Ellie's Wolf (9 page)

Ellie settled herself on a patch of trampled grass and waited for Quill to sit beside her. “I haven’t heard from Rose in a long time. Are she and Sky married now?”

Quill’s face turned perfectly smooth. “No,” he said slowly, making a production of cutting his small serving of rabbit into neat pieces. “Sky is still in Omaha, and Rose is at the den.”

Ellie’s mouth fell open. “What? But it’s been years since he claimed her as his mate.”

Rose Turner was her best friend. She had been claimed by Sky when she was only sixteen years old. When Taye and his wife had forbidden the young man to court Rose until she was eighteen, he left to find work in Omaha. Rose was twenty-two years old now, years past the age Taye had set.

“Did he change his mind?” Ellie groped for understanding. “Was he wrong? Rose isn’t his mate?”

Quill chewed a last bite of rabbit thoroughly. Ellie wondered if he was stalling. “No,” he finally said. “Rose is his mate, but he’s in the middle of something in Omaha and can’t leave until it’s finished.”

“Then why doesn’t he marry Rose and take her back to Omaha with him?”

A last gleam of the setting sun lit his eyes to emeralds in the golden brown of his handsome face. Her distant memory of him was of a shy young man who hid behind his hair. Now his long bangs were pulled back from his forehead and secured by a leather tie. Ellie was struck by the clean line of his jaw as muscles bunched there. “Omaha is no place for a wolf’s mate. Besides, last I heard, she didn’t want him.”

It had been nearly a year since she’d had a letter from Rose, but at that time, Rose had written that she envied both Ellie and Carla for their babies. Ellie wiped up the last of her gravy with a morsel of biscuit and popped it in her mouth before setting her plate in the grass beside her. “Has he even written to her since the first year you were in Omaha?”

Quill put his empty plate on top of hers and took her hands, leaning close to her. “Why are we talking about our friends? Every night in Omaha when I went to bed, I would close my eyes and picture your face.” His voice was a husky whisper. “Omaha was hell for me, but remembering you kept me going. Ellie…”

His voice trailed off as he glanced around at the other members of their party. Sara and Mel were sitting together, ostentatiously ignoring Stone and Snake, who stood nearby. Some of the other men were pretending not to listen to Quill talk, and others didn’t bother to mask their interest. Ellie noticed he hadn’t actually answered her question about Sky.

Quill cleared his throat and released her hands to lean back on one elbow. “How did your husband die? And when?”

That was an abrupt change of subject, and a painful one, but Ellie didn’t protest it. “It was an accident at the mill in February. He got caught on the millstone and dragged in.” Neal’s mangled and crushed body was a nightmare image she would never forget. “Why did you decide to leave Omaha?”

“I hated Omaha.” His answer was instant, vehement. “I missed the Clan. My wolf felt trapped there. And I needed to at least see you. When I first came back, I went to Taye’s den to get news of you. I’d hoped to speak with you, to see if you were happy. I was told that you and your husband had moved to Kansas, so I went north to visit the Clan in the winter houses. Why did you move so far from home?”

“It was Neal’s idea.” A tiny stab of remembered resentment poked Ellie and was instantly smothered by guilt. “Neal wanted to be his own man. His older brother was very dominating, and Neal thought he’d always be second fiddle to Dane. When Mr. Moore advertised for an experienced miller to manage his mill, Neal went and checked it out. It seemed like a good opportunity. Mr. Moore’s wife was sickly, so I could earn our room and board by keeping house for the Moores and minding their two sons. Their house was large enough that Neal and I had an entire floor to ourselves.”

“How come Mrs. Moore let you be sold?” Quill’s forehead creased with a frown.

“She’s dead.” Ellie sighed, remembering the lady’s continual nausea, her dizzy spells, and bad color. “She died only a few months before Neal’s accident. It was a sad Christmas for Mr. Moore and his boys.”

“Why did you stay there? You should have come back to Kearney.”

The question was almost accusatory. Ellie controlled her urge to snap back. “I wrote to Taye several times, and to my cousin Doug, and to Neal’s brother Dane. No one ever answered my letters.”

“Huh. Taye never got them.”

“I know. Mr. Moore burned them.” She almost smiled at the anger that tightened Quill’s face. “Neal wasn’t dead even a week before Mr. Moore asked me to marry him. I refused him every time he asked, and he asked a lot.”

“So Moore’s wife dies and then your husband dies. Convenient.”

