.

  We followed a well-worn path amongst the thick trees. The rain made everything muddy and darker somehow, but the cease in drizzle also made the leaves and moss a brilliant shade of green. The earth smelled of moisture and storm clouds, and the air was quiet, as if even the bugs and birds were suspicious this was only a short break in the torrential downpour. Even the sound of the horse’s hooves against the soft ground were muffled. The rhythm chanted for me to put us out of our silent misery. It was my burden alone to bear.

  My mouth went dry as the Texas desert with what I was about to say, but the conversation had been my silent torture for four dreary days. He’d been man enough to let me find my words, and never asked, but I owed him an explanation. “You ever been in love?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Luke pulled his horse around a tree stump that stood in the middle of the trail. “Because it’s a dangerous game for a man like me to play, caring about a woman like that. Have you ever been in love?”

  My heart pounded louder than the noise of the horses under us. “I was. Well, I thought I was, but when you’re seventeen you think you know everything. My mother had always been a maid to the highborn of Chicago, and when I was old enough to earn a wage, she took me with her. And for a long time, we made a great team, Mother and I. She’d been wonderful in raising me and gave me the best childhood of anyone I’d ever met. We didn’t have much, mind you, but we had everything we needed, and we had each other.”

  A deep and hollow ache welled up inside of me at the remembering. “When I was seventeen, the widow we worked for invited her son home from university to stay before he started work. I didn’t pay him much mind at first, but he seemed taken with me, and when a man so powerful tak
es an interest in a little nothing of a person, it’s hard to fight an attraction to that feeling of importance.”

  Luke’s eyes pooled with regret. “How old was he?”

  “He was only a bit older than me at twenty-four. He would sneak me presents. Just little things. Tiny trinkets he’d found shopping he said reminded him of me, and eventually he’d meet me places and kiss me. It was all very exciting. His mother was an awful woman and she wanted him to marry a certain class of lady. She had him go to lavish parties every time one came up and she tried to make a match for him…oh, it must have been a dozen times, at least. But Barron wouldn’t bend to her. He said he only wanted me.” I swatted a fly and slid a glance to Luke. “Imagine how I felt, a simple girl with barely a loaf of bread to share over dinner, and this man was turning away beautiful ladies of pedigree with hefty dowries for me. My mother warned me time and time again nothing good would come of it, but I couldn’t hear anything from anyone. I must’ve been something special to turn such a man’s head, you know?”

  I swallowed down the yellow bellied coward in me that wanted to stop the story here. It had to be said if he was ever to really know me. “So one day, I met Barron in the place he’d begged me to, and his mother caught us. He was bedding me good when she walked in.”

  I tried to smile but my lip trembled instead. It didn’t matter though because Luke was lost in a faraway look.

  “She said everyone already knew by then that he’d been sleeping with the maid and that I’d ruined them. She said nobody wanted to make a match with a whoremonger. They searched the house I shared with my mother and found the trinkets Barron had given me. I didn’t know it at the time, but some of them were valuable. His mother, Evelynn French, told me my mother would hang for thieving. She knew those trinkets were really gifts from her son, but she needed a way to control my future. She said I could change my mother’s fate if I lived the way she demanded.”

  Not even the startling movement of a rabbit that jumped the path up ahead could stop the words tumbling from my mouth now.