Ellie sat up straight. “What do you mean?”

Quill shrugged. “Nothing. Just seems convenient. For Moore, I mean, not you.”

Ellie’s shiver might have been from the coolness nightfall brought, or it might have been unease. Something Mrs. Moore said rose up in her memory. Mrs. Moore told Ellie she hadn’t been sick a day in her life before Neal accepted the mill manager job, but Mr. Moore told Neal during the interview he wanted a married man with a young, strong wife to help Mrs. Moore around the house because she was sickly.

“Oh, God,” Ellie said, a faint note of horror threading her voice.

Quill sat up too. “What? What’s wrong?”

Ellie shook her head. “I don’t know. Nothing.”

“You’re crying,” Quill pointed out, sounding half-panicked.

He was right. Her trembling fingertips found tears on her cheeks. Ellie turned to him and put her face into his shoulder. “Oh, God. What if Mrs. Moore wasn’t sick? She said once that her husband ordered a big batch of rat poison, more than the mill needed to keep the rodents from the grain. What if he poisoned her and then pushed Neal between the millstones? Mr. Moore was the only one with Neal in the mill that afternoon. Oh, God,” she wailed.

For a moment, Quill was still. Then his arms came around her, warm and tight, and lifted her to sit sideways in his lap. “It’s okay,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s gonna be okay.”

It would be, she knew. Neal was dead. Whether he was murdered or fell by accident didn’t change that. But the guilt that flooded her made her want to scream into Quill’s wide, strong shoulder. Neal’s death had left her trapped far from home at the mercy of Mr. Moore. Her husband’s need to get away from his brother put her in a terrible situation, and there had been moments in the last five months she almost hated Neal. Now horrified guilt swamped her. She clung tight to Quill’s solid warmth and wept as she hadn’t since Neal’s funeral.

“He died,” she moaned, thumping a fist into Quill’s chest. “He left me all alone, and I was so mad at him for it, but maybe it wasn’t his fault. If Mr. Moore killed him…” Her voice broke. “Why? Why would he kill Neal?”

She needed someone to hold her right now. Quill seemed to understand. He ignored her fists, holding her close, rocking her like a baby and crooning soft Lakota words in her ear until she finally lifted her face from his shirt and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“No.” He put one finger over her lips. “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad to be able to hold you. I can’t promise that I won’t ever die, but I can promise I’ll never leave you in a place where the Clan or Pack won’t be there to help you.”

Ellie swallowed more tears. “He was a good man. I loved him.”

“I know.” He wiped a tear away with his thumb. “I’m sorry you’re hurting.”

“Are you?” Her voice felt rough and lifeless from the tears. “You can have your mate now that he’s dead.”

He surprised her with a little shake. “Ellie.” His voice was hurt. “I would never have harmed him. As long as you were happy with him, I would have wished you well and let you be. Sure, I’m glad that I have the chance to court you, but I hate knowing you’re hurting.”

It was almost too dark to see his face, but Ellie could tell she’d wounded him. “I shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t fair. I guess I’m just tired and upset. If Mr. Moore murdered him…”

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “We’ll find out the truth, Ellie, I promise.”

When she shifted to get off his lap, her thighs screamed with pain. The groan she couldn’t quite manage to suppress had Quill’s eyebrows puckering. He stood and lifted her to stand in front of him. “You’re stiff,” he accused. “We’re taking it easier tomorrow. Yeah, I know,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “We’ll go as fast as we can, but it won’t do your boy any good if you can’t even stand when we get to him.”

Ellie looked down. “Mel has some ointment,” she muttered.

“Good. I can help you with that.”

Ellie gulped, her gaze darting to his long brown hand lying gentle on her biceps, imagining them rubbing ointment into the sore flesh of her inner thighs. A quiver went through her at the mental image. Fear? No, it was closer to eagerness.

“No,” she said hastily, “I can do it myself.”

The pucker on Quill’s forehead was banished by surprise and then a blushing chuckle. “All right.” He stepped even closer, his thumbs rubbing little circles over her shoulders. “I hope someday you’ll give me the right to touch you everywhere.”

“Uh…” Ellie tried to find something to say, but words were hard to capture. “Someday.” Was that an agreement or a protest? She tried harder to find words that made sense. “I don’t know you very well yet. And I don’t feel married. I guess it’s the way I was raised, but I need a wedding ceremony to feel married. Can you understand that?”

Quill nodded, looking gravely into her eyes. “Sure. You won’t sleep with me until we say our vows in front of a priest.”

Plainly put. Ellie swallowed. “And I need time to get to know you better.”

“Fair enough.”

His hands moved from her shoulders to her cheeks, cradling her face so gently she felt cherished. His head dipped toward her face, his eyes on her mouth. He gave her plenty of time to twist her face away if she wanted to, but she didn’t. She wanted his kiss. Her lips opened to taste him.

It was over almost before it began. His lips lightly touched hers for a brief, warm moment before lifting away. Ellie blinked, feeling cheated. Quill smiled and gave her shoulders a quick squeeze.

“I’ll take care of our plates. You should get that ointment and hit the hay. We want to get an early start tomorrow, right?”

“Right.” Ellie turned and waddled toward the tent with all the dignity her saddle sores allowed her.

Ellie shifted painfully in the saddle and caught Mel’s speculative glance. A second day of riding did nothing to ease the ache of Ellie’s saddle sores, but she did her best to ignore the pain. She chafed at every rest stop Quill insisted on. Mel had ridden close beside her all day, obviously prepared to catch her if she fell from the saddle. Ellie shifted again, grimly determined to stick it out.

“Do you mind if I ask a personal question?” Mel said.

Ellie raised her brows.

The other woman tugged the brim of her hat down lower and glanced ahead at Sara riding with Stone in his wolf form trotting alongside her. “What’s it like to kiss a guy who changes into a wolf?”

Ellie cleared her throat. “You know they can hear everything we say, don’t you?”

Mel’s sun-burnished face took on a pinkish hue. She glared at the men and wolves looking at them. “If they were polite, they’d try not to pay attention.” Satisfied when the male heads turned away, she went on. “I saw Quill kiss you last night. I wondered if his teeth were like a wolf’s or a human’s.”

Last night, Quill hadn’t opened his mouth when he kissed her, so Ellie didn’t have first-hand knowledge of what his teeth were like. A flicker of disappointment made Ellie sigh. She almost wished Quill had really kissed her last night. Why hadn’t he? Maybe he was waiting for her to invite him to kiss her. Ellie wasn’t sure she could be that bold.

“As far as I know, when they are in human form, they are entirely human. You could ask Snake.”

A wolf about twenty yards ahead of them snapped his head around to stare at Mel. Mel narrowed her eyes at the wolf and spoke clearly. “Not ready for that right now. Maybe I won’t ever be.”

The wolf’s head faced back to the front, and he seemed to slump a little. Poor Snake. “Well, one thing’s for sure, Mel. You don’t need to worry that anyone will force you into anything. Taye’s friends aren’t like the Fosses. If you say no, Snake and all the wolves will respect that.”

Male heads up and down the line, both human and wolf, nodded vigorously. Mel eyed them with a strange look on her face. “They really do understand English even when they’re wolves?”

“I guess so.” Ellie shrugged. “How are you feeling today? That bruise on your face looks better.”

Mel touched ginger fingers to her cheek and jaw. “Not too bad. How are you doing?”

Ellie shifted once again in the saddle, trying fruitlessly to find a position that didn’t make her inner thighs hurt. “Not too bad,” she echoed Mel.

“Uh-huh. I saw your legs last night. It’s gonna be a while before you’ll be comfortable having sex.”

Ellie felt a fiery wave of blood rush into her face. “Mel, shh!” she hissed.

“Sorry.” Her grin made Ellie doubt the sincerity of her regret. “So how much farther is it, do you think, before we get to where your little boy is?”

Ellie looked around at the endless rolling hills covered with sundried grass. Nothing looked familiar. “I don’t know. But we have to be getting close. It’s almost suppertime, and that’s about the time Quill said we should get there.”

An hour later Ellie’s stomach was growling. They crested a hill, and she forgot about her hunger when she looked down and saw a ribbon of water cutting through the prairie. “That’s the Smokey Hill River!” she cried, but even as she spoke, her gaze was moving along the river until she saw Moore’s Mill and the settlement spreading out beyond it. “We’re here!”

The only thing that kept her from kicking her horse into a gallop was Quill, changing from wolf to naked man and grabbing her rein close to the bit. “Slow down, Ellie,” he cautioned her.

Her mind was so caught up in the thought of holding her son again that she barely noticed his nudity. “Connor!” she cried.